Two years ago, dozens of Israeli fighter jets roared over the Mediterranean Sea, simulating an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a training exercise that the Israel Defense Forces called “long-range flights, aerial refueling, and targeting distant targets." It was openly advertised as a “attack” training exercise.
The purpose of the exercise was not simply to intimidate Iranians. The operation was also intended to send a message to the Biden administration. In other words, the Israeli Air Force was training to carry out the operation alone, even though the chances of success would be much higher if the United States, with its 30,000-pound Bunker Busters, cooperated. — Participated in the attack.
Former and current Israeli officials acknowledged in interviews that there are questions about whether the country has the ability to do significant damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities. Nevertheless, in recent days, Pentagon officials have quietly raised concerns that Israel may be preparing to act alone, after concluding that such a moment will never come again. I’m wondering.
President Biden has warned against attacks on nuclear or energy facilities and said there should be a “proportionate” response to last week’s Iranian attack on Israel, essentially acknowledging that some sort of counterattack is appropriate. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III made it clear to Israeli Secretary of Defense Yoav Gallant that the United States wants Israel to avoid any new escalatory retaliatory measures by Iran. Mr. Gallant is scheduled to meet with Mr. Austin in Washington on Wednesday.
Israel’s initial retaliation against Iran for Tuesday’s missile attack is likely to focus on military bases and possibly some intelligence and leadership locations, officials said. At least initially, it seems unlikely that Israel will pursue its own nuclear treasure. After considerable discussion, these goals appear to have been put on the back burner in case Iran escalates its own counterattack.
Nevertheless, there are calls within Israel to seize this opportunity to set back Iran’s capabilities beyond a few years, which American intelligence officials and outside experts increasingly say has reached the threshold of production. is on the rise, and some parts of the United States are also following suit. bomb. Much of the public debate has focused on the fact that Iran will almost certainly be able to ramp up enrichment to produce bomb-grade uranium within weeks, but the more important fact is that Iranian engineers It will take months, or even more than a year, to realize that goal. Fashion is a weapon that brings results.
“Israel now has the greatest opportunity in 50 years to change the face of the Middle East,” said Naftali, a hardline nationalist and former prime minister who once described himself as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-hand man. Mr. Bennett recently wrote: social media. “We must act *now* to destroy Iran’s nuclear program and central energy facilities and fatally paralyze this terrorist regime.”
He added: “We have a just cause. We have the tools. Now that Hezbollah and Hamas are paralyzed, Iran is at risk.”
Biden and other U.S. officials have campaigned to take such attacks off the table, saying they would likely be ineffective and could push the region into full-scale war.
The question of how to attack Iran has become an issue in the election campaign. Former President Donald J. Trump argued that Israel should “strike nuclear first and worry about what happens next.” It’s an approach even he eschewed as president. Rep. Michael R. Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, criticized Mr. Biden on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, saying, “When the president is in his position, it’s off the table. It’s completely irresponsible to say that.” I said earlier that it’s on the table. ”
The sudden discussion surrounding the strike has raised new questions. If Israel were to attack, how far could it actually roll back Iran’s nuclear capabilities? Or would the result simply be to drive Iran’s nuclear program deeper underground, with regular, if limited, Will Iran lock out the small number of nuclear inspectors who have access to key Iranian facilities? And what if, in the wake of the Israeli attack, Iranian leaders finally decide to race to build a bomb — a line that Iranian mullahs and generals have stopped short of crossing for nearly a quarter of a century?
In Natanz, old goals and new goals
For 22 years, the center of attention for Israel and Washington in Iran has been the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant, buried three stories deep in the desert.
Israel plans to destroy or cripple the giant centrifuge halls, where thousands of tall silver machines spin at supersonic speeds, until the uranium approaches bomb-grade material. Although Iran’s government officially denies it seeks to acquire a bomb, in recent months some Iranian officials and commentators have criticized a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khamenei in 2003 forbidding it from possessing nuclear weapons. There is intense debate about whether or not it should be withdrawn.
Meanwhile, Iran is ramping up production of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, just short of bomb grade. Experts believe it currently has enough fuel for three to four bombs, and that it will take several days to make it 90 percent bomb-grade.
Natanz would be a very easy target, but attacking it would be an act of war. That’s why the United States has spent the past 15 years encouraging diplomacy, sabotage, and sanctions rather than bombs to undermine this plan. And it is actively preventing Israel from acquiring the weapons it needs to destroy another centrifuge facility called Fordo built deep in the mountains.
President George W. Bush ignored Israel’s request to provide the Air Force with America’s largest bunker-busting bomb and the B-2 bombers needed to deliver it. These weapons will be essential to any effort to destroy Fordow and other deeply fortified facilities.
Mr. Bush’s decision sparked debate within the White House. Vice President Dick Cheney embraced the idea of a strike, but Mr. Bush persisted, arguing that the United States could not risk another war in the Middle East. Ehud Barak, Israel’s highest-ranking uniformed officer and prime minister, said in a 2019 interview with The Times that Bush’s warnings “didn’t make any difference for us.” He said that at the end of 2008, Israel had no viable plan to attack Iran.
It quickly developed some. The debate over the bunker buster helped give rise to a massive covert operation known as “Olympic,” a secret Israeli-American plan to destroy centrifuges using cyberweapons. The virus, which became known as the Stuxnet virus, destroyed more than 1,000 centrifuges and delayed the program by more than a year.
However, the Olympics were not a silver bullet. The Iranians added and rebuilt thousands more centrifuges. They moved even more efforts deep underground. And the fact that malicious computer code was leaked from factories and exposed to the world led other countries to focus on developing attacks on their own infrastructure, such as power grids and water systems.
Israel has also assassinated scientists, attacked ground-based enrichment facilities, attacked centrifuge manufacturing centers with drones, and invested vast resources in preparation for possible attacks on its facilities.
Israel’s efforts stalled after the Obama administration reached a nuclear deal with Iran that required much of the nuclear fuel to be transferred out of the country. And later, when Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal, he and Netanyahu were confident that Iran would abandon the project in response to U.S. threats. The Israel Defense Forces instead focused on Hezbollah and the underground tunnels where Iranian missiles are stored.
Israeli officials say that when Mr. Bennett became prime minister in 2021, he was so shocked by Israel’s lack of preparation to attack Iranian plans that he ordered a new exercise to simulate a long-distance flight to Iran. It is said that new resources have been invested in the preparations. Even today, Israel’s capabilities are limited. The country relies on aging Boeing 707 tankers, and it will be years before the U.S. delivers newer planes that can transport fuel over much longer distances.
Israel’s own bunker busters are effective against the kind of tunnels where Hezbollah stores missiles and enabled Israeli forces to kill Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last month. The Israelis believe they can destroy the air defenses surrounding many of their nuclear facilities. They fired one during a missile exchange with Iran in April to send a message. However, Israel cannot enter the highly fortified nuclear facilities dug into the mountains.
“A nuclear target is a very difficult target,” said Gen. Frank McKenzie, who was in charge of Iran war planning when he was commander of U.S. Central Command. “There are many other alternatives to that goal,” he said, adding that many of them are easy to implement, including energy infrastructure.
Iran’s next move
Whether or not Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, there is new reason to be concerned about Iran’s nuclear future.
The first is an issue that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has repeatedly raised in recent weeks. He claimed that Russia is sharing technology with Iran on nuclear issues, based on information that the United States refuses to discuss. Officials describe the aid as “technical assistance” and say there is no evidence that Iran is providing the hardware needed to build warheads.
But until the Ukraine war broke out, Russia was working with the United States and Europe to curb Iran’s nuclear program, and participated alongside Western powers in the 2015 negotiations. Now, if American reports are correct, Russia’s need for Iranian drones and other weapons could mean it could accelerate progress in Iran’s nuclear program.
A second concern is that damage done in the past few weeks, such as the beheading of Hezbollah leaders, could leave Iran feeling vulnerable. We can no longer rely on the ability of terrorist organizations to attack Israel. Moving to acquire nuclear weapons may be the only realistic way to deter Israel.
And the third concern is that Iran’s plans will become increasingly difficult to hit. Several years ago, Iran began digging a vast network of tunnels just south of Natanz, monitored by American and Israeli satellites, in what the United States considers to be Iran’s largest new enrichment center. . Not yet operational. In the past, when Israel destroyed unfinished nuclear reactors in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, those were the exact moments when it chose to strike first.
