From what I read, they likely still couldn't penetrate the halls at Fordow, which are about 260 feet underground and encased in 30000psi concrete. Did we even do anything there?
Which is precisely what makes the calculus of this so dangerous, something I don't think many people understand.
Iran isn't actually a nation of pure evil, they are looking out for their own interests and on any given Sunday, are not particularly interested in starting a nuclear conflict. At the same time, understandably, their adversaries are not particularly interested in them having that option.
The risk is when they are backed into a corner where using a nuclear weapon increasingly makes sense. In this case, if you bomb Fordow and can completely eradicate the nuclear weapons, you do eliminate the immediate nuclear risk (though not without creating a slew of new problems to deal with). But, if you fail you have now backed them into a corner where this might become an increasingly reasonable option.
Either way the events of today are very likely to unfold in ways that forever change not only the dynamics of the middle east but global politics as a whole.
> Iran isn't actually a nation of pure evil, they are looking out for their own interests
Exactly. I do my best to consider them an "adversary", not an "enemy" for just that reason.
> The risk is when they are backed into a corner where using a nuclear weapon increasingly makes sense.
I'd argue there are two risks: one is that this puts Iran in a position where, if the regime survives, they will feel (and rightfully so) that the only way to secure their position is to possess them.
It also makes the same statement to other countries in similar positions.
I don't think we have a better option, sadly, but it is a consequence of this action.
Also, I don't think this makes a rational case for use. For possession, yes. For threatening to use them under certain conditions, yes - but the only rational use case for deploying nuclear weapons is if your opponent has already done the same. This became the case when the thermonuclear bomb was invented.
Ukraine, and now Iran, have made one thing abundantly clear to the world: if you want to have any actual sovereignty on the world stage, you must have nuclear weapons. Otherwise you are merely waiting for another nation to find an excuse to violate your borders.
Every country in the world with well organized military is right now working on plans to acquire a nuclear arsenal either by proxy or by way of a domestic nuclear program. That is the legacy of this strike. It puts the point at the end of the exclamation that was Ukraine.
The seeds of a new era of proliferation have been sown, and our children will reap the rewards.
There are now ways to purify uranium much more cost effectively and in better secrecy that centrifuges. Small labs can do it effectively now, and a massively distributed effort would not only make it possible to achieve without needing to buy restricted equipment, it also would make it nearly impossible to disrupt militarily.
You could just open source a design and let the market do the work. It’s of course a terrible idea, which would lead to explosive proliferation and lots of cancer, but it would work. The technical part is challenging but not outside of the reach of serious hobby level efforts.
I will be surprised if we don’t start to see something along these lines cropping up all over the place soon. It’s a natural progression of several technologies that have become vastly more economical and accessible as time goes on.
The main problem is the Iranian regime's view that it is their religious duty to destroy the state of Israel. This is why they supply weapons to Hamas, Hizbullah, the Houthis, and anyone who will attack Israel, and incite them to do so.
They will not stop, and they can't be negotiated with on this, again because they see it as a religious duty.
i think this line of reasoning is just falling for both iran's and america's propaganda
they use theology for political mandate and to further their goals. their goals are fundamentally opposed to israel's existence and go against america's interests in the region but they are geopolitical goals wrapped in theological wrapping paper, not mad ravings. no more than israel's "promised land" and america's "christian duty" are
this dehumanization is only going to lead to US boots on the ground and iran becoming an even worse vietnam/afghanistan. the US needs to bring iran down like the soviets were brought down; from the inside. this invading and sabre rattling hasnt worked before and wont work now
Ok if this is a problem, then surely the ministers in the Israeli government are equally problematic given that they want to annex Gaza and the West Bank?
If you disagree can you help me understand the difference between these issues?
> It also makes the same statement to other countries in similar positions.
We've already seen that with North Korea and Libya. NK got to having them before we could stop them. Libya gave up its nuclear program (which is how we learned about Iran's), and we staged a revolution there and regime change.
Do you think Iran will have nukes in the near (20 years, just to put a number) term? Your position really only makes sense if that's not the case. By whatever means, the goal now seems to be to prevent that.
> Do you think Iran will have nukes in the near (20 years, just to put a number) term?
If they managed to get enough of their HEU and any reactor spent fuel out of Fordo and elsewhere into locations we don't know about where they happen to have previously built backup facilities then they could have them very quickly. Hopefully a) they didn't build backup facilities, and b) didn't get a change to spirit away the materials w/o us noticing.
If we fail, there's still the hope that other commenters here are right, and Iran isn't intent on using them offensively. If so, then Iran itself will be safe from this sort of attack.
... but it will also be clear to every other that the only way to be secure from Western military intervention is to possess nuclear weapons. There will be a precedent of a country acquiring them despite Western demands and surviving. This will lead to a world where proliferation is rampant, but not necessarily one where their use is no longer taboo as it is today.
KSA has been slowly coming around for the past decade or so. Trump's recent visit -- domestic optics aside -- confirmed and strengthened that.
Turkey/Türkiye has been going the other direction. They're not totally off the reservation, but Erdogan isn't exactly in NATO's inner circle personally.
I agree. But also, are the words and actions of Russia, China, North Korea, Israel and the US (and the rest of the nuclear club) the sort you think ideal?
That the US decides who can have them is darkly hilariously.
I think it would mean nuclear weapons in the hands of Hamas, hezbollah and other organizations who could use them without a state/regime to blame. Iran could say “it wasn’t us, you can’t prove anything” meanwhile city after city in Israel is destroyed. Further, any action to destroy Iran’s stockpile would be met with a nuclear response and the claim of self defense.
This thinking is a perfect example of being too clever by half. North Korea has nukes now because very smart people were paralyzed by just this sort of abstract risk-calculation thought exercises.
260ft is around 79m. The bombs can penetrate around 60m of concrete. So one bomb, probably not, but they are able to follow each other in quick succession meaning 2 or three should be able to do the job quite easily, with accurate GPS positioning.
They can penetrate 60m of soil. They cannot penetrate 60m of concrete. Reinforced concrete at about 5000psi would only get penetration of 8-15m.
The facility is beneath 80m of limestone which in the Qom formation is roughly equivalent to about 5000psi concrete.
Beneath the limestone, sits the facility itself which is encased in high performance concrete. So these bombs need to pen 80m of 5000psi material and then a unknown depth of high performance concrete.
There is no public information about what kind of material 60m refers to, and the best guesses of reinforced concrete are 18m. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-57A/B_MOP While a single bomb would be insufficient, you don't need that many to get to 80m.
And US military assets are often much more powerful than publicly advertised...
A bomb penetrating 18m of reinforced concrete doesn't excavate 18m of concrete. It would weaken it by some percentage through fractures and overpressure but you'll need to pen it again with the second bomb.
According to the pentagon briefing this morning they dropped 14. News is reporting that it was in 3 specific locations and they were dropped successively. Assuming most detonated successfully, that much specialized ordinance did some damage. This bomb was specifically designed for this very purpose and you have to realize that capabilities that are reported are probably pretty conservative vs what the bomb is actually capable of doing.
I know a bunch of armchair generals on here are speculating that this was ineffective, but time will tell.
Because it’s always the case with the US military equipment capabilities that full capability is never disclosed. What possible reason would the military have in divulging actual specs?
Military: We can penetrate up to 200 feet with this new bunker buster bomb that we spent a billion dollars on…specifically for this site and some sites in North Korea.
Enemy: Build the bunker at 300 feet, I hear their best bunker buster is only effective to 200 feet.
Also, surely – I have no expertise – but you don't need to totally destroy the bunker to render the operation basically dead, right?
The land, roads, ingress points, elevators, security, everything around here is now FUBAR. Okay so you didn't "destroy the bunker", but how many years until it's functional again?
you don't actually need to completely destroy all the underground levels in Fordow. It is enough to cause enough damage so that the stored uranium contaminates the site, while being sealed from the outside world under the collapsed site.
The point is not to dig a hole. Penetration depth is a function of compression strength of the medium. Every bomb leaves a path of debris in its wake with negligible compression strength that subsequent bombs can pass through before expending their energy.
There were an estimated twenty of these bombs in existence before the bombing; very little head room for throwing more of them down the hole if they haven't done the job.
You wouldn't expect significant radiological contamination from bombing an HEU facility deep underground? This isn't like exposed reactor core material.
They do have reactors though, do they not? Hitting the spent fuel pools and/or the reactors would produce detectable radioactive contamination. The HEU? Not so much as its half-life is 700 million years, and the stuff is dense and will quickly settle down.
Why would they not have reactors? Plutonium bombs are more efficient than uranium bombs, so of course they should want to make some plutonium. Remember, they claim they need HEU for civilian reactors.
For sure, but a) they have a civilian reactor program, which surely produces spent fuel, and if they run it with HEU then they probably have breeders, and they might think they can figure out how to make Pu bombs. After all, the W88 bomb design got leaked in the 90s, remember?
With a half-life between 700 million years (for U-235) and 4 billion years (for U-238). And it's dense stuff that will immediately settle on the ground. You're not going to detect it from afar.
