Nuke shadow looms over West Asia

ON March 26, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told a House committee that the American intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini (sic) has not authorised the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”

Yet on June 13, Israel launched what it claims was a “pre-emptive” attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capability. Israel’s action can only be assessed as being a dangerous and reckless act of aggression that poses danger to the region and the world. Iran does not have the most savoury regime running it; nor does Israel, and it most certainly does not have the right to attack Iran.

As he contemplates joining the war, US President Donald Trump has rudely brushed aside the US intelligence assessment and embraced the Israeli view that Iran had been very close to making a nuclear weapon when the war began.

Israel’s war aims are to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity and effect regime change. Neither is an easy task. Last week, in the wake of the Israeli attacks, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak told Christiane Amanpour on CNN that Israel alone cannot delay the nuclear programme of Iran by a significant time period. “Probably several weeks… a month… Even the US cannot delay them by more than a few months,” he said.

Current assessments are that besides destroying Iran’s air defence system, Israel has severely damaged the principal nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz as well as the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre, while the Arak Nuclear Complex remains largely undamaged, as does the Parchin military complex which stores centrifuges and uranium. Israel has not targeted the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant over worries of nuclear radiation leaks.

Importantly, no significant damage is reported as yet to the deeply buried Fordow fuel enrichment plant, which is said to be invulnerable to conventional strikes. This facility is crucial because it can quickly enrich Iran’s stock of 60 per cent enriched uranium to 90 per cent required for one weapon in a week. Iran reportedly possesses 408.6 kg of enriched uranium as of May 2025 and estimates are that this could be sufficient to make nine nuclear weapons in the coming weeks if enriched further.

Fordow would need US involvement in the form of the massive ordnance air blast bomb (MOAB) that Israel does not possess. Besides, Iran has had two decades to spread out its programme and build other deeply buried ultra-secure sites such as the one in the Pickaxe mountain south of Natanz, which is deeper and better protected than the one in Fordow.

Kinetic means alone cannot destroy the Iranian programme. That would require a ground invasion. That is where the US role, which has so far been curious, comes in. The Israeli strikes came amidst US-Iran talks on building down the nuclear programme. After saying that the US would not be involved, President Trump now wants Iran to settle things on his terms — the principal demand being an “unconditional surrender” by Iran. Looking back, one wonders whether the war on Iran was always a US-Israeli venture.

American involvement could widen the war and trigger Iranian missile attacks on its facilities in the Persian Gulf region in Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Iraq and Syria, in addition to facilities in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait. A shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 25 per cent of the world’s oil is shipped, could see an escalation of oil prices beyond $100 a barrel, triggering global inflation.

The US needs to weigh its options carefully. Destroying Iran’s facilities and effecting regime change are one thing. Replacing it with a democratic setup quite another. Recall America’s disastrous experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan that have roiled the region for the past 25 years. Having spent tens of trillions of dollars on wars in the region, the US is now on the brink of yet another, this time with a larger and better organised country.

This is a fraught moment. The demand for unconditional surrender and regime change could push Iran to actually fabricate a nuclear weapon. Israel has telegraphed its intentions for so long that Iran has had sufficient time to establish other secret facilities for its military programme. A nuclear breakout could have Israel and the US resorting to nuclear weapons strikes to prevent Iranian deployment. Any use of nuclear weapons would be catastrophic for the region and the world.

The primary trigger for the Iranian nuclear weapons programme has not been Israel. It was the 1980-1988 war following the invasion of the country by Iraq, an action that was aided by the US. Iraq’s use of chemical weapons and missile attacks on Iranian cities found little international reaction. So from the mid-1980s, Iran began its military nuclear programme.

Iran’s strategy was to develop its nuclear cycle — mining, processing and enriching uranium — to deter adversaries. But the fate of neighbouring Iraq following the US invasion in 2003 hardened the Iranian conviction that there would be no guarantee for its security in the absence of nuclear weapons. The subsequent experience of North Korea only deepened this perception.

Iran is a resource-rich country of over 90 million people, some two-thirds the size of India. It has a strong sense of history and nationhood. As is in the case of Iraq, the US and Israel could well succeed in wreaking a lot of destruction on the country and possibly even effecting regime change, but you can be sure that this will not be the end of the story.

Manoj Joshi is Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, Delhi.

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