What happens if Israel strikes Iran’s nuclear program?

While President Trump has appealed directly to Iran’s leader seeking negotiations, U.S. intelligence reportedly believes that Israel could attempt to strike Iran’s nuclear program by the summer of 2025. What implications would Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear program have on U.S. policy?

Can Israel strike Iran’s nuclear program without U.S. involvement?

• Israel would likely require U.S. military capabilities to destroy Iran’s deeply-buried nuclear facilities because it does not possess massive ordinance penetrators sufficient for Iran’s hardened sites, long-range bombers capable of carrying bombs of such weight, and sufficient aerial refueling capabilities for such a distance.
• Iran’s nuclear program is much bigger and more difficult to destroy than the Osirak reactor in Iraq that Israel destroyed in 1981 or the Al Kibar reactor in Syria that Israel destroyed in 2007.
• Iran’s nuclear program is much further from Israel’s borders, dispersed at multiple sites throughout the country and in some cases buried deeply under mountains, like the Fordow enrichment site.
• Even if the U.S. kept its military role to a minimum, Iran would likely consider any Israeli strike to be an American action as well and respond accordingly.

How long would Israeli strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program? 

• U.S. intelligence indicates an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program “would at best set back Iran’s activities by months, and potentially only by weeks,” as affirmed by current and former officials.
• This is a sharp decline from prior assessments, including a 2012 assessment of former foreign policy luminaries like Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Sen. Richard Lugar, which found that strikes on Iran’s nuclear program could set Iran’s nuclear program back between 2 and 4 years.
• This change likely reflects significant advancements Iran has made amid its retaliation to “maximum pressure” sanctions, including the development of advanced centrifuges and enrichment to the 60% threshold, just below weapons grade. Much of this knowledge cannot be reversed, and allows Iran to reconstitute its program more rapidly. 
• Moreover, there is a not insignificant risk that Iran has planned for the contingency of strikes by diverting centrifuges and/or uranium outside of its monitored facilities, which would allow Iran to move more quickly toward weaponization.

Can military strikes eliminate Iran’s nuclear program?

• A military solution to the Iranian nuclear challenge would likely require sustained and repeated strikes that will become increasingly difficult and potentially American boots on the ground.
• Some advocates for strikes acknowledge that strikes on Iran may start as limited but likely become a sustained regime change military operation; The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs states “if Tehran tries to rebuild” its nuclear program, “then Israel and the U.S. will have to go back in, until a new regime arises in Tehran.”
• While some of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would be vulnerable to Israeli or U.S. military strikes, Iran’s nuclear knowledge cannot be bombed away. 

How would Iran respond to Israeli strikes? 

• Many believe that military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities would convince Iran to kick out international monitors, break out and pursue nuclear weaponization. 
• Inside Iran, there are increasing calls for revising Iran’s nuclear doctrine from various political camps, but the Supreme Leader has maintained a position expressly prohibiting nuclear weapons. Secretary Rubio has acknowledged this debate, stating “There’s one group that’s saying now is the time where we need to find ourselves an off ramp…and buy ourselves some time. And then there’s another group that’s probably saying that now is the time to prove that we are a nuclear power or nuclear capable power…”
• Iran also has significant military capabilities as a nation of 90 million that is nearly 4 times the size of Iraq and has prepared for a possible military confrontation with the U.S. for decades. This includes planning to inflict significant casualties through asymmetric capabilities. 
• Iran has the largest missile stockpile in the Middle East, which has been deployed against U.S. bases, Saudi oil facilities and Israeli military bases alike in recent years. 
• Iran could also seek to target U.S. ships and the flow of oil through the vital Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint in global energy flows.
• If the U.S. and Israel start a war with Iran by bombing its nuclear facilities, Iran can be expected to unleash its capabilities against U.S. forces and interests alike as it seeks to rebuild its nuclear program.

Would Israeli strikes help or hurt Iranians inside Iran seeking change?

• Strikes on Iran’s nuclear program would further securitize Iran’s harsh domestic environment, providing hardliners with an excuse to further crack down on civil society and human rights defenders.
• War would both put ordinary Iranians in the line of fire and serve to shrink the political space for the organic movement for greater rights and political change inside Iran that has challenged the authoritarian rule and harsh restrictions of the Islamic Republic across decades. 
• This is a message that many Iranian human rights defenders have delivered for years. As Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Narges Mohammadi stated in October, “The path to peace cannot go through the dark and destructive tunnel of war. I hate war just as much as I despise tyranny, and I am as committed to peace as I am to democracy.

What is President Trump’s position?

• President Trump has signaled that he prefers a “Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement” with Iran to an Israeli bombing campaign, and has now appealed directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader for negotiations. This is the right instinct for all the reasons outlined above.
• President Trump has stated that the alternative to a negotiated settlement “would be impossible” and has acknowledged that there are competing camps inside Iran that disagree on whether Iran should pursue weaponization, with Trump stating “There are many people at the top ranks of Iran that do not want to have a nuclear weapon.”
• A verifiable nuclear agreement with Iran is possible precisely because Iranian concessions are largely a matter of physics while the U.S. concessions in a deal would be economic. The major hurdles are not technical, but political.