What does the Iranian nuclear project involve, why is it so difficult to neutralize, and what makes the Fordow Nuclear Enrichment Plant the mother of all nuclear facilities? Globes answers these questions with the assistance of Dr. Eyal Pinko, a senior research fellow at Bar-Ilan University's Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
What does the Iranian nuclear project involve?
The nuclear project that Iran has built over the years, and even more so in the last decade, includes 15 known sites and several unknown sites that dominate the entire value chain of producing an atomic bomb - starting with uranium mines - the essential material for creating a bomb, turning it from a solid into a gas for the purpose of enrichment - that is, separating the specific element of uranium essential to the bomb from those that are not essential, and then returning it to a solid state and burying it in nuclear warheads and loading them with an explosion mechanism.
The most famous sites - the damaged Natanz and Fordow, near which an earthquake occurred last night - are the enrichment sites. The Bushehr nuclear power plant, near the border with Qatar and the UAE, is no longer central to the nuclear project, as Iran has abandoned the method of enriching uranium in a reactor exposed to attack and transferred it to enrichment using underground centrifuges.
However, the Bushehr reactor still remains intact and is used for nuclear research and electricity generation. The largest uranium mines in Iran are in Yazd, Jazan and Eskand, although the Iranians also purchase uranium from foreign sources. Near the city of Arak south of Tehran, Iran is producing a bomb using a method different from the uranium method, although at this stage this is not a very advanced process. Central sites are also in Qom, Isfahan and Shiraz.
How much damage has Iran's nuclear project sustained?
"The bottom line is the project has been hit hard," says Pinko. "If a prominent enrichment facility like Natanz, which reportedly contains many uranium enrichment centrifuges, is damaged in such a way that radiation is leaking from it, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it means that the place has absorbed such severe radiation that it will sit for generations and they will be forced to seal it." According to the IAEA, about 14,000 centrifuges, which enrich uranium to a level sufficient to produce a nuclear bomb (uranium enriched to over 90%), were damaged.
Israel also hit two buildings in Isfahan that are essential to the bomb-making process: one that converts uranium from a solid to a gas so that it can be enriched, and the other that converts uranium back to a solid metal state essential for creating the warhead. The assassination of 14 leading nuclear scientists is also believed to be a serious blow to the program.
Has Israel destroyed the Iranian nuclear program?
"We haven't destroyed it, but we have severely disrupted the enrichment process, so that it will take Iran many years to recover. People tend to talk about the uranium enrichment plant in Fordow, the nuclear facility on the outskirts of Qom, being the arrowhead of the nuclear project, but for damaging the project - damaging Fordow alone is not enough. We also need to damage the ballistic missile and cruise missile projects, but I don't think there is anyone who believes that we will destroy all of this completely. The Chinese and Russians will eventually return to Iran and help them restore activity even faster than before. What can be done is to set them back years and hope that we can instill in them the lack of motivation to continue to adhere to the nuclear project."
What is so special about the Fordow site?
The Fordow uranium enrichment site is considered the most sophisticated, highest-quality, and newest of Iran's uranium enrichment centers, and Israel has not yet touched it. It is believed that this is where most of the enrichment work has taken place in recent years, including the country's breakthrough to uranium enriched to over 90% - the level that would allow it to build a nuclear bomb. This is a site that was established in secret and was only revealed to the world when the US, UK and France jointly admitted that it was a nuclear center that exceeded Iran's commitments to the IAEA. The site is located 24 kilometers north of the city of Qom. It is heavily fortified, being carved 40 meters below the face of a hill, guarded by a series of cameras and installations by the Revolutionary Guards, and to destroy it requires a bunker-penetrating bomb that the IDF does not have - a 13-ton bomb that can only be carried by US B2 aircraft.
They talk about Iran enriching 400 kilograms of uranium so far, can a bomb be built from that?
No, these 400 kilograms have been enriched to a level of about 60%, which does not yet allow the creation of a warhead. According to estimates, the Iranians have a certain amount of uranium enriched to over 90%, which will allow them to reach a nuclear bomb within a certain time, but there are too many unknowns in this matter: those enriched uranium containers that were kept in Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan may be located in a completely different place and they no longer need to be in the known nuclear facilities to become part of a bomb.
However, there is a long way between the presence of enriched uranium and a ready-made bomb. To create one bomb, at least 40 kilograms of material enriched to a level of 90% or higher are needed, and the material is inserted into the warhead of a ballistic missile or cruise missile with a special fragmentation mechanism whose construction is very complex. It requires a reaction-generating mechanism, a chemical chain and a number of explosives that must work together in perfect synchronization to reach the appropriate energy level and detonate the charge.
How long will it take them to rebuild their capabilities?
"The Iranians are not working alone and they are accompanied by the Russians and the Chinese, who are helping them rebuild destroyed infrastructure quite quickly. They managed to restore the Natanz site that was hit by the Stuxnet cyberattack in 2012 by 2015," says Pinko.
Is there a precedent for a country voluntarily giving up its nuclear project in an agreement?
"Ukraine gave up the nuclear arsenal on its territory in an agreement it signed with Russia on the establishment of the state at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, with US guarantees. Russia agreed to recognize the full sovereignty of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula and the Donbas region, and no one thought that 32 years later Russia would regret it and try to take over Ukraine.
"In my opinion, as long as the Ayatollah regime continues to rule Iran, there will be no surrender and no concession. We have seen their behavior for years - developing and enriching nuclear weapons in secret, purchasing uranium in secret, they are not interested in stopping. We would like to see the Shah's son return to Iran and return it to its beautiful days from the 1970s, but this is currently wishful thinking."
What were the terror scenarios for an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel - a Hiroshima and Nagasaki-style bombing?
"No. Iran did not have a developed air force to begin with. Therefore, the assessment was that a nuclear weapon from Iran on Israel would not arrive by dropping it from an airplane.
"The fear is that the Iranians might bomb Israel in one of three ways: by mounting a combat warhead on a cruise missile or on one or more ballistic missiles, or by using a dirty bomb that would be placed in a container in a port. In the missile trajectory, creating a saturation of missile barrages so that they would include UAVs, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles could blind Israeli defense systems from different heights and directions, which would increase the chance of a nuclear missile falling on one of Israel's cities."
According to Pinko, the second path involves using a "dirty" bomb, meaning a nuclear bomb of any kind that explodes from the ground in a container buried in one of Israel's ports, in order not to arouse suspicion. "Although its effect would be weaker than a bomb from the air - whose optimal distance to create an effect is an explosion from a height of one kilometer above the ground - there is an element of surprise here that missiles coming out of Iran do not have," Pinko says.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 16, 2025.
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