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4928

Good thread on this stuff:

There is no question that Iran’s nuclear program sustained enormous damage as a result of this 12 day war.

It’s very likely been set back by at least a year, likely more.

But how quickly Iran can race to a (deliverable) bomb depends on one key question :thread:

A good way to think about Iranian nuclear program is that it has 5 key parts:

  1. Weaponization research - work on assembly of the weapon from its components and making it small enough to fit on a missile.

US IC believes this had been put on ice in 2003 but some facilities, research work and, of course, the scientists with the knowledge have remained. Image

  1. Uranium enrichment facilities - facilities with the centrifuge cascades setup to enrich uranium up to 90% weapons grade level. Image

  2. Centrifuge manufacturing facilities - plants that can build large number of centrifuges to be used for enrichment. Image

  3. Auxiliary facilities, such as plants where uranium yellowcake can be converted into hexafluoride gas for enrichment and conversion facilities to take the enriched uranium and turn it into metal that can shaped into a sphere for a bomb. Image

  4. Stockpile of already 60% enriched uranium that can be within a couple of weeks be enriched to
    90% level. Image

First part - the weaponization research suffered very heavy blows. Hard to estimate how much because it was always covert and unaccounted for but numerous key scientists have been killed and Parchin, where much of this work had been done, was hit multiple times. Image

Thus, even if Iran had all the ingredients for a bomb today, it would likely take it some months before it could be assembled and put on a missile.

Second part - enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz were hit by US Massive Ordinance Penetrators (and Israeli strikes at Natanz before that).

While the facility at Fordow may or may not be recoverable, the sensitive centrifuges inside almost certainly suffered heavy damage.

Thus, it is unlikely that Iran can use these facilities to enrich in the coming months.

BUT Iran announced right before the war that it had built a new secret enrichment facility that it refused to disclose.

**Iran to launch new enrichment center at ‘a secure location’**TABNAK, Jun. 12 - The IAEA resolution comes as Iran and the U.S. have been negotiating since April to reach a new agreement over Iran’s nuclear program.https://www.tabnak.ir/en/news/6516/iran-to-launch-new-enrichment-center-at-a-secure-location

Thus, if Iran already has centrifuges deployed at this new facility or can deploy new ones there quickly, it can once again start enriching existing uranium gas fairly quickly.

Third part - centrifuge manufacturing facilities. The Isfahan facility was destroyed but the largest one at Natanz is buried so deep in the mountain that even MOPs can’t destroy it. It was not hit in this war.

It’s hard to say how much of the supply chain for this Natanz centrifuge manufacturing facility was targeted but it’s likely that Iran can still produce centrifuges or can resume that production relatively quickly at Natanz.

Fourth part - auxiliary facilities for conversion of uranium. Those all have been destroyed.

So IF Iran has to start enrichment from scratch using their new secret facility, it will still likely take a year or more to rebuild those plants and enrich uranium up to 90%.

Fifth part - IAEA said that before the war, Iran had accumulated the stockpile of 408kg of 60% enriched uranium that was likely stored in the tunnels at Isfahan.

The reason this is key is that this material can be enriched within a few weeks to 90% - enough for ~9 bombs.

Israelis apparently believe this material was not moved and is buried at Isfahan (tunnel entrances had been hit) and that it may or may not be recoverable.

Thus, the question about the timeline for reconstitution of Iran’s program hinges on whether Iran can take possession of those 408kg 60% HEU.

If it can, it likely has enough enrichment capability to get to 90% quickly.

Even then, Iran still has to rebuild the conversion facility to turn that 60% HEU into a metal sphere and assemble a small enough weapon to put on a missile - all of that will take many months.

But if Iran CAN’T get that 408kg of 60% HEU back, starting enrichment from scratch, rebuilding auxiliary conversion facilities and weaponizing will likely take a year or much longer.

Lastly, as Iran starts thinking about digging up that 60% HEU and rebuilding its program, it now has to contend with the almost certain possibility that Israel and/or the United States will strike it again as those efforts begin in earnest.

Knowing that Israel (and the US) have now crossed the Rubicon and normalized strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, as well as established air supremacy over Iranian skies, will likely make Khamanei think twice about initiating rapid rebuilding.

At a minimum, Iran will likely have to reacquire/rebuild its air defenses before it embarks on a nuclear rebuild.
Russia likely doesn’t have any S-300s or other AD systems to spare.

China would be happy to sell their AD systems to Iran but those will also take time to acquire/setup - assuming Israel doesn’t destroy them first.

Thus, the true timeline of Iran acquiring a nuke is almost certainly a year+ out even IF they make a decision to make a run for it.

https://x.com/dalperovitch/status/1938181882933399897?s=46

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4929

Really depends on the type of rock. The US dug a similar tunnel system and blew it up using an MOP at the white Sands test range, so they’d have a pretty good idea of what it can do.

https://x.com/fab_hinz/status/1938001458655269357?s=46

I’d be really surprised if they tried for the strike without a pretty high confidence that the bomb would penetrate.

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4930

As to the status of Iran’s NPT membership, it appears that the Iran Parliament has approved a Bill to leave the NPT. The Bill would need higher executive approval to enter into law. Iran has threatened to leave the treaty in the past. At this stage, it could be viewed as part of a negotiating process. Any withdrawal could also guarantee continuation or intensifications of economic sanctions.
Withdrawal from the treaty is also a complicated legal treaty process, involving the UNSC, with different interpretations of Article X of the NPT. These came to a head with North Korea’s withdrawal. It’s not a simple matter of notice of intention to revoke membership.
Australia has been involved in efforts to revise Article X, progress stalled in the UNSC.

4931

This is, i think, where the Iranians have some strategic wriggle room.

Nuclear weapons are fundamentally political devices rather than military. As the old saying goes, nobody wins a nuclear war - and everyone realises this. Even the most sure-of-heaven religious fanatic (or whatever denomination you care to name) is none too keen on the idea of a terrible rotting death from radiation poisoning while everything and everyone you ever loved burns around you.

A nuclear weapon is a weapon to be held back as a threat, not (except in unthinkable extremis) a weapon to be actually used. They exist to make people treat you with kid gloves.

As such, my personal opinion is that right now Iran probably doesn’t need their nuclear weapon to be militarily, practically deliverable. They just need it to exist, and provably work. If you can make the stuff blow up, you’re most of the way there from a deterrent point of view. Would Israel have bombed iran quite so casually and cheerfully over the last month if Iran had previously test-detonated a nuke? I suspect the answer is no. While a missile is the classic delivery system for a nuclear weapon, it;s certainly not the only one. Hiding one in a cargo ship and sailing it into a port is an obvious possibility for delivery. Tiny locked-down Israel would be a very difficult target for such an attack - but America with its hundreds of ports and vast trade volumes would be a much easier one. It is a low-percentage play that could fail many different ways if you ever have to practically militarily do it, but if you have the explosive device, then it’s still an option that’s open to you - and your enemies know that and have to account for that when they are choosing their political strategies.

To do this, your weaponisation requirements are much simpler. You can use a heavier, less efficient, easier to build design. You can detonate your test device underground or on a tower like Trinity, no rockets or miniaturisation etc required. And you can even threaten to deliver a similar clunky weapon via non-conventional means. A lower-percentage-of-success nuclear deterrent is still a nuclear deterrent - and fundamentally, that’s what nuclear weapons are for.

If (and you’d know more about this than me) the Iranians are likely to have access to enough HEU to assemble SOME kind of explosive device, then that might be the path they take. Set off a test detonation, then announce that in line with other nuclear nations’ policies, any strike - even conventional - against their nuclear capability will be considered a nuclear first strike and will trigger a response in kind. If you have a deterrent, no matter how imperfect, you still get treated with more circumspection - just ask North Korea or Russia. That MIGHT give them enough breathing space to actually rebuild their busted capabilities and build devices that might actually be conventionally deliverable, so they can become a practical nuclear power in the modern sense.

US/Israel vs Iran is militarily enormously lopsided. Iran just can’t stand up in that company. So I think that assuming Iran will attempt to operate a conventional nuclear strategy is a mistake. We have to think about what asymmetric nuclear strategies might be available to them.

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4932

Agreed. One thing the US does do is TEST its military hardware. They’d have dropped those things on all manner of rocks, mountains, and holes in the ground over the years, they’d have a very good idea about how to best use them.

From the point of view of the withdrawing nation … in reality it kinda is. Nobody can practically keep you in if you don’t want to stay, and the criteria for leaving is fuzzy enough to be open to wide interpretation. I mean, Iran could quite plausible talk about the recent unprovoked attacks on its sovereign territory as a reason it needs a deterrent. North Korea had much less justification to leave than Iran did (nobody was bombing THEM), and they’re functionally out of the NPT. The countries that REMAIN in the NPT and support it or benefit from it have a vested interest in keeping up the convention that it’s hard to leave, because if anyone can leave at any time, then the whole thing falls apart. Hence why some are still keeping up the pretence that North Korea haven’t REALLY left, even now. But in practice, at the end of the day it’s just words on paper.

4933

Can’t the Iranians just sign a NATO-like deal with NKorea, Russia, Pakistan and India?

Check mate.

4934

Pakistan and India are more likely to be fighting each other. Iran has enough problems without Russia dragging them into Ukraine too. And Iran and NK have been quietly exchanging nuclear know-how for some years, I believe.

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4935

But for the ‘article 5’ deterrent factor I mean.

Just N Korea for example

4936

What’d be in it for those countries though? I mean, Iran would love to benefit from another country’s nuclear deterrent right now, but what could they offer in return that’d make the enormous downsides worth the risk for whoever their ally was going to be? I mean, most countries would be understandably leery about binding themselves to a country that the USA was bombing literally last week. What would North Korea (for instance) get out of the deal?

Besides, Iran haven’t exactly made themselves many friends internationally over the last couple of decades. NATO (and article 5) was born of a degree of genuine fellowship between the USA and Western Europe, as well as a more practical anti-USSR military arrangement. Not sure anyone actually likes Iran enough to stick their necks out for them.

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4937

The point of Article X is that it opens up a wider international debate and engages more in the debate, as well as justification for unilateral sanctions .
Australia for its part would not forgo sovereignty to decide membership of a treaty in accordance with our Constitution.

4938

This is in my mind a critical element. The regime does have the choice to completely give up the nuclear program, allow huge access to foreign personnel to provide assurances, but possibly end sanctions in return.

The problem is that would be incredibly humiliating, a concession of utter surrender and a reversal of course. And that low sanctions and high trade has often accelerated reformist preferences.

Going back to what I quoted above though, if the alternative is to have Israel and the USA for years overhead dropping bombs on anything remotely suspicious, well that is a problem too. Years of getting what Gaza does would heap huge pressure on the regime and make any capitulation on the nuclear program at a later date even more humiliating. Iran has to be considering how realistic it is that Israel and the USA have the appetite to do so. And what choices they have. They’ve sold the nuclear program and accompanying sanctions to their people as a source of strength and it would create a deterrent. That is now up in smoke.

It doesn’t help that those running the regime are fundamtalists who’ve prioritised loyalty.

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4939

Remember - the regime have tried this before. They basically halted their nuclear program after coming to that agreement with Obama, in exchange for some relief on economic matters.

It didn’t work. Trump tore that treaty up and ■■■■■■ on it. The people inside the Iranian government who pushed to come to that agreement (which was a daring and major policy course change for them, and very controversial in Iranian govt circles) lost all credibility and power as a direct result. The people who replaced them are much more hardline, as Biden found out when he tried to reinstate the JPCOA as if nothing had happened. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Nobody in Iran is going to hamstring themselves to come to an agreement with a USA that has proven it can’t be relied on to stick to its agreements. Especially when every second foreign policy statement that comes out of Trump’s mouth is abandoning another long-standing treaty committment, from NATO to FTAs left right and centre, to his own NAFTA-successor.

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4940

True, but that was halting things. Not destroying and giving up what they had. I think it even included continuing the electric production. Access also wasn’t unrestricted everywhere.

And that left the door open for Republicans and Israel to claim (no idea if true) that they were still doing research and were a threat.

Complete access, handover of Uranium, destruction of nuclear sites would be a much higher step. Also far more humiliating.

I don’t think Iran ever seriously envisaged the current scenario. It may change the calculus. If they think continued bombing for years is on the table, then it will change the calculus more. That is not to say it will change the calculus enough.

4941

I’m not sure I’m understanding your logic here, I’m afraid.

Iran paused their nuclear program. The USA reneged on the deal. Not sure why Iran would ever agree to destroy their nuclear program in exchange for another deal for the USA to renege on?

They’ve taken a big beating in the past weeks, and it’s certainly been enough to make a mess of their air defences and damage (to some greater or lesser degree) their nuclear infrastructure and missile capacity. But what it has NOT done is significantly weaken the regime’s hold on power, nor threatened the economic or social viabiliy of the state. Their military power has been weakened, but they are not desperate nor is the broader nation crumbling. They can absorb attacks like this pretty much indefinitely, to be honest. It’ll certainly weaken their ability to hit Israel, but it won’t really hurt them in a way that matters. The sort of proposal you’re making (unrestricted access everywhere? What sort of sovereign state could agree to that?) is the stuff of unconditional surrender, and they’re not remotely at that point.

4942

“Between January and May, China added 198 GW of solar and 46 GW of wind, enough to generate as much electricity as Indonesia or Turkey.

“We knew China’s rush to install solar and wind was going to be wild but WOW,” Myllyvirta wrote on social media.

China’s installed solar photovoltaic capacity has now surpassed 1,000 GW for the first time, equivalent to half of the world’s total installed solar capacity.” Guardian

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4943

The future of Iran’s nuclear program is driven by domestic politics. They’ve told their population that they will destroy Israel and expand the theocracy over the region. That the nuclear weapon was a key instrument to making that happen. They’ve spent about $500B usd on that program, while the electricity network and other infrastructure collapsed and the nation was hit with self inflicted blackouts.

The regime is brittle. Giving up their nuclear weapon program comes with a loss of face, one which the idiotic men in charge may not feel they can survive.

I hope they swallow their pride and do the same thing.

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4944

I’m not sure this is the case in any meaningful way. I’m sure the position of some Individuals in the regime is precarious, but the regime itself seems solid. There’s a grumbling undercurrent of discontent and dislike, sure, but that’s been true for 40 years. There’s opposition, but not resistance. There’s been no acts of rebellion or uprisings (that I’m aware of), there’s been a preemptive crackdown on dissenters, etc. There was the abortive green revolution years back, but they seem to have weathered that and suppressed most of the leaders.

I’m no expert on internal Iranian politics, but I’m deeply, deeply skeptical of any US/Israeli-origin analysis that talks about how limited air strikes will contribute to the regime’s collapse for the simple reason that this is a strategy that has been tried many many many times in many nations and does not fkg work. And the same think tanks keep hyping the same strategy regardless. It’s a fantasyland promise of a short low-casualty triumph bringing happiness and democracy and puppies to all, and which is catnip to politicians but seems woefully unsupported by even a single historical data point.

For your average Iranian, life probably isn’t THAT much worse than it was a couple of months back (so long as you weren’t foolish enough to live in the same apartment block as a nuclear scientist, or have a kid drafted into the military and assigned to a SAM battery). And it’ll be very easy for the regime to shift blame for the damage from themselves to the US and Israel - I mean, they were the ones who did it, after all. Patriotism almost always trumps politics in these scenarios.

An actively aggressive external enemy, no major disruption, no serious opposition - this is not the stuff of which revolutions are made. Vibes and wishful thinking don’t make up for that.

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4945

Some clarification of Iran’s position on NPT membership:
The Parliament voted to suspend cooperation with the IAEA under the NPT until the security of installations are guaranteed.
The Bill requires a sign off by the Guardian Council.
If the Bill is signed off, this would mean that IAEA Inspectors require prior approval from the Supreme National Security Council.
Iran is blaming the IAEA for engineering the report and resolution that was adopted by the IAEA Governing Board. That was the trigger for Israel to justify its attack on Iran ( with Western partners playing Noddy in reference to Israel’s right to defend itself.
( Source France 24 quoting Iran Government Ministers)

Comment
It’s curious that Israel and the US trash the UN, Netanyahu and Trump refuse to speak to the UNSG, but rely on a report and resolution by a small number of IAEA members ( the elected Governing Board), a resolution which has not been put to the IAEA membership to acquire any sort of IAEA legal status .
To note also the interface between US domestic powers and UN agency decisions in relation to additional US military support to Israel.

Whether in direct US aid or sales, the 12 Day War has been estimated to cost billions to the Israel budget, not only in war toys, but infrastructure ( including under the Compensation Fund) . Extra defence budget funding will come at the expense of domestic welfare budgets, including the public health system

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4946

“Take out the bits we don’t need”

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4947

Then there’s the US Leahy law, which prohibits arms sales to countries in breach of international humanitarian law ( read UN).
UN Charter recently had its 80 birthday.
From memory, the Biden Administration withheld some arms sales to Israel on that account.
Nothing has changed, but on 1 March, Rubio signed a Declaration of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel .
Since taking office , the Trump Administration has reportedly approved nearly $12 billion in major Foreign Military Sales to Israel. Additionally the program of Economic Assistance to Israel can be used for military purposes.

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