The United States appears to be moving closer to joining Israel\u2019s conflict with Iran with a possible strike on the country\u2019s key nuclear facilities \u2013 including the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, which is hidden deep inside a mountain. <\/p>\n
Days into Israel\u2019s attacks on Iran and its nuclear program, Israeli leaders are waiting to learn whether US President Donald Trump will help them finish the job. <\/p>\n
\u201cI may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I\u2019m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran\u2019s got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate. And I said, why didn\u2019t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction,\u201d Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Iran experts warn that a US attack on Iran could draw it into a quagmire even more challenging than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan \u2013 a drawn-out confrontation that could last the duration of Trump\u2019s presidency and exact a heavy toll on American lives and resources at Israel\u2019s behest. <\/p>\n
Tehran may not be able to sustain a long fight with the US, but it won\u2019t be an easy war for Washington either, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIran is a very large country, which means there would be a very large number of targets the United States would have to hit to take out Iran\u2019s ability to strike back,\u201d Parsi said, noting that this would be happening when there isn\u2019t widespread support for a war with Iran in Trump\u2019s own camp. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you open up this Pandora\u2019s box, we have no idea where things go,\u201d Geranmayeh said. \u201cTrump has, in the past, stepped back from the brink of war with Iran, he has the ability to do so again.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Islamic Republic already sees the US as complicit in Israel\u2019s attacks on Iran, saying the Israelis are attacking it with American weapons; and some Iranian officials have said that Tehran has already prepared itself for a \u201cfull-blown, drawn-out war.\u201d <\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would not back down, a day after Trump called for \u201cUNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!\u201d in a social media post. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet the Americans know that the Iranian nation is not one to surrender, and any military intervention on their part will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage,\u201d Khamenei said in a national address. <\/p>\n
Direct US involvement in the conflict could see Iran activate what remains of its proxies across Iraq, Yemen and Syria, which have previously launched attacks on American assets in the region. <\/p>\n
Knowing that it can\u2019t outright win a conflict against Israel and the US, experts say Tehran could seek to engage in a war of attrition, where it tries to exhaust its adversary\u2019s will or capacity to fight in a drawn-out and damaging conflict, as it did during the decade-long war it fought with Saddam Hussein\u2019s Iraq in the 1980s. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iranian strategy may end up being just to try to sustain themselves, strike back as much as they can, and hope that Trump eventually tries to cut the war short, as he did in Yemen,\u201d Parsi said. <\/p>\n
After months of strikes on Yemen\u2019s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the US in May struck a ceasefire deal with the group, to Israel\u2019s dismay. <\/p>\n
\u201cHere is how Tehran sees a chance of winning such a war of attrition,\u201d Abdolrasool Divsallar, senior researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, wrote on X. \u201cBenefiting in the long term from its offensive capabilities and exhausting US-Israel combined defense forces.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cUS entrance into this war is a bad and costly decision for everyone,\u201d Divsallar added. <\/p>\n
In a Persian language post directed at Trump on X, former Iranian nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian, who now lives in New Jersey, called on the president to be a \u201cpresident of peace,\u201d warning that a strike on Fordow would be both fruitless \u2013 as Iran has probably moved some of the advanced centrifuges to other locations \u2013 and likely to push Iran to a seek a nuclear bomb. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith one wrong decision, you may not only be responsible for Iran\u2019s decision to build a nuclear bomb, but also lead the United States into a war whose consequences for the American people will be far more damaging than the US attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq,\u201d Mousavian wrote. <\/p>\n
Parsi said if Iran\u2019s nuclear program is destroyed, it could just be a matter of time to build a bomb should the government choose to do so. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iranians have the knowhow and capacity to rebuild everything,\u201d Parsi said. \u201cAll it (an attack) does is that it sets it back while dramatically increasing Iran\u2019s motivation to build a nuclear weapon.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fordow is seen as the most difficult and sought-after target for Israel in its desire to destroy Iran\u2019s nuclear infrastructure. But what exactly is inside the secretive facility is unclear, Parsi said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe main enrichment was taking place in Natanz (nuclear facility). Fordow was doing other things, more research,\u201d he said, adding that it\u2019s not entirely clear where Iran keeps its stockpile of enriched uranium. <\/p>\n
Whether a US strike can successfully destroy the complex that is hidden deep in a mountain close to the holy city of Qom also remains unclear. <\/p>\n
Fordow\u2019s main halls are an estimated 80 to 90 meters (around 262 to 295 feet) underground \u2013 safe from any aerial bomb known to be possessed by Israel. <\/p>\n
Yechiel Leiter, Israel\u2019s ambassador to the US, has said that only the US Air Force has the weapon that can destroy the site. But analysts caution that there\u2019s no guarantee that even America\u2019s \u201cbunker buster\u201d bomb \u2013 the GBU-57\/B, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator \u2013 could do the job. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s relentless bombing of Iran and its nuclear facilities has raised regional concern about potential radioactive fallout, which could spread far beyond Iran\u2019s borders should a nuclear plant be struck. <\/p>\n
Iran has only one nuclear power plant, located in the southeastern city of Bushehr \u2013 and Israel has not targeted it. <\/p>\n
Scott Roecker, the vice president for Nuclear Materials Security at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said there wouldn\u2019t be a major radiation dispersal risk at Fordow \u201cbecause that enriched uranium is fresh, as we call it in the industry.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not been run through a reactor, and so you wouldn\u2019t have radiation spread out over a large area, like you would, for example, if they would bomb Bushehr, the operational nuclear power plant, that would result in the dispersal of a lot of radiation.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019d be localized around the site, and because it\u2019s buried underground too, I don\u2019t know you know how much of that would even be released,\u201d Roecker added. <\/p>\n
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior director at the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based pro-Israel think tank, described the potential damage as being a chemical problem \u2013 a different kind of fallout than bombing a nuclear reactor. <\/p>\n
There would be some concern, he said, but noted the risk is not as large as hitting a live reactor. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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