How Israel could go it alone without US bunker buster bombs

Times

5 hours ago

The United States appears to have sent two B-2 stealth bombers to a military base in the Indian Ocean. The decision to send the warplanes, shortly after sending the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier to the region, could be a last minute negotiating tactic or a prelude to war.
The bombers, which were probably making their way to Guam or the Diego Garcia military base, are equipped with the capability to use 'bunker buster' bombs which could offer the best chance of taking out Iran's Fordow nuclear facility. However, President Trump is still uncommitted for the time being to offensive action and is talking up diplomacy. If the president is unwilling to use his assets in the region to attack Iran, the question arises of how far the Israelis might be able to go on their own.
Several targets, including the heavy-water reactor at Arak and the most important uranium enrichment plant, Natanz, have already been struck. The boss of the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that the centrifuges there were stopped so abruptly by airstrikes that they have been 'severely damaged if not destroyed altogether'.
But other key sites are believed to remain intact, including the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre and the uranium enrichment plant deep underground at Fordow. The first of these (also a subterranean facility) is thought to have been the storage site for the 400-plus kilograms of uranium already enriched close to weapons grade. The second site is home to the most secure processing facilities available to the Islamic Republic.
So, what are the other options? Expert opinion seems divided. Yoav Gallant, Israel's defence minister until last year, in an article in the Free Press co-authored with Sir Niall Ferguson, argued, 'only one air force has the power to finish off Fordow … only America can do this'. Gallant, however, like many on the Israeli side, wants to draw the Americans in, and US attacks on this and other deeply buried facilities might turn out to be more a question of delaying for longer than completely eliminating Iran's nuclear programme.
Even if America does join in the assault, Fordow's centrifuges, shielded by 80-90 metres of rock, may prove invulnerable to its 'bunker buster' — the massive ordnance penetrator or GBU-57 bomb which is rated as effective down to 60m. Speaking on an Israeli podcast, Zohar Palti, Mossad's former analytical chief, said of Fordow: 'It would be better if the Americans strike there. They truly have the capacity to make the place 'evaporate', and I chose that word deliberately.'
The phrasing was chilling, hinting that a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon might be the only way to ensure its destruction. The idea of a nuclear weapon being used, something the White House would not rule out this week, seems like an extraordinary escalation but might be threatened at this stage as another attempt to intimidate Iran into making concessions. It's fascinating also that the Mossad veteran implied that a deep penetration unconventional weapon was a capability the US has, but not Israel.
If President Trump's desire to avoid another Middle Eastern war means he sits this one out, it's possible the Israelis may have secretly produced a better penetrator weapon than its publicly acknowledged inventory suggests. There's also been some speculation — shades of blowing up the Death Star — that Fordow has an Achilles heel, a ventilation shaft that could provide a pathway for a bomb.
But so far Israel has not attempted an assault on Fordow. David Albright, an American academic who's spent many years looking at Iranian nuclear sites, is one of those who's more upbeat about the chances of putting it out of action, saying 'Israel doesn't need the United States to come in with bunker busters and destroy it … Israel can do it on its own'.
He argues that destroying generators, ventilation systems and so on at Fordow's other support plant could wreck the centrifuges inside in the same way that Natanz's were. It's noteworthy also that this week Israel bombed the factory where new enrichment machines are made.
If all else fails, it's likely that the Israelis also have a plan to attack Fordow using ground forces. Their main airborne formation, the 98th Paratroopers Division, was withdrawn from Gaza earlier this month to be ready for action elsewhere. Israeli C-130 transport planes have also been seen over Syria, apparently on missions to or from Iran. There could be many reasons for those flights, for example to set up refuelling points for Israeli aircraft or ferry their forward air controllers to or from operations.
But the suppression of Iran's air defences has been so extensive that it may soon be viable to mount the type of airlift needed to insert a force of several thousand troops to a forward mounting base near Fordow.
It could be that a desire to retain the option of such a mission lies behind the fact that the tunnel entrances of the complex have not yet been attacked. They might need to be used by an assault force after all.
This type of operation, though, would be fraught with difficulty — indeed in the view of Gallant and Ferguson it's 'not realistic'. There are thousands of Iranian troops deployed around the plant, so casualties could be high. Although the quantity of explosive needed to destroy it from the inside out might be a lot less than bombing it, it would remain considerable.
While the Israelis are likely to have developed numerous plans, Iran may still hold some wild cards. 'All enriched materials have been transferred and are in secure locations,' Major General Mohsen Rezaie of the Revolutionary Guard Corps said earlier this week. He added: 'We will come out of this war with our hands full.'
Many believe Iran has indeed dispersed its stockpile of highly enriched uranium from Isfahan to other sites too. A third uranium enrichment site at a secret location is believed to have been under preparation when the conflict started.
What all the 'kinetic' options require — from GBU-57 bombs to ground forces — is an continuing onsite inspection regime to ensure that in the months or years to come Iran's nuclear project is not reconstituted. That might be necessary even in the 'regime change' scenario: note that international organisations are currently trying to secure the remnants of Syria's chemical arsenal.
At talks with the UK, France, and Germany in Geneva on Friday, Iran showed both its willingness to engage on these issues but also its refusal to give up uranium enrichment. That's a longstanding position which is, so far, unchanged by the war.
This refusal to bend may be sufficient for President Trump, mindful of the political divisions within his Maga movement, to say that a deal is impossible, despite his recent attempts to pressure Iran into one. His line last week — saying 'I may or may not' attack — may also simply have been stalling for time while final military deployments went ahead.
Evidently Pentagon planners have wanted to head off various contingencies if, for example, Iran were to retaliate against their bases or diplomatic facilities in the region.
But with the arrival of two stealth bombers, alongside two aircraft carriers and soon a number of F-22 stealth fighters and tanker planes, Trump will be able to deliver a final ultimatum to Iran. When that happens, the question of whether Israel can take out Fordow and other key facilities on its own may become academic.