Iran’s nuclear weapons strategy lies in tatters in the wake of this week’s extensive, and ongoing, targeted Israeli strikes.
Ever since the Islamic Regime’s clandestine program to obtain a nuclear weapon was first exposed almost a quarter century ago, the ruling mullahs have pushed the fiction that their ambitions are exclusively peaceful.
At the same time, they led the United States, Europe, and the International Atomic Energy Agency down a path of obfuscation and outright lies.
No more. Israel is in the early stages of a campaign that could last days or even weeks and will seek to set back this nuclear program years.
Their targeting so far is an attempt to force the complete, irreversible dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program and, eventually, the radical Islamist regime behind it. Last night’s attack struck all the systems, resources, and personnel who led Iran’s drive for a nuclear weapons program: enrichment and storage facilities, missile launch sites, the nuclear scientists driving the research, and the military leaders responsible for implementing it.
Israel targeted Iran’s principal enrichment facility at Natanz for a second time, as well as the nuclear facilities at Fordow and Isfahan. Multiple floors at the Natanz facility have been destroyed, according to the Israel Defense Forces, including the main hall housing uranium-enriching centrifuges that provide the fuel for a nuclear weapon.
Israeli jets also struck hard at Iran’s surface-to-surface missile array, seen in action on two separate occasions last year when Iran fired hundreds of missiles at Israel’s population centers. Initial reports suggest that dozens of Iranian launchers, missile storage facilities, and other military sites have been destroyed.
The fatality list among the nuclear program’s military and scientific leadership is already devastating.
Gone are the Iranian military’s commander-in-chief, Gen. Mohammed Bagheri, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Gen. Hossein Salami, and the commander of the IRGC’s Air Force, Gen. Amir Hajizadeh, along with several of his senior aides.
Gone too are nuclear researchers Fereydoun Abbasi, the former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, and Mohammad Tehranji, a nuclear physicist who was based at the Azad University in Tehran.
There can be no serious doubt that the leaders of the Islamic Republic have brought this disaster upon themselves. A mix of conceit and hubris gained from more than two decades of nuclear deception led them to believe that President Donald Trump’s ultimatum – 60 days to make a deal or else face military action – wouldn’t be followed through.
Israel’s preemptive strike took place on the 61st day.
The Iranian regime has been deeply foolish. Since lending support to the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, the Iranians have lost their client regime in Syria, witnessed the destruction of their Hamas and Hezbollah proxies by the IDF, swallowed the decision of their Houthi allies in Yemen to end attacks on the US Navy and commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and sustained two previous Israeli air strikes that wiped out their air defenses along with several missile factories.
Even so, as Israeli officials have emphasized again and again over the last 24 hours, this is far from over.
Gauging the success of “Operation Rising Lion” will be a complex task, but by targeting key military and scientific personnel alongside the physical infrastructure, Israel has eliminated key human assets integral to Iran’s nuclear program, setting its development back years, not mere months.
By deploying its significant imagery, signals collection, and human intelligence capabilities, Israel will be in a position to make an authoritative assessment of the operation over the coming days and weeks.
Meanwhile, Israel is sensibly bolstering its home-front defenses and preparing its citizens for the inevitable attempted mass casualty attack.
As hated as the Iranian regime is by its own people, there are no signs of imminent collapse. Further, as a member of the “axis of aggressors,” Tehran can count on its allies in Russia, China, and North Korea to assist it militarily, economically, and diplomatically.
Just last week, Iran ordered thousands of tons of ammonium perchlorate, a key ingredient in ballistic missile fuel, from a Chinese company in Hong Kong. The Chinese Foreign Ministry disingenuously claimed it had no knowledge of the transaction.
At this juncture, Israel and its allies have good reason to feel optimistic. Trump himself deemed the Israeli strikes “excellent,” but the Trump administration’s support needs to go beyond mere tweets and praise.
Iran is actively threatening U.S. forces in the Middle East, and cannot be allowed to bolster its threats with nuclear weapons.
The United States must quickly furnish Israel with any tools needed to finish the job – first-rate intelligence, offensive and defensive munitions, and THAAD missiles to counter the ballistic missile threat from Iran.
And if Iran is foolish enough to strike out at the United States in retaliation for this, then America should respond with B-2 Stealth Bombers and Massive Ordinance Penetrators that would finish up the job on Iran’s nuclear enrichment and storage assets.
Only then will Iran’s insidious efforts to weaponize its nuclear program be consigned to the garbage can of history.
Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery (retired) is a senior fellow and a senior director at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Ben Cohen is a senior analyst with FDD and director of FDD’s rapid response outreach.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
