Unfortunately nobody’s added us to any secret war plan group chats, so we’re gonna have to tackle the above question the ol’ fashioned way.
But why are we even asking it?
First, let’s look at Iran’s nuclear program: the UN’s latest report suggests Tehran now has 275kg of 60%-enriched uranium. That’s a short technical step from the weapons-grade 90% threshold, and way beyond the 3-5% typically needed for civilian purposes. So Iran could (if it decided) potentially make a nuke in days, and attach it to a missile in months.
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Second, look at Iran’s leaders: there’s no evidence they’ve decided to make nukes, though hawks elsewhere see little need to wait given the supreme leader’s continued pledges to destroy the US and Israel, plus his use of proxy groups like Hezbollah.
Third, look at Trump’s words: he just sent Iran’s supreme leader a letter proposing direct talks, backed by unspecified threats. But Iran has now rejected that idea, arguing that the Americans “must prove that they can build trust regarding their decisions”. That’s a nod to Obama’s sanctions-relief-for-nuclear-curbs deal, which Trump scrapped in 2018.
Anyway, Trump has now responded this weekend, telling NBC: “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.“
Fourth, look at Trump’s actions: he’s now…
- a) Deployed ~five 5-2 bombers (a quarter of his fleet) to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, well within range to hit Iran
- b) He’s also expanded sanctions on refineries processing Iranian oil in China (Iran’s top customer), and
- c) He’s also just held joint bomber drills and talks with Israel, whose leader Netanyahu is famously hawkish on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But is it all just another case of Trump’s ‘threaten then negotiate‘ tactic? You can bet Iran’s Ayatollah will be weighing that possibility up against other drivers, including the fact that…
- a) Iran is now weaker: the Ayatollah’s proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are on the back foot, and his own regime is deeply unpopular back home
- b) Israel is now stronger: Netanyahu has defied the odds against foes like Hezbollah, and now has a staunch ally in the White House, plus…
- c) Iran’s ‘breakout’ time is now shorter: the Ayatollah can now potentially make a nuke in days, compared to a year when the Obama-era nuclear deal was in force.
And those drivers combined now lead to lots more second-guessing on all sides.
INTRIGUE’S TAKE
So how do you address a situation like this?
Obama leaned into talks, using sanctions as sticks and relief as carrots. The result was what it said on the label — as sanctions eased, Iran’s economy recovered, its coffers refilled, the regime stabilised, and it threw its weight around the region some more. But also, its nuclear program slowed, giving the region and the world breathing space.
Still, Israel’s Netanyahu (and others like Trump) always hated that deal because of the way it benefited Iran while only slowing (rather than ending) its nuclear ambitions. And the resultant US flipping might’ve just raised the price Iran will demand to resume talks.
As for bombing? It’s not the neat solution some might claim, for three reasons:
- Military: Iran’s Fordow facility is ~80m (260ft) underground, but America’s ‘Massive Ordnance Penetrator’ has a known reach of maybe ~60m (200ft).
- Political: Sure, a successful strike could set Iran’s program back decades, but a failed hit could just entrench the Ayatollah, embolden his hardliners, fuel his crackdowns, and spur his first nuke, hastening what everyone fears; and…
- Geopolitical: It’s also unclear how this would play out in the region. For example, any US-Israeli strike might accelerate the cautious Saudi-Iran rapprochement underway, and raise the threat profile for local US forces, just as Trump wants to re-prioritise US resources elsewhere (towards China).
Also worth noting:
- When Biden’s unofficial talks collapsed, his team said Iran was playing hard-ball around UN inspections of uranium traces at sites Iran never declared.
- Iran appears to have hit the accelerator on its uranium enrichment since Trump’s election, from 7kg (16lb) to 34kg (75lb) per month.