Israel's war cabinet is struggling to find the right response to the Iranian attack - and is apparently also discussing an attack on Iran's nuclear program. Do the mullahs already have the atomic bomb?
Tehran/Hamburg – International experts are divided as to whether Iran already has enough nuclear weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb. If the Israeli intelligence services come to the conclusion that the Iranian bomb is nearing completion, from Israel's perspective now could be the right time to attack the nuclear facilities. As early as 2006, there were first reports that Israeli forces were carrying out such attacks on the Iranians' underground nuclear facilities.
The nuclear enrichment factories in Fordo and Natanz are particularly protected against air strikes. The underground facilities are said to have been dug up to 60 meters deep into a mountain.
How far Tehran's nuclear bomb plans have progressed is controversial. After an unannounced inspection of the Fordow nuclear facility on January 21, 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in early February 2023 that uranium can be enriched there to a purity of up to 60 percent, almost to weapon quality.
Iran and the bomb: “We have to assume that it already exists”
Severin Pleyer, officer and strategy expert at the Bundeswehr's Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg, told the
Handelsblatt
: "We have to assume that there is already an Iranian bomb." Pleyer assumes that Tehran has the necessary uranium enrichment threshold of 90 percent may have already been reached. The regime could have at least one, possibly even ten, bombs at its disposal.
However, according to Pleyer, this Iranian bomb is probably still too large to be mounted on the tip of a launch vehicle. That would mean that Iran can detonate a nuclear device, but: “They definitely don’t have nuclear weapons to attack Israel.”
Iran concealed nuclear facilities from the Atomic Energy Authority
Iran has been working to become a nuclear power for decades. The regime of Shah Reza Pahlevi is said to have researched the atomic bomb with Pakistani help in the 1980s. After Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution, this work continued. In 2002, US media revealed that Iran had nuclear facilities in Natanz and Arak that had been concealed from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Because Iran has steadily reduced its cooperation with IAEA inspectors since the de facto termination of the nuclear agreement, the nuclear inspectors from Vienna do not know how much enriched material is stored where. Iran has switched off the cameras installed in the enrichment facilities as part of the nuclear agreement. The IAEA also cannot guarantee that there are new, still secret nuclear facilities.
Israel has never officially admitted to possessing nuclear weapons. However, it is certain that Israel's military has up to 400 operational nuclear warheads.