TRUMP AND THE IRANIAN BOMB: ACT II

Donald Trump does not like wars and was elected on the promise to “end them.” His vice president, J.D. Vance, goes even further, advocating for an America that definitively abandons its role as the world’s policeman to focus on domestic issues. Yet, as his inauguration approaches in three weeks, Trump’s inner circle is persistently discussing the idea of putting an end to Iran’s nuclear program once and for all.

The context, admittedly, is conducive.

The year 2024 marked a period of Iranian weakening. The Gaza War of October 7, 2023, drew Hezbollah into a direct confrontation with Israel, a battle the Shiite militia lost. Decapitated, having lost several thousand fighters, Hezbollah was forced into an inglorious ceasefire in Lebanon, alongside another, even more humiliating defeat: the downfall of the Assad regime in Syria. Adding to this double loss was the humiliation of Israeli airstrikes on October 26 against Iran itself, where the mullahs’ regime saw the destruction of most of its air defense systems (S-300 missile batteries supplied by Moscow), deployed around Tehran and key nuclear sites, as well as the obliteration of a missile fuel plant and a nuclear research center in Parchin—a warning of things to come.

The next steps are what Eric Edelman, a former Pentagon official close to Trump, calls "coercive diplomacy." Iran will have to dismantle its nuclear program: either by agreeing, under international supervision, to relinquish the enriched uranium it has already produced and dismantle its thousands of centrifuges, or these materials and installations will be destroyed by force.

Time is of the essence. Iran’s weakening has led the regime in Tehran to accelerate its pursuit of a nuclear bomb, the only deterrence it has left. This is corroborated by Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who highlights the accelerated production of large quantities of 60%-enriched uranium. Military-grade enrichment (90%)—within striking distance—could be achieved in two weeks, according to Antony Blinken. A U.S. intelligence report submitted to Congress indicates that Iran already possesses enough fissile material for 12 nuclear warheads. The warheads themselves could be manufactured within the next six months for airborne bombs and in 12 to 18 months for missile warheads.

In 2016, at the start of his first term, Trump denounced the so-called “JCPOA” agreement signed a year earlier by Obama, as well as the EU, Russia, China, and Iran. This agreement, the result of 13 years of negotiations, temporarily froze Iran’s nuclear program under international oversight and transferred 97% of its enriched uranium to Russia in exchange for lifting sanctions, notably on oil. A “very bad deal,” according to Trump, who withdrew from it in 2018, allowing the Iranians to resume their program in earnest while the Americans (and the Israelis) responded only with insufficient cyberattacks.

Act II, then, seven years later. Still with Netanyahu, but this time with a more powerful Trump, facing an Ayatollah Khamenei nearing the end of his reign. This time, the temptation is strong to capitalize on Iran’s vulnerability to eliminate its three main sites: the research facility in Isfahan, and especially the enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordow, two plants deeply buried under mountains. Israel alone cannot target such facilities without U.S. assistance and its bunker-busting weapon, the MOP, or Massive Ordnance Penetrator—a 15-ton bomb deployed by a B-2 bomber.

So far, the mullahs have never been willing to yield on what they—rightly, it must be said—consider the lifeline of their regime, a situation similar in this respect to North Korea.

It is therefore highly unlikely that a negotiated solution acceptable to both sides will be reached. In the end, diplomacy might be nothing more than extremely coercive…

Pierre Lellouche, VA, 12/27/24