If the United States decides to attack Iran directly, the Middle Eastern country has two broad choices. The first one would be to return to the negotiations table, more prepared to concede withholding enrichment capabilities, or retaliate.
In this scenario, retaliation would include blocking the straits of Hormuz, attacks on the energy infrastructure of the Arab Gulf, as well as attacks on U.S. military and diplomatic targets in the region, either directly or through affiliated militias.
Iran’s capacity to inflict harm on Israel is increasingly diminishing; however, it still retains the capacity to carry out this kind of operation.
Of course, retaliation would also imply an enormous U.S. response. But the prospect of eliminating Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons only through air power is still unlikely.
They definitely have the needed knowledge, meaning scientists and infrastructure, and neither Israel nor the United States could kill all nuclear scientists.
An end to Iranian nuclear weapons capacity can only come through a certified agreement to abandon nuclear enrichment.
Maybe the U.S. force will be able to persuade Iran to agree to these restrictions. If not, it will definitely broaden the conflict, deepening Iranian determination to acquire nuclear weapons, whatever the cost may be.
Dennis Ross: “What matters is the objective and how they publicly frame it.”
According to Ambassador Dennis Ross, the William Davidson distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, the whole question of what happens if the U.S. bombs Iran is seemingly a straightforward question.
In reality, it’s far more complicated than that, since what truly matters is the objective, and it is publicly framed.
If Trump announces that Iran will not have any nuclear weapon option, then Fordo will be bombed. That’s an enrichment site built right into a mountain.
It requires a mountain buster, not a bunker buster. Since Israel doesn’t have a bomb such as the massive ordnance penetrator and doesn’t have a plane that could carry it, only the U.S. can really destroy it from the air.
Iran retaining the Fordo enrichment site would also be retaining an important element of its nuclear infrastructure that definitely preserves its options of going for the bomb.
Ian Bremmer: “It’s much easier to start wars than to end them.”
Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of the Eurasia Group, noted that so far, Iranian leadership has decided to retaliate in quite a preserved fashion.
They’ve mainly focused on hitting back against Israel, as well as not taking steps to disrupt tanker traffic in the Straits of Hormuz, or attack energy infrastructure in the Gulf, or launch strikes against U.S. military targets in the region.
If that would change when the Americans would get directly involved in the war, probably not. All in all, many things might happen, like rogue military actors deciding to take matters into their own hands, which could lead to escalation.
Or, Israel feels unsatisfied after Fordo and proceeds with attacking the leadership itself. Whatever the scenario, one thing’s for sure: it’s easier to start a war than to end it.
Ray Takeyh: “Bombing Fordo won’t be the final salvo in this conflict.”
According to Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, only in the past week, Israel managed to inflict considerable damage on Iran’s nuclear program. In fact, the one atomic installation that seems to be beyond Israel’s logistical capacities is the Fordo plant, which is buried deep in a mountain outside the shrine city of Qum.
Only the United States, with its highly advanced aircraft and specialized munitions, could destroy it. But the biggest challenge for Trump is to balance his concerns about being drawn into another Middle Eastern conflict with his desire to disarm Iran. His choice is more than likely to define the trajectory of U.S.-Iran relations for a while.
Robert A. Pape: “There are major incentives to attack all kinds of leadership, all communication links across the country…and Iran’s missiles and military bases.”
As Robert A. Pape predicts, the nuclear processing facility at Fordo will be hit immediately, not just one day but during the first hour of U.S. strikes. Natantz will probably be attacked at the same time, since that’s the most critical target.
Without pounding any of those nuclear facilities too hard, there’s really little point to any U.S. air attack. We shouldn’t be surprised by “surprise,” since the most likely event is that a much wider set of targets might be struck than the set originally associated with Iran’s nuclear program.
The U.S. knows that Iran might well respond against U.S. military bases, which are only tens of minutes away from any kind of missiles launched. To limit them and other military responses, there are some important incentives to attack all leadership, all communication links across the country, as well as Iran’s missiles and military bases, all in one fell swoop.
Robin Wright: “No military solution to the conflict between Israel and Iran.”
In the end, there’s no military solution to the conflict between Israel and Iran. Every single conflict needs to include at least some kind of diplomacy to address the original flashpoints for a lasting outcome that might prevent new hostilities.
Whether or not the United States decides to engage militarily, Washington is by far the only one capable of brokering a deal that defuses a conflict between Israel and Iran, two countries that led a war for decades, now playing out in stunning missile barrages. So, the United States is now a player, militarily and diplomatically.
One haunting danger is that, in reality, neither the U.S. nor Israel has detailed exactly what their longer-term intentions are with Iran, what the end game is after the shooting stops. Trump also called for “unconditional surrender.” Meaning what? A total surrender of a nuclear program or ballistic missiles?
Or is it just him talking about some form of political surrender? On the day he launched airstrikes on Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a specific appeal to the Iranian people. He brought up the topic of “regime change.”
The two men have reportedly discussed whether to kill Khamenei, who has been in power since 1989. Trump said he was opposed, at the moment, even if he noted on Wednesday afternoon that theocracy could easily fall as a result of the current war.
Jonathan Panikoff: “Iranian leaders definitely have a unified overarching priority: regime survival”
If the United States starts bombing Iran, retaliation is guaranteed, but the intensity of the response depends on U.S. targets. A confined target set, like Fordo and the remaining nuclear program infrastructure, could elicit from Iran a narrow target set in response. The potential for this kind of reaction might be increased if Trump links the U.S. strike to Israel, also agreeing to end the war, after a U.S. assessment that Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities have been mitigated long enough.
There’s also an imperfect precedent for a narrow Iranian response. Trump is definitely considering his January 2020 decision to kill then-Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani. The traditional thinking at the time was that if Soleimani was to be assassinated, it would definitely spark a much broader war. But it didn’t. Iran retaliated five days later, and even if United States service members were injured, there weren’t any deaths, and tensions rapidly dissipated.
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