{"id":110797,"date":"2025-06-19T14:54:02","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T19:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=110797"},"modified":"2025-06-19T14:54:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T19:54:02","slug":"110797","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=110797","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

How close was Iran to the bomb, and how far has Israel pushed it back?<\/a><\/p>\n

A version of this Editor\u2019s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI\u2019s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor\u2019s Notes as they\u2019re released, join the ToI Community here.<\/p>\n

How close was Iran to the bomb, and how far has Israel now pushed it off?<\/p>\n

Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN\u2019s nuclear weapons watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned a few weeks ago that \u201cthey\u2019re not far off,\u201d and also cautioned that Tehran\u2019s obstruction of his agency\u2019s inspectors has meant that the IAEA has not been able to keep track of recent progress by the regime on the various aspects of its program.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was still more dramatic, characterizing Israel\u2019s resort to force on Friday as preemptive action against an imminent \u201cexistential\u201d threat. In a video address at the start of the campaign, Netanyahu said Iran had stockpiled enough uranium to build nine bombs, had taken unprecedented steps in recent months to weaponize that enriched uranium, and could get to the bomb \u201cin a very short time \u2014 it could be a year, or it could be a few months.\u201d (The IDF at the launch of the attacks said Iran could enrich enough uranium to weapons-grade level for 15 bombs \u201cwithin days,\u201d and did not specify how long it would take the regime to complete its nuclear weapons project.)<\/p>\n

By contrast, CNN on Tuesday cited a host of American sources assessing that Iran was \u201cup to three years away\u201d from being able to build, deliver and detonate a bomb and asserting that it was not even \u201cactively pursuing\u201d one \u2014 an implausible claim, not least in light of the regime\u2019s documented production of increased quantities of near-weapons-grade uranium with no civilian application.<\/p>\n

As far as I have been able to determine from interactions with several sources familiar with the matter, Israel\u2019s intelligence assessments are that Iran was very close indeed to attaining nuclear weapons \u2014 as in, building and delivering a working bomb. Closer, that is, even than Netanyahu\u2019s public estimate.<\/p>\n

The Iranians have the enriched uranium, produced at their now largely destroyed main enrichment facility at Natanz. It has likely been stockpiled at the Isfahan site, also targeted by the IAF. In 2023, the IAEA reported evidence of uranium enriched further, to 83.7 percent purity, just short of weapons-grade, by the advanced centrifuges at the relatively invulnerable Fordo facility.<\/p>\n

Critically, too, they have developed the highly complex nuclear detonator \u2014 the engineering device that causes the nuclear explosion of the bomb\u2019s uranium core. And they have long had the missile capacity to deliver such a device.<\/p>\n

Putting all the required components together, should Iran have chosen to do so, I was given to understand, was a matter of no more than two months, and possibly as little as a week.<\/p>\n

Or, rather, it would have been \u2014 before Israel launched its attacks.<\/p>\n

Why is that no longer the case, given that the 60%-enriched uranium would be headed to the thus-far impregnable Fordo, and given that Iran has the knowledge \u2014 which cannot be destroyed in aerial attacks \u2014 to complete its program?<\/p>\n

Well, for one thing, Israel believes that its raids are relentlessly destroying the knowledge.<\/p>\n

At a press conference on Monday evening, Netanyahu said Israel had killed 10 of Iran\u2019s senior nuclear scientists and would soon reach several more. (Indeed, that number is now understood to have risen to 14.) These scientists, I was told, are the elite of the nuclear weapons program, the small group of experts with the knowledge and experience to bring Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons drive to fruition. They can be replaced, of course, but their successors are less adept.<\/p>\n

Additionally, having raided Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons program archive in Tehran in 2018, in one of the most daring operations in Mossad history, and brought home vast quantities of material in a convoy of trucks, Israel in a barely reported air assault this week blew up all manner of documentation and other materials relating to the project, including the archive\u2019s computer backups.<\/p>\n

What Israel believes it is managing to do, in other words, is set back the program by eliminating its key personnel, and depriving their successors of the institutional memory to efficiently and rapidly revive the program.<\/p>\n

Physically tackling the centerpiece Fordo facility would plainly be more straightforward were President Donald Trump to bring the United States into the conflict and order B-2 bombers to drop a series of the ultimate bunker-busting \u201cMassive Ordnance Penetrators,\u201d the GBU-57,\u201d consecutively through a hole into the site, built into a mountain, until it was destroyed \u2014 a potential scenario sketched out by the New York Times on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Trump \u201cwill decide on what is good for America,\u201d said Netanyahu on Monday. \u201cWe will accept any assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Israel does not believe Fordo is impenetrable. \u201cWe are continuing to destroy nuclear targets systematically,\u201d said Netanyahu. Others in the know suggest cryptically that there is more than one way to breach even the most inaccessible and fortified targets.<\/p>\n

A central characteristic of Israel\u2019s attacks on Iran since Friday is the intelligence material that has enabled them. Israel achieved air control through western Iran to Tehran, took out all air defenses en route, destroyed vast numbers of missile factories and launchers, is battering nuclear sites, and has eliminated those nuclear scientists and the regime\u2019s key military chiefs, and their deputies and their successors, in pinpoint strikes.<\/p>\n

I wrote on Friday that \u201cThe assessment in the security establishment is that this was the right and necessary moment to strike \u2014 before Iran has rebuilt defenses destroyed in Israel\u2019s far less dramatic attack last October, and at a time when intel on the Iranian [nuclear] program is regarded as particularly strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concern in the security establishment is that its intelligence on the regime\u2019s nuclear program would not have been \u201cparticularly strong\u201d for very much longer \u2014 another indication that the ayatollahs\u2019 push for the bomb was entering its final phase.<\/p>\n

All the signs are that Israel is responding just in time, and moving to separate an ideologically and territorially rapacious regime from the weaponry with which it intended to pursue the destruction of Israel and hegemony in this region and beyond.<\/p>\n

Regime change: \u2018We\u2019ll be very happy\u2019
\nRegime change is not a formal Israeli government goal of the war itself, but there can be no doubt that it is a desired result.<\/p>\n

From the start of the attacks, Netanyahu has declared to the Iranian people that their \u201cliberation from tyranny is closer than ever,\u201d and IAF strikes on symbols of the regime, notably including its state media facilities, are overtly intended to weaken its hold on the public. In an interview on Tuesday with his favorite Hebrew TV outlet, Channel 14, Netanyahu asserted that 80 percent of Iranians \u201chate\u201d their rulers.<\/p>\n

As is frequently the case, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi has been among the most revelatory government officials on this issue.<\/p>\n

Bringing down the regime is \u201ccertainly not a defined goal of the operation,\u201d he said in a Channel 12 interview on Tuesday night, \u201cbecause we know that the only people who can bring down the Iranian regime are the Iranians.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ll be very happy if, as the very important, consequential result\u201d of Israel\u2019s attacks on this \u201cextremist leadership,\u201d it suffers the same fate as other such regimes, Hanegbi went on, referring in particular to the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only would we not be sorry, it would be the best thing that could happen for the world, for the region and certainly for Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cDo we have the means to carry this out ourselves? Absolutely not. Will what we are doing today lead to this kind of result? There are those who believe so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asymmetry
\nA wise man pointed this out to me, and I am happy to share it: \u201cIn the coverage of the conflict between Israel and Iran, we need to really emphasize the asymmetry between the interests of the two states: Iran would like to destroy Israel and Israel\u2026 would like not to be destroyed by Iran. This is not a situation where evenhandedness is appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

How many Arrows?
\nThe Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday morning that the IDF is \u201crunning low\u201d on Arrow missile interceptors. The IDF responded to the report with a bland statement that it was \u201cready to handle any scenario\u201d but does not comment on \u201cmatters related to munitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems highly improbable that the IDF, having directly planned this operation for many months and worked on it more broadly for years, would have gone to war with insufficient supplies of its prime missile defense interceptors.<\/p>\n

The IDF had anticipated that Iran would fire 600 ballistic missiles in its initial response to Israel\u2019s strikes early on Friday. In fact, Iran fired none at all in those opening hours. To date, it has fired some 400, and is believed to have some 1,800 left.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Destruction of Israel Plan\u2019
\nThe stunning early success of Israel\u2019s assault on Iran\u2019s nuclear and military capacities and personnel has refocused Israeli anguish on the failures of October 7, 2023. As was the case when Israel detonated thousands of explosive-laced pagers on their Hezbollah owners in September, we agonize anew at the unfathomable, willful blindness of the political, military and intelligence echelons that left Israel wide open to the monstrous mass-murdering Hamas and that still sees 53 hostages held in Gaza, 20 of them believed to be alive.<\/p>\n

By the same token, however, it is worth pausing to internalize what might have become of Israel had Hamas fully coordinated its invasion with its then-far more potent fellow proxy Hezbollah, and with their Iranian sponsor.<\/p>\n

A scenario in which not only was Hamas leading thousands of terrorists through the useless border fence under cover of heavy rocket fire, but Hezbollah was also attacking full force in the north, and Iran was firing hundreds of ballistic missiles all across Israel, is too terrible for words.<\/p>\n

The likelihood of any such coordinated attack taking Israel by complete surprise would have receded the more widely it was discussed and planned, with Israeli intel presumably far more likely to have realized what was about to unfold and the political and military leadership able to prepare in time.<\/p>\n

But it is important to highlight that the four designated goals of this attack on Iran, as approved by the security cabinet and revealed by Hanegbi on Friday, include attacking Iran\u2019s capacity to destroy Israel via a multifront ground invasion.<\/p>\n

In this September 22, 2014, photo, members of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps march during an annual military parade at the mausoleum of ayatollah Khomeini, outside Tehran, Iran (AP Photo\/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)<\/p>\n

Hanegbi stressed that while some may deride this ambition, the Iranian leadership continues to believe it is absolutely feasible.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the IDF on Friday issued a statement specifying that its Intelligence Directorate \u201chas collected and analyzed vast quantities of intelligence materials that reveal the regime has a concrete plan to destroy the State of Israel, which they call \u2018The Destruction of Israel Plan.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And it put out video material to underline the point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn parallel to the efforts of the Iranian regime to obtain nuclear weapons, the regime has focused on manufacturing tens of thousands of missiles and UAVs, and is advancing plans for a combined ground offensive against Israel on multiple fronts simultaneously,\u201d the IDF said, in a bombshell statement that was barely reported in the fast-moving early hours of the Israeli operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaterials collected during the war show the coordination between the Iranian regime and the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, including after the October 7th Massacre, which demonstrates how the regime plans to re-arm the terrorist organizations,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

Military sources have elaborated that Iran\u2019s ground invasion plan involves undermining the regimes in Egypt and Jordan, to enable a coordinated attack across every frontier. In recent days, again barely noticed, the IDF has announced that it is bolstering deployments on the Jordan border and in the north.<\/p>\n

Via its nuclear program, with its ballistic missile development, and with an intended multifront ground offensive, Iran\u2019s ayatollahs were confident they were on the way to wiping Israel out. In initiating a preemptive campaign to stop them, the IDF Spokesman said on Friday, \u201cthe State of Israel was left with no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How close was Iran to the bomb, and how far has Israel pushed it back? A version of this Editor\u2019s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI\u2019s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor\u2019s Notes as they\u2019re released, join the ToI Community here. How close was … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-question-o-the-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110798,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110797\/revisions\/110798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}