Many uncertainties have followed President Trump’s bombing of Iran on Saturday night. The strikes on three facilities likely degraded Iran’s nuclear program, but U.S. officials admit that Iran still has enriched uranium stored elsewhere in the country, countering the president’s claims that Iran’s nuclear program was “completely and totally obliterated.” Even the underground Fordow uranium-enrichment plant — hit by multiple 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs — might not have been completely wiped out, according to U.S. and Israeli intelligence. As Iran, Israel, and the U.S. game out their next steps, I spoke with Iranian nuclear expert Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. We discussed what could happen next in this unclear war and why strikes on Iran could become the “new normal” in the region.
Intelligence officials claim that Fordow was not completely destroyed and that Iran has moved equipment and uranium to unknown locations. Strictly on a tactical level, were the U.S. strikes a failure?
I think it’s too early to say. We don’t know the assessment inside these facilities. Thus far, we just have satellite imagery, and that’s not really enough to give a complete damage assessment of this situation. The reports that Iran has moved its highly enriched uranium or its stockpile somewhere else are troubling and worrisome because this essentially means that we did these strikes and we did great damage — from what we can see from satellite imagery of parts of the facilities, specifically in Natanz and Isfahan, from what we know — but that we didn’t really achieve the objectives of setting back Iran’s program since we just don’t know if it has moved centrifuges or parts of its centrifuges to other facilities.
Do the U.S. and Israel know where Iran would have stockpiled its highly enriched uranium at this point?
Well, there were assumptions that the stockpile was in tunnels at a site outside of Isfahan. We don’t know if Iran has moved it. Some satellite images prior to the U.S. strike showed trucks in front of Fordow potentially moving equipment or even some of the uranium there. So we just don’t know.
It’s not a sufficient or great answer at the moment. But because Iran has curtailed access from the International Atomic Energy Association and because Iran is operating under what I think it sees as an incredible mode of secrecy despite Israeli intelligence penetration, we just haven’t been able to get this kind of information. It’s unclear when we will because it’s hard to do verification in a war zone. It’s all pointing to a very precarious situation, and it’s really hard to predict how this is going to unfold.
What incentive does Iran have to cooperate with IAEA inspectors now? At the moment, there is a bill in parliament there to suspend cooperation with the nuclear watchdog.
From the Iranian perspective, it would say very little. However, the risk of having this question about what Iran is doing and the skepticism about its nuclear intentions — that actually should provide an incentive for Iran to cooperate with the IAEA.
The IAEA would be able to verify that if Iran is continuing its nuclear program, it’s peaceful in nature, and it doesn’t give this kind of blanket justification for countries like Israel to say that Iran is not cooperating and that therefore we have a right to continue strikes and degrade its nuclear program.
But right now, the internal debate in Iran is that the IAEA is untrustworthy — that the agency has been an agent of the United States and Israel and that it’s not an impartial organization. So this is also really troubling that Iran is politicizing the IAEA. It’s probably in Iran’s best interest to be like that.
This is a broad question, but what do you see as the most likely paths forward from here?
One path would be the most inflammatory and escalatory: Iran trying to rapidly build a nuclear weapon. Because it still has an HEU stockpile, because it maybe has centrifuge components stored away that weren’t destroyed, this could be maybe be done in theory within a year or two to enrich up to 90 percent and weaponize.
Another path would be Iran actually submitting to the United States and to the IAEA and trying to come to the table and have some kind of agreement. Whether that means enrichment through a consortium, which was on the table prior to the strikes, or some kind of arrangement where Iran can retain a civilian nuclear infrastructure but not enrich on its territory or use fuel. That’s another kind of solution that could be diplomatic.
I think it’s more likely we might see this kind of attrition continue, where maybe the strikes will be more intermittent both from the Israelis and the Iranians but Iran will be in this threshold status where it’s close enough to breaking out while attempting to negotiate diplomatically but without a lot of progress. This also opens the door to potential destabilization internally. So it’s murky at the moment. It’s really hard to predict what path Iran’s going to take. The diplomatic side of it doesn’t seem like it’s going incredibly amazing at the moment. I have reason for skepticism on all future pathways. I wouldn’t say I’m very absolute on what I think is going to happen.
So that third scenario is that Israeli strikes on Iran become the new normal as a way to impede the Iranian nuclear program?
It would be somewhat of a new normal, but it would be more intermittent. I think Israel is right now going a lot more for regime targets than nuclear ones. So it could be this path to destabilize Iran or to put it in a position of complete isolation when it comes to its role in the region and putting the country in a state of permanent quasi-war.
Some have thought Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, is standing in the way of a nuclear-weapons program. If there is regime change of some kind — as Israel and maybe the U.S. are pushing for — does that become a race for the bomb?
That depends on who takes over and what kind of factions eventually rise. It does seem there is an understanding among the Iranian security Establishment and the elite Establishment now that there’s a net benefit to acquire nuclear weapons in terms of security interests. But in terms of how much Khamenei has been this stopgap on the decision to develop nuclear weapons, I think that’s a bit debatable.
Clearly, he has allowed weaponization work to happen, but at the same time he views negotiations as part of the expediency of the system or the benefit of the system as well. So I think if he dies or something happens to him in terms of targeting, I don’t necessarily think that would be the decisive factor in development. But it’s just not clear who’s going to rise to power and whether they view nuclear weapons as the path forward.
Long term, did these strikes do anything if Iran wants to develop a nuclear weapon, if it still has highly enriched uranium stockpiled somewhere?
These strikes definitely degraded Iran’s conventional military capabilities, including its missile program. As for the nuclear program, there was damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. A lot of the facilities at Natanz and Isfahan are essentially destroyed or not operational, though we don’t know what’s really happening underground. This set back Iran’s program but didn’t eradicate it. You could say these strikes delayed or thwarted Iran’s ability to rapidly break out as quickly as it could have done prior to the strikes. But it’s unclear if they have completely removed that option.
What damage did the U.S. strikes do to the prospect of nonproliferation diplomacy? Why would any rational actor trust the United States since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran deal, was signed under Obama in 2015 and revoked under Trump three years later, eventually leading to this bombing campaign?
This doesn’t bode well for countries that are highly insecure and perhaps want to obtain a nuclear weapon for their security and view themselves as these pariahs when it comes to the United States and the West. But to be fair, the nonproliferation regime was already fraying. This happened with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the attacks on Ukrainian nuclear infrastructure but also with Russia — and in conjunction actually with Iran — really cooperating and trying to undermine a lot of U.S.-related nonproliferation initiatives.
But I do think this will be a major juncture for nonproliferation efforts. This might give countries already discontent with nonproliferation a lot of fuel in condemning the kind of double standards they view as inherent to it. It doesn’t really bode well for the future. But at the same time, there was already this kind of fraying consensus.
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