In renewed tensions in West Asia, Israel — and now the United States — struck Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, targeting multiple nuclear facilities and its top nuclear scientists. Iran retaliated with drone and missile attacks, some of which have penetrated the Iron Dome defence system. Amid the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, it is worth asking a basic but urgent question. Can Iran’s nuclear programme actually be dismantled with military action? The short answer is no — or not easily. Despite decades of planning, rhetoric, and covert action, the military option against Iran’s nuclear ambitions remains not only deeply complex but also operationally limited and strategically risky.
Inside Iran’s nuclear programme
Iran has designed much of its nuclear infrastructure with a military strike in mind. Its key uranium enrichment facilities — most notably at Fordow and Natanz — are buried underground and reinforced with much steel and reinforced concrete. Fordow, for instance, is located in a mountain near the city of Qom, about 80 metres to 100 m beneath the surface, protected by layers of reinforced concrete and rock (RCC). These sites are not merely hardened; they are hardened with intent. Conventional air-dropped bombs or missiles are insufficient to destroy such facilities. Only the most powerful bunker-busting bombs could possibly damage these subterranean enrichment bunkers. While the U.S. possesses these bombs, Israel is not known to.
Underground nuclear bunkers could be penetrated through specialised bunker-busting munitions such as the U.S.-developed GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). This 30,000 pound precision-guided bomb is designed to penetrate up to 60 m of earth or 18 m of reinforced concrete. But there is a catch. The MOP needs to hit its target precisely and repeatedly, often over several days, to be effective against the deepest military targets underground. Israel, for all its military prowess, does not currently possess the GBU-57. Nor does it have aircraft capable of carrying such an enormous bomb; the MOP requires a B-2 Spirit or B-52 Stratofortress bomber, both of which are exclusive to the U.S. Air Force. The U.S. Air Force caused an online stir after it announced having used B-2 Spirit bombers in 2024 on underground Houthi targets in northern Yemen.
Israel does have an array of air-to-ground munitions such as the GBU-28, which can penetrate reinforced bunkers, but its effectiveness is capped at about 5m to 6m of concrete or roughly 30 m of earth. However, this is simply not enough against a facility such as Fordow. Reports suggest that Israel has upgraded its F-35I stealth fighters for long-range missions and bunker-busting capabilities, but even these cannot guarantee success against the most fortified Iranian sites. While “Israel can damage key Iranian nuclear facilities”, it “cannot destroy hardened sites like Fordow without U.S. military assistance”. Even if Natanz and Fordow were destroyed, Iran could rebuild them — and possibly faster than in the past, having learned lessons from earlier disruptions. For instance, after the 2010 Stuxnet cyberattack, which disrupted nearly 1,000 centrifuges at Natanz, Iran not only repaired the damage but further expanded its capacity.
Israel has successfully executed preemptive strikes in the past — against Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 and Syria’s Al-Kibar facility in 2007. But those targets were isolated, above ground, and in the early stages of development. Iran is a completely different case — its nuclear programme is decades old, technologically mature, and deeply embedded into its military and scientific infrastructure. Unlike Osirak or Al-Kibar, Iran’s nuclear programme is spread out, duplicated, and heavily fortified, not to mention backed by a more robust and regionally connected military establishment. This is evident in the fact that recent Israeli strikes most likely failed to destroy the repository of Iran’s near-bomb-grade nuclear fuel. The simple truth is that if Israel were to attempt a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear programme, it would struggle to dismantle it fully. At best, it could delay it, and, that too, only temporarily.
Conflict escalation
This is the reason why Israeli leaders, both past and present, have often sought the U.S.’s backing for any significant military action against Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump, in his earlier previous tenure, hinted multiple times that Israel might be given access to advanced American technology including MOP-class weapons. In 2020, talks resurfaced around selling Israel bunker-buster bombs capable of penetrating heavily fortified underground facilities. According to open-source intelligence and defence analysts, no such transfer has occurred — at least not officially. Moreover, even if the U.S. was to provide operational assistance for Israel’s military action in Iran, the logistical and political costs for both the U.S. and Israel would be monumental.
Launching such an operation would require access to regional airspace, potentially violating the sovereignty of nations such as Iraq or Saudi Arabia, and would very likely provoke a larger regional war. Iran could retaliate through its proxies — Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq and Syria, or Houthi rebels in Yemen. It could also directly strike Israeli or American assets in the Gulf.
Tehran has already signalled that any military action against its nuclear facilities would be met with a “crushing” response. Given its ballistic missile capabilities and strategic alliances, this is not mere bluster. In April 2024, Iran showcased its ability to overwhelm Israeli air defences by launching over 300 drones and missiles in retaliation for an Israeli strike in Damascus, but most were intercepted. The message was clear: Iran would retaliate to any Israeli strike with equal fire.
Revisit diplomacy
A full-scale regional war would likely disrupt global oil supplies, destabilise already fragile states, and drag the U.S. and its allies into a protracted conflict — one that may not even achieve its primary objective. All of this brings us to the uncomfortable but necessary conclusion: diplomacy, however imperfect, remains the only viable long-term solution to curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) had, to some extent, restricted Iran’s nuclear programme and subjected it to international inspections. Since the U.S.’s withdrawal from the deal in 2018, Iran has violated the terms of the JCPOA agreement by lifting the cap on its stockpile of uranium, which is now 30 times the level permitted. It has also steadily expanded its enrichment activities to 60% and reduced cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
A new nuclear deal will undoubtedly be harder to negotiate, especially amid regional turmoil and deepening mistrust. However, it is still more feasible than launching a war that cannot guarantee a decisive outcome. The alternative — a “forever cycle” of attacks, retaliation, and escalation — is far costlier and could destabilise the region. Calls for “bombing Iran” often ignore the technical and tactical realities on the ground that Iran’s nuclear programme is not a single facility waiting to be destroyed. It is a vast, hardened, and redundant system that cannot be undone with a few air strikes. For Israel, or even the U.S., the idea of a clean, surgical strike on Iran’s nuclear programme is a dangerous illusion. What is needed is not military action but diplomatic strategy backed by multilateral pressure, careful verification, and robust deterrence.
Iran’s nuclear programme is not just technically advanced. It is architecturally resilient, explicitly designed to withstand military strikes. If there is one lesson to be learned from the last two decades of the Middle East policy, it is this. Wars are easy to start but almost impossible to end. If the strikes now are to escalate to a full-fledged war, the cost of failure would be catastrophic.
Sabine Ameer is an architect-urban planner and a doctoral researcher (international relations) in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Glasgow, U.K.
Published – June 24, 2025 12:16 am IST