Decoding the US strikes on Iran
US President Donald Trump embarked on the riskiest move of his presidency thus far by striking at Iran's uranium enrichment sites at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan.Trump said that a 'full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site Fordow'.A full payload for the six B-2/A Spirit stealth bombers would mean a total of 12 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP). Each B-2 carries two MOPs, the only weapons that can penetrate the Fordow uranium enrichment site buried nearly 90 metres below the ground.advertisement
Each 14-ton MOP has over 2 tons of explosives. The US also fired 30 other Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles (TLACMs) from submarines in the Arabian Sea. Each Tomahawk has a range of 1500 kilometres and carries a 450 kg explosive warhead. These would have been fired at the Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites, which are not that deeply buried and can hence be targeted by conventional munitions.The B-2s flew enormous distances to target Iranian sites - over 40 hours of continuous flying time from the continental United States and possibly, multiple refuels in the air from aerial tankers.It is not known whether the mission was carried out by the six B-2s that took off from the US and flew over the Pacific and were tracked by commercial flight trackers, or whether it was another six B-2s which perhaps took off in the dark and struck from the Atlantic route.advertisementThese are the biggest US air strikes on any country since the 2017 MOAB attack on ISIS insurgents in Afghanistan.Bomb damage assessments of these attacks have not been circulated yet, and it is too early to judge the impact of these strikes - but this quantum of ordnance will mean that Iran's nuclear enrichment programme has been set back by over a few years.Iran would likely have spirited away the HEU for use in a handful of bombs, or for building a Radiologically Dispersed Device aka a 'dirty bomb'. It will not have the capacity to produce enriched uranium for full-fledged nuclear weapons capability. That option is now off the table.WHAT HAPPENS NOW?Israel is the biggest winner from this present conflict. Post Hamas' horrific October 7, 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians, Israel embarked on a war of attrition which targeted Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.All three are Iranian proxies. On June 13, Israel launched direct air strikes on Iran after IAEA assessments said Iran was enriching uranium close to weapons-grade levels. Israel's air strikes killed several Iranian scientists and military leaders, but could not derail Iran's nuclear weapons programme. For that, Israel needed the US to intervene. Which it did on June 22.WILL IRAN REACT?advertisementThis is the biggest question being asked now. The joint US-Israeli attacks have posed an existential challenge to Iran's Islamic regime unlike any it has faced in 45 years - not the bloody eight-year war with Iraq which ended in 1988 and not even the massive street protests in 2021-22. Israeli and American jets have pounded targets at will.The US has defanged its nuclear capabilities. Iran says it will retaliate, but the space for such attacks is extremely constricted. It can shoot a few ballistic missiles at the eight permanent US bases in and around West Asia.Doing so would bring down immediate US retaliation from the carrier strike groups and fighter aircraft massing in the Central Command war theatre. Iran could fire anti-ship ballistic missiles in an attempt to shut down the Straits of Hormuz, through which a quarter of the world's oil and 20 per cent of the world's LNG passes through. But this move too will invite US retaliation.Iran began building the Fordow uranium enrichment site around 2006, some years after the US invaded Iraq and unseated Saddam Hussein. With the US on a rampage after the 9/11 strikes, knocking down the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam, Iran believed it was next.advertisementSpeculation of the US striking at Iran quickly evaporated when the US became entrenched in fighting twin insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2025, with the US and Israel staring down gunsights at Iran, the options before Ayatollah Khamenei are bleak. He could choose the path of least resistance. Launch symbolic strikes at the US and Israel, come back to peace talks and focus on rebuilding Iran's shattered military capabilities.(Sandeep Unnithan is an author and senior journalist. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Chakra Newz, a digital media platform.(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)Tune InMust Watch
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