U.S. airstrikes would likely not be able to reach an underground Iranian nuclear facility being built near the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, according to experts and satellite imagery analyzed by the Associated Press. Photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC, a satellite-imagery provider, reveal the construction of a new underground facility at Iran’s pre-existing Natanz nuclear site, which has been sabotaged by repeated attacks by Western powers because of its atomic program. In 2021, an Iranian official said that thousands of nuclear-material-refinement machines were damaged in an act of “nuclear terrorism” that it blamed on Israel. Iran warned that it would replace affected centrifuges, which refine or enrich uranium for nuclear usage, with more advanced ones. U.S. intelligence officials had told the New York Times that an explosion destroyed the site’s internal power system, necessary to supply the centrifuges in the underground facility, estimating that enrichment activities would need nine months to be restored. In 2020, explosives hidden inside a table were also used to attack Natanz.
The recent satellite images show that Iran has been digging tunnels in the vicinity of the site, with the purpose of building a nuclear facility too deep underground to be penetrated by U.S. bunker busters, last-ditch weapons designed to destroy underground sites.
Iran’s uranium production is approaching weapons-grade level, and the building of the site further impedes Western attempts to prevent Tehran’s development of an atomic bomb. Iran has claimed to be enriching uranium up to 60 percent, but inspectors have since discovered uranium particles at 83.7 percent, closer to the 90 percent purity threshold of weapons-grade uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency, an international inspector, estimated that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make “several” nuclear bombs. Responding to the Associated Press’s questions on the recent construction, Iran’s mission to the United Nations stated that its “peaceful nuclear activities are transparent and under the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.” Regarding the construction, Iran says it will replace an above-ground centrifuge manufacturing center at Natanz attacked in 2020, which it blamed on Israel.
If Tehran planned to introduce uranium into the facility, it would have to declare the site to the IAEA, but has not claimed this use. The Planet Labs PBC photos analyzed by the AP show digging into “Pickaxe Mountain” near Natanz’s southern fencing, and another set of images show four entrances dug into the mountainside for the facility. Steven De La Fuente, an analyst of the tunnel work, said “the depth of the facility is a concern because it would be much harder for us. It would be harder to destroy using conventional weapons,” such as a bunker-buster bomb.
Israel’s national-security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, said at the 2023 Herzliya Conference that Israel was unsurprised at the building of a facility that would be hard to reach for U.S. bunker-busters, but “there is no place that can’t be reached.” If Iran is “coming close to the moment of no return,” Hanegbi warned, “the price you will pay as a regime and as a country is one you wouldn’t want to pay, so be careful,” indicating Israel’s determination to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power at any cost.
American leaders are, of course, divided on how to respond to the threat of Iranian nuclear proliferation — less so than Israel and pro-Israel lobby groups, which opposed the 2015 nuclear deal. A spokesman for Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) told National Review:
When President Biden was elected, Iran’s nuclear program was boxed in and the regime’s oil exports had cratered. They hadn’t even enriched above low levels and weren’t using advanced centrifuges. But then Biden signaled that he was going to dismantle pressure — and he did. Now Iran has restored its economy and is within reach of a nuclear arsenal. Sen. Cruz fully expects that the Biden administration will keep enabling Iran as it works to fully establish an invulnerable nuclear weapons program.
The Biden administration has been criticized before for not enforcing sanctions against Iranian oil, as Tehran arms Russia with drones, seizes oil tankers in the Gulf, and continues to fund terror abroad while brutally oppressing its own citizens. In the meantime, Iranian exports have boomed. The Obama administration similarly failed to enforce sanctions while negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, exemplifying Democrats’ strategy of gentle-handedness in hopes of diplomatic progress.
Source » nationalreview