Will Israel Attack Iran’s Nuclear Program? Here’s What To Know About Iran's Nuclear Capacity

03 Oct 2024 by Stephen Pastis · Forbes

Topline

While Iran does not yet have nuclear arms, analysts believe the country’s nuclear development program might be a prime target for Israeli retaliation—despite U.S. opposition—following Iran’s missile launches at Israel.

TOPSHOT - Palestinian youths inspect a fallen projectile after Iran launched a barrage of missiles ... [+] at Israel in response to the killings of Lebanese Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and other Iran-backed militants, in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on October 1, 2024. Reports said Iran fired between 150 and 200 missiles in the attack, the country's second on Israel after a missile and drone attack in April in response to a deadly Israeli air strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP) (Photo by ZAIN JAAFAR/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

Iran attacked Israel on Tuesday—firing more than 180 missiles with no warning in retaliation for a strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah—causing widespread speculation over how Israel will respond.

Iran's attack “greenlights a counterstrike by Israel, potentially the final showdown blow that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been seeking for years,” possibly targeting Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities, Laura Blumenfeld, an author and Middle East analyst at Johns Hopkins University, told Forbes.

While it’s unclear what Israel’s target could be, an Israeli official said the country plans to hit back quickly, an NBC report said, citing an unnamed source.

Mohammed Al-Basha, a Middle East security analyst, told Forbes "there is speculation" Israel may target Bushehr—Iran's only operational power plant using Russian fuel with low proliferation risk—citing "how Israel reacted to Houthi attacks by bombing fuel depots as a show of force."

President Joe Biden told reporters on Wednesday the U.S. would not support Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites.

U.S. intelligence has stated throughout 2024 that Iran has not built any nuclear weapons, but the country had advanced its nuclear development program since 2018 by building hundreds more centrifuges after the Trump administration pulled out of a deal with Iran, according to the Wall Street Journal.

How Could Iran Respond To Israel Striking Nuclear Facilities?

In April, top Iranian general Ahmad Haghtalab threatened that the country could revise its nuclear policies if Israel hit its nuclear sites, saying such an attack could incite Iranian counterattacks targeting Israel’s own nuclear facilities, according to reporting by state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

Key Background

Israel (alongside the U.S. and the U.N.) has been concerned with Iranian nuclear progress since Iran started its weapons program in the late 1990s and early 2000s and has seemingly spent the decades since targeting the program to prevent nuclear development through Israeli-connected clandestine attacks like sabotaging explosions, sophisticated cyberattacks and theft of nuclear secrets. While Israel never took responsibility, Iran accused them of assassinating top Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020. Iran has enough weapons-grades nuclear fuel to make three bombs and is one of the only countries without nuclear weapons that can produce 60%-enriched uranium, a quality of enriched uranium close to the 90% needed for weapons, according to The Wall Street Journal. Reuters reports that Russian ties to Iran have deepened in recent years, and Bloomberg has reported that the U.S. is concerned about the sharing of information and technology between the two countries—a potential boon to Iran’s nuclear interest. Israel is considered an undeclared nuclear weapons power because it is believed to have nuclear arms but has not confirmed possession of them, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

Tangent

In mid-2018, former President Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Under the Obama administration deal, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities and permit U.N. inspections, and in return, economic and financial sanctions set by the EU, U.S. and U.N. were lifted. The deal outlined three main points: reducing Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium (a key ingredient in making bombs) by 98%, stopping production of higher-grade enriched uranium for 15 years and removing two-thirds of its more than 19,000 centrifuges (machines that enrich uranium). Under the deal, it would take Iran about 12 months to make a nuclear weapon. Trump was outspoken against the deal, calling it “too much in exchange for too little.” Since 2018, Iran has significantly advanced its nuclear program, and while there is no evidence of nuclear-armed missiles, officials are concerned about metallurgy and computer modeling research related to weapons, according to The Wall Street Journal.

What To Watch For

Iran’s nuclear capacity is playing out as a point of contention in the 2024 presidential campaign and was the leading question posed in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz arguing Trump is incapable of de-escalating tensions and did not put adequate nuclear protections in place when he pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, argued the Biden-Harris administration has supported Iran financially and that “Donald Trump consistently made the world more secure.”