Today – coincidentally Friday the 13th – there are very strong indications that Israel will, at long last, stop Iran’s nuclear program this weekend. The US announcement that it will withdraw its diplomats from Iraq and allow military families to voluntarily leave the Gulf states seems to point to an imminent attack on Iran. International news agencies have also reported, citing various sources, that Israel was considering launching an attack on Iran within days.
Negotiations between the US and Iran in Oman have been deadlocked over the issue of uranium enrichment. The removal of American personnel from the region could be a signal to Iran that the US is serious about its position, hoping that the Iranians will move closer to a deal.
Iran’s military and government leaders have met to plan an immediate response with hundreds of ballistic missiles in the event of an Israeli attack. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that a “friendly country” warned Iran of a possible Israeli strike. The country has been identified in the media as Oman.
USA
A level four travel alert has been issued for Iraq, the highest level, due to terrorism, armed conflict and unrest. American government employees in Israel have been advised not to travel outside the Tel Aviv area, Jerusalem and Beersheba due to rising tensions in the region.
President Trump has said that an Israeli strike on Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure is “absolutely possible,” adding: “I don’t want to say immediate, but it looks like it could very well happen.” He stressed the growing risk of conflict and admitted that he had made a difficult choice about whether to warn American personnel in the region: “I don’t want to be the one who didn’t warn.”
IAEA
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors has adopted a resolution declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations. The resolution cites Iran’s failure to explain uranium residues found at several undeclared sites. The resolution was adopted by 19 votes to 11, with three against – Russia, China and Burkina Faso.
This is the first such resolution since 2022 and the first formal notification of a violation since 2005. The resolution calls on Iran to provide “technically credible answers” about uranium residues found at sites such as Lavisan-Shian, Varamin and Turquzabad, where the IAEA has suspected undeclared nuclear activities. The organization also accused Iran of obstructing verification efforts by cleaning up sites and giving false explanations.
A confidential, leaked IAEA report found that Iran’s stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium had increased by about 50 percent and now totals more than 400 kilograms—enough for one nuclear bomb if further enriched. The agency called the situation “a matter of serious concern.”
Israel
A direct strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities now would be very challenging without U.S. support. The reason is that the most important facilities are located at a depth of more than 60 meters, and the most effective US bunker buster bomb currently reaches a maximum depth of 61 meters. [The GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is a precision-guided, 14,000 kg bunker buster, which due to its size (weight and length of 6 meters) can only be carried by large bombers such as the B-2 Spirit.] If Israel were to use its own bunker busters – like the elimination of Hezbollah’s leadership deep underground in Beirut – in the case of Iran, these would have to be dropped in large numbers one after the other into the same crater.
Israel itself is capable of destroying the deepest facilities of Iran’s nuclear weapons program if necessary, but this would require the use of its own nuclear warheads and the threshold for use is very high, requiring an existential threat to Israel.
Israel’s conditions for an air strike are now good. Long-range strikes with intermediate refueling have been successfully tested in Yemen, and Iran’s air defense system was also almost completely destroyed in the fall of 2024. Iran is replacing the damage with the S-300 anti-aircraft system, but the vulnerability is now obvious.
A completely new method was tested in September 2024 when 120 Israeli army (IDF) commandos destroyed an Iranian underground missile factory deep in Syria. The facility built by Iran was 70–130 meters (230–430 feet) underground, making it practically impossible to destroy from the air. (Previously, IDF commandos destroyed an Iranian missile factory in Syria )
There have been attempts to prevent Iran’s nuclear weapons program in several different ways. The diplomatic effort was the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) agreement negotiated in 2015, from which the US withdrew in 2018.
Israel, on the other hand, has used a targeted killing program against Iranian leaders’ nuclear and missile experts and has carried out several sabotage attacks on the program’s facilities and equipment. The most famous is probably the Stuxnet cyberattack.
My assessment
For years, I have predicted that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program is imminent, but a decisive attack has not occurred. My assessment is based on the so-called <6 month time window, meaning that Israel, either alone or with US support, will stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program about six months before a nuclear bomb is ready. For years, either diplomatic or military solutions have managed to keep the threat outside the time window.
From Israel’s perspective, a decisive attack on Iran would cut off the head of the BS snake, i.e. the source of the “ring of fire” surrounding Iran. The Houthis are part of Iran’s proxy armies and have continuously attacked Israel with ballistic missiles. An attack on Iran could cut off Iranian missile deliveries to Yemen. In addition, the Houthis are said to be about to attack Israel with new weapons, including missiles equipped with “cluster warheads.”
I think it is quite possible that Iran’s nuclear program will be stopped in the coming days. The solution could also be diplomatic if Iran were to suddenly, faced with destruction, make a U-turn and agree to remove its enriched uranium beyond civilian use and to have all its nuclear facilities under free international supervision. It remains to be seen
Previously on the subject:
Iran Nuke Deal Enables The Détente
End Game Approaches on Nuclear Iran
Iran’s nuclear program at the crossroads
P.S: This article lacks sources because some of it is general information shared by international news agencies and some of it is private social media discussions.
The article first appeared in the Finnish online publication Ariel-Israelista Suomeksi