Late on Saturday night time, native time, the US carried out strikes towards Iranian nuclear enrichment websites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, marking its open participation within the battle between Iran and Israel.
The US says it fired 30 submarine-launched missiles on the websites in Natanz and Isfahan, in addition to dropping greater than a dozen “bunker buster” bombs at Fordow and Natanz.
The sort of bomb in query is the extraordinarily harmful GBU-57 Huge Ordance Penetrator, or MOP, which weighs round 13.5 tonnes.
The assaults increase plenty of questions. What are these huge bombs? Why did the US really feel it needed to become involved within the battle? And, going ahead, what does it imply for Iran’s nuclear ambitions?
What are ‘bunker busters’, and why are they used?
Bunker busters are weapons designed to destroy closely protected amenities equivalent to bunkers deep underground, past the attain of regular bombs.
Bunker busters are designed to bury themselves into the bottom earlier than detonating. This enables extra of the explosive power to penetrate into the bottom, relatively than travelling by the air or throughout the floor.
Iran’s nuclear enrichment websites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan are constructed deep underground. Estimates counsel that Fordow for instance may very well be 80m beneath the floor, and capped with layers of strengthened concrete and soil.
What’s the MOP?
The bunker buster used on this explicit operation is the most important within the US arsenal. Leaving apart nuclear weapons, the MOP is the most important identified buster buster on the earth.
Weighing some 13.5 tonnes, the MOP is believed to have the ability to penetrate as much as 60 metres beneath floor in the precise circumstances. It’s not identified what number of the US possesses, however the numbers are considered small (maybe 20 or so in whole).
We additionally don’t know precisely what number of had been utilized in Iran, although some stories say it was 14. Nonetheless, it’s more likely to be a good portion of the US MOP arsenal.
The 13,600 kg GBU-57 ‘Massive Ordnance Penetrator’ bomb is a big ‘bunker buster’ designed to destroy targets deep underground.
US Air Drive / AP
Why does solely the US possess this functionality?
The US just isn’t the one state with bunker-busting weaponry. Nonetheless, the scale of MOP means it requires very specialised bombers to hold and drop it.
Solely the B2 stealth bomber is at present capable of deploy the MOP. Every B2 can carry at most two MOPs at a time. Round seven of America’s 19 operational B2s had been used within the Iran operation.
There was some consideration whether or not giant transport plane such because the C-130 Hercules may very well be modified to hold and drop the MOP from its rear cargo doorways. Whereas this could enable different international locations (together with Israel) to deploy the MOP, it’s for now purely hypothetical.
Why has the US (apparently) used them in Iran
The Trump administration claims Iran could also be only some weeks from possessing a nuclear weapon, and that it wanted to behave now to destroy Iranian nuclear enrichment websites. This declare is notably at odds with printed assessments from the US intelligence group.
Nonetheless, Israel lacks bunker busting weaponry ample to break the deeply buried and fortified enrichment websites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
An F-15E Strike Eagle releases a GBU-28 ‘bunker buster’ laser-guided bomb, a smaller equivalewnt of the 13,600 kg GBU-57 ‘Massive Ordnance Penetrator’ believed to have been utilized in Iran.
Michael Ammons / US Air Drive
Solely the MOP might do the job (wanting utilizing nuclear weapons). Even then, a number of MOPs would have been required to make sure ample injury to the underground amenities.
The US has claimed that these websites have been totally destroyed. We can not conclusively say whether or not that is true.
Iran might also produce other, undeclared nuclear websites elsewhere within the nation.
Iran’s response
The US has reportedly reached out to Iran by way of diplomatic channels to stress that this assault was a one-off, not half of a bigger venture of regime change. It’s exhausting to say what is going to occur within the subsequent few weeks.
Iran might retaliate with giant strikes towards Israel or towards US forces within the area. It might additionally interrupt transport within the Strait of Hormuz, which might have an effect on a big portion of worldwide oil shipments, with profound financial implications.
Alternatively, Iran might capitulate and take steps to exhibit it’s ending its nuclear program. Nonetheless, capitulation wouldn’t essentially imply the top of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The worth of nuclear weapons
Maybe a better concern is that the assault will reinforce Iran’s need to go nuclear. With out nuclear weapons, Iran was unable to threaten the US sufficient to discourage right this moment’s assault.
Iran might take classes from the destiny of different states. Ukraine (in)famously surrendered its stockpile of former Soviet nuclear weapons within the early Nineties. Russia has since felt emboldened to annex Crimea in 2014 and launch an ongoing invasion in 2022. Different potential nuclear states, equivalent to Iraq and Gadaffi’s regime in Libya, additionally suffered from navy intervention.
A 2019 picture launched by the Atomic Vitality Group of Iran reveals centrifuge machines on the Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
Atomic Vitality Group of Iran by way of AP
In contrast, North Korea efficiently examined its first nuclear weapon in 2006. Since then there was no severe consideration of navy intervention in North Korea.
Iran might but have the power to provide helpful quantities of weapons-grade uranium. It might now goal to purchase itself time to assemble a comparatively small nuclear system, related in scale to the bombs utilized in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Relying on what amenities and assets have survive the US strikes, the assault has seemingly strengthened that the one approach the Iranian regime can assure its survival is to own nuclear weapons.
