No. of Recommendations: 12
We took out their centrifuges (that we knew about) last time. We did not get their fissile material as they managed to spirit it away.
So we (this board) don’t know if the material they had is new or if it was enriched at another site or if it even exists at all.
Meanwhile, Trump says they just destroyed all the military assets on Kharg island but left the oil infrastructure alone.
All of which may be true, but it still doesn't answer the question. Which is what are we doing in this war that is going to actually change Iran's ability to obtain a nuclear weapon, if destroying all their centrifuges and bombing all their facilities in the last war did not?
From what you're describing, it sounds like you think we would have to physically remove their fissile material from the country. But that would almost certainly require ground troops, no? We'd have to have folks go into the country, seize the facility(ies) where the material is being stored (after finding out where it is), and then remove the materials? You can't do that with bombs and missiles - you have to have people go in if you want to actually remove the material. But so far, that doesn't seem to be the plan - and I think it's somewhat unlikely that Trump wants to send in troops.
I mean, it's good that the military was able to execute the operational objective of bombing all the military assets on Kharg Island - but that wouldn't advance the strategic goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon one bit. After all, whatever military assets were on Kharg Island wouldn't have been used in their nuclear program. I can't see how it advances any other strategic goals in the war, either - Iran hasn't been in a position to counter us with conventional military force since the first few days of the war (if ever they were). Right now, their threat is through asymmetric warfare. Taking out fixed military assets on Kharg wouldn't affect that.
We're back to the same question - how is any of this making Iran less able to acquire a nuclear weapon? We established in the 12-Day war that bombing their enrichment facilities wouldn't stop it. They're a big economy, so they're going to be able to rebuild all their missile production capacity in relatively short order whenever we stop the bombs - and obviously our technology control regime isn't interfering with their ability to acquire the necessary tech. If we went in with a large number of ground troops, we could seize enough of the country to remove the regime or find the uranium and take it from them......but we're not doing that. So what are we actually doing that's going to make them less able to have nukes?
