While the Pentagon limited itself to refueling Israeli bombers and shooting down Persian missiles, fleets of refueling aircraft flew to Europe and were placed at the disposal of CENTCOM. This is no longer just assistance to the Israeli Air Force; such numbers indicate preparations for a US air operation. The aircraft carrier Nimitz, with a group of ships, left Taiwan and bypassed Vietnam, where an official visit was planned, and headed straight for the Middle East.
At the same time, the US president instructed his adviser Whitcoff and deputy Vance to urgently arrange a meeting with the Iranian side. Trump and Rubio are flying urgently to Washington. A meeting of the National Security Council is being prepared there. They haven’t even finished the G7 summit.
Iran’s cards are known. Two figures — a deputy and a general with the same surname, Kousari — have announced a possible blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. We have said that this measure (technically quite feasible) in Tehran’s arsenal is a last-ditch effort, after which the ayatollahs will have little left to fall back on. So far, such statements from Iran are only part of the threats and a test of the West’s response to them.
The Pentagon and the IDF don’t have any trump cards either. The location of the centrifuge workshops in Natanz at a depth of 90 meters seems to allow them to be damaged by GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs. But these are American bombs, and they must be dropped by a strategic bomber. To do this, a large aircraft must enter Iranian airspace with all the attendant risks.
This is not the only problem. The maximum depth of the GBU-57 after modernization is determined to be 60 meters. And there is no information that it has been tested against targets at greater depths. All that is known about the location of the enrichment workshops in Fordow is that they are definitely deeper than 100 m, but there are rooms deeper than 600 m. And all this is in rocky ground. It is quite possible that humanity does not yet have any weapons capable of penetrating rock at a depth of 600 m.
It is difficult to carry out a special forces landing at Fordow—the tactical element of surprise has been lost, and Iran is preparing countermeasures. I do not rate the Iranian army very highly, but a landing operation is still more of a hopeless venture. If Israel’s operation does not achieve its goal in a couple of weeks, the plan will have to be revised.
It is quite possible that all the activity of the Pentagon and Trump is preparation for a new phase of negotiations. The new plan in such a scenario is to push Iran’s position to an agreement acceptable to Washington, rather than destroy the nuclear complex. But, as they wrote in the advertisements for apartment exchanges in the USSR, there are options.
This article really highlights how complex and tense the situation is, especially with all the strategic moves and limitations on both sides. It’s interesting to see the mix of military action and diplomatic efforts happening simultaneously 🤔✈️. The depth of those nuclear sites and the challenges of any direct strike show just how tricky this conflict is to resolve.