President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Fordow, Iran’s most deeply buried uranium enrichment facility, caps a frenetic week of deliberations about whether the use of military force is the best way to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.
But at its core, this is a tactical question with potentially significant consequences. Rather than submit, the Iranian government is likely to attempt to reconstitute its nuclear program regardless. This wouldn’t be surprising in the least; Iran is estimated to have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the program and views it as a prime source of Iranian strength and independence. If anything, Israel’s preventive war could play into the hands of those within the Iranian regime who already view a nuclear deterrent as necessary to ensure its survival. I believe that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who has been relatively cautious about his country’s nuclear efforts, will find these arguments increasingly persuasive.
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