The fate of Iran’s nuclear program and the US and Israeli efforts to destroy it hinge on Iran’s more than 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to levels just below weapons-grade.
Following US strikes on Iran’s main nuclear facilities, Donald Trump claimed that “the core enrichment facilities of the nuclear arsenal have been completely and utterly eliminated.”
There is no doubt that the facilities Tehran uses to produce highly enriched uranium have been severely damaged.
But as the Trump administration assesses the damage, the crucial question is whether Iran’s program has been destroyed or simply moved to other secret facilities.
The answer depends largely on what has happened to Iran’s stockpile of 408 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium — close to the 90% purity required for weapons.
Based on what we have seen so far, no one knows where the material is. There is no real certainty that the West has the ability to locate it soon. It would be foolish to believe that the strikes will delay Iran’s nuclear program for more than a few months.
Fate of enriched material unknown
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said that “nobody will know for sure for days” whether Iran attempted or was able to transport highly enriched uranium.
“I doubt they did, because nothing can really be moved right now,” he told CBS. “The minute a truck starts moving somewhere, the Israelis have seen it, targeted it and eliminated it.”
The enriched uranium is likely untouched now.
Tehran could rush to develop a bomb using secret facilities if it becomes desperate and feels the need to restore its deterrent.
Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said the country’s nuclear capabilities remain stable. “Even if the nuclear facilities are destroyed, [the] game is not over,” he wrote in X.
“The enriched materials, the domestic knowledge, the political will remain,” Shamkani said.
The highly enriched uranium was stored at Natanz, Fordow, and in tunnels at the Isfahan facility, Nefiu said.
Once cooled, it is stored in powder form in large cylinders.
The stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent—a small fraction of a total stockpile of more than 8,400 kilograms—meant Tehran had the capacity to produce enough fissile material for several nuclear bombs within days. But the actual weaponization process is expected to take months or even years.
The risk was always that after Israel’s bombing campaign began, Iran would move the stockpile to a hidden location, where advanced centrifuges had been secretly installed.
What did Iran do with the highly enriched uranium?
If they have set up a uranium conversion line and were able to enrich it to 90% at Fordow before it was attacked, and they had eight or nine days, that is potentially enough for two 90% bombs.
If Tehran and Washington resume talks to allow Iran to have a peaceful nuclear energy program, Netanyahu may insist that Tehran hand over any highly enriched uranium.
Iran could have removed at least some of its highly enriched stockpile. But the officials added that after Israel killed at least 11 Iranian nuclear scientists last week, the regime would have a hard time creating an “efficient, miniaturized nuclear weapon.”
Even before the attacks, the UN nuclear watchdog did not have oversight of all the thousands of advanced centrifuges Iran had deployed since Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal.
After Iran was condemned in an IAEA resolution just days before Israel’s attack, Iran also revealed that it had built a previously undeclared enrichment facility — the country’s third.
Israel targeted the Natanz facility on the first day of its attacks and hit it again, damaging its above-ground and underground facilities, the IAEA said last week. Israel also struck the Isfahan facility twice.
But it lacked the military capability to inflict significant damage on Fordow and was waiting for U.S. intervention.
It is surely the end of Iran’s nuclear program as we knew it. If the program survives, it will either become an illegal weapons program or, in the event of a deal, a neutralized political program without access to nuclear fuel cycle technology.
