It is an open question how Iran might respond, or how much of a threat it might pose to US ground troops targeting the country’s main nuclear facilities.
The US and Israel have been degrading “Iranian defence capabilities to enable this type of operation if it was necessary,” said Alex Plitsas, a former US defence official and nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. Nevertheless, he said it would still be a “high risk” operation.
US ground troops would be isolated at Isfahan, which is located approximately 300 miles (482km) inland and is Iran’s third largest city. “It makes [medical evacuations] difficult given the distances. It makes [US troops] vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire coming in and out, as well as attacks while they’re” at the nuclear facility,” Plitsas said.
While the operation could take multiple forms, experts said it would likely involve the seizure of an airfield or landing zone from which US forces could operate – and then remove the enriched uranium from Iran once they have retrieved it.
The 82nd Airborne Division, which is trained to secure airfields and other infrastructure, could be used along with other US forces to stage an operating base for the mission, military experts said. Once the uranium is secured, the US would then face the question of removing it from the country or diluting it on site.
Senior administration officials said at the start of the war that the US might consider diluting Iran’s highly enriched uranium on site, rather than removing it from the country. But that would be a large, complex and time-consuming operation, said Jonathan Ruhe, an expert on Iran’s nuclear programme at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a conservative think tank in Washington DC.
Seizing and taking the uranium out of Iran is faster and would allow the US to dilute the material in the United States, Ruhe said. The operation would be deeply risky no matter how it is done, he added.
“You’ve got basically a half ton of what’s effectively weapons grade uranium that you’ve got to extricate,” Ruhe said.
“And there are a million things that could go wrong.”
