- 🧵How much damage was done to Iran's nuclear program? An analysis of Friday's reporting of the U.S. government assessment. I'll focus on the @nytimes.com, which was clearer than the earlier but confused @nbcnews.com story. (1/n) www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/u...
- U.S. officials continue to argue that it would take Iran years to rebuild the facilities that were hit. That seems right to me. But a key question is this: How long would it take Iran to build the bomb? (2/n)
- Attempts to play down the survival of most or all of Iran's HEU are comical. It may be true that "only" the HEU at Isfahan is accessible--but that's almost all of it! (3/n)Jul 21, 2025 14:11
- Moreover, this material is not buried under rubble. The tunnels at Isfahan were not collapsed (too deep) so the HEU will be just fine. That said, the U.S. may have attacked the tunnel entrances, which does raise questions about the material's accessibility. (4/n)
- Satellite imagery shows that Iran has cleared at least one tunnel entrance at Isfahan per @armscontrolwonk.bsky.social. Perhaps this tunnel isn't connected to the tunnels where the HEU is stored, idk. But reporters should be *asking* about this, not assuming. (5/n) www.cnn.com/2025/06/27/p...
- Unblocking tunnel entrances is not difficult. The technology needed is the bulldozer--which Iran has. There's a legitimate question about whether Israel and the U.S. can DETER Iranian removal, but the technical barriers to removal are essentially nonexistent. (6/n)
- The survival of Iran's 60% HEU is a BFD. Iran has enough, on further enrichment, for a handful on bombs. And that enrichment, to ~90%, can be done very quickly with only a tiny facility--MUCH smaller than Fordow let alone Natanz. (7/n) bsky.app/profile/nucl...
- Recognizing this, U.S. officials have basically said, "we don't care if Iran has HEU. We destroyed its facility to produce uranium metal, without which its HEU is useless." lol. (8/n)
- For years, advocates of strikes essentially argued that, because weaponization was easy, diplomacy could not be trusted to prevent Iran from proliferating. Now the same folks are arguing the exact opposite point. (9/n)
- The reality is this. Converting UF6 into uranium metal is pretty easy. It doesn't need a dedicated facility. In the 1940s, the U.S. developed the technique in a university using equipment from the 1920s. (10/n) www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1220...
- Bottom line: If Iran decides to build the bomb--as opposed to rebuilding destroyed facilities--it could probably do so in a year or less. To make matters worse, there are no IAEA inspections and little prospect of their resuming. (11/n) www.politico.com/news/magazin...
- One final point: Some folks will assume I'm making an argument for renewed military action. I'm not. My point is that there is no military solution. Even if the odds aren't good, diplomacy remains the option most likely to succeed in preventing Iran from proliferating. (12/12)
