Iran may already have the materials and delivery systems to deter a nuclear strike – raising the stakes in an escalating conflict.

Media speculation on whether the US or Israel would launch a nuclear attack on Iran as the Middle East crisis escalates out of control begs the question: does Iran already have the capacity to deter such an attack?

The answer would appear to be yes.

Donald Trump’s hyperbolic assertion that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program had been “totally obliterated” was, like most of his claims, untrue.

Three days before the US bombed the nuclear enrichment site at Fordow in 2025, a line of empty trucks was observed by satellites at the facility. Intelligence assessments indicate these were tasked to carry 408 kilos of highly enriched (60 per cent purity) uranium, part of a larger cache of 8.4 tonnes of uranium, to a place of greater safety.

If so, this leaves Iran with the capability, not only to create several basic nuclear bombs, but more particularly, a whole bunch of ‘dirty bombs’ which, while destroying nothing, could still shed radioactive poison over a very large area.

Enrichment is the process of converting the abundant isotope U-238 into the far rarer isotope U-235, needed to power........

© Pearls and Irritations