Iran has about 450 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% that is buried under tons of rock near the Isfahan and Natanz nuclear facilities. Iran is capable of digging that stockpile out and enriching it to 90%, a process that would take a matter of days if the country had any advanced centrifuges to spin the uranium up.
The Iranian nuclear program was all but destroyed in the attacks last June. While it would take years to reconstitute the entire program, building a few hundred advanced centrifuges would take a matter of months.
Getting at that stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU) may be a little easier than first thought. U.S. intelligence recently identified a "very narrow access point" at the bombed Isfahan site, suggesting Iran might still be able to retrieve and move this material.
At a House hearing on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked whether Iran's enriched uranium would be secured. "People are going to have to go and get it," he said, without specifying who.
The Israelis say Trump is seriously considering not only sending a small contingent of special operators to either retrieve the HEU or "dilute it" by bringing scientists along to render it less potent. Plans to capture Kharg Island, the major chokepoint for Iran's oil export industry, have also been discussed.
NBC News reported on Friday that Trump has discussed the idea of deploying a small contingent of U.S. troops in Iran for specific strategic purposes.
Semafor reported Trump's Iran options include Special Operations raids on nuclear sites.
The U.S. official laid out the operational challenge of securing Iran's uranium: "The first question is, where is it? The second question is, how do we get to it and how do we get physical control?"
"And then, it would be a decision of the president and the Department of War, CIA, as to whether we wanted to physically transport it or dilute it on premises."
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday that ground troops were possible — but only "for a very good reason."
"If we ever did that, [the Iranians] would be so decimated that they wouldn't be able to fight on the ground level," Trump said.
This sounds very much like a trial balloon the administration is floating to see how much opposition to a few ground troops it will generate.
CNN did its best to throw cold water on any operation to retrieve the HEU. The news site claims that retrieving the HEU "would require a significant number of US ground troops beyond a small special operations footprint, seven current and former officials familiar with the military planning told CNN."
Lucky number 7.
"Highly enriched uranium is a dual-use material, and Iran has said it produces it only for peaceful energy purposes," offers CNN. That helpful news is total baloney. There is no known commercial or scientific use for enriching 450 kilograms of HEU to 60%. Commercial reactors only need uranium enriched to about 3%. Some experimental reactors use uranium enriched to 20%. The only reason to enrich uranium to 60% is to create a way station on the trip to 90% enrichment to create a nuclear bomb.
Regardless, CNN tries to make the point that it's darn near impossible to accomplish a mission like that.
Sounds tailor-made for our special operators.
Capturing Kharg Island is a different matter. Shutting the facility down for even a short while would be a catastrophic blow to Iran's economy.
The facility handles nearly all of Iran's 1.6 million barrels per day in exports, most of which go to China. Losing this terminal would effectively "paralyze" the Iranian economy by cutting off its primary source of hard currency.
Because Iran has limited storage capacity, a shutdown at the export terminal would quickly back up the entire supply chain. Within days of a terminal closure, Iranian oil fields would be forced to halve their production or shut down entirely because there would be nowhere to put the oil. Shutting down active oil wells can cause long-term geological damage, making it difficult and expensive to bring them back to full capacity later.
Unfortunately, shutting down Kharg Island for any length of time would also be detrimental to the West. The resulting oil shock could result in a recession for most Western countries, including the United States.
The war shows no signs of winding down, so Trump's options on how to proceed are still wide open.
Related: Even if the Iranian Regime Is Overthrown, Its Most Dangerous Weapon Will Remain
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