I allow myself to write here first about myself, and this in order to point out that the things I will present later are based on many years of knowledge and experience. I would like to point out that my background includes, among other things, serving for close to thirty years in the Israeli intelligence community – in the IDF Intelligence Division and in the Prime Minister’s Office.
I was trained for this following the technical-scientific background in the fields of physics and nuclear engineering that I acquired within the framework of “Bar-Ilan” and “Ben-Gurion” universities in Be’er Sheva.
In the years 1976 – 1981 I acted as the technical intelligence officer of the nuclear reactor that France built in Iraq – in the field of information gathering and also being a partner in the countermeasures plans, including at the time of the destruction of the reactor by the Israeli Air Force on July 7, 1981.
Immediately after the return of the Air Force planes to Israel, on the eve of Shavuot, I was asked to go to the General Staff’s pit in Kirya in Tel Aviv, in order to confirm from the photographs of the planes and from telephone conversations that the French engineers in Baghdad had with Paris, that the reactor had indeed been destroyed. The document I wrote about this It was immediately passed on to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who the next day informed all the people of Israel about the destruction of the reactor.
After that, in 1988, the Iranian military nuclear program was put on the map. The issue of the risk arising from the military development of Iranian nuclear weapons was included in the annual intelligence assessment. Since then, as we know, this issue has many fathers.
In recent days, the Israeli press has reported on the conduct of operational cooperation between the US and Israeli armies with the aim of stopping Iran’s military nuclear program. This is against the background of the events that have recently occurred.
The progress of the Iranian uranium enrichment program is now reflected in the operation of the advanced IR-6 centrifuges at the underground Fordo plant to enrich uranium to a rate of 60 percent.
Progress that is a significant step towards the possibility in a short time of enriching uranium to 90 percent, i.e. uranium of nuclear weapons quality.
This, as a continuation of the process of Iran’s ongoing disengagement from all of its obligations under its signatures on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Security Guarantees Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
According to open publications, the last visit to the USA by IDF Chief of Staff Major General Aviv Kochavi included coordination with senior officials in the American military in preparation for joint exercises.
A significant tightening of the military ties between Iran and Russia as aid to its war in Ukraine, with an emphasis on the sale to Russia of drones and probably also precision missiles. As a result, a change is taking place in the American administration in relation to President Biden’s ambition until recently to reach an agreement with Iran on the nuclear issue.
Repeated threats of assault
According to the former military journalist Ilan Kafir, who was close to Ehud Barak, in September 2010 Israel was very close to an air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities according to the decision of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak. This is because Netanyahu did not believe that US President Obama would act to stop it. The Iranian nuclear.
According to Kafir, it was Barak who convinced Netanyahu to embark on the operation, and Netanyahu for his part saw Barak as his human shield regarding responsibility for it. However, the resolute opposition of the heads of the security establishment – Chief of Staff Ashkenazi, head of the Mossad Dagan, and head of the Shin Bet Diskin, caused the cancellation of the attack.
More according to Kafir: Not only did they object, they also warned Netanyahu and Barak that this was an illegal order, because in their opinion only the Cabinet was authorized to announce such an increase in alertness, but not a limited ministerial forum.
Barak, whose relationship with Ashkenazi was already in doubt following the explosion of the Harpaz affair about a month before, was furious. The Prime Minister was shocked by the reaction of the three. Barak also suggested to him immediately afterwards that they both take responsibility for the operation despite the opposition of the heads of the security services, but Netanyahu refused. That was the end of that dramatic episode.
In the “Friday Studio” recordings on August 21, 2015, Ehud Barak said that between 2010 and 2012, when he served as Defense Minister in the Netanyahu government, the possibility of attacking the Iranian nuclear sites was discussed on various occasions in a limited cabinet forum.
Despite this, at least twice it was rejected due to the lack of consensus on this issue. The second time the possibility of an attack on Iran came up was in 2011. But Barak quoted in these recordings the words of Chief of Staff Benny Gantz to the members of the Cabinet Forum: “There is capacity, you know all the limitations, all the things, all the risks.”
That is, already in 2011 the IDF had the ability to attack Iran, but some members of the forum were reluctant to approve the operation due to the risks involved in their opinion, which Gantz pointed out as Chief of Staff.
According to Kafir: Another round was on the agenda in October 2012, but was canceled in view of the sensitive situation vis-à-vis the US, because Obama was running in the elections for a second presidential term. in the US and for operational reasons.
The nuclear agreement
In the wake of the JCPOA nuclear agreement signed on July 14, 2015 with Iran, which I believe was a “addicted game” on the part of Obama and the European Union, I expressed my opinion that the nuclear must be attacked immediately. This, in an article I published in ISRAEL DEFENSE a month and a half later, on August 31, whose title was “The Iranian nuke – yes, we must attack now!”
I wrote in the article: “If Israel does not attack the nuclear targets in Iran as soon as possible, this snowball will swell and gain momentum and will be unstoppable. It also seems that conditions exist today to carry out an Israeli attack.” Due to this article, I received quite a number of comments, some of which disagreed with me, but on the other hand – some of them supported me. In any case, my opinion was not accepted.
Several years later, in a pamphlet I published in September 2021 as part of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BSA) of Bar-Ilan University, I wrote: “It can be clearly stated that the Iranian nuclear agreement was bad, because not only did it allow Tehran to continue its pursuit of obtaining nuclear weapons He even gave support to the financing of its efforts to develop ballistic missiles, to destabilize the Middle East, and to spread terrorist activities around the world.
“That’s why it would be an act of folly to return to this agreement. The possibility of returning to the original agreement seems improbable – both due to the lack of trust towards Iran due to its attempts to hide the military nuclear program, and in view of Iran’s steps since May 2019 to establish facts on the ground and advance to the brink of nuclear weapons.”
Since the signing of the JCPOA nuclear agreement, the situation has gotten very worse – in particular, already in 2017, the Iranians began to violate the agreement gradually, although at first in small but continuous bites. They also began to increasingly avoid cooperation with the IAEA.
Finally, on January 5, 2020, Iran announced that it was no longer bound by any restrictions imposed on it under the JCPOA nuclear agreement. But a particularly unusual step on the part of Iran began on April 17, 2021, enriching uranium to a rate of 60 percent.
This is because within a very short time the uranium can be further enriched to 90 percent – the level of enrichment suitable for the production of a nuclear bomb. The enrichment was carried out at the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.
Enrichment to 90 percent
The process of enrichment to 60 percent that Iran has carried out has no other purpose for it than the production of nuclear weapons. According to a recent IAEA report, as of last October, Iran had accumulated 62.3 kg of uranium enriched to a rate of 60 percent, an amount which, after further enrichment to 90 percent, would be able to produce at least two nuclear bombs.
Furthermore, in recent days, Iran has begun to enrich uranium to a rate of 60 percent also at the Fordow enrichment facility. This is through two cascades of centrifuges, each of which contains 166 centrifuges of the IR-6 model.
This is, among other things, according to a report by Raphael Grossi (head of the IAEA) from last November 22, who confirmed these things. So far, only 1,044 IR-1 model centrifuges, the first generation of Iranian centrifuges, have operated at the Ford facility.
Theoretically, the enrichment capacity of the IR-6 centrifuge is approximately 8 times higher than that of the IR-1 model centrifuge. However, in practice, according to the calculations of the performance of the IR-6 centrifuge published last July by the Institute for Science and International Security, headed by David Albright, the enrichment capacity of this centrifuge is high, but about 4 times that of the IR-1 centrifuge .
In any case, this was also a very important progress from Iran’s point of view. In any case, as far as the State of Israel is concerned, the picture of the Iranian nuclear situation is now extremely worrying. According to the pace of the current Iranian conduct, if it is not stopped, it could reach a current nuclear arsenal within a year. This is based on the assumption that even Iran’s ballistic missiles will develop accordingly at this rate.
It therefore seems to me that the current state of surveillance in the US and Western Europe in view of Iran’s nuclear conduct on the one hand, and the riots in Iran against the regime in Tehran on the other hand, is quite suitable for attacking Iran’s enrichment facilities.
I also believe that Israel alone can destroy the Iranian enrichment facilities, even without the support or participation of the USA.
In any case, a common claim is that since the Purdue facility, as well as a significant part of the Natanz enrichment plant, are underground, it is therefore very difficult to destroy them. But in my humble opinion, in this disadvantage there is also a great advantage, which I do not think is worthy of detailing this, and it is enough to be clever in an allusion.
Lt. Col. Dr. Raphael Ofek is an expert in nuclear physics and technology. In the past he served in the Israeli intelligence community as a senior researcher and analyst in the field of nuclear weapons issues in the world and in particular in the Middle East.