Mick Hartley

Niall Ferguson and Yoav Gallant – former Israeli minister of defense – at the Free Press. Should America join in against Iran? – especially given that the US is the only country with bombs powerful enough to destroy the nuclear facilities deep underground.

Opponents of U.S. military action tell a simplified story of past interventions—in Vietnam, most obviously, but some also cite Iraq and Afghanistan—that led to “forever wars.” But isolationists have trouble arguing that the United States should never intervene abroad. Would the Cold War have gone better if Harry Truman had abandoned South Korea to Stalin’s proxies in 1950? Would the Middle East have benefited if Kuwait had been left in Saddam Hussein’s hands in 1991? Would the Balkans be stabler today if Bill Clinton had not belatedly acted to save Bosnia and then Kosovo from Slobodan Milošević’s aggression?

There are, of course, those cases where the US declined to intervene – most notably Syria. How did that work out? It allowed Assad to stay in power for years, destroying the country, killing hundreds of thousands, and – not least – giving Russia the opportunity to reassert itself as a global power, practicing the aerial destruction since unleashed on Ukraine.

None of these analogies is really applicable anyway, because the United States today is not being asked to send soldiers to invade or occupy Iran. The action President Trump must decide upon is clearly defined and limited in its duration and scale, since much of the work of defeating Iran has already been done by Israel.

But one task remains.

Much of Iran’s nuclear weapons program now lies in ruins, and many of the scientists who ran it are dead. But one key site remains at Fordow. Deep underground and heavily fortified, it holds the core of Iran’s remaining enrichment capability: eight cascades with over 3,000 centrifuges. The facility’s scale allows Iran to rapidly enrich weapons-grade uranium. It could do so in just three weeks, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Leaving it intact risks allowing the Islamic Republic to rebuild and resume its quest for the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

Fordow is built into the mountains near Qom, encased under at least 300 feet of limestone, and protected by additional layers of reinforced concrete shielding and other structural defense measures that increase the facility’s ability to survive a heavy air attack. There is no credible way that Israel alone can destroy it.

Only one air force has the power to finish off Fordow. The United States designed and built the GBU 57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) precisely for such a task…..

Israel has moved and continues to move with determination and dispatch. The support of allies, first and foremost the United States, has been crucial. Now, with a single exertion of its unmatched military strength, the United States can shorten the war, prevent wider escalation, and end the principal threat to Middle Eastern stability. It can also send a signal to those other authoritarian powers who have been Iran’s enablers that American deterrence is back.