In recent days, Israel has reportedly conducted strikes against Iranian nuclear scientists, military leaders, and key components of its nuclear program.

While these actions demonstrate Israeli military and intelligence capabilities, they have not critically damaged Iran’s dispersed and heavily protected nuclear program, according to Israeli military commanders and international observers.

The Impact of Israeli Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions

Analysts are divided on whether these strikes will deter Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons or accelerate its efforts.

One viewpoint, voiced by an unnamed analyst, suggests that if the conflict concludes without dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, allowing them to perhaps “break out,” further action is probable.

However,a western military official wiht regional experience believes that Israel’s attacks,though presented as pre-emptive,could incentivize proliferation.”My own view is that if they have the capacity after this, they will go as fast as they can to get a nuclear weapon.”

“My own view is that if they have the capacity after this, they will go as fast as they can to get a nuclear weapon.”

The Fordow facility, near Qom, poses a notable challenge to military action due to its location deep under a mountain, rendering it impervious to even Israel’s most potent munitions.

Fordow houses centrifuges and highly enriched uranium, and only the US’s most powerful bunker-busting munitions could potentially destroy it.

Despite initial optimism following the strikes, national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi cautioned that the Israel Defense Forces cannot dismantle Iran’s nuclear program independently.

“It cannot be done via kinetic means,” he told israeli media. The military can rather create conditions for a long-term deal, brokered by the US that would totally block Iran’s nuclear programme, added.

Netanyahu has indicated his preference for US military cooperation over a diplomatic resolution, urging Trump to reconsider his anti-war stance. “I understand America first, I don’t understand America dead,” he told ABC TV in an interview.

Netanyahu seeks not only to dismantle the nuclear program but also to instigate regime change in tehran. However, with each missile strike impacting civilian areas, his appeals to the Iranian populace appear increasingly insincere.

“We underestimate the psychological impact of the Gaza war, including on Iranians who hate [the government],” said Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University.

“Gaza also has a bad, vicious government that has been used as justification for action against it. Israel has shown a kind of willingness to kill at will, especially civilians.”

Fear of Israeli attacks has been amplified by western tolerance of mass killings, and extreme military tactics that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has described as war crimes.

“There was a belief that the international liberal order would keep Israel in check, that Europe and the US would not tolerate Israel using its military might with abandon,” Nasr said. Confidence in any capacity to restrain was blown apart in the rubble of Gaza.

If Trump ultimately decides to stay out of this war, and Iran is slow to accept a deal that would curb its programme, Israel may still have military options to inflict more lasting damage at Fordow.

“There has always been a fixation in Israel and in the world with bombing the nuclear sites. Even if it is indeed impossible to destroy Fordow from the air, other methods exist,” said Alex Grinberg, an analyst and former Iran researcher in the IDF intelligence research division.

Israel’s capture of much of an extensive nuclear archive likely gave it access to plans for Fordow, which could make it easier to cripple support systems, block access or even send in special forces to destroy the plant in a ground operation.

There is precedent for these approaches in other Israeli raids. An attack this week on the electricity supply to another enrichment facility, at Natanz, destroyed centrifuges by causing them to spin out of control.

last year Israel sent special forces commandos to destroy an underground Hezbollah missile factory deep inside Syria. Fordow is heavily defended, but as Israel now claims to dominate the airspace in western Iran, it could fly in elite teams in on a C-130 aircraft to attempt to storm the site.

Despite Netanyahu’s preference for a campaign of physical destruction,a deal to restrict Iran’s nuclear activities and through a strict inspection regime would probably offer a more lasting shutdown of Iran’s nuclear ambitions,said David Albright,president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

“One of the problems with israel’s strategy is that if they leave, if they stop bombing, then Iran can rebuild. And then they have to start bombing again.”