In order to achieve its stated objective of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, Israel will need to take out a key Iranian facility, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. Fordow is buried deep under a mountain near Qom and is believed to be one of the key sites of Iran’s nuclear enrichment activities, about 54,000 square feet in size, with 3,000 centrifuges. Due to its hardening and depth, Israel lacks the ordnance to take out Fordow on its own in the short term; however, multiple strikes from the U.S. GBU-57, carried out by U.S. B-2 bombers, could destroy the facility. It has been reported that President Trump is weighing his options for whether or not to strike Fordow. On the one hand, Israel’s attacks on Iran’s military and nuclear assets have created a unique opportunity for significantly undermining the country’s potential for developing nuclear weapons. Given the administration’s stated nonproliferation objectives, with JD Vance stating, “the president hates nuclear proliferation. I hate nuclear proliferation”, striking Fordow could be a tempting prospect. On the other hand, using the GBU-57 would constitute direct support for Israel and have the potential to escalate and drag the United States into another war in the region.
The destruction of Fordow is shaping up to be a Rubicon as the crisis escalates. The GBU-57 may not fully destroy the facility, so regardless of Trump’s decision, Fordow will likely remain a challenge for nonproliferation efforts. There are at least five options for destroying Fordow. All of them will have varying degrees of impact on Iran’s nuclear program, along with unique risks of escalation and international response. Below is an analysis of all five options; however, to avoid escalation while still achieving nonproliferation objectives, Israeli sabotage appears to be an underappreciated option.
The GBU-57 and U.S. Support
The United States is the only country with conventional ordnance to penetrate the depths of Fordow. The GBU-57 has never been used in combat, but has been put through extensive testing; it is believed the United States has approximately 20 of the bombs available. The bomb was intended to serve as a deterrent to prevent states from relying on hardened and deeply buried targets. The GBU-57 can be dropped with extreme precision, meaning it could hit the same exact target repeatedly.
Use of the GBU-57 comes with numerous risks. First and foremost, it could fail to completely destroy the facility. The exact details of Fordow remain somewhat of a mystery, and even International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi, who previously visited the site, indicated after Israeli strikes that there may be additional facilities up to a half mile underground. Direct U.S. intervention poses another critical risk: immediate exposure of U.S. troops, embassies, and regional interests, which Iran has explicitly threatened to target. Further, such involvement could spark other key actors to get involved, threatening horizontal escalation beyond Iran and vertical escalation with increasing levels of force. Another player would be Moscow, which remains a close Iranian partner and has repeatedly offered to play a role in dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, such as by taking its stockpile of enriched uranium. Nonetheless, the GBU-57 appears to be the best bet by conventional military means for taking out Fordow and delivering a decisive setback to Iran’s nuclear program. This could send an important message not only about Iran’s nuclear status, but also about the United States’ commitment to nonproliferation.
Sustained Israeli Strikes
While Israel does not have the GBU-57, it does have the GBU-28 and the BLU-109, both of which have penetration capabilities to burrow into a target; however, they could not go deep enough to reach the Fordow facility, which is approximately 80 meters underground. Both are delivered from Israeli F-15Is. The GBU-28 is speculated to have already been used in Israeli strikes on Iran, including the Natanz Nuclear Facility, and some reports indicate it has also been used against Fordow, though there is supposedly no major damage to the facility. The BLU-109 has been used in major Israeli military operations in the past, such as the 2024 strikes on Lebanon.
Single or even sustained Israeli strikes using the GBU-28 or BLU-109 could target above-ground entrances or exits and lightly buried ventilation systems but likely could not fully destroy Fordow. This would leave the facility somewhat intact and potentially able to restart enrichment activities at some point in the future. It also means Fordow could become a hub for other nuclear activities that have been affected by the Israeli strikes, such as becoming host to Iran’s stockpile, believed to be at Isfahan. From the U.S. perspective, a potential benefit of this approach would be keeping the United States out of direct military support for Israel and avoiding involvement in the region. But it could allow Iran to sprint to a nuclear weapon in the coming weeks, months, or years.
Sabotage
Israel has a long and relatively successful history of using sabotage to set back Iran’s nuclear program. Israel was a key contributor to the 2010 Stuxnet cyberattack on Natanz, including by contributing malware and providing a staging ground. In 2020, Israel killed Iranian lead nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh using a remote-controlled machine gun, although Israel has never confirmed its involvement in the assassination. Other sabotage efforts included the use of car bombs and motorcycle gunmen to assassinate key military and nuclear figures in Iran.
There are at least three ways Israel could use unconventional means to destroy Fordow. The first would be cutting the power supply, which was ultimately what destroyed the Natanz facility last week and was previously used to set the same facility back in 2021. According to Grossi, the loss of power on Friday would have caused the centrifuges to spin out of control and become inoperable. Another means would be a cyberattack, similar to Stuxnet; however, Iran likely took precautions to avoid similar attacks in the future. A final means would be an on-the-ground sabotage mission, which Israel has allegedly exercised. One plan entailed commandos being dropped at the site by helicopter, fighting their way inside the facility, then blowing it up. This plan was briefed to Obama-era officials, so additional and more sophisticated plans may have been developed and exercised in the meantime.
Of all the ways to destroy Fordow, this comes with the lowest risk of regional escalation but also a high likelihood of success. To be sure, Israeli forces would be taking on significant risk by putting boots on the ground, and there is the potential that they would not be able to gain access or destroy the full facility. Given Israel’s strong track record of success using sabotage, however, this could present the best short-term option for destroying Fordow without direct U.S. involvement.
Nuclear Weapons
While Israel might not have the conventional ordnance to destroy Fordow, it is believed to have the nuclear capability to do so. Numerous Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1987, have stated that Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the region, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated. But if Israel did have low-yield nuclear weapons, these could deliver the necessary firepower to destroy Fordow. For example, the U.S. GBU-57 has a yield of approximately the equivalent of 2 tons of TNT; whereas the lowest yield nuclear weapon was the U.S. Davy Crockett, which had a yield of approximately 10 tons.
Another option would be for Israel to signal a willingness to use nuclear weapons or escalate the conflict in order to destroy Fordow. This might not require “introducing” nuclear weapons explicitly either in rhetoric or in operations but rather hinting at such capabilities to signal commitment in the hopes of coercing Iran to back down and return to negotiations. The nuclear option comes with numerous risks, however. First and foremost are the risks of nuclear weapons use and the potential for catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences. Other risks would include regional proliferation and escalation. Israel could face significant international opprobrium, including from the United States, thereby undermining its alliances and partnerships, which are crucial to its military.
An additional challenge with all the military options is that there is no clear off-ramp for Iran. The supreme leader has rejected “unconditional surrender,” and the nuclear talks remain in limbo. Even if the talks resume, it is unlikely Washington or Tehran will be willing to budge from their position on future Iranian enrichment. A creative solution for a regional enrichment facility has been suggested, but it will require a sustained diplomatic effort, which may be difficult as long as the crisis continues. Further military escalation on the part of Israel or direct U.S. involvement leaves Iran with no face-saving options to end the conflict, return to dialogue, and explore longer-term solutions for eliminating its nuclear program.
Dismantlement by Diplomacy
The final option is to return to dialogue and attempt to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program through diplomacy. In light of recent events, including the IAEA Board of Governors’ finding, it is hard to envision a return to the status quo ante in negotiations. A future agreement would likely need to be far more robust and constraining than past efforts, including the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. This might include a zero-enrichment policy, limits on Iran’s ballistic missile production, along with intrusive on-site monitoring and verification to confirm Iran’s compliance and that its nuclear facilities are destroyed and cannot be restarted. At a minimum, this would require a greater role and more resourcing for the IAEA. It might also require the involvement of regional partners in any sort of enrichment consortium, along with a potential role for Russia in managing and destroying the existing stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium.
A return to diplomacy remains the preferred option for the majority of the international community, including Russia and China, along with many U.S. policymakers. To be clear, the diplomatic pathway is not mutually exclusive from the above military options and ostensibly will have to be part of any long-term solution to the Iranian nuclear problem. But in the short term, the diplomatic pathway also comes with risks. Iran could use the talks simply to buy time in the conflict or, at worst, to shift around its nuclear material and sprint to a bomb, although it would presumably be difficult to fully develop a nuclear weapons capability amid an ongoing war.
To summarize, most options for destroying Fordow entail a tradeoff between nonproliferation benefits and escalation risks. While decisive strikes could seriously set back the Iranian program and create incentives for dialogue, military options risk horizontal and vertical escalation, U.S. involvement in a Middle East war, and failure to completely destroy the program, allowing (and potentially incentivizing) Iran to sprint to a nuclear weapon. The only short-term solution that might avoid this tradeoff is Israeli sabotage. It’s also worth noting that these options are not necessarily either-or choices. If Trump calls for strikes on Fordow, which would deliver a decisive blow, additional means might be required to destroy the facility and ultimately achieve the long-term dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program.
Heather Williams is the director of the Project on Nuclear Issues and a senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
