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Will Destroying Iran’s Nuclear Program Require a ‘Medieval Battle’?
Israeli and U.S. officials both say the IDF doesn’t have the munitions required to destroy the Fordow enrichment facility. (Sepah News via Getty Images)
Absent American intervention, Israel could be forced to conduct weeks of air strikes and potentially unleash commando units to destroy Fordow.
By Jay Solomon
06.18.25 — International
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In late January 2018, Israeli spies from Mossad stole 100,000 documents from a warehouse in a southern suburb of Iran’s capital, Tehran, and exfiltrated the materials back to Tel Aviv. Among this cache of papers, CDs, and computer files, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government unearthed the history of the Islamic Republic’s secret nuclear weapons program. It was code-named the AMAD Plan.

Israeli intelligence analysts who combed through the materials that winter learned about the importance of Iran’s overt uranium enrichment facilities to this bomb-making program, which were stationed in cities and towns like Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow. But they also discovered that there were dozens of other undeclared nuclear sites that crisscrossed Iran’s 636,000 square miles and housed sensitive equipment and fissile material. The Israelis pinpointed the scientists, military officers, and bureaucratic offices driving the activities of the AMAD program and its related Iranian entities.

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Jay Solomon
Jay Solomon is one of the U.S.’s premier investigative journalists and writers, with a global track record that goes back nearly 30 years. He was The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign affairs correspondent for over a decade, during which he broke some of Washington’s largest stories, such as the Obama administration’s secret cash shipments to Iran. He also served tours in the Middle East, India, and East Asia. He’s an expert on international sanctions, illicit finance, nuclear proliferation, and cyber warfare.
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