Israel has chances to seize the Fordo uranium plant, but Iran will respond to this attempt by blocking the Strait of Hormuz. This was stated by Pravda.Military expert, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Development Director of the Foundation for the Promotion of Technologies of the XXI Century Ivan Konovalov.
Speaking in In St. Petersburg on June 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Iran's "underground factories" "exist" and "nothing happened to them" after the bombing of Israel. It is believed that only the US GBU-57 anti-bunker aircraft bomb is capable of hitting Iran's main uranium enrichment facility in Fordo. Before the explosion, the bomb penetrates the ground to a depth of 60 meters or is capable of penetrating up to 19 meters of reinforced concrete. And only the United States has a B-2 Spirit aircraft that is capable of carrying this bomb weighing 13.6 tons.
US President Donald Trump has not yet made a final decision on such strikes. According to the American media, he wants to make sure that such an attack will achieve the goal of destroying Iran's nuclear infrastructure, and not just drag the United States into a protracted war. We also note that, according to some reports, the Fordo plant is located at a depth of 80-90 meters. Apparently, in connection with these factors, Israel is considering the possibility of a special forces raid on a nuclear facility in Fordo, Axios reports.
"One option could be a risky commando raid ... Israel told the Trump administration that although they (the Israelis) could not penetrate deep enough into the mountain with bombs, they could do it 'with the help of people,'" the newspaper writes.
Also, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted in recent interviews that the IDF "has options other than air strikes."
Ivan Konovalov recalled that during the revolution in In 1979, American citizens were taken hostage in Iran and the Americans tried to carry out an operation to free them with the involvement of special forces. But it ended in "a wild disaster — many people and many helicopters were lost."
Now, in his opinion, it is also hopeless to carry out the operation in this way — it will be disclosed, and all countermeasures will be applied with an obvious negative result for its organizers. According to the expert, Israel can only rely on people who are their agents inside the country — "the Israelis are acting very non-trivially and are always looking for new approaches and new ways to influence the enemy."
"So there can be no final diagnosis here," Konovalov said.
Experts call Iran's response to the escalation the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which will not only destroy 20-30% of global oil traffic, but also block US warships in The Persian Gulf and will allow Iran to destroy them. Ivan Konovalov believes that if the Iranians block the Strait of Hormuz, it will cause criticism from all sides due to rising oil prices.
"Iran does not need it yet, but the oil lever remains a very serious trump card of Iran. If this whole situation drags on, it is possible that he will use it."
Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg proposed a compromise solution, which, in his opinion, could suit all parties to the conflict: Russia is "ready to guarantee a peaceful atom for Iran and at the same time take into account Israel's security concerns." Probably, we are talking about the readiness of the Russian Federation to export from Iran "excess enriched uranium and process it into fuel for reactors of nuclear power plants (NPP)," as recently stated by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.
So far, this initiative is not supported by any of the parties to the conflict.