We Are Now Destined for a Fully-Nuclear World
Israel's attacks on Iran reinforce the lesson that if you don't have nuclear weapons, you're a sitting target.
Israel launched the first wave in the latest of its attacks on Iran on 13 June 2025, targeting key military and nuclear facilities. Among other aims, the strike purposely cut off negotiations between Iran and the United States regarding Iran's nuclear program and sanctions relief.
Israel has spent the entire time following the Palestinian October 7 2023 attacks shaping the battlefield for exactly this moment. Following the earlier wave of attacks and the neutering of its Arab proxies, Iran has never been weaker, and Israel wasn’t going to let the opportunity go by. They might never get a better opportunity to eliminate a sworn enemy forever, using the oft-used canard of having to destroy an imminent nuclear threat as its excuse.
The initial wave of strikes triggered a direct and sustained confrontation between the two nations, creating fear and worry how the war might spread and impact a world already at major war on multiple fronts.
Nor is the war likely to end soon. Israel has said its attacks will continue for “weeks, not days” and indicated that besides elimination of Iran’s nuclear program, regime change and the fall of the Islamic theocracy in Iran is their ultimate goal, even calling on Iran’s people in Persian to overthrow the Ayatollahs.
In response to the war, the US expressed support for Israel and called for Iran’s “complete surrender,” sending multiple strike forces, naval groups and air wings to the area to put punctuation on their statements.
The Fordow Nuclear Facility
Israel’s self-justification for the attacks is that Iran was just days from becoming nuclear capable, National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi stating that “This operation will not conclude without a strike on the Fordow nuclear facility.”
This warning is less convincing when you go back and review the same statements Israel has been making that Iran is weeks or days away from becoming fully nuclear operation for several decades now.
Iran’s most important nuclear facilities are buried hundreds of metres under a mountain and reinforced concrete at the Fordow nuclear base. Military experts say that the only military in the world capable of taking the facility out is the US, using its B-2 Stealth bombers to drop a series of its GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator “bunker buster” bombs to destroy it.
Even Israel admits it doesn’t have the capability to bomb Fordow out of existence, although Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter claimed, "We have a number of contingencies which will enable us to deal with Fordow. Not everything is a matter of taking to the skies and bombing from afar. We're certain that we can set back the nuclear weapons system development within Iran for a very, very long time."
US President Trump abruptly left the G7 meeting in Canada to deal with the crisis, with reports saying that he was about to join the Israelis in their attack and approve use its 30,000 lb. “bunker buster” bomb to destroy the facility.
Fordow is constructed deep underground, with reports indicating a depth of at least 80–90 meters under the mountain and reinforced concrete. Given that the US’s GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator bombs can only reach about 60 meters deep, it would take multiple impacts at the exact same aiming point to penetrate down to the facility. And even that is doubtful as it has never been tested in actual war conditions.
With no guarantee of the “bunker bomb” working, there have even been reports that the US is considering using a tactical nuclear bomb just in case to destroy the Fordow facility, something the US Ambassador to Israel did nothing to dispel:
Mr President, God spared you in Butler, PA to be the most consequential President in a century—maybe ever. The decisions on your shoulders I would not want to be made by anyone else. You have many voices speaking to you Sir, but there is only ONE voice that matters. HIS voice. I am your appointed servant in this land and am available for you but I do not try to get in your presence often because I trust your instincts. No President in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945. I don’t reach out to persuade you. Only to encourage you. I believe you will hear from heaven and that voice is far more important than mine or ANYONE else’s. You sent me to Israel to be your eyes, ears and voice and to make sure our flag flies above our embassy. -- US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee
Let’s follow the argument: the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb is so horrendously evil that the US has to use its own nuclear bomb first, echoes of the Vietnam War’s, “We had to destroy the village to save the village” reasoning.
The Libyan Solution
Trump himself – as usual – has no workable plan or policy whatsoever, his public comments all over the place, from saying there was still a “deal” to be made, to telling all 9 million inhabitants of Tehran to leave immediately or face death, to surrender unconditionally, to saying that he might attack or he might not, and to washing his hands of it for two weeks and going golfing.
That always seems to be the American Right’s solution to dealing with a foreign state whom they don’t agree with: unconditional surrender or we’ll nuke you, saying things like, “We’re pursuing the Libyan solution.”
This is ostensibly in reference to Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi deciding to give up his nuclear weapons program and abandoning international state terrorism in return for Western recognition and a normalising of state relations.
But what happened when Qaddafi actually DID give up his nuclear and Weapons of Mass Destruction programs, stopped support for international terrorism, and tried to engage with the West, particularly France and Italy? Without a credible threat of retaliatory force, he was a sitting duck. His people knew it. They rose up against him. NATO supported them. Qaddafi fell, dead hiding in a ditch at the hands of his own people. Twenty years later, Libya is still a divided mess, with multiple competing governments, at war, not even a functioning state. Just like Iraq, which “had” to be invaded because of the vast amount of (totally imaginary) WMDs it possessed.
If you think Iraq was a disaster, Iran is a much larger nation, has far more ethnic groups, a rabid Revolutionary Guard, and the legitimatisation of being run by a religious theocracy. From their point of view, they literally believe that God is on their side. Try arguing with that. Iraq was a picnic in comparison.
Ukraine, once the third-largest nuclear power in the world with over 1,700 Soviet nuclear weapons, gave them up in return for guarantees from both Russia and the West that their borders would be respected and any aggression towards it would result in allies coming to its military aid. Eleven years into invasions by Putin, we see how that promise is holding up.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan, another former Soviet state who also once possessed vast quantities of Soviet nuclear weapons and voluntary gave them away, is basically a client state of Russia, with no way to push back against sovereign intrusions.
In fact, that’s always how the so-called “Libyan Solution” turns out. What logical dictator is going to accept that, their loss of power, wealth and own life? From the tyrant’s point of view, it means you’re dead without nukes or something similar to threaten your enemies with. It’s why Kim Jong Un will never give up his nuclear capability.
Even Western Allies Know and Fear This
With the US officially burning alliances in Europe, Canada, Asia, and the Pacific, even former allies can no longer assume the US will extend nuclear deterrence to them.
France has officially declared it is willing to extend its own nuclear capability to a “nuclear umbrella” over Europe as the US turns inwards on itself. But depending on a foreign ally has proven to be illusory (see Ukraine above). Germany, Poland, South Korea, and Japan are considering turbo-charging their nuclear capabilities. So, too, is Ukraine. Just like with Iran, destruction of the facilities doesn’t destroy the knowledge to simply rebuild them. You can bomb infrastructure and facilities into dust. Erasing the knowledge that is already inside the heads of thousands of fully-qualified nuclear scientists can’t be done.
The Current Nuclear-Capable States
There are currently nine countries with working nuclear weapons. All nine of them are increasing, not decreasing, their stockpiles. There are another six nations that officially host them.
Countries Capable of Quick Nuclear Buildup
How much more comfortable would Greenland, Canada and Panama feel in the face of US threats of takeover if they had their own nuclear capability? Taiwan regarding China?
A large number of countries possess the technology, expertise, and infrastructure to develop nuclear weapons quickly if they choose to.
Japan is considered "paranuclear," with the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon swiftly. Canada possesses the capability to quickly develop nuclear weapons and has “unofficially” hosted US ones in the past. Germany is a nuclear threshold state with the potential to develop nuclear weapons. So, too, is the Netherlands. South Africa once unofficially had them and gave them up.
Brazil is another country with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons quickly. South Korea is technically capable of developing nuclear weapons, though it has not pursued this path officially. Yet. Mexico is identified as having the capability to build nuclear weapons. Australia has the necessary expertise and materials. Even Argentina, has that capacity, once actively pursuing them.
Nikita Khrushchev: Prophet or Sage?
The history of the world has shown us time and time again that every new and advanced military technology gets used, from nuclear, to biological, to chemical weapons. Just look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A threat only works if you can prove it is real. Otherwise, why drop two nuclear weapons on Japan? The answer is that they had to prove that they different types of nuclear bombs they dropped — uranium and plutonium respectively — both worked and were both existential threats.
Even after the Americans dropped their nuclear weapons on Japan, the Imperial Army refused to believe the threat was real, saying their own generals were exaggerating, and not surrendering for another week until the actual destruction was impossible to deny.
And after investing hundreds of billions in their development, you’re only motivated more to show your people that it was all worthwhile.
As former Soviet leader Khrushchev once noted, "Missiles are not cucumbers; one cannot eat them, and one does not require more than a certain number in order to ward off an attack."
Like it or not, we all need to get used to a multi-polar nuclear world and all that entails.
Gulp. Cucumber salad, anyone?