ANALYSIS - Natanz Nuclear Facility Blast Unlikely To Affect Development Of Iran's Nuclear Program

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th July, 2020) The attack on Iran's Natanz advanced centrifuge plant was likely aimed not so much at affecting the nuclear program itself, which would be too of an unrealistic goal, but rather at buying some time to a potential power change in Tehran, experts told Sputnik.

Last Thursday, a major explosion at Natanz and a subsequent fire completely demolished one of the plant's buildings. The details of the incident came piece by piece throughout the next few days before they could offer somewhat of a whole perspective.

Iranian officials went from assessing the damage as moderate after initial reports to severe shortly later as more details cleared up. Satellite images were released to show the scale of the destruction.

For Kanishkan Sathasivam, a professor of international relations at the Department of Political Science at Salem State University, the damage sustained by Natanz, a facility featured heavily in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal), will likely set back Iran's activities there by several months.

"But I also think this incident is a great way to showcase the fact that short of some form of systematic dismantling of these facilities, simply bombing a building cannot achieve the goal of keeping Iran from getting a bomb. At best, it only serves to delay things for some months or maybe a year or so if you're lucky," Sathasivam told Sputnik.

According to the expert, Iran has learned its lesson looking at how Israel bombed facilities in neighboring Iraq in 1981, making sure to diversify and spread its nuclear facilities out. This means that any attempt to destroy Tehran's nuclear program would require a long and sustained bombardment of dozens of highly reinforced facilities, bearing in mind that part of those might be hidden and not yet known to foreign governments.

"So these are all attempts to buy time in the desperate hope that some form of change in the Iranian regime will happen before Iran successfully crosses the nuclear line," Sathasivam said.

Sathasivam was echoed by M. V. Ramana, the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the school of Public Policy and Global Affairs and the director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia.

"Given this history of attempted sabotage, I would imagine that Iran has built up capabilities to deal with such contingencies and this fire would not set back its program in a big way. It will, however, strengthen the hands of political forces within Iran who do not want to enter into international agreements," Ramana told Sputnik.

This incident will also not have a strong impact on Iran's commitment to the JCPOA, especially if reviewed in the void of all other reasons that one would expect to make Tehran walk away from the deal, according to Sathasivam. Among these reasons, the expert listed the US sanctions and the burden of the coronavirus pandemic on Iran's economy.

Additionally, Tehran is unlikely to rush with any game-changer decisions on the nuclear deal at the moment until the upcoming presidential election in the US, which can potentially result in a change of US President Donald Trump's government, known for its tough stance on Iran, the Salem State University's professor argued.

Commenting on who could be the perpetrator of the attack, Sathasivam said "the obvious suspects are Israel and the United States, and in this particular case I feel it is more likely Israel than anyone else."

Ramana, too, emphasized that Israel's and the US' record of sabotaging the Iranian nuclear program gives many a reason to point fingers.

"There is a long history of Israel and U.S. intelligence agencies trying to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program, most prominently through deploying the infamous Stuxnet virus. There is also evidence of Israel's campaign of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Therefore, it is plausible that one or both of them are responsible for this fire," Ramana said.

The suspicion, however, will most likely not cause any significant consequences for Israel region-wise as, on the one hand, it enjoys complete support of the Arab states and, and on the other, Iran is considered incapable of inflicting any meaningful damage to Israeli interests, according to experts.