ROBERT MAGINNIS: The Pentagon's plan to seize Iran's uranium isn't a raid. It's an invasion.

The Pentagon has reportedly revived an bonzer enactment for President Donald Trump: Send thousands of American troops heavy into Iran to prehend enriched uranium from damaged and buried atomic facilities, according to a caller report.

It is being described arsenic a raid. It would beryllium thing of the sort.

This would beryllium a impermanent penetration of hostile territory, launched without existent surprise, against an force that has spent months expecting us, astatine sites whose defenses and contents stay uncertain. American troops mightiness prehend the nonsubjective lone to go trapped successful a ngo with nary reliable timetable and nary cleanable exit.

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Satellite representation shows an overview of the Pickaxe Mountain passageway analyzable successful Natanz. (Vantor/Handout via REUTERS)

A modern Desert One

The humanities parallel is Operation Eagle Claw, the failed 1980 effort to rescue American hostages successful Tehran. President Jimmy Carter had exhausted diplomacy and sanctions aft a hostage situation that had humiliated the United States for six months, arsenic mounting governmental unit pushed him toward a analyzable rescue operation.

It ended astatine Desert One, wherever mechanical failures and a collision betwixt a chopper and a transport craft killed 8 American servicemen earlier the rescue unit ever reached Tehran.

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Today's subject is acold much capable, with mature peculiar operations commands and decades of combat experience. But exertion does not repeal geography, logistics oregon force action, and a president's request for a decisive effect does not marque a fragile program sound.

Trump has shown the Carter analogy concerns him. When asked successful June astir a uranium-seizure mission, helium said helium considered it aboriginal and rejected it. "I didn't privation to beryllium Jimmy Carter," helium said.

President Donald Trump said helium did not "want to beryllium Jimmy Carter," erstwhile speaking connected subject operations successful Iran. (Getty Images)

Harder than 1980

The reported ngo would dwarf Eagle Claw successful complexity. Carter's unit knew astir wherever the hostages were. In Iran today, we whitethorn not cognize precisely wherever the enriched uranium sits, whether it has been divided among sites, oregon whether Iran has already moved it. Some officials judge planetary inspectors person not verified its determination successful astir 9 months.

The Pentagon program reportedly contemplates securing Iran's Fordow and Isfahan facilities, on with the profoundly buried Pickaxe Mountain analyzable adjacent Natanz, wherever Iran is believed to person moved centrifuges.

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Thousands of troops could beryllium required, including Army Rangers, peculiar operations forces and combat engineers. One mentation reportedly calls for flying successful excavation instrumentality and gathering a runway to alert retired astir 450 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, immoderate enriched to 60 percent.

Pickaxe Mountain unsocial shows the standard of the problem. Analysts judge it sits much than 300 feet underground, deeper than the Fordow works the U.S. struck past year. Open-source grounds does not spot uranium determination astatine all; the upland whitethorn clasp centrifuges instead, and American forces could combat their mode wrong lone to observe the nonsubjective had already disappeared.

Based connected the latest targets, Iran has been signaling that it is prepared to harm water, vigor and transport infrastructure elsewhere successful the region, a elder UN authoritative explained. (European Union/Copernicus Sentinel-2/Handout via REUTERS)

No constituent of surprise

Iran knows the apt targets and has spent months preparing entrances, roads and defenses. At Isfahan, passageway entrances believed to clasp overmuch of Iran's enriched uranium reportedly stay backfilled with dirt, reinforced with mines and roadblocks to complicate immoderate crushed approach. As 1 erstwhile National Security Council authoritative noted, the sites are fixed and some sides cognize which facilities American forces would apt approach.

American craft mightiness suppress Iran's aerial defenses and present an battle force. That is lone the archetypal step. Troops would past person to power roads, passageway portals and an airfield for dense cargo aircraft, portion engineers bring successful dense instrumentality and different troops unafraid a wide perimeter. Inside, they could face collapsed concrete, mines, mediocre ventilation and equipped defenders successful confined passages. Every hr favors Iran.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would apt respond connected aggregate fronts: striking American bases, disrupting shipping done Hormuz and activating proxies successful Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Tehran would not request to decision American forces outright, lone contradict them the nonsubjective by collapsing tunnels, contaminating the tract oregon trapping unit inside.

The longer our forces remain, the much unsafe the ngo becomes. What began arsenic a raid becomes a defended American lodgment hundreds of miles wrong Iran. The infinitesimal American engineers statesman gathering an airstrip connected Iranian soil, the raid becomes an invasion.

A instrumentality ship, right, and a cargo vas are seen successful the Strait of Hormuz disconnected Bandar Abbas, Iran, Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)

Why not seal it instead?

That raises the question Washington should inquire earlier sending a azygous worker underground: Why not contradict entree to the facilities alternatively than inhabit them?

If the uranium is trapped wrong damaged tunnels, the wiser people whitethorn beryllium to illness each known entranceway and entree route, past support surveillance and onslaught immoderate effort to reopen the site. Iran mightiness carve a concealed entranceway oregon determination the worldly archetypal — but seal, show and re-strike whitethorn beryllium acold much sustainable than sending thousands of Americans into an underground maze.

The extremity should beryllium making reopening slow, visible, costly and susceptible to different strike, not pretending the upland tin ne'er reopen.

Washington should support demanding International Atomic Energy Agency entree and verified accounting of the worldly arsenic the terms of immoderate further relief, paired with sanctions, interdiction and verified planetary custody of the stockpile.

The Carter trap

Trump is not Carter, and this is not 1980. But some presidents confronted an adversary that refused to output and mounting unit to present 1 melodramatic cognition that could interruption the stalemate. I volition not telephone Trump desperate; that claims cognition of his authorities of caput outsiders lack. But the medication plainly faces unit to person tactical occurrence into a disposable strategical victory, and seizing Iran's uranium for show successful American custody would connection precisely that image. Wars punish leaders who confuse a almighty representation with a durable outcome.

Wars are not won by counting targets destroyed, but by producing a durable governmental outcome. American forces person punished Iran and severely damaged its military, but an open-ended crushed committedness could inactive crook occurrence into failure.

Before proceeding, the medication owes the state answers: Do we cognize wherever the uranium is? Can we scope it? How galore troops are needed to clasp the perimeter? What happens erstwhile Iran counterattacks? And earlier placing thousands of Americans connected Iranian soil, has Washington secured the ineligible authorization and nationalist enactment for a crushed war?

Iranian missiles exhibited successful a parkland connected January 20, 2024 successful Tehran, Iran. Iran has been a cardinal subordinate successful respective overlapping determination conflicts, with its caller airstrikes successful Iraq, Syria and Pakistan, and its enactment of Hamas successful Gaza, Hezbollah successful Lebanon, and the Houthi question successful Yemen. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images) (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

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Most importantly, however bash we get our troops home?

Desert One failed earlier the rescue unit reached Tehran. A uranium-seizure ngo could scope the mountain, breach the tunnels and inactive neglect due to the fact that getting successful is not the aforesaid arsenic getting out. The existent trial is not whether America tin scope the objective. It is whether the nonsubjective justifies the outgo erstwhile a little unsafe strategy whitethorn execute the aforesaid strategical result.