The High Stakes: Can the US Seize Iran's Enriched Uranium – And What Are the Risks?

Unpacking the Complexities of a Potential US Operation to Seize Iran's Enriched Uranium

Reports suggest United States President Donald Trump is weighing a highly contentious move: dispatching US special forces to Iran with the objective of seizing the nation's stockpile of highly enriched uranium. This audacious military operation, experts warn, would be fraught with profound chemical, logistical, and tactical hurdles, presenting immense risks.

Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, or the capability to produce them using enriched uranium, has consistently been a core demand of the US in ongoing negotiations with Iranian officials. This objective also served as the primary justification for Washington's previous strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities during last year's 12-day conflict with Israel, and for the initiation of the current hostilities in February, even amidst active diplomatic talks.

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions and Current Stockpile

Iran steadfastly maintains that its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful civilian energy purposes. However, it has enriched uranium far beyond the levels necessary for such applications. While Iranian officials have expressed willingness to discuss reducing enrichment levels in past negotiations, they have consistently refused to dismantle the program entirely, citing it as a matter of national sovereignty.

The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated by the Obama administration with Iran and other global powers, saw Iran agree to refrain from high-level uranium enrichment and to permit frequent international inspections. Nevertheless, former President Trump withdrew the US from this landmark agreement during his initial term.

Currently, Iran is estimated to possess approximately 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60 percent. This level significantly accelerates the process of reaching the 90 percent threshold required for producing a nuclear weapon. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi revealed in early March that this quantity is theoretically sufficient to produce more than 10 nuclear warheads.

Grossi also indicated that nearly half of this 60-percent-enriched uranium is likely stored within the tunnel complex at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear facility, with an unknown amount also believed to be at the Natanz facility. These critical underground sites, alongside a third at Fordow, sustained severe damage or destruction during US-Israeli air strikes last year and have been targeted in the ongoing conflict.

Can the US Seize Iran’s Enriched Uranium – And What Are the Risks?

Even assuming the US possesses precise intelligence regarding the enriched uranium's location, a military ground operation to extract it would confront formidable obstacles. Military experts convey to Al Jazeera the immense difficulty of such an undertaking.

Logistical and Tactical Hurdles of an Extraction Mission

Jason Campbell, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and a former senior US defense official, dismisses the feasibility: “To send advanced units to the cordon the area, to start an excavation project, the duration of which is impossible to quantify, all the while remaining safe from what would be nearly constant fire from Iran, this is risky and not feasible. I don’t see any senior planning military officer pursuing this.”

The Perilous Chemical and Radiological Hazards

Cheryl Rofer, a former radiochemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, estimates that the uranium is most likely stored as hexafluoride gas. This substance is notoriously difficult to handle, reacting with water to produce highly toxic and corrosive chemicals.

Francois Diaz-Maurin, editor for nuclear affairs at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, highlights that uranium hexafluoride must be stored in small, separated canisters to prevent neutron multiplication that could trigger an intense radiation burst. Any damage to these cylinders, whether from an airstrike or an accident during hurried transport, could unleash toxic chemicals and pose a significant radiological threat to personnel.

An alternative to transport is destroying the cylinders on-site. The US Army fields three specialized Nuclear Disablement Teams trained to dismantle and destroy nuclear materials. However, Diaz-Maurin explains that “exploding the stockpile would chemically contaminate the immediate surroundings with toxic uranyl fluoride, creating a lasting environmental hazard.” Moreover, it would be exceptionally challenging to confirm the complete destruction of all cylinders, leaving open the possibility for Iran to retrieve enough material to manufacture a nuclear weapon.

“This is not a few helicopters and a couple of hours of activity – it is a much more complicated thing,” stated Ian Lesser, a distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He emphasized the critical need for “absolute confidence that you could get it all out, or you would give the Iranian authorities enormous incentive to move on next month or year with the nuclear programme to establish a deterrent against further aggression.”

A Diplomatic Path: The Less Risky Alternative

A significantly less perilous approach would be for the US to broker a new deal with Iran—an objective negotiators were pursuing when the US and Israel initiated strikes on Tehran in February. Such an agreement, Lesser suggests, could involve leaving the stockpile in place under international oversight, “downblending” its enrichment level, or removing it through a cooperative arrangement with Iranian authorities.

Project Sapphire: A Precedent, But With Crucial Differences

In 1994, the US successfully transported approximately 600 kilograms (1,323 pounds) of weapons-grade uranium from Kazakhstan to the US in an operation codenamed Project Sapphire. While undertaken in secret, this operation was explicitly coordinated with Kazakh authorities and the IAEA to remove Soviet-era nuclear material.

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation notes that teams involved worked grueling 12-hour shifts, six days a week, for four weeks just to covertly move the material from a metallurgical plant to a local airport.

Grossi mentioned in late March that the IAEA is exploring a similar option for Iran. However, he pragmatically added, “there’s common sense. Nothing can happen while bombs are falling.” The cooperative nature of Project Sapphire stands in stark contrast to the current adversarial environment, underscoring the formidable hurdles facing any unilateral military action to seize Iran's enriched uranium.