Though the Independent reports that an unnamed source has reported that the plan has indeed been passed to Iran by way of Pakistan, Iran has denied this.

It claims that the US is negotiating with itself.

But according to the Independent, that 15-point plan, along with any other the US will submit as part of ceasefire negotiations, must contain conditions that prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

Trump’s demands are clear.

Shut down Iran’s nuclear facilities, reopen the underground bunkers to regular inspections, and most importantly of all, scrap uranium enrichment so that Iran can’t place itself on the cusp of getting nukes without going over the line.

Trump has reinforced these points several times during Operation Epic Fury, including in words to reporters delivered from Air Force One on March 30th.

“They’re going to give up nuclear weapons.

They’re going to do everything that we want to do,” Trump declared before adding a threat as he stated.

“But if they don’t do that, they’re not going to have a country.

They’re not even going to have a country.

” This isn’t an idle threat from Trump.

It’s a warning to Iran.

The US is staying in Operation Epic Fury until it gets the nuclear resolution it’s looking for, one way or another.

If Iran doesn’t give up its enriched uranium, the US is preparing to take it by force, and it has the personnel to do just that.

Levit has explained that Trump is being given access to every option on the table, as she said in a statement.

It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander-in-chief maximum optionality.

It doesn’t mean the president has made a decision.

As for the Pentagon and the US Central Command, both have refused to provide statements.

They’re staying very hush hush, which is an indicator that something major is being brewed up for Iran.

This is where Operation Epic Fury goes from deadly serious for Iran’s regime to absolutely shattering.

A successful American ground operation on the mainland would strip away one of the most important pieces of leverage the regime has that it can use to bully its way through Middle Eastern geopolitics.

We’ll be explaining what that operation might look like soon.

But the first real question to ask is just how real Iran’s nuclear threat has become.

The answer to that question comes down to the enriched uranium that the US is looking to seize.

According to a March 15th piece by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Iran has 440.

9 kg or about 972 lb of uranium that has been enriched up to 60% of U235.

That’s important because U235 is the file uranium isotope that makes building nuclear weapons possible.

For Iran’s 972 lb of uranium to become weapons grade in the sense that it could be used to build a nuclear warhead, it has to be enriched to 90% of U235.

What this tells us right off the bat is that Iran isn’t quite ready to build a nuclear weapon.

You might even think that’s a long way off as it needs at least another 30% of U235 to get to the point of enrichment that the US and Israel want to prevent it from reaching.

But this is where the real problem comes into play.

It’s not the 60% that the US is worried about.

It’s the fact that Iran has already completed the vast majority of work that it needs to complete to bring its enriched uranium up to weaponsgrade standards.

The Center for Arms Control and Non-prololiferation even puts a percentage on it, saying that Iran is 99% of the way there.

As proof, it introduces the concept of separative work, which is essentially an equation.

Mix the number of centrifuges Iran has which are used in the enrichment process by the time over which they’re employed and the separative power of those centrifuges and you get an idea of Iran’s readiness.

Using separative work units or SWU, which is used to denote the amount of separative work done in the enrichment process, Iran has already completed 54,540 SWU.

How many S swus are needed to go from 60% enriched to 90%? 564.

Just over 1% of the work that Iran has already completed.

So Iran is a lot closer to a nuke than you might think when looking at the enrichment percentages alone.

Iran Watch even laid out the potential timetables in a June 2025 examination of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

The time scales are worrying Trump and the Pentagon, especially if the use of bunker busting bombs at some of Iran’s nuclear facilities hasn’t been enough to shut down the centrifuges.

Assuming that Iran’s IR1 centrifuges perform at the capacity that they have in the past, and even assuming that Iran’s other centrifuges perform below their maximum capacity, the time scale for Iran to get a nuclear weapon is remarkably short.

It
would take around 2 weeks for Iran to enrich enough uranium to build between five and eight small nuclear weapons.

The outlet says that would also see Iran using roughly half of its 60% enriched uranium, suggesting that it could double that stockpile in about a month.

As for the SWUs required, Iran Watch says that there is somewhere between 480 and 768.

That’s right in line with the previous estimate we shared, and it’s yet more proof that Iran is far closer to a nuclear weapon than many would like to believe.

There are caveats to this time.

Iran needs its centrifuges to be accessible and operational, which isn’t necessarily a given.

The bunker busters we mentioned earlier have targeted Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, and we still don’t really know what survived and what didn’t.

There are also voices in the scientific community who dispute how close Iran is to developing its own nukes.

One of those voices belongs to Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center for Non-prololiferation studies.

According to a March 11th piece in Scientific American, Lewis claims there was no evidence that Iran was close to a nuclear weapon.

The same Lewis points out the US has already claimed to have completely and totally obliterated Iran’s main enrichment capabilities during Operation Midnight Hammer, which was launched in the summer of 2025.

There is also the question of how much expertise Iran has left in the country to help its regime build a nuclear bomb.

Still, the enriched uranium remains.

And as long as that uranium is in Iran’s hands, it’s a problem for Trump in the entire Middle East.

Nuclear annihilation could be on the doorstep of several Gulf nations allied with the US.

if Iran is able to rebuild its supposedly shattered enrichment facilities.

So for the US, the simpler step seems to be to take away the 60% enriched uranium so that Iran doesn’t have the option of enriching it further.

This is where we start to see a shift in Operation Epic Fury from aerial campaigns to groundbased missions.

But before we dig deeper into what these missions might look like, this is a quick reminder that you are watching the military show.

We bring you the full picture, not just the headlines.

So, hit subscribe to ensure you stay ahead of the curve.

If the US is to launch a ground operation, the first challenge it faces is locating Iran’s enriched uranium.

Trump announces 2-week ceasefire in Iran : NPR

There seems to be a pretty good sense of where Iran has put that material already.

According to International Atomic Energy Agency director, General Raphael Gi, the most likely candidates are Isvahan and Natans, both of which are sites that the US struck with its massive bunker busting bombers during Operation Midnight Hammer.

Specifically, GCI claims Iran’s enriched uranium is likely held in an underground tunnel at the former site with a secondary cache being kept somewhere in the second.

And in both sites, Iran reportedly has centrifuges that it could use to enrich this uranium further to hit the 90% of U235 mark needed for a nuclear bomb.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists appeared to agree with this assessment in a March 29th piece where it reported on satellite images of the nuclear site at Isfaha.

Of specific interest in those photos was a large truck that was filled with containers.

While it’s impossible to see what the containers hold, the timing of the image combined with the type of load all serve as indirect evidence that Iran has shifted its enriched uranium to isvah.

How much is unclear.

The bulletin speculates that it might be the entire load, which means the cash at Natance no longer exists.

That in itself creates a challenge for the US as a lack of confirmation means that it still has to prepare ground operations for two sites, even if only one holds Iran’s uranium.

The underground tunnel complex at Isvahan is also still somewhat operational as GCI suggested.

Operation Midnight Hammer appears to have failed to take these tunnels out.

And the potential complexity of this tunnel network creates another challenge that US operators on the ground have to face.

It’s not just about getting into the tunnels.

It’s about navigating those tunnels, which may be defended by troops and booby traps to find out where Iran’s uranium is being kept.

What this tells us so far is that whatever operation the Pentagon and Trump may be considering can’t be completed using standard infantry.

Special forces are a must for a mission as complex as removing Iran’s enriched uranium from its underground tunnel networks.

And that operation could be further complicated by the damage that has been done to these networks in the past.

Before it even considers putting boots on the ground, the US needs to be able to identify suitable entrances in the tunnels and account for the possibility Iran has those entrances covered and could attempt to cave them in once US forces arrive.

So, this isn’t just a job for a special forces unit.

What the US will need to overcome all of these hurdles is the largest special forces team amassed in history.

That’s according to the Times of Israel, which claims that the US may need upward of 1,000 personnel at Isvahan alone.

Those personnel will be tasked with taking the site, extracting Iran’s uranium, and holding Isvahan for as long as is needed as they potentially face missile and drone fire from Iran.

The outlet says Iran also reportedly has about 200 kg or about 440 lb of uranium that is enriched to 20% of U235.

The US decides that it needs to extract that uranium too.

Then time is added to the operation due to the higher load.

Most of the success of this operation comes down to what the US knows before it ever puts boots on the ground.

What the US knows is how much enriched uranium Iran has and where that uranium is most likely being stored.

According to the Times of Israel, the US also believes that it has identified a narrow access point to Isvahan through which the enriched uranium could be retrieved.

Whether Iran knows where that specific access point would be is up for debate, as that knowledge gives Iran the ability to booby trap the point.

But perhaps the most important thing that the US knows, or at least believes that it knows, is that the country has the capability to pull off this kind of operation.

If Trump decides it’s time to risk everything, this will go down as one of the most impressive special operations missions ever conducted.

And this is likely how it would look.

Any move to seize Iran’s uranium would have to start with special forces operatives flying to the site in question.

We’ll assume Isvahan here as that seems the most likely location of Iran’s uranium.

Isvahan is several hundred miles in land, so an amphibious landing is out of the question.

It has to be an airdrop and US forces would inevitably be met with surfaceto-air missiles, possibly fired from man pads and drones while they’re in the air.

The US could launch air strikes against Isvahan ahead of time, though how effective those strikes will be against shoulder-mounted air defenses that can be hidden in the complex tunnels remains to be seen.

Still, that aerial bombardment would likely happen.

Former operations specialist with the US Marines and Defense Intelligence Agency, James Hackett, also suggests that this bombardment may be where the 82nd Airborne Division and the two Marine Expeditionary Units that are heading to the Persian Gulf come into play.

They will be deployed to soften the area around Isvahan.

Hackets tells Wal to enable ground troops to enter unopposed and likely under the cover of darkness.

Iran would have a hint of what’s coming due to this air strike.

Though the US might get lucky in that the regime could also assume that the attack is just the latest in an operation that has seen the US hit 10,000 targets in Iran from the air.

One more may not register as it should even at a sensitive site like Isvah.

With the softening completed and the air defenses and drones negotiated, US special forces land.

Those combat troops would immediately have to secure the perimeter, which could also be a job for the US Marines and 82nd Airborne paratroopers while special forces penetrate Isvah.

Engineers would also need to be brought on site along with excavation equipment.

Those engineers will also be tasked with scanning for mines and booby traps.

A clear path is needed for extraction.

So, these engineers may go in ahead of the special forces teams and then work in concert with them to penetrate Isvahan’s tunnels.

Then comes the extraction itself.

The Wall Street Journal estimates that there will be around 40 to 50 special cylinders containing Iran’s enriched uranium.

All of which will resemble scuba tanks.

America’s special forces will be needed to be able to identify those cylinders, which means a special ops team that has been created specifically to remove radioactive materials is a must.

Accidents are also a possibility.

So the cylinders will need to be placed into protective transportation casks to avoid leaks or other more explosive issues.

That covers getting the uranium out of the Isvahan tunnels.

But then the uranium has to be taken away from Isvahan itself.

An airfield will be needed as will US defenses to protect against drones and missiles that Iran will inevitably launch at aircraft attempting to leave Isvahan.

The good news for the US is that the Shahed Vatampur air base is a fairly short distance away from the Isvahan nuclear facility.

The bad news is that the base would need to be taken and secured too and the US would have to transport the seized uranium to that base to get it out of Iran.

Another option would be to create a makeshift airfield at the Isvahan nuclear site itself.

Both options add more time to the operation though which the US chooses would likely depend on how well defended the Shahid Vatampur base is.

Again, bombing runs by the Marines and paratroopers the US is already sending toward Iran could soften up that base.

A ground incursion would also be less complex to pull off as the US would need to secure the base without worrying about extracting anything from it.

One thing is for certain, this is not a quick get in and then get out again operation.

The setup combined with the amount of uranium that Iran has and the challenges involved in getting that seized uranium up in the air means that this is an operation that could take weeks rather than days.

It would take Operation Epic Fury well beyond the 4 to 6 week timeline that Trump initially had in mind.

the Wall Street Journal reports.

And Trump has already expressed how he doesn’t want that operation to turn into a protracted war.

However, the US has what it needs to pull this off.

CBS News reports that the US special ops commandos have been training for literal decades for just such an operation.

And the US has even built training sites that replicate the tunnels at Isvahan and similar sites for that training.

As for what happens to Iran’s uranium once it’s been pulled out, the US could fly it to ships in the Arabian Sea, taking it out of range of Iran’s ballistic missiles in the process.

Bases in Q8 and eastern Iraq are also temporary options, though those are static locations.

The shorter traveling distance is mitigated by these bases being easier to target with missiles and drones.

Adding to all of this, the US needs to have air supremacy in the Isvahan region, which allows it to get its airframes in and out, and it will need to set up air defenses that are capable of dealing with drones and missiles.

So, this is far from a simple operation.

Then, special forces ops are never simple.

If the US can pull this off, it will be the most impressive special mission seen in decades.

But it may be necessary.

The US wants Iran to relinquish its enriched uranium.

If that doesn’t happen, Iran can pose the threat of nuclear annihilation to Middle East countries that isn’t acceptable to the US and the Trump administration is starting to look more willing to risk it all to take the nuclear option out of the Iranian regime’s hands.

However, the US may have other plans for the Marines and paratroopers that it sent to Iran.

K Island is another target as removing Iran’s key oil hub would [ __ ] it economically.

What would a ground operation on that island look like? We cover that and how the taking of Car Island could be important for the situation in the Strait of Hormuz in our video.

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