The US struck Natanz for the second time since the war began on 28 February. Iran confirmed the hit. The IAEA reported no radiation leak1. The IDF denied involvement — making this a unilateral American operation, not an Israeli strike.
The return to Natanz contradicts two competing narratives. Netanyahu claimed on 18 March that "Iran no longer has the capacity to enrich uranium". If that were true, there would be no reason to hit the facility again. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated days earlier that "most probably, at the end of this, the material will still be there and the enrichment capacities will be there". The second strike suggests Washington's own intelligence aligns with Grossi, not with Netanyahu.
Iran holds approximately 440 kg of uranium enriched to 60% — enough, if further enriched to weapons-grade, for roughly ten nuclear devices. Airstrikes can destroy centrifuge cascades. They cannot destroy enriched uranium without causing the radiological contamination both sides claim to want to avoid. The IAEA confirmed no abnormal radiation from Friday's strike, which means the bombs hit hardware, not stockpiles. The core proliferation risk is intact.
Iran's enrichment geography compounds the problem. The IAEA disclosed a previously unknown underground facility at Isfahan — Iran's fourth known enrichment site — where inspectors have been denied access. Natanz itself has both surface buildings and deeply buried halls; Iran moved critical centrifuge operations underground after the Stuxnet cyberattack destroyed approximately 1,000 centrifuges in 2010. Fordow, another enrichment site, sits under a mountain near Qom. The pattern from two decades of constraint efforts — Stuxnet, the 2021 Mossad sabotage of Natanz, the JCPOA's negotiated limits — is that damage to enrichment hardware is temporary. Iran has rebuilt after every disruption. The 440 kg stockpile, accumulated since Iran began enriching to 60% in April 2021, is the one thing airstrikes cannot safely reach.
