Chandigarh: The enduring five-week-long US-Israel bombing campaign against Iran, aimed at extinguishing its nuclear programme, seems to have triggered the opposite effect: a hardened, more adversarial, even defiant Tehran increasingly views nuclear weapons as the only credible guarantor of regime survival, say a wide range of Western security analysts.They are of the view that rather than suppressing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the sustained strikes– delivered in part by US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers employing ‘bunker-buster’ munitions of over 1000 lbs and more, against deeply buried facilities – appear to have reinforced them, turning Iran’s recessed deterrence into a strategic necessity that it may now be likely to actively pursue.These experts, who had even earlier warned of precisely this outcome, also maintain that the ongoing bombing campaign has significantly strengthened hard-line factions within Tehran, which advocate a decisive shift towards nuclear weaponisation.Their underlying logic is brutally simple: vulnerability invites attack and only nuclear capability can prevent it – a conclusion reinforced by North Korea’s survival under prolonged pressure and Pakistan’s ability to deter India despite conventional asymmetry. In Iran’s own strategic logic, forswearing the nuclear option – whether by force or through imposed agreements – had rendered it vulnerable to attack. These attacks have only reinforced the conviction some had that a latent or actual bomb is the ultimate safeguard against foreign aggression.Moreover, the ongoing air campaign has not – arguably, cannot – eliminate the most vital component of any nuclear weapons programme anywhere: knowledge.Uranium enrichment facilities and centrifuges can be destroyed, but the human capital underpinning Iran’s nuclear effort – its army of scientists, engineers, technicians and decades of accumulated expertise – remains largely intact. This intangible reservoir of know-how remains far more resilient than physical infrastructure. Once acquired, it cannot be bombed out of existence, and retains the latent capacity for reconstitution. And, in the end, Iran’s nuclear weapons programme depends more on expertise than on facilities, and cannot be irretrievably bombed away.Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, for instance, has warned that bombing raids on Iran “dramatically increased Tehran’s determination to achieve nuclear deterrence”. Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG), has cautioned that the country could rebuild its programme from bombed out rubble, with the explicit aim of fashioning a nuclear weapon, as a “means of deterrence“.Furthermore, James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, argued that the problem now facing the US and Israel is that Iran almost certainly retains fissile material and equipment dispersed in secret locations, with much of its nuclear capability likely surviving the strikes. He added that military action alone could not permanently eliminate Iran’s pathway to a bomb and runs the real risk of driving it not only underground, but also forward.Similarly, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago warned, just last month, that the bombing risked nudging Iran’s “threshold” nuclear posture – meaning a state that already possesses the material, technology and expertise to build weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) on short notice, but had not yet assembled one – towards actual weaponisation, as its deterrence logic hardened further under sustained attack.A recent study by the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington also noted that while physical damage had been significant across Iran, the underlying motivations driving its nuclear ambitions persisted intact.Likewise, Reuters’ analyses note that while the war and targeted assassinations had fractured Iran’s leadership, they had simultaneously radicalised its remnants – consolidating authority in the hands of hard-line actors and intensifying a sense of strategic siege.The killings of senior Iranian figures, including military officials and close aides of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, on February 28, were intended as decapitation strikes but instead triggered a rally-around-the-flag effect, hardening ideological resolve and narrowing space for moderation. Cornered, the regime’s incentives, the analysis argued, had shifted toward survival through irreversible deterrence – turning nuclear pursuit from a choice into an existential guarantee.Other assessments by Western media like Time magazine and the UK’s Guardian newspaper concluded that the ongoing military strikes “could well result in the unintended consequence” of pushing Iran towards developing a nuclear weapon. A range of Western and European intelligence assessments accessed online have warned that military action risked “driving Iran closer to the bomb” and pushing its nuclear programme further underground rather than eliminating it.Meanwhile, at the technical level, the bombings appear to have been less decisive than initially claimed by Washington and Tel Aviv. Online research has revealed that despite repeated strikes on Iran’s known nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, large quantities of its highly enriched uranium, enriched previously, still remain unaccounted for – safely buried, but presumably recoverable.Estimates from international monitors and analysts suggest that Iran still possesses 400-450 kilograms (about 0.4–0.45 tonnes) of uranium enriched to around 60%, a level far above civilian requirements, and only a short technical step away from the roughly 90% needed for weapons-grade material. Prior to the latest round of strikes, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported similar figures, and while some stock may have been damaged, most Western experts believe a significant portion remained intact.Reports further indicate that much of this stockpile of fissile material has likely been secreted away in hardened underground facilities and tunnels in Iran’s vast mountainous regions, designed to withstand airstrikes, including advanced US-origin bunker-buster munitions. To further complicate detection and targeting, analysts believe that ‘decoy caches’ and duplicate storage sites have also been created, making it far more difficult to identify the actual nuclear-reactive stash and ensuring its survivability even in the event of a ground operation aimed at locating it.One of the original signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, signing it in 1968 and ratifying it when the treaty entered into force in 1970, Iran is presently signalling that it may walk away from the pact. Recent debates within Iran’s parliament and strategic community – especially after repeated strikes on its nuclear infrastructure and mounting tensions with the US and Israel – have revived calls to withdraw from the treaty altogether.A potential exit would be a major escalation. Withdrawal would free Iran from International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and legal constraints on weaponization, effectively removing the last formal barrier between its “threshold” status and an overt nuclear weapons programme. At the same time, Iranian officials argue that the treaty has failed to guarantee their security and has instead exposed them to surveillance and repeated attacks by the US.Scenarios involving ground operations by the US and Israel are under consideration. In support of such contingencies, several thousand US military personnel have been deployed to the Gulf region, including Marines, Navy SEALs, Rangers and other elite special forces, including specialised teams trained for nuclear operations. These include dedicated Nuclear Disablement Teams (NDTs) of the Army’s 20th CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives) Command, whose mission is to identify, secure and disable nuclear and radiological material in high-risk environments.Yet, experts said that even with such formidable capabilities, these missions would demand prolonged access, secure territory and extensive logistical support – conditions unlikely to be achieved across Iran’s hostile and fortified terrain manned by tens of thousands of Revolutionary Guard personnel.In conclusion, the ultimate irony in the unending US-Israel campaign is that it was launched arbitrarily to eliminate the threat of a nuclear Iran, but may end up achieving just the opposite. Rather than curbing Iran’s ambitions to secure WMDs, the war seems to have intensified them –strategically, politically and psychologically. Meanwhile, the US continues to hold the region and the world to ransom, making the challenge more urgent and more dangerous.