Resolves YES if at the end of July, to my judgment, the consensus of reporting indicates that it is more likely than not that the Iranian nuclear site of Fordow has been put out of commission, through air strikes, sabotage, etc.
Inspired by @PeterWildeford ’s blog post:
and reporting from mainstream media such as Axios:
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/14/iran-nuclear-facilities-fordow-israel-strike
Update 2025-06-14 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): A commitment or deal to put Fordow out of commission is not sufficient for a YES resolution. There must be consensus reporting that the site is actually out of commission (e.g. "Fordow has halted centrifuges and is under UN monitoring currently").
Update 2025-06-15 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): A distinction is made between the plant being out of commission versus being temporarily paused during negotiations.
An example of what would likely resolve YES is reporting that it is “confirmed by UN inspectors that no enrichment is currently taking place”.
An example of what would resolve NO is reporting that “Iran has said they will pause enrichment while brokering a ceasefire”.
Update 2025-06-15 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to a question about a potential deal for Iran to dismantle the facility, the creator clarified:
There would be a high bar for a YES resolution in such a scenario.
A deal to stop using or dismantle the facility is not sufficient on its own.
Resolution requires literal reporting that the facility has been decommissioned.
@PaulHabermas But see also: https://www.axios.com/2025/06/25/iran-nuclear-program-israel-damage-intelligence
“An Israeli official with direct knowledge of intelligence on Iran told Axios that intercepted communications suggest Iranian military officials have been giving false situation reports to the country's political leadership — downplaying the extent of the damage.”
The company says several excavators and bulldozers are seen moving dirt.
It says efforts are underway to repair the main access road to the nuclear facility.
Brett McGurk yesterday on the impact of the strikes: https://x.com/brett_mcgurk/status/1938647290916544560
How much damage would that amount of overpressure cause?
Found this: https://x.com/DanLinnaeus/status/1938015187321205227 very neat analysis. I'm discounting the structural advantages of Fordow which work to limit the effect of over pressure. The linear attack pattern at Natanz leads me to believe the US had a systematic understanding of the inside of the structure and the munitions were deployed in a way that maximized local overpressure effects to disable functional capabilities. Overpressure makes this a likely yes for me.
Do we have evidence of overpressure damage?
On the equipment directly? No. Can we infer it based off the discoloration from imagery? I think absolutely yes. Overpressure causes material to shoot out from the chamber. I suspect that's what the discoloration is caused by.
How much blast damage could that munition cause?
420,000 pounds of explosives across the total strike? That's a lot, but they shot it into a mountain. I've seen imagery from one of the sites that seemed to show blast effects across a 200m diameter. I don't think this is the primary destructive effect.
Do we have evidence of blast damage?
At Fordow? Tough to tell from imagery. Lots of discoloration.
What level of damage would be caused by destroying the ventilation shafts?
I think the primary purpose for targeting ghe ventilation shafts is that it's a route to the underground structure. I think potential destruction caused by obstructing them is kind of a bonus. I honestly don't know how their destruction would impact the other parts of the structure, but they surely built them for a reason.
Did American munitions hit their targets?
Seems like a clear yes.
Is Iran's 15,000 psi resistant concrete sufficient to limit all types of damage?
Well damn GBU's weren't even tested on concrete that can withstand that kind of pressure. Though, it sure looks like the US was able to throw munitions at exactly the same spot so I'm discounting the relevance of this concrete strength. Though it works against the likelihood a bit.
How fast would Iran even want to restart operations?
This is a hard one the answer. On the one side, Iran likely wants to do whatever it can to avoid continued conflict. They had a significant amount of their missile capabilities destroyed and I don't think they are eager for continued violence. Also, the promise of loosening sanctions on oil for sale to China seems not insignificant. On the other hand, hardliners in Iran were just handed a very compelling argument for why the country should pursue a nuclear weapon as soon as possible. I think these two competing points work this factor out to a wash.
How fast could Iran restart operations?
Well as much as building under a mountain makes a facility more secure. It also takes more time. They'll have to excavate at least some portions of the facility to get access. Also, there will likely be a decent chunk of time spent inspecting the facility to make sure they understand the structural damage. This question of course incorporates all the other questions. To see them up and running by the end of next month? I don't think so.
@lokihowl I don't think they'll want to restart Fordow as they have even larger and deeper brand new site on the south.
The current state of reporting seems to err on the side of Fordow being out of commission, with significant uncertainty. Since the criteria is "more likely than not", I think that's enough for YES assuming no more information comes out.
NYTimes leading with a quote saying they are not operational is actually more confident than I'd expect. NPR to me gives the impression that it's inoperable as well.
@Sketchy If they did months of damage, I think it'll still be down. If they did weeks of damage, I think it'll be up. But that distinction plus the lingering short term lack of clarity is enough for me to leave my last couple orders up.
Preliminary intelligence assessments suggest the US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities caused serious damage to the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP). The New York Times published a June 25 report on a leaked, low-confidence US intelligence assessment of the recent US strikes on the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. The New York Times and other Western media outlets cite very little direct information from the report. Unspecified sources, in their characterization of the assessment, said that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessed that the US and Israeli strikes. Unspecified officials added that the findings indicated that US bunker-buster bombs sealed entrances to two unspecified nuclear sites but failed to “collapse their underground buildings.”
The destruction of the centrifuges and equipment inside does not necessarily require the collapse of the facility itself. The Institute of Science and International Security, a nuclear nonproliferation think tank that has long studied the Iranian nuclear program, assessed that it was very likely the strikes destroyed or damaged most of the centrifuges at Fordow on the basis of the impact locations and the effects of the blast waves. It is notable in the context of the leaked US assessments that the Institute did not assess the damage on the basis of whether facilities “collapsed.” This is consistent with claims by other unspecified officials to the New York Times, who said that the Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan nuclear facilities had all suffered “moderate to severe damage.” CTP-ISW has no basis for forming an independent assessment of the damage from US and Israeli strikes at these three nuclear facilities. Early Israeli assessments placed more confidence in the damage to enrichment facilities. The Israel Atomic Energy Commission separately assessed that the US strike on Fordow destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and "rendered the enrichment facility inoperable." US President Donald Trump told reporters on June 25 that Israeli agents concluded that Fordow suffered ”total obliteration” after visiting the site, suggesting that Israeli assessments have been formed with intelligence collected by Israeli agents in Iran.
A conclusive battle damage assessment of nuclear facilities will take time, given the buried nature of Iran’s nuclear sites and limited on-site access. A US nuclear weapons expert stated on June 24 that US and Israeli strikes likely destroyed 20,000 centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow and severely damaged weaponization infrastructure. The expert stated that the early, low-confidence assessment ”focused too narrowly” on breakout timelines. Breakout refers to the time required to enrich 90 percent enriched uranium (also known as weapons-grade uranium). Weaponization requires one to build nuclear weapons. Axios reported on June 25 that intercepted communications suggested Iranian military officials have delivered false situation reports to senior Iranian leaders to downplay the extent of the damage, citing an unspecified Israeli source. This fact is notable because the leaked US intelligence assessment reportedly relied in part upon signals intelligence.
-- ISW
Axios
Israeli intelligence services believe U.S. and Israeli strikes caused "very significant" damage to Iran's nuclear facilities, with some officials perplexed by a leaked U.S. intelligence report that suggested otherwise, Axios' Barak Ravid and Zachary Basu write.
More Israeli assesments
I told @jaketapper that a senior Israeli intelligence official told me that other than the word "obliterated" the reality regarding the results of the attack on Iran is much closer to where Trump says it is that to where the initial DIA report said it was
As stated clearly in the criteria for this market, I will wait until the end of July to evaluate the consensus of reporting on this matter. Please do not take my inaction as evidence one way or another.
Breaking: Trump reveals that Israeli agents entered Fordow after the US strike
“Israel's guys went in there [Fordow] after the hit, and they said it was total obliteration”
@Emanuele1000 So,
Trump claims the site was completely destroyed soon after the attack, while the military guy standing beside him says the extent of the damage is not yet known.
CNN reports an internal US intelligence assessment says the bombing only set the nuclear program back a few months.
The Israelis are claimed (by Trump) to have gotten in and told Trump that the thing he made up on the spot is what they found. ?
This sounds to me like "many forecasters told me the path of the hurricane will be as I have depicted by defacing their forecast map with this sharpie".
@equinoxhq To me it seems like a case of “Trump doesn't understand the meaning of classified information.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html
The Peter Wildeford article says the US has the capability to destroy Fordow but not the political will. The US hit fordow with 12-14 of the bog bunker busters. Two per hole. The soil was disturbed in s 200 meter radius which indicates an underground blast of that radius. This market is said to be based upon that article. So the fact the US did what Peter was talking about would mean that this market should resolve YES IF this market was aligned with the source.
Military analysis compiled. Seems to indicate centrifuges were likely destroyed and other equipment underground. Israeli intelligence also dhow aerial photos of 17 moving trucks convoying in and out sine time before the U.S. strike. The military assessment is that the enriched uranium was taken. But the aerial footage suggests Mossad and Israel are tracking the uranium.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/intel-assessment-us-strikes-iran-nuclear-sites
Looks like you might have to judge whether "set it back by months" is "out of commission"...
@Driftloom these are absolutely not comparable images. The dots are the likely bomb entry points east of the building, which appears intact.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/22/world/middleeast/us-iran-nuclear-sites.html
@bens …what do you think it’s a picture of, then? What else did we plop half a dozen of the highest grade conventional MOPs in the world into? You can literally see the subsidence craters. It’s an underground facility.
@MachiNi Where are the underground facilities relative to the above-ground entry point? If the front door is standing, does it matter if the interior has been obliterated otherwise?
@Driftloom you’re changing the subject. You showed two pictures that don’t mean anything side by side. That’s all I’m disputing as evidence.
@MachiNi I’m considering the subject less narrowly than you are, but I’m not changing it. Regardless, the image set was considered salient enough to be released as a before-and-after by the NYT. It’s up to to the market to decide if we qgeee, isn’t it? (Edit- unable to re-locate original source, redacting claim.)
@MachiNi Okay, it’s moved past the free live coverage and I don’t subscribe to the NYT, so I’ll redact that claim in lieu of being able to support it this late.
@MachiNi Not particularly, knowing how MOPs work and what is generally known about the layout of Fordow. There is visible subsidence at the probable penetration sites, which are roughly colocated with suspected ventilation shafts. They didn’t kick the front door down, they dropped really big bombs down the chimney. Centrifuges present would be, if not obliterated, thoroughly wrecked by the vibration. The facility itself is certainly unusable at this point, and any materiel not removed from it in advance of the attack would be irretrievable either at all, or for at least months. To get the facility working again would be a matter of years.
Also, no need for incivility.
@MachiNi “yes and somehow it’s not as striking as your original comment is it?” struck me as a bit unnecessarily acidic. I am sure it was unintended, just noting it for your awareness.
@Driftloom yes, that’s much better. Look, for all I know Fordo may have been decommissioned. It’s plausible. I was just pointing out that the two frames were not evidence of that. That’s my only dispute.