President Donald Trump on Monday declared the United States would “take” the country’s enriched uranium if necessary.  Speaking at the White House, Trump insisted Iran “will not have a nuclear weapon,” adding that Washington would recover the material “either… from them or we’ll take it.”

The remark came just days after high-stakes negotiations between U.S. and Iranian officials in Pakistan collapsed without agreement, with disputes over uranium enrichment and control of nuclear stockpiles at the center of the impasse.

The breakdown in diplomacy has refocused attention on a more difficult question: while U.S. airpower can degrade nuclear infrastructure, it cannot easily secure the nuclear material itself.

Airstrikes vs. control on the ground

U.S. and Israeli strikes have targeted key facilities, including Natanz nuclear facility, Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant and Isfahan nuclear facility. Administration officials have described the operations as highly successful, with Trump claiming enrichment installations were “obliterated.”

But defense and nonproliferation experts caution that destroying centrifuges and infrastructure is fundamentally different from controlling fissile material, particularly when that material is stored underground in hardened or mobile configurations.

Iran is believed to possess a sizable stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, just below weapons-grade. Analysts say that material, if further enriched, could significantly shorten the timeline to a nuclear weapon.

Kelsey Davenport of the Arms Control Association said securing that stockpile would likely require a large-scale ground operation — a far more complex and risky undertaking than airstrikes.

“It’s not even clear the United States knows where all of the uranium is,” Davenport noted, pointing to the possibility that some material could be moved in transportable containers or concealed within Iran’s network of underground facilities.

The limits of military force

Even if U.S. forces could locate the material, extracting or neutralizing it presents technical and safety challenges.

Enriched uranium is often stored as uranium hexafluoride gas in sealed cylinders. If those containers are breached, the material can pose serious chemical hazards, complicating any military effort to secure it. While experts say a conventional strike would not trigger a nuclear explosion, dispersal could contaminate surrounding areas and hinder recovery operations.

Former defense official Chuck DeVore argued that directly targeting the stockpile is unlikely to be a near-term priority, particularly given the risks of environmental contamination and the difficulty of striking deeply buried sites.

“You don’t want to release the material into the surrounding areas,” he said, adding that underground facilities remain difficult to penetrate even with advanced munitions.

Instead, the current military campaign has focused heavily on degrading Iran’s missile capabilities — an effort administration officials say is designed to weaken Tehran’s deterrence and limit its ability to shield a potential nuclear breakout.

Still, analysts emphasize that suppressing missile systems and securing nuclear material are distinct challenges with different operational requirements.

Diplomacy or occupation

At the core of the debate is a stark reality: physically controlling enriched uranium typically requires sustained access to facilities, precise accounting of materials and, in most cases, cooperation from the host country.

Experts say the most viable pathway remains a return to international monitoring, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency, coupled with “downblending” — a process that reduces uranium enrichment levels to make the material unsuitable for weapons use.

That approach, however, depends on political conditions that currently do not exist.

Absent a diplomatic breakthrough, the alternatives are limited: a large-scale ground operation to seize the material, or continued reliance on airpower to contain — but not fully eliminate — the threat.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)