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Could boots on the ground be the only way to fully eliminate Iran's nuclear threat?

On 20 March 2026, All Israel News, an Israeli English-language outlet, published Maayan Hoffman's analysis Could boots on the ground be the only way to fully eliminate Iran's nuclear threat?. The piece argues that bombs may not be enough to find Iran's enriched uranium, and that American and Israeli troops might have to go in and get it. An American family should care because a named analyst is saying their soldiers may be sent onto Iranian ground for a nuclear stockpile, and a US senator, quoted on the same page, says there will be no invasion.

Background for new readers: On 28 February 2026 the United States and Israel began a joint air war on Iran. The Pentagon calls its part Operation Epic Fury; Israel calls its part Operation Roaring Lion. It came eight months after a shorter war in June 2025, when US bombers hit Iran's nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The question running through this section is whether the air war turns into American soldiers fighting on Iranian soil. This article is filed under Israeli Press on US Ground Troops; the full article index lists every article on this shelf.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. A named analyst, Dr. Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, makes the case for troops, as Maayan Hoffman reports in All Israel News; the same page quotes Senator Lindsey Graham. The rating covers those quoted statements.

What the article says​

Hoffman writes that weeks of war had been visible as explosions and airstrikes, and that one threat was still buried. She writes that Israel and the United States may need troops in Iran to locate and remove uranium enriched to 60 percent, a much higher concentration than power-plant fuel. She says the exact location was still unverified. She attributes that judgment to Diker.

The article says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the foreign press in Israel, on the Thursday before publication, that Iran could no longer enrich uranium for weapons and could no longer produce ballistic missiles. Hoffman notes that this does not mean Iran cannot use what it already has. She points to missiles still being fired at Israel and at Gulf states.

Hoffman writes that President Donald Trump had not ruled out ground forces, and that both leaders had said the war ends only when its goals are met. Diker, she reports, said the enriched uranium is believed to be under the Isfahan nuclear site or a similar site, and that it would be hard to destroy, remove, or secure without troops. He said it is about the size of a refrigerator and could fuel many nuclear devices, and that it had not been destroyed yet.

"You can't bomb it into smithereens. You've got to locate it. It's only the size of a refrigerator, but it can actually fuel numerous nuclear devices."

Dr. Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, quoted by Maayan Hoffman in All Israel News on 20 March 2026.

Diker also pointed to Kharg Island, the island the article says handles about 90 percent of Iran's oil exports, and to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow sea lane those exports pass through. Hoffman writes that he called a deployment to the strait or to Kharg a "very strong possibility," especially after US and Israeli strikes on military targets there.

Hoffman cites a precedent Diker offered. In 2007, she writes, Israel sent its Shaldag special-forces unit to a Syrian nuclear reactor. Diker said that unit was on the ground in Syria, killing North Korean scientists and security people and destroying the reactor. That is Diker's account, as Hoffman reports it. This page does not treat that 2007 claim as settled.

The article then prints a direct denial. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, told the television host Sean Hannity: "No, we're not going to invade Iran. There's no reason to."

Hoffman writes that Diker still said Trump had not ruled out short, limited missions, and that Trump wanted to avoid a long war like Iraq or Afghanistan. She quotes Diker on the image of Afghans hanging on a transport plane, which he called a picture of defeat that Trump wants to avoid.

She writes that if the United States did send troops into Iran, it would be unlikely to go alone, and that Israel would likely join. She adds that some minority communities inside Iran could field fighters, and that Iranian Kurdish groups based in Iraq had said they would enter Iran and fight if they were given arms. Those are the article's claims, attributed to those groups and to the analysis.

Hoffman says further US Marines and warships were reported heading to the region the week before, including roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines on several ships, which she says raised the chance of a ground operation within weeks. She notes Israel's ground operation in Lebanon and its war in Gaza as context.

Diker, she writes, acknowledged that troops would bring a cost, including Israeli and American casualties. The article says no Israeli soldiers had been killed in Iran since the war began, and that at least 13 American service members had been killed in the wider conflict.

The article describes what it calls targeted assassinations of senior Iranian officials, including people in the government, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Basij. Hoffman writes that these strikes are aimed at weakening the regime and at stirring unrest. She attributes to Diker the view that removing officials who put down the January protests could bring people back into the streets. She quotes Netanyahu saying one goal is "creating the conditions for the Iranian people to grasp their freedom, to control their destiny." Diker is quoted saying there is, for the first time in 47 years, a real prospect of getting rid of the regime. Hoffman closes by saying that what cannot be destroyed from the air may have to be secured on the ground.

What other reporting adds​

Graham said it more than once. On NBC's Meet the Press at the start of the war, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said: "There will be no American boots on the ground. This is not Iraq. This is not Germany. This is not Japan." (Newsweek, 2 March 2026; research capture: twitter/t52__v618.md).

The same argument Diker makes, from 2025. During the June 2025 war, an account relaying Axios, citing an unnamed senior US official, wrote that Israeli officials told the Trump administration "that while they may not be able to reach deep enough into the mountain with bombs, they may 'do it with humans.'" (MonitorX on X, 19 June 2025; the Axios article itself was not captured; research capture: twitter/t13__v145.md). That is anonymous and secondhand. It is the earliest version in the captures of the idea that an underground nuclear site might need people, not bombs.

The same idea from Netanyahu, later. On CBS's 60 Minutes in May 2026, Netanyahu said the uranium "has to be taken out of Iran," and when asked how: "You go in, and you take it out." (CBS News transcript, 10 May 2026; research capture: twitter/t13__v145.md).

Kurdish fighters, as reported. Diker's point that Iranian Kurdish groups offered to fight appears elsewhere in the captures as a claim that Trump refused a Kurdish offer of "boots on the ground." That claim comes from commentator Webster Tarpley, who gave no source (research captures: twitter/t52__v614.md, twitter/t52__v616.md).

What it shows​

An Israeli analyst told an Israeli outlet that the uranium cannot be bombed "into smithereens" and that troops must go in and get it, with Kharg Island and the strait "a very strong possibility." On the same page, Senator Lindsey Graham said "No, we're not going to invade Iran." Set that denial beside the record: Graham had said on 1 March "There will be no American boots on the ground," then posted on 19 March "He who controls Kharg Island, controls the destiny of this war. Semper Fi." Within weeks CNN reported a US ground mission for the uranium prepared and then paused. See Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid and No Boots on the Ground.

Check it yourself​

Status: Dan Diker is alive. Benjamin Netanyahu is alive. Donald Trump is alive. Sean Hannity is alive. Maayan Hoffman is alive. Lindsey Graham: Unknown (several July 2026 posts and one Tablet Magazine column report his death; not confirmed by a primary source in this record).

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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