FORDOW & Qom: unstable elements
Author's Note: The logistical estimates presented below are not based upon official government planning documents. They are order-of-magnitude calculations derived from publicly available information regarding strategic airlift, heavy excavation projects, temporary base construction, manpower requirements, and nuclear-material recovery operations. The purpose is not to predict an exact outcome, but to illustrate the scale of effort that a hypothetical Fordow excavation and uranium-removal project might entail.
Dust Up and Dire Straits
by James A. Bridge III
June 4, 2026—Just under 25 miles away from the Fordow complex, epicenter of Operation “Midnight Hammer”, lies one of the holiest cities in Muslim orthodoxy: Qom.
When the Islamic Republic began its nuclear program, I discussed with friends the underlying, though apparent, message to the world of Unbelievers. We will have an Islam bomb! It was a terrifying thought decades ago, and many of us are thankful that our President and his team were equally terrified and took action to interrupt the birth of what would be a monstrous invention in the hands of the leaders of the Muslim orthodox Islamic Republic and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
This collision of reality and Iranian Muslim orthodoxy occurs within the shadows of Qom.
Now after months of one-sided war, and stand-offs in the Straits of Hormuz, the discussions between the remnants of the Iranian government and President Trump center around the “dust”, or the enriched uranium buried in the Fordow Midnight Hammer strike, within 25 miles of Qom, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s holiest city. President Trump wants that enriched uranium removed from Iran. He has also quoted the Iranians as saying that only China and the USA would have the infrastructure to tackle the excavation project.
What is the scope of that endeavor? We have examined the project and have made some guesses to give it shape and size through time. But first, to Qom.
Qom: The Spiritual Heart of Shi'a Iran
Qom lies about 90 miles (145 km) south of Tehran and is today regarded as one of the holiest cities in Shi'a Islam. Its religious importance centers on the shrine of Fatima Masumeh, sister of the Eighth Imam, Ali al-Rida (Imam Reza). She died in Qom around 816 CE while traveling across Persia, and her tomb became a place of pilgrimage. Over the centuries, the shrine grew into one of the most revered sites in Shi'a Islam.
During the Safavid era (16th–18th centuries), when Shi'a Islam became the state religion of Persia, Qom expanded as a center of theology, pilgrimage, and clerical scholarship. By the early 1500s it had become one of the leading centers of Shi'a learning in the Persian world.
In the twentieth century, Qom emerged as the principal center of Shi'a seminaries (hawzas). The city became especially influential under Ayatollah Abdul Karim Haeri Yazdi and later Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. From Qom, Khomeini organized much of his opposition to the Shah before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Today, Qom hosts thousands of clerical students and numerous seminaries. It is widely viewed as one of the intellectual and spiritual centers of Twelver Shi'ism, drawing pilgrims and religious scholars from across Iran and the wider Shi'a world.
The United States and Israel have eviscerated the ability of the Islamic Republic largely to defend itself in the air or at sea. President Trump wants the nuclear dust remnants of the Midnight Hammer bombings removed. Iranian officials have indicated a willingness to discuss the issue. Yet months later, no Dust Deal has emerged. So, what is holding this whole thing up? “Just roll in and get the dust,” you say.
Let’s consider the Islamic Republic. These Iranian leaders are a hubris- and terror-driven class of people, which traits whip their Islamic fervor. Still, you muse, OK, but what is the problem? Why no deal?
Why? again you ask. Aside from the extant leaders of the Islamic Republic’s prideful refusal to admit defeat, getting that nuclear dust up and out of the country is a big deal, and twofold.
Qom’s Religious Status
First: Qom is a big deal. Fordow is buried in the mountains near Qom. But Qom itself is not merely a city. It is a shrine, a seminary, a pilgrimage destination, and for nearly half a century one of the principal sources of religious legitimacy for the Islamic Republic, and whose clerics, like the great leader of the Islamic Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini, issue fatwas, or religious executive orders to the Islamic world. One such order was Khomeini’s death sentence pronounced on Salman Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses (buy⇒ https://tinyurl.com/Rushdie-Verses).
But Qom is not simply a city where fatwas are issued. It is arguably the most influential Shi'a jurisprudential center in the world. For a century, its seminaries have trained clerics who have gone on to shape religious thought, political doctrine, and state policy across Iran and throughout much of the Shi'a world.
Second: what would be required is a big deal.
Fordow City
Number One, timeline. We estimate that the excavation couldn’t be complete before 120 days, NOT including a certain 30-60 day excavation camp construction, assuming an all-hands-on-deck, 24/7 effort. Easily six months of noisy, Unbeliever-victor activity, within occasional earshot. This would be a daily provocation, all by itself, at the foot of the holiest city in the Islamic Republic liturgy.
Number Two, military presence. Unbeliever military forces in Holy Shi’a territory will certainly be an enormous provocation to adherents of the IRGC. We project the need for a brigade of Marines–3,000 men—and four helicopters, to protect the sizable project workforce. Resupply will be via Turkey or sea. That large force must land and bivouac an area that will frame the excavation area. They will be accompanied by a construction force that will create housing and protection for a mixed community of excavators and U.S. Marines. An aircraft carrier group would most likely remain until the last equipment is airlifted out of Iran.
Third, size of the real project. Once “Project Dust” is agreed to, a 30 to 60-day landing and construction period will ensue. To be built, “Fordow City”:
Several hundred modular housing units or tents
Large dining halls
Administrative buildings
Storage compounds
& Utility corridors
Phase Two will be the arrival of all miners and mining equipment. An estimate of necessary equipment is:
C-17 Globemaster III trips 60 - 90
Heavy-haul tractor trucks 25
Lowboy trailers 25
Fuel tankers 8
Maintenance/service trucks 8Personnel vans/buses 8
Hydraulic excavators 10
Bulldozers 8
Wheel loaders 6
Articulated dump trucks 8
Rock drilling rigs 4
Mobile cranes 4
Generator trailers 10
Air compressors 8
Lighting towers 20
Water tankers 6
Survey vehicles/equipment 4 teams
Geotechnical drilling equipment 2 rigs
Tunnel inspection equipment 4 systems
Mobile command trailers 2
A full-scale effort involving both excavation machinery and the construction of a temporary support city for thousands of workers could require on the order of 60 to 90 C-17 strategic airlift sorties, representing one of the largest engineering deployments ever attempted in support of a damaged underground facility.
Thus, the rollout would be a continuous landing and offloading; first, the Marines and the construction team, as above, and then the establishment of “Fordow City”.
Phase Three will obviously be the excavation.
These 5,000 or so souls will require victuals. If we assume a 120-day project, the basic food requirements would be:
12 million gallons of water
150 tons of protein foods
450 tons of fruits and vegetables
Conclusion
The affront to the dignity of the leaders of the Islamic Republic in defeat is a heavy weight on the scale of negotiations. Pile on to that the humiliation of watching the victor, the Unbeliever Americans and the Israeli Jews, unearthing the holy ground near Qom, living Western-style in Fordow City. Add to that what will be the irresistible attraction of Americans and Jews amongst them to the Persian people as quasi-occupiers and liberators, all things that will militate against the Islamic Republic making that Dust Deal.
These are some, not all, of the unspoken factors holding up a US/Islamic Republic deal. Think of the 90 landings and equipment offloads at the IKA, US Marine escort vehicles and aircraft, leading toward Qom. Then, construction of an excavation compound; the arrival of up to 5,000 men and women; and the dirt-dive to find the buried enriched uranium, all over four to six months in-country. Think of the Surahs urging Muslims to support no Unbelievers (3:28; 5:51; 4:141) over Believers.
So we leave the matter with an open question: Can there be a “Dust Deal” with the Islamic Republic?
We’re thinking, “No.”
That, for them, would be “Dust in the Wind.”