A US nuclear strike on Iran's underground facilities could turn into a wider regional war by provoking Iranian retaliation against American bases, Israel and Western warships, leaving the US struggling to contain the escalation.

Brazil-based defense analyst Patricia Marins raised that scenario in an interview with Press TV, arguing that nuclear use would overturn the limits observed in earlier exchanges. Her warning is an assessment of possible escalation, not evidence that Washington has decided to use nuclear weapons.

The immediate backdrop is renewed US pressure on Kolang Mountain, also known as Pickaxe Mountain, an underground complex near Natanz. Trump recently named it among remaining targets and claimed the US could strike quickly. But threatening a mountain facility says little about whether an attack could destroy its contents or prevent retaliation.

A nuclear attack could endanger people and agriculture beyond the target itself. The scale would depend on the weapon and circumstances, but describing such an operation as a strike on one installation cannot establish that its consequences would stay inside that perimeter.

In that scenario, retaliation could extend from Israel and US regional bases to American naval forces and European vessels if their governments supported another attack. These are possible escalation paths, not an announced Iranian targeting plan, but they would expose the forces supporting an attack to the consequences of carrying it out.

Claims that Iran may already possess a nuclear weapon remain unverified, with no evidence presented to establish a consensus among nuclear specialists. Gaps in international inspections create uncertainty about nuclear material and activities; they do not establish that Iran has built a bomb or can launch a nuclear counterattack.

Russian and Chinese diplomatic backing offers no automatic guarantee of protection against another attack. The practical danger for the US is that destroying an underground target would not necessarily eliminate Iran’s ability to retaliate.

Any calculation of military success would have to account for the exposure of American bases, ships and allied forces after the first strike.

***