U.S. Bombs Three Iranian Nuke Sites

WaPo (“U.S. warplanes strike three Iranian nuclear sites in sweeping attack“):

The U.S. military carried out sweeping strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, President Donald Trump said late Saturday, marking a major escalation for his administration that tethers the United States directly to a conflict with no clear outcome or end in sight.

The president said in a social media post that U.S. warplanes had carried out a “very successful attack” on three sites, including the subterranean Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, a key target that Trump had openly deliberated striking for days.

“A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow,” Trump said. “All planes are safely on the way home.”

At the White House later in the evening, Trump threatened more attacks on Iran if it decides to retaliate.

“This cannot continue,” Trump said. “There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last days,” he added, referring in part to attacks that Israel has carried out on Iran.

Trump, flanked by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, said other targets will be easier to hit if the U.S. strikes again.

WSJ (“U.S. Strikes ‘Obliterated’ Iran’s Nuclear Sites, Trump Says”):

The U.S. struck three nuclear sites in Iran, joining Israel’s attacks against Tehran’s nuclear program and risking further escalation of the conflict.

President Trump, speaking to the nation late Saturday, called the strikes “a spectacular military success” and said Iran’s nuclear sites were “completely and totally obliterated.” Trump had ordered the attack abruptly, hoping it would catch Tehran off guard.

The sites attacked—Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan—represent the core of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. ​The U.S. bombers that attacked the nuclear sites dropped bunker-busting bombs called GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators for the first time in warfare.

While the attack had been signaled for days, many thought it was a bluff to pressure Iran to make concessions. The “two week” window was seen as a tell. Instead, it was misdirection.

I’m not shocked that President Trump made the call to bomb the sites, but I’m definitely surprised by the scope of the attack. Reportedly, multiple MOPs were dropped on Natanz and some combination of MOPs and TLAMs were fired on the other sites. If an attack was going to happen, a massive one makes sense: there can be no doubt that this sets Iran’s program back considerably.

[UPDATED TO ADD: The demonstration effects are worth noting as well. These bombers reportedly flew 36 hours from their base in Missouri, requiring several mid-air refuelings, and were able to carry out this mission seemingly flawlessly. And we’ve just tested our most powerful conventional bomb, multiple times, against real targets.]

As always, though, the question is What now?

How does Iran respond? They’ve threatened to attack US military personnel stationed in the region. Thankfully, their regional proxies have been weakened considerably by Israeli actions over the past few months and the IRGC has been decapitated. Still, Iran is a powerful country and they will surely need to retalliate for this humiliation.

The Atlantic‘s Tom Nichols, who in a previous life was a Cold War nuclear weapons expert (“The United States Bombed Iran. What Comes Next?”):

So what’s next? Before considering the range of possibilities, it’s important to recognize how much we cannot know at this moment. The president’s statement tonight was a farrago of contradictions: He said, for example, that the main Iranian nuclear sites were “completely and totally obliterated”—but it will take time to assess the damage, and he has no way of knowing this. He claimed that the Iranian program has been destroyed—but added that there are still “many targets” left. He said that Iran could suffer even more in the coming days—but the White House has reportedly assured Iran through back channels that these strikes were, basically, a one-and-done, and that no further U.S. action is forthcoming.

[…]

Only one outcome is certain: Hypocrisy in the region and around the world will reach galactic levels as nations wring their hands and silently pray that the B-2s carrying the bunker-buster bombs did their job.

Beyond that, the most optimistic view is that the introduction of American muscle into this war will produce a humiliating end to Iran’s long-standing nuclear ambitions, enable more political disorder in Iran, and finally create the conditions for the fall of the mullahs. This may have been the Israeli plan from the start: Despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warnings about the imminence of an Iranian nuclear-weapons capability and the need to engage in preemption, this was a preventive war. The Israelis could not destroy sites such as Fordow without the Americans. Israeli military actions suggest that Netanyahu was trying to increase the chances of regime change in Tehran while making a side bet on dragging Trump into the fray and outsourcing the tougher nuclear targets to the United States.

The very worst outcome is the polar opposite of the optimistic case. In this bleak alternative, the Air Force either didn’t find, or couldn’t destroy, all of the key parts of the Iranian program; the Iranians then try to sprint across the finish line to a bomb. In the meantime, Tehran lashes out against U.S. targets in the region and closes the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian opposition fades in importance as angry Iranian citizens take their government’s part.

One dangerous possibility in this pessimistic scenario is that the Iranians do real damage to American assets or kill a number of U.S. servicepeople, and Trump, confused and enraged, tries to widen his war against a country more than twice the size of Iraq.

The President has taken a huge gamble. We’ll soon find out how well he and his team assessed the risks and planned for them.