The United States dropped some of the largest bombs in its arsenal on three nuclear sites in Iran, President Donald Trump announced Saturday night, bringing the U.S. military directly into Israel’s war with Iran, and once again into the battles for influence in the Middle East.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media site.
He added that a “full payload” of bombs had been dropped on Fordo, the heavily fortified underground facility where Iran has produced near-bomb-grade uranium, leading to fears that it could be on the cusp of building nuclear weapons. “All planes are safely on their way home,” Trump wrote.
The three sites that the president said were hit also included Natanz, Iran’s other major uranium enrichment center, which Israel struck several days ago with smaller weapons. The third site, near the ancient city of Isfahan, is where Iran is believed to keep its near-bomb-grade enriched uranium and to have carried out critical research work that, intelligence agencies believe, would enable it to produce a nuclear weapon — though there is debate over how long that would take.
Administration officials said on the condition of anonymity, given the sensitive nature of the information, that a number of American B-2 bombers were used to strike Fordo and that multiple 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs were dropped. Initial damage assessments indicated that the facility had been “taken off the table,” one official said.
The B-2s are the only American warplanes that can carry the “bunker buster” bombs that can penetrate the mountain protecting the Fordo site. That bomb, called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, was designed with Iran’s under-the-mountain enrichment center in mind.
It was not immediately clear how many bombs were dropped on Fordo; U.S. war plans called for up to seven. Nor was it clear whether other types of American warplanes were used in the strikes.
The attack on the sites is the first time since the Islamic Revolution, in 1979, that the United States has sent its Air Force to strike major facilities inside the country, an act of war. But Trump has now inserted the U.S. military directly into an open conflict with Iran, a scenario that U.S. presidents dating to Jimmy Carter have tried to avoid.
After weeks of internal debate and attempts to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, Trump concluded that the United States could no longer remain on the sidelines. It was a striking decision for a president who had long vowed to avoid American involvement in overseas “forever wars,” but who had come under immense pressure from Israel and some of his advisers, who believed that Iran was close to constructing a nuclear weapon.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the most vocal Iran defense hawks on Capitol Hill, celebrated the strike, writing in a social media post that it was “the right call.” Graham had been in regular contact with Trump to argue in favor of strikes. “The regime deserves it,” he said in his post Saturday.
But some members of Congress criticized the Trump administration for not seeking congressional approval before U.S. troops engaged in attacks against Iran. “This is not constitutional,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who cosponsored a resolution attempting to block any military action in Iran without authorization from Congress.
Iran built the heart of the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant deep inside a mountain to shield it from potential attacks. The enrichment facilities were at least 300 feet below ground, but a mountain looming above gave them far more protection. Israel does not possess weapons capable of breaking through the rock, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pressed a series of U.S. presidents to use the United States’ arsenal to take out Fordo. Only Trump agreed.
The bombing run carried risks, including that the bombers could be shot down and pilots taken captive. That would have been a public relations victory for Iran and an embarrassment for a country whose citizens are largely averse to sacrificing U.S. personnel in foreign lands. But it appeared that outcome had been avoided.
Another risk was that the bombs could fail to penetrate the thick layers of concrete protecting Fordo, leaving it intact.
Iran has vowed that, if attacked by U.S. forces, it would strike back, presumably against the U.S. bases spread around the Middle East. In anticipation of such a response, the Trump administration had begun evacuating family members of military personnel in the region, as well as some staff at the embassies in Jerusalem and Baghdad.
Iran did not issue an immediate response to the bombings. But a high-ranking official had earlier warned on state television that if Trump entered the war, Iran would strike U.S. military bases, blow up naval mines in the Persian Gulf and move to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping line. Iran can create havoc in global energy movement if it disrupts security in the Persian Gulf. About 20 million barrels of crude oil and oil products move through the Strait of Hormuz each day.
Before he issued the order to strike, Trump and his diplomats had been urging Iran to agree to end uranium enrichment, in two months of negotiations. But several weeks ago, Iran rejected a proposal that Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, had sent. It would have enabled Iran to enrich uranium only as part of a multination consortium, and only outside Iranian soil.
United Nations inspectors recently concluded that Iran had dramatically increased its enrichment of near-bomb-grade uranium. But there is disagreement over how close it was to being able to take the final steps toward creating a weapon.
“Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on June 16. Later in the week, Trump said he was giving Iran a deadline to negotiate before deciding whether to intervene military.
“I’m giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum,” he said Friday.
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Iran has been under constant bombardment from Israel since June 13, after Netanyahu declared that Israel had discovered an “imminent” threat of Iran turning its fuel stockpile into weapons. Israel’s airstrikes to Iran’s military and nuclear operations have killing several high-ranking commanders and scientists, hobbled Iran’s air defenses and damaged some of its nuclear facilities.
Israel has also struck at Iran’s oil and gas facilities, the lifeblood of its economy, as well as the state TV headquarters, in an attempt to weaken the government. Both Netanyahu and Trump have mused publicly about the possibility of assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, a threat the ayatollah has taken seriously enough to go into hiding and to name three potential successors.
Iran has responded to Israel’s assault with its own daily missile attacks, including against population centers like Tel Aviv. Israel’s vaunted “Iron Dome” missile defense system has intercepted most, but not all, of the missiles. In all, the Israeli strikes have killed more than 400 people in Iran, according to the country’s Health Ministry, and at least 3,000 people have been wounded. Iran’s strikes have killed at least 24 people, according to the Israeli government, and caused more than 1,217 injuries.
While the continued assaults were seen as putting pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program, the country has dug in, saying that it would not negotiate while it was under attack from Israel. European diplomats met with Iran’s foreign minister Friday to try to break the stalemate, but Trump dismissed the talks as a waste of time.
While Trump had left the door open for a deal between the United States and Iran, it remains to be seen whether the bombing raid on Fordo may have closed it for good.
With nuclear facilities at Natanz and Isfahan already having been damaged in Israeli strikes — to what extent is not entirely clear — Fordo, about 60 miles south of the capital, Tehran, and near the city of Qom, would be the most important piece standing in Iran’s known nuclear program. In recent years, it has become Iran’s main enrichment facility.
But it is not clear how much damage a strike on Fordo would do to Iran’s nuclear capabilities, or how long it would delay the development of a weapon. Iran’s current stockpile of near-bomb-grade enriched uranium is also hidden in tunnels at different locations in the country. It was last seen by inspectors at Isfahan.
The Fordo nuclear site contains thousands of Iran’s most advanced centrifuges and is considered crucial for Iran to enrich uranium to 60%, a level from which enrichment to bomb grade — 90% or higher — can be relatively rapid. The government in Tehran kept the facility secret for years, but its existence emerged in Western intelligence and Iran formally disclosed the site in 2009.
In March 2023, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, reported that it had discovered uranium that had been enriched to 83.7% purity at Fordo.
For years, Israel has viewed an assault on Fordo as central to its goal of destroying Iran’s ability to acquire nuclear weapons, something that Netanyahu has called an existential threat to his country.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Source: The Garden Island
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