The United States has launched airstrikes against Iran’s key nuclear enrichment sites, deploying B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to deliver previously unused 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs.
In a televised address late on 21 June, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed the attack, stating that the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, Natanz Nuclear Facility, and an unnamed site in Isfahan had been targeted using a combination of air-dropped GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) and Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from U.S. submarines.
President Trump claimed the operation was a “spectacular military success,” saying, “Fordow is gone… All planes are now outside of Iranian airspace. A full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site.” According to CNN, six B-2 bombers were involved, dropping a total of 12 MOPs on Fordow alone—delivering over 180 tonnes of ordnance.
This marks the first time the GBU-57 has been used in combat. The precision-guided bombs are designed to destroy deeply buried targets, such as fortified nuclear sites, and only the B-2 bomber is capable of carrying them.
The Pentagon has not yet released an official statement detailing the extent of damage, but Iranian state media confirmed that parts of the Fordow facility were hit at approximately 2:30 a.m. local time. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran described the strike as “a barbaric act that violated international law”, though it added that radiation monitoring showed no signs of contamination at the affected sites.
Iran’s Crisis Management Headquarters reported “no danger to the people of Qom and the surrounding area”, where Fordow is located.
Trump’s unilateral action drew mixed reactions in Washington. Most Congressional Republicans expressed support for the strikes, while many Democrats and some Republicans questioned their legality, arguing that the President had not obtained congressional authorisation for military action.
The broader international response has been one of concern, with analysts warning of unpredictable Iranian retaliation. The region had already been on high alert following Israeli airstrikes on 12 June. U.S. bases in the Middle East had been bracing for reprisals, and B-2 bombers were recently deployed to Guam in anticipation of potential operations.
Despite earlier signals that diplomatic options remained on the table, Trump’s decision appears to have been influenced by urgent appeals from Israeli leaders, who reportedly told the White House they could not wait for extended negotiations.
ABC News reported that the attack closely mirrored a joint U.S.-Israeli exercise conducted in 2024, which simulated a strike on hardened nuclear sites. Axios noted that top Republicans in Congress were briefed in advance of the operation, but top Democrats were not.
Iran’s nuclear programme has long been a point of contention between Tehran and Western powers. While the U.S. intelligence community has previously stated it does not assess Iran to be actively pursuing nuclear weapons, Trump has maintained that Iran must be prevented from acquiring such capability at all costs.
President Trump warned in a Truth Social post following the strikes: “Any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight.”
Security was heightened in major U.S. cities in response to fears of retaliatory attacks. Meanwhile, Israel temporarily closed its airspace, signalling concern about escalation.
Those pesky non – existent WMD creating difficulties again as a weak and out of his depth US president tries to make himself look tough on a world stage.
You are totally correct. It would be much better if the West let Iran develop nuclear weapons to mount on their missiles.
You see, the thing is, I recall hearing the very same justifications over 20 years ago about Iraq. ( remember the 45 min claim ?). It was complete bullshit back then and there’s little evidence that it isn’t bullshit today about Iran. We spent countless billions in lives and treasure searching for WMD in Iraq, are we about to do the same again? And on the issue of ‘regime change ‘, look how well that went in Syria, Iraq, Libya etc.
Guess the 2 states that do have nuclear weapons mounted on their missiles and regularly threaten the West harm……Russia and N. Korea, 2 states led by dictators who Trump is in thrall to.
A weak and incompetent Trump who hasn’t the first clue about what he’s doing, ,surrounded by equally incompetent, ignorant and unqualified advisors and officials will not bring peace. Weakness never does.
The difference is that Iran has made specific threats against another nation regarding nuclear weapons. Cannot recall Saddam doing anything similar. Agree re Iraq, a foreign policy disaster, however not destroying Iran’s nuclear program would be much worse (particularly if Israel felt it had to act). Regime change in Iran would be desirable but is not essential.
And as others have said Iran had openly confirmed that they have an enrichment program that is up and running.
Albeit they claim to have stopped at 60% and not gone further.
Given that you essentially run the 60% through a similar rig repeatedly until you get to 90%+ then there isn’t a lot stopping them.
Regime change to what though? No one can guarantee what follows in a state of 90 million people. Only fools would expect a Western supporting ir even neutral democratic Govt. And the problem is that at least two Israeli Mu inters and a very s army right wing movement are echoing the rhetoric of the Iranian hardliners and have been for years not only claiming much more land for an ‘Imperial’ minded Israel based on 2000+ year old texts they see as gospel truth, but the use of nuclear weapons against all those who resist them. We simply don’t know where this will end but history doesn’t bode well. So I would be wary of being one eyed on this.
Iran has been 6 months away from getting nukes for the last 20 years/
This is a stupid comparison anyway. The intel was always shaky for the Iraq war and many countries questioned it. This time NATO says it’s true, the IAEA have gone in an independently tested it and confirmed the enrichment level, and Iran itself has said they are enriching and will continue to do so.
Who else needs to confirm it? Comparing it to Iraq is such a surface level comparison that lacks any critical thinking.
And yet US intel community says they aren’t developing a bomb.
OK, well tell me how and when this ends. What does it look like? Democracy and regime change?
Israel is perfectly capable of dismantling Iranian enrichment programmes by itself. It doesn’t need the US to get directly involved.
I think you are being naive if you think this guaranteed a safer result. As one source said this morning ‘if one thinks Iran hasn’t removed much of its essential nuclear recourses and enriched fuel from Fordow then you are deluded’. All the agreed framework for determining their nuclear ambitions and progress have gone thanks to Trump himself originally who had no alternative when he took that action than threat. So can we now have any surety what might happen in the years to come. So while I would in the final resort support attacks on their nuclear facilities Trump has created this danger and in these circumstances we have no control over future developments, or is Trump and Netanyahu going make this an endless war? Fact is the real dangers were not clear before this with the IAEA saying they have some concern about enrichment and Trump’s own Intelligence chief claiming they were not close to a bomb though apparent this genius wasn’t even aware of her comments from only last week. Instead Trump listens to a similar figure to himself in the Israeli PM (who both would be in jail if not in power) who has been claiming since about 2012 that Iran was just months or a year from the bomb and only weeks this time around without any evidence to support it. If this makes the World safer then I will on balance take it (despite the criminals initiating it) but only time will tell and it’s as likely things will get more dangerous than less as things stand (we simply can’t say) and Iran who were in negotiations when it happened will no doubt see this as their Pearl Habor moment which frees them to take whatever action they can for generations to come. It’s a matter of whether that has been prevented long term, highly unlikely I fear.
As for Trump such classic attempts at war to reverse failing popularity at home is a dangerous game and if it succeeds will have implications for us all because I feel it will just encourage him to try his own Imperialist expansion he has already threatened and will threaten anyone who tries to stand against it. He cares nothing about who he makes victims and as we have seen that includes those who were his closest friends. We are all losers to him u less you are a dictator and never have the mid terms been more important to save us all.
We do know that Saddam had Chemical weapons and used them on the Kurds.
Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program before the Gulf War 1,
it was mostly dismantled and destroyed under UN supervision following the war.
But the UN inspectors were obstructed on several occasions,
so this led to gaps in the UN inspectors knowledge and a lot of doubts which were used as the excuse for Gulf war 2
We have seen pictures of Iraqi Calutrons being moved around post Gulf war 1.
But I agree the Casus belli for Gulf war 2 was exaggerated or misguided.
I would say Iran was much closer to getting a Nuke than Iraq ever was.
Regardless their biggest mistake was to keep threatening Israel with annihilation.
The open threat of genocide is a thing in international law too…..it could be construed as a reasonable reason for an act of war to prevent the whole of a population becoming a casualty…..and a I have said above Iran did release video footage or enrichment and openly claimed to have a large amount of 60% enriched uranium.
This is not dodgy dossier stuff this is simply accepting what Iran’s government have clearly stated repeatedly. Backed up by UN inspectors who were clearly getting concerned about what the real peaceful purpose of all of this enrichment actually was as you don’t need 60% enrichment for a power station….
Don’t think so. The Iranians were enriching uranium to U235 not U238 needed for nuclear power.
The ONLY reason to enrich to U235 is for nuclear weapons production.
President Trump has done what was required. Iran cannot obtain nuclear weapons as they would most certainly use it against the west via their proxies or as a direct attack from Iran.
Iran let’s not forget are not our friends, they are our enemies.
They supported the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents, they trained and supported HAMAS prior to their assault on Israel that led to the current Israeli Palestine conflict.
They supported Hezbollah and their rocket forces
They equipped trained and supplied the Houthis to attack commercial and military shipping in the Red Sea.
They have consistently stated they will destroy the west and kill all those they view as infidels in a holy Islamist crusade.
These people are not innocents, they are a state that sponsors terrorism.
Additionally they have trained and equipped Russia with tens of thousands of drones, artillery ammunition, small arms, rockets and missiles to aid their illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Iran was part of a forming quad axis of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Now Iran will be degraded by Israel and to a lesser extent the USA so they are militarily and industrially reduced as a threat for more than a generation.
No increase in background radiation being reported yet by international atomic energy agency (IEAE).
Sure, Iran is not our friend, has armed numerous hostile proxy militias that have attacked UK servicemen and women, and has threatened allies and various nations. But so has Russia, so has North Korea. They are vile regimes. But that doesn’t justify the US attack.
But this action will emboldened the likes of Putin, he will see it as justification for his invasion of Ukraine, for he also claimed Ukraine was developing WMD and was a nazi state. What’s to stop claiming the same casus belli against the Baltics, or Eastern Europe? Not Trump anyway.
FYI Re your use of the TRUMP style “ONLY”, you are 100% wrong as there are other reasons for producing HEU (U235) to above 90% than just building bombs.
But I doubt Iran is planning on building a Nuclear Submarine anytime soon, it’s what US, UK and some future French reactors use as fuel (guess what we make here in Derby).
What no one seems to be thinking about is what are they doing with the U238 isotope, on its own it’s pretty useless as a civilian reactor fuel and has to be processed with other materials (such as plutonium) to produce MOX or other usable fuels.
It does however have other uses and can be used to boost a fission bomb as a Neutron tamper, what would worry me is it’s also used to produce Pu239, but for that you need a FNR.
If you trawl through the published IAEA reports (it’s very boring), they mention a civilian test reactor at Isfahan, it’s very small but the technology used is FNR and will produce very small quantities of Pu239.
It’s a very small step from that to building a full scale FNR (FBR) which produces Electricity but Pu239 in considerable quantities as a consequence (see UK MAGNOX for the best example). And you now know why we British have the largest stockpile of Pu239 on Earth (every few years we play swapsies with our US chums for some of their nuclear sweeties).
Pretty remote possibility they are developing a nuclear submarine TBH or a compact nuclear reactor for something else….?
The plutonium reactor is a faint possibility but the design isn’t something you can easily disguise…..down wind sniffers would pick up the telltale traces….
I agree entirely but nothing is impossible, we quietly developed the ability to produce Plutonium and hid our intent in plain sight of our civilian reactor programme.
Technically you don’t enrich 238. The ore consists of around 99% of 238 and less than 1% of 235. 238 is not capable of entering a chain reaction and just gets in the way. The trick is to remove 238. At 30% it can be used to generate electricity. At 90% is can into into a cataclysmic fission which call an atom bomb.
Exactly. You can also see the pressure being exerted by the Trump regime. Suddenly everyone agrees with him because he says so. Iran was years away from a viable nuclear weapon. They would be even further away had Trump not walked away from the JCPOA in his first term. As for retaliation, Urainum isn’t much use in a dirty bomb. Fissible materials like Caesium-137 are highly effective though. Created as by-products from their civilian nuclear programme and research reactors.
Iran has been bombed and there might be a push for regime change. Nothing of the sort for north korea… Let’s see the results in coming years for dissemination.
Of all of the things to happen during my birthday…
What does Iran have left, short of domestic terrorism, that they can retaliate with? THAAD and Israeli strikes have depleted their ballistic missile reserves and they now can’t make the bomb.
Sejill missiles can be fired at US bases in the middle east, they’ve only used one of those so far.
They have played down the significance of the strike already, giving themselves some breathing room at home and reducing the need to retaliate directly.
If they retaliate and kill US servicemen then they are in for a battering, they know this full well. I suspect they will avoid direct confrontation but will do something to look tough in the eyes of Iran’s populace.
Watch the seas. The IRGC could have its revenge by blocking the Persian Gulf.
I suspect they still have plenty of shore-based anti-ship missiles, as well as small attack craft to harass ships
Great. That’s what we want and need
Seems UKDJ what part of a Psy ops campaign to make Iran believe that B2’s were being moved to Diego Garcia when they were actually flying straight to Iran. The Times reported on this yesterday quoting UKDJ.
AAR was moved to DG.
That was the feint.
So the assumptions was that the B2’s were going to join the pre positioned assets.
I agree it was a deception operation combined with the Tangerine’s Two Week deadline.
Who knows the Tangerine may have looked at a Twit and changed policy sat on the can?
I have to agree that this was a window of opportunity demonstrate to those who believe that defeating the West in Afghanistan meant that they could also win a conventional war.
It is the same fundamental mistake that Hitler made with his underground V1/2/3 facilities…..they are in a fixed location….every location has a weakness…..the US has had a while to go one better than Barnes Wallis…..there is a reason that Tempest needs big payloads as we don’t have a seriously heavy bomb truck since Vulcan went OoS.
Yes, however now we have lost track of a large amount of high enriched uranium which is now no doubt moving around secret locations in a state know for a terrorism and possibly on the brink of falling apart in a civil war.
Some how I don’t feel more safe.
As long as those ‘secret locations’ do not have the advanced equipment and clean rooms needed to assemble a nuke, you will be safe.
I assume they would attempt to test their first device too, and that would be detected.
I’m talking about an improvised dirty device. That’s a much bigger threat than some Uranium gun type bomb that Iran has no men’s to deliver.
The IAEA states it no longer knows where the uranium is.
No, they would not need to test their bomb before using it. You don’t need to test a uranium-type bomb, because the engineering is quite simple – and the Americans did not test theirs before using it on Hiroshima. You do need to test a plutonium-type bomb, because the engineering is tricky. And the Americans did test a plutonium-type bomb (Trinity, July 1945) before using one on Nagasaki.
Most nations which have attempted to go nuclear have gone down the plutonium route, but the Iranians went down the uranium route. This means that with no test needed the situation is that bit more dangerous.
They didn’t have a large amount of Uranium U238. Only about 60% enriched, that’s not enough to make a fission warhead or weapon. Potentially a dirty bomb. As long as the centrifuges, heavy water manufacturing and enriching reactors are now off line, destroyed or buried under tons of collapsed blast damaged tunnels then that’s mission accomplished. I’d imagine the USAF will return again, possibly tonight once battle damage assessment is completed to mop up anything left that might prove useful.
Hopefully the Iranian nuclear weapons ambition is curtailed for a generation.
Israel will be looking at the MOP equipped B2s and be thinking they need a comparable capability.
Got to say the UK could probably use a small strategic heavy bomber force as part of an increased conventional deterrent.
The B2s however were noticeably held back until the Israeli air force had guaranteed air superiority over Iran.
It’s not potentially enough for a dirty bomb it’s plenty enough for a dirty bomb, they could make hundreds of dirty bombs. They even have a global network of terrorists to deliver it for them.
I doubt USAF will need to return.
The function of the earlier Israeli raid will have been seismographic.
There will have been a network of seismometers located, likely by SF or less likely by air drop.
When the Israelis dropped their bombs I an, I am sure, carefully timed sequence, they will have mapped the tunnel system.
It was would then have been handled just like an oil exploration would be….
Armed with that info the USAF planners would have had the precise coordinates of where to drop the bombs for the desired effects.
Again, timing and sequence will have been everything so you got constructive interference from the explosives to blow down the hard points.
Planning things that go bang is more than making a very big bang…..
It was pretty obvious that Guam was a feint when the B2’s were refuelled so soon after takeoff, the only reason to do that is if you are not taking off with a full fuel load ie carrying 2 MOPs.
Love your last line 😉 and I’ll plagiarise it a little., “planning a big bang is also about avoiding it going bang when you don’t want it to”.
Which is why they planned to avoid landing with the MOPs onboard like the plague, landing is the most dangerous thing you can do in any aircraft. It’s why if a civilian Airliner has to do an emergency landing and if able to do so it dumps fuel, also carrier born aircraft used to ditch their bombs (to expensive these days).
So they didn’t land at Guam, nor Diego Garcia they flew out over the Pacific, swung round SE Asia, avoided India, bombed Iran and have refuelled over the Med (6 tankers out of Chania). So right now they are probably heading up our way to be refuelled before heading home over the Atlantic. I may be wrong but I doubt they will land at Fairford as they seem to be asking anyone’s permission about anything.
No one has mentioned that we are now watching aviation History being made that can never be beaten, it’s the worlds 1st circumnavigation of the globe bomber mission it’s over 20,000 miles. Those 12 crew members are in a very cramped cockpit, it’s got a camp-bed, portaloo and not a lot else ! Respect.
OK they avoided us and have been refuelled over the Atlantic by tankers out of Lejas (Spain). They are going fit it.
It is indeed some demonstration of strategic intent and ability.
The big toys out of the box.
TBH we often have Typhoon take off with a small fuel load as it reduces expensive engine wear.
Much cheaper to burn the %s on the commercial rated engines on the tankers.
If only TACO was to take the same approach with Russia he might actually be able to stop a war!
Well its been a long time coming, but with Iran being best buddies with Putin I guess it dose not need its own enrichment programme, so just like the North Korean’s they will get the bomb via its support for Putin and his war on Ukraine.
Thing is that anyone with some common sense and physics and engineering smarts can make a ‘device’. This is all 1940’s published physics and engineering.
Now, whether NK can master miniaturising the device or not is quite another matter entirely.
It is easy enough to make a massive Gen1 bomb but you cannot deliver that on a rocket.
Could be delivered by boat aile or so offshore from a coastal city. Who knows.
..a mile or so…
Probably right. Although that would be traceable back to Russia. The Russians don’t want their nuclear weapons signature over anything that might trigger a NATO (US mostly) response.
The removal of Iran as a military power is useful to the West, they were a destabilising element and a supporter to the quad axis of China and it’s client states Russia, North Korea and Iran.
Now we have just North Korea, Russia and China to worry about.
Israel will continue their strikes on Iran until they are confident they’ve degraded their military- industrial base to the point it will require rebuilding from scratch.
What is most interesting about this..
The entire European nato Community, a community that fully supported the US war on terror and spent many many 10s of billions of dollars and suffered thousands of casualties cannot even ask the simplest thing, for US to keep on providing support to Ukraine..without being castigated and insulted and the US doing the opposite.. and yet Isreal which essentially spends most of its time being horrible about the US and sucking up free aid like there is no tomorrow with no return ( you never saw an Israeli solder in Iraq or Afghanistan) and yet Isreal can start a war and the US will essentially immediately without any requirements or even treaty need jump into the fight….. I do sometimes wonder what the hell Israeli has on the US or has told the US… because when Israeli even indicates a jump is needed the US is jumping, and when the US looks like it may be getting a bit antsy Israeli always seems to bring it back in line.
In the back of my mind I do wonder if Isreal holds the Sampson option over the US and the U.S. believes it so much it naturally falls into line.
Now don’t get me wrong I’m not actually arguing for or against these strikes.. as I don’t know the intel, so cannot make a judgement on the need or not.. what I’m saying is Isreal led and the US followed..its like a child lead a bull by the ring in its nose.
Pretty simple: 7,5 millions jewish people in the US, hence a massive influence on electorate. Any US politician needs to factor that in. A French diplomat once Said the 2 most influential ambassadors in washington in comparison of their country size/power are the irish and the Israeli one: thanks to electorate.
2.4 percent is massive?
It’s enough to swing elections.
Offset by a very fast growing muslim population of 3.5 million, around 1.1%.
It’s a typical anti semitic trope to imply Jewish control of government, as an excuse to justify hate acts.
Sorry it’s not anti Jewish to consider why the US government is far more likely to support the actions of the Israeli government than it is one of its European allies.. don’t try to de platform discussion with the old.. it’s antisemitism, it’s Islamophobia, it’s transphobia etc etc.. there is a vast difference between asking and considering why a state does something and what you have described.. because if we shut down discussion and debate with simple.. you hate them tropes then we are the problem.
To be clear, In no circumstances I imply such a thing. Just saying having such Number of population matters. French know it very Well: they are bashed regurarly because there is no population with French origin.
There are plenty of Americans with French origin, albeit rather a long time ago! France just gets bashed because it dares to be independent…
It is as simple as this – a window of opportunity that might not present itself again one Iran got Chinese AAW systems from Chine.
US knows exactly how F16 gets on with S300/400 so they have gained knowledge from UKR.
The Israelis have demonstrated for some time how useless these systems are and how they can launch raids with no losses.
So there is a defined low risk opportunity to shut this thing down and stop nuclear weapons proliferation into the hands of a very unstable bunch who might export it to cause trouble.
As to Russia stepping into the breach that isn’t so likely as the Iranians now know that the Russian systems and electronics are close to useless against Israeli systems and would likely assume that the nuclear engineering had also been penetrated.
Also Russia doesn’t really trust Iran as it has had its own ‘issues’ close to home
Indeed, it’s more about the fact, Isreal lead and the US followed. The U.S. suddenly deciding Iran was at threshold and attacking it would not have surprised me..but Israel has wider geopolitical answer domestic reasons.
Isreal demonstrated a window of opportunity.
Trump calculated that he could do what his predecessors chickened out of doing in spite of creating the weapons that he deployed.
The US has becomes Israel’s poodle.
Trump came out now and says NATO countries should spend 5% on defence but the USA won’t be joining them. So by his ascertain the US is not a NATO country.
Seems pretty obvious that the UK made clear that Diego Garcia could not be used for the operation that why the bombers moved.
I just hope Iran doesn’t target UK forces in its retaliation so we don’t have to get involved.
Hopefully the nut jobs in Tehran are clear minded enough to notice the giant chasm between US and ENATO foreign policy.
Let MAGA send their boys to die in BiBis war.
Jim when they refuelled straight after take off it was obvious the B2’s were fully bombed up and wouldn’t be landing anywhere except in an emergency ! They asked no one for permission to do anything this is an all US mission and Trump wants all the glory.
Right now they are over the Atlantic heading home and if you’re up for some Sunday UKDJ FUN I’ll make a sporting bet with you 🤔
Reply 👍🏻 for yes or 👎🏻 for no ?
They will be met at Whiteman by Trump and he will milk this for every MAGA point going !
It’s an Historic Mission and blows the Aviation records to bits, so I’ll be amazed if he misses out on it.
It is as simple as this:
Secular democracy vs Islamic Jurisprudence
Which one do you think the US (and most of the West) wants to see prevail?
Are we describing BiBi’s regime as a secular democracy now. Is an independent judiciary not a corner stone of democracy?
Support for intervention in the USA is running at 16% right now, does that answer your question?
No, you have gone off on a tangent there.
Which point, that Israel can no longer be consider a secular democracy? The Israeli government does not refer to itself as a secular state like the USA but specifically a Jewish state. Judaism is a religion so it cannot be considered secular. The Israeli government has tried to removed the Supreme Court and the independence of the judiciary. These are not the actions of a democratic state. So it’s neither secular or particularly democratic. China and Iran also have elections but do not have an independent judiciary and we don’t consider them democracy’s.
My other comment is just straight up that only 16% of Americans support the strike on Iran in polling.
That would suggest there is little appetite for supporting Israel in the face of Iranian attacks.
Which point is going off on a tangent?
Is that because there is a strategic element to all of this and world leaders have for some time known there were problems ahead? In Trump’s first term he was calling out Western Europe for freeloading from the US. This has been proven repeatedly to be correct and true.
Israel has made huge investments in defending itself and has sold very high end military tech to the US and ourselves.
As to why they weren’t boots on ground in Afghanistan, come on, you should know what those optics would have played out as, and they also had major military issues to deal with at home didn’t they?
You’re reading too much into it.
What was known by the IAEA was that Iran had enriched U235 60% of the way towards U238 which is the required weapons grade uranium and it’s ONLY use is for nuclear weapons.
The Iranians had prevented the IAEA inspectors from entering their nuclear sites and had withdrawn formally from their treaty obligations. The best estimate from the IAEA was Iran was a matter of weeks to short months away from having enough fissionable material to make a nuclear weapon eg enriched U238 upto or above the 90% threshold.
Israel wasn’t going to wait until nuclear weapons started to explode on or above it’s cities, it needed to act.
Under those circumstances and requiring the USAF to bunker bust the Iranian nuclear facilities and with a now suppressed Iranian air force and air defence network (actually both are now combat ineffective and defeated) the USA took the opportunity presented to smash Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. It will take a generation to rebuild, possibly linger depending upon how active Israeli air assaults continue over Iran. The Israelis aren’t going to let up until they are comfortable every and all Iranian threats are removed.
I think the B2s will return to continue the attack unless battle damage assessment is that all sites are now destroyed.
Well put. We won’t hear any of the usual sneering from Hegseth et al about US forces subsidising or ‘bailing out’ Israeli defences like you would hear if it was an ENATO theatre. Israel is capable of handling Iran on its own, but now a weak and incompetent US government is being gulled into military action by Netanyahu and other Israeli extremists based in no small part on their interpretation of ancient religious texts..
Maybe we’ll dodge a bullet on this, but I doubt it, this is a very unstable region, the laws of unintended consequences run large here..
Pro Israel lobbying groups target US politicians that don’t support them in order to gain support. Search for it, start with this article in the Guardian last year:
Revealed: Congress backers of Gaza war received most from pro-Israel donors
Trump’s been droning on for days about it. I’d imagine anything that’s not bolted down was moved out of those sites days ago.
You can’t just pick up and move those facilities. Most of the equipment will have been assembled in place. Heavy water manufacturing, fast breeder reactors, centrifuges are all huge, heavy and very very complicated. Once active as Iran’s were they are also radioactive so cannot be moved without months, possibly years of preparation work.
Mr Bell Fast Breeder Reactors ? Where do you get that idea from ? If they have a FNR (FBR) we are talking plutonium not Uranium.
Who honestly didn’t see this coming?
Let’s just make sure that we stay well clear of this mess.
I hope so but we might not have that choice given Iran has threatened UK and French bases in the Middle-east as well as US bases.
When Netanyahu calls Trump picks up immediately.. but when it’s Ukraine, he’d rather call his friend putin instead
I support the strikes, Iran is not a nation fit to have nuclear weapons and one cannot take a chance.
But….I sympathise with the view of Posse top of thread. We’ve heard all this before.
But this time, with underground facilities and enrichment not needed but for a bomb, it’s not like Iraq.
I’m glad that no other targets were hit. Leave it at that.
And Europe and the UK need to stay out of it.
What will your opinion be tomorrow after Iran retaliates? What if British forces are killed or injured. Will you support UK intervention then?
Trump is a racists xenophob who seems to be under the illusion that Johnny Foreigner would not dare strike back after he bombed them with zero provocation and zero legal justification.
Do you really think Iran will do nothing? Last time this happened Iran lunched a massive strike on US bases injuring many US soldiers and trump did nothing expect cover up the brain damage suffered by those US soldiers.
I’m not being dragged into the obsession with Trump.
Israel acted. No one else was going to.
The US has taken its chance and joined to knock out what needed destroying.
Legal justification and international law? Like us occupying Helmand then the Talibs described as militants, where some might say freedom fighters?
Like The French resistance when occupied by Nazi Germany. What was the difference? Culture. They supported Bin Laden. The resistance were on our side.
We are on shaky ground ourselves after Blair’s behaviour over Iraq so I don’t care for comparisons with Trump on this.
We also have Chagos on our hands when we forcefully evicted the people and exterminated their pets. We’re no angels ourselves, but we are better than Trump and the USand have a long history in the M East.
Also Afghanistan. I was supportive of going in and killing terrorists post 2001. I wasn’t in favour of then staying, occupying the place, and trying to impose western values on tribal warfare.
When, if, Iran retaliates? No, I wouldn’t support UK intervention then. I don’t believe the UK is under threat the way Israel is regards Iran.
But I do think Iran is an enemy, being allied to Russia China. Israel is not.
Big difference.
Hi M8 I’m fully onboard with what Trump has done, it’s a first for him. I’m more focused on how they have done this and implications to US relations with their allies.
The 6 B2’s have just been refuelled over the Eastern Atlantic by tankers out of Lejas, next refuel will probably be over US and then home.
Trump hasn’t asked to use any of the US B2 forward operating bases, not Guam, DG nor Fairford, no need and with these MOPs onboard it’s a risk not worth taking.
Those bombers and their crews are quietly making History, a Bombing mission which circumnavigates the entire planet ! Sheer respect because B2’s were designed without facilities (they use a camp-bed and portaloo).
The UK was in Helmand at the invite of the democratically elected government of Afghanistan. It initially entered attacks on the Taliban regime in support of an NATO article 5 declaration by a treaty allie that was attacked in an incident that resulted in the death of 67 British citizens. Those are all valid legal reason to go to war under international law.
Iran was not in violation of any treaties nor was it posing a threat to the USA. Donald just bombed them because he could and because BiBi asked him to. Israel is not a treaty ally of the USA, trump had no legal grounds to intervene.
Maybe it was the “right thing” to do, maybe not, however after 20 years of doing the “right thing” I felt and I’m sure most of Donald trumps supporters felt doing the “right thing” was no longer a good idea.
Blair going into Iraq was a massive mistake for us and it was illegal. Going into the Falklands in 1982 or Kuwait in 1991 was not illegal. Perhaps the lesson to be learnt is doing illegal wars is a bad idea.
The Iranians must have moved out their enriched nuclear material from the bunkers months ago in anticipation as there is nno indication of any leaking radioactivity.
The IAEA knew where all the material was until two weeks ago. Once Israel started bombing the inspectors were pulled out and the monitoring system disabled.
So we now have 400KG of highly enriched uranium moving around a terrorist state.
It’s guaranteed it wasn’t at any of the locations the US hit. The Iranians are not daft.
Probably now being used to construct dirty bombs, for delivery by ballistic missiles, drone, terrorists…
Image a swarm of shahed drones all packed with highly enriched uranium. Even if you shoot most of them down your just spread the uranium over a bigger area.
If they fire them with the wind then it’s game over.
Not sure there would be leaking radioactive material.
Any enriched material isn’t viable as weapons grade yet so Iran could potentially ask North Korea, China, Russia or Pakistan to enrich it for them. They’d be daft to agree though.
The strikes were against the facilities and equipment needed to make nuclear weapons. The USA will now be undertaking battle damage assessment to see if follow-up strikes are required. The Israeli’s can then be left to continue their air assault degrading and destroying Iran’s military-industrial base at will.
Presume the 30,000lb GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) dropped from the B2 is a variant of the Barness Wallis earthquake bombs of WWII, 12,000lb Tallboy and 22,000lb Grand Slam. The bombs were designed to penetrate the ground and create a cavity before exploding and the collapse of the cavity would cause the ground to shift and the hardened target to collapse due to the resulting stress and instability, causing damage through the power of shockwaves traveling through the earth. A capability 80 years later the RAF no longer possess.
So, Trump has dealt a powerful blow to a country that was enriching Uranium and possibly would have gone on to enrich to weapons grade, built nuclear weapons, tested them and then miniaturised them to fit on ballistic missiles etc etc. What is he going to do about rogue nations that have actually developed nuclear weapons, tested them publicly and integrated them to delivery systems?….. The list is short and starts with North Korea.
And Israel ! Everyone always goes on about N Korea but forget that Israel is probably the largest undeclared Nuclear power on Earth.
Just as long as the UK had absolutely nothing to do with it, as we are woefully equipped to fend off retaliation by Iran.
With ballistic missiles raining down and massively heavy and specialised ordinance being dropped from stealth bombers it’s not surprising that so much discussion is currently focussed on stuff that goes bang but I think it’s worth remembering that there is another front in this battle that I would suggest is probably where the real action is going to be over the coming years and where the outcome will mostly be decided. It’s perfectly reasonably that commentators here have for years argued for a better resourced UK military, more (or basically pretty much any) UK ballistic missile defences, etc etc but I really hope that the intelligence services are not forgotten in all of this, particularly by those in our government who hold the purse strings.
If Iran does choose to retaliate then, as well as launching missile attacks against various western assets in the region and continuing or escalating its missile attacks against Israel, terrorist attacks in countries such as the USA, the UK & the EU – and Israel of course – must surely be high on its list of potential responses.
Now more than ever we need to ensure that the UK intelligence services have the resources and powers they need to be able to track suspected terrorist cells, identify suspicious movements in and out of the country, and contribute to the global intelligence community’s efforts to track and impede the movement of potentially hazardous materials such as enriched Uranium. This is the hidden war that I suspect has just ramped up quite a few notches in intensity and the UK intelligence and other counter-terrorism services need to be given the resources to respond accordingly.
In fairness to the government extra funding for the intelligence services is probably one of the hardest sells of all when it comes to the electorate. Even overt defence spending has been viewed for a long time as being of little political benefit because until quite recently it was very low on most of the electorate’s priority list but that has to some extent changed now with the Ukraine war, and at least when £800m or so is invested in a T26 there is a big impressive warship to see for the money, but that same £80m invested in an additional computer facility in some basement in Cheltenham (for instance) will never be seen or heard about by the general public (and nor should it be).
It sets a terrible precedent. How can the west now complain about the actions of Russia or what China might do.