Trump’s colossal screwup in Iran
Iran’s uranium enrichment program has not been destroyed, and its resolve to get a nuclear bomb is now certain
Donald Trump finally got his decade-long wish to bomb Iran last weekend as he ordered the U.S. Airforce to join in a bombing campaign of launched by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But like so many of Trump’s policy ideas, the campaign against Iran seems to have accomplished absolutely nothing. It may have made things even worse.
After he authorized the airstrike, Trump pronounced it to be a “spectacular military success” and that the uranium enrichment facilities that had been targeted were “completely and totally obliterated.” He spent the duration of Monday and Tuesday claiming that a “ceasefire” had been established, something neither Israel nor Iran confirmed as they continued to attack each other, ignoring Trump’s increasingly desperate posts claiming that Israel was “not going to attack” Iran but was instead directing its aircraft home “while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran.”
As of this writing, the hostilities seem to have stopped for now, but as the dust settles across Iran, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Israeli-American bombardment accomplished very little. On Tuesday evening, multiple news outlets reported that a top-secret Defense Intelligence Agency analysis indicated that Iran’s uranium enrichment program had not been “totally obliterated,” and that instead, the attacks had “set them back maybe a few months, tops,” as one CNN source described it.
According to several reports, the Iranian government had removed all of its highly enriched uranium from its Fordo mountain nuclear plant before the U.S. strikes had begun, and there was always doubt that the 14 “bunker-busting” bombs which Trump had ordered dropped on the facility would be able to penetrate the labyrinthine structure sufficiently. According to CNN, Iran’s Isfahan plant is even deeper underground and was not targeted by deep-impact weapons, nor were additional “secret nuclear facilities.”
Nothing of any consequence seems to have been accomplished. But you don’t have to take my word for it, just ask Andrew Kloster, a senior Trump Administration lawyer. “I think it was just kind of pointless,” he posted to X on Tuesday, before presumably being forced by the Trumpian deep state to delete his unauthorized truth expression.
Only two things seem to be certain in the aftermath of the Israeli-American strikes: 1) Iran now knows just what Israel knows about its uranium enrichment program, and 2) Iran also knows that neither China nor Russia are going to do anything to protect their alleged ally.
In other words, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his toady Donald Trump have not only failed to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, they have permanently incentivized Iran to accelerate its development. Iran can still get a nuclear weapon and there’s no doubt whatsoever that it will move forward with all possible speed to do so, following the path laid out by North Korea. During his first term, Trump canceled a non-proliferation inspections regime with both nations. Since then, North Koreas nuclear weapons have proven to be an effective deterrent against Trump’s bravado.
“The bottom line is that the combined Israeli and U.S. strikes have set Iran’s program back some months, but at the cost of obliterating trust between the key parties, strengthening Tehran’s resolve to reconstitute its sensitive nuclear activities, possibly prompting it to consider withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and possibly proceeding to weaponization,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association told FactCheck.
That assessment was echoed by French president Emmanuel Macron who told reporters on a trip to Norway that “this risk has indeed increased with what has happened recently.”
While we can be grateful that Trump does not seem to have initiated a World War III scenario with his illegal attack on Iran, the damage he has done to international diplomacy and world peace is extensive–and will almost certainly increase.
Before the airstrikes, Iran was at least pretending to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency. It has no incentive to continue doing so now.