“A New Line Crossed”: The U.S. Provokes Iran With Attacks on Nuclear Sites
Iran has now been forced to decide how to respond to U.S. attacks on its sovereignty.
On Saturday night, U.S. warplanes attacked three Iranian nuclear sites, marking the first time the U.S. has attacked on Iranian soil in the decades-long cold war between the two countries. President Trump’s announcement, posted on Truth Social, stated that the U.S. had attacked the nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan in a bombardment dubbed “Operation Midnight Hammer.” The escalation was met with jubilation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had relentlessly pushed for the operation. Likewise, Trump’s hardline supporters praised the act of war, while across the spectrum in the U.S., many officials and segments of the public have expressed condemnation—whether on constitutional grounds, or because of opposition to the US entering a potential forever war with a country of 90 million people.
Watch and subscribe: Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain discuss the U.S. attacks on Saturday night.
Although the attacks have been sold by the Trump administration to a war-weary U.S. public as a one-off solution to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, the maneuver is more likely to inflame the conflict. The facilities attacked were already known to the international community and subject to oversight. Iran had agreed to controls on uranium enrichment in the context of a diplomatic deal to settle the conflict. Yet the prospects of such a deal look uncertain in the immediate aftermath of this attack.
Initial satellite photos show crater impacts at the site of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. As yet, it is unclear how much damage has been done, including at Fordow, which is the most heavily fortified of the Iranian nuclear sites and designed for the purpose of resisting aerial bombardment. In a press briefing, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Dan Caine said that “all three sites sustained extremely severe damage,” but he stated that a final assessment would take more time. Israeli officials, according to the New York Times, have said that Fordow had sustained serious damage but had “not been completely destroyed in the American attack.” On Sunday, Vice President J.D. Vance indicated to ABC News that Iran’s stockpiles have remained intact despite the U.S. operation.
Iran has not given detailed indication of their own assessment of the damage and, instead, downplayed the severity of the impacts. Prior to the attack, expecting to be bombed, Iranian officials claimed on several occasions that sensitive equipment and materials had been moved out of the targeted sites. On the night of the attack, Mehdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to the speaker of Iran’s parliament, responded by stating: “From Iran’s perspective, nothing particularly surprising has happened. Iran has been expecting an attack on Fordow for several nights. The site was evacuated long ago and has not sustained any irreversible damage in the strike.”
Mohammadi added, “Two things are certain: First, knowledge cannot be bombed. Second, this time, the gambler will lose.”
A day prior to Israel’s attacks on Iran, Iranian officials stated they had already built and prepared another secure nuclear facility for enriching uranium inside the country. Top International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials said previously that they are “not so sure” about the location of Iran’s existing enriched uranium stockpiles, and whether they had been moved out of the targeted locations before the attacks took place. “At a time of war, all nuclear sites are closed,” IAEA director Rafael Grossi said, adding that “all our inspectors who are still in Iran… are not inspecting—no normal activity can take place.”
In the wake of the attack, Trump has said that he had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. But that certainty is not shared by former senior defense officials.
“The extent of damage to the targeted facilities is totally unknown. There is no real way to tell without boots on the ground. It's not clear if Trump himself understands this, but everyone else around him knows that they did not verifiably destroy the nuclear program last night,” said Harrison Mann, a former U.S. army major and executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for the Middle East/Africa Regional Center. “You can look at this event and say that Trump did something in order to say that he did something. But we did not touch Iran’s conventional military capabilities, and we don’t know if we’ve destroyed their ability to enrich uranium, or build a nuclear weapon if they choose.”
What Trump has verifiably accomplished, however, is putting the U.S. into direct conflict with Iran, escalating a confrontation that had previously taken place via proxies and economic warfare.
“In terms of actually impacting Iran’s capabilities, the strike was largely symbolic. But in terms of starting an undeclared war, it’s anything but symbolic,” Mann continued. “This is a new line crossed—it's the first time we're bombing a state that has the capacity to inflict serious harm on Americans in the region.”
The Aftermath
Following the U.S. attack, U.S. officials have threatened further escalation and demanded that Iran return to dialogue about their nuclear program. "The Iranians can go down the path of peace, or they can go down the path of this ridiculous brinkmanship,” Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday morning. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made similar comments, saying that "If they choose the path of diplomacy, we're ready. We can do a deal that's good for them, the Iranian people, and good for the world. If they choose another route, then there will be consequences for that."
Though U.S. officials have sought to reassure the public that the attacks are not a prelude to a larger war, they have signaled that more extreme plans may be in store. When pressed on the subject of how Iran may respond to being attacked, Rubio seemed to endorse the possibility of regime change to prevent Iran from now developing a nuclear weapon. “Look, at the end of the day, if Iran is committed to becoming a nuclear weapons power, I do think it puts the regime at risk. I really do. I think it would be the end of the regime if they tried to do that,” Rubio told Fox News.
On Sunday afternoon, Trump himself seemed to warm up to the idea of a broader war, posting, “It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change,” but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”
The Iranian government now faces a choice between potentially accepting the “unconditional surrender” demanded by Trump, or resisting U.S. and Israeli attempts at disarming the country and potentially destroying its government. In response to the attacks and threats, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Aragchi responded on X, “Last week, we were in negotiations with the US when Israel decided to blow up that diplomacy. This week, we held talks with the E3/EU when the US decided to blow up that diplomacy. What conclusion would you draw?”
Later, in a speech at an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, Aragchi said, “I don’t know how much space is left for diplomacy. We are now assessing the damage but my country has been attacked—and we will respond.”
The Iranian government has already retaliated against the U.S.’s primary ally: Israel. Immediately following the attacks, Iran fired a massive ballistic missile salvo at targets in the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa. In keeping with Iran’s typical method of retaliation since Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran, several of the missiles made impact on Israel’s densely populated urban areas.
So far, the Iranians have not retaliated directly against U.S. bases in the region that are in range of Iranian missiles, nor have they closed the Strait of Hormuz—a naval choke point critical to global energy flows, as well as Iran’s own oil and gas exports. Reports in the Israeli press have indicated that Israeli officials are now seeking an end to the current conflict with Iran following the U.S. attacks against its nuclear sites.
For now, the attacks appear to have completely sabotaged the global nuclear non-proliferation agreement, while setting the stage for a larger and more dangerous confrontation between Iran and the U.S. In response to the attack, Russian ex-president Dmitriy Medvedev claimed that a “number of countries” are ready to provide Iran with nuclear warheads after the attack, adding that “enrichment of nuclear material—and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons—will continue.”
It is unclear how much Medvedev speaks for Russia’s official stance, but his statements echo comments made by other prominent Russian ultranationalists in the wake of the attack, and Aragchi is expected in Moscow for a previously expected meeting with Putin today. Depending on how Iran now chooses to react, a new phase of the war between Iran and Israel—and its allies—may have officially commenced. The diplomatic path is now viewed by the Iranian side as untrustworthy given repeated attacks that have already taken place in the midst of talks. The likelihood that the Trump administration will engage in escalated violence and military attacks in an effort to achieve its stated goals—even if that means a major long-term war with Iran aiming at regime change—now looks very strong.
“If I was in Iran’s position, I would be maintaining a pretense of negotiation, but trying to build a nuclear weapon. If Iran can credibly threaten that it can use a nuclear weapon against Israel, the U.S. will either have to launch a massive invasion of Iran, or hold off and negotiate out of fear that they will use such a weapon against Israel,” said Mann. “Another administration would probably be deterred by an Iranian nuclear weapon, but we cannot say the same with confidence about Trump.”
will someone finally put the hypocrite insatiable mass murdering settler colonists in their place?
thank you so much to drop site news for informing us - bc words to describe the atrocious war crimes committed - with endless impunity - by those who pretend to uphold a "rules-based order" do utterly fail me.
There is only one political party in the USA, the AIPAC party.