U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites

Put those Israeli shoes on. There's a state armed with ballistic missiles in easy range of you, they have the facilities necessary to enrich weapons grade Uranium, recently acquired more advanced centrifuges, they have the uranium already enriched far beyond what's necessary for civilian use, they have far more of it than they credibly need for such civilian use, and they believe god has ordered them to destroy you.

How well would you sleep at night?

Was enriched uranium destroyed? I doubt it.

Have they even "obliterated" Fordow site buried 90 m deep inside the mountain? I have serious doubts.

Iran's nuclear program was set back some months if anything.

It's a weird one. I don't disagree with your post, still, what is "approved" nukes? A bunch of countries got them, then decided that no one else is allowed them. Then Israel also got them, also "unauthorized", but countries who don't mind pretend they don't know.

In the end there is no authorized and unauthorized nukes, only a calculus of power.

Didn't Netanyahu perjure himself to congress about iraq's wmds two decades? Isn't that grounds for arrest? It's amazing how our media never mentions that netanyahu is a habitual liar when they push netanyahu's iran's wmds spiel.

At this point our media companies are israel's PR department. Fox news should be banned like RT for being a foreign mouthpiece.

If the regime survives, now Iranian people have a very good reasons to ignore its shortcomings and tyranny and Do a proper sacrifice. It’s a natural resources rich nation of 90 million people. If they want to get serious, they can get serious.

Edit: 3 months, and source: https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-iran-nuclear-weapon-2...

The GBU-57 is dope. Really curious to see how well it worked here

The US posturing against Iran dates back to the Cold War era when Iran was tagged as “northern tier” state, and any nationalist moves inside looked like a Soviet opening, and a threat to the Anglo stronghold of Iran's Oil.

We're working on it, 10-20 more years of legal proceedings and it's done.

[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/23528/irans-stockpile-of--low...

As for the facts, and not just the narrative: 60% enrichment is not considered weapons-grade enrichment, and it is not illegal under the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). Therefore, today's attack is an illegal act of aggression against another country, violating international law. Those are the facts.

Did you have to add that qualifier because otherwise there's at least one other nuclear power in Middle East that regularly bombs civilians.

We couldn’t stop North Korea with threats of violence but we did manage to stop Iran for almost 50 years through diplomacy. That’s all pissed down the drain now.

If (if) this destroyed a nuclear weapons program, that is good for the world.

No one can predict the downstream consequences of today, but I fail to see an argument for why the world benefits from another nation getting the bomb.

It is especially disappointing considering the fact that the two aggressor states are also engaged in the incessant pounding of the population of Gaza, for 20 months already, with massive massacring of civilians, and the reduction of most of the strip into a moonscape of rubble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcA0X5LPXe8

_We_ do special operations, interventions, liberations, preventive strikes, weapon destructions.

Today Congressmen's main job is soliciting bribes. I expect they want their name on as few pieces of paper connecting them to a conflict as possible. They are not in charge of the government.

In fact, it may never have actually existed.

The Iranian government has frequently reference a goal of destroying Israel, a sovereign nation, and referred to the US in very disparaging (and biblical) terms. That doesn't justify direct attack, but it also isn't diplomatic.

Iran does not have the same degree of sexist restrictions as eg Saudi Arabia. It's a very different climate from places where salafism is more common. Female education in particular is highly supported eg: https://x.com/khamenei_ir/status/1869369086142296490

I thought it was generally known that richer societies with me equal treatment - where people are generally more able to choose jobs they like rather than needing to take whatever's a ticket to a decent life - are the places with higher disparities in well-paying occupations?

Most certainly was. It's underground (Fordow is ~60m?) so it's either that or nukes.

> It included a strike on the heavily-fortified Fordo nuclear site, according to Trump, which is located roughly 300 feet under a mountain about 100 miles south of Tehran. It's a move that Israel has been lobbying the U.S. to carry out, given that only the U.S. has the kind of powerful "bunker buster" bomb capable of reaching the site. Known as the GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator), the bomb can only be transported by one specific U.S. warplane, the B-2 stealth bomber, due to its immense 30,000 pound weight.

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/21/nx-s1-5441127/iran-us-strike-...

Can I say again how deeply silly this munition is? What's special about a GBU-57 isn't its explosive force. It's that the bomb casing is made out of special high-density ultra-heavy steel; it's deliberately just a super heavy bomb with a delayed fuse. It is literally like them dropping cartoon anvils out of the sky.

From what I've read, the idea is that they keep dropping bombs into the same bomb-hole that previous sorties left, each round of bombs drilling deeper into the structure.

What Iran does next depends on the extent of the damage. It could be nothing. It could be a token response. It could be escalation.

But so far Iran has been the only rational actor in this region. Iran has been attacked with justification. Anytime someone says "preemptive strike" they mean "attack without justification". Their responses have been measured, rational, justified and proportionate.

When Israel tried to previously escalate the conflict with Iran and drag the US into war with Iran, Iran just didn't take the bait. And this is despite Israel assassinating government officials, bombing Iranian embassies and bombing Iran for absolutely no reason.

I just realised that this bomb is not the same as the so called Mother of all bombs, which by the way has so far only been used once also by trump. That's the gbu 43. Why did they find it necessary to build an even bigger bomb? I wonder if they anticipated strikes on the me.

As to your other point iran seems to have a decent level of education. Building an entire home grown nuclear program under sanctions is impressive.

The Iranian regimes favorite enemy just played their part to perfection, so we should expect that to compel the majority of Iranians to rally behind their government in the face of a brutal foreign invasion by not one but BOTH of their standard-bearer arch-nemeses.

The first infliction point would be to see whether the regime intends to strike at US forces or do they intend to climb down. IMHO, that would be suicidal, but it doesn't mean they won't do it.

The second point is when they decide to end the war (they aren't doing well), and all the accusations start flying. Then there'll be political fallout.

- Trump declares mission accomplished. Looks tough to his base, appeases Israel and calls it a day

- Ditto for Israel. Declares Iran's nuclear ambitions over and re-affirms the friendship between the US and Israel

- Iran lobs a few more missiles at Israel in retaliation to provide legitimacy at home and moves on

Everyone declares victory and gets an off ramp.

So what can we expect:

* a ground invasion is pretty much out of the question considering the geography or Iran and its neighboring countries.

* Iran destroys every oil production and transport sites in the region (say good by to your election, Republican Party)

* they could fast produce the bomb and test it underground as a final warning

* OR they fail and resort to more desperate measure like a dirty bomb

* OR they fail and there is some sort of regime change

* Or there is some kind of extended war of attrition and it makes the refugee crisis from the past 20 years seem like it was a mere tourist wave.

In any case, this will accentuate the Qaddafi effect and more nations will follow the North Korea option of nuclear "unauthorized" nuclear dissuasion, which is also the case for Israel by the way. Talking of which, Israel will become politically radioactive in the world. Its support is already negative in nearly all countries and has dropped significantly in the US such as the evangelicals.

I expect (ok, I WORRY) a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years.

It didn't have to be this way, we had a working treaty and inspections regime until Trump pulled us out of it.

Decades of effort to prohibit nuclear proliferation have just gone down the toilet.

EDIT: Ya'll are right, the idea of them doing a test and going public makes a lot more sense.

This war is quite paradigm shifting in multiple ways, and I'm hopeful it serves as a strong deterrent. No longer will soldiers be the first to die. The leadership is now first to die, and within a week. That significantly alters the incentives for pursuing war. This was never the case until today.

The US convinced Ukraine to give up its nukes and return them to Russia. Russia was supposed to never attack in exchange.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

Iran having nukes would mean peace in the Middle East.

9 countries exist. So much for self-determination.

The lesson here is not to make idle threats against half of the world that you don’t honestly mean.

The scenario was already war gamed during the Biden administration, it was already a possible outcome. The G7 already backed this idea that Iran can't have this before, and they'll do it again. The US doesn't stand alone on this, Saudi Arabia and basically everyone in the region and world doesn't want Iran having a nuke sans Russia/China. I'm not even sure if Russia/China really want it either. It's just common sense.

I won't comment or discuss who you voted for - that isn't germane here. What is important is that America has been working for decades - often quite blatantly, sometimes with the thinnest veneer of deniability - to stop Iran from getting nukes. We're now just saying the quiet part out loud.

It will require absurd number of trains that will run empty 1/2 of the time (unless you'll find a way to pack "Chinese goods" into tank cars)

Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons for decades - and no one, especially no one in the middle east - wants a nuclear armed Iran. America and its partners - and quite often its not-partners - have been working to stop Iranian uranium enrichment for a very long time.

As for "guarantees they will pursue nuclear weapons by all means" -- that's the point: they've already been doing so nonstop for decades.

In much of the middle east, Iran is detested, and a nuclear armed Iran is deeply feared throughout the region. Iran with nukes means the rest of the middle east will feel compelled to pursue nuclear weapons as well. Again, in vast swaths of the middle east, Iran is considered an enemy.

Then, they wouldn't be organized enough to build a nuclear weapon. That would be a better outcome.

There is no other interpretation when bombs and missiles are sent 'in anger' to a sovereign nation, no matter which side is "bad".

Hint: all sides are bad.

He’s a career con artist, that’s what’s going on.

Saudi, Egypt, Jordan, UAE, HTS, and majority of Middle East is not in favor of Iran getting a nuke.

Hatred of Iran, is a unifying force.

I disagree, given the high probability they were going to do it anyway. They built Natanz enrichment in secret, they built Arak in secret, they built Fordow in secret, not to mention the more recent violations of the NPT to which they're still a signatory. They've violated the NPT over and over and over again. Why would one more agreement make any difference to their clandestine program?

This is the thing Western liberals need to understand. The leaders of these despotic regimes don't think like you. They don't intend to adhere to the agreements like you would. Their psychology is different to your psychology. And you can't make a unilateral agreement with a party like this. The agreement becomes a weapon to creep forward and present the world with a fait accompli at a future date.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/17/trump-iran-i...

For the second, I don’t think anything other than an air campaign like it’s been done will happen, it’s not like the USA is out for blood like after 9/11.

For the third, yeah, that’s unfortunately possible, North Korea, Ukraine and now this show that the only way no one messes with you is by having a good enough deterrent. However, even if this hadn’t happened, if Iran got a bomb, they wouldn’t threaten like nk does to get stuff, it would just test it on Israel, so you would get nuclear war anyway.

This is the end of any hope. Iran will now do everything in its power to get one. And it has all the skills it needs.

Refinement keeps getting easier.

We knew about these sites because they have been under IAEA supervision for many years.

The smart thing for Iran to do at this point is do what Israel did: not submit to any arms control and develop their own weapons in secret. Clearly this is the only way to be safe when people in Tel Aviv and Washington are openly discussing the "Libya solution."

Remember that in much of the middle east, Iran is considered an enemy.

I hope the US can use hindsight right now to guide the next decisions.

The thing about Trump's isolationism is that it's actually a passive aggressive position. Imagine you know which kids in your classroom are likely to fight and you take a policy of "I won't stop it if it happens", that's basically telling some of the kids "go ahead", so how is this isolationist?

Now, literally joining in on the fight when the kids pop off, that is uniquely Trumpian.

Never heard of Wills? Whet your appetite with his masterpiece and best work (in my humble opinion): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29435.Nixon_Agonistes

I’m glad that trump has returned us to a world where quotes from the 5th century bc seem like commentary on current affairs, since it means that all my time learning about power dynamics in political systems during antiquity is now completely relevant to dealing with current events, rather than a giant waste of time.

As concerns global stability a single precision strike from an untouchable platform with zero marginal increase in obligations on strained naval assets is basically the best case scenario. If we had dropped a bomb, took a picture in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner, and gone back to playing chess with peer adversaries in any conflict since the Korean War it would have been the smart move. The United States military is designed to protect global trade and win high intensity conflicts against peer adversaries and be seen preparing for it as a deterrant. It does this job extremely well. It was not designed for assymetrical quagmires with no possible palatable exit strategy.

Likud may be willing to fight Iran to the last American, but I'd rather we didn't.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7864/j.ctt6wpgvg

"CHAPTER FIVE Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike"

Israel did most of the dirty work, US just came in to drive the final nail.

You know, none of this would have happened if Hamas didn't attack Israel on Oct 7. Iran should know. They paid for it.

If Iran had a nuke, they are crazy enough to use it by slipping it to their cells.

"If someone says they are going to kill you, believe them."

Iran: Death to Israel Iran: Death to America Hamas: Death to Israel Hamas: Death to America

So, hugs and pallets of cash? ...or you destroy their ability to kill a million of your civilians.

If their enrichment wasn't for weapons-development, why was it being done in a hardened under-ground bunker?

In 2023, unannounced inspections uncovered uranium particles enriched near weapons-grade. The so-called agreement was toilet paper to the terrorist state.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CsJPrHcaBs

Why would anyone sign up for military service after dump has personally pissed in their faces?

Reminder, a recent survey found 16% American supported an offensive strike against Iran.[1]

[1] https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/israel-iran-war-americans-p...

for totally civilian purposes...

IMHO the Israeli policy of punching everyone so hard they're reeling is a massive mistake for Israel in the long term. It works great short-term, but 50 years? 100 years? Who knows what the world will look like then, and being surrounded by enemies is not going to work well when you no longer have your fancy US-backed missile shields and whatnot. The best long-term bet is for normalised relationship with its neighbours, and every time something like this happens that gets set back 20 years at least.

Then again, they had already given up on that with how it treated the Palestinians both in Gaza and West-Bank...

This doesn't mean military action is never an option under any circumstances, but no nation can perpetuate hostilities forever. Whether it's 50, 100, or 200 years: this has a massive risk of coming back to bite Israel hard.

Hopefully the ensuing economic meltdown will sour enough Americans before too many people are killed, but who knows.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Shayrat_missile_strike

While you are correct it wasn’t a war, but neither is this technically.

Maybe Trump will claim the airstrikes were just a joke, like he does when he tells his supporters to use violence towards other Americans. Otherwise, the United States is definitely, unambiguously at war with Iran.

1/17/12: "@BarackObama will attack Iran in order to get re-elected."

9/16/13: "I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order save face!"

11/10/13: "Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly - not skilled!"

"If Kamala wins, only death and destruction await because she is the candidate of endless wars. I am the candidate of peace. I am peace." - Presidential debate, 2024

If you voted for Trump, you voted precisely for this. Every accusation from him is either a confession in disguise or an unfulfilled wish.

Israel exists in the way that it does and does what it does because we allow it to. It is a toolf our imperial interests, not the other way around. To argue otherwise absolves us of our responsibility and can often descend into antisemitism (which I oppose).

We have described Israel as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" in a region we want to destabilize becuase it has resources that are important to us.

Oh and this is uniparty too. Don't kid yourselves if you think things would be different if the Democrats were in power. It would not. There is universal agreement on US foreign policy across both parties. The events in Gaza began under a Democratic president who did absolutely nothing to rein Israel in where he could've ended it with a phone call.

There is no opposition to what Israel is doing. Even now, Democratic leaders in Congress aren't complaining about what the president is doing and has done. They're complaining that they weren't consulted. And not to oppose it but to have the opportunity to express their support.

And yes, the media is absolutely complicit in what's going on too.

US will be forced to join and millions of its citizen will die in WW3.

(... no)

But yeah, I do think history will remember this as one of the few good things Trump does.

The IDF has total air superiority. The regime has very little capabilities left at all.

Iran getting nukes is the spark that will start a lot of chain reactions.

And islamic populations are radicalized enough that the possibility of a nuke on Israel increases dramatically.

I know "empire" is maybe an outdated term but I'm just illustrating there are bigger incentives than at the national level. Ironically it is conservative nationalists (who are hated by the Left) that want the empire to shrink and for the US to pull back from this leadership position. The risk here is it could also destabilize the entire world, but that's a different matter.

In short, this move is an attempt to strengthen the status quo that began after WW2.If the status quo is maintained it directly benefits the US.

The third temple's holy of holies : Israel's nuclear weapons

https://dp.la/item/525bc46d51878c5e285d9069a80246d0