The U.S. struck three nuclear sites in Iran in a surprising move after Trump had publicly announced he would wait two weeks for a response from Iran’s government.
“The goal was to create a situation when everyone wasn’t expecting it,”
said a senior administration official. It becomes clearer that Trump and the dynamic between him and administration officials is much harder to read from the outside than what reporters and foreign governments previously believed.
It’s not “4-dimensional chess” but rather a baseline technique.
The strategic obfuscation continued right after the strikes: President Trump called the strikes “a spectacular military success” and said Iran’s nuclear sites were “completely and totally obliterated.”
The US Air Force has said that the GBU-57 “bunker buster” bombs that were used can penetrate up to 60 m (200 ft) of unspecified material before exploding. The BBC reports that the weapon can penetrate about 60 m (200 ft) of earth or 18 m (59 ft) of concrete. It has to be assumed that Iran and North Korea have built underground facilities much deeper, or under a solid bed of rock.
In the past, Israel and its partners could penetrate nuclear facilities via the Stuxnet virus. It is entirely feasible to smuggle in a biological virus as well to take out the personnel, no matter how deep the facility is underground.
We can’t take public statements literally, at face value, so the level of success of the operation is still secret. Various commentators around the world will pick and choose interpretation that suit their agendas as usual.
Dmitry Medvedev said the following:
Critical infrastructure of the nuclear fuel cycle appears to have been unaffected or sustained only minor damage. The enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue. A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.
Medvedev essentially affirmed that Iran truly has a nuclear weapons program and also other Russia-affiliated regimes can deliver battle-ready warheads to the Iranian military. Multiple Arab countries (which have business relationships with Russia and don’t trust Iran at all) will take note. Right now Israel and the US have air superiority over Iranian skies and things are not looking good at all for the Mullah system. They must have realized a long time ago they are being used by the Russians and considered expendable.
The sites attacked—Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan—represent the core of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. The U.S. bombers that attacked the nuclear sites dropped GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators bunker-busting bombs for the first time in warfare.
Digging in deep however is not the end-all solution for the Iranians; they can’t control their own airspace anymore, the regime is highly unpopular and there are spies everywhere.
Trump warned that he could go after more targets in Iran if the country doesn’t agree to a diplomatic solution. Iran has threatened to strike at American troops around the region in the event the U.S. got involved in the conflict.
The Russian factor
Russia has been behind the Iranian regime since the “revolution” which was the standard Soviet template adapted to an islamic population. Strategically, Moscow had chosen to obfuscate in the past how much control it really wielded over China, North Korea and Iran, all three of which are now either nuclear powers or very close to that status.
If we assume Russia has definitive control over Iran and North Korea, these two countries would be proxies that can be used to attack NATO and its partners. Moscow could then play dumb and dodge responsibility. Iran has had a near complete production chain for nuclear weapons, beginning with mining its own uranium. Same with North Korea. In case they ever fire a nuclear weapon at someone, the unique radiological signature of the destruction zone will say where the nuclear material had been made.
Russia may now loose Iran as a nuclear proxy tool and so far, politicians and the media mostly hesitate to discuss that key aspect of the whole affair.
The nuclear program
Iran’s nuclear program started in the 1960s. The Shah’s 30 billion dollar plan envisioned 20 nuclear power plants by the year 2000. Iranians were allowed to study in Europe, the US and India. Even special lasers for potential military nuclear work were approved by the US government.
After the “revolution” the islamic government dealt with North Korea, Pakistan and China to continue the program.
Natanz would soon get 160 centrifuges for enrichment testing. There was even space for 50.000 centrifuges, theoretically enough for up to 50 warheads per year. Iranians bought the complete blueprint for Pakistan’s nuclear bomb. Work began on mining domestic uranium. A conversion plant at the Isfahan facility could turn uranium ore into uranium hexafluoride which then gets put into centrifuges to make enriched uranium.
During the Cold War the Soviets declined to move over 20 divisions into Iran and instead opted to have nuclear weapons ready, just in case: 152 tactical mobile rockets, 300 nuclear artillery shells, larger ballistic missiles further away and 283 aircraft bombers.
US special forces were ready to detonate nukes in mountain passes, tunnels and roads into western Iran from the USSR. 20 manpack nukes that weigh less than 163 pounds each coud be parachuted in or smuggled in. Variable yields meant they could be dialed to a specific explosive force, buried and detonated later.
The public intelligence dilemma
Voters and the media are supposed to judge what the Trump administration is doing, but many areas are highly classified because you can’t let Iran (and Russia) know what the US intelligence community knows. Every journalist and every voter has to factor in the amount of secrecy that is necessary for the US government. We can’t pick and choose an interpretation that is to our liking. Our wishes and fears don’t magically affect reality.
Before launching its attack on Iran last week, Israel provided the U.S. with intelligence it deemed alarming: Tehran was conducting renewed research useful for a nuclear weapon, including on an explosive triggering system.
U.S. officials briefed by the Israelis weren’t convinced that the information pointed to a decision by Tehran to actually build a bomb, according to a senior intelligence official, another U.S. official and two congressional aides familiar with the discussions.
Iran’s logic is painfully obvious: Have all the parts, designs, facilities ready so when the decision finally comes, the warheads can be made.
Gen. Erik Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that if Iran decided to assemble a bomb, it could have the first 55 pounds of weapons-grade material “in roughly one week and enough for up to 10 nuclear weapons in three weeks.”
MAGA infighting
Several things are going on at once:
- Influencers who work primarily for Russia will use standard talking points: This will lead to Armageddon, war is always the wrong choice, we can solve this by talking. Israel controls the US. We stand for peace and have moral superiority.
- Alexander Dugin recently posted the current orders to all kinds of Western infuencers: Wait and see. Don’t go into full attack mode against Trump just yet. Wait for new orders.
- Influencers who just care about themselves: They say what the audience wants to hear, are open to multiple possibilities.
Beginning with Trump’s first presidency it was reasonable to assume that nothing fundamental will change. Trump needed powerful networks to get elected, he never was in any position to rebel against anything and there was no magical team of rebels behind him. Influencers milked their audiences with wild fantasies of arresting the “deep state” and a conservative world alliance between the Trump-led US and Putin’s Russia.
