US Strikes Iran Amidst Fears Of Larger Conflict
Image courtesy of the Associated Press
By Patrick D. Lewis
Five years after then-commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qasem Soleimani was killed in a drone strike ordered by President Donald J. Trump, the United States has once again entered the conflict many argue started with Soleimani’s assassination.
Trump announced, first in a post to his social media platform Truth Social and then in a short Saturday, June 21, address to the nation, that the United States Air Force had bombed three Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities using B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, over a dozen 30,000-pound GRU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, and dozens of submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles. Trump said the three targets were “obliterated” in the strikes, something government sources confirmed to multiple media outlets in the following hours as battle damage assessment results were received at The Pentagon.
The strikes followed days of speculation as to whether Trump would bring the US into the rapidly escalating war between the State of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The war started on June 13 when Israeli forces launched a massive, extremely well-planned series of assassinations of top Iranian officials and Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure. Israel has continued strikes on Iran every day since with largely successful attacks on Iranian RADARs, air defense systems, airfields and aircraft, naval bases, and command and control centers. Dozens of Iranian military officers and nuclear officials have been killed, including the head of the IRGC and the armed forces chief of staff. Iranian authorities say over 200 people have perished in the war, many of them civilians.
Meanwhile, Iran has responded to the strikes with daily attacks of their own. Iran has fired hundreds of missiles, drones, and rockets seemingly at random into Tel Aviv, Haifa, and other major Israeli population centers, killing at least two dozen civilians and injuring more. Israeli strikes, while more precisely aimed at military and government targets, have also hit densely-populated areas of Tehran where officials live, leading to over 200 civilian deaths and around 2,000 injuries, according to a UN report. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) has “unequivocally” condemned the Israeli attacks.
The June 21 US attacks targeted nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The Fordow facility was the primary target due to its location hundreds of feet underground, which made it uniquely immune to Israeli attacks. Experts believe that the only non-nuclear weapon capable of destroying it was the one used in the American strikes, the GRU-57 MOP, also called the “bunker buster.”
Following the strikes, American military and State Department officials urged Iran to halt attacks on Israel and to refrain from any kind of retaliation for the attacks. Days earlier, Trump had called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” He did not elaborate on what that might entail.
The US’ entry into the war triggered mixed reactions on the international stage. Russia’s Vladimir Putin met with Iran’s foreign ministry hours after the American attacks. Russia has grown increasingly close to Iran since the beginning of Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which led to Russian reliance on Iranian drones and other munitions. Most NATO countries and their heads of government called for de-escalation but stopped short of condemning the US strikes. That included British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose country owns Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean that hosts an American base used to stage aircraft likely used in operation.
Trump and American officials called on Iran to return to the negotiating table rather than reacting militarily to avoid further American involvement. Iranian Foreign Affairs and IRGC commanders have vowed to continue the war against Israel and exact revenge on the US, although they have not said how, when, or where they intend to do so. US forces in the Middle East are at their highest level of readiness, according to defense officials, and Trump vowed to meet any Iranian retaliation with “tragedy for Iran, far greater than what we have witnessed over the last eight days.
