Trump Launches Another Mideast War with Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Sites

President Donald Trump plunged the United States into Israel’s war with Iran on Sunday with a predawn barrage of mega-bombs targeting critical Iranian nuclear facilities.

The unilateral U.S. action dropped 30,000-pound “bunker buster” munitions on Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow and Natanz, breaking with Trump’s often-proclaimed “America First” policy of staying out of Middle East conflicts. Submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles struck a third nuclear site at Isfahan.

The attacks stoked fears of retaliation against U.S. forces in the region and disruption of international shipping through the vulnerable Strait of Hormuz—responses that could provoke an endless cycle of hostile actions shackling the United States to another protracted foreign war.

Trump proclaimed a “spectacular military success” immediately after the airstrikes and the safe return of all U.S. military personnel and the B-2 stealth bombers to their U.S. bases.

“We devastated the Iranian nuclear program,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Pentagon news briefing Sunday morning, about 12 hours after the mission, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, concluded.

There were no immediate details on the extent of damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure or its alleged progress toward developing nuclear weapons.

“Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, told reporters at the briefing with Hegseth.

Trump authorized the mission under pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who unleashed Israeli Defense Forces nine days earlier on a spree of attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and scientists involved in Iranian nuclear development. Netanyahu convinced Trump that only a strike with the U.S. behemoth “bunker busters” could penetrate the underground labs and enriched uranium storage at Fordow. The facility is buried hundreds of feet into a mountainside. The United States also has the only aircraft, the B-2 stealth bombers, configured to carry the huge bombs.

“Congratulations President Trump. Your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history,” Netanyahu said in a video message issued shortly after Trump’s brief appearance before cameras to claim a successful mission. The Israeli leader said Trump’s action would “help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace.”

U.S. politicians and security analysts warned of the potential for more dire consequences, disputing that Trump’s authorizing an act of war against a sovereign nation would compel Iran to negotiate with the United States to abandon its nuclear ambitions. In exchange, U.S. negotiators suggested Iran could get relief from punishing sanctions inflicting economic hardship on Iran’s 90 million people.

Trump’s Republican loyalists in Congress, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, called the U.S. strikes on Iran the correct move to prevent the hostile clerical regime in Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The leaders of both houses of Congress were reportedly informed of the action before the bombs fell.

But ranking Democrats on congressional security, intelligence and armed services committees condemned Trump’s decision to go to war without seeking an authorizing vote from Congress.

“When there’s a clear and imminent threat to U.S. citizens, to the United States, to the homeland, the commander in chief has a right to act. That wasn’t the case here,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a former astronaut, career Navy officer and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

Washington ordered the evacuation of embassy and other U.S. personnel from the region ahead of the attacks, a move to protect Americans that was complicated by widespread air travel disruptions to limit commercial flight through the volatile region.

Netanyahu insisted Iran was on the brink of producing nuclear weapons with the intent to destroy the state of Israel, a proclaimed aim of Tehran’s Islamic regime since it came to power with the 1979 revolution.

Trump bought into that argument of an immediate threat, despite his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, disputing that assessment. She told the Senate Intelligence Committee in March that the collective judgment of the 18 intelligence and national security agencies she oversees was that Iran was not trying to develop a nuclear weapon. She reiterated that conclusion earlier this month in a video appealing to Americans to stand up to “politically elite warmongers” who were driving the world toward a nuclear apocalypse.

In erratic statements to media gaggles since Israel began attacking Iran on June 13, Trump repeatedly said he had no idea what he would decide about calls from Israeli hardliners to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities now that Iran has been militarily diminished in the Middle East.

Iranian influence in the region suffered a critical blow in December when an Islamist insurgency swept through western Syria and drove dictator Bashar al-Assad into exile in Russia, ending more than five decades of a tyrannical dynasty ruling over a country in ruins after 13 years of civil war. Russia abandoned its strategic bases in western Syria and Iran lost key supply routes through the country used to deliver arms to Iranian-controlled Islamic militias in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Iranian air defenses were also seriously depleted by the Israeli missile and drone assaults ahead of Sunday’s U.S. intervention.

The predictions of Trump and Netanyahu that the U.S. strikes will encourage Iran to negotiate with the United States rather than spur retaliatory attacks was swiftly undermined by announcements in Tehran. The Iranian parliament authorized the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping, a disruption of vital commerce and energy supplies likely to send gas and oil prices soaring.

Tehran also announced that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would visit Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, a sign that the U.S. bombings are driving Iran and Russia closer together as opposed to Trump allies’ contention that Iranian officials will now be seeking better relations with Washington.

Rep. Adam Smith, (D-WA) and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, told MSNBC he considered it “highly unlikely Iran is just going to let this go. That seems to be the president’s plan.”

“Trump lied to us. He lied to the American people and his voters when he said he would not get us into another Middle East war,” a furious Sen. Peter Welch, (D-VT) declared to weekend political talk shows.

Close Trump allies like Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) praised the action aimed at eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat. With few exceptions, Democrats criticized the bold action taken without consultation with Congress.

“As I’ve long maintained, this was the correct move by @POTUS,” Sen. John Fetterman, (D-PA), wrote in a post on X that linked to Trump’s announcement.

Trump and Hegseth took pains to put distance between their actions and Netanyahu’s musings about the attacks opening an opportunity for Iranian public uprisings and “regime change” after 46 years of harsh theocratic rule.

“It’s worth noting the operation did not target Iranian troops or the Iranian people,” Hegseth said after declaring the Iranian nuclear program crippled.

Vice President J. D. Vance proclaimed in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press. “We’re not at war with Iran, we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.” He declined to confirm to anchor Kristen Welker whether the U.S. strikes completely destroyed the targeted facilities, saying he believed that the action “substantially delayed” Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, told Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN that Trump had embarked on the same tortured path of immersing U.S. forces in Middle East wars as had his White House predecessors over the past 35 years.

Instead of focusing on collaboration with allies to meet challenges in Europe and Asia, Haass said, “here we are again in the Middle East.”

Retired Admiral James Stavridis said on the same program that the true damage won’t be calculable until Iran responds. He warned that unilateral action threatens to further isolate the United States and urged the Trump administration to “get our allies involved in this.”