Just two days after announcing that he’d take two weeks to consider his options regarding Iran, President Donald Trump announced in a Saturday evening Truth Social post that the U.S. has attacked three nuclear sites in Iran.
In the post, which was sent at 7:50 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Trump wrote, “We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.”
“All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home,” he continued, adding, “Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
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News of the strikes came several hours after the U.S sent stealth bombers to Guam, prompting many to wonder if the move was a sign of impending activity in the Middle East. Following the strikes, a U.S. official confirmed to Reuters that B-2 stealth bombers were used in the strikes.
All three sites struck are home to nuclear facilities, and all three have previously been targeted by Israeli airstrikes. Israel argues that its strikes on Iran, which began earlier this month, were a preemptive attempt to prevent the country from further developing its nuclear weapon technology.
According to Fox News host Sean Hannity, who spoke to the president soon after the strikes took place, the U.S. used six bunker-buster bombs on Fordow, and 30 tomahawk missiles launched by submarines located 400 miles away on the other two sites.
Soon after his announcement, Trump reposted a tweet from an open source intelligence account that read, “Fordow is gone.” Fordow, a uranium enrichment facility, is the only Iranian facility at which International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have found particles of uranium purified to weapons-grade standards.
Brett McGurk, a top diplomat and national security adviser who worked under four presidents, including Trump, described the strikes as effective and clarified that they were limited to nuclear sites in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“This is not a new situation or new target,” McGurk said of the chosen sites. He also said that the strikes, which were “very successful,” had been “rehearsed, practiced for years across presidencies.”
Under certain conditions in international law, launching attacks against nuclear sites may constitute a war crime. The first and second amendment protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit kinetic attacks on nuclear facilities, although there are allowances if the facility provides electricity for military operations. In every case, there remains a requirement to protect civilian populations.
In addition, the president does not have unilateral power to bomb a country that does not pose a risk to the U.S. without the approval of Congress, something Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) noted on X soon after news of the strikes broke, calling them an “unambiguous impeachable offense.”
The president had previously given himself a two-week deadline to decide whether or not the U.S. would join Israel’s attacks on Iran, though many in the media were quick to point out that he had given himself two-week deadlines before—particularly in regards to Russia and Ukraine—with no result.
The potential involvement of the U.S. in the conflict sparked a fierce civil war on the American right, with figures like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon urging Trump not to intervene. In a newsletter published earlier this month, Carlson argued that while the U.S. was complicit in Israel’s strikes on Iran, the government should take a step back and consider “how any of this helps the United States.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who had previously asserted that there was no intelligence that suggested Iran was building nuclear weapons, fell into line yesterday after Trump rebuffed her assessments.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “I don’t care what [Gabbard] said, I think they’re very close to having one.” Days later, she found herself agreeing with the president, tweeting, “America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly.”
Trump, who avoided the military draft five times during the Vietnam War, ran on a platform of no further wars in the Middle East, framing himself as the “candidate of peace.” In a post to Truth Social on Friday, the president lamented the fact that he would not receive a Nobel Peace Prize despite his supposed laundry list of peaceful accomplishments.
The strikes on Iran come one day after a 5.1-magnitude earthquake struck the northern part of the country.
