How about Iran?

Yesterday, as I am writing this, the US decided to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities deeply buried under tens of meters of concrete. Whilst this may seem like a good idea any day of the week, it certainly escalates the already high tensions in the Middle East. It also may bring the US something the current regime said it would avoid at all cost: WAR.

Predating this bombing, Israel had already been engaged in bombing Iran’s military, infrastructure, and nuclear supporting facilities for over a week. However, a few of the main facilities had been built deep under the surface, as much as 60 meters under the ground and covered by a many meters thick protection of high-quality concrete. These installations seemed virtually impossible to destroy by bombing – or so it seems.

‘Lucklily’, you can always trust the US to develop a weapon for something unforeseen. In this case, the MOAB – Mother Of All Bombs – a specialized bomb that can penetrate the earth and blow through the layers of protection as indicated above, only to explode when deep enough. This particular bomb is alleged to weigh in excess of 30.000 pounds, about 15 metric tons, and can only be carried by the type of military airplanes that only the US possesses. In this case, the B-2 stealth bomber was used.

The reason given for the bombing is that the current US regime is not allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons.

History:

After 9/11, the US dragged its partners into a war. Most (all?) NATO partners fought on the side of the US and sent troops to the countries where US had boots on the ground. Many lives were lost, mostly civilians in the countries that were attacked, but also soldiers fighting it. Iraq was attacked on baseless grounds, its dictator removed and leaving the country in chaos. Afghanistan was attached in an attempt to catch Bin Laden and punish the country for allowing terrorist training camps. Saudi Arabia, where Bin Laden and most of the 9/11 terrorists originated from, was left in peace, as was Pakistan that housed Bin Laden. With the benefit of hindsight, this was an impossible war that could not be won.

During the 2010s, the US with the EU concocted a nuclear deal with Iran. Iran badly needed nuclear power to provide the country with enough electrical energy. The idea was to allow Iran to develop nuclear power plants and produce the fuel to get them going. Fuel in this context being enriched Uranium. In order to avoid Iran form further developing this Uranium into radioactive materials suitable to make an nuclear bomb, the US and EU would regularly inspect all nuclear facilities in Iran. Notably, Iran has stated it was never interested in making nuclear bombs, but only to produce the fuel for their own nuclear energy plants.

Then trump became president…again!

One of the first things he did was cancel the agreement with Iran. The EU strongly objected to this decision, but the US did not budge. Obviously, the Iranians discontinued allowing inspections. This in its turn left the world wondering what Iran was doing. Iran all the time kept saying it did not want nuclear bombs but only energy plants. But, without a deal allowing inspections, this was hard to verify.

Come 2025…

With trump as US president again, and Netanyahu having prime access to him, and it being very clear that only the US could do something about the one threat Israel could not handle: hitting the underground nuclear facilities. This resulted in trump making the decision to strike Iran with the bombs and planes mentioned above.

The question is where this leads us:

  • Will Iran (more) actively engage the US?
  • Will Iran retaliate in or against the US partners?
  • Will NATO be dragged in?
  • In short: will this be the drop leading to World War 3?
  • Can we expect to see an increase of terrorist attacks in the US and Europe?

Some notes:

  • It seems strange to see Israel being able to pinpoint Iranian locations to bomb and then actually hitting these targets with pinpoint precision. All this while Israel struck Palestinian targets with less precision, as schools, hospitals, civilian refugee camps, ambulances, and food distribution points have been struck also – accidentally? Really?
  • Allegedly, the decision by trump to strike Iran was not his to make. It seems that only US Congress can make such a decision. Will Congress and the Senate react? Or is this just another moment where trump disregards existing legislature, the constitution, and the US Supreme Court?
  • What effect will this bombing and its aftermath have on the US mid-term elections next year?
  • Someone once said:  ‘Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it’ (Churchill)
  • This is not the only thing where trump is the sole root cause for an international problem. The commerce treaty between the US, Canada, and Mexico that trump broke off recently, quoting it being ‘a very bad deal’, was his to begin with. In his first term he ripped the existing deal, again quoting ‘a very bad deal’ and ending up making a new deal that was ripped now… History? Repeat?

Links:

Paul
Sweden 2025-06

Editors comment:

In the post above, I ranted about the US bomb attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities spread over several installations and deep under the ground. However, in the aftermath, the operation became questionable, as did its alleged results.

Reports by the US administration, foreign affairs, and the DOJ praised the operation, calling it a huge success that wiped out the complete Iranian uranium enrichment process. In the US words, it set the Iranian nuclear program back years. After that, the administration went on with their business.

Meanwhile, reports leaked that satellite images showed transport activities around the targeted bases only days before the attack. It was presumed these were the activities of Iranian troops and scientists clearing out important equipment or materials from the bases announced to be attacked shortly, to places unknown for safe storage or continued production.

Declaring an attack a huge success and making statements of having destroyed a major plant should only be made after thorough verification. However, no such thorough verification has or can be made. It is unknown how deep the bombs came and if or how they affected the presumed underground installations.

From the imagery released by the US only surface roads and surface entrances can be seen. Nothing underground is visible – for obvious reasons. As such, it is impossible to say if the bombs indeed hit the target or that they did destroy the installations beneath the entrances.

When bombing installations, you rely either on exactly hitting the target or on coming close and relying on the force of the explosion and the shaking of the ground to do its job. In both cases, you want to get as close as possible.

At least one of the targeted installations had been constructed deep under the ground under a mountain. This was guestimated by studying the satellite images of the area. It may seem obvious that if you are building a secure site, you try to avoid giving it up to adversaries by showing where it is. Showing the entrance is one thing that perhaps could not be avoided, but presuming that the entrance gives away the exact location of the facility is inaccurate at best. Now, had the entrance been a short distance from the mountain, it could be a good gues that the installation would be under that mountain. Given that the entrances were directly in the mountains, it would seem to me that the installation would be some distance away from it.

The US presumed the entrance in the mountain to indicate the exact location of the facility, I beg to differ. In my view, the facility would be some distance away from the entrance in any direction. If true, this would mean that the damage to the facility as proclaimed by the US is grossly overrated.

How much I was against this US bombing raid, it does not seem to be good practice to announce that you’re coming and where you’re going.

Meanwhile, negotiations between Iran and the US are ongoing, allegedly in Stockholm, close to our home. At best, an agreement as was in place before trump threw out the agreement that was in place during his first term. Any new agreement will be a reason for trump to lie on his deal making abilities to get the upper hand even on terrorist states. I just hope we all remember who threw out the original deal and put us in this position in the first place.

Notably, trump’s partner in crime Netayahu does not want any deal to be made at all as that would give them a free hand to continue their military attacks on Iran. But that’s a thought for another day.

Paul
2025-07

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