I've been fixating a bit on this whole US Iran bombing thing recently, with a series of posts on how it's far from certain that Iran is actually close to having nuclear weapons (as Netanyahu and Trump claim), how attacking Iran's nuclear facilities may actually make nuclear proliferation worse not better, and the rather muted international reaction to America's emtry into the conflict. But it's kind of a big deal in world security terms, wouldn't you say?
Just one more thing, though, before I leave it alone. Trump, JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, and pretty much every member of the Trump administration that was allowed to speak on the subject, were all in agreement in their official scripted speeches that the operation was a "spectacular military success", and that "Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated", and variations on that theme.
Thing is, though, there is no real proof, and those sweeping claims are starting to be increasingly questioned. Just a day after the initial claims, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, was much more circumspect in his analysis, suggesting it was "way too early" to assess the damage done by the strikes. Even the usually ebullient JD Vance would only say that the strikes "substantially delayed [Iranians'] development of a nuclear weapon".
You've probably seen those before-and-after photos of the Fordow enrichment site purport to show the devastating effects of the US's famous "bunker-buster bombs". This is supposed to be proof that the facility is "damaged beyond repair", according to some experts. My first reaction was: "You can't see any devastation at all!". All that can be seen are a few neat circular holes near the main building; otherwise, the "before" and "after" are pretty hard to tell apart.
Even more telling for me is the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that "no radiological release has affected the public". Toxic chemicals and radiological contaminants MAY have been spread inside some of the facilities, they say, but there was no recorded increase in radiation levels around the sites. Shouldn't there have been some release of radiation from such an obliterating strike?
Indeed, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has claimed that the highly-enriched uranium in question had already been moved and is being stored at other secret faculties. Of course, we're not obliged to believe the IRGC, just as we're not obliged to believe the Trump administration. But it really wouldn't be that surprising, would it?
And now, we are reading about satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies, an American geospatial intelligence company, that appears to show 16 trucks arriving at Fordow just a couple of days before the US bomb strikes, suggesting that substantial materials may well have been moved.
So, what exactly did Trump's high-risk gambit achieve. Hard to say, but it's definitely not as cut and dried as the Orange Menace himself claims.
UPDATE
Oh, look, quelle surprise! Even the Pentagon is now saying that the much ballyhoo'd US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities did not in fact destroy its nuclear programme at all, but maybe set it back by "a few months, tops".
The White House is still calling the report "flat out wrong", and is sticking to its story that, 'The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it. Only the Fake News would say anything different." Right!
Trump and Hegseth launched a withering diatribe against the doubtful press, and his Middle East envoy Steve Wifkoff is calling the Pentagon leak "treasonous". But it's looking more and more like the doubtful press was indeed correct, and Trump wrong.
Well, I hate to say I told you so....
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