The New York Times reported last night:
A preliminary classified U.S. report says the American bombing of Iran's nuclear sites sealed off the entrances to two of the facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings, according to officials familiar with the findings.
The early findings conclude that the strikes over the weekend set back Iran's nuclear program by only a few months, the officials said.
So, what do we know? It seems to be:
- Trump's attacks did not work.
- Iran's nuclear programme is only mildly disrupted.
- Its nuclear resources are intact.
What is more:
- Trump declared a ceasefire that it seemed the parties had not agreed to.
- What is more, it seems incredibly unlikely they will do so for long.
- And now Israel has no incentive to grant a ceasefire, except that it may be running out of weaponry, and Iran still has a nuclear programme, although absolutely no one knows if it intends to produce weapons with it.
In other words:
- My economic warnings remain appropriate; the risk of economic confusion remains high.
- The chance of peace is low.
- There is no way the US can easily back out of the mess it has created.
So, has Trump made the world a safer place? The answer would appear to be that he has, quite emphatically, not done so. But the one thing we can be sure of is that nothing he says can be relied on.
What a total mess.
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It seems to me, if there’s one guaranteed way to ensure the proliferation of nuclear weapons it must be to get them yourself then threaten or attack other countries.
The US made a great show of dropping a dozen or so of its very largest bombs on a few sites.
At Fordow, the facility is largely buried deep underground and the bomb craters were clustered at the entrances. While I have so doubt very severe damage was caused at the entrances, and perhaps to ventilation and other essential services, they can be cleared and repaired in time. It is far from clear that any (or any significant) damage was done to the underground facility or its machinery. Perhaps some of it collapsed. Perhaps the machinery is sensitive to concussion or vibration damage. But the site is very far from obliterated.
As I understand it this is the first operational use of the 14,000 kg MOP. But you can still see the concrete remains of heavily reinforced German sites from the Second World War that were damaged by 5,400 kg Tallboy and 10,000 kg Grand Slam earthquake bombs. While put out of operation they were not obliterated.
Other sites are largely on the surface and so more vulnerable. While damaged, largely by Israel, again they are not obliterated.
You also don’t obliterate a 500kg stockpile of 60% enriched uranium by dropping a big bomb on it. At about 19 grams per cubic centimetre, in volume that is roughly a 30 cm cube of solid metal.
The lesson to the Iranians is clear. Get a nuclear bomb as a deterrent to stop this happening again. Like Russia to the north, China, Pakistan and India to the east, Israel to the west, and the US with bases all around. The US is not bombing North Korea.
Much to agree with
Neoliberal policy has always been about making the world more unstable, which produces more business opportunities for the wealthy, such as oil and mineral exploitaton.
Read: The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire (2024) by Matt Kennard
https://amzn.eu/d/d26XOdD
You seem almost tolerant and supportive of the regime in Iran. You and your family need to spend some time there to understand the repressive and dangerous controls that are in place by the Islamic hardliners. Then you might understand you really don’t want these people with nuclear weapons and that neoliberalism isn’t so bad after all. Then you might stop bashing the West at every opportunity.
Politely, I have made my position on theocracies abundantly clear and you are talking total rubbish.
As I understand it Iran has never attempted to impose its culture and way of life on the British, certainly not by force of arms and in case you hadn’t noticed we can be imprisoned here now for spraying paint!
I think it’s highly likely that the US only wanted limited damage, because it desires containment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, not destruction. The former is more beneficial to US interests. In return for containment and a ceasefire, Iran is going to get significant sanctions relief and aid packages. The US will get market stability, including oil. Destruction would have led to chaos.
Trump’s method comes across like a selective punishment beating of some sort. Not only that it is also one sided (Israel’s government to be honest needs a good put down too for what it has done in Gaza). The result is obvious: resentment based on perceived double standards. And at the root of this I’m sure is racism.
“What a total mess.”
For trump!!!!!
With Marjorie Taylor Greene turning against Trump and loudly speaking out against him, with MAGAts following her lead, Trump must realize he is in a total mess.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/24/marjorie-taylor-greene-iran-trump
Agreed
He is in a total mess
I think the US Administration has a plan. It’s just that it’s not a very good one. The plan is to do a deal with Iran that will, they believe, ensure removing any risk of market destabilisation. So it’s a deal for business, as you might expect from them. It means managing Iran’s nuclear programme, rather than destroying it. Destruction of it would unleash risks judged to be unmanageable. Viewed in this light, Trump’s F-bomb statement is probably the clearest statement on foreign policy he’ll ever make. No, really!! And his statement today that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are over for at least 20 years makes perfect sense to him, because Iran are going to submit to international management of the nuclear prohramme in return for sanctions release and a major aid package. The bombing of the nuclear facilities wasn’t intended to destroy them. If it was, there would have been, for example, a second wave of bunker busters to achieve the necessary level of damage. There wasn’t. So it’s a fix. It will probably be achieved. But the trouble is, it isn’t peace. Peace is something different. It doesn’t come from a business fix. It comes from people’s hearts. And we don’t have the kind of World leaders that understand that. Not in the US, or anywhere.
I thought people here might enjoy this short (2 posts) thread on BlueSky. You’ll have to be logged in to read it. Please read the replies too!
https://bsky.app/profile/pestilence4all.bsky.social/post/3lsepenxcw22y
I was amused.
Let’s not forget that what we are talking about here, are the results of serious pre-emptive breaches of international law.
We have clearly moved into a phase where the Western Powers completely discount international law with regard to our own actions.
We’ve been sidelining it for a long time but this is effectively the unilateral and very selective suspension of IHL & IL.
The suspension of the Geneva Conventions – the ones that the UK actually helped to draft after WW2 specifically because of the actions of the Nazis snd the Japanese. We’ve never been keen on observing them ourselves, but this represents a callous new low.
We will probably have to pay for this with an increase in terror or revenge attacks within our own borders. Which will feed repressive authoritarianism, which will provoke more violence and so it goes on.
Nice one Labour. Thanks for that.
Keir Starmer, this is on YOU & YOUR team.
We are demonstrating that we can and that we will do what the hell we like to whomsoever we like, especially when our “opponents” are deemed to be less than human.
Instead it is WE who are losing our humanity and becoming brute and brutal beasts.
We dont have a legal leg to stand on.