Damage Control
President Trump’s childish and out-of-touch message following US strikes on Iran is now, properly, a matter of contention. He said:
“Iran has officially responded to our Obliteration of their Nuclear Facilities with a very weak response, which we expected, and have very effectively countered. . . . Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE. Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region . . .”
Leaving aside the absurd notion that bombing a country can produce peace and harmony, the finding of “Obliteration” is clearly wrong.
Following Trump’s comment, other less grand assessments of the US strikes have been offered, ranging from “enormous damage” and “severe damage” to the Ayatollah Ali Khomeini’s insistence that “nothing at all” was seriously damaged. Accompanying these assessments of what bombing accomplished are wide-ranging predictions of how badly Iran’s nuclear program has been set back: a few months, several months, several years. All these assessments and predictions obscure a simple fact: Iran still has the human and technical resources to produce a nuclear weapon at some point in the future, and now with greater incentive than ever to do so.
Several expert accounts note that the air strikes sealed off the entrances to two of the three Iranian nuclear facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings. The Defense Intelligence Agency’s report, which cites a three-month setback for Iran, said that much of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was moved before the strikes, which destroyed little of the nuclear material.
Iran may have moved some of that to secret locations. Other officials noted that the report found that the three nuclear sites — Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan — had suffered moderate to severe damage, with the facility at Natanz damaged the most. Herbert Lin, a Stanford University research fellow, analyzed the US attack for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and underscored two key problems with the “obliteration” thesis:
“First, the United States bombed known nuclear facilities. If the Iranians had a secret, undeclared facility—e.g., for uranium enrichment—this attack did not touch it. Second, this attack appears to have been an attack on the Iranian facilities for the enrichment of uranium, and not on Iran’s existing stockpiles of enriched uranium. If enriched uranium were located at Fordow or Isfahan, the trucks seen at these facilities before strikes on them could easily have removed that material—moving materials is a generally easier task than moving delicate machinery.”
Trump has been angered by news reports that have raised questions about the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities. The White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said:
“The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program, Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”
Well, not everyone knows; but to fail to acknowledge that the nuclear sites were obliterated is to fail the administration’s latest test of fealty. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, failed the test, and has tried to recover by citing “new intelligence” to support Trump’s position. But several reporters have endured Trump’s (and Pete Hegseth’s) wrath for questioning their claims.
Unintended Consequences (or, You Reap What You Sow)
Perhaps most importantly, the bombing of Iran has demonstrated anew the Trump administration’s lawlessness. It acted like the George W. Bush administration when it launched the Gulf War and twisted intelligence to falsely claim an Iraqi WMD program.
But at least Bush (after deploying troops) obtained authorization from Congress. Trump began by carrying out a preemptive strike on Iran, without evidence that Iran had weaponized, or was close to weaponizing, its enriched uranium. Then the administration failed to consult with Congress and defied the War Powers Act. (The Senate has just voted against a Democratic bill that would have required congressional approval of further US military action against Iran.)
Now, questioning of Trump’s assessment of the bombing has led the administration to limit intelligence sharing with Congressional committees. To make the point, Tulsi Gabbard was not among the four administration officials who briefed Congress members on the bombing of Iran. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, who has toed the line on the level of destruction of Iran’s nuclear sites, replaced Gabbard.
The US, Israel, and other countries should be worried now about Iran’s reaction to being struck so devastatingly. As Herbert Lin concludes:
“The technical challenges of destroying deeply buried sites, the possibility of relocated materials, the impossibility of destroying Iranian knowledge and expertise about uranium enrichment and weapons design and production, and the resilience of the Iranian regime all suggest that this may be only a temporary setback, and any long-term solution will not lie in a military-only approach.”
That last point is especially important: More bombing cannot end Israel’s or the US’s problem with Iran; only negotiations can. Otherwise, consider Iran’s possible moves:
When all is said and done, will the Trump-Netanyahu bombing strategy still be hailed by their supporters as a great success?
--end--
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.
Democratic resolution to block military action in Iran fails to advance in US Senate
SC’s Lindsey Graham argued requiring the approval of 535 people over one commander-in-chief would create chaos
BY: JACOB FISCHLER - JUNE 27, 2025 8:00 PM
The U.S. Senate rejected Friday, 47-53, a resolution authored by Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine to block American forces from hostility against Iran.
Though a shaky ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel has held this week, somewhat diminishing the urgency of the vote, proponents of the resolution made two major arguments during floor debate Friday: Congress should reassert its constitutional role as the only branch of government that can declare war and U.S. policy toward Iran should tilt more toward diplomacy.
“We all agree that Iran must not obtain a nuclear weapon,” Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen said. “But bombing is not the best, most sustainable way of achieving that goal. And nothing, nothing I heard yesterday at the (classified) intelligence briefing changes that assessment. The bombing attack was also a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, which reserves to the Congress the power to declare war.”
The vote was nearly party-line, with Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman the only Democrat to vote against the measure and Rand Paul of Kentucky the only Republican in favor.
Supporters argue for congressional role
U.S. forces dropped bombs on three Iranian nuclear enrichment sites June 21 amid that country’s war with Israel.
President Donald Trump claimed an unqualified victory, though news reporting of intelligence assessments has shown the result was inconclusive and could have set Iran’s nuclear program back only a matter of months.
Military and intelligence officers provided the classified briefing to members of Congress Thursday.
Kaine, who has consistently called for presidents to win congressional authorization before taking offensive military action, said the framers of the Constitution deliberately gave the power to Congress.
“War is too big an issue to leave in the hands of even a completely careful and deliberative individual,” Kaine said. “The framers didn’t want to leave war in the hands of George Washington, for God’s sake. They thought Congress should be involved.”
Following the vote, Kaine said in a written statement he was upset with the senators who voted no.
“I am disappointed that many of my colleagues are not willing to stand up and say Congress needs to be part of a decision as important as whether or not the U.S. should send our nation’s sons and daughters to fight against Iran,” he said.
Paul, who has often clashed with his party on executive authority and other issues, made a constitutional argument and criticized the foreign policy that leads to active military engagement.
“The American people are sick and tired of sending their children to fight and die in war zones on the other side of the world with no tangible U.S. interest at stake,” he said. “Abdicating our constitutional responsibility by allowing the executive branch to unilaterally introduce U.S. troops into wars is an affront to the Constitution and to the American people.”
535 commanders in chief
Opponents of the resolution argued it would needlessly tie the president’s hands in matters of war.
The process required of going through Congress to approve military action would be too long to be practical, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham said.
“Just think (of) the chaos that would ensue in this country if there were not one commander-in-chief, but 535, and we had to sit down and talk among ourselves and debate as to whether or not we should go forward with the military operation in question,” he said. “That would paralyze this country.”
Tennessee Republican Bill Hagerty said the operation was a success and the decision to order it was entirely within Trump’s constitutional power as commander-in-chief. Iran had been hostile to the U.S. and its ally Israel for decades, he said.
“President Trump’s actions last weekend did not start a war,” Haggerty said. “His actions ended a war, and not a single American life was lost. We should not be here debating how to constrain effective residential leadership, but rather discussing how to recognize effective leadership and supporting it.”
Constraining a president’s power undermines the ability to use the element of surprise that is crucial to modern warfare, Hagerty added.
The resolution “elevates process over common sense, policy and political optics over operational necessity,” he said.
Last updated 8:05 p.m., Jun. 27, 2025
Jacob covers federal policy and helps direct national coverage as deputy Washington bureau chief for States Newsroom. Based in Oregon, he focuses on Western issues. His coverage areas include climate, energy development, public lands and infrastructure.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
