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“A fragile ceasefire between Iran and Israel appeared to hold Tuesday after initially faltering, and U.S. President Donald Trump expressed frustration with both sides, saying they had fought ‘for so long and so hard’ that they do not know what they are doing…
“But even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel had brought Iran’s nuclear program ‘to ruin,’ a new U.S. intelligence report found that the program has been set back only a few months after U.S. strikes over the weekend… The report also contradicts statements from Trump, who has said the Iranian nuclear program was ‘completely and fully obliterated.’ The White House called the assessment ‘flat-out wrong.’” AP News
Here’s our recent coverage of the conflict. The Flip Side
The left is skeptical that the strikes were as successful as Trump claims.
“We can't believe anything Trump and his crew say about the strike. In announcing the attack, Trump declared Iran’s nuclear program had been ‘completely and fully obliterated.’… [But] other senior administration officials [the next] day conceded that they did not yet have a read on what was left or even the whereabouts of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.”
David Corn, Mother Jones
“The cease-fire is not linked to a diplomatic agreement with Iran on the future of its nuclear program. Trump apparently sees no need for further negotiation, because the military strikes were, to him, an unqualified success. But as the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Sunday morning, assessing the damage to the sites will take some time…
“A preliminary assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency found that the strikes had failed to destroy some core components of the nuclear program… There is a worrisome parallel here to North Korea, which ended cooperation with the IAEA, pulled out of the NPT, and slowly resumed production of highly enriched uranium. A few years later, Pyongyang tested a nuclear device, much to everyone’s surprise.”
Thomas Wright, The Atlantic
“[What] was Trump doing when he called for Iranian ‘regime change’ on Sunday (posting ‘if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???’), then said the opposite two days later…
“Say you’re Iran’s supreme leader or his successor. You’ve just watched the U.S. military unload more than a dozen super-powerful bunker-buster bombs… Then you read the American president calling for regime change… If you have a chance to do so, you will rev up the machinery needed to build an atomic bomb as quickly as possible…
“Any aspiring nuclear power has observed a couple of clear facts in recent years. Exhibit A: Muammar Qaddafi, onetime president of Libya, gave up his nuclear program and was soon strung up by internal opponents exploiting the chaos unleashed by a U.S. bombing campaign. Exhibit B: Kim Jong-un, dictator of North Korea, sped up his nuclear program; he now possesses at least a dozen atomic bombs, and nobody even thinks about trying to overthrow him.”
Fred Kaplan, Slate
“Relying solely on the threat of force [assumes] that Iran doesn’t learn a few critical lessons from the drubbing it just received. The first is to clean house, rooting out the Israeli intelligence assets that made its airstrikes so devastating. Expect a period of extreme regime paranoia. A second is to buy a much more capable air-defense system. A third will be to replenish its missile and drone arsenals… Diplomacy and inspections remain the best and least hazardous way to prevent [Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon].”
Marc Champion, Bloomberg
The right urges Trump to push for further Iranian concessions.
The right urges Trump to push for further Iranian concessions.
“If the cease-fire is a prelude to Iranian concessions, then it will be an historic step toward a larger peace. Iran would dismantle what’s left of the nuclear program and end its proxy warfare across the region in return for an end to sanctions. But if the cease-fire is a way for Mr. Trump to call it a day by handcuffing Israel, it will give Iran time to rebuild and retool for the next round of war. That kind of cease-fire would be an historic mistake…
“Mr. Trump could offer two tests of the regime’s willingness to change. First, will it grant the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors immediate access to examine its nuclear sites? If not, Iran has no intention of dismantling what remains, especially since it isn’t clear how much enriched uranium Iran retains…
“Second, will Iran publicly recognize Israel’s right to exist and renounce its desire to wipe the Jewish state off the map? That’s the Iranian regime’s forever war. If its leaders won’t renounce it, they aren’t interested in peace.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“Every president in this century has promised to prevent Iran from achieving the capacity to break out with a nuclear weapon. Trump followed through on that talk. The strikes can be seen, therefore, as not a departure from U.S. policy but the fulfillment of it. Indeed, both Israel and the U.S. will have emerged from this war with more credibility regarding preemption against nuclear proliferators — a condition that, one hopes, will put the fear of God into rogue states thinking about pursuing their own bomb…
“The United States and Israel are now invested in preserving Iran’s nonnuclear status with force. That means that there may be more standoffs with Iran or even limited military engagements designed to contain Iran’s ambitions. But that future is far preferable to one in which Iran can export terrorism abroad with the boldness that attends to membership in the nuclear club.”
The Editors, National Review
Some argue, “What is the day-after plan here? Israel’s Osirak bombing in 1981 did not in fact end Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programs; dismantlement came only with the Gulf War and the UN monitoring program implemented in the aftermath. Some sort of monitoring program will be needed by hook or by crook…
“It is not obvious that the Iranians will be more amenable to such monitoring now; it also seems more likely that they will try to cheat on such a monitoring program… If you think the Iranians are going to cheat on any deal we cut anyway, this may not be a compelling argument—but that raises the question of why we were trying to cut a deal in the first place, and whether there is any stable solution short of forceful regime change, which most people do not at this point want.”
Jude Russo, American Conservative
Stumpy rings in 39th birthday with world record as the longest-living lemur.
Guinness World Records
