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“U.S. forces struck Iran's three main nuclear sites, President Donald Trump said late on Saturday, and he warned Tehran it would face more devastating attacks if it does not agree to peace… The U.S. reached out to Iran diplomatically on Saturday to say the strikes are all the U.S. plans and it does not aim for regime change…
“Trump said U.S. forces struck Iran's three principal nuclear sites: Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow. He told Fox News' Sean Hannity show that six bunker-buster bombs were dropped on Fordow, while 30 Tomahawk missiles were fired against other nuclear sites.” Reuters
The left generally opposes the attack, arguing that there was no evidence of an imminent threat.
“[Trump] has walked slap bang into a trap prepared by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu – a trap his smarter predecessors avoided. Netanyahu has constantly exaggerated the immediacy of the Iranian nuclear threat. His alarmist speeches on this subject go back 30 years. Always, he claimed to know what UN nuclear inspectors, US and European intelligence agencies and even some of his own spy chiefs did not – namely, that Iran was on the verge of deploying a ready-to-use nuclear weapon.”
Simon Tisdall, The Guardian
“Trump chose to believe Netanyahu over his own intelligence services… Iran will retaliate in some way. There are 40,000 or so U.S. troops in the Mideast, stationed on bases in Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. Iran, according to globalfirepower.com, has the world’s 16th most powerful armed forces…
“Iran has 600,000 active personnel (it ranks eighth in this category), and a yearly mobilization potential of 1.4 million people. It has 551 aircraft, one third of which are fighters; 1,713 tanks; and enough submarines to rank it fourth in the world. And it has money… In other words, if this really becomes a war in the old-fashioned sense, it almost certainly won’t be a cakewalk.”
Michael Tomasky, New Republic
“Iran is likely to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (N.P.T.) and thus kick out inspectors. The N.P.T. prohibits non-nuclear-weapon states, such as Iran, from acquiring nuclear weapons, and requires them to accept International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) safeguards, such as inspections, to verify that commitment. That puts us in the position where an American President or Israel might start striking Iran again and again.”
James M. Acton, New Yorker
“Opponents of the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal would make a big show of getting upset if you said that their preferred alternative to the deal was war. When Trump tore up the JCPOA, they again made a big show of getting mad at anyone who said this was putting us on a course for war. But here we are, at war…
“Now, maybe the war will end up being a ‘splendid little war’ conducted by air with no American casualties and minimal impacts on Israel. Maybe Iran caves and signs a humiliating deal…
“[But] The treatment received by North Korea over the past 25 years — in contrast to Iraq, Libya, Iran, and, in a different way, Ukraine — is a strong argument for countries to sprint to nuclear weapons development and then figure things out from there. The ‘Iran surrenders’ scenario is definitely on the table, but ‘Iran genuinely goes for a nuclear weapon’ seems like a more likely scenario.”
Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring
The right generally supports the attack, arguing that it was necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
The right generally supports the attack, arguing that it was necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
“Mr. Trump gave Iran every chance to resolve this peacefully. The regime flouted his 60-day deadline to make a deal. Then Israel attacked, destroying much of the nuclear program and achieving air supremacy, and still the President gave Iran another chance to come to terms. The regime wouldn’t even abandon domestic uranium enrichment. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wanted a bomb more than peace…
“Much of the press has fixated on the idea that Mr. Trump has now joined or even started a conflict. But Iran has been waging regional and terrorist war for decades. It’s as likely that he has helped end it. Leaving Iran with a hardened nuclear enrichment facility after an Israeli military campaign would have been a recipe for maximum danger, all but asking Iran to sprint to a bomb.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“Any choice Trump made on Iran, to attack, not to attack, was going to come with risk. And there is certainly a legitimate fear that Iran could respond with attacks on our troops in the region, or even a terror attack in the U.S. that would draw us into a Middle East meat grinder. But this was also true when Trump killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani back in 2020. Swift and deadly revenge was promised by the mullahs, but it never materialized…
“Meanwhile, unlike Barack Obama, who drew more redlines in the sand of the Middle East than Yosemite Sam, all while never backing it up, Trump just showed America’s foes that he will do what he says. That's as powerful a negotiating tool as there can be… Last, but not least, the Iraq War was squarely led by the United States, with our ‘coalition of the willing’ some distance behind us. This is a war between Israel and Iran. All we did was assist a close ally with a mission that caused no Iranian deaths.”
David Marcus, Fox News
“In March 2011, Obama ordered a series of military strikes on regime targets in Libya, not because of a clear and present danger to US security or assets, but because of a ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine… Obama never even bothered to formally report the action to Congress, as required under the War Powers Act, with the lame excuse that he ordered the strikes to support the action led by NATO…
“Democrats then blocked a Republican effort to order the end of Obama's use of military assets in the operation. Congress eventually refused in June 2011 to authorize the operation's continuance past the 60-days-plus-30 limit in the [War] Powers Act, which Obama then ignored. He continued to order military action in Libya until October, when Qaddafi finally got pushed out of power and killed in the streets of Tripoli. And Democrats… cheered Obama's initiative.”
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
“In 2008, Hillary Clinton likely would have defeated Barack Obama, who spoke out against the invasion as an Illinois state senator, in the Democratic presidential primary but for her Senate vote for the Iraq War. And John McCain’s vote for the war hung over him in that general election. Later, Senator Bernie Sanders’s star would rise in part because he could point back to the vote he cast against the war. All told, voters in hundreds of electoral contests spanning years, if not decades, cast ballots in part based on information gleaned from that 2002 vote…
“Yesterday, in contrast, a lame-duck president who will never again be accountable at the ballot box went to war with Iran. There was no deliberation and no ability for voters to lobby their congressional representatives, and voters will be unable to credit or blame members of Congress for the outcome, or at least not as fully as if all were on the record voting yea or nay… Government by the people demands opportunities to mete out such consequences.”
Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
These Sandhill Cranes Have Adopted a Canada Gosling.
Smithsonian Magazine
