“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” President Donald Trump announced Saturday night after Operation Midnight Hammer. In the days since then, the Leftmedia has been desperately hoping to debunk his claim, even if that undermines U.S. deterrence and national security.
CNN and The New York Times thought they had the scoop when they obtained a leaked report from the Defense Intelligence Agency saying that Trump’s MOP drop had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months. ‘Tis but a scratch, insisted the Black Knight.
The catch? As Mark Alexander noted, the report was classified “low confidence,” which “means it is a very preliminary assessment and DIA is not confident of its accuracy.”
By contrast, the Israel Atomic Energy Commission said, “The devastating U.S. strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facilities inoperable. We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.” That concurs with the assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Furthermore, CIA Director John Ratcliffe offered his agency’s comprehensive assessment. “CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s nuclear program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes,” Ratcliffe said in a statement. “This includes new intelligence from an historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”
According to David Albright and Spencer Faragasso of the Institute for Science and International Security, “Israel’s and U.S. attacks have effectively destroyed Iran’s centrifuge enrichment program.” That includes the underground facility at Fordow, which the pair says “is likely severely damaged or destroyed” because of the method of attack by a dozen or more bunker-busting MOPs.
High-resolution satellite images corroborate these claims.
So, other than that, reporting by CNN and The New York Times was accurate.
To be sure, a full assessment of the damage will take time, and that would be true even if Iran were suddenly welcoming and transparent for international inspectors. To grossly understate it, that seems unlikely now that Iran’s parliament has passed a bill, approved by the ruling Guardian Council, to suspend cooperation with the IAEA.
Meanwhile, the question of Iran’s enriched uranium remains.
“Overall, Israel’s and US attacks have effectively destroyed Iran’s centrifuge enrichment program,” said Albright. “It will be a long time before Iran comes anywhere near the capability it had before the attack. That being said, there are residuals such as stocks of 60 percent, 20 percent, and 3-5 percent enriched uranium and the centrifuges manufactured but not yet installed at Natanz or Fordow. These non-destroyed parts pose a threat as they can be used in the future to produce weapon-grade uranium.”
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi likewise warned that the agency does “not have information of the whereabouts” of 900 pounds of enriched uranium, although it “cannot be excluded” that Iran moved some or all of it to another underground fortress known as “Pickaxe Mountain.”
Earlier this week, Iran conceded that the attacks “badly damaged” its facilities, but Iran is like China, Russia, and a host of other nations that will lie specifically for consumption by gullible Western media outlets.
Iran is also a nation of face-saving posturing. “Iran’s peaceful nuclear program will continue with greater speed,” declared Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf after the anti-IAEA vote. That would be “peaceful” like those recent LA riots.
The award for hilarious bluster, however, goes to none other than Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “I offer my congratulations on the victory over the fallacious Zionist regime,” Khamenei posted on social media. He added that his country had nearly brought Israel to its knees if not for U.S. intervention, though Iran’s strong show of force in response (i.e., lobbing a few missiles after advance warning) had “delivered a hard slap to America’s face.”
As our Jordan Candler quipped this morning, “Oh well. We tried.”
Of course, the truth is the total opposite of Khamenei’s chest thumping. Fordow is “gone for years, years,” Trump said on Wednesday. “It’s very tough to rebuild because the whole thing is collapsed. Nobody can get in to see it because it’s collapsed. You can’t go in to see a room that has 10 million tons of rock in it, and the tunnels are totally collapsed.”
If somehow Iran did reemerge as a nuclear threat, would he authorize further military action? “Sure.”
Given the recent U.S. strikes, that’s no idle threat. In fact, you might say that “fool around and find out” reality slapped Khamenei in the face.
