At 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, President Donald Trump confirmed that U.S. B-2 stealth bombers had penetrated Iranian airspace overnight and delivered precision strikes on multiple nuclear enrichment facilities—marking the first direct American military action targeting Iran’s nuclear program since the conflict with Israel escalated.
Trump said the strikes were “massive” and necessary to prevent the world’s most dangerous regime from acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.
The United States and its military had completed a strike unprecedented in history and that no other military can achieve, Trump declared in a televised address from the Oval Office, arguing that Iran had sought the destruction of Israel and America, and killed many U.S. soldiers.
The president’s remarks confirmed what international observers and Israeli defense officials had begun to piece together in the early hours of Saturday in the Middle East: that American forces had joined Israel’s rapidly expanding campaign to dismantle the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and military infrastructure—a move with historic ramifications for the balance of power in the region and for global security.
This attack, while narrowly focused on nuclear targets, may mark a broader inflection point in the strategic landscape of what some U.S. defense analysts call the “CRINK” war—referring to the de facto alliance of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
This morning Mike Gallagher, the former chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and now a national security adviser, said the strike marked a return to credible power projection.
“Deterrence comes from dominant force and the willingness to use it,” he posted to X. “Last night, President Trump took a critical step toward restoring deterrence in the Middle East and around the world.”
According to senior U.S. defense officials, the strikes involved a small number of stealth bombers supported by aerial refueling tankers and surveillance aircraft operating from bases in the Middle East and Europe. The targets included Iran’s deeply buried Natanz uranium enrichment complex and secondary facilities near Arak and Fordow.
Of these, Fordow is considered Iran’s most fortified nuclear site—tunneled into a mountainside near the holy city of Qom and designed to survive conventional airstrikes. Reaching it requires specialized bunker-penetrating munitions. Only the United States possesses weapons capable of striking such hardened targets: most likely the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound bomb built to bore through hundreds of feet of reinforced rock and concrete. Defense sources say multiple sequential detonations would be required to break through the mountain’s layers and disable the underground enrichment halls.
Early satellite imagery and Iranian state media appeared to corroborate the targeting of Natanz, reporting heavy damage and widespread power disruptions across the site and adjacent military compounds. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement vowing retaliation but acknowledged that “enemy aircraft penetrated undetected and struck sensitive infrastructure.”
The United States, by committing its own strategic assets to destroy critical Iranian military infrastructure, has gained the initiative in what could be seen as the first true strategic victory for the West in World War III—a long, undeclared conflict characterized by economic warfare, proxy combat, gray-zone cyber operations, and regional insurgencies. The Pentagon and White House now face critical choices that could significantly shape the remainder of this century.
The strike could come at a high cost, but also could deliver epoch-shifting, decisive strategic benefits. Iran supplies drones to Russia, subsidizes oil to China, and provides weapons to terrorist actors that threaten U.S. bases and allies from the Gulf to the Mediterranean, military and intelligence analysts argue. Its defeat would damage the CRINK axis, remove a key enabler of great power revisionism, and restore American leverage after years of attritional conflict.
Trump’s language Saturday night suggested he may favor such a path.
In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the American action as “a decisive blow against the terror regime in Tehran.” In a national address hours after the U.S. confirmation, Netanyahu said, “This is not just Israel’s fight—the free world has acted.”
Israeli media reported that the Israeli Air Force had provided electronic warfare support and real-time intelligence for the U.S. strikes, though officials declined to confirm operational details. In Tel Aviv, civilians remained under heightened alert, but there were signs of cautious optimism. “The alliance between Israel and the United States is at full strength,” one senior Israeli official told local media. “We have shifted the strategic calculus in the region.”
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council convened an emergency session overnight. Government officials condemned the strikes as an act of war and said Tehran would respond “at a time and place of our choosing.” As of Sunday morning EST, no immediate missile launches had been detected. However, Western intelligence agencies were monitoring known Iranian proxy forces in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen for signs of mobilization.
On Iranian social media channels, state-linked accounts circulated images of damaged facilities alongside calls for retaliatory “martyrdom operations” against U.S. and Israeli targets.
The joint U.S.-Israeli operation followed weeks of escalating hostilities, beginning with Israeli airstrikes deep inside Iranian territory that disabled radar arrays, weapons depots, and drone launch sites. Iranian retaliation—including missile and drone attacks on Israeli cities—prompted increasingly urgent warnings from Western capitals that the situation risked spiraling into open regional war.
In Tehran, BBC correspondents reported a rare mix of panic and defiance among civilians. Some feared a full-scale war was imminent. Others expressed anger at their government for failing to protect key military and nuclear assets.
European leaders called for restraint. In an interview late Saturday night EST, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz described the strike as “a painful but necessary step.” French officials warned of “a dangerous path toward uncontrollable conflict.”
In Washington, current and former intelligence officials said the operation signaled a fundamental shift in U.S. posture.
The Pentagon later confirmed the deployment of additional U.S. forces to the region, including carrier strike groups and long-range missile defense batteries.
Whether the operation succeeds in deterring Iran from restarting its nuclear weapons program—or sparks a wider war in the Middle East—remains uncertain. What is clear is that the seismic shift beneath Fordow began in Iran, but its aftershocks are now reverberating through the war rooms of Beijing and Moscow.
Editor’s Note: The first version of this story was updated to paraphrase President Trump’s remarks, and add a comment from former senator and CCP committee leader Mike Gallagher.
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Major U.S. cities are preparing for potential violence after the U.S. late Saturday bombed nuclear sites across Iran.
New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities are surging law enforcement resources at religious and other sites to prepare for potential retaliatory attacks as Israel’s more than weeklong war with Iran escalated with the U.S. involvement.
Statements from the cities said they had no credible threats of violence but we’re taking steps out of an “abundance of caution.”
“There are no known credible threats at this time and out of an abundance of caution, LAPD is stepping up patrols near places of worship, community gathering spaces and other sensitive sites,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote on social media. “We will remain vigilant in protecting our communities.”
New York City posted a similar message.
“We’re tracking the situation unfolding in Iran,” NYPD said in a post on X. “Out of an abundance of caution, we’re deploying additional resources to religious, cultural, and diplomatic sites across NYC and coordinating with our federal partners. We’ll continue to monitor for any potential impact to NYC.”
Dan McCaleb is the executive editor of The Center Square. He welcomes your comments. Contact Dan at [email protected].
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday praised the success of U.S. airstrikes that shattered Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and said the mission was intended to eliminate the threat—not escalate a war.
Key Details:
Hegseth said the mission was “not, has not been about regime change,” but about neutralizing threats to U.S. national interests and defending allies like Israel.
The Pentagon said the strike was successful, with precision munitions hitting their intended targets and devastating key Iranian nuclear sites.
Hegseth urged Iran to take the opportunity to negotiate, warning that U.S. military capabilities are “nearly unlimited” and that the choice for peace lies with Tehran.
💥 PETE HEGSETH: Thanks to President Trump…Iran's nuclear visions have been OBLITERATED. pic.twitter.com/NOvHtSZlUY
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday reinforced the Trump administration’s position that the latest U.S. military strikes on Iran were tightly focused on neutralizing nuclear threats—not overthrowing the regime in Tehran.
“This mission was not, has not been about regime change,” Hegseth said during a press briefing at the Pentagon alongside Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine. “The President authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program and to defend our troops and ally Israel.”
The strikes, carried out Saturday night, followed Iran’s continued refusal to engage in meaningful diplomatic talks. After weeks of escalating tension, Israel launched a massive missile barrage that shattered Iran’s missile defense systems. That attack was soon followed by U.S. precision strikes targeting three major Iranian nuclear sites.
Hegseth confirmed that the Pentagon’s battle damage assessment is still underway but said “all of our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike, and had the desired effect.”
Now, he said, Iran has a window of opportunity to choose peace. “I can only confirm that there are both public and private messages being directly delivered to the Iranians in multiple channels, giving them every opportunity to come to the table,” Hegseth told reporters. “They understand precisely what the American position is, precisely what steps they can take to allow for peace, and we hope they do so.”
He noted the mission was intentionally limited in scope to send a specific message. “That’s the message that we’re sending. With the capabilities of the American military nearly unlimited… Iran, in that sense, has a choice,” he said. “Now is the time to come forward for peace.”
According to Hegseth, the stealth nature of the operation caught Iran completely off guard—delivering a clear message about American power and resolve under President Trump.
“The scope and scale of what occurred last night would take the breath away of almost any American if you had an opportunity to watch it in real time,” Hegseth said. “Tehran is certainly calculating the reality that planes flew from the middle of America in Missouri overnight, completely undetected over three of their most highly sensitive sites, and we were able to destroy nuclear capabilities—and our boys in those bombers are on their way home right now.”
Hegseth concluded by praising the performance of U.S. forces, saying he was “proud of how this building operated, of the precision, the sensitivity and the professionalism of the troops involved.”
