America bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, including those in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. It fired submarine-launched missiles at the sites in Natanz and Isfahan, and dropped several bunker-buster bombs on Fordow and Natanz, meant to take out nuclear installations buried deep underground. The bunker-busters are GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, which have never been used in combat until now.
United States President Donald Trump’s welcome announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran shows the extent of American power in the Middle East. What is astonishing is that the announcement comes in the wake of America’s own entry into the conflict. That Washington could still get the two primary sides to agree to a cessation of hostilities demonstrates the latitude enjoyed by superpower America.
America entered the Israel–Iran War with a thunderous display of its military might in the form of “bunker-buster bombs” never deployed before. Their use is akin, metaphorically, to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that concluded World War II. The outcome might be less dramatic this time, but the historical analogy still holds. The US today is not prepared to lose its existential ally, Israel, any more than it was prepared to capitulate to the Axis powers in 1945. Therein lies the global gravity of the unfolding situation in the Middle East.
