President Donald Trump’s weekend airstrikes on Iran likely accomplished few of their stated aims. If so, why did Trump carry them out in the first place?
President Donald Trump has presided over what he and his team believe were historic, one-off pinprick strikes against Iranian nuclear weapons facilities. There’s just one problem: the strikes were only partially effective.
Flying in multiple B-2 long-range stealth bombers, the Americans dropped multiple, 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) bunker busting bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow.
No American aircraft were shot down during the strike, and in its aftermath, the president understandably took a victory lap as he appeared to stymie the naysayers of this policy on his own side. After all, the strike took less time than it takes for the Papa John’s near the Pentagon to deliver a large order to the building—alerting eagle-eyed observers that something was afoot.
The American Strikes on Iran Were Much Ado About Nothing
Alas, the victorious tweet storms and self-congratulatory press releases that followed the B-2 airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities were negated in several ways—notably in that the American bombs apparently did not destroy facilities, such as Fordow.
A new buzzword was bandied about the day after the strike in the sterile halls of the Pentagon: the nuclear weapons facilities in Iran were not destroyed. They were instead “degraded”—a much more ambiguous claim.
Trump has deftly managed to confuse everyone involved in the ongoing, expanding Mideast war. Trump’s allies in Jerusalem, and their friends in the powerful Israel lobby in the United States, badly wanted Trump to carry out this strike. Trump himself has been consistent that the Iranian nuclear weapons program was a grave concern of his. To keep pro-Israeli MAGA supporters on his side in domestic politics, Trump went to great lengths to hype up the value of the strike, aided by political allies and a relatively pliant conservative media apparatus.
But the nuclear sites have been degraded—not destroyed. The Iranians well understood the power of American bombs, and appear to have constructed bunkers that were deeper than what the biggest American bunker buster could bore down to.
Did Trump’s team know this? Probably. If so, what was the purpose of the strike? For one thing, it sends a signal to domestic audiences that Trump is tough on Iran. For another, it may have been effective—and even if Iran’s centrifuges and highly enriched uranium stockpile survived, other parts of the Iranian nuclear project may have suffered. It is never pleasant to have 30,000-pound bombs dropped on your country, even if you are prepared.
The stumbling block to any movement on a new deal with Iran has been Tehran’s intransigence over abandoning uranium enrichment. With the Iranian nuclear weapons capacity “degraded,” perhaps this will force the Iranians to the table.
What Do Iran and Russia Really Want?
The Iranians, too, are putting on their own martial fandango: vowing the mother of all retaliations, and then…doing nothing. The only tangible move from Iran since the strike has been its leaders’ seeking of an immediate audience with their benefactors in Moscow, where some move against the Strait of Hormuz was likely plotted. Such a move will have the intended impact of harming the US economy—at least for a time. But there’s such a thing as the “stopping power of water.”
And if President Trump’s recent reaction to the Houthi rebels’ successful blockade of the Red Sea and the Bab El-Mandeb are any indicator—namely to cut and run—then it seems Trump may replicate that strategy with any potential Iranian blockade of Hormuz.
Indeed, Iran’s response is clearly being coordinated closely with Russia, and is carefully calibrated to thread the needle between overreacting and not reacting at all. While this might seem daunting and dangerous, appearances are deceiving. The Kremlin very much wants to complicate US foreign policy and spike the global price of energy, throwing a lifeline to its sanctions-battered economy. Yet Russia would not benefit from a full-blown regional war, since there is no guarantee that its regional proxies will survive. So Moscow is engaged in a very skillful balancing act that does not necessarily lend itself to encouraging wider regional war, despite the bluster from Russian officials in public.
At the same time, despite President Trump tweeting his support for regime change in Iran, there is little evidence that the forty-seventh president has any real appetite for further military escalation. In fact, the Americans have been steadily removing their forces from key naval and air force bases throughout the region, repositioning them to areas farther afield that are less vulnerable to Iranian missile and drone attacks.
For example, the scuttlebutt is that the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet based out of Bahrain has evacuated from its base. This pattern is repeating throughout the region. The United States is, out of necessity, reducing its footprint from the region ostensibly to better defend its assets and personnel.
But suppose this is part of a larger plan by the Trump White House to get a backdoor exit of American forces from the Mideast without causing major diplomatic and political headaches for itself. After all, it’s all being done in the name of self-defense.
Meanwhile, the Israelis are running dangerously low on vital ammunition for their national air defense network. And Iran, which relies upon its ability to strike back at Israel with missile swarms, has been losing key missile launchers in the western side of Iran to constant Israeli airstrikes. Thus, their capacity to maintain a sustained missile offensive is depleting, too. It is a race to see which side runs out of ammunition first.
It’s Hard to Tell If Trump Knows What He’s Doing
All this lends credibility to the notion that Trump’s fanciful airstrikes were little more than a chicken run for the US military. Trump gets to declare a tactical win without actually achieving much, all while moving his forces from the region. The Israelis are made to realize that the war strategy has basically been taken to its limits.
And the Iranians, who are under strain and becoming exhausted, can be allowed to save face by temporarily complicating shipping in the Strait of Hormuz—while surviving another day under the cover of real diplomacy with the United States.
This is the hope. Because, if this is not a mere chicken run by Trump, but instead the prelude to something bigger, then his presidency will be derailed and the Americans are bogged down in another Middle East regime change war for another generation. Surely President Trump understands that this would put an irrevocable stain on his legacy.
There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the coming days and weeks from all sides. Ultimately, though, this war may end with all sides basically going to the reset position, to restart hostilities at another date.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a contributor at Popular Mechanics, who consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Shutterstock / Evan El-Amin.
