I awoke this morning to learn that the United States (US) used aircraft and submarines to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, targeting Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. US officials described it as a triumph of military precision. Officially, the purpose of the strike was to destroy Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear weapons.
Beneath the triumphalist headlines and official statements lies a more profound reality. The US conducted a unilateral, unprovoked attack against another country. The attack was a display of raw, unconstrained power that had no global coalition of support.
I am under no illusions. Iran is an unpleasant, human rights-violating theocracy. The rulers have been domestically unpopular, and with fair elections, Iran would likely be a very different country today. However, according to the US intelligence community’s assessment, Iran was not committed to building nuclear weapons, although it currently could build a crude, difficult-to-deliver one. They also thought that a US attack would increase Iranian intentions to achieve a nuclear strike capability.
Donald Trump brushed aside the intelligence assessment. He is notorious for ignoring professional intelligence assessments. He won’t even sit through the daily intelligence briefing, which every president since the mid-1960s has received. But Donald Trump knew better—tea leaves, dementia, or animus.
By acting unilaterally and without a clear, imminent threat, the US has destroyed what little remained of diplomatic engagement with Iran. No Iranian government, regardless of ideology, can return to the negotiating table (in good faith) after a devastating public defeat. To do so would be political suicide. Negotiation has been replaced by humiliation, and in the long run, that makes diplomacy impossible.
To recap. The US strike did not eliminate Iran as a strategic threat—it has ensured its drive towards that end. It is existential. Iran now has every reason to pursue a nuclear weapon—not necessarily as an offensive tool, but as the only viable shield against future strikes.
The logic is familiar: nations without nuclear deterrents get bombed; those with them don’t. North Korea proves it. So does Israel. After this, Iran has little reason to believe restraint offers any protection at all.
What makes the situation more troubling is the moral double standard. The US enforces a system where some states may possess nuclear weapons while others are bombed for even pursuing the infrastructure to develop one. Iran, still a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, was attacked for what it might do, not what it had done.
The US is no longer about global norms or the rule of law. It is about demonstrating power: who has it and who is allowed to have it.
Politically, Iran cannot absorb this blow quietly. The US and Israel, with US support, have shown that Iran is the regional dog. It can be kicked and beaten without consequence. If it remains cowed, it will probably get kicked and beaten again. Its credibility at home and abroad depends on a meaningful response. Unfortunately (like any good Catch-22), a significant retaliation risks spiralling into a broader regional conflict. The US, meanwhile, has little incentive to de-escalate. It has acted with impunity and without even the fig leaf of a legal mandate.
Other countries in the region may rejoice in this setback for Iran, which is an unpopular Persian Shi’ite player among predominantly Arab, Sunni countries. But what they observed was the US, at the instigation of Israel, making an unprovoked attack against a neighbour. That will give them strategic pause.
The US has made a show of strength, and in doing so, it may have undermined the very security it claimed to protect. It has destroyed a path to diplomacy, deepened regional instability, and sent a message to the world that the international order is dead and what remains are the desires of Donald Trump. He may pursue these economically or militarily, and they need no justification.
For the US’s usual allies, the response has been one of lickspittles. Instead of condemning the attack for what it is, a gross violation of international law, they have tried to position Iran as somehow culpable. But even they must be looking on warily. The global order is being replaced before their very eyes. Do they defend it, as any Western government of principle would, or do they follow the US? Follow a man who does not listen to advice, is impulsive, and believes that whatever is good for him personally is right.
The full consequences of the US strike will take time to emerge. One thing is already clear: this wasn’t strategic brilliance. It was a combination of personal hubris and a failure of vision, wrapped in the illusion of victory.