The United States has now entered the Israel-Iran war directly. Overnight, American forces struck Iran’s three principal nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, using B-2 stealth bombers and bunker-busting munitions against facilities that Israel could damage but was believed to lack the capability to destroy fully on its own. President Donald Trump announced that the strikes had achieved a “spectacular military success” and said Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated”, while warning Tehran that further attacks against American interests would produce much greater force. Iran has condemned the operation and promised consequences, while the precise extent of damage to its nuclear infrastructure is not yet independently established. The United States has therefore crossed a threshold it spent decades trying not to cross: American forces are no longer deterring or containing Iran’s nuclear programme indirectly; they are physically attacking it. The strategic question is now much larger than whether the bombs reached their targets. A nuclear programme consists of infrastructure, material, scientific knowledge and political intention. Air power can destroy the first and perhaps some of the second. It cannot bomb the knowledge out of a country, and it may change the intention in exactly the opposite direction.
The operation demonstrates the extraordinary military asymmetry between Iran and the United States. Iran buried the Fordow enrichment facility deep beneath a mountain precisely because ordinary air strikes would struggle to destroy it. The United States possesses the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a roughly 30,000-pound weapon designed to attack deeply buried and hardened targets, and B-2 bombers capable of delivering it. This is an example of technological capability creating geopolitical options: Israel could initiate the campaign and destroy enormous parts of Iran’s military infrastructure, but the deepest nuclear targets created a capability gap only Washington could fill reliably. American participation therefore changes the military equation substantially. Yet technological superiority can also create a dangerous political illusion: because the United States possesses a weapon capable of reaching the facility, policymakers can begin treating the existence of the facility as a problem that the weapon itself can solve.
The distinction between destroying a facility and destroying a programme is essential. A centrifuge is physical capital. It can be shattered. A nuclear scientist’s understanding of enrichment physics is human capital. It survives unless the scientist is killed, and even killing scientists cannot eliminate knowledge distributed across universities, laboratories and technical institutions. Engineering drawings can be copied. Centrifuges can be manufactured again. Underground facilities can be rebuilt deeper or dispersed more widely. Iran is a country of roughly ninety million people with a sophisticated scientific base. It cannot be permanently deprived of nuclear knowledge through bombing. The realistic military objective is therefore delay, not technological erasure.
The value of delay can still be enormous. If Iran were only months from a nuclear weapon and strikes push that timeline back several years, Israel and the United States gain time in which diplomacy, political change or stronger monitoring might produce a more durable solution. Preventive military action therefore does not need to solve the problem permanently to possess strategic value. But the number of years purchased needs to be compared with the political effect produced by purchasing them. If the programme is delayed five years while Iran concludes with absolute certainty that it now requires a nuclear deterrent, the physical setback and strategic motivation move in opposite directions.
This is the preventive-war paradox discussed last week, now intensified by American intervention. Iranian leaders can look at the sequence of recent history and construct a powerful argument internally. Saddam Hussein did not possess a nuclear weapon when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. Muammar Gaddafi abandoned Libya’s nuclear programme and his regime was later destroyed after Western military intervention in 2011. Ukraine surrendered the nuclear arsenal inherited after the Soviet collapse and was invaded by Russia. North Korea built nuclear weapons and has never faced a comparable attempt at regime-changing invasion. Iran remained formally below the weapons threshold and has now had its nuclear infrastructure bombed by both Israel and the United States. These cases differ enormously in law, history and political context, but strategic decision-makers do not need perfect historical analogies. They need patterns affecting perceived survival. The crude lesson is obvious: nuclear weapons appear to make attacking you much more dangerous.
This is potentially damaging to the entire Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty system. The NPT rests on a bargain. Non-nuclear states agree not to acquire nuclear weapons and receive access to peaceful nuclear technology under safeguards, while nuclear-armed states commit broadly towards disarmament. The system has always been imperfect, but its effectiveness depends partly on states believing remaining non-nuclear does not create intolerable security vulnerability. If governments increasingly conclude that nuclear possession is the only reliable protection against external attack, the economic and diplomatic costs imposed by non-proliferation regimes need to compete against a much larger perceived security benefit.
The United States therefore needs an answer to a question beyond Iran: what does an adversarial state gain by remaining non-nuclear after this operation? If the answer is merely “we will attack you if we think you are getting too close”, the incentive is to hide the programme better, withdraw from monitoring and reach the weapon threshold before an adversary can intervene. A sustainable non-proliferation strategy needs both punishment for violations and benefits for compliance. Sanctions relief, economic integration, security assurances and credible inspection mechanisms are not rewards for bad behaviour; they are the positive side of the incentive structure making restraint rational.
Iran now has several possible responses, and they carry radically different escalation risks. Tehran can attack Israeli targets more heavily. It can strike American military bases across the Middle East. It can activate allied armed groups. It can threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. It can accelerate or conceal nuclear activity. Or it can absorb the strike and eventually return to negotiations. The problem is that domestic and strategic incentives push in different directions. Iran needs to demonstrate that direct American attacks carry consequences or future coercion becomes easier. Yet retaliation severe enough to kill large numbers of Americans could trigger a much larger US campaign against Iranian military, energy or leadership targets.
This is the same deterrence-restoration loop seen between Iran and Israel, now involving a vastly stronger third actor. America attacks to prevent a nuclear threat. Iran needs to retaliate to demonstrate that attacking Iran carries a price. America has promised greater force if Iran retaliates substantially. Iran then needs to decide whether absorbing the next strike further weakens deterrence. Each actor can describe escalation as necessary to prevent additional escalation.
The United States’ enormous military superiority does not eliminate this problem because Iran possesses asymmetric retaliation options. It cannot defeat the US military conventionally. It can attempt to raise the economic and political cost of American involvement through missiles, proxies, cyber operations and threats to regional infrastructure. The Strait of Hormuz is particularly important because a substantial share of global petroleum and liquefied natural gas trade passes through or near it. Iran does not need to close the strait permanently. Even credible threats can increase tanker insurance, freight costs and oil prices.
This gives Tehran something resembling a systemic hostage. The global energy economy depends partly on a geographic corridor beside Iran. Attacking shipping would damage Iran itself and alienate countries such as China and India that import Gulf energy, making full closure strategically costly. But precisely because everyone understands the potential economic damage, the threat creates leverage before it is implemented. Chokepoints generate power through expected disruption.
India therefore has substantial reason to want immediate de-escalation. India imports the overwhelming majority of its crude oil requirements and maintains major economic relationships across the Gulf. A sustained increase in oil prices would worsen India’s trade balance, increase inflationary pressure and raise transport and production costs. India simultaneously possesses close strategic ties with Israel and a longstanding relationship with Iran, including interests around Chabahar Port and connectivity towards Central Asia. New Delhi’s preference for strategic autonomy becomes particularly valuable in exactly this environment because joining one regional bloc completely would sacrifice relationships needed for energy, defence and connectivity.
This is not neutrality in the sense of having no interests. It is portfolio diplomacy. India has several interests simultaneously and therefore maintains several relationships. A multipolar foreign policy can appear inconsistent when every crisis is viewed through alliance politics. It appears much more rational when the objective is minimising vulnerability across several economic and security networks.
China’s position is similarly complicated. Beijing opposes American military intervention and maintains important economic ties with Iran, but it also depends heavily on stable energy flows from the Gulf and has little interest in an uncontrolled regional war. China therefore benefits from Iran surviving as a geopolitical counterweight to American influence while also benefiting from Iran not disrupting the energy system China relies upon. Again, partners do not possess identical interests simply because they oppose the same adversary.
Russia faces the same limits-of-partnership problem. Moscow and Tehran have developed a much deeper strategic relationship, particularly during the Ukraine war, with Iran providing military technology and both countries opposing American influence. But Russia is already committed heavily in Ukraine and has limited capacity to defend Iran directly against American and Israeli air power. The conflict therefore reveals the difference between strategic partnership and formal alliance guarantees. Iran can receive diplomatic support, intelligence or technology without Russia necessarily entering a war against the United States on its behalf.
This will affect how countries evaluate partnerships with Moscow and Beijing. Great-power alignment can provide resources and diplomatic protection. It does not automatically provide the equivalent of NATO’s Article 5. Again, formal security guarantees and political relationships are not substitutes.
The Gulf monarchies may be even more anxious because American military facilities are located across the region. Iran could target bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait or elsewhere while arguing that it is attacking American forces rather than the host country. The host government nevertheless bears the physical and economic risk. This creates the classic problem of alliance entrapment: hosting a powerful ally increases security against external threats while making your territory a potential target when that ally enters a conflict.
For decades, Gulf states accepted this trade-off because American military presence deterred Iran and protected regional shipping. The current war demonstrates the other side of the bargain. Security infrastructure can become target infrastructure.
This is why Saudi Arabia and the UAE increasingly pursue hedging relationships with China and maintain channels with Iran despite close Western security ties. They do not necessarily want America to leave. They want enough diversified relationships that one confrontation does not force them into an existential regional alignment.
The economic consequences could therefore accelerate the multipolarisation of Middle Eastern diplomacy even while American military power remains unmatched.
Trump’s decision is particularly interesting because it conflicts superficially with his long-standing criticism of America’s “endless wars”. Yet Trump’s foreign policy has never been straightforward isolationism. He is sceptical of prolonged occupations and nation-building while often being comfortable with intense military force for narrowly defined objectives. The Iran strikes fit this model: use overwhelming technological superiority to destroy a specific capability without occupying the country.
The question is whether limited-war intentions produce limited-war outcomes.
America can decide not to invade Iran.
It cannot decide unilaterally how Iran retaliates.
If American personnel are killed, domestic pressure for another strike increases.
Iran then responds again.
A short preventive operation can therefore generate the sequence that produces the prolonged war the president intended to avoid.
This is why a military campaign needs a theory of termination before it begins. What outcome causes America to stop? Trump has suggested that Iran should now choose peace. But what exactly does peace require? No retaliation? A return to nuclear negotiations? Permanent abandonment of enrichment? International inspections? If Tehran does not know what behaviour ends American military action, coercion becomes less effective because compliance has no clearly defined reward.
Successful coercive diplomacy requires two credible statements:
If you continue, the cost rises. If you stop, the punishment stops.
Trump has communicated the first extremely clearly.
The second needs equal clarity.
Israel faces a similar problem because its objectives may now expand after extraordinary operational success. Israeli forces have killed senior Iranian commanders, damaged nuclear infrastructure and attacked missile systems. The United States has now struck the deepest nuclear facilities. Each tactical success creates incentives to continue while the adversary appears weakened.
This is the exploitation temptation after military breakthrough.
If Iranian air defences are degraded today, why allow them to rebuild tomorrow?
If missile launchers are exposed, why not destroy more?
If regime institutions appear vulnerable, why stop at nuclear facilities?
The problem is that objectives expand faster than political settlement.
A campaign beginning as counter-proliferation can gradually become an attempt to reshape Iran’s military power or political regime.
That would transform the cost and duration completely.
Regime change would be particularly dangerous because destroying the Iranian government does not answer what governs ninety million people afterwards. Iraq should have ended any illusion that removing an authoritarian government automatically produces a stable successor. Iran is larger, more populous and institutionally complex. Even Iranians who oppose the Islamic Republic may not want foreign governments determining their political future through bombing.
A collapse could produce fragmented sovereignty, civil conflict and unsecured military infrastructure, including nuclear materials.
The strategic objective should therefore remain narrower.
Prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon.
Reduce immediate threats where necessary.
Create conditions for a verifiable agreement.
That is difficult enough.
The technical verification problem now becomes harder because bombing can destroy monitoring equipment and motivate Iran to reduce cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. If Tehran expels inspectors or withdraws from the NPT, the international community loses visibility precisely when knowing the location of remaining enriched uranium becomes most important.
This is the information paradox of counter-proliferation. Military action can destroy observable infrastructure while driving the surviving programme into less observable forms.
A visible enrichment plant under cameras is vulnerable militarily but monitorable diplomatically.
A dispersed clandestine programme is harder to bomb and harder to inspect.
The optimal outcome therefore is not merely fewer centrifuges.
It is fewer centrifuges plus more information.
That requires Iran eventually returning to a monitoring regime.
The uncertainty surrounding Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile makes this urgent. If substantial quantities of highly enriched material were moved before the strikes, physical destruction of facilities may leave the most proliferation-sensitive material intact. If the material was destroyed or rendered inaccessible, the programme may have suffered a much larger setback. We do not know yet, and confident claims should therefore be treated cautiously.
Trump’s assertion that the facilities were “obliterated” is politically understandable after a major operation.
Intelligence assessment should be more conservative.
Battle damage assessment is an empirical process, not a presidential adjective.
Satellite imagery.
Seismic data.
Signals intelligence.
Human intelligence.
IAEA information.
These will gradually provide a clearer picture.
Policy should adapt to the evidence.
This is another test of institutional information quality. If intelligence agencies feel pressure to validate the president’s public claim, the United States risks repeating the authoritarian information problem: leaders receive the conclusion they politically prefer rather than the uncertainty analysts actually observe.
A strong government should be capable of saying:
the operation succeeded operationally, and we are still assessing how much capability survived.
Those statements are compatible.
The coming days will therefore determine whether this remains a limited American intervention or becomes something much larger. Iran needs to choose a response. Trump needs to decide what retaliation he will tolerate. Israel needs to decide whether its objectives have been achieved sufficiently to begin seeking termination. Gulf governments will push for de-escalation. European states will attempt to preserve some diplomatic pathway. Oil markets will price every signal.
The most dangerous actors may be those who believe the war has already demonstrated that escalation works.
Israel can say escalating produced American intervention and greater destruction of Iran’s programme.
Trump can say overwhelming force achieved what diplomacy had not.
Iran can conclude only stronger deterrence can prevent repetition.
Every actor therefore can extract a lesson favouring greater future escalation.
That is how successful tactics can collectively produce a less stable strategic environment.
The opposite lesson is still possible.
Iran can decide its nuclear programme is too costly to pursue at previous levels.
Israel can decide the immediate threat has been delayed sufficiently.
America can convert military leverage into a stronger inspection agreement.
Sanctions relief can make compliance economically valuable.
The Gulf can support a regional security framework.
That would transform the strikes from the beginning of another war into coercive leverage preceding diplomacy.
Whether that happens depends on what political leaders do after the bombs.
This is why the question “did America destroy Fordow?” is important but incomplete.
Suppose the answer is yes.
What happens when Iran rebuilds?
Suppose the answer is no.
What is the next military target?
Every answer eventually returns to politics.
Nuclear programmes are built because governments believe they produce security.
Permanent non-proliferation therefore requires changing that belief, not simply destroying the machinery periodically.
The United States has now demonstrated that it can reach Iran’s deepest nuclear facilities.
Iran has received the opposite lesson:
even its deepest facilities can be reached while it remains non-nuclear.
Which of those lessons becomes more strategically important will determine whether last night’s operation reduced the long-term probability of an Iranian bomb or increased it.
That is the uncomfortable paradox at the centre of this war.
America may have destroyed enormous amounts of nuclear infrastructure.
The one target no bunker-buster can destroy is the reason Iran might decide to rebuild it.
