“We have completed our very successful attack on three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” President Donald Trump announced in a Saturday evening Truth Social post.
Earlier this week, Trump appeared to put off a decision about how extensively the U.S. would get involved in current conflict between Israel and Iran. He said he would announce a decision within two weeks.
“Two weeks is an inordinately large amount of time for a crisis that’s moving as quickly as this one,” Andrew Reddie, associate research professor at Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley told KCBS Radio this week. “But it has provided something of a two-week window for diplomacy, and so that's driving some of the Iranian talks with European countries in Geneva today,” he added, referring to the recent Geneva talks between Europe and Iran.
Tensions in the Middle East have been increasing since the terrorist attack carried out on Israel by Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas in late 2023 and grew to include more Iran-backed groups in the region. Most recently, Israel has carried out strikes against Iran.
While Reddie noted that “headlines will tell you that the Americans are very involved,” in the strikes on Iran leading up to Saturday, he said “you have to remember that there's a background level of intelligence sharing and collaboration that happens between the United States and all of its partners.”
Reddie said that the U.S. hitting a target in Iran would be seen as a “pretty major escalation,” and that the Fordow site could only really be penetrated by U.S. assets. Those assets are known as “bunker-buster” bombs.
Fox News reported Saturday that six B-2 stealth bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri appear to be en route to a U.S. Air Force base in Guam, U.S., citing officials. According to the outlet, it wasn’t clear if the planes were related to fighting in the Middle East.
“The bombers apparently refueled after launching from Missouri, suggesting they launched without full fuel tanks due to a heavy onboard payload, which could be bunker-buster bombs,” said Fox. It added that the planes could carry two 15-ton bunker-buster bombs each, weapons possessed only by the U.S.
In his Saturday post, Trump said that “full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.”
According to Reddie, a strike with bunker-buster bombs on Iran would be “very, very significant.”
“It’s actually relatively similar in terms of its blast effects to a nuclear weapon,” he told KCBS. “And so it’s... it’s the largest incendiary device that we have at our disposal.”
Use of this weapon concerns experts because it unleashes the potential for Iran to chase after U.S. military sites in the region, Reddie said. Right now, there are around 40,000 American troops in the region.
“They would effectively become a legitimate military target,” Reddie explained. “And of course, if there were a service member to be killed by an Iranian capability in the region, that might lead to subsequently more escalation. And so, you can tell yourself stories about that kind of escalatory spiral that we all worry about. And then we have broader questions about whether the United States wants to engage in yet another Middle Eastern war.”
Previously, Trump has hinted at making a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear weapons program. There was such a deal made during former President Barack Obama’s tenure, but Trump backed out of that agreement during his first term in office.
“All planes are safely on their way home,” said Trump Saturday evening. “Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”