F**king Mondays: Trump Bombs Iran Special

Was the destruction of Iran's nuclear sites a pointless escalation or was a necessary to stop a future nuclear war?

Satellite image by Maxar Technologies of the Fordo underground nuclear facility in Iran after U.S. strikes taken on June 22, 2025

Welcome to another edition of F**king Mondays! In today’s roundup we’re going to be focused on Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. We’ll be back to the regular round up next week!:

Trump bombs Iran

Over the weekend, Trump ordered U.S. forces to strike Iran’s three major nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—using B‑2 stealth bombers with GBU‑57 bunker-buster bombs and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles.

Trump declared the mission a “very successful” and “spectacular military success,” claiming the sites were “completely and totally obliterated”. We don’t whether Iran’s nuclear capabilities have actually been obliterated, but satellite imagery does show extreme damage at the three sites (see the image above).

I posted this to Substack Notes over the weekend in response to the attack:

I think this is a helpful way to make sense of what just happened, so I’m going to break it down in more detail here:

1. At this point, taking out Iran’s nuclear sites was probably the right call. Under no circumstances should a fundamentalist Islamic regime be allowed a nuclear bomb.

Regardless of how relations between the US, Israel and Iran have deteriorated, after Iran’s involvement in the terror attack on Oct. 7th, it became obvious to Israel that it had to severely degrade the regime’s capabilities. Netanyahu has long wanted to hit Iran, and the terror attack provided the perfect pretext.

Much of this could have been avoided had Obama’s extremely successful nuclear disarmament deal with Iran been left in place, but Trump tore it up, and hostilities had clearly reached a point of no return. Trump and Netanyahu are not solely responsible for the escalation. Iran continued funding terrorism after the JCPOA and used the easing of sanctions to expand its influence across the Middle East.

The IRGC is a despotic, fundamentalist regime with grand imperial ambitions. It is widely despised in the region and has been a threat to stability for decades. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and at this point, a military strike was probably the best option.

2. Trump did this without Congressional authority. This is an impeachable offense. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress—not the President—the power to declare war.

Previous presidents—Democrats and Republicans alike—have launched military actions without Congressional approval. But they have typically invoked the War Powers Resolution to justify limited strikes or short-term deployments.

Trump didn’t bother with any of that. He didn’t consult Congress or ask for authorization. He just ordered a strike that could easily ignite a regional war, and then bragged about it afterwards. Regardless of whether you agree with the strikes, there’s a process for taking a country to war, and Trump ignored it completely.

3. If the Iranian regime collapses we are in unchartered territory, and this could go pear shaped very, very quickly.

This is why presidents consult with Congress, the opposition party, and allies about going to war — and what to do if you win. After the successful invasion of Iraq in 2003, the British government begged the Bush administration to plan for what could happened after (the Brits are, for obvious reasons, quite good at occupying other people’s countries). The neocons weren’t interested, and Iraq fell apart. If the IRGC falls and there is no government to replace them, Iran could collapse incredibly quickly. Has Trump thought about this? Of course not.

4. If the Iranian regime survives and decides to hit back, we could be dragged into a war with no end in sight.

While Iran cannot fight a conventional war with the U.S., it is more than capable of hitting back if it survives. Iran can use its proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis etc) to attack Israel and U.S. bases, it can use cyber warfare, disrupt global shipping, encourage regional militias to spark new conflicts (in places like Iraq, Lebanon etc), and jack up global oil prices. They can also help organize and fund terror attacks on America’s allies, dragging the rest of the world into the conflict. The IRGC specializes in asymmetric warfare, and it could mean a prolonged fight with no real way of winning.

5. This could all have been avoided if Trump had just left Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran alone. It was working very well.

Just look at this chart of Iran’s enriched uranium supplies over the years:

The deal wasn’t perfect by any means, but it successfully stopped Iran enriching uranium and thus attaining a usable nuclear weapon.

6. Netanyahu’s backside just got saved by Trump

Netanyahu has wanted nothing more than to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran, and he has finally achieved his goal. The more wars there are to fight, the longer Netanyahu survives politically, so while he might have done a good thing by taking out Iran’s nuclear capabilities (or severely damaging them), no one should be under any illusion as to why he pushed for this. Netanyahu’s priority is, and always has been his own political survival. The U.S. now has “skin in the game”, and will provide all the fire power necessary for Israel to come out on top.

7. This is bad for Russia because Iran is a major supplier of weapons

Iran has supplied Russia with Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 drones, and powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles that have been crucial to Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine. They also supply electronics, industrial chemicals, machine tools (for building weapons), and tech components it cannot manufacture itself. Iran has been a key ally in Russia’s war against Ukraine and the two countries have explored joint development of oil and gas fields. The Kremlin primarily views Iran as a tool to destabilize the West and undermine its interest in the Middle East, and if the government falls, it will lose its influence there. Iran is not so crucial that Putin will risk confrontation with the Trump administration or the Israeli government, but it would greatly prefer the IRGC stays in power.

Added thoughts/update:

Today, Iran hit back by attacking a U.S. military based in Qatar. But as the NYTimes reports, it telegraphed the attack in order to minimize civilian casualties:

In the language of war, this is extremely revealing. Iran is clearly trying to de-escalate and wants out of the direct conflict as fast as possible. This could be a sign that the IRGC is in a severe state of crisis and is worried collapse could be imminent.

More coming this week so stay tuned!

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