Bomb Iran (Part 2 of 2)

The 12-Day War ends in ceasefire, leaving the Islamic Republic with a stark choice

Beautiful Sky of Qatar

While the Middle East, as you probably all know, remains a byzantine maze of ancient tribal rivalries and conflicts, the most serious driver of instability in the region today are the revolutionary and expansionist ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its hardline security forces: the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. These concerns ultimately forced Israel to launch Operation Rising Lion, an attack I detailed in Part 1. However, there is one critical difference between this writing and Part 1: while I composed that essay while a hot conflict between Iran and Israel, later joined by the United States, was playing out in real time, in July the world can breathe a sigh of relief thanks to the recent US-backed ceasefire. In an homage to the Six-Day War of 1967 when Israel held off an imminent Arab offensive, the labeling of the recent conflict as the 12-Day War is a strong indication that this ceasefire is likely to hold for the foreseeable future.

And for the sake of our 401(k)s, the price of gas at the pump, and even the future of nuclear proliferation, we all must hope it will hold.

The decisive event that paved the way to the ceasefire was, as you have probably read, Operation Midnight Hammer, a not-so-subtle description of both the secrecy and decisiveness of the American military attack against the one military target that Israel cannot reach: Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. Around the stroke of midnight on Saturday, June 21, seven B2 stealth bombers departed from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to begin their 18-hour journey around the world to Iran. The mission, according to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Daniel Caine, involved more than 100 support aircraft, multiple midair refueling operations, at least two dozen Tomahawk Missiles fired from a submarine, and most critically, 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordinance Penetrators targeting Natanz and Fordow, Iran’s most hardened nuclear enrichment facilities. According to Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth, Operation Midnight Hammer was “an incredible and overwhelming success.” While Hegseth may be a polarizing figure, I believe everyone ought to commend the men and women who carried out President Trump’s order.

Before diving into the geopolitics of Operation Midnight Hammer, I feel a strong duty to offer a word of praise to the brave service members who participated in it. Before June 2025, the United States military had not conducted any military operations inside Iran since the disastrous Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, a failed rescue mission of the American citizens then held hostage in Iran that left eight American servicemen dead from a midair collision during a sandstorm and rescued zero hostages. That grim history is what made the airmen who participated in Operation Midnight Hammer so brave. According to General Caine, “When the crews went to work on Friday, they kissed their loved ones goodbye not knowing when or if they’d be home.” I am sure all those who joined the mission knew about Operation Eagle Claw, and their determination to see it through is a true testament to the bravery of thousands of America’s service members— this country’s ultimate unsung heroes.

The main reason for the enormously complicated nature of the operation, even when the United States has dozens of military bases across the Middle East, is the obvious reluctance of those facilities’ host nations to become entrapped in the middle of a conflict from which they have gone to extraordinary lengths to remain as neutral as possible. You see, for many Arab governments, particularly the fabulously wealthy Gulf Cooperation Council nations such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, any sort of regional conflict, no matter its source or moral implications, is just bad for business. While none of them love Iran’s revolutionary regime, they crucially lack the feeling of existential peril held by Israel. With such a pragmatic and realist approach, it is no wonder the Gulf States seem to love Donald Trump. Therefore, to open their military facilities or airspace to Israeli or American attacks against Iran would merely be inviting Iranian aggression onto their own territories— their absolute worst nightmare.

For Qatar, that nightmare came to pass.

Qatar, the resource-rich world’s fourth-richest nation per capita, is the home of Al Udeid Air Base, the largest US military facility in the entire Middle East and the forward base of CENTCOM, the Pentagon’s term for the region. Shortly after the ominous decision to close its airspace to all aircraft, Qatar was dealt a harrowing night with an incursion of 14 Iranian missiles specifically targeting Al Udeid in retaliation for Operation Midnight Hammer. While the attack was aimed specifically at the United States, not at Qatar itself (Qatar’s vast energy infrastructure was untouched), and American missile defenses successfully thwarted any serious damage, the decision in Tehran to target Qatari soil would certainly send a chilling effect around the Middle East. Expressions of regret by Iran’s relatively moderate Mashoud Pezeshkian indicate the retaliation was likely a unilateral decision by the Revolutionary Guards to maintain Iran’s image of strength in the face of a nearly two-week barrage against the Iranian regime by Israel and the United States.

The message sent to the Gulf States is clear: when forced to choose between fighting back against Iran’s enemies the United States and Israel vs not upsetting Iran’s wealthy Arab neighbors, who have proven to be vital political and economic mediators between Iran and the outside world, the true authorities in Iran (not Pezeshkian) will always favor military strength over diplomatic courtesies.

In a manner typical of the Iranian regime, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who unlike many of his colleagues narrowly escaped death himself during the 12-day war, responded to Operation Midnight Hammer with a blustery and defiant speech filled with yet more threats against Israel and the United States. In a 10-minute address on Iranian state television, Khamenei boldly claimed, despite a mountain of evidence otherwise, “victory” in the war against Israel, a nation he claimed was nearing “collapse.” He went on to describe the attack on Qatar and Al-Udeid as a “severe slap in the face” to the United States, ignoring that there were exactly zero casualties on the American side and, as I said before, no significant damage. After dismissing the success of Operation Midnight Hammer, Khamenei concluded by warning the United States of a “heavy price” should they ever dare to attack Iran again. If the events of last month are anything to go by, such threats are little more than bluster.

You may wonder what my opinion is regarding the success or, as certain media outlets have claimed, failure of Operation Midnight Hammer. While Trump, Hegseth, and their cheerleaders in conservative media resoundingly bragged that the attack had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities to dust and ash, administration critics have, with their own partisan flair, criticized the strikes as entirely counterproductive. Partisanship aside, I instead have sought out more neutral sources, or at least, in a world where true neutrality no longer exists, third-party sources. So, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a group Iran recently expelled from the country, the damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities was “very significant,” though Iran maintains the capacity to reassemble to program in relatively short order. This assessment takes me to a sobering conclusion: military force, even the most powerful bunker busters, cannot destroy Iran’s nuclear ambitions on its own. Despite the odious nature of the Iranian regime, diplomacy is the only option for long-term stability regarding their nuclear program.

Unlike the JCPOA, which involved seven nations, any new nuclear agreement will be strictly bilateral between Iran and the United States. As I have written on this blog on several occasions, European countries lack the diplomatic credibility and strategic agency to seriously impact great power politics of the 21^st century. Also, great powers China and Russia, despite their association by the Western diplomatic and security establishment with Iran and my favorite chubby dictator in the “Axis of Evil,” Axis of Upheaval, Deadly Quartet, or whatever label one prefers, ultimately decided to sit out Iran’s confrontation with the US and Israel. Instead, they merely issued diplomatic condemnations of the strikes. While China and Russia are, without the deterrent factor of the United States, capable of dominating their regions militarily, bailing out Iran in a moment of crisis is not at the top of their strategic priority lists.

Yes, China and Russia share similar aims with Iran— pushing back American influence, security dominance in their respective regions, and gaining respect as great powers feared by weaker neighbors. Though as their track record proves, leaving this Quartet in charge of Eurasian security is about as safe as leaving a fox in charge of a henhouse. However, the recent conflict with Iran is a damning assessment that when the chips are down, each member of the Quartet will ultimately act in unilateral self-interest and throw the others under the bus. Iran was merely the guinea pig who had to learn this lesson the hard way.

As I conclude my assessment of the 12-day war where the United States finally, in the words of the late John McCain, bomb-bomb-bombed Iran, what do I believe is coming next? As an optimist, I have no choice but to expect that nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran, despite the aggressive posturing from the Iranian side, will ultimately conclude in a nuclear agreement of some sort. What choice do I have, considering the alternative of endless waves of Israeli and American strikes that perpetually leave the Middle East on the verge of an all-out conflict? In 1988, following eight years of brutal warfare with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iranians and Iraqis, the first Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, said that Iran had no choice but to “drink from the chalice of poison” and accept a ceasefire agreement that largely returned to the boundaries before the war. As my podcast with an Iran expert recently predicted, it is indeed both Operation Rising Lion and then Operation Midnight hammer that may force the Iranian regime to drink the poison once again— if only to survive for now.

And then maybe we will see, one day, this toxic regime crumble once and for all.