Iran Takes a Huge Hit but Isn’t Doomed or Out of Options

It started with a rhetorical sleight of hand June 19, when President Donald J. Trump said he needed about two weeks to consider whether he would be attacking Iran. Many regional actors, not least the Gulf Arab countries, are hoping that it ends with another piece of political theater, a performative strike on the Al Udeid U.S. Air Force base in Qatar that seems to have been designed to mollify Tehran’s domestic political constituency without forcing Trump into further kinetic action against Iran. According to The New York Times, “Three Iranian officials familiar with the plans said that Iran gave advanced notice that attacks were coming, as a way to minimize casualties.” All the missiles were intercepted by U.S. defensive systems.

Less than 48 hours into the “two weeks” feint, in the early hours of June 22 in Iran, the United States suddenly bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and, above all, the highly fortified Fordow site buried deep in the mountains about 100 miles south of Tehran near the holy city of Qom. Fordow was reportedly struck with around a dozen 30,000-pound GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, the first use of these colossal “bunker buster” conventional munitions in combat. These weapons were seemingly designed, at least in part, with Fordow in mind as a potential target. Tomahawk cruise missiles reportedly primarily struck the other sites.

In a brief address from the White House, Trump declared the attacks “a spectacular military success.” He insisted that, “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” This assessment, however, appears difficult to justify, especially at this early stage. Existing U.S. plans for wiping out Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities called for much more extensive and prolonged attacks, and it’s likely that no party, including Iran itself, had the opportunity to make a thoroughgoing or even serious preliminary assessment of the extent of the damage to facilities that are deeply embedded in mountainside fortresses. Trump, after all, is noted for declaring everything he does to be entirely successful and of unprecedented excellence in speeches larded with indefensible hyperbole and unjustified superlatives. For its part, Iran has remained silent about the extent of the damage.

Even more striking was Trump’s apparent willingness to treat the attacks as a “one-and-done” military action requiring no immediate follow-up – even if nothing approaching the complete and total obliteration of these enrichment facilities was accomplished. This was underscored by his repeated equation of the attacks with the assassination of Iran’s Quds Force commander, Major General Qassim Suleimani, during his first term in office in January 2020. In the immediate aftermath of that attack, the United States took no further action, and Iran did not engage in any obvious or direct retaliation. The analogy suggests that both parties could repeat these means of avoiding further conflict. In its public diplomacy regarding the strike in Qatar, Iran has directly picked up this analogy from Trump. The New York Times reported that Iranian “officials said Iran symbolically needed to strike back at the U.S. but at the same time carry it out in a way that allowed all sides an exit ramp; they described it as a similar strategy to 2020 when Iran gave Iraq heads up before firing ballistic missiles at an American base in Iraq following the assassination of its top general.” Moreover, by urging Tehran to return to the negotiating table and seek an accommodation with Washington regarding its nuclear weapons program, Trump was signaling that if the Iranian regime does not retaliate against U.S. forces or interests in the region, additional U.S. actions might not be forthcoming, even assuming that Israel’s attacks and Iranian retaliations continue.

By utilizing the unique U.S. capability of 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs delivered by stealth B-2 bombers, Trump may have been trying to accomplish multiple goals simultaneously. Most obviously, he is likely trying to insert the United States into Israel’s apparently highly successful war with Iran in a manner that gets at least some share of the considerable adulatory right-wing U.S. media spotlight while appearing to intervene strongly on Israel’s behalf. Trump’s rhetoric certainly suggests this is part of his calculation. But he’s also apparently trying to give Iran a clear means of avoiding any extended military confrontation with Washington.

On the broader war, therefore, Israel may well remain largely on its own – even if relatively limited damage has been done to the specific sites that were attacked, especially Fordow. Nonetheless, the regime in Tehran is certainly on notice that it can be attacked by Washington at any time in the coming days and weeks, especially if it fails to engage to Trump’s satisfaction, not only in a de-escalation dynamic with the United States but also regarding the resumption of nuclear negotiations. Trump has provided himself with substantial leverage with all other parties involved in the conflict through one dramatic action that may remain isolated.

Meanwhile, despite how dire events have proved for the regime in Iran, its situation could easily be worse. Its grip on power inside Iran does not seem substantially weakened and may even have been politically strengthened by the generalized atmosphere of external attack, particularly given that the Israeli and U.S. assaults could appear to many Iranians to corroborate official and establishment claims about the incorrigible malevolence of both Israel and Washington that appeared trite and stale. Moreover, ethnic militia groups in peripheral areas of Iran have not risen up to create their own regional enclaves, so there is no civil war – a real possibility that haunted Iran even before Israel launched a full-scale war against it on June 13. Finally, the regime can apparently be relatively confident – at least judging by Trump’s initial glowing assessment of his own action that could be undermined by anything that smacks of the need for additional measures – that another major U.S. strike isn’t imminent and that it will have some degree of control over the likelihood of further U.S. attacks.

Iran can control its own actions and will almost certainly be able to dissuade its client, allied, and proxy groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere from striking back against U.S.-related interests by communicating that such restraint is absolutely necessary. Therefore, while Iran may have been initially terrified that it was suddenly in as much of an open-ended war with Washington as it has been with Israel, this does not at present appear to be the case at all.

Iran is in a distinctly unenviable and even parlous position, but it retains many options. It could take the war to the Americans, although that would seem to make little sense. Alternatively, it could take Trump’s invitation and sue for terms with Washington, also an unlikely scenario in the immediate term. A middle ground could involve allowing some time for the escalation and then beginning to quietly probe for openings on reasonable terms regarding the nuclear talks. Tehran has similar choices regarding its confrontation with Israel, which it can ratchet up or down depending on its own words and deeds. And if it wants to seek deniable or subtle forms of retaliation, those are similarly available through cyberattacks and other more discrete forms of gray-zone warfare.

Given that regime survival does not appear to be at stake under current circumstances – and that key elements of its nuclear program, including its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, may well have survived the massive U.S. strike – Iran can be expected to intensively assess the extent of damage, calculate the risks and benefits of various courses of action, and react accordingly. Tehran is not, therefore, out of options although, as the Al Udeid strike demonstrates, it will have to proceed with considerable caution and hope that both sides do not misinterpret or, worse, publicly misrepresent, each other’s motives. Yet it still seems that, as bad as the circumstances undoubtedly are for Iran, they could nonetheless be a great deal worse. Tehran will certainly be hoping that its performative retaliatory strike on the Al Udeid base does not lead to those grimmer results.

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