Some Initial Thoughts on the U.S. Bombing of the Fordo Nuclear Facility

There are many possible ramifications of this aggressive use of force.

Earlier this week I argued that an attack on Iran’s Fordo nuclear enrichment facility was warranted but advocated that after such an attack the U.S. and Israel should deescalate their air war on Iran. Now that the attacks have taken place, there are many important immediate ramifications and possible long-term impacts to speculate about:

A Longer, Broader War is Not Inevitable

The conventional wisdom is that Iran will respond to the U.S. assault on Fordo by attacking U.S. military bases and/or closing oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz through mining or renewed missile attacks by the Houthis. These actions, it is speculated, would trigger additional U.S. military responses, leading to a spiral of violence that may envelop the entire region.

This is certainly a possibility, but not an inevitability.

I have been struck at how quiet Russia and China have been in the run-up to the U.S. attacks yesterday. Recall that Russia and China joined in economic sanctions against Iran a decade ago and were negotiating partners in the 2015 nuclear deal. To be sure, China, Russia, and Iran have become much more closely aligned in recent years, with some analysts calling them the “axis of upheaval” dedicated, together with North Korea, to undermining American power and the liberal international order. But China and Russia have watched almost silently as Iranian power has eroded precipitously over the past year and taken virtually no steps to bolster its ally. As reflected in their prior participation in anti-proliferation actions against Iran, they may not believe that Iran’s self-proclaimed sovereign “right to enrich uranium” is a sword on which either country wants to fall. They may also be wary of opening the door to additional U.S. uses of force in the Middle East and further whetting the mercurial U.S. president’s appetite for more muscular assertions of U.S. power, whether in Ukraine or the South China Sea. They may well advise Iran to respond with sufficient restraint to signal a desire for de-escalation, which the Trump Administration may welcome. This is what happened after the U.S. assassinated Qasem Soleimani in 2020.

Trump could also work toward avoiding a broader war by signaling that if Iran responds with restraint, he will put an end to Israel’s air war against Iran. With Iran’s capacity to develop a nuclear weapon having been substantially damaged, Israel’s casus belli will have evaporated, so U.S. pressure to end Israel’s air war would be justified. And Trump may well want to demonstrate the capacity to control its junior partner Israel, especially after Israel humiliated Trump by preempting his preferred route of negotiating over Iran’s nuclear program instead of using force.

This is not a prediction of what is likely to transpire. I am merely demonstrating that there are alternatives to a broader regional war and expressing a hope that they will be pursued. And I certainly identify with those who argue that Trump lacks both a strategic vision and the capacity to execute difficult foreign policy maneuvers. Trump has now acted more aggressively internationally than he did anytime in his first term. The pressure is now on him to manage this conflict and produce a positive outcome.

Iran May Respond By Speeding Toward a Bomb, But If That Happens, The U.S. Can Intervene Again

Many critics of the U.S. using force to damage Fordo have argued that bombing cannot destroy the nuclear weapons construction knowledge that Iran has gained and that the attacks might incentivize Iran to move even more quickly toward a bomb.

This argument reminds me of what I thought were very weak arguments against the Obama nuclear deal. Critics claimed the agreement was bad because it did not eliminate the Iran nuclear program for all time and would allow Iran to begin enriching uranium once the agreement expired. But these arguments failed to consider the possibility that as the agreement proceeded, Iran would benefit from sanctions relief and therefore be incentivized to agree to longer-term restrictions on its nuclear activities.

Likewise, we do not have to consider last night’s use of force to be “one and done.”

Yes, Iran could withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and try to start racing toward a bomb. Yes, Iran may build the next enrichment facility even deeper (indeed, Iran has hinted it already has such a secret facility (boy, that would represent a big intelligence failure if it is true).

But it is hard to believe that the Fordo bombing has not turned the clock back on Iran’s nuclear program significantly and bought its opponents time. There are many ways during that both Israel and the United States can use this time to take additional action to slow down or stymie the program. If worse comes to worst, the United States can build more powerful bunker busters and use force again.

More importantly, with the precedent set that the U.S. is willing to use force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, it is certainly possible that Iran may decide to resolve this problem through negotiation.

The fact that last night’s use of force cannot solve the problem for all time does not mean it was a bad idea.

Destruction of Fordo Should Liberate Netanyahu to Be More Responsible in Gaza

Israel’s successful air campaign against Iran and Netanyahu’s cunning manipulation of Trump to get him to join Israel’s efforts have certainly strengthened Netanyahu’s political power domestically. The open question is—what will he do with that power?

Some have suggested that this power will liberate him from the extremists in his governing coalition and allow him to be more pragmatic on Gaza by cutting a deal to end the war and gain the release of the hostages. His success on Iran also gives Netanyahu room to resume normalization talks with Saudi Arabia, which would require showing some flexibility on resolving dthe Palestinian issue.

I could see Bibi making a deal on Gaza now. He must know that long-term Israeli occupation of the mess in Gaza is an untenable position. But, unfortunately, I doubt that his more secure grip on power will move him to show more flexibility on some form of sovereignty for the Palestinians. My sense is that Bibi has not been forced into a nationalistic, exterminationist position on the Palestinian question by his right-wing coalition partners. I tend to believe it is his own personal view as well.

Democrats Have Been Unimpressive Yet Again

I do not revel in kicking a dead horse, especially during times when a robust Democratic Party is essential to preserving American democracy. But I have been deeply disappointed by the performance of national Democrats on this issue.

The main Democratic talking point this past week has been that an attack on Iran without congressional approval would be unconstitutional.

This feebleness reminded me of something I learned from Joe Biden when I worked for him in the Senate back in the mid-nineties. He said: “If all you’re arguing about is process, you have already lost the fight.”

Now, I am not saying that advocating for Congress to assert its constitutional responsibilities is a bad thing. But it too easily begs the question: What is the Democrats’ position on whether and under what circumstances should force be used to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon? (And note, it has been most Democrats’ position, including the two recent Democratic presidents, that Iran should not be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon). No one from Chuck Schumer to Hakeem Jeffries to AOC seem to have a coherent answer to this question. Indeed, had Trump called Democrats’ bluff on this issue (which of course he would not because he cares not one whit about the Constitution), I imagine that a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iran when the president determines that negotiations are no longer likely to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon would have passed the Congress by a comfortable margin, with more than a handful of Democratic votes.

There are other problems with Democrats’ position on this issue.

First, it is not even clear to me that Trump did act unconstitutionally by dropping bunker busters on Fordo. Bill Clinton initiated limited bombing campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo and Obama did so in Libya without congressional authorization. It is true that the destruction of Fordo was a more provocative use of force that has created greater dangers of escalation than either what transpired in the Balkans and Libya. But I am not convinced that one night of bombing, without the prospect of introducing ground troops, violates the precedents set by the use of force by Democratic presidents in the past. (There are other precedents as well – the Korean War, George H.W. Bush’s intervention in Panama, Clinton’s cruise missile attack on bin Laden in 1998, and Trump’s assassination of Soleimani to name a few.)

Democrats are also in an especially weak position to be arguing that Trump has acted precipitously in using force given that the Iran nuclear problem only got worse during the Biden-Harris Administration. Don’t get me wrong—Trump brought all this on by withdrawing from the imperfect, but pretty darn good JCPOA in 2018. But Biden exerted very little to pressure on the Iranians to get back to the negotiating table during his four years in office. He also did not get the Europeans to trigger snap-back JCPOA sanctions, took minimal actions as Iran’s proxies grew in power, and then, in 2024, urged Israel not to launch the devastating attack on Hezbollah that has dramatically weakened Iranian power. Biden seemed content to dump this entire problem in his successors’ lap. Indeed, had Harris won the presidency, she would have faced much the same dilemma as Trump has over the past six months, with Iran slow-walking negotiations while it moved inexorably toward a bomb. I believe Harris would have exercised more patience and given negotiations time to work. Yet, at some point, she too might have faced the reality that use of American force was the only thing standing between Iran and a nuclear weapon.

I think Democrats would have been in a much better position politically if they were 1) strongly supporting Trump’s opening of negotiations with Iran earlier this year; 2) repeating their position that the use of force would be appropriate to prevent Iran from obtaining a bomb, and 3) advocating that the use of force in Iran should be limited to incapacitating Iran’s nuclear program, not pursuing other misadventures in the Middle East. That position would have been muscular, responsible, and probably popular. Sigh.