US Hits Iranian Nuclear Sites

President Trump: The U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime … I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success (Trump War Room). Ariel Kahana of Israel Hayom:  Ultimately, the decision was Trump’s alone. He acted at the right moment to protect America, its Middle Eastern allies, the Jewish people, and Israel. Learning from history, Trump avoided Franklin Roosevelt’s grave error 90 years ago, when isolationist pressures prevented an early confrontation with the Nazis despite their global threat. By acting decisively, Trump preempted catastrophe and did a great service to humanity. One can only hope humanity will recognize his contribution (Israel Hayom). John Podhoretz: Its impact is potentially so enormous, and so world-historic, we needn’t rush into interpreting its larger meaning. But consider the words he spoke in concluding his short speech to the nation: “I want to just thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America.” Trump has said since the assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., that he believes God spared him for a reason. And now, so do I. This was—is—the reason (Commentary).

Assessing the Damage of “Operation Midnight Hammer”

Amit Segal of Israel’s Channel 12: First off all Natanz was completely wiped out. For Fordo and Isfahan, we’re waiting on more confirmations. Not because we think something didn’t work, but because it naturally takes longer for those deep underground sites. The big question now is whether Iran’s nuke program just went back a few years, or if it’s been totally erased. This relates to where the enriched uranium is. That uranium, enriched to 60%, is now incredibly hard for Iran to boost to the 90% needed for a bomb. Israel thinks most, if not all, of the enriched uranium was at Natanz or Isfahan. It wasn’t moved, so it was there during the attack. We’re now waiting For The BDA Of the  Enriched uranium just like we were  waiting on Muhammad Sinwar. I know he’s under a tunnel and unreachable, but we’ll likely know soon if he was also destroyed. This is huge news that could mean the official end of Iran’s nuclear program (Segal). New York Sun: American pilots pounded three Iranian nuclear sites — Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow — with 14 30,000-pound GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrators, better known as bunker busters, in what was the first operational use of this weapon. In a Sunday morning press conference, Mr Hegseth says it was the longest stealth bomber mission since 2001 (NYSun). Yossi Cohen, former head of Mossad: I estimate that the attack last night completely stopped the nuclear program  (X). Liel Leibovitz: This past week, Iran lost its real — and only — strategic asset, its ability to convince enough Americans  that it’s a formidable regional power to reckon with. Now that the decades-long info op is over, we see Iran for what it is: A weak, broke country governed by incompetents, lacking all ability to protect its interests or project any real power at home or abroad. President Trump called their bluff, and reality always wins out in the end (Leibovitz).

A Pivot in the History of the Middle East

Exactly what comes next will become more clear in short order, but what is clear is the fact that things have changed dramatically. Haviv Rettig Gur: Haviv Rettig Gur: It was an enormous change from anything we have seen in the past from the United States.  It has dozens of ramifications … It was a pivot. It was a pivot in the history of the Middle East. It was a pivot in the strategic calculations and the strategic architecture of just about everybody in the region (Ask Haviv). Matti Friedman: If these strikes, and the ones still being carried out by Israeli aircraft as I write, succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear program and breaking the regime’s chokehold on its own people and those of other countries—then today could be remembered by hundreds of millions of people in this region, and by billions watching from afar, as a turning point. Since the mid-1990s, Israel’s attempts to achieve peace with its neighbors and to inhabit a more humane Middle East were crippled by terrorism often inspired, sponsored, or directed by the clerical regime in Tehran (Free Press).

Mission Impossible

Amit Segal: Israel went on a mission, Mission Impossible III, following the Iraqi nuclear reactor and the Syrian one, but this was really impossible. Dan Senor: Meaning in 1981 with Begin, 2007 with Ohmert. Each one seemed harder than the one before it. This one’s a whole ’nother level. Amit: There was no way for Israel to fully eliminate the nuclear facility in Fordow. And not only did Trump attack Fordow, he finished the task in Isfahan and Natanz. So: Mission accomplished in that respect (Call Me Back). Adam Scott Bellos for YNET: Over two weeks, everything changed. Not in words. In fire. In steel. In deed. It began with Israel. In a premeditated, sovereign strike, over 200 Israeli jets crossed into Iranian airspace, executing one of the most audacious military operations in modern Middle East history. Over 100 targets were hit—drone factories, missile silos, nuclear enrichment facilities, radar stations. At least 20 of Iran’s senior military commanders were eliminated, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) chief Hossein Salami and Armed Forces chief Mohammad Bagheri. And then—for the first time in history—the United States followed. In a joint offensive previously unimaginable and unannounced, U.S. bombers struck three major Iranian nuclear sites, transforming what had seemed like unilateral Israeli preemption into a coordinated, declarative alliance. For the first time, America didn’t just “support” Israel in theory. It acted alongside Israel in the war. And it didn’t happen overnight…. the world saw something in the past two weeks that it hasn’t seen in generations: A Jewish nation that struck first. A Western superpower followed. And a global people who now must decide if they are spectators or stewards. The illusion is over. The alliance is real. And now comes the reckoning (YNET).

US, NATO Gear Up for Summit in the Hague

Summit begins tomorrow (NATO). Trump administration has been pressing NATO allies to step up defense spending. The assessment is Trump will be successful: The 32-nation transatlantic military alliance will pledge to dramatically increase spending on defense to 5 percent of gross domestic product — 3.5 percent on hard military expenditures and 1.5 percent on more loosely defined defense-related efforts. The commitment, a watershed moment that could rebalance transatlantic security, will allow Trump, who’s been demanding Europe pick up more of the burden for its own defense, a significant victory on the world stage (Politico). Max Bergman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies: And I think this is a pretty transparent effort by Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, to just put it cynically, to appease Trump, to try to keep the Americans in an engagement alliance, and to put a new goal out there for Europeans to increase spending. Now, the 3.5 percent figure is not sort of out of the realm of possibility. It is a number that has been discussed for a long time. There are clear – there’s a clear rationale for it. But this is being viewed in many parts of Europe, particularly in Spain and other countries, as really just trying to appease the Americans to keep them in but there’s also a genuine fear that if you commit to this number then the U.S. is going to turn around and withdraw and say, look, now we can withdraw because Europeans are finally increasing their commitment. What this spending figure, though, doesn’t do – and maybe this will be the final point I’ll make – is really address the kind of deeper structural problems with European defense, mainly that the Europe and European defense really doesn’t exist, that it’s the United States that has provided the backbone of European defense and that’s, frankly, the way we have wanted it (CSIS).

Iran to Block the Strait of Hormuz?

New York Post: Iran’s parliament has voted to close the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping channel through which around 20% of the world’s daily oil flows. The move, which could block $1 billion in oil shipments per day, is likely to send oil prices soaring. It will come into effect pending a final decision by Iran’s Supreme Council (New York Post). David Strom: As Iran’s military options have diminished, its proxies have abandoned it. That would seem to make closing the Strait an obvious choice to up the pressure on the West. The Houthis in Yemen are pledging to join in, closing the Red Sea. Closing shipping lanes in the region will definitely hurt. But it’s not that simple. Iran relies heavily on the Strait for its own economy. Its oil also flows through there, and its relationship with China is entirely dependent on selling Iranian oil at a discount to the country. Closing the Strait–even if the US and its allies didn’t strike Iranian naval and missile assets in the region–would have devastating effects on Iran (Hot Air).

Islamist Terror Attack in Damascus Church Kills at Least 22 Worshippers

New York Post: A suicide bomber in Syria opened fire then detonated an explosive vest inside a Greek Orthodox church filled with people praying on Sunday, killing at least 22 and wounding 63 others, state media reported. The attack took place in Dweil’a on the outskirts of Damascus inside the Mar Elias Church, according to state media SANA, citing the Health Ministry for the toll of dead and wounded. Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were at least 19 peopled killed and dozens wounded, but did not give exact numbers. Some local media reported that children were among the casualties. The attack on the church was the first of its kind in Syria in years, and comes as Damascus under its de facto Islamist rule is trying to win the support of minorities. As President Ahmad al-Sharaa struggles to exert authority across the country, there have been concerns about the presence of sleeper cells of extremist groups in the war-torn country…. Syrian Interior Ministry spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba said in a news conference that their preliminary investigation points to the extremist Islamic State group (New York Post). U.S. Ambassador to Syria, Tom Barrack: These terrible acts of cowardice have no place in the new tapestry of integrated tolerance and inclusion that Syrians are weaving. We continue to support the Syrian government as it fights against those who are seeking to create instability and fear in their country and the broader region (Tom Barrack).

A Different Mode of Operational Security

Jennifer Griffin on the discipline protecting the security of “Operation Midnight Hammer”: In the last 18 years since I’ve been at the Pentagon—I’ve never seen such operational security. There was nobody speaking about this, any of the preparations. There was a complete lockdown—almost a blackout—of information for the last few days. I’m sitting here in the Pentagon right now. I can tell you the hallways are empty. All of the information is coming right now out of the White House. That is a significant achievement because there were no leaks about the timing. Now, sometimes I think those who—a lot of the flight trackers, the open-source intelligence flight trackers, that FlightRadar—did indicate some of when the B-2s took off from Whiteman. But again, nobody really expected that it would take place this evening. If you looked at the moon schedule, you might have had a clue, because it was a waning crescent and almost a new moon on the 25th. So it would have been very, very dark over Iran tonight. And you need that in order to bomb. That’s the ideal condition for something like a B-2 that is—yes—itself stealth, but it still has to be escorted in, in case Iran were to put up any planes or there were any opportunities to fire on those B-2s, which are such valuable and very, very special planes. Only the U.S. military has this kind of weaponry and this capability. No other country in the world could have carried off what occurred tonight at those three uranium enrichment sites (Real Clear Politics).

The Definitive End of the Obama Era

The inverted moral calculus that led us to this past weekend’s events goes back to President Obama, Vice President Biden and the JCPOA (the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” agreement with Iran). Hugh Hewitt, quoting a retired general officer: Obviously Trump has recovered the damage wrought by Biden’s weakness and disarray, and he is making Obama and his foreign policy utterly irrelevant. Anyone who refers to the JCPOA is referring to irrelevance- and should be addressed so. ‘It does not matter. This conversation is no longer even interesting. Trump has completely erased it. Look forward and discard the failure and irrelevance of the JCPOA’” (Hewitt). Katie Pavlich: Instead of punishing the largest state sponsor of terror for the murder and kidnapping of thousands of Americans, starting in 1979 and continuing for decades through proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and others, Obama rewarded them. In return, the Iranian regime cheated its way through the “agreement,” secretly pursuing a nuclear weapon, while continuing its attacks on U.S. troops and innocent Americans. Flush with billions in cash and gold delivered by the Obama administration, Iran was emboldened, and their malign activity became more aggressive with a goal of further humiliating the United States (Townhall). Netanyahu—with notable candor: Out of fear that I would lead an attack, he convinced everyone to enter into an outrageous agreement that paved the way for Iran to have a bomb (Yakoby). Katie, again, responding to Tommy Vietor, NSC staff under Obama: The reason Iran has the ability to retaliate at all is because of you traitorous fools. Obama gave the Iranian terrorist regime palettes of cash. Trump gave them what they deserved (Pavlich).

Federal Judge Demands Release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia

The MS-13 member who was taken to El Salvador. AP: A federal judge in Tennessee plans to order the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation to El Salvador has become a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, while he awaits a federal trial on human smuggling charges. But Abrego Garcia is not expected to go free because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will likely take him into custody and possibly try to deport him. In a ruling on Sunday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes denied the U.S. government’s motion to keep Abrego Garcia in detention before his trial. She scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to discuss the conditions of his release.The U.S. government has already filed a motion to appeal the judge’s decision and is asking the judge to stay her impending release order (AP). Bret Baier’s coverage (X).