On 25 June 2025, United States of America President Donald Trump shook the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, when he compared US recent air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites with World War II atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Pramming the mission with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump bragged that the strikes had "completely destroyed" Iran's nuclear program, putting it decades behind and de facto ending the 12-day war between Iran and Israel. The boasts comparison and unsubstantiated claims have created scorching controversy, with conflicting reports on the level of destruction and wider implications for Middle Eastern stability. This article summarizes the facts of the attacks, Trump's inflammatory rhetoric, the claimed effect on Iran's nuclear program, and geopolitical implications. The Airstrikes: A Historic U.S. Military Campaign
The US military campaign, conducted on June 22, 2025, was a shocking escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran.
The three major Iranian nuclear sites, Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, were attacked. These are the facilities at least at the heart of Iran's uranium enrichment program, long a contentious point with the international community over the last several decades because of its potential for weapons-grade nuclear material. The operation used more than 125 American warplanes, including B-2 stealth bombers with enormous GBU-57 "bunker buster" bombs and submarines firing Tomahawk missiles. It was the biggest B-2 operationally deployed strike in US history, following those of post-9/11 missions, military officials said. Trump declared the operation successful in a televised address to the country from the White House, announcing that the targeted facilities were "completely and fully obliterated." Trump presented the attacks as a decisive defeat to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, warning Tehran not to retaliate and calling for a peace agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Trump's "bold decision" as a history-making move that used the "awesome and righteous might" of the US military.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Analogy
Trump's statement about the bombings being comparable to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 has generated rising interest and criticism.
Speaking at the NATO summit, he explained, "I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing that ended that war. This ended that with the war.". If we didn't remove that, they'd be at war right now." The comparison is to the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan, which had between 150,000 and 246,000 deaths, the majority civilians, and led to Japan's surrender, effectively ending World War II. The analogy has been divisive.
Its defenders, as well as Trump's administration and some of his allies, contend it emphasizes the decisive character of the bombings in stopping Iran's nuclear program and imposing a ceasefire. Seconding this opinion was Vice President JD Vance, who told Fox News that Iran's technical capability for enriching uranium up to weapons-grade levels or for creating a nuclear bomb had been taken away, and referred to it as a "mission success." Critics deem the analogy offensive and inappropriate, however, because of the atrocities involved with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Social media conversation of X was also divided, with some describing Trump's language as "bizarre" while others criticized the historical inaccuracy of comparing traditional airstrikes to nuclear devastation. Measuring the Damage: Contradictory Reports While Trump and his aides say the strikes wiped out Iran's nuclear program, initial estimates are far more nuanced.
A leaked Pentagon Defense Intelligence Agency report, based on initial battle damage assessments produced by U.S.
Central Command, briefed that the attacks only delayed Iran's nuclear program a few months. Two of the targeted sites—Fordow and Natanz—had roads and approaches to them destroyed but not the ones actually underground, the report said. Centrifuges and other key machinery were said to be able to be restarted fairly rapidly, and most of Iran's 408.6 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium—nearly to the 90% required for a nuclear bomb—had already been transferred to secret sites before the attack. Iranian authorities confirmed there was damage to their nuclear facilities but played down how serious it was. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, called the facilities "badly damaged" by sustained U.S. and Israeli attacks, but Iran's Atomic Energy Agency reported that no radiation contamination had extended outside the facilities as a result of pre-emptive defense efforts.
Satellite images by Maxar Technologies revealed movement at Fordow before the attack, with bulldozers and trucks preventing tunnel entrances from being accessed, perhaps in an attempt to safeguard enriched uranium or valuable equipment. Experts, including former U.S. intelligence officer Eric Brewer, speculated that Iran might have moved significant assets, although it would have been difficult to relocate sensitive centrifuges intact. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) indicated significant damage at a number of sites with some local radioactive and chemical releases within the buildings but no radiation levels outside that were elevated. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi was concerned that the bombing would damage the global non-proliferation regime and urged the inspectors to re-examine Iran's stockpiles of uranium.
Iran's parliament struck back by voting to suspend nuclear safety cooperation with the IAEA as a sign that it might escalate its own nuclear ambitions. Strategic and Geopolitical Significance The airstrikes and Trump's aggressiveness have significant strategic and geopolitical implications beyond the Middle East.
The raid was a strategic bet to undermine Iran without provoking a wider war, a goal of Trump, who campaigned on extricating foreign entanglements from the United States.
Israel's shaky ceasefire with Iran following the missile attacks seems to be holding, with Trump describing "great progress" in Gaza and greater regional calm. But Iran's regime, under domestic pressure and perceived threat of destruction, pledged to retaliate. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, had said that Iran could close international trade routes such as the Hormuz Strait, potentially sending oil prices through the roof and threatening a world economic recession. World leaders have appealed for restraint. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned of a "cycle of destruction," and China and Russia have denounced the attacks as destabilizing.
NATO allies, as they raised defense spending to 5% of GDP under Trump's pressure, were dismayed by his lopsided commitment to Article 5, the alliance's collective defense clause. French President Emmanuel Macron asked for an independent assessment of the damage caused to Iran's nuclear facilities, a sign of skepticism of U.S. assertions. Success of the attack will depend on whether or not they have actually badly hurt Iran's nuclear program. The Pentagon's logic that only a tactical nuclear weapon would be able to completely destroy deeply buried facilities such as Fordow illustrates the difficulty of attacking Iran's heavily shielded infrastructure. While the U.S. and Israel seek to push Iran out of its nuclear program, analysts project Tehran falling back on a covert program, employing residual stockpiles of uranium and higher-tech centrifuges out of IAEA access. Domestic and International Responses Back home, Trump's action has been polarizing.
A CBS News/YouGov poll conducted June 22–24, 2025, discovered that most Americans disapproved of the attacks, many of whom thought they required Congressional authorization.
Trump's Republican base greeted the action overwhelmingly, and his former presidential rival Jeb Bush commended the action as an exercise of American power.
The White House dismissed the leaked Pentagon document as "flat-out wrong" and politically charged and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly announcing an FBI investigation into the source of the leak. Globally, the raids have redrawn alliances and tensions. The effusive endorsement by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who referred to Trump as a "man of strength but also a man of peace," underscored the changing diplomatic horizon. Israel's Netanyahu, encouraged by the U.S. action, asserted Iran's nuclear program was "down the drain" to appease Trump's storyline. Iran's termination of IAEA cooperation and threats to create world trade disruption indicate a defiant posture, perhaps supported by Russia and China. Conclusion: A High-Stakes Gamble Trump's assertion of equivalency on the Iran airstrikes as Hiroshima and Nagasaki brings forth the high stakes in his administration's Middle East policy.
Though the attacks have certainly slowed Iran's nuclear program, how much it destroyed it remains unclear with contradictory reports stirring controversy.
The raid has won a temporary ceasefire, however, and Iran's expectations of retaliation and the tinderbox nature of the region keep the threat of escalation simmering.
As America and its allies tread this high wire, the world waits to see if Trump's bet pays off in lasting peace or continued war. The next several weeks will be decisive. Will Iran covertly rebuild its nuclear capability? Can appeals by the UN and Western allies for diplomacy avert wider war? And will Trump's pyromaniac rhetoric affect his foreign policy legacy? Meanwhile, the Middle East is a tinderbox, and the effects of the airstrikes continue to reverberate globally.
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