Will Trump decide to drop a bomb on Iran?

President Trump left the G7 early in the middle of the night, rushing back to Washington where he will attend a meeting of his National Security Council in the White House Situation Room.
This secure crisis centre below the President's official residence has been the scene of countless high stakes meetings, but today's promises to be one of the most consequential in recent years.
Israel's Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu has long wanted to take out Iran's nuclear facilities, particularly the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, buried around 90 metres beneath a mountain towards the north-west of the country.
But Israel doesn't possess the B2 bombers which are the only aircraft capable of carrying the MOAB bombs needed to penetrate deep into the earth. The abbreviation stands for Massive Ordnance Air Blast and is also colloquially referred to as Mother Of All Bombs.
Now Donald Trump faces the 'mother of all decisions' on whether to drop a 15-tonne bomb on Iran in an attempt to end its nuclear programme, or whether he will give a diplomatic push one last try.
There is a significant part of his Republican Party which hates the idea of the US getting involved in another Middle East war. Donald Trump himself has boasted how no conflicts have started under his Presidency. But his social media posts today are bellicose.
When he wrote today on Truth & Social, 'We have complete and total control of the skies over Iran' and 'We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding' many inside his own MAGA movement were alarmed.
This feels like the US is not just defending Israel but is actively preparing to go on the offensive against Iran, with all the unintended consequences that may follow.

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Times

9 minutes ago

• Times

I looked into Ayatollah Khamenei's eyes. He's willing to die a martyr

The closest I ever came to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was in the summer of 2009, during the Green Movement that brought millions of Iranians on to the streets to protest against a presidential election that had been rigged in favour of the Ayatollah's preferred candidate. One Friday in June that year I was one of two foreign journalists, and the only Brit, in the press section of a huge open air prayer space in the centre of Tehran while, a few yards away, the supreme leader delivered one of the most consequential sermons of his life. Amid chants from the congregation of 'Death to America!' and 'Death to Israel!' Khamenei abandoned his long-maintained pose of neutrality between Iran's political factions, declaring the election results legitimate and ordering the protesters to end their agitation or face 'blood, violence and chaos'. • US bombs Iran – follow live Accusing western countries of being behind the protests, Khamenei suddenly fixed his eyes on mine, declaring: 'And the most evil of them all are the British.' The faithful bayed dutifully: 'Death to Britain!' In the weeks that followed, as the Green Movement was obliterated by truncheon charges and pepper gas, show trials and prison rapes, I never forgot that look. Years later and now 86 years old, Khamenei is the least known of the three national leaders who will decide the future of Iran, and with it that of the Middle East. For Binyamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, the war that Israel started on June 12 is about Iran's ability to acquire nuclear weapons and threaten the Jewish state, which Khamenei has described as a 'cancerous tumour' that needs removal. Now, Trump has done what he previously seemed unwilling to do. Late on Saturday night, the US president ordered military strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. For Khamenei, this is a moment of truth in which his 46 years of service to the Islamic Revolution, 36 of them spent as the country's all powerful supreme leader — effectively its head of state, head of religion and commander-in-chief — will either be vindicated or reduced to ashes. It was Khamenei's mentor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 revolution that toppled Shah Mohammad RezaPahlavi after spending 15 years in exile. In the 1980s he waged an epic eight-year war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. (If you find the surnames of the two successive supreme leaders confusingly similar, you're in good company; from Trump down, the US administration calls Khamenei 'the Ayatollah', even though there are actually many ayatollahs in Iran.) Khomeini trusted his mentee and valued his commitment to revolutionary principles. When he died in 1989, Iran's Assembly of Experts, the body of more than 80 clerics who choose the supreme leader, elected Khamenei in his place. • Who is Iran's ruthless supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? As supreme leader, Khamenei is the ultimate power in Iran. Presidential nominees are vetted by the Guardian Council, which is partially selected by Khamenei and also vets laws passed by parliament. Critically, Khamenei also controls the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's elite military force that acts an ideological shield for the revolution, controls the ballistic missile programme and runs the country's foreign military operations. In recent years, Khamenei has presided over what until last year looked like an unstoppable expansion of Iranian influence through the Middle East, backing militias in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, as well as Bashar al-Assad's Syria (a network that came to be known as its 'axis of resistance') — all the while enriching uranium to ever higher levels. Hubris took hold. The death in 2017 of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president of Iran and Khamenei's only equal among his peers in the political elite, robbed the supreme leader of the restraining influence of a pragmatist, a man who was more interested in reaching an accommodation with the West than in fighting it. Meanwhile, the rest of the religious establishment elevated this cleric of only middling expertise to the status of a major divine. The Revolutionary Guard commanders whom he coddled with lucrative sanctions-busting opportunities made his overseas mission their own. All this came to an abrupt halt after Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. This led to the mauling of Hezbollah at the hands of the same brutally effective Israeli intelligence services and air force that are now mauling Iran. To make matters worse, last year Assad's Syrian regime was overthrown, denying Iran its most important foreign client. The Islamic Revolution has been boxed back to its heartland on the Persian plateau. For the past week Israel's air force has been hammering nuclear, military and civilian targets in Iran, in the process killing more than 600 people, a third of them civilians. Unable to protect their own skies, Iran has retaliated by sending waves of missiles into Israel, including a device that got through Israel's defences and hit the Sorokah hospital, in Beersheeba, on Thursday. Trump has announced that he will decide within two weeks whether to enter the war — giving him enough time to ready his stealth bombers and aircraft carriers, but also to have a last crack at diplomacy. The world is waiting to see whether Trump uses his bunker-busting bombs to try to take out Iran's still intact Fordow uranium enrichment facility, near the seminary city of Qom, where Khamenei once studied 'at the feet', as the Persian saying goes, of his mentor Khomeini. If Trump does decide to fight, Khamenei's response will be just as critical. This could range from the 'unconditional surrender' that Trump demanded on Tuesday to attacking US forces in the Middle East by conventional means and — as a possibly suicidal last resort — further enriching the 60 per cent enriched uranium that Iran already possesses and going flat out for a bomb, assuming that Iran retains the materiel and expertise to do so. • The Iran-Israel conflict in maps, video and satellite images At stake now for the supreme leader is not simply the country's territorial integrity but also the ideologically radical and socially repressive ethos he has imposed on it. Revolutionary Iran is a country where the hijab remains mandatory for women, even if a large minority abandoned it during the 'Woman, Life, Freedom' protests of 2022-23, and have resisted the authorities' best efforts to force them to adopt it again. Modesty codes are imposed by the police and criticising the supreme leader is punishable by prison. Married women need their husband's permission to obtain a passport. Religious minorities face discrimination and the state executed 901 people in 2024, according to the UN. Conventional political careers are assessed on the basis of positions attained and policies enacted. But Khamenei, warrior, prophet and moral scourge, has made it his life's work to preserve the purity of the Islamic Revolution and deny Israel a moment's peace. It is by these measures that he asks to be judged. The style of the man is the antithesis of his adversaries. While they love to be seen, Khamenei is sparing in his appearances, a stranger to vanity and reportedly frugal in his tastes. A globetrotter he is not: he last set foot out of Iran in 1989 (destination: North Korea) and rarely accepts visits from westerners (an exception is made for Vladimir Putin). Gone even are the modest fripperies of his early adulthood in the shrine city of Mashhad, where he indulged an interest in poetry and music and cultivated the image of a worldly intellectual by smoking a pipe. From his earliest years, Khamenei was raised by his father, Javad, also a Shia cleric, to value austerity and devotion to Islam. Two of his brothers also became clerics. 'My father was a well‑known religious scholar who was very pious and a bit of a recluse,' Khamenei recalled. 'We had a difficult life. I remember that sometimes we didn't have anything in the house for dinner at night. Nevertheless, my mother would try to scrape something up, and that dinner would be nothing but bread and raisins.' Today, when Khamenei engages in verbal jousts with his current — and perhaps final — adversaries in Israel and the West, it is in his mind the confrontation of the implacable man of God, soft of voice, hard of will, and the histrionics of the fragile western ego. On Wednesday, in an address ostensibly to the Iranian people — but in reality directed at Trump — Khamenei made it clear that he won't capitulate. Occasionally raising his left hand to emphasise a point (he lost the use of his right hand in 1981 after an opposition group tried to kill him using a booby-trapped tape recorder), and frequently licking his lips, an old habit, the supreme leader said in his calm, even voice: 'The Iranians are not the kind of people who surrender … if America enters the fray it will suffer irreparable harm.' As I learnt to my cost at Friday prayers that day in 2009, Khamenei is an amateur historian who remembers with rancour the sway that Britain enjoyed over Iran for many decades, without, however, ever formally colonising the country. He hates sell-outs, particularly the last Shah's father, Reza Shah. Reza was brought to power by the British and, having made the mistake of favouring the Germans in the Second World War, was bundled into exile by the Allies when they invaded in 1941. An Iranian friend recently sent me a clip of Khamenei in a hall of people discussing the moment when the British told Reza to leave Iran. His style is conversational, intimate, grandfatherly — but above all virile. 'They told him to go,' Khamenei told his rapt audience, 'and he went! Can you imagine a greater humiliation for a country?' And, as if addressing Reza himself, he went on: 'If you're a man … if you possess a drop of spunk, you'd say, 'I won't go!' You'd let them kill you!' So when Khamenei issues his warnings from his bunker, do not confuse them with the empty fulminations of a Colonel Muammar Gaddafi or a Saddam Hussein, made while their praetorian guards melt into the night. Do not expect this man who has lived his life for a noble cause — and in his pious eyes has everything to gain from dying a martyr to it — to do an Assad and willingly exchange the leadership of his country for a Russian dacha. Right now, from exile in America, a second Reza Pahlavi — the grandson of Reza Shah, for whom Khamenei has such fierce contempt — has been calling for the Iranians to take advantage of the Israeli assault and topple their tyrannical ruler. It's true that millions of Iranians hate Khamenei for his callousness, his machinations, his driving of the country to the brink of disaster. But, if they are forced to choose between a foreign beast and a domestic monster, a great many will choose the latter. From his base near Washington DC, Pahlavi taunts the supreme leader, calling him a rat in his lair. But he knows, and everyone knows, the basic history. His father cut and ran when things got tough in 1979 and his grandfather did the same in 1941. Not, I think, Ali Khamenei. Christopher de Bellaigue is the former correspondent of The Economist in Iran and author of The Golden Throne: The Curse of a King

Sky News

11 minutes ago

• Sky News

What happens next after US strikes is largely in Iran's control - but there are no good choices

As the sun rises above Jerusalem this morning, Israelis will be waking to the news that America has joined their war and attacked Iran. It will be met with mixed feelings. While the new day brings a comfort in US military support there will also be deep trepidation that this war has entered a dangerous and potentially uncontrollable phase. Benjamin Netanyahu released a video statement praising the US president and saying peace comes through strength; Donald Trump addressed the American nation and warned Iran he would not hesitate to order further action if it retaliates. What happens next is largely in Iran's control. What they choose to do, will determine the future of this region. The question is now not whether they will respond, but how? 1:45 Iran has faced a humiliating pounding from Israeli jets over nine days and now suffered massive attacks on their celebrated nuclear facilities by a country they call "The Great Satan"; there will be a feeling of national humiliation and anger, and the government will need to show its people it remains strong. Developing a nuclear programme has taken many decades and comes at vast cost: billions and billions of dollars and heavy international sanctions. That all now lies in tatters. How does the government explain that to its people, many of whom have suffered at the expense of these grand ambitions and are opposed to the draconian leadership they live under? Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is often described as the world's longest-serving dictator. He hasn't survived by being reckless but even though the US strikes weren't aimed at regime change, Khamanei's future is now more precarious than ever. The government rhetoric and state television channels will promise fire and victory, but the reality isn't simple. There will be voices close to the Supreme Leader, especially in the Revolutionary Guard, encouraging a strong response. The moderates will likely urge caution, wary of dragging the US into a wider, more sustained conflict that Iran couldn't win. It's unclear how much more Iran can throw at Israel. Ballistic missiles have been fired at the country every day since the war began, but in decreasing numbers as Israel has systematically targeted launch sites and stockpiles. Iran's proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are severely degraded and the Assad regime in Syria is no more. This was all supposed to be the first line of defence, a deterrence against an Israel attack. That shield has collapsed. The Houthis remain defiant but their firepower is limited. 1:44 The US attacks were against Iran's nuclear sites, not senior Iranian officials. Strikes on US bases in the region would therefore be the most logical 'like-for-like' response. If they choose to widen the conflict, Iran could now target oil facilities in the Gulf or try to close off the globally important Strait of Hormuz. Either of those options would have international consequences. 2:48 Shia militia in Iraq could be hard to control if they decide to act unilaterally. Iraqi security forces have reportedly surrounded the US Embassy in Baghdad in anticipation of violence. There is a possibility Iran could do something smaller and symbolic as a way of saving face, having the final word and giving the region an off-ramp. That will be the hope in Washington. But even in that best-case scenario, it will surely have to be something more than a token response; Iran is reeling, severely weakened internally and externally. If they escalate, they risk a severe US response that could be a death blow. If they capitulate, the government faces major domestic dissent and reputational damage from which it might never recover.

The Independent

12 minutes ago

• The Independent

US-Iran latest: Trump says Iranian nuclear facilities were ‘completely and totally obliterated' in bombing as he speaks after strikes

President Donald Trump announced that U.S. warplanes struck three nuclear facility sites in Iran, hours after it was revealed that bunker-busting bomber planes had been flown across the Pacific as Israel and Iran exchanged strikes throughout Saturday. At about 8 p.m. ET, Trump put out a message on his Truth Social website saying that 'very successful' strikes had been carried out on the nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. 'Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,' Trump said in a brief address on Saturday evening. Earlier this week, Trump said he would announce whether the U.S. would join Israel 's campaign against Iran 'within two weeks'. The issue has caused deep ruptures in his MAGA movement, with some urging him to knock out Tehran 's nuclear program, and others campaigning to keep the U.S. out of another Middle East conflict. Israel launched attacks on Iran on June 13, saying it was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran says its atomic program is only for peaceful purposes. Since then, at least 430 people have been killed and 3,500 injured in Iran, Iranian state-run Nour News said, citing the health ministry. In Israel, 24 civilians have been killed by Iranian missile attacks, in the worst conflict in history between the two nations. Iran says it has right to resist US with full force Iran's foreign ministry has said it has the 'right to resist with all its might' against the US. 'Silence in the face of this blatant aggression exposes the world to an unprecedented and pervasive danger,' the ministry said. It added that the world 'must not forget US started war against Iran in the midst of diplomatic process,' referring to talks regarding Iran's nuclear programme. Last week, Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi met with his British counterpart David Lammy, along with European foreign ministers from France, Germany, and the EU in Geneva. Shahana Yasmin22 June 2025 07:22 11 injured after Iranian missile strikes in Israel Eleven people in Israel have been injured following a series of missile attacks launched by Iran, according to emergency services. One victim suffered shrapnel wounds, while the other 10 were 'lightly hurt,' Al Jazeera reported, citing the Magen David Adom national emergency service. The strikes caused severe damage in Tel Aviv, with several two-story residential buildings heavily damaged or collapsing, emergency responders said. 'This is a large-scale destruction site. Several two-story residential buildings were severely damaged, and some collapsed,' Magen David Adom is quoted as having said by CNN. Emergency crews, police, and bomb disposal units are actively responding to multiple impact sites across the country, including in the northern city of Haifa. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that search and rescue operations are ongoing at various locations after at least 10 missile impacts were reported. Shahana Yasmin22 June 2025 07:00 Airlines reroute flights as Middle East airspace remains restricted Airlines continued to reroute flights on Sunday to avoid large parts of Middle Eastern airspace following US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. According to flight tracking service FlightRadar24, commercial traffic is operating under restrictions implemented last week, with no flights over Iran, Iraq, Syria, or Israel. Airlines are instead choosing longer routes via the Caspian Sea or through Egypt and Saudi Arabia, despite higher costs and extended travel times. Israel's airspace remains closed, and its two main carriers, El Al and Arkia, suspended rescue and scheduled flights on Sunday. Shahana Yasmin22 June 2025 06:50 At least 39 missiles fired at Israel in two waves Israeli teams were on the site of at least one strike in Tel Aviv. It is not clear whether it was caused by debris from a downed missile or from a missile strike itself. At least 39 missiles were fired at Israel, understood to have come in two waves. Sam Kiley22 June 2025 06:40 IAEA reports no radiation spike after US strikes The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Sunday that there was 'no increase in off-site radiation levels' following US airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities. Shahana Yasmin22 June 2025 06:30 Israeli media report multiple hits from Iranian missile barrage Israeli media are reporting several impacts across the country following the latest missile barrage launched from Iran. According to Israel's state broadcaster Kan, at least 10 missiles struck locations inside Israel. Shahana Yasmin22 June 2025 06:21 Iran calls for emergency UN Security Council meeting Iran's ambassador to the United Nations has requested an emergency Security Council meeting on Sunday in response to what he described as 'heinous attacks and illegal use of force' by the US. Amir Saeid Iravani said the Council must 'take all necessary measures' to hold the US accountable under international law and the UN Charter, in a letter obtained by the Associated Press. 'The Islamic Republic of Iran condemns and denounces in the strongest possible terms these unprovoked and premeditated acts of aggression, which have followed the large-scale military attack conducted by the Israeli regime on 13 June against Iran's peaceful nuclear sites and facilities,' he wrote. Shahana Yasmin22 June 2025 06:10 Sirens and blasts heard in Tel Aviv There are sirens in Tel Aviv and at least five audible blasts as Iran retaliated for the US bombardment of its nuclear facilities over night. The US attacks came as a relief for many Israelis who feared 'we are in danger of getting stuck in a war without end,' as one senior officer in the IDF put it. But a wider retaliation against US forces around the Middle East is also anticipated. Military experts in the IDF have assessed that Iran has the capacity to fire at least 29 ballistic missiles a day indefinitely, which could trap Israel and America in a ' forever war'. Sam Kiley22 June 2025 05:55 Trump bombs Iranian nuclear facilities in major escalation. What happens next? President Donald Trump has claimed to have 'completely, totally obliterated' Iran's nuclear program in a series of missile strikes and bombings, marking explicit US intervention into Israel's war that risks a wider international crisis. The world braces for retaliatory strikes while the US risks the prospect of serious blowback, writes Alex Woodward. What happens now that Trump has bombed Iran? Shahana Yasmin22 June 2025 05:50 Iran warns of consequences after US strike on nuclear sites Iran's foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi condemned the US attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as 'outrageous ' and warned of 'everlasting consequences'. In a post on X, he wrote: 'The United States, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has committed a grave violation of the UN Charter, international law and the NPT by attacking Iran's peaceful nuclear installations. 'The events this morning are outrageous and will have everlasting consequences. Each and every member of the UN must be alarmed over this extremely dangerous, lawless and criminal behavior.' Citing the UN Charter's provisions on self-defence, he added that Iran 'reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people'. Shahana Yasmin22 June 2025 05:40