Israel

As United States President Donald Trump addressed the world on the strikes launched by his country’s military against three key Iranian nuclear sites in the early hours on Sunday, he thanked several people and institutions.

The US military, fighter pilots who dropped the bombs, and a general were among those on his list. So was one individual who is not American, and with whom Trump has had a topsy-turvy relationship: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump also said Netanyahu and he had worked like “perhaps no team has ever worked before”. Those laudatory comments represent a stark contrast from the far more crude language that Trump used for the Israeli leader just four years ago, and their public tension over Iran less than a month ago.

We track Trump’s often-love and sometimes-hate relationship with Netanyahu:

What did Trump say about Netanyahu?

In his televised address on Sunday, during the early morning hours in the Middle East, Trump thanked and congratulated Netanyahu. “I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu,” he said, referring to a name the Israeli PM is widely known by.

“We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel,” Trump said, referring to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they’ve done,” Trump said, adding praise for the US forces.

Trump warned Iran to accept what he described as “peace” but what effectively amounts to the surrender of its nuclear programme, on US terms.

“If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier,” he said. Meanwhile, Israel remains the only country in the Middle East with a nuclear arsenal, though it has never officially acknowledged it.

The US strikes follow nine days of Israeli missile attacks against Iran, including on its nuclear facilities. Israel did not have the bombs needed to damage or destroy Iran’s most secretive nuclear site in Fordow, buried deep inside a mountain.  The US, using its bunker-buster bombs, hit Fordow as well as the facilities in Natanz and Isfahan on Sunday.

Trump’s decision to align himself with Netanyahu in bringing the US into the war with Iran has split his “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) support base.

What did Netanyahu say about Trump?

After Trump announced the strikes and appreciated the Israeli leader, Netanyahu responded with warmer words than the ones the US president had used for him.

“President Trump, your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history,” Netanyahu said in a recorded video statement.

He further said, “In tonight’s action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, America has been truly unsurpassed. It has done what no other country on Earth could do.”

“History will record that President Trump acted to deny the world’s most dangerous regime the world’s most dangerous weapons,” said Netanyahu.

The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has publicly said it does not believe that Iran was building a nuclear weapon, an assessment shared by US intelligence agencies, which also drew the same conclusion earlier this year.

However, Trump has in recent days said his hand-picked spy chief, Tulsi Gabbard, and the intelligence community’s assessment were “wrong”.

Trump’s “leadership today has created a pivot of history that can help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace”, Netanyahu said in this statement.

“President Trump and I often say: ‘Peace through strength’. First comes strength, then comes peace. And tonight, Donald Trump and the United States acted with a lot of strength,” concluded Netanyahu.

How were their ties during Trump’s first term?

Netanyahu enjoyed a close relationship with Trump during his first term in office from 2017 to 2021.

Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, a long-sought symbolic victory for Netanyahu that strengthened his image domestically. Trump appointed an ambassador who was ideologically aligned with Israel’s settler movement, David Friedman, in May 2017.

In March 2019, the US president also recognised Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, becoming the only world leader to back Israel’s annexation of the region that is recognised internationally as a part of Syria.

In September 2020, Trump hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords, which led to normalisation of relations between Israel and four Arab states – Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan.

Trump formally withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal — in May 2018, through a presidential proclamation that reinstated US sanctions against Iran.

This marked a major shift from the previous US policy of implementing the JCPOA in January 2016 to curb Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump declared the deal “defective at its core”, claiming it offered insufficient assurances and failed to address Iran’s missile programme and regional activities.

Why did Trump sour on Netanyahu?

In a December 2021 Axios interview with Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, Trump revealed that his relationship with Netanyahu deteriorated after the Israeli PM publicly congratulated incoming President Joe Biden on his 2020 election victory — a loss that Trump has refused to accept.

“The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with. Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake,” Trump said, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. “And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape.”

“F*** him,” Trump said, expressing his anger.

How have their ties been since?

While the incoming Trump administration initially claimed to broker a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, with some observers noting that he may rein in the Israeli military campaign, it soon rallied behind Netanyahu’s continuing genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.

In a joint news conference in February this year, Trump wildly proposed that the US should “take over” the Gaza Strip, redevelop it, and relocate Palestinians⁠ — a plan that Netanyahu publicly endorsed as “nothing wrong”.

Netanyahu also said he was “committed to US President Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza”. Later that month, the US approved $2.5bn worth of arms sales to Israel, including bombs and drones.

In March, Israel resumed major air attacks in Gaza after negotiations over the release of captives collapsed. The White House confirmed that Israel had consulted Trump before the attacks.

On Iran, meanwhile, Trump’s position has seesawed from alignment with Netanyahu to his own distinct positions.

April 12-June 13, 2025: The US led back-channel nuclear negotiations with Iran, mediated by Oman.

May: Trump stated during his Gulf tour that the US was in “very serious negotiations” with Iran and “getting very close” to a nuclear deal, signalling openness to diplomacy. On May 28, Trump said he told Netanyahu to hold off on any strike against Iran to give his administration more time to push for a new nuclear deal. He told reporters at the White House that he relayed to Netanyahu a strike “would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution”.

June 11-12: The IAEA said Iran had not been transparent enough in its nuclear programme, and that elements of its approach were in violation of the country’s safeguards agreement with the United Nations nuclear watchdog. The US began evacuating its regional embassies. Tensions surged as Trump stated that diplomacy was stalling and hinted at serious consequences if no deal was reached.

June 13: Israel launched massive air strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites, killing key nuclear scientists, scholars, and top military commanders.

In the initial US reaction to Israeli attacks on Iran, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, called the strikes “unilateral” and said Washington was “not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region”.

The US-Iran talks over a nuclear deal were suspended. Trump admitted that he was aware of Israel’s plans to attack Iran.

June 19: Trump, after nearly a week of stalled talks and Israeli attacks, signalled support for Israel’s military campaign, though keeping a diplomatic track open for talks with Tehran.

June 20: The US president set a two-week ultimatum for Iran to negotiate the nuclear deal.

June 21: Trump ordered US air strikes on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities, coordinating with Israel. He declared them “completely obliterated”.

US lawmakers and American citizens have condemned what they call President Donald Trump’s ‘unconstitutional’ decision to bomb Iran without Congressional approval. Many criticised the US military intervention as a betrayal of Trump’s ‘America First’ platform that got him re-elected.

Here are the key events on day 10 of the Israel-Iran conflict.

Here’s where things stand on Sunday, June 22:

Fighting

• United States President Donald Trump told the world that strikes had been launched by his country’s military against three key Iranian nuclear sites.
• Trump claimed in a post that the heavily fortified Fordow nuclear facility was “gone”.
• The US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon that the US strikes were an “incredible and overwhelming success”, without providing any evidence or details.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a further threat against Iran, saying any retaliation would be “the worst mistake they’ve ever made.”
• During an address to a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, Turkiye, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US crossed “a very big red line” by attacking Iran’s three nuclear facilities.
• The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said the nuclear sites in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan were “attacked by enemies of [Iran] in a barbaric act that violated international law, especially the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Trump on a ‘bold decision’ to attack Iran.
• Israeli emergency services say Iranian rockets and falling shrapnel hit 10 locations. The latest Iranian retaliation followed the US strikes.
• Israel’s military said it carried out more attacks on western Iran against what it claimed are “military targets”.
• The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Iran’s most recent missile strikes targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport, along with research facilities.
• The IRGC is now deploying one of its most advanced missiles, the Kheibar Shekan, as part of its retaliatory measures. Unveiled in 2022, the missile also known as Khorramshahr-4 is believed to have the heaviest payload of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal.

Casualties and disruptions

• The head of Iran’s Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, said that there have been no fatalities in the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
• An adviser to Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that Iran had been anticipating the US attack on Fordow. “The site has long been evacuated and has not suffered any irreversible damage in the attack,” the adviser said.
• The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has said that radiation system data and field surveys do not show signs of contamination or danger to residents near the sites of Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz.
• The Israel Airports Authority says it has closed its airspace until further notice “due to recent developments”, referring to the US attack on Iran.
• Airline carriers have continued to steer clear of significant areas of the Middle East following the US strikes, according to Flightradar24.
• A man convicted of spying for Israel has been executed, the Iranian judicial news outlet Mizan Online reports.
• At least 27 people have been wounded in Israel after Iran launched 40 missiles shortly after the US attacks. One of the targets hit was Ramat Aviv in Tel Aviv, with missiles tearing holes in the facades of apartment blocks.
• The semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported that Israel bombed the city of Tabriz, targeting the IRGC’s Martyr Madani camp, wounding at least two.
• Iranian authorities said nine security personnel were killed after Israeli forces struck two military sites in the central province of Yazd, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.
• Gulf states, home to multiple US military bases, are on high alert after the bombardment of Iran raised the possibility of a widening war in the region.
• Bahrain has told 70 percent of government employees to work from home until further notice.

US opposition to attacks

• In one of the first responses to the attack by a Democratic member of the US Congress, Sara Jacobs said: “Trump’s strikes against Iran are not only unconstitutional, but an escalation that risks bringing the US into another endless and deadly war.”
• House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that Trump did not seek congressional authorisation for the strikes and will bear full responsibility for “any adverse consequences”.
• Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American congresswoman, said Trump’s ordering of strikes on Iran without the approval of lawmakers is a “blatant violation” of the US Constitution.
• Republican congressman Thomas Massie, who has been leading a legislative effort to curb Trump’s ability to attack Iran without the approval of Congress, said the strikes violate the US Constitution, which gives lawmakers the authority over war decisions.
• US Senator Chris Murphy joined the Democratic chorus of criticism. “I was briefed on the intelligence last week,” he said. “Iran posed no imminent threat of attack to the United States.”

Global reactions, politics and diplomacy

• The United Nations Security Council convened an emergency session following the US-led strikes, prompting sharp rebukes from several member states, and renewed calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East, as allies Israel and the US lauded the attack.

• UN chief Antonio Guterres warned the region stood “on the brink of a deadly downward spiral.”

• The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said international law isn’t a choice but an obligation.

• China “strongly condemned” the US attack, noting its nuclear facilities were under the safeguards of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

• Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said the “absolute majority” of nations are against “the actions of Israel and the United States”.
• Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Palestinian group Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis, all allies of Iran, condemned what Hezbollah called the “barbaric and treacherous” US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

• Saudi Arabia said that it’s “following with deep concern the developments in the Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly the targeting of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States of America.”
• Gulf nations Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates all also expressed concern over what the attacks could portend for the region.
• Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry warned that the US strikes have made the risk of escalation more likely.
• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer backed the US military action, saying the attacks “alleviate” the “threat” posed by Tehran’s nuclear programme.
• The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, is calling for a return to dialogue. “Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon,” she said, “as it would be a threat to international security.”

The administration of former US President, Joe Biden, knowingly allowed Israel’s genocide in Gaza to continue long after it had lost any clear military objective, with senior officials in Washington privately admitting it amounted to “killing and destroying for the sake of killing and destroying”. This damning assessment, along with revelations of political manipulation, diplomatic cover-ups and sabotaged peace efforts, comes from a bombshell investigation aired by Israel’s Channel 13. Details of the investigation have been translated by Drop Site News and shared on X.

The Biden administration allowed Israel unprecedented leeway to carry out its military offensive, despite the enormous death and devastation it inflicted on Gaza. Former Israeli ambassador, Michael Herzog, made a startling admission about Biden’s support: “God did the State of Israel a favour that Biden was the president during this period. We fought [in Gaza] for over a year and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did. And that’s not to be taken for granted.” His remarks encapsulated a broader sentiment that the White House gave Benjamin Netanyahu all the political space he needed to execute the military offensive, which has claimed the lives of more than 52,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children.

READ: ICC judges order prosecutor to keep arrest warrant requests confidential in Gaza probes

The investigation, which included interviews with nine current and former US officials, reveals a deeply troubling portrait of US complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Former national security aide, Ilan Goldenberg, stated that the war amounted to “killing and destroying for the sake of killing and destroying”, with no viable political alternative ever established. Despite the White House’s public messaging about restraining Israel, the internal consensus appeared to be that the administration had no intention of exerting real pressure on the Occupation state.

The Biden administration also shielded Israel from allegations of war crimes, prompting a major backlash from staffers in the State Department. Lawyer Stacy Gilbert, for example, resigned in protest after being excluded from a key report that falsely claimed Israel had not violated US arms laws. Gilbert described the report as “shocking in its mendacity”, pointing out that aid obstruction and settler attacks were well documented, yet ignored. Meanwhile, Washington continued to certify Israeli compliance with US law, ensuring the uninterrupted flow of weapons.

The investigation also revealed that Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, deliberately sabotaged hostage negotiations in order to prevent a ceasefire. US officials confirmed that Netanyahu tanked talks out of fear that a deal would compel him to halt the war.

Despite public backlash, Biden’s private approach remained deferential. Even after reportedly telling Netanyahu he was “full of shit” and hanging up mid-call, Biden ultimately maintained support. After briefly halting a shipment of 2,000-lb bombs due to concerns about their use in densely populated areas of Gaza, Netanyahu publicly accused Washington of broader arms delays. Biden, rather than escalating pressure, resumed the shipment process shortly thereafter.

The Channel 13 exposé further confirms that Biden’s reluctance to push Israel was deeply tied to a failed diplomatic initiative with Saudi Arabia. A landmark normalisation deal was in sight, but it required Israeli recognition of Palestinian statehood. These were flatly rejected by Netanyahu’s far-right coalition. Former US ambassador, Jack Lew, said he found Israel’s refusal “shocking”, while Amos Hochstein expressed disbelief that such a strategic opportunity was squandered. Sources confirmed that Netanyahu deliberately stalled negotiations in hopes that President Trump would return to office and claim the diplomatic win for himself.

These revelations lend significant weight to long-standing accusations that the Biden administration has not only provided diplomatic cover for Israel’s propaganda by repeating lies, but also actively enabled what many view as a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Critics note that Biden himself amplified false Israeli claims, such as the widely discredited allegations of Hamas beheading babies, rhetoric that helped to dehumanise a population in order to carry out genocide.

OPINION: Advisory opinions will not stop genocide

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Tensions soar at UN as Iran, allies condemn US military action, while US, Israel reject censure.

The United Nations Security Council has convened an emergency session following US-led strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, prompting sharp rebukes from several member states and renewed calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East, as allies Israel and the US lauded the attack.

Russia, China and Pakistan have proposed a resolution demanding an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire”, according to diplomats familiar with the draft circulated on Sunday. While the proposal does not explicitly name the United States or Israel, it condemns the attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. A vote has not yet been scheduled.

To pass, the resolution requires the backing of at least nine members and no vetoes from the five permanent members — the US, UK, France, Russia and China, which makes it a non-starter since the US will not censure itself.

Speaking to the Council, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the region stood “on the brink of a deadly downward spiral.”

“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” Guterres said. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation. We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear programme.”

Acting US ambassador Dorothy Shea defended the military action, stating that Washington had moved to dismantle Iran’s enrichment capacity in order to protect both its citizens and allies.

“The time finally came for the United States, in defence of its ally and our own interests, to act decisively,” Shea told the chamber. “Iran should not escalate… any Iranian attack, direct or indirect, against Americans or American bases will be met with devastating retaliation.”

Iran’s Ambassador Ali Bahreini said the Israeli and US attacks on Iran did not come about “in a vacuum”, adding that they are the result of “politically motivated actions” of the US and its European partners.

He said the US “decided to destroy diplomacy” and pointedly made it clear that the Iranian military will decide on the  “timing, nature and scale” of its response.

Meanwhile, Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon said the attacks had made the world “a safer place”, rejecting calls for condemnation. “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us,” he said when asked whether Israel supported regime change in Tehran

China’s ambassador Fu Cong condemned the US strikes and urged restraint. “We call for an immediate ceasefire,” he said. “China is deeply concerned about the risk of the situation getting out of control.”

Russia’s UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya described the attacks as yet another sign of Washington’s disregard for global norms. “The US has opened a Pandora’s box,” he said. “No one knows what catastrophe or suffering will follow.”

Pakistan’s ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad also condemned the US bombing, calling it deeply troubling. “The sharp rise in tensions and violence as a result of Israeli aggression and unlawful actions is profoundly disturbing,” he said. “Pakistan stands in solidarity with the government and brotherly people of Iran during this challenging time.” This came the day after Pakistan suggested US President Donald Trump be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump’s announcement that American forces had “obliterated” Iran’s key nuclear sites marked the most significant Western military action against Tehran since the 1979 revolution.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, told the Council that while the scale of underground damage remains unclear, impact craters were visible at the Fordow enrichment site. The entrances to tunnels at Isfahan appeared to have been struck, while Natanz — long a target of Israeli sabotage — had been hit again.

Iran has castigated Grossi for being complicit in paving the way for Israel and the US to attack it.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors approved a resolution declaring Iran was not complying with its commitment to international nuclear safeguards the day before Israel launched its initial attack on June 13.

EMERGING from a carpet shop in Iran’s beautiful and ancient city of Esfahan, I was engulfed by a group of jostling young men.

Like a desert mirage, as quickly as they had arrived they were gone.

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Patting myself down, a zip on my trouser pocket was undone.

My passport was gone.

And this so-called Axis of Evil nation had no British Embassy to get a replacement.

Hands trembling uncontrollably, my adrenalin-induced sweat of fear smelt like cat’s urine.

There can be few more hazardous places on Earth for a journalist without papers — and an entry stamp — than the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Years later Barry Rosen — a US embassy worker held hostage there in 1979 — told me how his interrogation played out.

With a rifle pressed to his temple, Barry was told he had ten seconds to admit he was a spy.

As the grim countdown began, the New Yorker wrestled with the dilemma of either being perceived as a traitor to his country or leaving his kids fatherless.

“On the count of five I relented,” Barry told me.

“I signed the false confession, distraught and ­completely ashamed.”

Barry would eventually return to his loved ones in the US after 444 days in captivity.

Britons are high-value hostages for the regime.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in Iran for six years on trumped-up charges of plotting to topple the Iranian government.

She was finally released when Britain paid a £400million outstanding debt to Iran.

I would eventually get out — more on how later — after staying with an extraordinarily kind Iranian man who put me up in his apartment and tempered my nerves with some rocket-fuel home brew.

Today — with Iran’s tyrannical regime in Israeli and US crosshairs — I cast my mind back to the welcoming people I met while travelling this ancient land.

These folk loathe rule by the hardline ayatollahs and long for a time less than 50 years ago when women wore miniskirts in capital Tehran, the hair bouncing on their shoulders.

I had arrived in Iran — successor state of the Persian Empire — in 2012 with the idea of travelling from Tehran to Persepolis, a millennia-old desert ruin once the centrepiece of its civilisation.

On the way I’d talk to ordinary people to try and understand what made this land tick.

Did they really think Britain was the cursed Little Satan?

‘GREAT SATAN’

On landing in Tehran — a high-rise city of 9.8million shrouded by mountains — fleets of white taxis honked their way through the city’s awful traffic.

In the pollution-choked centre, I was struck by the number of women walking around with white plasters on their noses.

Tehran has been called the nose job capital of the world.

Women here also face a daily battle over what they can wear in public, with checks made by the dreaded Basij militia network.

Yet many were wearing their head scarves pulled back to reveal dyed blonde hair, while their overcoats were colourful and figure-hugging.

Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, when the Shah — or king — Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was toppled and replaced by hardline cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Islamic dress has been strictly enforced.

Alcohol was banned, protests stifled and unmarried couples prevented from meeting in public.

Today, the internet is censored and the regime attempts to scramble satellite TV signals.

Near the Taleghani Metro station is the old American embassy — known here as “the nest of spies” — its walls daubed with murals and slogans decrying the so-called Great Satan.

Months after the revolution, students stormed the embassy compound and took 66 Americans hostage.

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A disastrous and aborted US rescue mission the following year — when eight servicemen were killed in a helicopter crash — badly damaged US president Jimmy Carter’s reputation.

The lingering stigma of that failure was perhaps a factor in why Donald Trump took his time before deciding to unleash American firepower on Iran.

In Palestine Square — in the heart of Tehran — beats a Doomsday Clock predicting Israel’s end by the year 2040. The regime put it there in 2017.

It helps explain why Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear sites, senior nuclear scientists and top brass last week.

Nearby, I visited the British embassy compound, its gateway overlooked by lion and unicorn statues.

Around six months before my visit, diplomats had fled as a frenzied mob of Iran- ian “students” storm- ed the building and ransacked offices.

It would remain shuttered for nearly four years.

The rioters — who were chanting “Death To England” — were in fact state-sponsored Basij thugs.

It is the same sinister paramilitary force that is responsible for the policing of morals in this hardline Shi’ite Muslim state, including the wearing of the hijab or headscarf.

Yet these repressive goons are far from representative of the beating heart of this oil-rich nation.

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A short stroll away in the teeming Grand Bazaar, women shoppers, in the all- covering black cloak-like chador, were out looking for bargains.

But surprisingly, Union Jack-patterned knickers and bra combos were on sale on at least three stalls.

American stars and stripes underwear was also available in several shops.

One black-clad shopper in her thirties told me: “The underwear is very popular.

“We have nothing against your country.”

The message that the lingerie worn under the chadors sent out was clear: Knickers to the hardliners.

Indeed, as a metaphor for things being very different under the surface in Iran, it couldn’t be bettered.

Another stall sold Manchester United bath towels in a nation where the Premier League is avidly followed.

“We don’t hate Britain,” a 26-year-old Red Devils-mad taxi driver told me.

“Far from it.

“We admire your freedom.”

After a few days in Tehran I took a shared taxi on the five-hour, 280-mile journey to Iran’s third largest city Esfahan.

It’s home to an exquisite square overlooked by the imposing aquamarine dome of Shah Mosque, regarded as one of the masterpieces of Persian architecture.

The city’s outskirts are also home to one of the largest uranium enrichment facilities in the country.

‘EVERYBODY BREWS THEIR OWN NOW’

Terrified that Iran was close to producing a nuclear weapon to make good on its doomsday prophecy, the site was pummeled by more than two dozen US Tomahawk cruise missiles on Sunday morning.

I had checked into a largely empty hotel in the city centre which had no safe for valuables.

That evening I went out shopping for a Persian rug.

Warily passing some soldiers in the street, I was dismayed to see them beckon me over.

Yet they simply wanted a selfie alongside a rare Western traveller.

Emerging with my new carpet, I was heading for an electronics store bearing a fake Apple logo when I was surrounded by pickpockets.

Now passportless, I was petrified about being stopped by police and asked to produce my documents.

I then remembered meeting some Iranian migrants in Calais who had told me they used to work as smugglers, trekking over the mountains from Iran to Turkey with some contraband alcohol in backpacks.

Finding an internet cafe to research the journey, a man started using the computer next to me to watch porn.

The idea of attempting to walk alone over rugged mountains seemed more hazardous than another internet suggestion — go to another country’s embassy and throw myself at their mercy.

Travelling back to Tehran I attempted to check into a hotel but the receptionist insisted I needed to show my passport.

When I explained my predicament, he told me: “I’ll phone the police and they’ll sort this out.”

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I told him I needed to collect my luggage then scarpered.

Knowing no one in the country, a contact then put me in touch with someone who could put me up.

The grey-haired father lived alone in a ramshackle flat and said I was welcome to the sofa.

“I was jailed for protesting against the Shah when he ruled,” he told me.

“Now I wish I hadn’t bothered.

“This regime is far worse.

“We have far less freedom now.”

Deciding the Dutch would be most amenable to a stricken Brit, I tried their embassy but it was closed for holidays.

So I went to the Danes instead.

They took my details and I was told to return the following day.

Presented with a paper Danish temporary passport 24 hours later, I profusely thanked the embassy staff for making me an honorary viking.

Taking a cab to the airport, I checked my bag on the flight then queued up at immigration dreaming of a glass of red on the plane.

A bearded border guard disdainfully looked at my Danish passport, sniffing as he tossed it away: “No good, no ministry stamp.”

It was back to my new friend’s sofa to watch subtitled TV, including shows with Jamie Oliver and James May.

The former prisoner — raising a glass of home-distilled spirits — revealed: “Twice every year the police go upon the roof and smash up all our satellite dishes.

“But we simply go out and buy some more.

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“There’s a saying here that the regime closed down thousands of brewers during the revolution but created a million more.

“Everybody brews their own now.”

After two days queuing at the relevant Iranian ministry — and praying that they wouldn’t google my identity — I finally got my stamp.

My plane banked over the vast mausoleum built to house Khomeini’s remains as it headed west.

One after another, most of the women on the flight removed their head scarves, then their restrictive chadors.

Settling with a glass of wine, I hoped one day to return to this fascinating land under better circumstances.

Now, with the ayatollahs’ regime perhaps at threat of being toppled, I may one day make it to Persepolis.

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WASHINGTON — Fallout from President Trump’s historic gamble to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities reverberated across the Middle East Sunday, as Washington braced for an unpredictable response from a cornered but determined Islamic Republic.

While the Iranian government downplayed the impact of the U.S. attack, noting the depths of its nuclear know-how built over decades of study, U.S. military officials said its precision strikes against Iran’s three main nuclear facilities caused “extremely severe damage and destruction.”

A senior Israeli official told The Times that Jerusalem was so satisfied with the operation that it was prepared to suspend hostilities if Iran ends its missile salvos against Israeli territory.

“We are ready to be done,” the Israeli official said, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

As the dust settled, the sun rose and satellite imagery emerged of the wreckage, the main question among Trump administration officials became how Tehran would respond — both militarily, against U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf and around the world, as well as with the remnants of its nuclear program, with so much of it destroyed.

Tehran’s nuclear-armed allies, in Russia and North Korea, have been critical of the military campaign, with former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev raising the prospect of Moscow giving Iran a nuclear warhead in response to the attacks.

The Israeli official dismissed that idea, alluding to direct talks with Moscow over the Iranian program. “We are not concerned,” the official said.

President Trump addresses the nation Saturday night about the U.S. military strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites. He is accomapnied by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

(Carlos Barria / Pool via Associated Press)

Trump’s military action, dubbed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” was a contingency years in the making, prepared and much feared by Trump’s predecessors over two decades as a desperate last resort to a nuclear Iran.

Ever since Tehran resumed its fissile enrichment program in 2005, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have warned that the Islamic Republic could never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. But a constellation of diplomatic talks and complex agreements have failed to dissuade Tehran from a fundamental principle of a “right to enrich” uranium — near to weapons grade — on its own soil.

Despite the dramatic nature of the U.S. air raid, few in Washington expressed an appetite for a prolonged U.S. war with Iran and echoed Israel’s interest in a truce after assessing its initial operations a success. Vice President JD Vance denied that the United States was “at war” with Iran on Sunday, telling CBS that the nation is, instead, “at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”

But the prospect of another full-scale U.S. war in the Middle East, made palpable by the weekend strikes, shook Capitol Hill on Sunday, compelling Democrats who have long advocated a tough approach to Iran to push for a vote to restrict Trump under the War Powers Act.

More than 60 members of Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, called on the Trump administration to seek congressional authorization for any further action. At least one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, joined in the call.

The Pentagon said that seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers deployed a total of 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrators — 30,000-pound bombs known as “bunker busters,” for their ability to destroy facilities buried deep underground — against Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

The U.S. operation followed an Israeli campaign that began last week with strikes against Iranian air defenses and nuclear facilities, scientists and research facilities, as well as against military generals, ballistic missile launch pads and storage depots.

While the United States and Israel believe that Saturday’s strikes were a strategic victory, some concern remains that Iran may have removed critical equipment and materiel from its site in Fordow — an enrichment facility that had been burrowed into the side of a mountain — to an undisclosed location before the U.S. operation began, the Israeli official said.

“That remains a question mark,” the official added, while expressing confidence that Israeli intelligence would be aware of any other significant nuclear facilities.

Addressing the nation on the attacks on Saturday night, Trump warned Iran that U.S. attacks could continue if it refuses to give up on its nuclear program.

“There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,” Trump said, flanked by his vice president, national security advisor and secretary of defense. “Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight’s was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes.”

Satellite image shows the Natanz enrichment facility in Iran after U.S. strikes.

(Maxar Technologies via Associated Press)

Across the region Sunday, the question paramount on observers’ minds was what shape Iran’s response would take.

Iranian officials downplayed the strikes’ impact, acknowledging damage to nuclear facilities but that the know-how remained intact.

“They [the United States and Israel] should know this industry has roots in our country, and the roots of this national industry cannot be destroyed,” said Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, according to a Sunday interview with the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.

“Of course, we have suffered some losses, but this is not the first time that the industry has suffered damage. … Naturally, this industry must continue and its growth will not stop.”

Hassan Abedini, the deputy political director of Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB, said the three targeted nuclear sites had already been emptied some time before the attacks and that they “didn’t suffer a major blow because the materials had already been taken out.”

Other officials, including leaders in the targeted areas in Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, reassured residents there was no nuclear contamination as a result of the strikes and that they could “go on with their lives,” according to a statement Sunday from government spokesperson Fatemah Mohajerani.

The U.S. attacks drew swift pleas for restraint from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which issued statements calling on all parties to de-escalate. Iraq, meanwhile, said the U.S. escalation “constitutes a grave threat to peace and security in the Middle East,” according to an interview with its government spokesman on Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera.

Oman, a key mediator in the negotiations between Tehran and Washington, was more scathing, expressing what it said was its “denunciation and condemnation” of the U.S.’s attacks.

In Europe, as well, governments urged caution and affirmed support for Israel.

“We have consistently been clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon and can no longer pose a threat to regional security,” France, Germany, and Italy, known as the E3, said in a statement. “Our aim continues to be to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”

The last significant face-off between Iran and the United States happened during Trump’s first term, when he ordered the assassination of top Iranian commander Gen. Qassem Suleimani in 2020.

Satellite image shows a close view of the Isfahan nuclear technology facility in Iran after U.S. strikes.

(Maxar Technologies via Associated Press)

That attack spurred predictions of a furious retaliation, with fears of Tehran deploying its missile arsenal or activating its network of regional militias to attack U.S. forces and interests across Washington’s footprint in the region. Instead, Tehran reacted with little more than an openly telegraphed ballistic missile barrage on a U.S. base in Iraq.

Iran’s options are even more limited this time. Much of that network — known as the “Axis of Resistance” and which included militias and pro-Tehran governments in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Afghanistan and Yemen — lies incapacitated after more than 20 months of Israeli attacks.

Allies such as Russia and China, though issuing condemnations of the U.S. attack, appear to have little appetite for involvement beyond statements and offers of mediation. And how much remains of Tehran’s missile capacity is unclear, with the Israeli official estimating roughly 1,000 ballistic missiles – half of their capacity before the most recent conflict started – remaining available to them.

Nevertheless, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that the United States should expect “regrettable responses.”

“Instead of learning from repeated failures, Washington effectively placed itself on the front lines of aggression by directly attacking peaceful installations,” said a statement from the Guard Corps on Sunday. It hinted that its targets would include U.S. military presence in the region.

“The number, dispersion, and size of U.S. military bases in the region are not a strength, but have doubled their vulnerability,” the statement said.

The United States has more than 40,000 stationed in the region, according to Pentagon figures, and has bases in at least 10 countries in the region, not to mention a significant presence at sea.

Yet experts say the likeliest scenario would involve disruptions to shipping lanes, with Iran leveraging its control of the Strait of Hormuz, an oil transit chokepoint handling a fifth of the world’s energy flows, that is 30 miles wide at its narrowest point; or calling on Yemen’s Houthis to intensify their harassment campaign of merchant vessels on the Red Sea.

It a situation in which Iran has experience: During its conflict with Iraq in the eighties, Tehran engaged in the the so-called “Tanker War,” attacked hundreds of Iraqi ships near Hormuz and entering into direct confrontations with the U.S. Navy.

Shippers are already girding themselves for disruptions. But Danish shipping giant Maersk said it was continuing to use the Strait of Hormuz for the time being.

“We will continuously monitor the security risk to our specific vessels in the region and are ready to take operational actions as needed,” Maersk said in a statement.

Wilner reported from Washington, Bulos from Beirut.

June 22 (UPI) — Iran and Israel exchanged targeted airstrikes Sunday after President Donald Trump ordered the bombing of nuclear sites in Iran, leaving his administration and lawmakers divided over U.S. involvement.

“We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program,” Vice President JD Vance said in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday. It marked the first major official rhetoric that the United States is indeed “at war.”

Vance declined to confirm that Iran’s nuclear sites were completely destroyed, saying that the U.S. has “substantially delayed” Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon. His comments come after Russia said Sunday that other countries could provide Iran with nuclear weapons.

The strike by the Trump administration has divided his supporters. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, criticized what she called “neocon warmongers” in a post on social media Sunday afternoon.

“America is $37 TRILLION in debt and all of these foreign wars have cost Americans TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS of dollars that never benefited any American,” the lawmaker wrote in her post.

“American troops have been killed and forever torn apart physically and mentally for regime change, foreign wars, and for military-industrial base profits. I’m sick of it. I can easily say I support nuclear-armed Israel’s right to defend themselves and also say at the same time I don’t want to fight or fund nuclear armed Israel’s wars.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, another Republican, went as far to call the strike on Iran “not Constitutional” in his own post. He later criticized fellow Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson for stating that Trump “made the right call” with the airstrike.

“Why didn’t you call us back from vacation to vote on military action if there was a serious threat to our country?” Massie said in his remarks to Johnson. He reiterated that point Sunday in an interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

Massie was joined on “Face the Nation” by fellow lawmaker Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat, with whom he worked last week to introduce a war powers resolution to prohibit U.S. forces from striking Iran without authorization from Congress.

Khanna said in the interview that Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed a desire for Iran to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes but the lawmaker noted that Iran had already been under a nuclear deal that the United States withdrew from.

According to Khanna, under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, which was negotiated by Iran, the United States and the European Union in 2015, the International Atomic Energy Agency did not find a single violation.

“In the first Iraq war, the second Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan, Congress first got the briefings. Congress met and debated. It should have been declarations of war, but at least they did an authorization of use of military force,” Massie added. “We haven’t had that.”

The Israeli Defense Forces said in a statement Sunday that the Israeli Air Force used 30 fighter jets to attack dozens of military targets across Iran.

“As part of the wave of attacks, fighter jets first attacked the ‘Imam Hussein‘ strategic missile headquarters in the Yazd region, where long-range Khoramshahr missiles were stored,” the IDF said. “From this headquarters, approximately 60 missiles were launched towards the State of Israel.”

The IDF added that it also hit missile launchers and military sites for the production of air defense batteries, and a drone warehouse in Isfahan, Bushehr and Ahvaz.

Air raid sirens sounded across most of Israel on Sunday as Israeli Police acknowledged impacts from Iranian missiles on Sunday, including a strike in Tel Aviv that left at least six people with minor injuries, while videos shared on social media purportedly showed damage in Haifa.

Meanwhile, Iranian state media reported Sunday that the Houthis — formally known as Ansarullah — expressed support for Iran after the U.S. strikes and would “stand by any Arab or Islamic country against U.S. aggression.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump, with his decision to order U.S. military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, is gambling that direct U.S. involvement can deliver a decisive blow to a weakened Tehran while managing to avoid bringing the U.S. into an expansive regional conflict.

Trump announced the strikes on three Iranian enrichment facilities — Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan — and said that a “full payload of BOMBS was dropped” on Fordo.

“All planes are safely on their way home,” Trump added in his post. “Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”

It remained to be seen whether the attacks mark the totality of direct American involvement in strikes against Iran or the opening salvo of a larger campaign.

Trump, who said he would address the nation about the strikes at 10 p.m. Eastern time, called it a “very successful military operation.” The president also celebrated the strikes in a call with the news site Axios in which he said, “We had great success tonight” and that “Israel is much safer now.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday had said that Trump would decide whether to move forward with U.S. strikes on Iran within two weeks.

But on Saturday afternoon, commercial flight trackers identified multiple U.S. aerial refueling tankers on a path suggesting that they were accompanying aircraft from the Midwest to the Pacific, raising speculation that something could be afoot.

Still, the flight pattern left many in Washington speculating that an attack might happen soon but would not happen immediately because of the time it would take for the aircraft to make it to the region. But that aircraft may have been a decoy — it was not part of the mission that was carried out early Sunday morning in Iran.

Trump returned from his New Jersey golf club just after 6 p.m. and was to head to a previously scheduled meeting with his national security team. Less than two hours later, the president announced the strikes had been completed.

The decision to directly involve the U.S. comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that have moved to systematically eradicate the country’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities.

The strikes are a perilous decision for the U.S., as Iran has pledged to retaliate if it joined the Israeli assault. The stakes are also high for Trump personally — he won the White House on the promise of keeping America out of costly foreign conflicts and scoffed at the value of American interventionism.

U.S. and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground, including at Fordo.

It was not immediately clear whether the U.S. bombers did in fact drop the bunker busters on the Iranian facilities.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the United States in advance that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic would “result in irreparable damage for them.” And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei declared “any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the damage inflicted by the bombings.

Trump has vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and said he had initially hoped that the threat of force would motivate the country’s leaders to give up their nuclear program peacefully.

But Trump appears to have made the calculation — at the prodding of Israeli officials and many Republican lawmakers — that Israel’s operation had softened the ground and presented a perhaps unparalleled opportunity to set back Iran’s nuclear program, perhaps permanently.

The Israelis have said their offensive has already crippled Iran’s air defenses, allowing them to already significantly degrade multiple Iranian nuclear sites.

But to destroy the Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant, Israel had appealed to Trump for the U.S. bunker-busting bombs, the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which uses its immense weight and sheer kinetic force to reach deeply buried targets and then explode. The penetrator is currently delivered only by the B-2 stealth bomber, which is found only in the American arsenal.

The bomb carries a conventional warhead and is believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet below the surface before exploding, and the bombs can be dropped one after another, effectively drilling deeper and deeper with each successive blast.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran is producing highly enriched uranium at Fordo, raising the possibility that nuclear material could be released into the area if the GBU-57 A/B were used to hit the facility.

Trump’s decision for direct U.S. military intervention comes after his administration made an unsuccessful two-month push — including with high-level, direct negotiations with the Iranians — aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear program.

For months, Trump said he was dedicated to a diplomatic push to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. And he twice — in April and again in late May — persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on military action against Iran and give diplomacy more time.

The U.S. in recent days has been shifting military aircraft and warships into and around the Middle East to protect Israel and U.S. bases from Iranian attacks.

All the while, Trump has gone from publicly expressing hope that the moment could be a “second chance” for Iran to make a deal to delivering explicit threats on Khamenei and making calls for Tehran’s unconditional surrender.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump said in a social media posting. “He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”

The military showdown with Iran comes seven years after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Obama administration-brokered agreement in 2018, calling it the “worst deal ever.”

The 2015 deal, signed by Iran, the U.S. and other world powers, created a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Trump decried the Obama-era deal for giving Iran too much in return for too little, because the agreement did not cover Iran’s non-nuclear malign behavior.

Trump has bristled at criticism from some of his MAGA faithful, including conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, who have suggested that further U.S. involvement would be a betrayal to supporters who were drawn to his promise to end U.S. involvement in expensive and endless wars.

The action by Trump immediately raised some concerns among U.S. lawmakers that the president had exceeded his authority.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) quickly posted on the social media site X: “This is not Constitutional.” California Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) said on social media that Trump hit Iran without congressional authorization and that lawmakers should pass a resolution he’s sponsoring with Massie “to prevent America from being dragged into another endless Middle East war.”

Vice President JD Vance in a lengthy posting on X earlier this week defended his boss, while acknowledging that “people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.”

“But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue,” Vance wrote. He added, “I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people’s goals.”

Madhani and Boak write for the Associated Press. Madhani reported from Morristown, N.J.

After nearly two years of stark divisions over the war in Gaza and support for Israel, Democrats remain at odds over policy toward Iran after the U.S. strikes early Sunday.

Progressives demanded unified opposition before President Trump announced U.S. strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program, but party leaders were treading more cautiously.

U.S. leaders of all stripes have found common ground for two decades on the position that Iran could not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. The longtime U.S. foe has supported groups that have killed Americans across the Mideast and threatened to destroy Israel. But Trump’s announcement Saturday that the U.S. had struck three nuclear sites could become the Democratic Party’s latest schism, just as it was sharply dividing Trump’s isolationist “Make America Great Again” base from more hawkish conservatives.

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, noted that in January, Trump suggested the U.S. could “measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

“Today, against his own words, the president sent bombers into Iran,” Martin said in a statement. “Americans overwhelmingly do not want to go to war. Americans do not want to risk the safety of our troops abroad.”

Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, said the U.S. entering the war in Iran “does not make America more secure.”

“This bombing was an act of war that risks retaliation by the Iranian regime,” Welch said in a statement.

While progressives in the lead-up to the military action had staked out clear opposition to Trump’s potential intervention, the party leadership played the safer ground of insisting on a role for Congress before any use of force.

Martin’s statement took a similar tack, saying, “Americans do not want a president who bypasses our constitution and pulls us towards war without Congressional approval. Donald Trump needs to bring his case to Congress immediately.”

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine called Trump’s actions “horrible judgment” and said he’d “push for all senators to vote on whether they are for this third idiotic Middle East war.”

Many prominent Democrats with 2028 presidential aspirations had been silent on the Israel-Iran war, even before Trump’s announcement — underscoring how politically tricky the issue can be for the party.

“They are sort of hedging their bets,” said Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of State who served under President Obama and is now a strategist on foreign policy. “The beasts of the Democratic Party’s constituencies right now are so hostile to Israel’s war in Gaza that it’s really difficult to come out looking like one would corroborate an unauthorized war that supports Israel without blowback.”

Progressives

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) had called Trump’s consideration of an attack “a defining moment for our party.” Khanna had introduced legislation with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) that called on the Republican president to “terminate” the use of U.S. armed forces against Iran unless “explicitly authorized” by a declaration of war from Congress.

Khanna used Trump’s campaign arguments of putting American interests first when the congressman spoke to Theo Von, a comedian who has been supportive of the president and is popular among Trump supporters, particularly young men.

“That’s going to cost this country a lot of money that should be being spent here at home,” said Khanna, who is said to be among the many Democrats considering seeking the presidential nomination in 2028.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who twice sought the Democratic presidential nomination, had pointed to Trump’s stated goal during his inaugural speech of being known as “a peacemaker and a unifier.”

“Supporting Netanyahu’s war against Iran would be a catastrophic mistake,” Sanders said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sanders reintroduced legislation prohibiting the use of federal money for force against Iran, insisted that U.S. military intervention would be unwise and illegal and accused Israel of striking unprovoked. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York signed on to a similar bill from Sanders in 2020, but so far was holding off this time.

Some believed the party should stake out a clear antiwar stance.

“The leaders of the Democratic Party need to step up and loudly oppose war with Iran and demand a vote in Congress,” said Tommy Vietor, a former Obama aide, on X.

Mainstream Democrats

The staunch support from the Democratic administration of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for Israel’s war against Hamas loomed over the party’s White House ticket in 2024, even with the criticism of Israel’s handling of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Trump exploited the divisions to make inroads with Arab American voters and Orthodox Jews on his way back to the White House.

Today, the Israel-Iran war is the latest test for a party struggling to repair its coalition before next year’s midterm elections and the quick-to-follow kickoff to the 2028 presidential race. The party will look to bridge the divide between an activist base that is skeptical of foreign interventions and already critical of U.S. support for Israel and more traditional Democrats and independents who make up a sizable, if not always vocal, voting bloc.

In a statement after Israel’s first strikes on Iran, Schumer said Israel has a right to defend itself and “the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and defense must be ironclad as they prepare for Iran’s response.”

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) said that “the U.S. must continue to stand with Israel, as it has for decades, at this dangerous moment.”

Other Democrats have condemned Israel’s strikes and accused Netanyahu of sabotaging nuclear talks with Iran. They are reminding the public that Trump withdrew in 2018 from a multinational nuclear agreement that limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions negotiated during the Obama administration.

“Trump created the problem,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) posted on X.

What voters think

A Pearson Institute/Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from September 2024 found that about half of Democrats said the U.S. was being “too supportive” of Israel and about 4 in 10 said its level of support was “about right.” Democrats were more likely than independents and Republicans to say the Israeli government had “a lot” of responsibility for the continuation of the war between Israel and Hamas.

About 6 in 10 Democrats and half of Republicans said they felt Iran was an adversary with whom the U.S. was in conflict.

Gomez Licon and Beaumont write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Linley Sanders, Will Weissert and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report

The United States struck three key nuclear sites in Iran early on Sunday, injecting itself into Israel’s war with Iran in a sophisticated mission and prompting fears of military escalation in the Middle East amid Israel’s brutal onslaught of Gaza.

In a televised address early on Sunday, US President Donald Trump justified the strikes, saying they were aimed at stopping “the nuclear threat” posed by Iran. Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow sites, which are involved in the production or storage of enriched uranium, were targeted.

“Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” he said, warning Tehran against retaliation.

Israel and Trump claim that Iran can use the enriched uranium to make atomic warheads. But Iran insists its nuclear programme is solely for civilian purposes. The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has also rejected Israeli claims that Iran was on the verge of making nuclear weapons.

Condemning the strikes, which US officials said were covertly coordinated, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that the time for diplomacy had passed and that his country had the right to defend itself.

“The warmongering, a lawless administration in Washington, is solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences and far-reaching implications of its act of aggression,” he said at a news conference in Istanbul, Turkiye.

Iranian officials, meanwhile, have not detailed the extent of the damage and have attempted to downplay the significance of the hits. Speaking on state TV, Hassan Abedini, the deputy political director of Iran’s state broadcaster, said the three nuclear sites had been evacuated “a while ago” and that they “didn’t suffer a major blow because the materials had already been taken out”.

Here’s what to know about the nuclear plants hit and what the attacks mean for Iran:

Which facilities were hit?

Trump on Sunday said a full “payload” of bombs “obliterated” Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites. Iranian officials, according to the Reuters news agency, also confirmed that the three facilities were hit.

1. Fordow is an underground enrichment facility in operation since 2006. Built deep inside the mountains some 48km (30 miles) from the Iranian city of Qom, north of Tehran, the site enjoys natural cover. The primary focus of Sunday’s strikes, Fordow was hit with Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOPs) or “bunker-buster” bombs delivered from B-2 stealth bomber planes, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine said in a briefing on Sunday. The 13,000kg (28,700lb) GBU-57 MOP is the most powerful bunker-buster bomb, able to penetrate 60m (200 feet) below ground and delivering up to 2,400kg (5,300lb) of explosives, while the bombers are hard to detect. Caine added that 14 MOPs were delivered to at least two nuclear sites. Israel had earlier attacked Fordow on June 13, causing surface damage, but security analysts believe only US bunker busters can penetrate the facility. An independent assessment of the scale of the damage is not yet available.
2. Natanz is considered the largest nuclear enrichment facility in Iran, located about 300km (186 miles) south of Tehran. It is believed to consist of two facilities. One is the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP), which is a test and research facility located above ground and used to assemble centrifuges, rapidly rotating machines used for uranium enrichment. According to the non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative, the facility had close to a thousand centrifuges. The other facility, located deep beneath the ground, is the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP). Caine did not specify what weapons hit Natanz on said on Sunday.
3. Isfahan is an atomic research facility located in the central city of Isfahan. It was built in the 1970s and was used for uranium conversion. It was the last location hit before the US bombing mission, which involved about 125 aircraft, withdrew from the Iranian airspace, according to officials. Caine said “more than two dozen” Tomahawk missiles were fired at Isfahan from US submarines. said the Iranians did not detect the mission and were notified afterwards.

Are the sites destroyed?

Independent impact assessment of the US strikes at Fordow remains unclear.

Defence Secretary Hegseth on Sunday said the US’s “initial assessment is that all our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and achieved the desired effect”, citing particular damage at Fordow.

An Iranian lawmaker told Al Jazeera that the site suffered superficial damage. Israeli strikes on the plant last week only caused “limited, if any, damage” at the underground plant, according to IAEA boss Rafael Grossi.

The extent of damage at Natanz is also unclear following Sunday’s strike. Earlier Israeli attacks “completely destroyed” the above-ground plant, and caused centrifuges in the underground parts of the uranium plant to be “severely damaged if not destroyed altogether”, even though it was not directly hit, Grossi told reporters last week.

Meanwhile, the IAEA said on Sunday that six buildings at Isfahan suffered damage following the US attacks, including a workshop handling contaminated equipment. Earlier Israeli strikes had damaged four buildings on the site, the agency had reported, including the plant’s central chemical laboratory.

Initial reports from Iran and neighbouring Gulf countries such as Kuwait further indicate that there is no significant leakage of radioactive material from any of the plants. That could suggest that Iranian officials might have moved the stockpiles of enriched uranium out of the facilities targeted by the US, analysts say.

According to the IRNA news agency, Reza Kardan, the deputy director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the head of the National Nuclear Safety System Center in the country, confirmed on Sunday that “no radiation contamination or nuclear radiation has been observed outside” the sites.

“Preliminary plans had been made and measures had been taken to protect the safety and health of the dear people of the country, and despite the criminal actions this morning in attacking nuclear facilities, due to the previously planned measures and the measures taken, no radiation contamination or nuclear radiation has been observed outside these sites and facilities,” Kardan said.

The IAEA also said the radiation levels near targeted sites had not increased.

“Following attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran – including Fordow – the IAEA can confirm that no increase in off-site radiation levels has been reported as of this time,” the agency said in a social media post on Sunday.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, says it is likely Iran had taken precautionary actions ahead of the US attacks.

“It appears that they already had gotten an advanced warning,” he told Al Jazeera.

“They understood that he [Trump] was buying time while moving military assets in order to actually strike. So, I think for some time they have moved those assets – where they are is unclear at this point.”

Will this derail Iran’s nuclear efforts?

The impact of the strikes on Iran’s overall nuclear programme is yet unknown.

However, analysts say there was no clear evidence that Iran had advanced so far as to be able to reach weaponisation in its nuclear programme in the first place.

Parsi said Iran’s most valuable nuclear asset is its stockpile of enriched uranium.

“As long as they continue to have that, they still actually have very much a nuclear programme that still could be weaponised,” he added.

“And I think we are going to start to hear from the Israelis in rather short order, that this was not the type of successful strike Trump has claimed, but they are going to start making the case that there needs to be a more ongoing bombing campaign against Iran.”

Has Iran’s nuclear programme suffered setbacks before?

• Yes. Iran’s nuclear ambitions started back in the 1950s under the leadership of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a close ally of the US and Israel. The shah’s original vision was to build Iran’s nuclear capacities for both energy generation and, to a lesser extent, weapons manufacturing. The US, Germany, and France all supported the country with aid and technology. However, following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the new government, under leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, halted or paused parts of the programme, arguing that it was expensive and that it represented Iran’s continued reliance on Western technology.
• Shelved or cancelled programmes further took a hit during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) when the country was forced to divert resources to the war effort after Iraq’s invasion. Its Bushehr nuclear reactor site, which was under construction as part of a partnership with the industrial manufacturing giant Siemens, was bombed severely by Iraq and was left in near-total damage. Siemens eventually withdrew from the project. The government would later on reportedly restart the nuclear programme, although Iranian leadership has always insisted it is pursuing nuclear power for civilian use.
• Stuxnet – a computer virus developed by Israel and the US, likely launched back in 2005 but discovered in 2010 – caused extensive damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The programme, nicknamed Operation Olympic Games, compromised the Iranian network and caused centrifuges to tear themselves apart. It reportedly expanded rapidly under former US President Barack Obama, but began during the administration of US President George W Bush.
• Under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (officially known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA), the country was forced to limit its enrichment capabilities in exchange for sanctions relief. The deal, signed between Iran, China, Russia, the US, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union, capped enrichment at 3.67 percent. Sanctions, some of them in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, were gradually removed. Tehran complied with the terms of the deal, according to the (IAEA). It also agreed to allow the IAEA regular monitoring access. However, Trump pulled out of the agreement during his first term as US president in 2018, and slapped on sanctions as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign, forcing Tehran to also discard the terms though it continued to cooperate with the IAEA.

Iran says the United States will be “solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences” of its attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, adding that US President Donald Trump has “betrayed” American voters by submitting to Israel’s wishes.

During an address to a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul on Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US crossed “a very big red line” by attacking Iran’s three nuclear facilities.

Speaking just hours after Trump announced that US warplanes had “obliterated” the nuclear sites, Araghchi condemned the strikes and called on the United Nations Security Council to act.

“It is an outrageous, grave and unprecedented violation of the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law,” he said, adding that the “warmongering and lawless” US administration will be “solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences and far-reaching implications of its act of aggression”.

“The US military attack on the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of a UN member state carried out in collusion with the genocidal Israeli regime has once again revealed the extent of the United States’ hostility towards the peace-seeking people of Iran. We will never compromise on their independence and sovereignty,” he said.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to defend Iran’s territory, sovereignty, and people by all means necessary against not just US military aggression, but also the reckless and unlawful actions of the Israeli regime.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who escalated the Middle East conflict by launching strikes on Iran on June 13, praised Trump’s “bold decision” to hit Iran’s nuclear sites, and said Israel and the US acted in “full coordination”.

After the strikes, Trump said Iran “must now agree to end this war” and that under no circumstances could Iran possess a nuclear weapon.

But Araghchi said any demand to return to negotiations on the country’s nuclear programme was “irrelevant”. The US and Iran were engaged in nuclear talks before Israel launched a surprise strike on Iran – publicly backed by the US – earlier this month.

Iran denies its uranium enrichment programme is for anything other than civilian purposes, rejecting Israeli allegations that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons. Netanyahu has pledged to continue the attacks for “as many days as it takes” to stop Iran from developing a “nuclear threat”.

“The world must not forget that it was the United States which – in the midst of a process to forge a diplomatic outcome – betrayed diplomacy by supporting the genocidal Israeli regime’s launch of an illegal war of aggression on the Iranian nation,” Araghchi said.

“So we were in diplomacy, but we were attacked. They gave a green light to Israelis, if not instructed them, to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. They have proved that they are not men of diplomacy, and they only understand the language of threat and force.”

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday said he still hopes Iran will return to the negotiating table.

“I can only confirm that there are both public and private messages being delivered to the Iranians in multiple channels, giving them every opportunity to come to the table,” he told reporters.

Trump also ‘betrayed’ US voters

Araghchi also accused Trump of betraying not only Iran, but his own supporters as well. He said Trump was elected on a platform of putting an end to “America’s costly involvement in ‘forever wars’”.

“He has betrayed not only Iran by abusing our commitment to diplomacy, but also deceived his own voters by submitting to the wishes of a wanted war criminal who has grown accustomed to exploiting the lives and wealth of American citizens to further the Israeli regime’s objectives,” said Araghchi, referring to Netanyahu.

Iran says more than 400 people have been killed and at least 3,056 others wounded since Israel launched its attacks on June 13. In Israel, at least 24 people have been killed in Iranian strikes.

Araghchi said he would head to Moscow later on Sunday and hold “serious consultations” with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday morning in the wake of the unprecedented US strikes.

“Russia is a friend of Iran and we enjoy a strategic partnership,” he said in Istanbul. “We always consult with each other and coordinate our positions.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s delegation to the UN also formally called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Sunday to discuss the US strikes. In a letter submitted to the council carried by Fars News Agency, the Iranian delegation urged “immediate action and the adoption of necessary measures under the framework of the United Nations Charter”.

“Silence in the face of such blatant aggression will plunge the world into an unprecedented level of danger and chaos,” Araghchi said in Istanbul. “Humanity has come too far as a species to allow a lawless bully to take us back to the law of the jungle.”

Gilan, Iran – Iranians inside and outside the country have been closely monitoring and reacting to rapidly unfolding events after United States President Donald Trump ordered the bombing of Iran’s top nuclear sites amid the ongoing conflict with Israel.

US bunker-buster bombs dropped from B-2 Spirit strategic bombers and Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from naval platforms hit Iran’s three main nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan early on Sunday. Trump claimed the nuclear facilities were “totally obliterated”, though there has been no evidence shown as of yet to confirm that.

Iranian authorities confirmed the strikes after several hours, but said there was no radioactive leak. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also confirmed there was no off-site contamination.

Iranian state media appeared to downplay the impact, with the government-run IRNA reporting from an area near Fordow, the most significant and hard-to-reach nuclear site, that there was only limited smoke rising from the place where air defences were believed to be stationed and no major activity from emergency responders.

Satellite images circulating on Sunday appeared to show possible impact sites at Fordow, where the massive GBU-57 bombs are believed to have burrowed deep underground before detonating in an attempt to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities dug beneath the mountains.

The head of Iran’s Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, said there had been no deaths in the US strikes.

Images also showed substantial movement of trucks and bulldozers around Fordow in the days preceding the strikes, in what appeared to be an attempt by Iran to move out equipment and nuclear materials stored at the protected site in anticipation of US strikes.

Heavy machinery also appeared to have been deployed to fill the entrance tunnels of the facility with earth, in a move aimed at limiting damage at the site from the incoming bombs.

Speaking in Turkiye’s Istanbul, where he was attending a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi indicated a military response by Tehran is inevitable.

“My country has been invaded, and we must respond,” he told reporters. “We must remain patient and show a proportionate response to these aggressions. Only if these measures are stopped, then will we make decisions about diplomatic pathways and the possibility of restarting negotiations.”

In a televised message issued last week from an unknown location, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned that it would be to the detriment of Washington if it chooses to directly enter the war.

“The damage it will suffer will be far greater than any harm that Iran may encounter. The harm the US will suffer will definitely be irreparable if it enters this conflict militarily,” he said.

Hardliners call for action

Iranian state media and many hardline politicians led a furious response after the US strikes.

State television’s Channel 3 showed a map of US military bases across the region, including in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Iraq, which are within range of Iranian missiles.

“It is now clearer than ever, not just for the Iranian nation but for the whole peoples of the region, that all US citizens and military personnel are legitimate targets. We were negotiating and progressing through a diplomatic path, but you chose to spill the blood of your soldiers. The US president in the Oval Office chose to take delivery of the coffins of up to 50,000 US soldiers in Washington,” the channel’s anchor Mehdi Khanalizadeh said.

Amirhossein Tahmasebi, another anchor who had released a defiant video from inside the state television IRIB buildings in northern Tehran after they were bombed by Israel last week, said he “spits” on Trump and anyone who claims he is a president of peace.

Hossein Shariatmadari, the Khamenei-appointed ultraconservative head of Keyhan daily newspaper, wrote: “It is now our turn to immediately rain missiles down on the US naval force in Bahrain as a first measure.”

He also renewed his longtime call for Iran to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz and said Tehran must deny access to ships from the US, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

Hamid Rasaei, one of the most hardline members of Iran’s parliament who is close to the Paydari (Steadfastness) faction led by security council member and failed presidential candidate Saeed Jalili, went one step further and said Iran must hit US bases in Saudi Arabia.

Relations between Tehran and Riyadh, however, have thawed considerably in recent years.

Threats against ‘treachery’

Most Iranians in the country are still unable to go online due to state-imposed internet restrictions, but those who have managed to find a working proxy connection are also reacting angrily to the war.

“Thirty years of Iranian oil money and thirty years of economic opportunities that could have turned tens of millions of people into citizens like the rest of the world have become three deep pits,” wrote one user on X, in reference to the nuclear sites.

“Trump says let me just drop the heaviest bomb in the world and then it will all be about peace,” another user sarcastically wrote.

“Stalwart like Damavand, to the last breath for Iran,” wrote two-time Oscar-winning film director Asghar Farhadi on Instagram with a picture of Mount Damavand, the highest peak in Iran at 5,609 metres (18,402 feet) and a symbol of national pride.

But some Iranians living overseas who are against the ruling theocratic establishment, along with some inside the country, were in favour of the US and Israeli attacks in the belief that they may help overthrow the governing body.

This has prompted denunciations, and even threats, by Iranian authorities and state media against any form of “treachery”.

Elias Hazrati, the head of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s communications council, said during a late-night state television interview on Saturday that the state views those who side with Israel and the US as “dishonourable opposition” who are selling out their own country.

In a statement on Friday, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said those who have willingly or unwillingly collaborated with Israel have until the end of Sunday to turn themselves in – or face “the harshest punishment as fifth column and colluders with a hostile country during wartime”.

Iran has executed several people since the start of the war, including one person on Sunday morning, after convicting them of “spying” for Israel.

Washington, DC – As United States President Donald Trump lauded what he called the “spectacular military success” of the strikes he authorised against Iran, Democrats were quick to accuse him of overstepping his authority.

Numerous critics accused Trump late on Saturday of violating the US Constitution by launching military attacks against Iran’s nuclear sites without the approval of Congress.

“Trump said he would end wars; now he has dragged America into one,” Senator Christopher Van Hollen Junior said in a statement.

“His actions are a clear violation of our Constitution – ignoring the requirement that only the Congress has the authority to declare war.”

In the lead up to the US attacks, legislators from both main parties have pushed measures to compel Trump to approach Congress before launching any strikes.

The US Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war or authorise the use of force for specific purposes.

Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base has also been vehement in its opposition to the US joining Israel’s war. It has pointed out that Trump won the election on the promise not to commit Washington to yet another war in the Middle East. They want Trump to focus on domestic issues, particularly the economy.

‘Grounds for impeachment’

Lawmakers’ authority over the military was further enshrined in the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which curbed the president’s war-making powers.

Progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Trump violated the constitution and the War Powers Resolution.

“He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment,” she said.

The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, so he can order attacks, but his decisions must be within the guidelines of what is authorised by Congress.

However, the president can order the military in the case of a “sudden attack” or to respond to emergencies.

Several Democrats were quick to note that Iran’s nuclear facilities, which have been operating for years, did not pose an imminent threat to the US.

The US intelligence community confirmed in an assessment in March that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.

Trump has increasingly relied on executive powers in governing domestically, and now he appears to be sidelining Congress in his foreign policy.

But with Republicans in control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, lawmakers have few tools to influence his military decision. Impeachment is almost out of the question.

President Trump sending U.S. troops to bomb Iran without the consent of Congress is a blatant violation of our Constitution. pic.twitter.com/pqzAeS4K19

— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) June 22, 2025

No legal justification for strikes

Lawmakers have introduced bills under the War Powers Resolution to ban attacks on Iran without the approval of Congress, but Trump is likely to veto the proposals if they pass.

Congress could overturn the veto with two-thirds majorities in the House and the Senate, but Trump’s strikes have enough support to make that outcome unlikely.

The US president has not provided a legal justification for the strikes, but he is likely to argue that he was responding to an urgent situation or cite an existing military authorisation.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Congress passed a law allowing then-President George W Bush to launch what would become the global “war on terror”.

Millions of people have been killed and societies devastated due to the US wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, among others, waged as part of the so-called “war on terror”. It has also cost trillions of dollars and the lives of thousands of US soldiers.

In 2002, lawmakers approved another authorisation to allow the invasion of Iraq a year later.

These laws, known as the Authorisation for Use of Military Force (AUMF), remain in place, and previous presidents have invoked them to justify attacks that were not specifically approved by Congress.

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser with the US programme of the International Crisis Group and former State Department lawyer, said the attack on Iran is “patently illegal”.

“Even under the prevailing executive branch doctrine, this is likely to constitute ‘war’ requiring congressional authorization,” he wrote in a social media post.

Statement from Rep. Ilhan Omar on U.S. Bombing of Iran:

“The strikes on Iran, ordered by President Trump and executed without congressional authorization, mark a dangerous and reckless escalation of an already volatile conflict in the Middle East.

“Military strikes will not…

— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 22, 2025

Key progressive Senator Bernie Sanders was speaking at a rally in Oklahoma when Trump announced the attack.

As Sanders told the crowd about the US strikes, attendees started chanting: “No more war!”

“It is so grossly unconstitutional,” he said. “All of you know that the only entity that can take this country to war is the US Congress; the president does not have that right.”

Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said lawmakers will be “demanding answers” from the administration.

“Tonight, the President ignored the Constitution by unilaterally engaging our military without Congressional authorization,” she said in a social media post.

United States President Donald Trump has announced the bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites, as Washington effectively joined Israel’s war against Iran.

“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, using a different spelling for Isfahan.

In a televised address early on Sunday, he said “the strikes were a spectacular military success”.

The US decision to intervene militarily to aid the Israeli attacks on Iran has prompted fears of a serious escalation across the Middle East and brought back memories of the devastation in Iraq following the 2003 US invasion. Israel launched unprecedented attacks on Iran on June 13, targeting its nuclear sites and top military commanders.

More than 400 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Iran, while retaliatory strikes by Tehran have killed at least 24 people in Israel.

Here is what we know so far about the US attacks on Iran:

What areas has the US bombed in Iran?

The US used bunker-buster bombs to target three key nuclear facilities – Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan – using the B2 bomber jets, according to US media reports.

“The strikes were a spectacular military success,” Trump said in his televised address. “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” he said, adding that “our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity”.

Al Jazeera could not immediately verify Trump’s claims independently.

Here’s what we know about the three nuclear sites:

Fordow, a highly fortified underground uranium enrichment facility, is reportedly buried hundreds of metres deep in the mountains near Qom, in northwestern Iran. This site is designed to hold up to 2,976 spinning centrifuges, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Natanz is Iran’s largest enrichment complex, containing vast halls of centrifuges, some underground. It has been a key hub of Iran’s nuclear programme and the site of multiple past sabotage attempts – and was hit by Israeli strikes on the first wave of attacks on June 13.

Isfahan is an important nuclear research and production centre that includes a uranium conversion facility and fuel fabrication plants. It plays a critical role in preparing raw materials for enrichment and reactor use.

For years, Israel and the US have accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons but Iran maintains its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has also rejected claims that Tehran was on the verge of making atomic bombs, though the United Nations nuclear watchdog has expressed concerns against Iran’s decision to enrich uranium at up to 60 percent purity.

Tehran stepped up enrichment after Trump walked out of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal – Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – in 2018 that had capped Iran’s nuclear activity.

What weapons did the US use in Iran?

Trump announced “massive precision strikes” but shared no specific details about the weapons used in the attack. However, US media reports suggested the US army dropped “bunker buster” bombs and navy submarines fired multiple cruise missiles.

The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is the most powerful bunker buster bomb in the US military arsenal, weighing nearly 13,000kg (30,000 pounds). Bunker buster bombs can penetrate about 18 metres (59 feet) of concrete or 61 metres (200 feet) of earth, which a conventional bomb cannot reach.

The B-2 Spirit, a US stealth bomber, is currently the only aircraft designed to deploy the GBU-57 and can carry two bunker buster bombs at a time, which the air force says can drop multiple bombs sequentially, allowing each strike to burrow deeper.

The US intervention is seen as critical at this point for the Israeli campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities, especially Fordow, due to its depth. Israeli attacks had failed to destroy the site.

While nearly half a dozen B-2 bombers reportedly dropped a dozen 13,000kg bunker buster bombs on the Fordow site, navy submarines are said to have coordinated strikes by cruise missiles at the Natanz and Isfahan sites, according to media reports.

This also marks the first time that the US used MOPs in combat.

What was the impact of US strikes?

Trump claimed “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated”.

Yet there is no independent verification yet of the extent of damage at the nuclear facilities.

Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to the chairman of the Iranian parliament, claimed that the US attack was not surprising and that Iranian authorities had evacuated the Fordow facility in advance.

“Iran has been expecting strikes on Fordow for several days. This nuclear facility was evacuated, no irreversible damage was sustained during today’s attack,” Mohammadi said in a statement posted on X.

Confirming the attacks on Sunday, Iran’s nuclear agency said the radiation system data and field surveys do not show signs of contamination or danger to residents near the sites.

“Following the illegal US attack on the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites, field surveys and radiation systems data showed: No contamination recorded,” the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said in a social media post. “There is no danger to residents around these sites. Safety is in a stable state.”

After the US bombing of its key nuclear facilities, the agency insisted that its work would not be stopped.

“The [agency] assures the great Iranian nation that despite the evil conspiracies of its enemies, with the efforts of thousands of its revolutionary and motivated scientists and experts, it will not allow the development of this national industry, which is the result of the blood of nuclear martyrs, to be stopped,” AEOI said in a statement.

The IAEA also did not find an increase in radiation levels near the targeted sites.

“Following attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran – including Fordow – the IAEA can confirm that no increase in off-site radiation levels has been reported as of this time,” the agency said in a social media post on Sunday.

“IAEA will provide further assessments on situation in Iran as more information becomes available.”

Grossi said the IAEA will hold an emergency meeting on Monday in the wake of the attacks.

What has Iran said?

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US “has committed a grave violation of the UN Charter, international law and the NPT by attacking Iran’s peaceful nuclear installations”.

Tehran has already threatened to walk away from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and promoting peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

“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,” said Araghchi in a statement posted on X.

“In accordance with the UN Charter and its provisions allowing a legitimate response in self-defense, Iran reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interests, and people,” he added.

Last week, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned the US against joining Israeli attacks on Iran. He said it would “result in irreparable consequences” for the US.

In his first televised address since Israel began its attacks on June 13, Khamenei said Iran “will not surrender to anyone” and “will stand firm against an imposed war, just as it will stand firm against an imposed peace”.

How will Iran retaliate against the US?

Condemning the US attacks, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday it had the right to resist such “aggression”.

“The world must not forget that it was the United States that, in the midst of a diplomatic process, betrayed diplomacy” by supporting Israel’s “aggressive action”, and is now waging “a dangerous war against Iran”, the ministry said in a statement carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran considers it its right to stand with all its might against US military aggression and the crimes committed by this rogue regime, and to defend the security and national interests of Iran,” it added.

Antonio Guterres, the UN chief, said he was gravely alarmed by the US attacks on Iran.

“This is a dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge – and a direct threat to international peace and security. There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control – with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world,” Guterres said.

Speaking at a news conference on Sunday, the Iranian foreign minister said the time for diplomacy had passed and that his country had the right to defend itself.

“The warmongering, a lawless administration in Washington is solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences and far reaching implications of its act of aggression,” he said.

Stephen Zunes, the director of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San Francisco, laid out several options available to Iran in response to the US attacks unfolding. “They can attack US forces directly. There are up to 40,000 Americans within the range, not just of Iranian missiles but of drones and other weaponry,” he said.

“You have the fleet in the Persian Gulf, just off the Iranian coast. They can be vulnerable as well if they attack,” Zunes said, using another name for the Gulf, which is also referred to as the Arabian Gulf. “It could impact global shipping, impacting oil prices and indeed the entire global economy.”

Zunes also pointed towards the “proxy militias in Iraq who could target American bases there”, adding that he would be “surprised if the Iranians don’t target at least some of these”.

On Sunday, Iran deployed one of its most advanced missiles, the Kheibar Shekan, as it carried out attacks on Israel.

Iran might also move towards withdrawing from the NPT. Abbas Golroo, the parliament foreign policy committee head, said Tehran has the legal right to withdraw from the NPT following the US attacks.

Article 10 states that an NPT member has “the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country”.

Adam Weinstein, the deputy director of the Middle East programme at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said the US is now at risk of getting dragged into a prolonged war in the Middle East.

He noted that Iran has already indicated that it intends to continue with its nuclear programme.

“They’ll do it more secretly. They might exit the NPT, and, of course, the Israelis will say, ‘Well, this is why we need even more strikes.’ And there’s likely to be some sort of retaliation by the Iranians, or else the very legitimacy of their regime would be in question,” Weinstein said.

“And so this is how the escalation cycle starts. And so I’m very sceptical that it will be a one-off strike by the US. I think the US is at risk of being pulled into a war of choice with Iran that, unfortunately, it started.”

Trump, meanwhile, also issued more threats against Iran.

“Any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight,” he said on social media, after the attacks against Iran.

Iran and Israel have exchanged a barrage of missiles after the United States bombed key Iranian nuclear sites, dramatically escalating tensions in the Middle East.

Iran on Sunday launched two volleys of 27 missiles, targeting Israel’s main Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, research facilities, and command centres, an Iranian state news agency reported.

Air raid sirens were sounded across most of Israel, sending millions of people to safe rooms and bomb shelters as explosions and missile interceptions were seen above the commercial hub of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the port city of Haifa, and other parts of the country.

At least 20 people were wounded, according to Israeli emergency workers.

“This is certainly the first time that we have seen two volleys coming in such close succession. Usually, there are hours between each volley of missiles. This time, it was less than half an hour,” said Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, Jordan.

The targeted areas spanned the occupied Golan Heights in Syria to the Upper Galilee to northern and central Israel, affecting 10 separate sites either directly by missiles or by large shrapnel, Odeh said.

“There is extensive damage in those sites, especially in the Tel Aviv area and Haifa,” Odeh said.

Videos from Tel Aviv and Haifa towards the north showed rescue teams combing through debris, apartments reduced to rubble, mangled cars along a street filled with debris, and medics evacuating injured people from a row of blown-out houses.

In a statement, the Israeli army said it was investigating why no air raid warnings were sounded in Haifa.

Israel also carried out another wave of bombings on “military targets” in western Iran. The Israeli military earlier said its strikes destroyed Iranian missile launchers and targeted soldiers.

The latest exchange of missiles between the Middle Eastern enemies followed the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, with President Donald Trump saying the attacks had “obliterated” the three facilities.

Trump said Iran’s future held “either peace or tragedy” and that there were many other Iranian targets that could be hit. “If peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill,” he said.

Iran responded by saying it “reserved all options” to defend itself and warned of “everlasting consequences” if the US joined the war.

In a statement, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the US attacks on its nuclear facilities as a “gross and unprecedented violation” of international law.

“The world must not forget that it was the United States that, in the midst of a diplomatic process, betrayed diplomacy” by supporting Israel’s “aggressive action”, and is now waging “a dangerous war against Iran,” the ministry said.

It has become clear that the US “adheres to no rules or ethics, and in order to advance the aims of a genocidal and occupying regime, spares no lawlessness or crime”, it added.

Meanwhile, Israel said it will temporarily reopen its airspace for flights from 11:00 GMT on Sunday as it repatriates thousands of citizens left stranded overseas by its war with Iran, the country’s airport authority said.

Ben Gurion Airport “will open for landings from 02:00pm-8:00pm as part of Operation Safe Return”, the authority said in a statement, referring to the government’s efforts to bring home citizens.

Most airlines continue to avoid large parts of the Middle East after the US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, according to the flight tracking website, FlightRadar24.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised US President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb three nuclear sites in Iran as ‘bold, righteous and historic.’ The UN Secretary General has condemned the US strikes as a ‘dangerous escalation’.

Iran has fired its first retaliatory missile strikes against Israel after an unprecedented US attack on three Iranian nuclear sites, including the Fordow facility. At least 11 people have been injured in central Israel, while air raid sirens have sounded in occupied East Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.