Bombing Iran’s nuclear sites – good or bad? Discuss.

F rom one perspective, the bombings by Trump may change the politics of the Middle East. Personally, I doubt it, but that’s based on nothing ever having changed the Middle East before or the complex territorial, political, religious makeup of the region. Some day, something has to change.

Though my hope is it does, for the better.

My reality is – I just don’t trust Donald J. Trump.

And that distrust is turning out to be justified to this point. He claims obliteration of the sites. Initial reports from his own Defense Department say that isn’t true.

The Trump-appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs gave a more realistic report immediately after the bombing – that serious damage was done, but he didn’t use the word “obliterate.” That’s probably because the truth is no one really knows yet what damage was done. And the chairman was leaning on facts and his own credibility, not trying to score quick political points.

Another question, of course, is: Was the obliteration of the sites necessary to stop Iran from having a nuclear bomb? Maybe not. Time will tell.

The president’s press secretary tells us that if something is hit with multiple 30,000-pound bombs, of course, it’s been obliterated!

Of course, a 30,000-pound buster bomb, best I can research, weighs 30,000 pounds because it carries a heavy load – propeller to dig into the ground, and other necessary equipment to carry out its mission: dig hundreds of feet into the earth and then explode. It’s bomb weight is impressive: 2,400 kg (that’s a 5,000 pound bomb).

No question it’s big and does serious damage, but when the President and his spokespeople say a “30,000-pound bomb,” that’s not exactly what it is. And the description carries more weight (pardon the unintentional pun), than the bomb itself is. It is more for public relations purposes to label it a “30,000-pound” bomb.

Quibbling, I know, but just trying to lay out some facts.

Trump and his minions are calling the DoD’s initial assessment wrong but that’s based on them thinking it’s wrong, not knowing it’s wrong.

Again, quibbling because no one really “knows” yet what damage the bombing did.

So, if Ronald Reagan, or George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton, for that matter, had ordered the same bombing – their reports would carry far more credibility than Trump’s, to me anyway. Because they wouldn’t lie about something so serious. But Trump (eye on the Nobel Prize, and history of outlandish statements to make his point) would.

When a President uses up his credibility by telling untold, proven, tens of thousands of lies in his career, when we go to “war” his credibility is, at best, questionable. You can disagree with interpretation of intelligence, as Trump does often, but you can’t disagree with facts.

Do I hope the bombing did damage? Of course. What right-minded individual thinks Iran should possess a nuclear bomb? When you have the power to order a big bombing – and you do – you want it to be successful.

Fact is, we just don’t know what real damage the bombing did – yet.

Nor do we know if the current ceasefire will hold. Hard to know when it’s agreed to by two players (Israel and Iran) who have a history of breaking such agreements and a President whose credibility is, at best, questionable.

So, we’ll see.

Discussion may, of course, continue.

GOING FURTHER

• U.S. strikes 3 nuclear sites in Iran, in major regional conflict escalation | NPR

• How Trump quietly made the historic decision to launch strikes in Iran | CNN

• US strikes did not destroy Iran's nuclear programme, intelligence report says | BBC NEWS

Sources:

▪ This piece was first published in The Screaming Moderate and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 4 July 2025 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.

▪ Cover: Flickr/The White House. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)