Last week's "Rising Lion" aerial operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) aimed to decapitate Iran's nuclear arms and ICBM delivery capabilities along with top military and scientific leadership was reportedly very successful, with far more damage expected to follow in days, or even weeks to come.
Waves of drones, rockets, and aircraft, including American-made F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters, targeted key nuclear material enrichment and storage facilities, ballistic missile launch sites, and a key air defense radar station.
The IDF attacks terminated the lives and roles of several high-ranking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers including Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Bagheri and Commander Major General Hossein Salami, plus killed at least 14 Iranian nuclear scientists including Dr. Fereydoon Abbasi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).
Although the Trump White House has made it clear that the U.S. did not participate in the assault on Iran, there is no doubt that the Trump administration has provided Israel with weaponry, including support to Israel's Iron Dome missile interception defenses against IRGC retaliation.
While publicly and privately expressing his desire to keep the U.S. out of war, he has nevertheless warned Tehran not to use retaliation as an excuse to attack American military facilities or personnel in the region or repercussions will be extreme, with regime change hardly a veiled threat.
Trump told ABC on Sunday after reaffirming that the country is not involved in the conflict "at this moment … it's possible [the US] could get involved."
Speaking from an undisclosed location in exile, Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's former Shah who was overthrown in the country's 1979 Islamic revolution, told BBC on Sunday's Laura Kuenssberg show that people who oppose the country's government have been "re-energized" by Israel's attacks.
Observing that Iranian leaders are leaving the country out of fear, he urged: "The ultimate solution is regime change, and now we have an opportunity because this regime is at its weakest point."
There is no doubt that President Trump gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advance approval of the airstrike following Tehran's rejection of a 60-day deadline he set for agreeing to begin terminating all nuclear material enrichment capabilities.
Trump told Fox News that he was aware of the pending strike and called it "excellent." Israeli officials reportedly confirmed that he gave it the green light.
The action also followed a vote by the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, calling Iran out for violating its obligations through 20 years of deception under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Although the total extent of current damage to Iran's nuclear facilities remains uncertain, several key targets confirmed to have been struck include an above-ground pilot enrichment plant at Natanz which has a main enrichment operation buried deep underground, and upper levels of another major enrichment facility dug a half mile below the Pickaxe Mountain at Fordo to the north.
Assured destruction of these underground enrichment and fissile material storage facilities will require the deployment of huge U.S. 30,000-pound "bunker buster bombs" which presently remain unauthorized by President Trump.
A report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency estimates that Iran already has roughly 605 pounds of uranium enriched to the near 90% purity threshold for creating about half a dozen nuclear warheads.
Confirmed Israeli strikes destroyed or dismantled several of the Iranian aircraft and missile facilities including the Tabriz International Airport in northern Iran which houses several military helicopters and jet fighters flanked by adjacent missile bases.
Israeli airstrikes targeted a significant underground missile facility in Kermanshah, near the western border with Iraq. This site contains numerous small facilities connected by a network of tunnels and bunkers that store both short- and medium-range Shahab missiles, which are based on North Korean designs. The facility also houses more advanced missile systems, including the Emad and Qadr.
Some of those bunkers may have hosted launcher platforms for Iran's Missile Shower System, an automated missile launcher designed to enable a rapid barrage of medium-range missiles.
Another facility hit is the Hamadan Airbase in the west that houses the IRGC Aerospace Force's F-4 and F-7 fighter squadrons along with missile storage facilities, underground hangars, and several surface-to-air missile launchers of various short and medium-range Shahab types.
Near Hamadan, Israeli forces also struck the Sobashi radar station, Iran's westernmost air-defense facility ironically first established a half-century ago under a U.S.-backed military assistance program to offer long-range surveillance against oppressors.
Meanwhile, Iran has fired back, launching hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones into Israeli population centers in Tel Aviv resulting in multiple casualties and causing significant damage to its IDF Headquarters, an oil refinery and a prominent science institute.
No one can possibly predict how or when all of this will end, or how many truly innocent people on both sides will suffer or die before it is over.
Nevertheless, Israel had no choice but to defend its very survival against a nuclear menace, and in doing so help protect the U.S. and world from an escalating and irreversible threat with prospectively unthinkable consequences.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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