The Big One
Israel attacks Iran: We’re all waking up to a much less stable Middle East this morning. “Israel’s action to cripple Iran’s nuclear program is a service to all civilized people,” offers AIPAC. This attack “risks a regional war that will likely be catastrophic for America,” offers Sen. Chris Murphy (D–Conn.). Israel presents its actions as a “response to the Iranian regime’s ongoing aggression against Israel” and declares that this, dubbed Operation Rising Lion, is only “the first stage.”
Explosions were seen all across Iran early Friday morning, hitting Tehran, the main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Isfahan (near a nuclear facility), Tabriz (near a nuclear research center and two military facilities), Khondab (near a nuclear site), and Khorammabad (near a nuclear site). The cities of Arak and Kermanshah were also hit. At least six military bases were hit around Tehran. Some residential areas were struck (death toll currently unknown). Israel killed the commander in chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Hossein Salami; the deputy commander of Iran’s armed forces, Gen. Gholamali Rashid; the chief of staff of the military, Mohammad Bagheri; the head of the airspace unit of the Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh; and Ali Shamkhani, one of Iran’s most influential politicians and a close advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini, who had been overseeing the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States. Israel also attacked the homes of nuclear scientists Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi and Fereydoun Abbasi, assassinating both. Several other nuclear scientists were killed as well: Abdolhamid Minouchehr, who “conducted extensive research on improving the efficiency and safety of nuclear plants” (per Al Jazeera); Ahmad Reza Zolfaghari, who taught nuclear engineering at Shahid Beheshti University; Amir Hossein Faghihi, who previously helmed Iran’s Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute; and a scientist known as Motallebzadeh.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Iran’s nuclear program “a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival,” claiming that Tehran had “taken steps that it has never taken before—steps to weaponize this enriched uranium.” He added: “If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year. It could be within a few months.”
As reported in Roundup yesterday, a U.N. body—the International Atomic Energy Agency—just found Iran to be in violation of its nuclear obligations and censured it due to its refusal to work with the agency’s inspectors. The U.S. clearly had advance warning of the attacks and had started to evacuate certain personnel and family members of government employees from the Middle East. Trump had also presaged two months ago that Iran needed to agree to a nuclear deal on the timeline Trump had proposed or there would be consequences.
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