United States strikes on Iranian nuclear sites

On June 22, 2025, the United States Air Force and Navy attacked three nuclear facilities in Iran as part of the Iran–Israel war, under the code name Operation Midnight Hammer. The Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant, the Natanz Nuclear Facility, and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center were targeted with fourteen GBU-57A/B MOP "bunker buster" bombs carried by B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, and Tomahawk missiles fired from a submarine. According to Trump, US F-35 and F-22 fighters also entered Iran's airspace to draw its surface-to-air missiles, but no launches were detected.

The attack was the United States' only offensive action in the Iran–Israel war, which began on June 13 with surprise Israeli strikes and ended with the ceasefire on June 24, 2025. It was the first U.S. attack on an Iranian target since the 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani, and on Iran's territory since a 1988 naval offensive.

U.S. president Donald Trump said the strikes "completely and totally obliterated" Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities; a final bomb damage assessment of the strikes was still ongoing as of August 2025. A July 2025 Pentagon assessment found that Iran's nuclear program was likely set back around 2 years. Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said that nuclear sites sustained severe damage.

Congressional Republicans largely supported Trump's action, while most Democrats and some Republicans were concerned about the constitutionality of the move, its effects, and Iran's response. World reaction was mixed, as some world leaders welcomed the move to incapacitate Iran's nuclear program while others expressed concern over escalation or otherwise condemned the strikes.

Iran responded by attacking a U.S. base in Qatar. The next day Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. On July 2, Iran suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Background

Iran nuclear program and American relations with Iran

Four years after the U.S. and other Western nations helped engineer the 1953 Iranian coup d'état against Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the Eisenhower administration agreed to help develop the Iranian nuclear program, part of the U.S. effort to promote the peaceful pursuit of nuclear science through the "Atoms for Peace" program. In 1968, Iran signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). With profits made from the 1973 oil crisis, Pahlavi decided to increase Iran's civil nuclear program and dispatched Iranian students to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to learn nuclear engineering. With U.S. endorsement, Pahlavi began a plan to build 23 nuclear power plants, which would enable Iran to supply electricity to neighboring countries, become a leader in the region, and become a modern state. When then-secretary of state Henry Kissinger attempted to limit Iran's ability to weaponize the nuclear reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel into fissile material through safeguards, Pahlavi handed nuclear-construction contracts to Germany and France.

In 1979, the Iranian Revolution overthrew Pahlavi. After the Iran–Iraq War concluded in 1988, Iran's Islamic leaders launched a nuclear program to produce electricity for its burgeoning population, and to serve as a deterrent.

In 2015, Iran, the United States (under Barack Obama), and other countries negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to manage Iran's nuclear program to function at a limited level for 15 years, in return for removal of economic international sanctions against Iran.

In 2018, Trump—who has maintained since at least 2011 that Iran should not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons—unilaterally broke the agreement by withdrawing the United States from the JCPOA, costing Iran the negotiated sanction relief, while implementing even more sanctions that effectively cut off (JCPOA-facilitated) European trade with Iran. Trump's government said that the JCPOA was not preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. At the time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was still in compliance with the agreement.

On February 4, 2025, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington, D.C. and reportedly reminded Trump that Iran had planned to assassinate him. Netanyahu gave a detailed slide deck presentation showing how Iran was increasing its uranium stockpile and advancing its centrifuge technology, which Netanyahu said showed Iran was close to crossing the nuclear threshold. Trump wanted to attempt diplomacy and his team decided on a 60-day outline to settle on an agreement. On May 31, 2025, the IAEA reported that Iran had sharply increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% purity, just below weapons-grade, reaching over 408 kilograms (899 lb), a nearly 50% rise since February. The agency warned that this amount is enough for multiple nuclear weapons if further enriched. Iran said that it increased its uranium enrichment to levels beyond what is required for civilian use as a response to the 2018 American withdrawal from JCPOA. The IAEA reported that Iran was not meeting its obligations per its 2019 agreement by hiding its development of nuclear material, and the IAEA voted to censure Iran on June 12. Iran responded to the IAEA censure by declaring it would create a new uranium-enrichment facility at an unknown location. It has consistently claimed that it is developing nuclear energy and not nuclear weapons. Before Israel attacked Iran in June, the Israelis had given the U.S. information that it thought concerning. The U.S. intelligence agencies were not convinced the information actually showed Iran was getting closer to crossing the nuclear threshold.

One of the major Iranian nuclear sites is the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant, estimated to be 80 to 90 meters underground. Because of its deep location, the United States military officials had proposed the use of GBU-57A/B MOP "bunker buster" bombs, which can only be carried by a B-2 bomber, to destroy Fordow (the United States is the only nation to possess either of these capabilities). There was extended debate about whether the bunker buster bombs would actually be able to destroy Fordow.

Multiple advisors to Trump, including Steve Bannon and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, warned against war with Iran and have claimed the intelligence community does not consider Iran to be building a nuclear weapon. After Trump called Gabbard "wrong" and said he "did not care what she said," Gabbard changed her position and said Iran could have a nuclear weapon "within months". Trump also said in response to these comments that, "my intelligence community is wrong."

Israeli involvement and American relations with Israel

Israel states that it supports nuclear nonproliferation but believes the NPT has little relevance to the Middle East and has not joined the NPT. Israel, widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, has consistently viewed the potential for regional powers to acquire nuclear weapons as an existential threat and has previously attacked nuclear facilities in Iraq and Syria to prevent those countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. It has repeatedly undertaken both covert and overt actions to prevent such developments and has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists. The conflict between Iran and Israel has been intensifying since the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas, as Hamas is partially funded by Iran. Historically, the U.S. has supported Israel in the Middle East, and particularly has financed Israel's military through United States Foreign Military Financing as well as supporting Israel's military actions.

For more than 30 years preceding the American strikes, the United States has been the foremost defender of Israel on the international stage, as well as the main provider of military aid to Israel with few pauses. Once Israel started the Iran–Israel war, it immediately encouraged the United States to enter the war, reported Reuters. Vox said that Israel's goal in the war may be regime change in Iran, rather than a simple targeting of their nuclear program, and that Trump has placed military support behind these goals.

While the American strikes (and other Israeli strikes during the Iran–Israel war) have attacked Iran's nuclear program, and while Israel has continually accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons, Israel itself is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, possibly since the early 1960s. Israel has maintained an ambiguous position since the late 1960s, stating that it "won't be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East" without confirming whether it currently possesses them. Netanyahu reiterated this stance in 2011.