The US has bombed Fordow and other sites.

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/22/israel-iran-war-live-trump-says-us-has-attacked-nuclear-sites-in-iran-including-fordow

Thank you @BelleHathor
It is just so complex and.... irrational!

No problem at all MushMonster, it's an extremely complicated situation.

Thankfully, there are a lot of Military and Geopolitical people that have been breaking it down for us normies. I learned the difference between liquid fuel and solid fuel rockets this week lol!

On USA vs Iran, America has lost every wargame played against Iran. They would need a ground force of over 1 million soldiers if they wanted to invade due to the terrain. Iran also has whole underground cities so an air campaign would have limited effect on Military assets.

Read up on the Millennium challenge :
https://mackenzieinstitute.com/2023/11/a-250-million-war-game-and-its-shocking-outcome/

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/i-fought-a-u-s-war-against-iran-in-a-simulator-it-ended-badly/

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/i-fought-a-war-against-iran-and-it-ended-badly/

Why would this be wanted? Terrain warfare that is

I agree with you that the US is a huge threat to world peace, but not as much so as Israel. The alliance between Trump and Netanyahu is quite chilling.

Unfortunately, not the only one in this scenario.

I certainly wouldn’t be poking at a leader and armed forces who believe that they will be martyred if they die after I had publicly promised a two week pause to come to the table.

Humanity really doesn’t learn, does it?

There are some delusional hawks in the Trump administration and Conservative think tanks who want regime change at any cost (Lindsay Graham). The only way to secure that would be by ground invasion, which would be impossible due to the terrain.

Thankfully there are people within the Pentagon who know this and won't greenlight it.

If they do not stop soon, we will see air/ sea and land movements into each others space. There is no way of controlling any other nation by dropping bombs. History points to that.
Let's hope such a thing never happens.
But the geography and size of the army has troubled US military for decades, that is true, I remember reading it. Alongside the belief that Iranians will not surrender their country.
I, personally, am concerned about the size of the alliances at play.

Iran doesn’t need to surrender, just agree to peace. They need to quit the nuclear program, stop attacking Israel and stop funding terrorists.
They now have no air force nor air defenses. If they get hairy arsed in the Straits then they will have no navy nor naval docks left.
No one is invading Iran. It’s too large. There is no appetite for it. There never was.
Any regime change needs to be done by the Iranian people themselves. Everyone else should keep well out of it.
I hope any further military action is restricted to military targets. The Iranians are good people, led by evil people.

Yes this makes sense

Trump is requesting unconditional surrender in his tweets. That is the language he is using.
Anyway, peace or surrender. Call it whatever. I do not think iranians are going to allow any external powers to take their nation or any puppet put in by said external powers. Any uprising staged just now will put Iran itself at risk of being taken over and split into pieces. So I actually do see any armie uprising, just now, less possible.
Whether they will negotiate a ceasefire... I hope so, for everyone's sake.

They were about to come to the table weren’t they. Somebody took out their leading negotiators before that happened.

I think MI5 and MI6 are incredibly good. I really do hope Iran does not think a terrorist attack on the UK will be not met with a response.

It's going to be potentially a bit messy but the sooner the regime capitulates the better.

No sovereign country would ever surrender unconditionally a bully.

Trump thinks this is the golden era where America was "feared". Even Reagan withdrew troops from the region in the 1980s after the Beirut Marine Barracks bombing which killed 220
https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/02/07/when-reagan-cut-and-run/

If Iran lost up to 1 million lives during the Iran/Iraq war and didn't surrender, why think that they will now?

Then Trump made a tasteless joke about the negotiator who was murdered "Well he didn't die of Covid did he".

The issue is or was nuclear capability, or should be. There doesn’t need to be ground warfare or even forced regime change.

Agree. Iran has been fucking around for quite some time, and it’s just found out. It had many, many opportunities to step back but attacked Israel via its proxies over and over again - despite Israel’s clear determination to root out and destroy Hamas and Hezbollah and the effectiveness of their strikes against Hezbollah leaders and then, Iranian leaders. Israel does not have the artillery to completely destroy the nuclear facilities - only the US does I believe (happy to be corrected of course).

Iran, like its proxy Hamas, has shown complete disregard for the safety of its own people by its actions, over and over again. It’s continued with its suicidal provocation of Israel knowing full well that Trump is a highly unorthodox and unpredictable leader (to put it mildly).

I think it’s important to note that the MAGA demographic and the right of the Republican Party explicitly don’t want war. So it’s a very different situation from the early 2000s and the hawkish Republican government. I can’t see the US doing anything more than these very precise strikes. Trump’s not in the business of regime change.

@EasternStandard you need to read updated statements from Netanyahu and his ministers. The goal post has moved.
Quite a few days back.......

If that was the case this is solely about nuclear capability, Trump wouldn’t have ripped up the Obama era treaty that was preventing it, Israel wouldn’t have taken out the negotiators days before they were going to sit round the table to negotiate and the US wouldn’t have dropped bombs before figuring out why there are so many conflicting intelligence reports about whether Iran did have nuclear capability. It’s not really the messaging that’s been coming out of the US or Israel either (although it’s Trump so who knows what goes through his tiny mind before he speaks or tweets.)

Assuming the international inspectors are right about there being no increase in radiation around Fordow since it was destroyed it doesn’t look like there was nuclear material there at the time.

The Iranian regime is evil but we don’t exactly have a good record at removing regimes we don’t want. There’s a very good reason that nobody has given Ukraine enough support to beat Russia.

The issue was never nuclear capability, that was just the excuse for Israel to illegally attack Iran (with Americas full knowledge).

Iran is the last fully sovereign state in the region "hostile" to America. There are a lot of resources to be exploited. That's why the former Shah's son has been doing the media rounds.

Netanyahu and the Americans spent months planning their decapitation strikes last week, hoping for a collapse of the government. That's why in the immediate aftermath there was so much gloating about destroying Irans Air Defences and the regime being over.
However within 14 hours Iran responded and is currently on round 20 of it's response. The mayor of Haifa said he's feeling depressed at the level of destruction.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/haifa-mayor--injuries--widespread-destruction--nothing-is-im

Instead of collapse it has inspired a unity not seen in Iran since the war. MAGA has come out fully antiwar and increasingly anti Trump calling him an Israeli plant. The younger generation is asking why do we hate Iran, with the Ayatollahs old tweets on love, Mary and doing the bloody dishes trending. There's generally very little sympathy to the destruction in Israel after Netanyahu's actions in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

It's had all been telegraphed in the policy paper "Which path to Persia?", Chapter 5 is titled "leave it to Bibi".....

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/which-path-to-persia-options-for-a-new-american-strategy-toward-iran/

It has just been said that it’s not regime change that’s wanted, listening now. I don’t want to see ground war a specific strike seems to be the aim.

Listening to who?
Because since 6 days ago it was about a regime change.

In brief, I have zero trust in any of these guys, any of them. And zero confidence in anything they may say. Because, really, they cannot even keep their word for two seconds.....
They are using the press, so us, our opinions, to attempt furthering their options, that is clear by now.
And we allow these monkeys control over our lives....
But... we do have eyes and ears connected to a brain. So nevermind the gas lighting. I can see what their actions are aiming for. And it is the fall of the Iranian regime and get their paws on its oil.

Paws on Gas too. More importantly they want to "contain" China (who get 40%+ of it's oil from Iran). As they're unable to compete on a level playing field, disrupting China's supply line is their only option.

Yes, money and power. That is all.

Funnily enough that's exactly what I just said to one of my sons, who is 30 but nervous. Nothing new under the sun, money, power and egos will likely preclude destruction of the assets that provide those things in the end. I hope I'm right in my cynicism.

Statement from WH in response to question about wanting regime change.

Talk of material being moved being said to be unlikely. I thought main concern might be the effectiveness but sounds like that might not be the case. Little chance of radiation - now by another commentator.

Some posters might be rallying behind Iran, which is unusual.