Actually, the non-Hamas part of the Palestinians (Fatah) has been telling the Palestinians that Israel is illegitimate, evil, and must be destroyed. That has gone on since 1948. I am not sure anyone is alive who remembers the time before that time. Fatah may not be as fanatical as Hamas but their schools/media teach exactly the same lessons.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, June 19, 2025 - 09:00 pm: Edit

Carrier FORD has been sent to Israel; it will arrive in two weeks.

SecDef Hegseth visited Area 51 secretly on 1 June.

The US is organizing the evacuation of US civilians from Israel.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 11:36 am: Edit

The best guess this morning is that after Nimitz gets there, we'll send half a dozen B2s to destroy Fordow. We'll tell Iran "If you retaliate against a US base you will regret it."

If they are that stupid (I would bet that they are) it will cost them their entire Air Force and their entire Navy. We might or might not go after their oil refineries the second day. On the third day, we'll be targeting the factories that make kitchen furniture.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 03:06 pm: Edit

I imagine the list of target priority to be much larger than just three days.

With smart bomb technology coupled with combat drones, the potential of crippling a nations infrastructure networks is virtually limited to the number of munitions available…. Knowing that comparatively primitive level possible during the Vietnam war (using late 1950’s to 1970 technology) varied from below 1% accuracy(achieved by certain unguided munition types such as artillery or unguided rockets) thru to Close air support and B-52 rolling thunder air campaigns using area bombardments, staggering amounts of artillery rounds, rockets and bombs had to be used to achieve mission success.

Gulf War accuracy levels far surpassed what was achieved during the Vietnam war.

Ukraine has been able to paralyze Russian offensives by relatively small forces with highly accurate weapons systems.

I look forward to reading the after action reports (when they get opened to the public for review).

China has spent years trying to convince the world of the invincibility of the Peoples Liberation Army… my guess is the first reaction will be a denial of all reported claims of American military system’s superiority.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 06:23 pm: Edit

I think Iran believes the US to be weak. Not in military but in the resolve to do what must be done to win.

That we will not take out civilian targets. That we will not destroy power and factories. Not attack the oil fields.

I am also afraid that we will not do what needs to be done. This is only my opinion.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 07:09 pm: Edit

All the US needs to do is play Linebacker, defend Israel against missile attacks....
When it becomes necessary, provide the IDF with the proper munitions they have the ability to use very well....

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 07:29 pm: Edit

If SVC is correct, Fordow will soon be history.

That would be significant in demonstrating U.S. resolve.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 09:44 pm: Edit

Mind, once Fordow is destroyed, containment becomes an issue. The last thing we need is factional outfits gathering up scattered material and using it to construct dirty bombs.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 10:07 pm: Edit

Material for dirty bombs is actually not that hard to come by.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 10:46 pm: Edit

The material will be 300 feet under a mountain of broken radioactive rubble.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 11:00 pm: Edit

One would presume that an Israeli F15E is circling over Fordow 24/7 to bomb any truck pulling up to the gate.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, June 21, 2025 - 08:47 am: Edit

Using the Ukrainians method of fighting a modern drone war, tanks, trucks, even individual soldiers with a back pack can be targeted and killed.

The Mullahs in Iran (those still living…) have no idea of the of the relentless and merciless fury headed their way.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, June 21, 2025 - 04:04 pm: Edit

Six B2 bombers have left Missouri headed for Guam at midnight.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, June 21, 2025 - 08:05 pm: Edit

B2 bombers just hit three nuclear sites in Iran. All aircraft have successfully left Iranian airspace. Fordow, Natanz, Isfahan.

Fordow is the primary nuclear enrichment site.

Isfahan up is where the enriched uranium is stored.

Natanz is also an enrichment site. The Israeli have hit it already but could not beach the underground galleries.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, June 21, 2025 - 09:15 pm: Edit

Six bombs hit Fordow, 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles hit the other two targets. Trump has called on Iran to come to peace talks where the US tells Iran what sort of future Iran will have.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, June 22, 2025 - 12:38 am: Edit

Iranian ballistic missiles are impacting Israel right now.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, June 22, 2025 - 02:12 pm: Edit

Six B2s dropped 12 GBu57 bombs on Fordow. At least some penetrated and did heavy damage to the facility, maybe they totally destroyed it.

One B2 dropped two GBU 57s on Natanz, wrecking the underground galleries.

Thirty cruise missiles hit Isfahan, wrecking the surface but leaving the underground storage of enriched uranium intact. What the heck?

Nothing attacked Pickaxe Mountain, a nuclear facility known but not mentioned. It is said to be deeper than Fordow, Israel hasn’t hit it either, what’s up with that?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Sunday, June 22, 2025 - 03:34 pm: Edit

Isfahan - Is th e US worried about in effect creating a Dirty Bomb which would spread radiation around the Gulf?

(Not a worry for the USA - but Isreal and the Gulf States (especially Kuwait) might not be so happy - both immmedate effect from radiation, but the secondary in effect political fall out of winning the battle but losing the post war world as it could 'salt the earth' in that area and verything downwind of it?)

Whats at Pickaxe Mountain?

I am guessing it's too deep even for GBU57's - and it would need a Nuke to damage it?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, June 22, 2025 - 04:29 pm: Edit

The apparent intent is for Iran to surrender… not sure how realistic that is, but it has been reported in the MSM.

This is a big assumption, but… if Iran did surrender and U.S. and allies occupied Iran, they could inspect and recover any/all fissile materials, technology, parts and any data pertaining to the Iranian nuke programs.

Worst case is the list of western politicians paid off to “look the other way” if found, almost has to have names from a number of nations.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, June 23, 2025 - 12:18 am: Edit

Iran says it will close the strait of Hormuz in response to US attacks. Exactly how they would do this is unclear.

Naval force: good luck with two US carriers in the area. I would expect the entire Iranian Navy would be sunk in two days. That might happen anyway.

Air power: media talking heads are so cute when they say things that stupid. Their entire Air Force would last four hours.

Artillery/rockets/missiles: they might expect their artillery corps might keep this up for a day or two.

Mines: this is their only plausible play, and it might take a week or two to clear it.

The oil in the Persian Gulf mostly goes to China, Korea, Japan, and India. If it was cut off by Iranian mines or US bombs, those countries would be scrambling to buy any uncontracted oil supplies anywhere they could find it.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Monday, June 23, 2025 - 07:51 am: Edit

How to close the Straits of Hormuz? Probably the only practical way to do it would be with low-observable (underwater or flat to the surface) naval drones. You don't need to sink everything (or even a huge amount) to get a "mission kill" closure of the straits. Just sink or badly damage enough ships that no insurance company will cover shipping going through the straits.

That being said, does Iran have the technology to produce low-observable naval drones in any significant quantity?

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Monday, June 23, 2025 - 09:03 am: Edit

The idea of closing the strait would have been a lot more impactful a few decades ago. Now, with the ME being a smaller fraction of global oil, and pipelines to points north and west for the gulf states to use, it just won't be as big a deal.

It seems like Iran is a day late and a dollar short in their strategic thinking. Talk about overplaying a hand...

--Mike

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Monday, June 23, 2025 - 09:06 am: Edit

The good news: the Isfahan gasification facility appears to have been largely destroyed. That's a big deal, because that's the facility that converted yellowcake uranium ore to uranium hexafluoride gas (by mixing the ore with hydrofluoric acid). It's a necessary precursor to enrichment via the centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, and that precursor stage is going to be out of commission for at least weeks and likely months.

The "meh" news: the GBU-57 at Fordow drops were, while accurate for unguided drops, wasn't so accurate for integrated GPS/INS guidance. There's two groupings of three penetration holes at Fordow, and those groupings are likely not tight enough to have penetrated the facility itself, which is some 80-90 meters down and built of 30,000 psi concrete; the GBU-57 has an estimated penetration depth of some 60 meters in earth, and is designed for penetrating about 20 meters of 10,000 psi concrete. Natanz shows a single, slightly larger hole; assuming multiple drops, there's a fair chance of penetration and actual damage to the facility.

The "not great" news: by all accounts, there were trucks lined up outside Fordow for days prior to the strike, both for carting off processed enriched uranium and for sealing the entrance tunnels. There's no indication that we actually managed to deplete in any real way Iran's existing stockpile of enriched uranium. As Steve noted above, Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, aka Pickaxe Mountain, was untouched.

The bad news: this, along with two weeks of Israeli strikes, has put a short, sharp end to anti-government protest in Iran; while a fair lot of Iranians loathe their gov't, they also tend to be patriots first. Further, the U.S. strikes have, if anything, redoubled the regime's commitment to assembling atomic weapons from their existing stockpiles, and considerably shortened the time in which they are likely to do so.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, June 23, 2025 - 09:30 am: Edit

On the strait of Hormuz, the news that Iran intends to close the straits have led to some outlandish and wildly improbable suggestions, one of which was the idea of Iran intentionally sinking its civilian freighters and oil tankers in the “narrows” of the straight.

The gist is that is analogous to Iraq burning its own oil fields.

I think this is an example of the old phrase “cutting off ones own nose to spite their face.”

By Robert Russell Lender (Rusman) on Monday, June 23, 2025 - 09:45 am: Edit

What (US local time/date) did the B2s leave Whiteman AFB?
What (US local time/date) did the bombers strike Iran?

I thought the B2 Bombers that left Whiteman AFB were a decoy and the actual B2s that struck Iran came out of Diego Garcia. However, most news outlets are reporting they flew over the Atlantic straight to Iran.

Can someone shed some light on this for me?