U.S. bombs three Iranian nuclear sites, President Trump says

American forces bombed three Iranian nuclear sites Saturday, President Trump said, marking the U.S. entry into another Middle East conflict as Washington joined Israel in an aggressive military campaign against Tehran.

In a social media post, the president said the targets included the key Iranian nuclear site at Fordo, an underground facility that only the 30,000-pound U.S. “bunker buster” bombs were able to hit. 

The president’s decision to engage the U.S. military in a new Mideast war came just two days after he said he was giving Tehran up to two weeks to strike a new deal on its nuclear program or face the prospect of American attacks.

In his statement Saturday night, Mr. Trump seemed to suggest that he intends for this to be the only direct U.S. action against Iran, saying that it is now “time for peace.”

“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran airspace,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social. “A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

The president also shared a social media post from an open-source intelligence group saying that “Fordo is gone,” indicating that the U.S. strikes were successful. Mr. Trump said he’ll deliver an address later Saturday night.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the actions as a turning point in history. In a short video address, the Israeli leader directed his words to Mr. Trump personally.

“Your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding that the decision to strike Iran “can help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace.”

For the U.S., one of the most immediate concerns is potential Iranian retaliation against American military bases in the region. Iran’s military capabilities have been significantly degraded by Israeli airstrikes over the past week, but Tehran still may have the assets needed to target U.S. forces in the Mideast. And Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq or the Houthi rebels in Yemen, another of Tehran’s proxy groups, could also launch their own attacks.

The potential for the war to widen beyond Saturday’s limited strikes was one of the key arguments made by those who opposed American intervention.

Mr. Trump has faced blistering criticism from some prominent figures in his conservative base over the prospect of U.S. involvement in another Middle East conflict. For more than a decade, the president has made opposition to so-called “forever wars,” especially America’s military engagement in Iraq, a centerpiece of his foreign policy philosophy.

But after Israel began its own military strikes on Iran last week, Mr. Trump faced calls from some quarters to join in that Israeli campaign, especially as it became clear that Israeli forces alone would not be able to fully eliminate Iran’s nuclear program.

There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon on the exact details of the strike. But in targeting Fordo, it appears all but certain that American B-2 Stealth Bombers used the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-buster bombs to take out the site. The bomb carries a conventional warhead, and is believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet below the surface before exploding, and the bombs can be dropped one after another, effectively drilling deeper and deeper with each successive blast.

The Fordo site was heavily defended, buried more than 260 feet below a mountain near the city of Qom and was central to Iran’s nuclear program. The facility was protected by an extensive array of Russian-built missile defense systems and external defenses meant to defend against infiltration.

Israeli strikes over the past week have devastated those Iranian defenses, likely paving the way for U.S. planes to enter Iranian airspace at reduced risk of being shot down. The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran is producing highly enriched uranium at Fordo, raising the possibility that nuclear material could be released into the area if the GBU-57 bombs were used to hit the facility.

The U.S. strikes also hit Natanz, a key uranium enrichment location. And the attacks targeted the Iranian nuclear research complex at Isfahan, which employed 3,000 scientists and was the site of three Chinese-made nuclear reactors, according to the nonprofit organization the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

A ’decisive’ step

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the attacks were a clear reminder that the president “means what he says.”

“President Trump has been consistent and clear that a nuclear-armed Iran will not be tolerated. That posture has now been enforced with strength, precision, and clarity,” Mr. Johnson said in a statement. “The president’s decisive action prevents the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, which chants ‘Death to America,’ from obtaining the most lethal weapon on the planet. This is America First policy in action.”

Other Republican lawmakers were quick to congratulate the move Saturday.

Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, called it the “courageous and correct decision.”

“This is what leadership on the world stage looked like,” he wrote on social media.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and one of his party’s most hawkish foreign policy figures, said it was the “right call.”

“The regime deserves it,” Mr. Graham said on social media.

One glaring pushback came from Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican, who had moved earlier this week to attempt to thwart any plans of U.S. involvement in the rising conflict with Iran.

“This is unconstitutional,” he wrote on social media, referring to the legal questions around Mr. Trump’s authority to take the U.S. to war in a new Middle Eastern nation.

Rep. Ro Khanna, California Democrat and a co-sponsor of a House resolution intended to block U.S. strikes on Iran, slammed the president’s actions.

“Trump struck Iran without any authorization from Congress.”

Over the past few months, the Trump administration engaged Iran diplomatically in an effort to strike a new agreement that would limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions relief. During his first term in office, Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. out of an Obama-era deal that aimed to accomplish the same goal. Mr. Trump and other critics said that the 2015 deal was far too lenient and left open pathways to Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.

On multiple occasions in recent months, the president reportedly urged Israel to hold off bombing Iran while U.S. officials were negotiating with their Iranian counterparts. But last week, Israel launched its first round of airstrikes, including on the key Iranian nuclear site at Natanz, which the U.S. also bombed on Saturday.

Since January 2024, the U.S. has also been at war with the Houthis, who have repeatedly targeted commercial ships and U.S. military vessels in and around the Red Sea. Those attacks began shortly after Oct. 7, 2023, when another Iran-backed outfit, the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, launched a major attack on Israel.

The Mideast has become increasingly engulfed in war in the nearly two years since that attack.