32 Simultaneously, Israeli strikes targeted and destroyed or neutralized over 200 surface-tosurface missile launchers, sharply reducing Iran’s retaliatory capacity. Covert operations reinforced these actions. According to a June 13 New York Post article, Israeli operatives embedded inside Iran months in advance facilitated the sabotage of key air defense and missile infrastructure and enabled real-time targeting of mobile launchers and leadership figures. The result was a battlespacewhere Israeli air assets could operate with relative impunity, paving the way for follow-on attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities and other high-value targets while keeping Iranian defenses disoriented and unable to mount an effective response. It is unlikely that Iran, like Iraq and Syria before it, will be able to successfully restart its nuclear program Operation Rising Lion decisively paved the way for the entry of US strategic airpower into Iranian airspace. On the night of June 21, 2025, the United States launched a coordinated strike package featuring stealth B-2 Spirit bombers armed with the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) guided bomb. The MOP is the world’s most formidable conventional bunker-buster, specifically designed to destroy hardened and deeply buried facilities. These bombers operated under the protective umbrella of advanced F-35 fighters, whose sophisticated electronic warfare suites provided real-time threat analysis, radar jamming, and electronic attack capabilities, ensuring the suppression of remaining Iranian air defenses. The operation was further enabled by a robust network of aerial refueling tankers, which extended the range and endurance of the strike force. Complementing the Fordow attack was a large missile strike by the USS Georgia (SSGN-729). Georgia is a special repurposed nuclear ballistic missile submarine. Today, instead of carrying Trident C-4 ballistic missiles, Georgia carries a large payload of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (T-LAMs), a weapon made famous in the opening days of the 1991 Gulf War. While operating stealthily in the region, Georgia launched a large salvo of T-LAMs targeting critical elements of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Concurrently, cyber operations disrupted Iranian command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) systems, significantly degrading Tehran’s ability to mount an effective counter-response. The integrated multi-domain approach, which combined air, naval, cyber and intelligence assets from Israel, the US and allied partners, proved highly effective, with post-operation assessments confirming severe damage to Fordow and other key sites in Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. These coordinated strikes effectively crippled Iran’s nuclear programand significantly set back Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. In the aftermath of Israel’s 1981 Operation Opera (also known as Operation Babylon), which destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, the Wilson Center – a Congressionally funded Washington D.C. think tank – wrote that the strike had bought “some three to four years” of delay. Similarly, Israel’s Operation Orchard targeted and destroyed a North Korean-supplied Yongbyon-type plutonium reactor in Al-Kibar, Syria. At the time, an October 2007 report in The Guardian quoted US officials as saying that if Syria were to start over, “Such a reactor could take from three to six years to build and would produce enough weapons-grade plutonium to make a bomb in about a year of operation”. In both cases, the programs were never successfully restarted. Israel and the United States are now closely monitoring Iran, and Tehran is facing severe economic challenges. It is still under a sanctions regime and has squandered public goodwill on a failed half-trillion-dollar project, factoring in both costs and lost revenue due to the sanctions. It is unlikely that Iran, like Iraq and Syria before it, will be able to successfully restart its nuclear program anytime soon, if ever – though it may try. The strategic success of Operation Midnight Hammer has dramatically altered the regional landscape. The attacks inflicted severe and unprecedented damage on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, with satellite imagery confirming the destruction at Fordow and significant impacts at other sites. However, some assessments note that not all nuclear material was destroyed or removed from Iran’s reach. In the wake of these
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