Iran launched multiple ballistic missiles at American targets in the Middle East today. Six missiles were targeted at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military installation in the region. One Iranian missile was launched at a target in Iraq, where the U.S. still maintains several military bases.
President Donald Trump is gathering his national security team at the White House as I write this. They are scheduled to meet at 1 p.m. in the Situation Room to discuss Iran’s retaliatory strikes and what the U.S. response should be.
It’s here we go again time at the Pennsylvania Avenue OK Corral, folks.
Maxar Technologies: Trucks outside Fordo nuclear facility before Saturday U.S. air attack
Meanwhile, more stories are emerging almost by the hour about how Iran had moved its enriched uranium stockpiles away from its three nuclear facilities in the days and weeks leading up to Trump’s Saturday night bombing campaign on Iran. The New York Times reported last night that Iran had moved 880 pounds of highly enriched uranium out of its base at Isfahan where it had been stored.
The 60 percent enriched uranium was described by the Times as “stored in special casks small enough to fit in the trunks of about 10 cars.” The Washington Post published photos this morning showing trucks lined up outside the tunnel access points at the Fordo nuclear facility on June 19 and 20, before the U.S. launched its air attack on Saturday night U.S. time. Some of the trucks were of a type designed to carry cargo. Others were dump trucks, apparently used to dump dirt against the tunnel entrance doors ahead of the Saturday attack.
The Times is now running footage of Iranian missiles apparently being shot down by U.S. anti-missile batteries over Doha, the capital of Qatar. Iran has issued a statement that they “targeted the Al Udaid base in Qatar with destructive and forceful missiles.”
We don’t have boots on the ground, but we’ve got bombers in the sky and air defense missiles over Doha and Trump’s entire coterie of war-puppies packed into the Situation Room deciding what they’re going to do about Iran’s counterstrikes.
Iran has done exactly what Trump wanted them to do. They’ve given him an excuse to continue bombing the shit out Iran, and that will to allow him to cover up the futility of his Saturday bombing run, which turned out not to have done much damage to Iran’s nuclear program, and no damage at all to its stockpile of enriched uranium.
The excellent Times story last night, by David E. Sanger, made the point that Iran’s nuclear program “is taking more time than any nuclear-armed nation in history.” Which at least in my mind raises the question: has Iran already built a nuclear warhead and just not told anybody.
Every “expert” has pointed out that the Trump bombing run is exactly what Iran has been trying to prevent by developing its own nuclear weapons capability. Every regime of every country on the planet contemplating the security of its existence will now go shopping in the nuke marketplace for scientists, nuclear technicians, uranium, centrifuges—in short, everything necessary to start its own nuclear program.
And why not? Iran showed the world that you can’t make a deal with the United States, because Trump came along and blew up the last one Iran made.
By the time he leaves office, Trump is going to go down as the biggest proliferator of nuclear weapons since 1945. Everybody’s going to want a hip pocket nuke or two, because they can all see the line of Donald Trump mini-me’s behind Trump to run for president, ready to blow up any and all reasonable deals the U.S. might make with potential nuclear powers in the future.
Get ‘em while they’re hot, all you tinpot dictators out there! The Trumpian future of a nuke in every pot is here.
Lucian K. Truscott IV
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives in rural Pennsylvania and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better.
You can read Lucian Truscott's daily articles at luciantruscott.substack.com. We encourage our readers to get a subscription.
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