Iran, Russia, Trump and the Middle East: a dangerous new dawn has been ushered in by bomb strikes on nuclear facilities
As the sun rose this morning it became clear that a dangerous new dawn had been ushered in for the world following a barrage of airstrikes on Iran, ordered by US President Donald Trump.
Overnight, the United States flexed its military might, dropping six 13-tonne GBU-57 so-called ‘bunker-buster’ bombs on key nuclear facility sites across Iran, including the buried-deep-beneath-a-mountain, Fordow. No other nation has ordnance of this size nor capability; only the US, therefore, is capable of such a volley.
It followed those up with a flurry of 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles leading to Mr Trump addressing Americans, and the wider world, with an emphatic message: the mission was a spectacular military success, he said. Adding: Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely obliterated. Let The Yorkshire Post be clear: should Mr Trump have removed from the grasp of the Iranian regime, arguably the most dangerous of nations in the context of Western democracy, access to nuclear weapons, he will have done the world, Iranians included, a favour.
But make no mistake, it is a monumental gamble by the president, one that has already been described by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a pivotal moment in history. He described the decision to attack Iran by the United States as a bold one; that is an understatement. All-out escalation is now a real and present danger, a prospect that will trouble economists and humanitarians alike. That is categorically the worst case scenario.
Immediately, Iranian leaders took to the airwaves to declare the tens of thousands of US troops on the ground in the Middle East as ‘legitimate targets’ as part of potential and almost inevitable reprisals, vowing at the same time ‘everlasting consequences.’
Consequences that are likely to transcend American interests: the Middle East is now teetering on the precipice. The situation could not be more perilous nor more volatile – Iran counts Russia amongst its allies – as the increased urgency on the part of the Foreign Office to evacuate Britons from the region illustrates.
Quite how successful the US military has been in eliminating the nuclear capabilities of the Iranian regime is unclear. What is clear, though, is that the wider world is now holding its breath, knowing that which might follow could bring disastrous consequences.