WSJ What’s News - The U.S. Strikes Iran

Episode Date: June 22, 2025

President Trump has called the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites “a spectacular military success,' while Iran was quick to respond with a barrage of missiles launched at Israel. But what does this mean for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the region’s stability and possible further U.S. involvement? WSJ Middle East Bureau Chief Andrew Dowell tells us what we know about the attack, if we might see nuclear negotiations soon and the political debate over the use of force on Capitol Hill. Luke Vargas hosts. Further Reading:  U.S. Strikes 'Obliterated' Iran's Nuclear Sites, Trump Says  Will Iran Attempt to Block the Strait of Hormuz?  Trump Gave Final Go-Ahead for Iran Attack Hours Before Bombs Fell  Three Sites Hit by U.S. Represent Core of Iran Nuclear Program  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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to our colleagues across the newsroom to help explain what's happening in our world. And on today's show, the U.S. strikes Iran. Tonight I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. We'll get the latest on the results of Washington's attacks and Iran's response and consider what the future could hold for the regime in Tehran. Let's get right to it. We rarely timestamp these Sunday episodes, but we've got to this week because of the

pace of news. It is just after 4 a.m. Sunday morning in Washington, a little after 11 a.m. in Tel Aviv and around 1130 in Tehran. In a literal sense, the dust may have settled in Iran from these U.S. strikes, but Iran has already retaliated and of course, big questions are being raised about the significance of what we've witnessed here. To recap what's occurred and answer some of those questions, I'm joined by Wall Street Journal Middle East Bureau Chief Andrew Dowell. Andrew, we heard President Trump there describing these attacks as a spectacular military success. Can we confirm that? What do we know about

what's been hit and what effect those strikes have had on Iran's nuclear capabilities? Sure. Look, it's probably a little early for that. There are two things to consider in terms of whether or not it was a success. One, of course, the U.S. stealth bombers made it to Iran, dropped their payloads and got out. And the president probably has good knowledge of whether or not the bombs at their target is planned. And he's already said that the planes got out without incident. In that respect, it's clearly a success. In terms of how much damage it's done to Iran's nuclear program, that's actually really hard to tell. The target they focused on, Fordow, is a uranium enrichment plant buried under a mountain. So it's not visible.

They used weapons that are designed to penetrate deep into the earth and then explode. So by their nature, they create damage that you're not going to see right away. And they did this in the dark of night, of course. So now that it's daylight again and people have access to the site and satellites are going, et cetera, determining the level of damage is going to be a real focus. Right. We've heard from the IAEA and Iran that there's been no radioactive fallout. So I guess it just in a narrow sense there, that is good news.

But in terms of the damage, you mentioned the strikes on Fordow. This is Iran's sort of primary nuclear site, kind of considered the crown jewel of their nuclear ambitions. I guess any damage there considering its location deep underground would be a success. Yeah, there's an expectation that this one would be very hard to take out. It was built purposefully by the Iranians to be hard to attack from the air. Israel in their week long campaign against the Iranian air defense, Iranian military leadership against other nuclear sites had left this one alone because it

doesn't really have the tools to easily address it the way the U.S. does. Those tools, Andrew, being these bunker buster bombs that we had sort of been talking about in the preceding days. That's correct. Yeah. They're called the massive ordinance penetrator. They're 30,000 pounds, gravity bombs dropped from airplanes. An interesting fact is that they've never been used in war.

So the US developed these things over the past couple of decades with targets like Fordo specifically in mind, but there's no empirical evidence yet as to how they perform in an actual battle situation. Do we have a sense about next steps here? Is the US done? Yeah. President Trump is signaling that he's willing for this to be a one and done as long as Iran

comes to the negotiating table. He's warning that if not, then the US will continue to attack and attack a wider range of targets. So the ball's really in Iran's court at this point. There's also the question of whether the facility was actually damaged. And if so, then it's kind of easy for the parties to declare mission accomplished. On quite the ultimatum there, the ball in Iran's court, as you mentioned, how are they responding both in words and actions so far? Michael Svigel As you can expect, Iran's responding angrily. They've argued that this is a violation of international law, that it's a violation of agreements around peaceful development of nuclear weapons. They've disputed

that they were actually trying to develop or develop the option for a nuclear weapon, as others have argued. So there's quite a bit of rhetorical anger coming out. They also launched another barrage of missiles at Israel. It wasn't particularly large or particularly remarkable. And I think the feeling, particularly around the Persian Gulf States, is that there's likely to be more to come. And Iran has a lot of options there. They can try and interrupt oil supplies. They have militias that could attack American forces. Iran itself could try and attack American forces. There are a lot of troops and bases scattered around the region. So I think basically people are braced, waiting to see what happens.

Nat. Yeah, we've heard from Iran's foreign minister basically saying we reserve all options when it comes to defending ourselves. So Andrew, I imagine the alert here has been raised far and wide. Yeah, that's accurate. But Iran also has a difficult time to walk here because depending on what they hit and how they hit it, they expose themselves to greater degree of retaliation and response. And it's at a point when Israel has significantly degraded their air defenses and is able to kind of fly around the country's skies at will. So Iran is quite vulnerable at this point. They're not troops on the ground or anything like that, so they can continue to try and hold out, but they aren't really in a position to protect themselves very much from airstrikes. All right, we've got to take a very short break,

but when we come back, we'll look at how these US strikes are going over in Washington and consider the potential regional implications of a continued escalation. Stay with us. Americans love using their credit cards, the most secure and hassle-free way to pay. But DC politicians want to change that with the Durbin Marshall credit card bill.

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We heard overnight from Republican leaders on Capitol Hill supporting the president by and large, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee saying he doesn't believe this is the start of a forever war, that there aren't going to be American boots on the ground here. The House Speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, saying he believes the president doesn't need Congress' approval to carry out these strikes. Though there hasn't been complete unanimity on this point, we've seen some pushback from lawmakers, including a call for a war powers vote that would constrain further U.S. action.

And at least one prominent supporter of the president has come out and basically said this is the U.S. yet again finding itself unable to avoid getting involved in conflicts overseas. This is not our fight, the words of Marjorie Taylor Greene overnight. So Andrew, maybe this is just a one and done batch of attacks from the U.S. and yet there are certainly voices raising concerns about potentially getting bogged down. It's true. And this particular action implicates a lot of different strains in American politics and even just within the Republican Party itself. I mean, even inside the party, you've

got these twin streams, one being kind of more traditional conservative, maybe even neoconservative, very opposed to Iran, very pro-Israel, very ready to intervene when they see threats. And then you have another more isolationist wing that's kind of tired of fighting overseas and thinks the US is getting involved in fights that it doesn't need to be involved in and draining blood and treasure as a result. Trump is obviously trying to split the difference. They did a lot of work ahead of this, trying to prepare the ground and explain why the president was getting involved.

And a lot of the signaling, which is going on privately as well as public about the US being ready to stand down after this strike, as long as Iran comes to the table, is aimed not just at Iran and trying to get to a solution in the war, but also at its base to show that he's not pursuing expansive goals to involve regime change and maybe trying to reshape the region. Would it be fair to say there are somewhat similar debates playing out in Iran over the country's foreign policy, the pros and cons of continuing to saber-rattle? It's so hard to tell what's going on in Iran. Decisions are made largely in secret by a small

group of people. And even now it's become even more complicated because they've shut the internet for several days, hard to reach people. In the leadership, you definitely have different strains, ones that are more interested in improving terms with the West to the degree that they can get sanctions, relief, and focus on the economy, which is really at a crisis and causing its own significant problems for the regime. And then you have a more hardline group that wants to confront the US, wants to confront Israel and probably see this as a moment. So people are kind of caught in the middle. There's not a ton of support for the regime. At the same time, there's probably also not a ton of support for having foreign powers address the issue on their behalf. So it's complicated. And complicating things further here are just how

many countries play a role in all of this. The leader of one of them overnight, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had the following to say about President Trump. His leadership today has created a pivot of history that can help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace. President Trump and I often say, peace through strength. First comes strength, then comes peace. And tonight, President Trump and the United States acted with a lot of strength. What do you make of that, Andrew? That's quite an optimistic outlook for what could come of this latest escalation.

Yeah, look, that quote is interesting. Israel's coming off kind of one of the worst moments in its history with the October 7th, 2023 attacks where it was surprised and hit badly by Hamas and Hamas-led militants. And in the past year or so, it has more or less run the table with its enemies from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and now Iran. You can understand that sense of optimism and almost even elation in Netanyahu's comments. On the other hand, that sort of discussion about making history and changing things forever and changing the face of the region are really troubling to other countries in the region,

particularly Gulf Arab states who have seen this movie before with the attempt to remake Iraq, have seen the chaos that resulted from that and who this time are sitting really within a hundred miles of the country that is being attacked. And so you've got a region that particularly in the Gulf is trying to pivot to developing their economies, getting past a lot of these conflicts.

And now they've had another one brought to their doorstep. Indeed they have. Finally, Andrew, what should we be watching for next? Is it more diplomacy? What's on your radar in the coming days? I think we're looking first for damage assessment to see whether or not the nuclear program was actually set back. The fear or the expectation is that now that Israel and the U.S.

have attacked Iran, that it creates strong incentives for Iran to race for a nuclear weapon. And that risk becomes greater if the attacks have not done enough damage to their program. The other important thing to look for is any signs that the diplomatic track starts to work. Iran has been very defiant to this point. It's under a lot of pressure, not only from the US, but also from Europe and from Arab states, to begin to engage more and to begin to offer greater concessions around its nuclear program. It's interesting the position of the Gulf because they're not, to a degree, they're rivals of Iran's.

They've suffered from Iran's disabilizing effects in the region, and they are to some degree at risk from their nuclear program and from other activities. And they've been making steps to make accommodations with Israel, and of course, improve their relations with the United States. But they're not interested in being caught in the middle, and they're very concerned about a conflict that widens and makes it harder for them

to develop their economies, and maybe even threatens things like their desalination on the Persian Gulf. So they have a lot at stake, and there's a lot of pressure building regionally on Iran. Andrew Dowell is The Wall Street Journal's Middle East bureau chief. Andrew, thank you so much for bringing us up to speed. Thanks. Good to be here.

And that's it for What's New Sunday for June 22nd. Today's show was produced by Charlotte Gartenberg with supervising producer Sondra Kilhoff and deputy editor Chris Sinsley. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. For continuing updates on this story, head to wsj.com. Otherwise, we'll see you back here tomorrow morning with a brand new show. As always, thanks for listening.