Russia’s S-400 anti-air missile batteries are good, but without being integrated into larger defense systems, are vulnerable to air power. U.S. air power out-ranges these missiles, and low flying aircraft can’t be seen because the S-400 by itself can’t see over the horizon.
“For years, hard-line voices inside the Islamic Republic have been calling for a nuclear weapon as a deterrent against exactly this kind of overwhelming attack.
Even as Iran continues to insist its nuclear program is for strictly peaceful purposes, those calls will now inevitably have been bolstered and the nuclear hard-liners may finally get their way.
Ominously, Iranian officials are already publicly hinting at pulling out of a key treaty – the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT – designed to monitor and prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons.”
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“But if there is political will, nuclear enrichment facilities can eventually be repaired or rebuilt, while Iran’s technical know-how survives, despite the targeting by Israel of multiple Iranian nuclear scientists.
Meanwhile, officials at the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, say they are uncertain of the whereabouts of the nuclear material Iran has already manufactured, including the large amounts of uranium-235 enriched to 60%, which is very close to weapons-grade levels.
Iranian state media says the three nuclear sites struck by the United States – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – were “evacuated” beforehand, raising the possibility that some or all of that material is being stored elsewhere, possibly in a secret facility, unknown to nuclear inspectors.”
If the U.S. wanted the Israel-Iran war to end, one strategy to end it was to use U.S. bunker busters to destroy nuclear sites, helping Israel achieve their goals and end the war sooner. Time will tell whether this strategy worked.
“for anyone who…says America use[s] its power only for selfish interest or foreign interests, let me ask you one simple question…Which countries would you rather live in? Those that were on America’s side or those on the other side? Would you rather live in North Korea or South Korea? In communist East Germany or democratic West Germany, in the Soviet Union or the United States? In Taliban controlled Afghanistan or US-led Afghanistan?…when you cut through all the noise, America fights for freedom.”