• In honor of the firing of Stephen Colbert, we will also refrain from saying anything funny.
• President Trump pulled the trigger on a long-advertised joint campaign with Israel against Iran’s nuclear program. Operation Midnight Hammer targeted hardened facilities such as the Natanz Complex and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center. A “low confidence” Defense Intelligence Agency assessment of the damage at the hardest of those targets, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, suggested the strikes had failed to knock it out of commission. Critics of the strikes jumped at the opportunity to call the operation a failure, but the DIA’s product should not be taken as the last word on these strikes. The CIA’s battle-damage assessment, for example, aligns with the conclusion reached by the Israelis, the Iranians, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and private firms like the Center for Strategic and International Studies: that the damage at Fordow and other Iranian facilities is severe. Most revealing is that Iran sued for peace shortly after the American strikes. In a display even more impotent than the show of defiance Iran mounted after the 2020 strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, Iran meekly warned the U.S. and Qatar before launching a face-saving volley of missiles at a sparsely populated nearby American air base. Trump saw that as an opportunity to de-escalate. He swiftly negotiated a cease-fire between Israel and Iran. The Middle East has undergone a strategic revolution that favors Israeli and American interests.
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