We Don’t Know

Over the weekend U. S. bombers struck the three major Iranian nuclear development sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. President Trump declared the operation a “spectacular military success”.

We can be confident that the three sites were struck. Independent satellite photography has shown as much. Beyond that we don’t know a great deal for certain.

We know that the attack was illegal for reasons that James Joyner explains, also noting that its legality won’t matter.

We know that it was an act of war whatever the president says.

We know that it was unjust since it doesn’t conform to the standards for a just war that have been the consensus view for more than a millennium. At the very least it is unjust because it is illegal and does not meet the just authority standard.

We know that domestic reaction to the attack by politicians and the media has largely been along party lines. But not entirely (as James points out).

We can be confident that the attack was expensive. In rough terms the “bunker buster” bombs used cost about $4 million each and something like 30 of them were deployed. Add the Tomahawk missiles launched against Isfahan and the total cost of the munitions comes to something like $150 million. A B2 bomber is expensive to fly—roughly $135,000 per flight hour and something like thirty of them were involved in two squadrons, one flying east and one flying west, at least according to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine. That’s 36 flight hours for 30 aircraft at $135,000 per flight hour or roughly another $150,000. Add the flight hours for the support aircraft and let’s say the whole operation cost $350 million or more. Quite a bit for a single mission.

Beyond that we don’t know a good deal.

We don’t know, for example, whether the mission was effective. The president’s declaration notwithstanding we probably won’t know whether it was effective for some time. We may never know.

We don’t know how Iran will respond. At the Washington Post Damir Marusic, Jason Rezaian and Jason Willick say much the same thing at considerably greater length.

We don’t know if the Iranians will attempt to close the Straits of Hormuz, as their parliament has voted. If they do I won’t be surprise, given what we have just seen and what happened forty years ago, if they lose their entire navy in the process.

Something I for one don’t know is how we can argue that we did the right thing but the Russians have done the wrong thing in Ukraine. Make no mistake: I think that what the Russians have done in Ukraine is illegal and immoral. Preventive war is not justifiable and that’s what this is.

We don’t know if there will be attempted terrorist actions against the U. S. either in the Gulf or here in the United States. “Unconventional warfare” would be my guess but we don’t really know. Iranian proxies like the Houthi, Hezbollah, and Hamas have been severely degraded and the B2 mission may give them pause. That still doesn’t rule out “lone wolf” or, even more likely, “loon wolf” terrorists.