Nuclear peril

June 23, 2025 by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/06/23/nuclear-peril/

US and Israeli bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities set the stage for disaster, writes Linda Pentz Gunter from London

There was widespread if not quite universal condemnation on Sunday after President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and an immediate call for protests in cities across the United States and other countries. The US attack was launched to support Israel’s determination not to let Iran develop nuclear weapons at its civil nuclear facilities, although presently there is little to no indication that Iran is planning to do so.

“Military action against Iran is not the way to resolve concerns over Tehran’s nuclear programme,” said Melissa Parke, executive director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. “Given that US intelligence agencies assess Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, this is a senseless and reckless act that could undermine international efforts to prevent the further proliferation of nuclear weapons.”

Overnight on Saturday and into the early hours of Sunday morning, Trump authorized more than 100 US war planes to bomb Iran and claimed to have “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. The Iranians admit damage but not full destruction.

“Operation Midnight Hammer” as it was known, included B-2 bombers that dropped more than a dozen bunker busters on the heavily fortified Fordow uranium enrichment site, believed to be 80 meters below ground. American planes also bombed the Natanz uranium enrichment complex, while Tomahawk missiles were reportedly used to strike the Isfahan uranium conversion facility.

Fordow is believed by western powers to be the location where Iran could be working on producing nuclear weapons. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency had reiterated as recently as a day before this latest attack that “we did not find in Iran elements to indicate that there is an active, systematic plan to build a nuclear weapon,” its general secretary, Rafael Mariano Grossi told Al Jazeera.

Concerns remain about Iran’s only operating civil reactor at Bushehr. Even before the American incursion, Russia, which built and operates Bushehr, had warned the Israelis of the grave risks of another Chornobyl-style disaster should they strike the reactor. Russia had already begun evacuating some of its personnel but threatened to remove more if they were in danger from Israeli bombs. Alexei Likhachev, the CEO of state nuclear company Rosatom said “We are prepared for any scenario, including the rapid evacuation of all our employees.”

But a reactor, even if shut down, cannot be left unattended, raising other grave concerns about its longterm safety during the current war.

A day after the American bombing raid, Israel launched more attacks on Iran, including in Bushehr province. This now means there are two countries actively under attack where civil nuclear power plants are located — Ukraine and Iran. The consequences of a successful bombing raid on a civil nuclear plant could include widespread release of highly harmful and persistent radiation, forcing mass and permanent evacuations and sickening and killing thousands or more in both the near- and long-term.

Even greater concerns have been mounting that US involvement could trigger a wider conflict in the region. As many have pointed out consistently, Israel is a nuclear-armed state, albeit absurdly an undeclared one even though the country likely possesses as many as 200 warheads. Israel refuses UN inspections and has never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran on the other hand is a signatory to the NPT and has long claimed it is exercising its “inalienable right” under that treaty to pursue a civil nuclear weapons program.

Those concerns were further heightened when Christian Zionist US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee urged Trump to consider using a nuclear bomb on Iran, advice Trump fortunately ignored for now. But Trump remains an unpredictable tinder box, illustrating once again the peril of countries continuing to possess nuclear weapons that an unhinged leader might launch on an impulse.

Protests erupted immediately in US cities and elsewhere across the world on the news of the US attack on Iran, which came hours after 350,000 people had marched through London in the latest monthly demonstration against Israel’s attack on Palestine, but this time also calling for halt to its bombing of Iran.

At that rally, there was skepticism that Israel’s attacks on Iran were really just about stopping Iran developing nuclear weapons. Somaye Bagher Zadeh, with Iranians For Palestine UK, said Israel’s actions were potentially about “getting rid of the Iranian regime, but to be frank, regime change by any foreign power is not in the interests of the Iranian people. And it’s entirely up to the Iranian people to decide who rules them.”

“Since they destroyed Iraq, we have known that it was inevitable that they would eventually come for us,” said prominent British-Iranian trade union leader, Maryam Eslamdoust. “We Iranians feel like we have been waiting our whole lives for the US or Israel to attack us.”

Saturday’s mass march in London to Whitehall was followed by an emergency protest called for Monday outside the US Embassy in London by Stop the War Coalition and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, alongside other rallies across the country. So far, the UK government has continued to politically support and materially aid and abet Israel’s attacks on Gaza as well as its starvation of the Palestinian population there. A rally was also called by American groups in front of the White House.

British activists are concerned that their government may be drawn back into another disastrous war, similar to the UK’s support of the US in the war in Iraq. That war cost countless lives on all sides and failed to stabilize the Middle East region, instead giving birth to further radicalization.
“Trump’s attack on Iran is brutal, illegal and unjustified,” said a statement from Stop the War Coalition on Sunday. The group said it condemned the US attack on Iran “unequivocally and urges every possible mobilization against British military or political support for the aggression.”

In the US, Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, was quick to criticize the bombing raids. “While we all agree that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon, Trump abandoned diplomatic efforts to achieve that goal and instead chose to unnecessarily endanger American lives, further threaten our armed forces in the region, and risk pulling America into another long conflict in the Middle East,” said Van Hollen, who has also spoken out consistently against Israel’s attacks on Gaza. “The U.S. intelligence community has repeatedly assessed that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. There was more time for diplomacy to work.”

The diplomacy Van Hollen referred to was a resumption of negotiations for a nuclear agreement with Iran that would either limit or eliminate its civil uranium enrichment program. Such an agreement — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, limiting enrichment and allowing for stringent inspections in exchange for a lifting of sanctions — had already been in place until Trump withdrew the US during his previous administration. New talks had been progressing poorly, with Israel chomping at the bit to use military force instead, which it did then initiate with US prior knowledge.

Independent Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders, said “We cannot allow ourselves to be dragged into another Middle East war based on lies,” reflecting on previous such ventures in Vietnam and Iraq based on similar falsehoods.

While most Republicans have lined up behind Trump’s warmongering, one Republican, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, called the attack “not Constitutional.” Earlier in the week, Massie and California Democrat Ro Khanna had introduced a resolution that would have blocked US participation in Israel’s attacks on Iran without Congressional approval.

“This is an extremely dangerous situation,” said a statement from the grassroots movement, Our Revolution, which promotes the campaigning of Sanders on a number of domestic and foreign issues, including Gaza and now Iran. “Trump has immediately threatened even more attacks, and U.S. service members are now directly in harm’s way,” the group said. “We are on the cusp of a catastrophic conflict that could cost countless American and Iranian lives.”

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. She is currently reporting from London, England.