What we’re covering
• US strikes Iran: The US attacked three key nuclear facilities early Sunday in an operation Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear ambitions, though a full impact assessment is ongoing. President Donald Trump warned in a White House address that the US will launch more attacks if Iran does not make peace.
• “Operation Midnight Hammer”: The strikes involved more than 125 aircraft, including some B-2 bombers that served as a “decoy,” according to US officials. Other B-2s dropped more than a dozen massive “bunker buster” bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz facilities, while Tomahawk missiles struck Isfahan.
• Iran’s response: Iran’s foreign minister accused the US of crossing a “very big red line” and said he does not know how much “room is left for diplomacy.” Other Iranian leaders are downplaying the impact to Tehran’s nuclear program. The world awaits an official response from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
• Escalating conflict: The US bombing came as the Israel-Iran conflict entered its second week of back-and-forth attacks. Israel’s military said Iran fired a fresh wave of missiles toward the country.
Inside Trump’s historic decision to launch strikes in Iran
By the time President Donald Trump was milling about his golf club in New Jersey on Friday evening, the planes were about to be in the air.
To onlookers at the club, Trump showed little anxiety about his decision to authorize airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities.
As Trump escorted around Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, to an event for new members being held in one of the clubhouse’s dining rooms, he was loose and — at least in public — in an easygoing mood, people who saw him said.
Twenty-four hours later, Trump was in the basement Situation Room at the White House, watching the strikes he had approved days earlier, codenamed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” play out in real time on the facility’s wall of monitors.
The decision to go ahead with strikes thrusts the United States directly into the Middle East conflict. It came after days of public deliberation, as Trump alternated between issuing militaristic threats against Iran on social media and holding private concerns that a military strike could drag the US into prolonged war.
Yet by Thursday, the same day he instructed his press secretary to announce he was giving Iran two weeks to return to the negotiating table before deciding on a strike, allies who spoke to him said it was clear that the decision was already made.
