President Donald Trump Faces Renewed Criticism Over Effectiveness of U.S. Airstrikes on Iran
Former President Donald Trump has come under fresh scrutiny after reports surfaced questioning the success of recent U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The operation, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, targeted three critical sites—Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan—and was initially praised by Trump as a decisive military victory.
However, new intelligence evaluations and expert opinions indicate that Iran may have safeguarded key components of its nuclear program prior to the attacks, prompting a vehement response from Trump and his team.
The strikes, which took place over the weekend, involved a large-scale, covert effort deploying more than 100 aircraft, including B-2 stealth bombers, to incapacitate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Trump hailed the mission as “highly successful,” asserting that it would significantly undermine Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Yet, emerging intelligence and expert insights tell a different story. According to sources cited by The Independent, Iran likely had sufficient time to move sensitive nuclear materials before the bombs fell. Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute and former adviser on international security, emphasized that while Fordo holds symbolic importance, it is just one of multiple underground facilities connected to Iran’s nuclear activities. He suggested the delay in executing the strike may have allowed Iran to power down centrifuges and remove critical equipment ahead of the attack.
A preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), as reported by CNN, echoed these doubts. Two officials familiar with the classified assessment indicated that Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile was largely untouched, raising the possibility that a follow-up operation could be necessary to fulfill the original mission goals.
In response, Trump strongly rejected these assessments and launched a fierce attack on the media, accusing them of disrespecting the military personnel who carried out the strikes. On his platform Truth Social, he wrote in capital letters:
“FAKE NEWS CNN, TOGETHER WITH THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES, HAVE TEAMED UP IN AN ATTEMPT TO UNDERMINE ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY. THE NUCLEAR SITES IN IRAN HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY DESTROYED! BOTH THE TIMES AND CNN ARE BEING REBUKED BY THE PUBLIC!”
Supporting Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the DIA report as false and politically driven. Addressing CNN, she called the leak “flat-out wrong” and blamed a “low-level intelligence community insider” for betraying classified information. Leavitt defended the operation, highlighting the precision and scale of the attack: “Everyone understands what happens when fourteen 30,000-pound bombs hit their intended targets: total devastation.”
This clash of narratives has intensified the debate surrounding the actual impact of the airstrikes and raised critical questions about the intelligence community’s role in assessing and sharing battlefield outcomes. Meanwhile, Trump’s leadership and military strategy are under increased examination as the situation unfolds.
Conclusion:
The controversy surrounding Operation Midnight Hammer continues to deepen amid conflicting accounts of its success. While President Trump and his administration maintain that the airstrikes delivered a crippling blow to Iran’s nuclear program, intelligence reports and expert analyses paint a more uncertain picture. The administration’s combative posture—targeting media critics and alleged leaks—reflects mounting pressure to uphold credibility in the face of skepticism.
As tensions with Iran escalate, the accuracy of these assessments and the policy decisions they influence will be pivotal in shaping the future trajectory of U.S. engagement in the region.