Welcome to the deep dive. We're your shortcut
to getting really well informed on critical events.
Glad to be here. Today, we're looking at a day
that, well, it fundamentally changed things.
June 22nd, 2025. A pivotal date. It's when this
regional conflict, you know, the one sparked
by Israel's Operation Rising Lion against Iran,
it just exploded, became a global crisis. Right.
Because the U .S. got directly involved. Exactly.
President Donald Trump announced Operation Midnight
Hammer. a huge U .S. military strike targeting
Iran's nuclear program. And it's fascinating
because the initial U .S. stance was more about
distancing itself than this sudden, very high
-stakes move. A real gamble to try and neutralize
that nuclear threat. So our mission today...
in this deep dive is to unpack this strike. You
know, what happened, the reactions, the media
fallout politically, militarily, economically.
And the human costs too. Can't forget that. Absolutely.
So let's get into the strike itself. Operation
Midnight Hammer. How did it actually unfold?
Well, the scale is pretty extraordinary. We're
talking B2 Spirit Stealth Bombers. The really
advanced ones. Yeah, flying like 37 hours nonstop
from Missouri. Mid -air refueling, the whole
deal. Plus, U .S. Navy submarines involved, too.
OK, so a major projection of force. But you mentioned
the munitions were key. This is where it gets
really interesting. Strategically, they use for
the first time ever in combat the GBU -57AB,
the MOP. MOP. Massive ordnance penetrator. It's
a 30 ,000 pound bunker buster bomb, huge, designed
to go through like 200 feet of reinforced concrete.
Wow. And they used how many? 14, 14 MOPs were
dropped, along with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
And the targets, very specific, I assume. Extremely.
Fordow, which is buried deep underground, under
a mountain, basically, it got hit by 12 of the
MOPs. That's good. Then Natanz, that's their
biggest enrichment site, hit by two MOPs and
Tomahawks. And Isfahan, the uranium conversion
facility, hit by over two dozen Tomahawks. All
around 2 .30 a .m. local time in Iran. a coordinated
massive strike. Exactly. Precision targeting,
massive firepower. But then came the aftermath
and the story got, well, complicated. Conflicting
narratives started immediately. Oh, absolutely.
You had President Trump saying the sites were
completely and totally obliterated. Strong words.
But Iran? Iran came back quickly saying no irreversible
damage, claimed they'd evacuated the sites, move
materials beforehand, you know, damage control,
literally. So who do you believe? What did independent
sources say? Well, the IAEA, the UN's nuclear
watchdog, they confirmed no increase in radiation
off site. which is significant, and satellite
images. They showed clear impacts. Yes, you could
see the damage on the surface, but confirming
the underground damage, especially at Forto,
that was much harder. Even the New York Times
reported Forto wasn't fully destroyed. the classic
fog of war situation amplified. Precisely. It
raises that big question, whose story wins and
why does that even matter in the immediate term?
Right. So Iran has hit hard, but maybe not completely
knocked out. What do they do next? Do they retaliate?
Swiftly. and defiantly, within hours actually,
they launched between 30 and 40 ballistic missiles
at Israel. At Israel, okay. Including their advanced
Kaibar Shikken missile. Reports indicated structural
damage in cities like Tel Aviv, Haifa, and somewhere
between 21 and 26 people wounded. So a direct,
significant response. What about the rest of
the world? How do they react to the U .S. strike?
It was really fractured. The UN Security Council
met, but, well, it was paralyzed. U .S. veto
power, essentially. Predictable, maybe. Perhaps.
European allies, the UK, France, Germany, they
urged restraint, called for de -escalation, but
they starved short of actually endorsing the
U .S. strikes. Hedging their bets? You could
say that. But Russia and China. They strongly
condemned the U .S. action. It really solidified
that anti -U .S. block you could see it forming.
And back in the U .S., any pushback? Oh, yes.
Domestically, there was immediate debate about
war powers. Senator Tim Kaine, for instance,
strongly condemned the lack of congressional
authorization. And pre -strike polls actually
showed significant public opposition to military
action against Iran. So the strike didn't really
isolate Iran globally. quite the opposite in
some ways. It seemed to expose divisions among
traditional allies and kind of pushed Russia
and China closer together in opposition. OK,
let's talk economics. Big military actions usually
shake the markets. Absolutely. The immediate
fear was the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, closing
that choke point, something like 30 % of global
seaborne oil goes through there. Huge implications.
Massive. Fears that oil prices could soar past
$100, maybe even $130 a barrel, threatening a
global recession. But didn't the Israeli market
react differently? Yeah, interestingly, the Israeli
stock exchange actually surged. Maybe a sense
of increased security or perhaps just market
speculation. Hard to say for sure. And amid all
this geopolitical and economic turmoil, the human
cost. It gets easily overlooked, but it's critical.
We already had hundreds of civilian casualties
from the regional conflict in the week before
the U .S. strike. Right. Then the U .S. strike
itself and Iran's retaliation against Israel
both caused more injuries, more displacement.
Humanitarian groups were issuing stark warnings
about, quote, utter disregard for civilian life.
It really punctures that idea of a clean surgical
strike, doesn't it? It really does. They called
it the myth of the surgical strike. Civilians
inevitably get caught in the middle. It's devastating.
So let's try to wrap this up. What does Operation
Midnight Hammer ultimately mean for you, for
the world? Well, it clearly didn't end the conflict.
It just transformed it, escalated a regional
fight into a genuine global crisis. That U .S.
gamble? meant maybe to de -escalate by force,
it didn't work. It seems it failed to force Iran
into submission, and it fractured the West while
solidifying this new geopolitical axis opposing
the US. So looking ahead, what are the paths?
Seems pretty dangerous. Terribly dangerous. You
basically have three potential paths now. One,
a wider regional war, maybe direct US -Iran conflict.
Two... a long grinding war of attrition, Israel
versus Iran and its proxies, or three, some kind
of forced diplomatic end game under immense international
pressure. This deep dive really shows us that
doctrine, you know, peace through strength, it's
facing its ultimate test right now. It absolutely
is. And the whole world is kind of holding its
breath, isn't it? Waiting to see if this leads
to some kind of coerced peace or just a much
bigger tragedy. And honestly, Iran's next move
might just be the deciding factor. Which path
we all end up walking down? A sobering thought
to end on. Thanks for joining us on the Deep
Tuff.