John Mecklin
Iran launched a retaliatory attack on the United States air base in Qatar on Monday, but only after warning the attack was coming, an apparent attempt to de-escalate hostilities between the two countries. All but one of the missiles fired in the attack were intercepted, US President Donald Trump said, and no Americans or Qataris were killed or injured. In a series of posts on social media, Trump called the attack “very weak” but used the occasion to suggest that Iranian leaders may have “gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE.”
In a subsequent post on Truth Social, Trump said Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire after days of Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iranian counterattacks on Israel, and an American attack over the weekend on Iranian nuclear facilities with bunker-buster bombs Israel does not possess. There was no immediate confirmation of a ceasefire from Israeli or Iranian officials.
The telegraphed Iranian attack on the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and Trump’s almost immediate calls for peace followed by just two days the US bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday. The American attack came just days after President Donald Trump suggested he would wait two weeks before deciding whether to take military action. US warplanes and submarines reportedly attacked nuclear facilities at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan, in actions that Trump said in a White House address constituted a “spectacular military success” that had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities.
Trump provided no documentation for his claims, and some observers questioned whether a detailed battle damage assessment could have been completed by the time Trump spoke. On Saturday, Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar at Columbia University and former director for Iran at the National Security Council, wrote on the Bluesky social media site, “Suggestion, folks: it is the middle of the night in Iran. We have no battle damage assessment. We have a tweet. We will know more things soon and likely not know things for a while longer. Asking questions is fair, but answers fleeting. Hot takes exciting but not diagnostic.”
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