Don’t Ask How This War Ends

The Atlantic | Eliot A. Cohen

Operation Midnight Hammer, a 2025 United States military campaign targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, marked a critical escalation in a long-standing geopolitical conflict. This strike transitioned decades of covert warfare, naval skirmishes, and regional raids into direct kinetic confrontation. The roots of this confrontation trace back to the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Since then, the United States, Israel, and Sunni monarchies in the Persian Gulf have actively contested Iran's anti-Western ideology and regional expansionism. This is a continuous struggle. Consequently, viewing the current hostilities as an isolated war ignores the systemic drivers that have shaped Middle Eastern security for nearly half a century. As the conflict intensifies, the coalition faces an adversary driven by deep-seated ideological hostility and imperial ambition, complicating any diplomatic resolution. The forward trajectory suggests a prolonged war of attrition with no clear endpoint, as both sides remain locked in an existential struggle for regional dominance.

Comment

Operation Midnight Hammer's focus on degrading hardened Iranian nuclear sites exposes the operational limits of conventional precision strikes against deeply buried infrastructure. The employment of heavy bombers like the B-2 Spirit carrying GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators represents the primary kinetic option for such deeply buried targets as the Fordow fuel enrichment plant. However, these strikes trigger immediate asymmetric retaliation across the Persian Gulf rather than a decisive halt to the adversary's strategic ambitions.

This operational friction manifests through the decentralised deployment of Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles, such as the Noor and Qader systems, along the Strait of Hormuz. These mobile launchers exploit rugged coastal topography to bypass initial suppression of enemy air defences, ensuring that any kinetic campaign against nuclear facilities immediately spills into a wider maritime interdiction crisis. Consequently, the tactical success of GBU-57 strikes at Fordow remains decoupled from the broader strategic objective of securing the Strait of Hormuz against Houthi and Iranian maritime disruption.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If GBU-57 strikes during Operation Midnight Hammer fail to fully penetrate the Fordow facility, what happens to Western maritime deterrence in the Strait of Hormuz once Iranian Noor missile batteries begin retaliatory targeting?

The trajectory indicates that incomplete destruction at Fordow would severely erode the perceived efficacy of US kinetic options, emboldening asymmetric retaliation. Under these conditions, Iranian deployment of Noor anti-ship missiles along the Strait of Hormuz would likely transition from a defensive posture to active sea-denial operations. My assessment is that this shift would force Western coalitions into a prolonged, resource-intensive maritime escort campaign that detracts from the primary counter-proliferation mission.

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