People who voted for Donald Trump to keep us out of WWIII: How's that working out for you?

@MasterLee You know I'm probably not Mr Trump's biggest fan, but this time he was right 100% 👍🏼

@helenS How? The intelligence community kept telling us Iran was years away from having functional nuclear missiles. Oh, and by the way, our secretary of defense's previous job was as a grocery store clerk, so when he reaps the whirlwind by pissing off Iran's allies, we are the least prepared we've been in my lifetime.

@LordShadowfire The Iranian nuclear program is history now, that's the important point. Israel is safe. 🇮🇱

@helenS Oh, okay. The fascist regime bent on ethnically cleansing the entire Middle East is safe. That makes it okay what we did.

@helenS I'd like to be able to agree but I think it's too soon to draw that conclusion.

@ArtieKat It's what some experts in the field say. For example, the chemical plant where UF6 is produced, a precursor of highly enriched uranium, is totally destroyed. The experts assume that not much has been left of the underground facilities (the Fordow plant), because the fast-spinning centrifuges are very sensitive and they will hardly survive detonation shock waves.
I'm a total laywoman, but what I heard makes a lot of sense to me.

@helenS I don't disagree - but as it seems likely that the enriched uranium has been spirited away, is it not possible that there is, somewhere hidden, another centrifuge?

@ArtieKat Sure it's possible, but I believe Mossad would know 👍🏼

@LordShadowfire No no. The one wanting to ethnically cleans the middle east is the one Trump bombed. Israel is the one that is safe.

@robb65 Really? Because they've already been ethnically cleansing Palestine, and now they have suddenly decided to start attacking Iran out of the blue when all intelligence sources reported they were years away from having even a single functional nuke. But okay, buddy.

@LordShadowfire If you are so sure that Iran had only benign aims for its nuclear program can you explain the science to me of why they needed to enrich uranium to something like 6 times the fuel requirements - or why they needed to bury the apparatus over 50 yards underground?

@ArtieKat I didn't say they only had benign aims for their nuclear program. What the hell is it with everybody sticking words in my mouth around here? I said they were years away from getting a working prototype, let alone an actual nuclear program. Plenty of time to solve the problem without dropping a big beautiful bomb on them and forcing their allies to come to their rescue.

@LordShadowfire
What allies are those?

@ArtieKat Russia, for one. They've literally offered to give Iran what you think we were preventing them from getting. Nuclear missiles.

@LordShadowfire Putin is not that mad. And he's reined in by the Chinese. Unless you can prove otherwise. The only rogue state possible to be that crazy would be North Korea - and they're reined in by both China and Russia.

@ArtieKat Oh, he won't give it to them directly, no. But one of his mouthpieces in the military has warned that "other countries" (read: puppet states) are willing to provide Iran with nukes. Here's a fun article for you:
https://nypost.com/2025/06/22/world-news/kremlin-warns-that-other-nations-ready-to-give-iran-nukes-dangerous-escalation-has-begun/

@LordShadowfire OK. I've not seen that reported elsewhere. In fact I thought that Medvedev was keeping remarkably quiet.

@helenS Aren't the Russians now making the bulk of their drones within Russia now?

@ArtieKat Yes perhaps – I don't know. Anyway they will have to in the future, while their "partners" are hiding in their bunkers.