If you were expecting summer 2025 to be all about blockbuster releases and surprise anime bombs, forget it—the real excitement happened in the skies above Iran, with the kind of high-tech, high-stakes military action that would make even the most gratuitous action movies look sedate. Operation Midnight Hammer, the American-Israeli joint attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, wasn’t merely a military campaign—it was a lesson in contemporary warfare, political brinksmanship, and, yes, a little bit of military posturing.
It all began after weeks of heightened tension between Israel and Iran, where Israel had staged a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear sites. In accordance with War on the Rocks, Israel’s Operation Rising Lion was a deliberate attack that readily escalated into a multi-theater conflict and dragged the U.S. into the war with Operation Midnight Hammer. The U.S. did not just arrive—they brought the heavy artillery, literally. Seven B-2 Spirit stealth aircraft, the pride of US airpower, deployed a total of 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) on Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.
Let’s discuss technology, as this was the first operational deployment of the GBU-57 MOPs ever. The 30,000-pound bombs, as reported by DefenseScoop, were meant to blast through hundreds of feet of concrete and rock and, as such, are the ultimate bunker busters. Only the B-2 is capable of carrying them, and each bomber can carry two. The mission was 15 years in the making, with testing and, of course, a whole lot of late-night Pentagon PowerPoints. As Air Force Gen. Dan Caine so eloquently phrased it, the mission was carried out with “incredible and overwhelming success,” and all of the bombs struck their intended targets, with the pilots flying home to a hero’s welcome.
But was it ever really a slam dunk? Satellite imagery paints a more realistic picture. High-resolution images obtained by Maxar Technologies and published by BBC Verify revealed widespread damage at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, with three big craters over underground halls of centrifuges and blackened buildings surrounding the uranium conversion plant. Two clusters of three big craters were visible above the buried enrichment halls at Fordow, while at Natanz, the central enrichment complex, the aboveground facilities were already toast due to previous Israeli attacks. Isfahan’s uranium conversion plant was characterized by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio as “wiped out,” though satellite imagery still indicated the facility remaining, though blackened and battered.
Iran, however, wasn’t exactly on its back. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denounced the strikes in the “strongest terms,” charging the U.S. had betrayed diplomacy and warning that “all options” were available for striking back, as reported by The Washington Post. And retaliate they did—missile barrages slammed into central Israel, and Iran even fired at the U.S. Al Udeid base in Qatar. The U.S. and Qatari Patriot crews executed what Gen. Caine described as “the largest single Patriot engagement in U.S. military history,” knocking out incoming missiles in a sight that probably resembled a Fourth of July fireworks display, but with much more on the line.
But that’s where things get extremely interesting: not every target is equal, and not everyone can be bombed without the risk of nuclear or chemical disaster. The Center for Strategic and International Studies says the threat of radioactive fallout was a key factor in determining which places to bomb and which to spare. Bushehr, Iran’s sole working nuclear power station, was strictly out of bounds—hitting it would have risked a meltdown and poisoning the Gulf area. Bombing Fordow and Natanz, though theatrical, were designed to minimize large contamination, with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifying that any contamination was kept inside the facilities themselves.
So what did this all do? As the Carnegie Endowment points out, the strikes delayed Iran’s nuclear program by wiping out key infrastructure and making thousands of centrifuges useless. But here’s the catch: Iran had supposedly relocated its most sensitive equipment before the bombing, and the expertise to rebuild remains intact. The strikes might have gained 18 to 24 months, but they erased none of Iran’s nuclear ambitions or capabilities. Indeed, the Iranian parliament reacted by halting cooperation with the IAEA, rendering future monitoring and verification a diplomatic nightmare.
The war also reshaped the script for modern conflict. The Israel-Iran conflict was, reports War on the Rocks, a demonstration of multi-domain warfare—blending air power, cyber attacks, electronic warfare, and psychological operations in a vertiginous display of 21st-century firepower. Israel’s initial cyber attack disabled Iranian communications and radar, while Iran’s drone and missile swarms pushed Israel’s renowned Iron Dome and David’s Sling defenses to the test. America’s contribution was most important, not only in its bunker-busting bombs but in its missile defense support and intelligence sharing.
If there is one lesson in Operation Midnight Hammer, it’s that the future of war is all about alliances, precision, and information dominance. Nobody goes to war alone any longer, and whoever can integrate stealth bombers, cyber attacks, and psychological operations is whoever will write the rules. But while the dust clears and the rest of the world holds its breath waiting to know whether Iran will rebuild or retaliate, one thing is certain: the rules have changed, and the next move is anybody’s bet.