June 14th, a day already heavy with meaning—the anniversary of the U.S. Army, Flag Day, and the birthday of former President Donald Trump—now bears another grim historical marker: the day Israel unilaterally launched airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, potentially demolishing not Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, but the last remaining hopes for a diplomatic resolution.
While Israeli officials tout the attack as a necessary strike against a looming existential threat, critics, including progressive Democrat Lisa McCormick, argue it may be the match that lights the powder keg of a full-scale nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
This isn’t a drill. It’s a catastrophic miscalculation disguised as strength.
Iran, according to consistent U.S. intelligence assessments prior to June 13, had not resumed actual weaponization activities. It stood on the threshold of nuclear capability but had not crossed it.
The Israeli operation—brash, incomplete, and questionably effective—may have nudged Iran back from that edge temporarily. But if history is any guide, and logic not yet suspended, the long-term effect of this strike is likely to do the exact opposite of what it intended: push Iran into building a bomb.
The facts are sobering. Israel does not have the military capacity to take out Iran’s most fortified nuclear sites—deeply buried facilities like Fordow remain intact. According to Iran’s own statement to the International Atomic Energy Agency, critical sites at Fordow, Isfahan, and Bushehr were not affected.
That’s not a successful disarmament campaign. That’s a symbolic gesture, with no tactical finish. And with the United States staying formally uninvolved—despite whispers of foreknowledge from President Trump—there’s no reason to believe Israel has the bunker-busting munitions required to truly degrade Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
What Israel did manage to destroy, however, is trust—trust between Iran and the international community, between Washington and Tehran, and possibly within the region’s own attempts at stability.
Before this strike, the idea of a regional nuclear consortium—a proposal with the backing of both the United States and Iran—offered a fragile but real hope for balancing Iran’s insistence on enrichment rights with the West’s nonproliferation demands. That path now lies in rubble.
Worse still, Israel’s move likely hardened pro-nuclear factions inside Iran. For years, Iran’s political establishment has debated whether to remain within the bounds of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
This latest assault hands Iranian hardliners the perfect argument: Iran needs nuclear weapons not to expand, but to survive. If your enemy proves it will attack no matter what you do, why not arm yourself?
Compounding the damage is the effect on transparency and monitoring. The International Atomic Energy Agency—already walking a tightrope—now faces even more obstacles in verifying Iran’s nuclear stockpile, particularly its highly enriched uranium.
If Tehran chooses to hide part of its material or shifts it to covert facilities, the world may not know until it’s too late. And if they do so, it will be Israel’s assault—not Iranian duplicity alone—that precipitated it.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, the administration scrambles. Despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s insistence that the U.S. played no role, Iran’s decision to cancel nuclear talks in Oman suggests otherwise.
To Tehran, and much of the world, the United States is culpable—if not by commission, then certainly by omission. There were voluntary evacuations of U.S. military families and embassy personnel just before the strike. There were whispers and warnings. But there was no public rebuke of Israel beforehand, and no adequate preparation for what comes next.
And what comes next may be war.
The United States now finds itself with 40,000 troops deployed across the Middle East, their safety now tied to the fallout—both literal and geopolitical—of a war they didn’t start.
If Iran retaliates directly or via proxies, or if Israel doubles down with further escalations, the pull on the U.S. to join militarily will be enormous. Already, pressure is mounting from pro-Israel factions and defense hawks to provide logistical and material support to finish what Netanyahu has started.
But finish what, exactly? You cannot bomb away a nation’s knowledge. You cannot assassinate your way to security. And you certainly cannot claim moral clarity when your strikes risk dragging your allies into a wider conflict that offers only ruin and no resolution.
McCormick’s warnings should not be dismissed. She points out that, by abandoning diplomacy and striking first, Israel has made a nuclear Iran more likely, not less. That’s not political hyperbole.
That’s the view of countless former intelligence officials, arms control experts, and even the very architects of prior diplomatic agreements. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has repeatedly noted, acts of aggression tend to accelerate nuclear development, not halt it.
Iran’s nuclear program is not centralized, not fragile, and not forgettable. It is embedded across geography, bureaucracy, and ideology.
Even if every site were flattened today—which they are not—Iran’s scientific knowledge remains. Thousands of scientists, engineers, and technicians are capable of reconstituting the program faster than ever, with more efficient technology and greater political will.
And what is the ultimate endgame here? Regime change? That fantasy has been peddled before—by the same voices who brought us Iraq and Libya.
Bombing a country into regime collapse does not bring peace. It breeds chaos. It kills civilians. It seeds extremist blowback. It hollows out governance. And it leaves a vacuum for the next war.
If Netanyahu’s logic is to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions by toppling its government, then we are staring down a familiar abyss.
If President Trump follows him there, it will be the most catastrophic misstep of his presidency—a betrayal of his own rhetoric about ending “forever wars,” and a path to another Vietnam, another Afghanistan, another Iraq. Different desert. Same disaster.
In the end, diplomacy remains the only path forward. Fragile, frustrating, frequently imperfect—but still far more effective than war. The nuclear crisis was not solved on June 13. It was accelerated.
Unless cooler heads prevail, unless the United States reclaims its role as a broker of peace rather than a passive accomplice, we may soon look back on this moment not as the beginning of security, but the end of restraint.