“Iran Faces ‘Bad, Bad Things,” What Trump Means
Orignially printed by Jeff Dunetz on The Lid, Reprinted by permission
More than once, President Trump said he sent a letter to Iran’s Ayatollah warning that the country faces “Iran Faces’ Bad, Bad Things” if a new nuclear deal with the United States isn’t negotiated:
“I sent a letter just recently, and I said: you have to make a decision, one way or the other, and we either have to talk and talk it out or very bad things are going to happen to Iran,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“I don’t want that to happen. My big preference — and I don’t say this through strength or weakness — my big preference is, we work it out with Iran. But if we don’t work it out, bad, bad things are going to happen to Iran.”
Iran responded that they weren’t making nukes. However, there is no way they would allow international inspectors to check their nuclear facilities. The exact position they’ve had long before the Obama/Kerry JCPOA disaster.
Trump will start by answering Iran with sanctions. The sanctions imposed during his first administration were crippling the Iranian economy.
If Iran continues its stance, I believe the next step will be to destroy its nuclear capabilities. Previous Israeli raids have taken out Iran’s first line of air defenses.
So, how will Trump destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities? Provide backup support to the Israel Air Force (IAF) as it does the job. After all, the IAF has done it before, in Iraq and Syria, for example.
In the late 1970s, Iraq purchased an “Osiris class” nuclear reactor from France (some things never change). Israeli military intelligence assumed this was for the purpose of plutonium production to further an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Israeli intelligence also believed that the summer of 1981 would be the last chance to destroy the reactor without exposing the Iraqi civilian population to nuclear fallout. After that point, the reactor would be loaded with nuclear fuel.
Just like Iran today, Iraq protested that its interest in nuclear energy was peaceful. Iraq was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the time, placing its reactors under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Some experts remained unconvinced that the IAEA monitoring program was sufficient to guarantee that weapon research was not being conducted. They also claimed that an Osiris-class reactor was not particularly useful to countries with no established reactor programs, but that it could produce plutonium.
On June 7, 1981, at 16:00, 14 fighter jets departed from Etzion Airport in Israel. At approximately 17:30, they struck and destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq, successfully completing their mission.
Per the IDF:
Iraq established a nuclear program in the 60’s and with the cooperation of the USSR built a nuclear reactor ten km’s southeast of Baghdad. 16 years later, Iraq began to broaden their nuclear programs and were supported by France who provided them with a nuclear reactor. The reactor consisted of two buildings, the “Tamuz” 1- the first reactor that produced uranium, and the “Tamuz” 2. The Israeli government convened to discuss the growing nuclear threat in that region. Israel was doubtful about Iraq’s claims that the nuclear program was for the benefit of its citizens. Their doubt increased when the IDF Intelligence Branch published intelligence reports that Iraq’s operations posed a real threat to Israel’s very existence- and Israel was forced to draw up plans to destroy the reactor;
Supported by France? How surprising (not).
The reactor consisted of two buildings, the “Tamuz” 1- the first reactor that produced uranium, and the “Tamuz” 2. The Israeli government convened to discuss the growing nuclear threat in that region. Israel was doubtful about Iraq’s claims that the nuclear program was for the benefit of its citizens. Their doubt increased when the IDF Intelligence Branch published intelligence reports that Iraq’s operations posed a real threat to Israel’s very existence- and Israel was forced to draw up plans to destroy the reactor.
The pilots who participated in the mission were selected for their impeccable flight records, trained in secret, and requested to implement the operations without a second thought. The plan was set in motion on the afternoon of June 6. All the members of the F-16 squadron were called up for duty. On the morning of June 7, 1981, 8 F-16 fighter aircraft left Israeli airspace heading west towards the Tigris River, next to Baghdad. The flight to Iraq took upwards of an hour. Radio transmission was silenced. The Iraqis were caught entirely off guard. The Iraqi radar system was incapable of picking up on the impending danger.
As the IDF reported it:
Major General Amus Yaldun, one of the eight combat pilots that participated in the mission and now head of the IDF Intelligence Branch, related, during an interview with IAF journalists, about the famous flight. “Each aircraft flew with three full tanks of gas, two air to air missiles and two bombs each weighing one ton. We flew in two groups of four. The first group was led by Colonel (res.) Zev Raz, the “First Jet” squadron leader, and the second group was lead by Brigadier General (res.)Amir Nehomi, commander of the “Northern Knights”. I was number two in the first quadroon. We headed south of the Jordon River, passing over the Saudi desert. We reached the Tigris River in a short amount of time.
The blast of the first bombs echoed in the distance. One of them hit the center of the reactors roof. Once the bombs were releases, I felt the impact of the explosions shaking my plane. This was the end of the Iraqi nuclear reactor “Tamuz” 1.” The Israeli planes made a roundabout turn west, heading home. “The direction home was facing the sun as to prevent the enemy from following us. We received report of the second squadron’s attack on the reactor.
All pilots achieved their mission and returned safely. Mission accomplished. Of course, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution trashing Israel for saving itself.
Years ago, when Israel wanted to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, Barack Obama warned the Jewish State not to protect itself. Instead, the anti-Israel president negotiated a deal which essentially delayed the Iranian Nuclear weapons program for up to ten years (2025).
Very vague reports began to seep out in September 2006. No more specific than somebody bombed something in the Syrian desert. Eventually, the reports confirmed that the target was confirmed. Syria’s nuclear reactor.
The initial speculation was that it was Israel that bombed the reactor. Here at The Lid, we reported “You won’t hear the Israeli military confirm or deny that it was the IAF that bombed Syria’s T-4 military air base in Homs province in the early hours of Monday, April 9 (Syria Time). The Israeli defense forces never confirm or deny those kinds of reports.” Well, in this case,e they did—11 years later
On September 6, 2007, IAF bombers flew into the Syrian desert and laid to waste their nuclear facility. At the time, the Times of London reported:
It was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defenses went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way. At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.The Israeli government was not saying. “The security sources and IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers are demonstrating unusual courage,” said Ehud Olmert, the prime minister. “We naturally cannot always show the public our cards.
In other words, they kept telling different stories of what really happened. This is how the Syrian version of the attack evolved. First, they said that the IAF dropped a fuel tank in the Syrian desert, then Israel bombed a strategic location, followed by a claim that they bombed a warehouse, eventually Syria announced that there was NO Raid. At some point, Assad’s media blamed the US for the attacks, and the last thing they said was that the IDF bombed nothing important, just a construction site.
While Israel was silent because of its standard operational procedure, it made sure not to publicly embarrass the Syrian government, forcing it to respond militarily.
“I wasn’t worried about operational success of the attack, but about the danger of it triggering a war,” Israeli Air Force Major General Amos Yadlin, who was head of the IDF’s main military intelligence arm at the time and had actually been among the pilots who carried out the 1981 strike in Iraq. “Syria could have launched 100 missiles at us the following morning and we would have been in an entirely different situation.”
It’s not going to happen tomorrow, or even next week. But if Iran continues its refusal to “talk and talk it out,” eventually the IAF will take the lead when the American and Israeli security councils believe that there is no other way to remove the Iranian nuclear threat.
Herut North America supports the IAF, indeed the entire IDF, in its effort to protect the indigenous homeland of the Jews. We are unapologetic in our support of the IDF. Please vote Herut North America Slate #23 for the World Zionist Congress. Any Jewish person can vote by clicking this link https://us.voteherut2025.com/Jeff. Watch the video below: