The world braced on Sunday for Iran’s response after the US attacked key Iranian nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
A day after the US sent 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs crashing into the mountain above Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, Tehran vowed to defend itself at all costs, American leaders urged Tehran to stand down, and pockets of anti-war protesters began taking to the streets in US cities.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, US president Donald Trump addressed the issue of regime change in Iran. “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘regime change’, but if the current Iranian regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a regime change??? MIGA!!!” Mr Trump wrote.
Iran and Israel continued to trade volleys of missile attacks, with an explosion in western Iran killing half a dozen military personnel, according to an Iranian media outlet. Earlier, Iran fired missiles that wounded scores of people and flattened buildings in Tel Aviv.
The US state department ordered employees’ family members to leave Lebanon and advised citizens elsewhere in the region to keep a low profile or restrict travel.
An advisory from the US department of homeland security warned of a “heightened threat environment in the United States”. Law enforcement in large US cities stepped up patrols and deployed additional resources to religious, cultural and diplomatic sites.
Air France KLM said it has cancelled flights to and from Dubai and Riyadh on Sunday and Monday, in a sign of the broader effects of the attacks.
Tehran has so far not followed through on its threats of retaliation against the US – either by targeting US bases or trying to choke off global oil supplies – but that may not hold.
Speaking in Istanbul, Iranian minister for foreign affairs Abbas Araqchi said his country would consider all possible responses. There would be no return to diplomacy until it had retaliated, he said.
“The US showed they have no respect for international law. They only understand the language of threat and force,” Mr Araqchi said.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on X that the initiative was “now with the side that plays smart, avoids blind strikes. Surprises will continue!”.
Mr Trump, in a televised address, called the strikes “a spectacular military success” and boasted that Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated”.
But his own officials gave more nuanced assessments and – with the exception of satellite photographs appearing to show craters on the mountain above Iran’s subterranean plant at Fordow – there has been no public accounting of the damage.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said no increases in off-site radiation levels had been reported after the US strikes.
IAEA director general Rafael Grossi told CNN that it was not yet possible to assess the damage done underground. A senior Iranian source told Reuters that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere before the attack. Reuters could not immediately corroborate the claim.
Mr Trump, who veered between offering to end the war with diplomacy or to join it before ultimately moving ahead with the biggest foreign policy gamble of his career, called on Iran to forgo any retaliation. He said the government “must now make peace” or “future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier”.
US vice-president JD Vance said Washington was not at war with Iran but with its nuclear programme, adding this had been pushed back by a very long time due to the US intervention.
In a step towards what is widely seen as Iran’s most effective threat to hurt the West, its parliament approved a move to close the Strait of Hormuz. Nearly a quarter of global oil shipments pass through the narrow waters that Iran shares with Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran’s Press TV said closing the strait would require approval from the Supreme National Security Council, a body led by an appointee of Mr Khamenei.
Attempting to choke off Gulf oil by closing the strait could send global oil prices skyrocketing, derail the world economy and invite almost certain conflict with the US navy’s massive Fifth Fleet, based in the Gulf and tasked with keeping the strait open.
Security experts have long warned a weakened Iran could also find other unconventional ways to strike back, such as bombings or cyberattacks.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio, in an interview on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, warned Iran against retaliation for the US strikes.
Mr Rubio separately told CBS’s Face the Nation talkshow that the US has “other targets we can hit, but we achieved our objective”.
“There are no planned military operations right now against Iran,” he later added, “unless they mess around.”
The UN Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said earlier that the US bombings in Iran marked a perilous turn in the region and urged a halt to fighting and return to negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Israeli officials, who began the hostilities with a surprise attack on Iran on June 13th, have increasingly spoken of their ambition to topple the hardline Shiite Muslim clerical establishment that has ruled Iran since 1979.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Israeli reporters that Israel was very close to meeting its goals of removing the threats of ballistic missiles and the nuclear programme in Iran.
US officials, many of whom witnessed Republican president George W. Bush’s popularity collapse following his intervention in Iraq in 2003, have stressed that they were not working to overthrow Iran’s government.
“This mission was not and has not been about regime change,” secretary of defence Pete Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon. “The president authorised a precision operation to neutralise the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear programme.”
Anti-war activists organised demonstrations on Sunday in New York, Washington and other US cities, with protesters carrying signs that read “hands off Iran”.
Meanwhile, Iranians contacted by Reuters described their fear at the prospect of an enlarged conflict involving the US
“Our future is dark. We have nowhere to go – it’s like living in a horror movie,” Bita, a 36-year-old teacher from the central city of Kashan, said before the phone line was cut.
Much of Tehran, a capital city of 10 million people, has emptied out, with residents fleeing to the countryside to escape Israeli bombardment.
Iranian authorities say more than 400 people have been killed since Israel’s attacks began, mostly civilians. Israel’s bombardment has scythed through much of Iran’s military leadership with strikes targeted at bases and residential buildings where senior figures slept.
Iran has been launching missiles back at Israel, killing at least 24 people over the past nine days.
[ How effective were the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites?Opens in new window ]
Air raid sirens sounded across most of Israel on Sunday, sending millions of people to safe rooms.
In Tel Aviv, Aviad Chernovsky emerged from a bomb shelter to find his house had been destroyed in a direct hit. “It’s not easy to live now in Israel [right now], but we are very strong. We know that we will win,” he said. – Reuters
