Shayrat Redux? Trump's 'Invisible' Fleet Leaves Mirage of 'Devastation' in Iran

Well, Trump did it again: under cover of giving Iran “two weeks” negotiating time, he instead launched a covert attack as soon as the assets were in place, later telling ‘Meet the Press’ that he said he would make the decision within two weeks, and two days technically falls in that time scale.

Trump endorsed strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities at a meeting with advisers on Wednesday. His talk of a negotiating period on Thursday was a deliberate deception and "smokescreen," The Atlantic claims.

First, let us briefly overview how the strikes reportedly went down. Chatter erupted yesterday when B-2s and refueling craft took off from their homebase of Whiteman AFB and began tracking west toward Guam (for further refueling) and Diego Garcia. However, that “visible” strike package was the diversion, while the real package flew east from mainland US under complete cover, to hit Iran directly from its western flank.

In reality, the subterfuge appeared part of an elaborate game, given that emerging details point to the entire charade being just that.

There are various reports going around that through the usual Swiss back channels Trump’s administration essentially informed Iran of the strikes, implying that as long as Iran does not respond it will be a ‘one-off’ attack. If true, this would be clear indication that the proposed back-channel agreement would require Iran to allow the US strike package to pass unharmed, and give the US its face-saving off-ramp from the conflict. This was one of the possibilities we predicted days ago in the premium article and now seems increasingly likely to be the case.

This is not Trump’s first time: recall the infamous 2017 Tomahawk attack on Syria’s Shayrat base which was billed as some kind of ‘devastating’ deathblow, when it turned out to be a show-strike nothingburger which left a few potholes on the runway and did no real damage. This is Trump’s way of alleviating neocon pressure—a sort of purity test for his Israeli handlers.

But the big question is, what really happened: was the strike entirely fake, as some suggest? Recall that there is zero evidence any B-2s even flew over Iran, with the package including dozens of fired Tomahawk missiles from an Ohio class submarine 400 miles away. Many are now spouting off about the day’s favored word of ‘subsidence’, caused by the bunker busters. But not all experts are convinced, like this ex-US artillery officer who knows a thing or two about shell craters:

Now that imagery has emerged, I think my take from last night is vindicated - the damage seen thus far is not consistent with extremely large "bunker-buster" bombs but with lighter standoff weapons that caused only surface damage. The Iranians also clearly had ample warning.

It’s possible the craters are merely from the submarine-launched Tomahawks, though they do look large enough to be from a much more powerful weapon.

My personal take, though, is that most likely a back-channel agreement was made for the B-2s to have safe passage to do a limited ‘show strike’.

The evidence?

Firstly, the fact that it was a small strike, which even experts agree utilized far fewer MOPs (Mass Ordnance Penetrators) than required. The problem is, since half the operative B-2 fleet was used as ‘diversion’, the remaining half (7 x B-2s) could only carry 14 x total penetrators, and these had to be divided between several facilities including Natanz, on top of Fordow. That means Fordow only received six hits, far fewer than needed. For it to receive more, the B-2s would have had to do numerous runs, or extend the campaign—which could have gotten messily off-script. By signaling a ‘token’ strike, Trump likely mollified Iran into not responding.

The second piece of evidence is that—besides the various intel and rumors of back channel deals—new satellite imagery revealed that Iran had dozens of dump trucks carrying out “unusual activity” at Fordow two days before the attack:

Iran Reinforced Fordow Nuclear Site Just Before U.S. Strikes!

Satellite images (June 19) show 16 dump trucks & earthmovers piling dirt near tunnel entrances of Iran’s Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, buried 90m underground. Signs of pre-emptive fortification before strikes.

Satellite imagery shows “unusual truck and vehicular activity” at the Fordow fuel enrichment facility two days before the strike, according to a senior analyst at the satellite firm Maxar. On June 19, there were 16 cargo trucks along the access road leading to the underground military complex. Imagery taken the next day shows that most of the trucks had moved about one kilometer northwest, farther from the facility.

Initial assumptions were that these were flatbeds hauling away the critical ‘enrichment materials’, but in fact that total relocation of the Fordow site had already taken place months ago, as Iranian figures like Mohsen Rezaee revealed. The above shows not flatbeds but dump trucks which appear to be filling Fordow’s tunnel entrances in order to fortify them against blast damage.

Another image makes it more clear, as individual trucks are seen dumping something at the entrances:

New high-resolution imagery, captured on June 21, 2025, suggests Iran was preparing the Fordow nuclear facility for a strike. The facility's entrance tunnels were observed being filled with earth by trucks and diggers.

That means Iran appears to have gotten advance warning of the hit, which is interesting given the earlier Atlantic report that Trump had already ‘made up his mind’ precisely by Wednesday of this past week:

Trump endorsed strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities at a meeting with advisers on Wednesday. His talk of a negotiating period on Thursday was a deliberate deception and "smokescreen," The Atlantic claims.

The timeline seems to be that Trump made up his mind Wednesday during the big meeting with his advisors, then back channel deals trickled through by Thursday, at which point Iran rushed gear to begin backfilling the tunnels—give or take a day. Given that the attacks happened early Sunday morning Iranian time, it would have given Iran up to three days to do some last minute work.

The next piece of evidence, to me, is the most damning. Just listen to it and ask yourself how realistic this sounds—from the Pentagon press conference:

“We are unaware of any shots fired at the US strike package. Iran’s fighters did not fly, and it appears Iran’s surface to air missiles did not see us.”

Really?

Iran knew the exact epicenter the B-2s would have to converge on and yet was unable to even attempt to engage them? Could the scriptwriters have written a more schlockily improbable series of events? They could have at least added a few ‘glory moments’ of F-35s and F-22s shooting down a couple Iranian fighter craft for effect.

Recall that the US was having severe problems even operating just outside of Yemeni airspace, with not only F-35s nearly shot down, but two F-18s lost to panicked defensive maneuvers, as well as one other shot down by US air defense, and a fourth “nearly shot down” in the same operation.

So, Houthi air defenses can engage F-35s, but an entire sky swarming with B-2s, F-35s, F-22s, and other planes were not detected at all by Iran, whose IADS is likely dozens of times stronger than Yemen’s? Keep in mind the Pentagon spokesman also said the strike package included fourth generation craft that flew all the way to central Iran, which presumably refers to F-16s and F-15s—but for some bizarre reason Iran “never fired a shot”.

Sound suspicious to anyone else?

And after all these strikes, countless claims of Israeli “total aerial control”, there is still not a single video of a foreign craft over the skies of Iran. The B-2s were even seen flying back over New Jersey on their ‘heroe’s return’, yet no one in a nation of 90 million saw or heard anything on this most ‘mysterious’ of nights.

Something’s rotten in the state of HasbarAmerica.

So, yes, I’m convinced Iran decided to take US’ offer and allowed safe passage of the strike package to rain a few insignificant ‘token’ strikes on Fordow with the understanding that this was the US’ price for exiting the conflict.

Now, there are rumors that Israel may use the given ‘off-ramp’ as pretense to likewise conclude a new deal and end hostilities, given that Israel has exhausted itself and is now losing a war of attrition against Iran.

NEW: Israeli officials tell multiple outlets that they would like to end the conflict with Iran this week if Tehran stops retaliating

Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronoth, citing Israeli officials: We will accept a ceasefire tomorrow if Khamenei announces that he wants one.

Israeli news, first AI dub version, then subtitles:

One commentor’s lucid take:

I'm starting to feel like Trump's bombing of Iran's nuke sites was just to create an excuse for Israel to stop fighting. Israel can't afford war losses anymore, but Netanyahu won't call a ceasefire, scared he'll be labeled a coward. Truth is, Trump's strikes didn't really hurt Iran much - just a big SHOW.

By the way, initial ‘fanfare’ included chest-beating statements about completely obliterating the Iranian nuclear program:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/21/israel-iran-live-updates-us-trump/

But just hours later, the bluster was already being predictably walked back:

“We can’t say with 100% confidence that all targets were destroyed,” Vance admitted, though he claimed the operation had “significantly delayed” Iran’s nuclear weapons development.

“I won’t go into classified intelligence about what we saw in Iran. But we saw a lot, and I’m very confident we substantially delayed their nuclear weapons program — that was the goal of the strike,” he said.

Vance added, “We have destroyed Iran’s nuclear program. I believe we’ve significantly set it back.”

When asked whether the U.S. is now at war with Iran, Vance responded, “We are not at war with Iran. We are at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/us/politics/iran-uranium-stockpile-whereabouts.html

Post-strike BDAs ran the gamut:

When analyzing the penetration points on the site sketch at Fordow (which was revealed in 2018 as part of the "Emad" nuclear project archive), it can be identified that they were carefully selected, with the aim of damaging the facility's central corridors.

These corridors are located beneath the thickest layer of rock, and are where uranium enrichment operations are carried out.

At present, it is not possible to determine whether the bombs penetrated the tens of meters of rock and reached their destination.

Many experts agreed that at most the facility would have suffered minor damage, and most likely none at all given that the penetrators didn’t stack on top of each other to ‘burrow’ deeper, nor were there enough of them for such a large facility to begin with.

Iran believes most of the centrifuges and underground cascade halls at the Fordow facility were undamaged, according to a preliminary assessment of the damage from the US strike.

But the final assessment will only be made after Iranian experts personally arrive at the site in Fordow, writes Pars Today.

Rubio inadvertently revealed the unjustifiable nature of US’ reasoning when he was caught admitting that the lack of any evidence for Iran’s desire to ‘weaponize’ its Uranium into a bomb is “irrelevant”—essentially admitting that US bombed Iran merely to fulfill Israel’s demands:

And more and more it’s looking like regime change is really still the only play in town, with the nuke stuff merely as fig leaf:

The ultimate question is where things go from here, and that all depends on what Iran chooses to do.

The crucial moment may come during FM Araghchi’s critical Moscow trip—he just touched down there as of this writing. Rumors suggest Iran could strike back at the US merely through its Iraqi proxies to keep up the game’s appearances, but still extract a measure of pride for domestic audiences. Either way, the ball may be in Iran’s court now, if the earlier signals are true that Israel could be ready to make a new agreement.

On the other hand, Iran now clearly sees that all agreements with the West, and particularly the US, aren’t worth the bum blotter they’re written on, so it has a lot of hard thinking to do.

At the end of the day, the events proved one thing—which most of you already knew:

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