From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Kristin Amiot. It's Monday, June twenty three, twenty twenty five. Australian business owners are being hit by more than one hundred federal and state taxes. They've called on Treasurer Jim Chalmers to use the upcoming Productivity Summit to give them some relief through tax reform. That exclusive story is live right now at the Australian dot com dot au. What now for the Middle East? Will Australia go to war? And did
America's giant strike against Iran work? Those are some of the lingering questions after the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities. Today, Foreign editor Greg Sheridan on this dangerous new phase in the Middle Eastern conflict.
Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear and Richmond facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
This is an address given by United States President Donald Trump after the nation's military unleashed almighty hell on Iran's nuclear facilities around.
The bully of the Middle East must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.
I spoke with the Australians Foreign editor Greg Sheridan on Sunday afternoon.
It is hugely significant and we can't fully gauge it significance today. Indeed, anyone who tells you they know what's going to happen next is either taking drugs or lying to you. But this is the first direct attack by the United States on Iran. I think Trumps put to bed the Taco equation. Trump always chickens out the idea that he would threaten and bluster but not actually carry through with action. So I think there are several levels
of significance. The first question is if the Americans in fact destroy the four DHO nuclear facility as they say they did. If they were successful in that, then that means Iran is gravely weakened. If they are unsuccessful in that, then Iran might be back with a nuclear weapon in no time. It certainly is a tremendous boost for Benjamin
Nettan Yahoo Netan Yahoo. He has his pluses and his minuses, but he's a very formidable guy and is even more formidable when Trump is directing American power in his support. It's very unclear how Iran will respond. We don't know exactly what the regional consequences will be, so it's a huge, sprawling, unpredictable moment. If the Americans have ended the Iranian nuclear program, then they have done a great service to humanity. But that's a big if, and there will be a cost.
We don't know what the cost will be.
Here's how it happened. About three pm on Saturday, Sydney time, several US Air Force B two bombers took off from the Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. B twos can carry so called bunker buster bombs, which are capable of destroying underground infrastructure. Around the same time, President Donald Trump left his golf club in New Jersey to return to the White House, where he met with his national security
team in the Situation Room. Under the cover of darkness, the B twos dropped multiple fifteen thousand kilogram bunker busters on Iran's nuclear infrastructure, including the Photo nuclear site, about
one hundred kilometers from the capital Tehran. Photo was built inside a mountain to protect it from aerial attacks, but US military officials said the site where the International Atomic Energy Agency said the uranium required to make an atomic bomb had been enriched to over eighty percent in twenty
twenty three, was decimated. The Esfahan and Natan's facilities were also struck, potentially destroying what remained of Iran's nuclear capability after Israel launched Operation Rising Lion just over a week ago. Confirmation of the operation came via a series of posts on Donald Trump's Truth social platform. On Sunday morning, We've used AI to bring those posts to life.
We have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American warriors. There is not another military in the world that could.
Have done this.
And then a warning.
Any retaliation by Iran against the United States will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later released a pre recorded message praising the decision by Donald Trump to inject the United States into the war.
History will record that President Trump acted to deny the world's most dangerous regime the world's most dangerous weapons. His leadership today has created a pivot of history that can help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace.
In the aftermath of the bombings, a news anchor on Iranian state television said, mister President, you started it and we will end it.
Nad al yea is juan huda ambrikar shomar shudul charity va matamomshkah.
At the same time, a map of US military bases in the Middle East was broadcast. Then, on Sunday afternoon, around launched a fresh shabablistic missile attack on Israel, and the nation's foreign minister are bas Arakshi accused the US of engaging in extremely dangerous, lawless and criminal behavior. In a post on x formerly known as Twitter, Greg, how do you expect Iran will respond to this display of force by the United States?
So?
Iran has three things it can do in response. It can fire missiles, it can engage proxies to attack Israel, America and Arabs who are seen to be their friends. And it can sponsor acts of murderous barbaric terrorism around the world. I think it will do all three, but it's a bit unclear what its capabilities are. So the Israelis think they've taken out nearly half of Iran's missile capability, but that still means Iran has a lot of missiles left.
Israel has very good missile.
Defense, but it's not foolproof, so some Iranian missiles are getting through. Think there's any effort on the Iranians part really to target Israeli military facilities. I think they're perfectly happy if they hit residential apartment box. They just wanted to stress Israel and hurt its morale and show that they are fighting back. This could go on for a
long time, or the Iranians might decide to stop. If they don't stop Israel, and perhaps America will take out a lot more of their missiles and maybe some of their other targets as well. So there is a danger in escalation here. As to the proxies, Iran had a full suite of proxies, a ring of fire around Israel.
It had the Hoodies in Yemen, the Shia militia in Iraq, Allied government in Syria, massive military force in Hesbela and Southern Lebanon and Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic g had, amongst the Palestinians, all forces which it financed and it armed,
and it directed to some extent. Now Hezbolah has been dentially neutralized by the israelis Hamas is not in a position to mount a serious attack on Israel, and the Syrian government has fallen to its own enemies, and Israel has wiped out the conventional weapons of the Syrian military, so Israel is much less threatened by proxies than previously. The Hoodies can keep firing missiles if they like, but they get very very few.
Of their missiles through to Israel.
If they resume attacks on American shipping in the Red Sea, the Americans will strike them again, and the Americans hurt them very badly when they strike them previously. So the most intact of the Iranian proxies would be the Shia militia in Iraq. They hate America and they are generally pretty obedient to Iran. But it'll be fascinating to see what the relationship between Iran and its proxies is now. It's one thing for the proxies to do Iran's bidding
when it looks like Iran is winning. Iran has all this influence all over the region, and Iran has lots of money and lots of capabilities, but Iran is much diminished now, it's not winning, and being a friend of Iran in the region is now very dangerous.
If they do.
Attack Americans after what Trump has said, I think they'll be a very harsh response against Iran. And then finally, Iran is the chief state sponsor of international terrorism. It kills its own dissidence all over the world. It's responsible for a great deal of anti Jewish terrorism, so you probably will see an uptick of that. So I think they will respond in all three of those fronts, but whether they are able to respond in a decisive way on any of those fronts is unclear.
Has this situation increased the possibility of a terror threat in the United States? Do you think?
Oh?
Yes, absolutely, And all over the world it's increased the possibility of a terror threat in Australia. The Iranian government has a very particular, very extreme Islamist ideology at its heart, and it financed terrorism all over the world. Terrorism is relatively cheap to finance. You just need one bad guy and some explosives really in most contexts, or one bad guy and a motorcar in a lot of contexts. And
although the majority of Islamist terrorism has been Sunni. Iran tries to exert an ideological leadership even over Sunni extremists, and it also pays people to conduct terrorism. There was a trial of an attempted assassination on Donald Trump, which didn't get to the physical stage of an assault, but the guy who was put on trial was led by American prosecutors to be looking for a hitman to hire
on Iran's behalf to kill Donald Trump. So I think you could see Iran has conducted shocking murderous terrorism in Argentina and across Europe and so forth. I think the
terrorist threat is probably increased everywhere. On the other hand, if Iran gets caught red handed behind acts of terrorism in Trump and Netanyahu, they enemies who are now willing to respond them mean, Iran has been brilliant at taking murderous actions, which somehow or other they do through a proxy, and therefore the retaliation is against the proxy and not against them.
So that situation has changed now.
One result of October seven, the terrorist attacks on Israel is that Israel's strategic calculus has changed and the acceptance of threat has changed, And so both Israel and Donald Trump confront Iran with a situation it hasn't had before, which is it will now be held responsible itself for the actions of its proxies. And if Iran thinks it's at a rough ten days, much rough things could happen.
Donald Trump, of course, has been seeking a deal with Iran to end its enrichment of uranium for months now, and those diplomatic efforts have ultimately failed. On Sunday, he posted on his truth social platform that Iran should have accepted the deal presented to them when they had the chance.
What a shame and waste of human life, simply stated, Iran cannot have a new clear weapon. I said it over and over again.
Why act now and with such force?
Well, Iran has been in negotiations forever now. Iran has never agreed to give up uranium enrichment, and these negotiations have been spluttering along for years and years and years. And Iran thought it was just playing rapid oupe again, that it could just go on forever with these negotiations. But the negotiations are not really complex. They're actually really
very simple. Iran has to give up all uranium enrichment facilities and it has to agree to an inspections regime which is intrusive and credible because they have a very long record over many years of lying routinely about their nuclear activities. They have lied at every point, They've cheated at every point. The International Atomic Energy Agency says they're
in breach of their treaty obligations. The fact is that all of the talks and all of the negotiations have failed up till now, and Trump offered them a deal, but the deal was a deal they could never accept. If they gave up all enrichment activities and agreed to an inspections regime, which was really credible, they would be giving up their nuclear weapons program, and they don't want to do that. And now, of course it would be even harder for them to do that because they would
have to accept humiliating defeat by the Americans. The other big consequence is what are Iran's bad guy friends going to do about this? Iran got the converter which makes uranium into nuclear fuel from China, and they got the converter which makes nuclear fuel into metal which you need
to create a bomb, also from China. There are hard questions to be asked about how is China going to relate to Iran in the light of all this, because it's much easier for Iran to reconstruct their program if they get assistance from China, much harder if they don't. Or maybe they'll get assistance from North Korea, which would be Chines's assistants, delivered as it were, by a Chinese proxy.
These are enormous questions to ponder. No one would say Trump has solved everything by taking out their facilities, But the best sources I can find think that if they have destroyed these facilities, they've set back in Rand's program probably by seven to ten years. That's a very big achievement. That's a very big achievement. And it's not as if in that seven to ten years, Israelis and Americans won't be watching what Iran gets up to.
Coming up, did Donald Trump backflip on the Middle East? Donald Trump campaigned on an America First platform, saying he'd keep America out of these kinds of foreign entanglements, But he said in Sunday's address that I decided a.
Long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue.
Do Donald Trump's politics actually matter in the current circumstances?
Now, Trump did say he was going to keep out of foreign entanglements and forever wars, but this is not a forever war. The idea that America keeps out of military entanglements doesn't mean that there are no circumstances ever on the face of the planet where America will intervene, especially with air power which involves no ground forces. So I don't think Trump has done anything inconsistent here, not that Trump is ever worried by consistency or anything like that.
If the Iranians are successful in killing large numbers of Americans in the Middle East and have massive terrorist outrages in the United States and so the politics of this may come back to hurt Trump.
Or if the Iranians.
Blow up Saudi oil facilities and there's an economic crisis as a consequence, it's possible that politics could come back to hurt Trump. But a one day intervention from the air to destroy nuclear facilities which were producing weapons grade highly enriched uranium for a regime which is killed and murdered Americans for forty years, I think that falls well within the purview of any American present. The other thing is Trump is not actually really an isolationist. He doesn't
really want to police the world. But if you hit America, he'll hit you back one hundred times harder. But of course, in the end, the proof is in the pudding. If it works out disastrously badly, it will be seen to have been a terrible decision. If it results in a weaker Iran, which can cause less damage to America and its allies, it'll be seen as an active genius.
Greg Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign editor. This story is developing quickly. For all the latest on the conflict in the Middle East, visit the Australian dot com dot au