For over two decades, the United States has employed every tool short of direct military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Sanctions, sabotage, cyberattacks, and diplomatic negotiations all aimed to slow Tehran's relentless march toward becoming a nuclear power. Four different administrations—including Trump's own in 2019—have contemplated striking Iran's nuclear facilities but ultimately pulled back due to the enormous risks involved.

A Knockout Blow

The regime in Tehran survives in the region through three legs of a gruesome stool: terrorism, missiles, and deterrence. First, Iran exports terror throughout the Middle East through its vast network of proxy groups.  Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Badr Organization and Kata'ib Hezbollah were all formed to advance Iranian interests in the Middle East. All receive funding and arms from Iran. Meanwhile, the Houthis are less tightly tethered to Tehran than these groups and often strike independently of Iranian orders. The Houthis are more a partner force than an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iran's most potent security organization. Second, since the ruinous Iran-Iraq War devastated Tehran’s naval power in the Red Sea, the regime has maintained a vast ballistic missile capability to strike at Israel and U.S. bases in the region. Third, Iran employs its nuclear build capability to serve as a deterrent to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. in the Middle East. With the first two legs of the stool already wobbly, Sunday’s strike could serve as a knockout blow to Iran’s ability to bully the region.

Saturday's coordinated assault on Iran's nuclear infrastructure represents the culmination of what may be the most rehearsed, examined, and studied war plan of the last twenty years. Yet President Trump's decision to finally pull the trigger wasn't born from recklessness or impulse—it was the product of a unique convergence of favorable conditions that may not present themselves again for years, if ever.

The Perfect Storm of Circumstances

The timing of Operation Midnight Hammer was no accident. For the first time since Iran began its nuclear program in earnest, multiple critical factors aligned to create an optimal window for military action. Understanding why Saturday represented such an opportunity requires examining three key elements that have historically made strikes against Iran so perilous.

Critical Factor 1: Iran's Compromised Air Defenses

The most significant factor enabling Saturday's success was the degraded state of Iran's air defense network. Israel's precision strikes in the preceding weeks had systematically dismantled key radar installations and surface-to-air missile sites that formed the backbone of Iran's defensive capabilities. This created corridors of vulnerability that American military planners could exploit with confidence—something that simply hadn't existed before.

The Pentagon's Sunday briefing confirmed that not a single American aircraft encountered enemy fire during the entire operation. This wasn't luck; it was the direct result of Israel having "set the theater" by neutralizing the critical limiting factor that had deterred previous administrations from acting.

Critical Factor 2: Iran's Depleted Response Capabilities

Equally important was Iran's severely diminished ability to mount an effective retaliation. Israeli operations over the past month had destroyed approximately half of Iran's ballistic missile arsenal and decimated much of its proxy network across the region. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen—Iran's primary instruments of asymmetric warfare—were all operating at drastically reduced capacity.

This degradation of Iran's "ring of fire" strategy removed one of the regime's most potent deterrents. Previous administrations had consistently worried that striking Iran would trigger a regional conflagration involving Iranian proxies attacking American interests across the Middle East. Saturday's operation faced no such coordinated response because Iran lacked the operational capacity to orchestrate one.

Critical Factor 3: Leadership in Disarray

Perhaps most crucially, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps found itself in organizational chaos. Israeli intelligence operations had compromised Iranian communications networks so thoroughly that IRGC commanders were reduced to passing messages through third parties rather than using their normal command and control systems. With Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reportedly underground and isolated, Iran's military leadership structure was functioning at a fraction of its normal effectiveness.

This communication breakdown meant that even if Iran had possessed the weapons and proxies to respond, coordinating a coherent retaliation would have proved nearly impossible in the immediate aftermath of the American strikes.

Twenty Years in the Making

The GBU-57/B "bunker buster" bombs that pulverized Iran's Fordo facility were specifically designed by the U.S. Air Force beginning in 2004 for exactly this mission. The 30,000-pound munitions represent the only weapon in the American arsenal capable of penetrating the hundreds of feet of concrete and rock protecting Iran's most critical nuclear infrastructure.

Saturday marked the first combat use of these weapons, deployed by B-2 stealth bombers in what General Dan Caine called one of the most complex military operations ever conducted. The successful penetration of Fordo—a facility that many analysts considered virtually impregnable—validated two decades of military planning and technological development.

The Window Closes

The convergence of factors that made Saturday's operation possible was both rare and temporary. Iran's air defenses will eventually be rebuilt, its proxy networks reconstituted, and its communication systems restored. The IRGC's command structure will adapt to operating under compromised conditions, and new leadership will emerge to replace those eliminated by Israeli operations.

More fundamentally, Iran's nuclear program itself will evolve. Every month of delay allows Tehran to disperse its uranium stockpiles, harden additional facilities, and potentially move closer to weaponization. The same technological advances that enabled the GBU-57/B also benefit Iran's defensive capabilities over time.

Strategic Vindication

President Trump's decision to authorize Saturday's strikes represents the vindication of a strategy that prioritized creating optimal conditions for military action rather than rushing into a suboptimal scenario. By supporting Israel's systematic degradation of Iranian capabilities while maintaining the credible threat of American intervention, the administration created the precise circumstances necessary for a successful operation.

The president's public statements in the days leading up to the strikes—which Pentagon officials privately criticized as compromising operational security—may have actually served a strategic purpose by forcing Iran to spread its defensive resources across multiple potential targets while obscuring the true timing and direction of the eventual attack.

Beyond the Immediate Success

While Saturday's operation successfully destroyed much of Iran's known nuclear infrastructure, questions remain about Tehran's stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium and the regime's long-term intentions. President Trump's subsequent social media posts suggesting that "regime change" might be necessary indicate that Saturday may have been the opening move in a broader campaign rather than a one-off operation.

The ultimate success of Saturday's strikes will be measured not just by the destruction achieved, but by Iran's response in the coming weeks and months. If Tehran chooses to rebuild its nuclear program, the favorable conditions that enabled Saturday's operation are unlikely to be replicated. If Iran instead chooses negotiation and denuclearization, Saturday will be remembered as the moment when twenty years of patient preparation finally paid off.

Saturday will be remembered as the moment when twenty years of patient preparation finally paid off.

GEN Charles Hamilton (U.S. Army, ret.), last served as commander of U.S. Army Materiel Command.