To a President With a Midnight Hammer, Everything Is a Nail
The prowess on display in America’s strike on Iran inspired shock and awe. So did the start of America’s forever wars.
“Peace or tragedy” ...
Photographer: Carlos Barria/AFP via Getty Images
No other military in the world could have done this. That was one of the Truths, as they’re called, which President Donald Trump banged out during the early hours (Iranian time) of Sunday, and which his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and highest-ranking military officer, Dan Caine, repeated in their own presentation.
And it really is true. Operation Midnight Hammer, the code name for the American “strike package” (as Caine kept calling it) on Iran, was an awe-inspiring display of martial prowess. It involved 125 aircraft and 75 types of precision weapons in total, plus submarines and support from land, space and cyberspace, all seamlessly coordinated. It began, and continued, with a masterful deception, as some B-2 bombers allowed themselves to be tracked flying west from the United States, while the real hunters were going east in stealth.