In the Media

Herald Sun/Daily Telegraph/The Advertiser – 23 June 2025

The US decision to attack the Fordow and other Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday is a very welcome development which will almost certainly make the world a better and safer place.

The US intervention provides much greater confidence that Iran, a regime committed to dominating and destabilising its neighbours, international terrorism, and destroying Israel – and that was illegally trying to build nuclear weapons to facilitate all three objectives – is about to be thoroughly defanged.

Just over a week ago, after decades of failed diplomatic effort, Israel began a campaign designed to do this dangerous job that no one else wanted to do. As a consequence, Israel has been taking considerable damage to civilian neighbourhoods, suffering 24 civilian deaths and hundreds of injuries from indiscriminate Iranian missile fire.

For its part, Israel’s strikes on Iran have been an amazing story of military and intelligence achievement – killing almost all of Iran’s key military leaders and top nuclear scientists, and repeatedly hitting nuclear research sites and those making ballistic missiles with little collateral damage. Moreover, the Israelis achieved total dominance over Iranian airspace, helping facilitate the US strikes.

However, the deeply buried Fordow underground site is the lynchpin of the Iranian nuclear program, and it was unclear how effective Israeli actions were going to be at taking out this heavily fortified complex with thousands of centrifuges.  American intervention now provides much greater confidence that Iran’s illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities will not be reconstituted any time soon.

Five American Presidents had promised that Iran would never be allowed to get nuclear weapons. All tried diplomacy, accompanied by sanctions and other forms of pressure, to try to find a resolution. But the time for diplomacy to work had simply run out.

The International Atomic Energy Agency recently found that Iran was rapidly making 60% enriched uranium – which has no civilian use – and has created enough to produce at least nine bomb cores within a week or two.

Recent intelligence revelations also show that, in recent months, senior Iranian nuclear scientists had been working to secretly develop all the components needed for nuclear weapons as well as making plans to install them into missile warheads.

Given this reality, US President Trump deserves to be commended for making a difficult but essential and courageous decision to intervene in the interests of not only the US, but of global security and stability – including Australia’s own national security interests.

President Trump says Iran “must now make peace.” Australia should now support diplomatic efforts to ensure measures are put in place that guarantee the rogue regime in Iran is never again able to present a similar menace to its neighbours, to international stability, or to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement.

Dr Colin Rubenstein is Executive Director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.