US President Donald Trump claimed that the States had taken “complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” He further warned Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei saying that “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The long-simmering tensions between Israel and Iran have exploded into open warfare since Friday, June 13, 2025, marking an unprecedented period of direct military confrontation. Israel initiated a major campaign of fighter jet and drone strikes across Iran, targeting nuclear and military sites, including surface-to-surface missile production facilities, detection radar sites, and surface-to-air missile launchers. Reports indicate strikes on residential areas and fuel depots, with Iran’s health ministry reporting at least 224 fatalities and over 1,200 injuries, mostly civilians. Israeli forces have also reportedly killed several top Iranian military commanders and atomic scientists. The IDF claims to have destroyed one-third of Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers and achieved “full air superiority over Tehran,” also striking an Iranian refueling aircraft 2,300 km away.

In retaliation, Tehran has launched barrages of missiles and drones, hitting Israeli cities and towns, causing at least 24 deaths and 592 injuries, with a major oil refinery in Haifa among the targets. The IDF confirmed intercepting over 100 Iranian UAVs.

The international community, including China, Turkey, and G7 leaders, has urgently called for de-escalation, but both sides remain defiant. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserts the offensive aims to thwart “existential” nuclear and missile threats and has not ruled out targeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggesting it would “end the conflict.” The UN’s IAEA reported physical damage to an above-ground component of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility but normal external radiation levels, while warning of potential internal contamination. Amidst the crisis, planned nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington were called off.

Analysis: The truth about the success of US airstrikes on Iran lies buried deep underground

By David Blevins, US correspondent

The B2 bombers have returned to their US base, but questions about the success of their airstrikes last weekend hang in the air.

President Donald Trump is pushing back hard against a leaked preliminary intelligence report, suggesting the audacious bombing raid only set Iran’s nuclear ambition back “by months.”

“It’s destroyed… Iran will not have nuclear. We blew it up. It’s blown to kingdom come,” Trump told a press conference.

A statement from CIA director John Ratcliffe backed that up.

But Democrats say Trump was claiming Iran’s underground facilities had been “obliterated” long before any intelligence had been received.

Arizona senator Mark Kelly, who flew 39 combat missions in the first Gulf War, said: “He’s just saying that because he wants that to be the narrative.

“He said it the night of the strike, without any information, not even satellite imagery, and certainly without any information about what happened underneath 200 feet of rock and granite and dirt.

“The likelihood of something underground like that being obliterated is incredibly low,” he added.

Senator Kelly blamed Trump for Iran’s enrichment growing from “less than 4% to, public reporting, 60%”, accusing him of “chucking the Obama deal out the window.”

The leaking of the classified report from the Pentagon and subsequent debate has enraged US defence secretary Pete Hegseth.

“If you want to make an assessment of what happened at Fordow, you better get a big shovel and go really deep because Iran’s nuclear programme is obliterated,” he said.

“Those that dropped the bombs precisely in the right place know exactly what happened when they exploded, and you know who else knows? Iran.”

The White House is railing against what it calls the “fake news media” for reporting the content of the leaked report.

But the success of a military operation has become a battle of political narratives in Congress.

That will last longer than a 12-day war because the truth lies buried, quite literally, deep underground.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s decision to order strikes in Iran — among the most consequential he has made as commander in chief — is the latest example of a U.S. president’s taking military action without first seeking congressional approval. And experts say that, while his power over American armed forces isn’t absolute, there’s most likely little lawmakers will do.

Trump is supposed to submit to Congress a legal justification for having bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities within 48 hours after the operation began. Unlike tangible consequences Trump has faced for other moves in which he tested the bounds of executive power — such as court rulings against him — any price he might pay for this decision would largely play out in the American political arena and on the world stage, where the U.S. reputation is on the line.

“Presidents over the last 25 years have certainly been stretching the envelope of presidential authority to use force,” John Bellinger, adjunct senior fellow for international and national security law at the Council on Foreign Relations, told NBC News. “Using force more and more, deploying the military more and more, without congressional authority — and Congress, with a few persistent objectors, has simply acquiesced in that.”

The limits on presidential power to use military force are set out in sections of the U.S. Constitution, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and the United Nations Charter.

Article 1 of the Constitution makes it clear: Congress — and no other part of the federal government — has the power to declare war. But that’s something Congress hasn’t formally done in more than 80 years, since World War II.

While Congress has approved what are called Authorizations of Military Force and appropriated funds to assist in ongoing conflicts, its ability to control when the nation is at war has been diminished, in part by its own actions, while the power of the office of the president has expanded.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is a law designed to provide a check on the president’s power to involve the United States in military action without the consent of Congress. It was passed over President Richard Nixon’s veto in the wake of the Vietnam War, which Congress never actually declared as a war, though it did authorize force in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

According to the War Powers Resolution, “in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced” when war hasn’t been declared, the president has 48 hours to notify, in writing, the speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tempore. The act requires that the notification include why the president took the action, the authority under which it was taken and “the estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement.” And the resolution also says any time a president uses the armed forces without notifying Congress beforehand, that use must be terminated within 60 days.

Bellinger said any notification to Congress that Trump sends, which Bellinger told NBC News the Justice Department is likely to prepare, will probably rely on the authority granted to the president in Article II of the Constitution, which makes the president the commander in chief. President Joe Biden cited Article II in 2021 after he ordered strikes in Iraq and Syria that he said were targeting an “Iranian-backed militia group responsible for recent attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq.”

Presidents testing limits

Though Congress acted after the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam to restrain presidents in their use of military force, recent decades have seen presidents push against those restraints.

On March 23, 1999, the Senate approved NATO airstrikes against what was then Yugoslavia to force a Serbian withdrawal from the province of Kosovo. But when the strikes began 24 hours later, the House had yet to approve the resolution, and a month later, in a tie vote, it rejected the Senate resolution amid increased concerns of greater U.S. military involvement in the area.

In March 2011, a coalition of NATO forces, which included the United States, began a military campaign to intervene in the Libyan civil war to protect civilians. While President Barack Obama ordered it, he didn’t seek advance approval from Congress. By June, the House had passed a resolution calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region and demanded that the Obama administration explain why it didn’t ask Congress for permission first.

In April 2017, during Trump’s first term, he didn’t seek congressional authorization before he ordered a missile strike in Syria in response to the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons. “It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons,” he said in televised remarks after the strikes.

Bellinger, who helped draft Authorizations for Military Force under President George W. Bush, said it isn’t always that way. On Jan. 12, 1991, the Senate voted in favor of a resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, after President George H.W. Bush asked it to do so. In September 2001 and again in October 2002, President George W. Bush asked Congress to authorize the use of armed force, first in response to the Sept. 11 attacks and then to target Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi government.

“To strike a country like Iran, I think this does go far beyond what other presidents have done,” Bellinger said.

Congress, however, may not have the appetite to fight Trump over it.

“Given that a lot of people in Congress tend not to want to buck the president or obviously some of them agree with his actions anyway,” Curtis Bradley, a professor at University of Chicago Law School, said in an interview, “it seems unlikely at the moment that Congress would, you know, use its statutory powers to try to end or restrict the conflict.”

U.S. courts are also unlikely to get involved. The judicial branch has limited authority over a president when it comes to his decisions about military action and the use of force.

“The lower courts, when they get these cases, tend to say, sorry, this is very complicated,” Bradley said. “They say it’s really to be resolved by the political institutions and not the courts.”

“Even if it is unconstitutional, I don’t see it’s likely that courts will be the ones to police that,” he added.

The U.N.

International law, including the U.N. Charter, lays out very clearly what is and isn’t justified when a country decides to use force.

Article II of the U.N. Charter orders “all members” to settle their international disputes “by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”

While a separate section of the U.N. Charter allows for military action to be taken in self-defense, experts say, that argument will be harder for the Trump administration to make in this scenario.

“The idea that you could just … attack because, in the long run, you think your strategic interests will be harmed does not fit with the charter under anybody’s reasonable definition of self-defense,” Bradley said.

But what does a violation of the U.N. Charter mean? Not much, experts say.

“It wouldn’t be the first time, unfortunately, where the U.S. is doing something that probably violates the charter,” Bradley said. “That ends up being more about diplomacy, rather than something that would directly stop a president from acting.”

Bellinger believes that even without any direct domestic or international legal consequences, the implications of Trump’s decisions are wide-ranging. “It’s going to be more of a political cost at home, and it’s going to be more of a reputational cost for the United States around the world.”

What happened at today’s NATO summit?

The NATO summit at The Hague is now over and while Ukraine wasn’t the main item on the agenda, the ongoing war with Russia was still discussed.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a series of bilateral talks with foreign leaders, including a meeting with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the summit.

The Ukrainian president said he discussed how to achieve a ceasefire and real peace with Trump, adding the meeting was “substantive” and the pair discussed how to “protect our people”.

He also said the two leaders discussed the possible co-production of drones and that he told Trump “the facts of what is happening on the ground”.

Speaking this afternoon, Trump admitted he and Zelenskyy had previously had some “rough times” but that his Ukrainian counterpart “couldn’t have been nicer” today.

He said he will now speak with Vladimir Putin about the war and “see if we can get it ended”, adding that the Russian leader would “like to get out of this thing” and that the war has “been a mess for him”.

Answering a question about whether Putin has any territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine, Trump said “it’s possible”.

He also said he thinks the Russian president has “been misguided” and adds: “I’m very surprised, actually. I thought we should have settled that easily.”

US considering extra Patriots for Ukraine

At one moment during his remarks, Trump was asked a question about the Patriot missile systems by a woman who revealed her husband was serving in the Ukrainian army.

“That’s a very good question,” Trump said. “And I wish you a lot of luck. I mean, I can see it’s very upsetting to you. So say hello to your husband.”

On the question itself, Trump said he is considering sending more Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine to help Kyiv fend off Russian attacks.

He said the air-defence missiles are “very hard to get” but that “we are going to see if we can make some of them available.”

In other Ukraine news…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that a ceasefire was in effect, soon after Iranian state-linked media announced Tehran had fired its “last round” of missiles at Israel.

“THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social around 1:00 a.m. stateside.

The ceasefire announcement came after Iran carried out retaliatory missile strikes at the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

Within hours of the declaration, Israel accused Iran of violating the ceasefire with further missile strikes — which Tehran denied, according to Iranian media.

Trump said he was “not happy” with both Tehran and Israel, urging the Jewish state not to go ahead with a retaliatory missile strike against Iran.

CNBC reporters covered the Middle East conflict on air and online, reporting from Washington, D.C., London, Dubai, San Francisco and Englewood Cliffs, N.J, and Singapore.