On June 22, 2025, the United States bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Debate quickly arose over the extent of the damage. Immediately afterward, U.S. President Donald Trump declared “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” The next day, however, his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used softer language, saying the strikes had inflicted “serious damage.” Soon after, CNN and The New York Times, citing leaked U.S. intelligence documents, reported that the facilities had in fact suffered no major damage, and that Iran’s nuclear program would be delayed only by months.

In short, the scale of the damage is disputed. What is not in doubt is that the U.S. and Israel attacked nuclear facilities. Fortunately, no large-scale radioactive contamination has been reported so far. But such risks always exist. The concern is that these strikes may have shattered the long-standing taboo that “nuclear facilities must not be attacked.” It is striking that while the media eagerly cover the debate over the extent of the damage, they hardly focus on the important fact that nuclear facilities were attacked. The erosion of this taboo has already been advancing in the context of the Russia–Ukraine war, where Russia has attacked and occupied Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

Yet, attacks on nuclear facilities long predate this war. In 1981, Israeli fighter jets bombed and destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor. In 2007, Israel also destroyed a Syrian reactor. Later, near the end of President George W. Bush’s second term, the U.S. and Israel began a cyberattack on Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Working together, they planted malware into Siemens-made computers that controlled thousands of centrifuges.

At the time, Natanz’s systems were not connected to the internet. How the malware was inserted remains uncertain. One account suggests Dutch intelligence, acting at the request of U.S. and Israeli agencies, recruited an Iranian-Dutch engineer to carry it out. Another version claims Dutch intelligence used another Dutch engineer. That individual later died in a motorcycle “accident” in Dubai, surrounded by speculation.

Whichever the method, once inside the system, the malware caused centrifuges to malfunction while feeding operators false data that showed everything running normally. This delayed detection, magnifying the damage.

The malware was developed by U.S. and Israeli intelligence. It later became known as Stuxnet. Israel’s Unit 8200, a military cyber unit, reportedly played a key role. Perhaps for this reason, during this June’s fighting Iran claimed to have targeted the Unit 8200 headquarters with missiles.

The cyber operations against Iran probably began around 2007, and when Bush left office, President Obama continued them.

This sabotage campaign was, in many ways, historic. Cyberattacks that stole or destroyed data were already common. Attacks on pipelines had also occurred. But never before had a cyberattack physically destroyed equipment at a nuclear facility. The combination of cyber operations and physical damage of the nuclear facilities was unprecedented.

By the time the malware was exposed in 2010, over a thousand centrifuges had been destroyed. At the time, Russia warned of the danger of a “new Chernobyl”—a reference to the 1986 disaster at Ukraine’s Chernobyl plant, then part of the Soviet Union, where a reactor explosion spread radioactive contamination across much of Europe.

Through Stuxnet, the U.S. and Israel weakened the taboo against attacking nuclear facilities. This year’s U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran represent a continuation of that precedent. That no Western country has condemned these attacks is, while unsurprising, deeply regrettable. The silence of the same countries that so loudly denounced Russia’s attacks on the Ukrainian plants starkly illustrates their double standard. Even worse, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz went so far as to say that Israel was “doing the dirty work for us.” The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has inspected Iran’s nuclear facilities, has also issued no condemnation. The silence is deafening.

China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and others have condemned the bombings. Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba declared Israel’s actions “unacceptable.” This deserves recognition: among advanced industrial nations, few leaders directly criticized Israel.

Yet at the subsequent G7 summit, Japan joined the signatories of a statement affirming Israel’s right to defend itself. The inconsistency of Japanese diplomacy is regrettable. By contrast, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), last year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, issued a statement condemning the attacks. Japan—whose Foreign Ministry proudly proclaims that, as the world’s only country to suffer wartime nuclear attacks, it has led international discussions on disarmament and non-proliferation—should also raise its voice clearly. It is the right thing to do. And for a country with many nuclear power plants of its own, upholding the taboo against attacking nuclear facilities is essential for its own security.

The U.S., which struck Iran, still possesses over 5,000 nuclear warheads. Israel, though never officially acknowledging it, is a nuclear-armed state with an estimated 90 warheads. It is well known that nuclear facilities exist both above and below ground in Dimona in the Negev desert, and that warheads are dispersed to other sites.

Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is not subject to IAEA inspections. Thus, two nuclear-armed states—the U.S. and Israel—attacked non-nuclear Iran, striking facilities under IAEA safeguards. Under international law, this was a use of force that cannot be justified.

As noted at the outset, there is disagreement over the extent of physical damage. But there is no doubt that the authority of international law, and the norm forbidding attacks on nuclear facilities, have suffered a severe blow.

If there is any faint silver lining to the 12-day military clash involving Israel, Iran, and the U.S., it is that Iran—despite its own nuclear facilities being attacked—did not retaliate against Israel’s nuclear sites.

Some reports have claimed that Iran did carry out such attacks, and social media has been rife with videos imagining them. But at least so far, Israeli media have reported no strikes on their country’s nuclear facilities.

As the world lost its senses, was Iran the only one bound by the taboo against striking nuclear facilities, even after being attacked itself? These are the thoughts that come to mind in this 80th year since the summers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.