Trump’s Hiroshima-Nagasaki Analogy on Iran
Addressing the press at the NATO Summit 2025, President Donald Trump claimed that Saturday’s US-led strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were decisive in ending the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.
“That hit ended the war. I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing, that ended that war. This ended that with the war. If we didn’t take that out, they would have been, they’d be fighting right now,” Donald Trump said.
US Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities
The United States launched a coordinated assault on three major nuclear sites in Iran—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—using bunker-buster bombs designed to damage fortified underground facilities.
While Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared the strikes a “complete success,” intelligence assessments reported by CNN offer a more tempered view. Though surface structures suffered significant damage, the core infrastructure of Iran’s nuclear programme—including centrifuges and enriched uranium stockpiles—remained largely operational.
Pentagon analysts noted that the attacks likely delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions by only a few months, rather than crippling them entirely.
Despite this, Trump and Hegseth insisted that Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons had been “obliterated”.
Geopolitical Context of Trump’s Iran Comparison to Hirsohima
Donald Trump’s Iran comparison to Hiroshima and Nagasaki comes amid a period of heightened military tension between Iran and Israel, with both nations exchanging strikes in recent weeks. Iran has maintained that its nuclear programme is intended for peaceful purposes, while Israel and its allies have expressed deep skepticism and concern over its weapons potential.
Critics have warned that equating precision military strikes with the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is both misleading and potentially inflammatory.
“There’s no comparing conventional military strikes, however forceful, with the catastrophic and indiscriminate destruction of atomic bombs,” said Dr. Laura Jenkins, a historian at the University of Chicago.
“The Trump Hiroshima analogy not only distorts history, it risks trivializing the legacy of nuclear warfare.”
Others have pointed to the broader diplomatic fallout such remarks could have, especially with nations such as Japan, a key NATO ally, which continues to grapple with the long-term trauma of the 1945 bombings.
The Atomic Bombing of Japan: A Historic Parallel?
To fully understand the controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s comments, it’s important to revisit the historical events he invoked.
The US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 were the culmination of years of global conflict and aimed to force Japan into surrender, ending World War II.
On 6 August 1945, the US dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
On 9 August, the second bomb, “Fat Man,” was detonated over Nagasaki.
The destruction was unprecedented: tens of thousands were killed instantly, with many more succumbing to radiation sickness, burns, and injuries in the months and years that followed.
The bombings are credited with prompting Japan’s unconditional surrender on 15 August 1945, but they also opened an era of nuclear fear and arms proliferation that shaped the Cold War and beyond.
Lasting Impact on Japan: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Survivors
The effects of US atomic bombings in Japan continue to reverberate through the east-Asian nation. Known as hibakusha, survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have faced elevated rates of cancer, genetic disorders, and psychological trauma.
90% of doctors and nurses in Hiroshima perished or were injured in the initial blast, leaving the city’s population largely without medical care.
Radiation led to a dramatic rise in miscarriages, birth defects, and leukemia.
Survivors and their descendants have struggled with mental health issues, including PTSD, often intensified around the anniversaries of the bombings.
Japanese Red Cross hospitals still provide care for thousands suffering from radiation-related illnesses, underscoring the enduring legacy of the 1945 attacks.
The Fallout of Controversial Analogy
Donald Trump’s Hiroshima Iran comparison has reignited global conversations around the ethics and implications of nuclear analogies in modern warfare. While US President Trump insists the Iran nuclear strikes were as decisive as the 1945 atomic bombings in Japan by US, military analysts and historians caution against overstating their impact.
“What happened in Hiroshima was a singular tragedy,” said political scientist Dr. Afsaneh Farhadi. “Invoking that to justify modern conventional warfare is both inaccurate and insensitive, especially when the evidence suggests Iran’s programme is still active.”
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