On Thursday, the Israeli military announced it had completed “a wave of extensive strikes in Isfahan targeting infrastructure.” In the same 24-hour period, Israel killed Alireza Tangsiri, the commander of the IRGC’s navy, in a strike on Bandar Abbas, along with the head of the navy’s intelligence branch and the commander of Iran’s First Fleet. Israeli military officials told NPR they were speeding up targeting over the next 48 hours, focusing on destroying arms factories “in case a ceasefire is declared.”
On the same day, President Trump extended his deadline for striking Iran’s power grid by 10 days to April 6, saying Iran had asked for more time. He told Fox News that Iran’s leaders “are begging to make a deal.”
The media framed this as a contradiction: Israel is escalating while Trump is extending deadlines. But this is not a contradiction. It is a sequence, and the United States and Israel have run it before.
Israel spent nine days shaping the battlefield before Operation Midnight Hammer
On June 13, 2025, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a massive air campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities, military sites, and IRGC commanders. Over nine days, the Israeli Air Force used 200 fighter jets and drones to strike over 100 locations inside Iran. Israel destroyed Natanz’s above-ground enrichment facility, knocked out power infrastructure feeding the centrifuge halls, hit air defenses surrounding every major nuclear site, struck Isfahan’s uranium conversion facility, and killed 11 nuclear scientists and 30 senior IRGC commanders.
On June 22, the United States launched Operation Midnight Hammer. Seven B-2 bombers flew nonstop from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and dropped 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators on Fordow and Natanz, while submarines fired over two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at Isfahan. It was the first combat use of the 30,000-pound bunker buster. The strikes lasted 25 minutes. CSIS assessed that the attacks “severely damaged” Iran’s enrichment infrastructure.
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Israel did the shaping. The United States delivered the strike that only American munitions could accomplish. The division of labor was precise: Israel destroyed the defenses and the surrounding military capability so that the B-2s could fly into permissive airspace and hit the buried targets without opposition.
The diplomatic cover was identical to what is happening now. Three days before Israel launched Rising Lion, U.S. and Iranian negotiators were scheduled to meet in Oman for a sixth round of talks. Oman’s foreign minister had been publicly declaring that diplomacy was producing “tangible results.” Negotiations were “within reach.” Then, Israel struck.
The same sequence is repeating
In the current operation, Israel has systematically struck the same target categories that defined Operation Rising Lion, applied to the sites and commanders that survived Midnight Hammer.
On March 1, Israel targeted three of Natanz’s entrances, two for personnel and one for vehicles. The FDD assessed that the purpose was “to block access by Iranian officials or to prevent recovery of assets in the event of regime collapse.” Israel struck a covert nuclear weapons development site called Minzadehei, where Jerusalem had tracked Iranian nuclear scientists relocating weapons-related infrastructure after the June 2025 war. Israel hit the Lavisan/Mojdeh complex housing facilities operated by the administrative arm of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. On March 21, the US struck Natanz again with bunker busters.
On Thursday, Israel launched “extensive strikes” on Isfahan. The Alma Research Center reported that Isfahan’s industrial university was targeted along with additional strikes in Mashhad, Shiraz, and Bandar Abbas. The killing of Tangsiri, the IRGC Navy commander, eliminates the man responsible for the Strait of Hormuz blockade and the mining operations that threaten any naval approach.
The target set is Rising Lion applied to the 2026 battlefield: nuclear site infrastructure, IRGC command, and defensive capability around the sites where enriched uranium is stored.
Isfahan believed to be where the uranium is
Isfahan is not a random target in a general air campaign. Multiple assessments have indicated that much of Iran’s approximately 440 kilograms of 60-percent enriched uranium is believed to be buried deep underneath the Isfahan nuclear complex. The U.S. collapsed Isfahan’s tunnel entrances with Tomahawk missiles during Midnight Hammer in June 2025. Iran has since taken steps to reinforce those entrances, presumably to protect surviving assets.
When Israel hits “infrastructure” in Isfahan, it is not conducting general bombardment. It is destroying the military capability, road networks, defensive positions, and garrison forces surrounding the place where the uranium is stored. It is ensuring that when a ground force arrives to extract or neutralize that material, there is nothing left to defend it.
The FDD explicitly recommended that the U.S. and Israel revisit the Isfahan tunnel complex, noting that “the regime had stored a portion of its highly enriched uranium there in easily transportable canisters.” The FDD also recommended targeting Pickaxe Mountain near Natanz, stating that neutralizing it “would likely require U.S. massive ordnance penetrators delivered by B-2 bombers or, alternatively, commando teams capable of infiltrating and destroying the facility from within.”
The diplomatic track is the same cover story
In June 2025, Oman’s foreign minister was declaring a breakthrough while Israel was finalizing its strike plans for Rising Lion. The talks were real. The breakthrough claims were genuine from Oman’s perspective. And none of it stopped the operation from launching on schedule.
On Feb. 27 Oman’s foreign minister announced on CBS that peace was “within reach.” The next morning, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury, killing the Supreme Leader.
Now, in late March 2026, Trump is extending deadlines, claiming “very good and productive conversations,” and floating a 15-point ceasefire plan. Pakistan is facilitating “indirect talks.” Mediators are pushing for in-person meetings. Trump says Iran is “begging to make a deal.”
And while every camera points at the negotiations, Israel is conducting the most intensive strikes on Isfahan and IRGC commanders since the war began, with NPR confirming that the Israeli military is accelerating its targeting over the next 48 hours. A person briefed on the US-Israeli operation told NPR that the US and Israel “are coordinated on all targets,” despite Trump publicly claiming he “knew nothing” about specific Israeli strikes.
The diplomatic track and the military track are not in tension. They are the same operation viewed from two angles. The talks buy time and provide political cover. The strikes shape the battlefield. When the shaping is complete, the next phase begins.
This time the sequence ends with a ground operation
In June 2025, Israel’s shaping preceded American bunker-buster strikes. The objective was to damage Iran’s nuclear facilities from the air. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the enrichment infrastructure was wrecked, but the highly enriched uranium may have survived, buried in tunnels.
This time, the facilities are already destroyed. The objective is the material that survived Midnight Hammer. That material cannot be taken from the air. It requires ground forces, specifically the kind of counterproliferation teams that the Joint Special Operations Command has maintained since the 1990s.
As earlier Vision Times analysis argued, the force package now converging on the Middle East, two Marine Expeditionary Units, the 82nd Airborne Division with a division headquarters, is configured for a multi-objective ground operation, not a single island raid. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress that the uranium would need to be physically secured: “People are going to have to go and get it.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers the intelligence community has “high confidence” in the uranium’s location.
Israel shaped the battlefield before Midnight Hammer. The United States followed nine days later with the strike only American forces could deliver. Israel is shaping the battlefield again. The difference is that in June 2025, the objective required bunker busters. This time, the objective requires ground forces. The enriched uranium that survived Midnight Hammer cannot be destroyed from the air. It has to be physically seized, and the force assembling in the Middle East this week was built to do exactly that.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Vision Times.
