Donald Trump compares Iran strikes to 1945 Hiroshima, Nagasaki bombings; triggers criticism

NATO Summit 2025: US President Donald Trump, speaking at the NATO Summit on Wednesday, drew sharp global attention with a contentious remark comparing recent US military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II in 1945. “That hit ended the war,” Trump said, drawing a rather controversial parallel between the two events.

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 Defence 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 Hiroshima

Donald Trump's comparison of Iran strikes 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 scepticism 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 Laura Jenkins, a historian at the University of Chicago.

“The Trump Hiroshima analogy not only distorts history, it risks trivialising 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.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 marked a pivotal moment in World War II. After Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, which drew the US into the war, the United States sought a decisive end to the conflict.

The first bomb, Little Boy, was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August, instantly killing tens of thousands and devastating the city. Three days later, Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki, causing similar destruction.

These bombings inflicted unprecedented devastation and loss of life, leading Japan to announce its surrender on 15 August 1945, effectively ending World War II.

In the immediate aftermath, tens of thousands died instantly from the blasts and intense heat, while many more suffered severe burns, injuries, and radiation sickness. Hospitals were largely destroyed, leaving survivors without adequate care.

Long-term effects have persisted for decades; survivors, known as hibakusha, experienced increased rates of cancer, genetic damage, and psychological trauma, including PTSD.

Even 70 years later, Japanese Red Cross hospitals continue to treat atomic bomb survivors suffering from radiation-related illnesses.

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 the US, military analysts and historians caution against overstating their impact.

“What happened in Hiroshima was a singular tragedy,” said political scientist 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.”