Khamenei vows to punish Israel in first words since US attacks

Protests were held on Sunday in far-flung cities against the US attack on Iran's nuclear sites.

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Veteran Iran watchers in the United States were quoted by public broadcaster NPR as saying that while the US attacks could have delayed Iran's nuclear program, bombing can achieve only so much.

"The program has been seriously set back, but there's a lot of odds and ends," David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, told NPR.

Professor Jeffrey Lewis at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies said air attacks were not a cure-all.

"Even the most brilliant bombing campaign, probably is not going to get us where we want to be," Lewis said.

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United Nations envoys from Russia and China on Sunday expressed strong objections to the US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, deepening the superpowers' rift with Washington as their mutual friend Iran is bombed.

"Again we're being asked to believe the US's fairy tales, to once again inflict suffering on millions of people living in the Middle East," Russia's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.

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US President Donald Trump appeared to welcome the idea of Iran regime change and signaled he would accept little opposition as he tore into a lawmaker critic from his own Republican party on social media.

Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie called out Trump on the President's sharp post welcoming Iran regime change if Tehran doesn't "Make Iran Great Again".

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"Peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved by the use of force," China's United Nations Ambassador Fu Cong said.

"Diplomatic means to address the Iranian nuclear issue haven't been exhausted, and there's still hope for a peaceful solution."

China helped mediate a regional spat between Iran and Saudi Arabia and has signed vast but mostly unrealized economic deals with Tehran.

Iran supplies Russia with drones fired into Ukraine, and the two Western pariah states have drawn closer.

Russia's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia hit out a what he called the rerun of the US Iraq War, based on weapons of mass destruction which were never found.

"Again we're being asked to believe the US's fairy tales, to once again inflict suffering on millions of people living in the Middle East," Nebenzia said.

"This cements our conviction that history has taught our US colleagues nothing.