Iran’s “Strategic Patience/Restraint” Will Ensure Defeat, Not Victory
Posted by Internationalist 360° on June 14, 2025
Iran’s security establishment still does not understand where they are.
This is an existential regime change war, not a bit of light evening sparring to be conducted in rounds of orderly missile salvos on select military targets.
If they do not switch to a more dynamic and expansive approach which has the possibility of rendering the Zionist entity inoperable, in concert with a wide-ranging assassination programme, the Republic will simply cease to exist in what is to come.
They seem, as has been the case since 2007, fundamentally incapable of even recognising Zionist military strategy, let alone beginning to match it.
https://t.co/e8o02ilyAm
— David Miller (@Tracking_Power) June 13, 2025
It’s past time to talk about deterrence. The Zionists have not been deterred and NATO states have not been deterred.
It is indeed existential: either the Zionist project rules all of West Asia; continues to rule Europe and the US; and expands its already long reach in Africa, Latin America and the rest of Asia, or the Islamic Republic continues to exist and has to establish a new security regime for West and Central Asia under its nuclear security umbrella.
If the Republic is to survive, the frontiers of the war must expand and no target can be inconceivable.… https://t.co/Zag07hn1XA
— David Miller (@Tracking_Power) June 14, 2025
Mr Shahriari is correct. The current Iranian doctrine has yielded nothing but failure and catastrophe.
The security of the Islamic Republic — and of West Asia in general — requires the urgent implementation of a new Iranian security doctrine which is genuinely committed to the imminent dismantling of the Zionist project not just in Occupied Palestine but across the region. Any interruption of that process by external forces would have to be met with the requisite consequences in their own geography, wherever they are.
It cannot be that West Asia alone pays the price in instability for the existence of the Zionist project.… https://t.co/qqueHVlLws
— David Miller (@Tracking_Power) June 14, 2025
Addressing a public meeting in Tehran, Professor David Miller (@Tracking_Power) urges the Islamic Republic of Iran to immediately carry out its pledged Operation True Promise 3 against the genocidal Zionist entity!#TruePromise3 pic.twitter.com/DwPtGYt71s
— Spinwatch (@SpinwatchOrg) June 13, 2025
“The Islamic Republic of Iran must confront and defeat the Zionist regime — or face destruction itself,” declares Professor David Miller (@Tracking_Power) during a panel discussion in Tehran.#DismantleZionism#TruePromise3 pic.twitter.com/CZ00i1zqd3
— Spinwatch (@SpinwatchOrg) June 13, 2025
Professor David Miller (@Tracking_Power): Palestine, the Resistance Axis and the whole world depends on the revolutionary, anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist Islamic Republic of Iran to win!#DismantleZionism#TruePromise3 pic.twitter.com/RBsfCAO67y
— Spinwatch (@SpinwatchOrg) June 13, 2025
It would be a terrible mistake for Iran to once again treat this as a tit for tat operation that ends with deterrence. The opportunity for deterrence is gone
This is all out war.
This is the last war.
The existential war.
The Israelis saw it that way from the start. If Iran… pic.twitter.com/RppAGL7EcM
— Syrian Girl (@Partisangirl) June 14, 2025
Iran is going to retaliate. But the question is how?
Here's my analysis:
Iran's enemies speak of peace while they plan for war. They did this before true promise 2. Iran would be fool to trust them again.
A retaliation even close to true promise 2 is not going to stop this war… pic.twitter.com/rxXqZuLYtr
— Syrian Girl (@Partisangirl) June 13, 2025
Iran shouldn’t stop. Israel will retaliate.
Don’t leave any weapons behind that can retaliate.
Don’t let them think.
Don’t let them plot.
Keep pummelling.
Decapitation Israeli leadership.
Close the Hormuz.
Build the bomb.
Forget about America.
Treat it like North Korea does.… pic.twitter.com/NlKmGUUfEj
— Syrian Girl (@Partisangirl) June 14, 2025
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/06/ ... t-victory/
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Rachel Blevins Interviews Brian Berletic on How the US-Israel Attack on Iran was Years in Planning
June 14, 2025
Here is the link to the 2009 policy paper Berletic refers to by the Brookings Institution, “Which Path to Persia.” https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/up ... rategy.pdf
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/06/rac ... -planning/
******
From Cassad's Telegram account:
Colonelcassad
Israel has issued a warning to Iranians to stay away from military and nuclear facilities.
Iran has issued a warning to Israelis to stay away from oil and nuclear facilities.
An announcement, so to speak.
***
Colonelcassad
Iran is ready to give up creating nuclear weapons in exchange for stopping Israeli attacks! Statement by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi! Iran has caved in and is begging for mercy!
Let's figure it out.
Iran has been publicly declaring for many years that it is not going to create nuclear weapons. There is also a corresponding fatwa from Rahbar Ali Khamenei (the country is now demanding that it be cancelled in light of the well-known events). Neither the IAEA, nor the US intelligence community - nor anyone in the world except Israel (1, 2) - has unequivocally stated that Iran has or is actually developing nuclear weapons (the Americans have recently denied such statements).
The current US-Iranian negotiations are stuck at the stage that was obvious from the start: Washington ultimately demanded that Tehran stop all nuclear research, agree to zero enrichment of uranium and give up even peaceful nuclear energy. This, by the way, is Israel's position - because, in its opinion, Iran should not have anything nuclear in any form. Naturally, the Iranians do not accept this and consider the right to develop peaceful nuclear energy to be their legal right.
That is, now the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran Abbas Araghchi has simply repeated once again the official and well-known position of his state, which has already been repeatedly voiced during the negotiations - we can sign an agreement to renounce the creation of nuclear weapons (because we are not going to create them anyway), but we will not renounce peaceful nuclear energy:
We are ready for any agreement that implies preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, if the goal of the agreement is to deprive Iran of its legal rights [to develop peaceful nuclear energy], then we are not ready for such an agreement.
And that's it. Absolutely nothing new, no sensations, no statements about renunciation of the creation of nuclear weapons in exchange for an end to Israeli bombing, because Iran has already lost the war and is now surrendering.
In what form Araghchi's policy statement was spread across Telegram channels is another question.
https://t.me/kief_point/27333 - магнит
Everything is to the point. There is no fundamental change in Iran's diplomatic position. What was said before the war began is still being said.
However, after the amusing reports two days ago that Iran would swallow and not respond, this is not surprising.
***
Colonelcassad
The Houthis have reported their participation in yesterday's attack on Israel.
"The Yemeni Armed Forces confirmed that they carried out a military operation against the Zionist regime over the past 24 hours, striking sensitive targets in Tel Aviv.
The strikes were carried out with several Palestine-2 hypersonic ballistic missiles at different times. The operation was fully coordinated with the Iranian army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The operation successfully achieved its goals.
We salute the Islamic Republic of Iran, its people, army and leadership, who courageously resist the Zionist aggression!
We remain true to our covenant with the people of Gaza and its fighters - until the aggression ends and the blockade is lifted.
We call on the countries and peoples of the Arab and Islamic world to urgently intervene to stop the Zionist crimes.
Take the path of jihad. Silence today is destruction tomorrow"
(c) Army Spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Sari.
***
The Israeli-Iranian War. Day 2
1. In response to Israel's ongoing attacks on Tehran, Kermashah, Isfahan, Natanz, Shiraz, etc., Israel attacked again tonight. Targets were hit in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Shiraz, Ashdod. The most extensive destruction was achieved in Tel Aviv and Haifa. The oil refinery in Haifa and the Weizmann Institute in Tel Aviv were hit, part of a high-rise building in Tel Aviv was demolished and some streets were turned into a branch of Gaza on the outskirts.
2. The attack demonstrated the power of modern Iranian missiles, which successfully penetrated the Iron Dome and American air defense systems, including THAAD. Hypersonics once again showed themselves to be excellent, demonstrating overwhelming superiority over current air defense systems. Israel sadly notes that Iran launches fewer missiles, but does so more accurately and effectively than in 2024.
3. After the attacks, Iran again announced that it would stop attacks on Israel if Israel stopped its aggression. Since Israel's attacks continued in the morning, we will see a third series of Iranian retaliatory strikes tonight. The IRGC and the Iranian military have the necessary sanction. As well as the resources of the missile cities, which were practically untouched by the Israeli attack.
4. The options for a nuclear deal with the US and a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz are still on the table. Iran is ready for both negotiations and tough scenarios. In addition to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, these include withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The impasse in nuclear negotiations with the US was a derivative of the US desire to deprive Iran of both nuclear energy and missile production programs. Iran has always been ready to exchange the renunciation of nuclear weapons for the lifting of sanctions and the free development of nuclear energy. It is not going to renounce missiles either.
5. The US has not yet publicly stated its desire to get involved in the war on Israel's side, which Israel really wants and asks for, but this option is on the table for them too, they are now just watching how effectively Israel copes on its own. Judging by the hysteria in Tel Aviv, the backlash turned out to be unexpectedly powerful for them. The US is also watching the reaction of other players. According to a number of unconfirmed reports, China and Pakistan are providing indirect support to Iran.
6. A number of attacks in Tehran, which were passed off as missile strikes, turned out to be ordinary sabotage by Israeli agents. At night, a group of people with a vehicle for launching drones was detained again in the capital of Iran. They hit 2 oil depots in Tehran. The number of arrests in Iran is in the dozens, patrols have been increased on the streets. It is obvious that Israel still has the ability to carry out internal attacks. Take note, our special services.
7. On Iran's nuclear facilities. The Fordow facility is intact. The Natanz facility - the underground part is intact, the above-ground structures are destroyed. The Isfahan plant - significantly damaged. Israel was unable to destroy the two main facilities. The Fordow facility is the most difficult target.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
Iran
Re: Iran
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Iran
Chris Hedges: The Folly of a War With Iran
June 15, 2025
Iran has a large arsenal of ballistic missiles it can unleash on Israel, as well as on American military installations in the region. While initial waves can be intercepted, repeated attacks would swiftly deplete the Israeli and U.S. air defense stockpiles.
And Now a Word From Our Monster – by Mr. Fish
By Chris Hedges
Original to ScheerPost
The neoconservatives who orchestrated the disastrous wars with Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya — and who were never held accountable for the profligate waste of $8 trillion taxpayer dollars, as well as $69 billion squandered in Ukraine — look set to lure Americans into yet another military fiasco with Iran.
Iran is not Iraq. Iran is not Afghanistan. Iran is not Lebanon. Iran is not Libya. Iran is not Syria. Iran is not Yemen. Iran is the seventeenth largest country in the world, with a land mass equivalent to the size of Western Europe.
It has a population of almost 90 million — 10 times greater than Israel — and its military resources, as well as alliances with China and Russia, make it a formidable opponent.
Iran launched retaliatory attacks Saturday on Israel following waves of Israeli strikes that hit nuclear facilities and killed several top Iranian military commanders and six nuclear scientists. There have been dozens of explosions over the skyline in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
There is video footage of at least one large explosion on the ground in Tel Aviv from an apparent missile strike and reports of other explosions in some half dozen sites in and around Tel Aviv.
“Our revenge has just started, they will pay a high price for killing our commanders, scientists and people,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters. The official added that “nowhere in Israel will be safe” and that “our revenge will be painful.”
“They think it’ll be an easy war,” said Alastair Crooke, a former British diplomat and member of British intelligence (MI6) who spent decades in the Middle East. He told me of the neocons when I interviewed him.
“They want to reassert American power and leadership,” he said. “They feel that every so often throwing a small country against the wall and smashing it up is good for this.”
These neocons, bonded with the Israeli leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, he went on, “will not tolerate any rival power, any challenge to American leadership and American greatness.” They will create facts on the ground – a war between Israel and Iran – that will “pull Trump into a war with Iran.”
You can see my interview with Crooke here.
While Iran’s air force is weak, with many of its fighter planes decades old, it is well supplied with Russian air defense batteries and Chinese anti-ship missiles, as well as mines and coastal artillery.
It can shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil chokepoint that facilitates the passage of 20 percent of the world’s oil supply. This would double or triple the price of oil and devastate the global economy.
Iran has a large arsenal of ballistic missiles it can unleash on Israel, as well as on American military installations in the region. While initial waves can be intercepted, repeated attacks would swiftly deplete the Israeli and U.S. air defense stockpiles.
Israel is not equipped to endure a war of attrition, such as the eight year conflict between Iran and Iraq that ended — despite U.S. support for Saddam Hussein’s regime — in a stalemate, or as in Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon that eventually forced it to withdraw in May 2000, after repeated losses suffered from Hezbollah.
When Iran, in its Operation True Promise, launched over 300 ballistic and cruise missiles at Israel’s military and intelligence sites on April 13 and 14, 2023, in retaliation for an Israeli strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the U.S. intercepted the vast majority.
“Israel cannot fight off an Iranian missile attack,” John Mearsheimer, a West Point graduate and a professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago, told me. “You have this very interesting situation where not only can Israel not win these wars, but they’ve turned [them] into protracted wars” in which “Israel is heavily dependent on the United States.”
“We have lots of assets in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean, as well as in Israel itself and in the Red Sea,” he said. “These [are] designed to help Israel in its various wars. This includes not just Iran. It also includes the Houthis. It includes Hezbollah. So we are deeply involved in helping them fight. That was not the case in 1973 or any time before this war.”
Israel and its neocon allies believe they can eradicate Iran’s nuclear enrichment program by force and decapitate the Iranian government to install a client regime. That this non-reality-based belief system failed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, eludes them.
Israel, at the same time, wants to divert world attention from its genocide and mass starvation in Gaza and the accelerated ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Internet connection has been completely shut down in Gaza. The West Bank has been placed under a total blockade.
“The Israelis understand that if you have a general conflagration, people will not be paying much attention to the Palestinians,” Mearsheimer said. He added:
“People will be willing to give Israel more of a pass than they would in peaceful times. So let’s really ramp things up. Let’s have a general conflagration, and the end result will be that we can cleanse, on a massive scale, in Gaza and hopefully in the West Bank as well.”
You can see my interview with Mearsheimer here.
Iranian attacks would eventually leave hundreds, then thousands dead. Iran will appeal to Shi’ite Muslims through the region in what the Iranian leadership will describe as a war against Shi’ism, the second largest branch of Islam.
Saudi Arabia — which condemned the attacks on Iran — has two million Shi’ites who live in the oil-rich Eastern province. There are significant Shi’ite communities in Pakistan, Bahrain and Turkey. Shi’ites form the majority in Iraq.
The Shi’ite-dominated government in Baghdad will side with Iran. Yemen will continue to disrupt maritime traffic in the Red Sea and hit Israel with drone attacks. Hezbollah, however crippled, will renew attacks on northern Israel.
Expect terrorist attacks on U.S. bases in the region and perhaps even U.S. soil, as well as widespread sabotage of oil production in the Persian Gulf.
Iran will soon have enough fissile material to produce a nuclear weapon. A war will be a powerful incentive to build a bomb, especially with Israel possessing hundreds of nuclear weapons.
If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon Saudi Arabia will be next, with Turkey, Iraq and Egypt not far behind. The efforts to blunt nuclear proliferation in the Middle East will evaporate.
A war, as Mearsheimer points out, will also solidify the alliance between Iran, Russia and China.
“The United States has pushed China, Russia, North Korea and Iran very close together,” he noted.
“They form a tight knit bloc. Largely as a result of the Ukraine war, the Russians and the Chinese have been driven together, and given what’s happening in the Middle East, the Iranians and the Russians have been drawn together. The United States may be helping Israel, but it’s important to understand that the Russians are helping Iran. It’s not to America’s advantage to have China and Russia aligned closely against Washington. It’s not in America’s interest to have Russia and Iran working together against Israel and the United States.”
“There’s always the possibility that if a war heats up involving Iran on one side and the United States and Israel on the other side, that at some point down the road that the Russians will get dragged into that war, because the Russians now have a vested interest in supporting Iran.”
A war could last months, if not years. It will be an aerial duel, one largely between Israeli warplanes and missiles and Iranian missiles. But to subdue Iran it will require perhaps a million U.S. troops being deployed to invade and occupy the country.
An occupation of Iran will end with the same humiliating defeat the U.S. experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The fantasy of Israel and the neocons is that they can break Iran with aerial assaults, an updated version of Shock and Awe, the bombing campaign in Iraq in 2003. But the amount of ordinance required, especially to pulverize Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, will be massive.
Israel, in its decapitation of the leadership of Hezbollah in Beirut, including Hezbollah’s General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah, had to employ Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) 2,000-pound bunker-buster bombs.
“If you’re going to fly F-35’s with JDAM missiles, each of those is about 14 tons,” Crooke said. “It’s not just the weight, but the fuel they use. So you have to refuel maybe once, refuel twice, then you’ll have to fight your aircraft to suppress their defenses. You’re talking about a huge performance. Is America going to be able to do this? The Iranians have multiple air defense systems and good radars, over the horizon radars as well.”
So why go to war with Iran? Why walk away from a nuclear agreement that Iran did not violate? Why demonize a government that is the mortal enemy of the Taliban, along with other Takfiri groups, including al-Qaeda and Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL)? Why further destabilize a region already dangerously volatile?
The generals, politicians, intelligence services, neocons, weapons manufacturers, so-called experts, celebrity pundits and Israeli lobbyists are not about to take the blame for two decades of military fiascos. They need a scapegoat. It is Iran.
The humiliating defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq, the failed states of Syria and Libya, the proliferation of extremist groups and militias, many of which the U.S. initially trained and armed, along with the continued worldwide terrorist attacks, have to be someone else’s fault.
The chaos and instability we unleashed, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, left Iran as the dominant country in the region. Washington empowered its nemesis. It has no idea how to reverse this other than to attack it.
International law, along with the rights of almost 90 million people in Iran, is ignored just as the rights of the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria were ignored. The Iranians, whatever they feel about their leadership, do not see the United States as allies or liberators. They do not want to be attacked or occupied. They will resist. And the U.S. and Israel will pay.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/15/c ... with-iran/
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‘This is self-defense’: Iran will not stop strikes until US-backed Israeli war ends
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran has evidence of Washington’s direct support for the Israeli war
News Desk
JUN 15, 2025
An Iranian missile making impact in Tel Aviv. 13 June, 2025. (Photo credit: AP)
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on 15 June that Iran will not end its strikes against Israel until the US-backed Israeli war against the country is halted.
“We are defending ourselves; our defense is entirely legitimate,” the foreign minister said.
“This defense is our response to aggression. If the aggression stops, naturally our responses will also stop,” he added.
Araghchi condemned the Israeli attack on Iran’s offshore South Pars gas field on Saturday night, warning that “dragging the conflict to the Persian Gulf is a strategic mistake, and its aim is to drag the war beyond Iranian territory.”
“Israel’s attack would never have happened without the green light and support,” he affirmed, stressing that Iran does not believe US statements claiming Washington is not involved in the Israeli war. “It is necessary for the US to condemn Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities if they want to prove their goodwill.”
Araghchi also said Iran “has hard evidence that American forces have been supporting the Israeli regime.”
Iran carried out a large-scale missile and drone attack against Israel on 14 June, resulting in significant destruction in Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Iran’s military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) used advanced ballistic and hypersonic missiles including the Haj Qassem, Khaibar Shekan, Emad, and Qader missiles.
Footage showed heavily damaged and destroyed buildings in the Bat Yam area south of Tel Aviv.
Israeli oil refineries and army radio confirmed that pipelines and transmission lines in Haifa have been damaged by Iranian strikes, resulting in the shutdown of some downstream operations.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in the city of Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv, often described as Israel’s equivalent of MIT, also sustained damage in the latest Iranian missile barrage, with at least one laboratory building catching fire.
Over 100 were injured in Bat Yam alone, while 35 Israelis remain “missing,” according to Hebrew reports. At least ten Israelis have been killed since Iran launched Operation True Promise 3 on 13 June in response to Israel’s war.
The Israeli Ministry of Health Spokesperson announced that 385 patients arrived at hospitals within 24 hours.
Iran has also announced the interception by its air defenses of dozens of Israeli drones and missiles targeting its cities over the past two days.
The Iranian military said in recent hours that it will intensify its strikes if the US-backed war does not end.
Israel has bombed several military sites across Iran, as well as oil terminals in Tehran and a South Pars gas field facility.
The Israeli army announced on 15 June that it had attacked 80 targets in Tehran on Saturday evening, “including the headquarters of the Iranian Ministry of Defense, the headquarters of the nuclear project (SPND), and additional targets where the Iranian regime hid the nuclear archive,” as well as 170 targets since the start of the war.
According to a 14 June report by Middle East Eye (MEE), the US covertly delivered about 300 Hellfire missiles to Israel before it declared war on Iran.
Two Israeli officials claimed to Axios that US President Donald Trump was pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public, while approving in private. "We had a clear US green light," one official claimed.
Axios wrote that the “goal was to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel's target list wouldn't move to new locations.”
“Two months ago, I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to ‘make a deal.’ They should have done it! Today is day 61,” Trump said on 13 June.
https://thecradle.co/articles/this-is-s ... i-war-ends
US quietly armed Israel with hundreds of Hellfire missiles for Iran war
Donald Trump boasted to western outlets that the US 'knew everything' about the unprovoked Israeli attack on Iran
News Desk
JUN 14, 2025
(Photo credit: Lockheed Martin)
The US covertly delivered about 300 Hellfire missiles to the Israeli force before it attacked Iranian nuclear and civilian sites, Middle East Eye (MEE) reported on 14 June.
The laser-guided air-to-ground missiles, which are used for precision strikes and assassinations, reached Israel on Tuesday in preparation for Friday’s attack, which has killed at least 78 people, including Iranian military leaders, nuclear scientists, and civilians.
No public notification of the transfer was made because the shipments were already approved as part of a $7.4 billion arms deal that the US Congress was notified of in February 2025.
“The transfer of such a large quantity of Hellfires suggests that the White House was well-informed of Israel’s plans to attack the Islamic Republic of Iran,” MEE wrote, citing two US officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“There is a time and place for Hellfires. They were useful to Israel,” one senior US defense official told MEE.
Israel’s military used more than 100 warplanes in its attack on Friday, which also used heavier bombs to target Iran’s nuclear sites.
Among those killed in the Israeli attacks are the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Hossein Salami, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, and an aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ali Shamkhani.
Iran’s counterattack, dubbed “Operation True Promise III,” reportedly resulted in at least three civilian deaths and more than 60 injuries as multiple missiles bypassed the Iron Dome defense system and struck urban areas in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa, causing damage to homes and infrastructure.
Israeli officials confirmed damage to both residential and military sites, but reported limited fatalities.
The US military helped shoot down Iranian missiles launched toward Israel, two US officials informed Reuters on Friday.
One of the officials said the missiles were intercepted using ground-based missile defense systems and that US warplanes and naval ships have not been used to protect Israel so far.
“We knew everything,” US President Donald Trump boasted to Reuters on Friday.
MEE previously reported that the CIA was briefed on Israel’s attack plans in April and May. The spy agency was reportedly “impressed” with Israel's plan to attack Iran without direct US assistance.
Two Israeli officials claimed to Axios that Trump was pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public, while approving in private. "We had a clear US green light," one official claimed.
Axios wrote that the “goal was to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel's target list wouldn't move to new locations.”
MEE noted that in March, Trump agreed to give Iran a 60-day deadline to agree to a new nuclear agreement to avoid a US-Israeli attack. The Israeli attack on Iran on Friday took place exactly 61 days later.
As the negotiations were ongoing, the “US continued a steady supply of arms and weapons to Israel,” MEE wrote, citing two US officials.
https://thecradle.co/articles/us-quietl ... s-iran-war
Iranian air defenses shoot down Israeli F-35: Report
The F-35 is widely considered the world's most advanced attack aircraft, boasting stealth technology to help it avoid detection
News Desk
JUN 14, 2025
(Photo credit: AP)
Iran's air defense force successfully shot down an Israeli F-35 fighter jet in the western sky of the country on 14 June, Iranian state media IRNA reported.
The pilot reportedly ejected from the fighter jet. His fate is currently unknown.
It was the third Israeli F-35 shot down since the start of Israel's attack on Iranian military, nuclear, and civilian sites since Friday.
Israel has denied that Iran successfully targeted any F-35s.
Iranian Army commandos reportedly captured the pilot of a downed Israeli fighter jet.
Before this week, no F-35 jets were known to have been shot down in combat. The warplanes are thought to be difficult to target due to a combination of stealth, sensor fusion, electronic warfare capabilities, and advanced avionics.
Israel began the attack by carrying out strikes, which hit nuclear and missile facilities and killed several top Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists, and civilians.
The unprovoked Israeli attack has killed over 104 people and injured nearly 380 people.
Iran responded to the attack by firing dozens of missiles toward Israel late Friday and into Saturday.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that dozens of its missiles successfully reached their targets.
"Field reports, satellite images, and intercepted intelligence indicate that dozens of ballistic missiles effectively hit strategic targets. Despite claiming to have intercepted them, the enemy failed to counter the waves of missile attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran," an IRGC statement said.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said seven of its soldiers were wounded in a ballistic missile strike on central Israel during Iran's overnight retaliation. According to a statement, the troops were hospitalized and later released.
This marks the first official acknowledgment of Israeli military casualties since direct hostilities with Iran began two days ago.
https://thecradle.co/articles/iranian-a ... f35-report
Israel’s war on Iran was never just about nukes
Netanyahu has always sought more than just a halt to Iran’s nuclear program. In the current war, Tel Aviv sees a historic opportunity to finally bring down the Islamic Republic.
Qassem Qassem
JUN 14, 2025
Photo Credit: The Cradle
“The Iranian regime has never been weaker. This is your moment – Iranians – to rise up, make your voices heard. We stand with you.”
— Benjamin Netanyahu, 13 June 2025
Since the 1990s, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been unwavering in his strategic objective: stopping Iran’s nuclear program. At a time when even Washington was focused on peace deals and settlements with the Palestinians, Netanyahu was already fixated on Iran.
He criticized the peace agreement with the Palestinians but consistently highlighted the “Iranian threat.” At a time when this issue was not a global or regional priority, Netanyahu stood almost alone in warning against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
In the early 2000s, while Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon focused on crushing the Al-Aqsa Intifada and what he called “Palestinian terrorism,” Netanyahu was simultaneously warning about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Sharon viewed Iran as an international problem to be handled globally, but Netanyahu sought unilateral confrontation.
Netanyahu has always wanted to leave his mark on Jewish history and to be remembered as the leader who neutralized the “Iranian nuclear threat.”
Foiled plans and revived ambitions
By 2010, Netanyahu and then-defense minister Ehud Barak ordered the Israeli military to prepare strikes against Iranian nuclear sites and assassinate Iranian scientists. The operation stalled only because key security leaders pushed back: Chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin, and Mossad chief Meir Dagan all warned that Israel lacked the military capacity to hit Iran without US backing.
The Obama administration, alerted by Barak, pivoted toward diplomacy and sealed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Tehran. Netanyahu fumed. But the dream of bombing Iran never faded. He continued this effort on the international stage – even using the UN General Assembly to display a cartoon of a bomb, warning of Iran passing the red line in uranium enrichment.
During Donald Trump’s first term, Netanyahu succeeded in convincing him to withdraw from the nuclear deal after exposing Iran’s “stolen nuclear archive.” To sustain political and military momentum, Netanyahu ordered the military to prepare for a strike on Iran without external aid, citing the motto he often repeats: “The fate of the only Jewish state in the world cannot be entrusted to strangers, even if they are our allies.”
Tel Aviv then ramped up targeted killings and cyber attacks. The 2020 assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (who had been on Mossad’s hit list since 2009), Iran’s top nuclear scientist, was a message: Israel's war on Iran had entered a new phase.
The Israel–Iran confrontation has never ceased. Netanyahu remains the architect of this conflict. Even after he became opposition leader in the Knesset under the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid government, former Israeli prime minister Bennett upheld Netanyahu’s stance, stating that “a thousand stabs” must be directed at the “head of the axis” – meaning Iran. Thus, Netanyahu has ingrained the Iranian file into Israel's daily political life – no prime minister can ignore it.
From covert war to open confrontation
The Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood deepened Israeli fears. Tel Aviv responded with escalations on multiple fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and covertly, Iran. The occupation state exploited regional shifts – weakened Syrian air defenses and a new corridor via Iraq – to strike deeper into Iranian territory.
Tel Aviv believes it made a strategic mistake by not striking Iran in 2010; now, Iran's nuclear sites are more fortified and its defenses stronger. Some Israeli analysts argue that if Tehran achieves nuclear weapons, it and its allies would become bolder, forcing Israel to act to prevent a genuine existential threat.
The current war is a culmination of Netanyahu’s decades-long obsession. Israeli media now admits that Operation Lion's Courage is targeting Iranian scientists, nuclear facilities, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sites, and military personnel. But the ambition runs deeper.
The regime-change blueprint
As documented by Israeli think tanks and strategic planners, the long-term goal is regime change: dismantle the Islamic Republic, install a friendly government, and shatter the Axis of Resistance. Some argue that with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei aging, the system is vulnerable.
Others advocate even more radical steps: a decapitation strike on Iran’s leadership combined with attacks on oil infrastructure to ignite domestic unrest. The risks are enormous, but Tel Aviv sees this as a historic opening.
This is no longer a shadow war. For the first time, Israel has openly struck deep into Iranian territory, triggering direct retaliation. Western powers have rushed to defend the Occupation State, but the trajectory is spiraling.
Israel is betting it can absorb an Iranian response, fracture the Islamic Republic, and rewrite West Asian power equations for decades to come.
But Iran is not isolated, and Netanyahu may be overreaching. Though battered and stretched across multiple fronts, the Axis of Resistance – from Hezbollah to Ansarallah to Iraqi factions – is mobilized. The region is bracing for a wider confrontation.
Netanyahu sees a window. Tehran sees not just one, but too many red lines crossed. The rest of West Asia sees a war that could redraw the map.
https://thecradle.co/articles/israels-w ... bout-nukes
June 15, 2025
Iran has a large arsenal of ballistic missiles it can unleash on Israel, as well as on American military installations in the region. While initial waves can be intercepted, repeated attacks would swiftly deplete the Israeli and U.S. air defense stockpiles.
And Now a Word From Our Monster – by Mr. Fish
By Chris Hedges
Original to ScheerPost
The neoconservatives who orchestrated the disastrous wars with Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya — and who were never held accountable for the profligate waste of $8 trillion taxpayer dollars, as well as $69 billion squandered in Ukraine — look set to lure Americans into yet another military fiasco with Iran.
Iran is not Iraq. Iran is not Afghanistan. Iran is not Lebanon. Iran is not Libya. Iran is not Syria. Iran is not Yemen. Iran is the seventeenth largest country in the world, with a land mass equivalent to the size of Western Europe.
It has a population of almost 90 million — 10 times greater than Israel — and its military resources, as well as alliances with China and Russia, make it a formidable opponent.
Iran launched retaliatory attacks Saturday on Israel following waves of Israeli strikes that hit nuclear facilities and killed several top Iranian military commanders and six nuclear scientists. There have been dozens of explosions over the skyline in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
There is video footage of at least one large explosion on the ground in Tel Aviv from an apparent missile strike and reports of other explosions in some half dozen sites in and around Tel Aviv.
“Our revenge has just started, they will pay a high price for killing our commanders, scientists and people,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters. The official added that “nowhere in Israel will be safe” and that “our revenge will be painful.”
“They think it’ll be an easy war,” said Alastair Crooke, a former British diplomat and member of British intelligence (MI6) who spent decades in the Middle East. He told me of the neocons when I interviewed him.
“They want to reassert American power and leadership,” he said. “They feel that every so often throwing a small country against the wall and smashing it up is good for this.”
These neocons, bonded with the Israeli leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, he went on, “will not tolerate any rival power, any challenge to American leadership and American greatness.” They will create facts on the ground – a war between Israel and Iran – that will “pull Trump into a war with Iran.”
You can see my interview with Crooke here.
While Iran’s air force is weak, with many of its fighter planes decades old, it is well supplied with Russian air defense batteries and Chinese anti-ship missiles, as well as mines and coastal artillery.
It can shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil chokepoint that facilitates the passage of 20 percent of the world’s oil supply. This would double or triple the price of oil and devastate the global economy.
Iran has a large arsenal of ballistic missiles it can unleash on Israel, as well as on American military installations in the region. While initial waves can be intercepted, repeated attacks would swiftly deplete the Israeli and U.S. air defense stockpiles.
Israel is not equipped to endure a war of attrition, such as the eight year conflict between Iran and Iraq that ended — despite U.S. support for Saddam Hussein’s regime — in a stalemate, or as in Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon that eventually forced it to withdraw in May 2000, after repeated losses suffered from Hezbollah.
When Iran, in its Operation True Promise, launched over 300 ballistic and cruise missiles at Israel’s military and intelligence sites on April 13 and 14, 2023, in retaliation for an Israeli strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the U.S. intercepted the vast majority.
“Israel cannot fight off an Iranian missile attack,” John Mearsheimer, a West Point graduate and a professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago, told me. “You have this very interesting situation where not only can Israel not win these wars, but they’ve turned [them] into protracted wars” in which “Israel is heavily dependent on the United States.”
“We have lots of assets in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean, as well as in Israel itself and in the Red Sea,” he said. “These [are] designed to help Israel in its various wars. This includes not just Iran. It also includes the Houthis. It includes Hezbollah. So we are deeply involved in helping them fight. That was not the case in 1973 or any time before this war.”
Israel and its neocon allies believe they can eradicate Iran’s nuclear enrichment program by force and decapitate the Iranian government to install a client regime. That this non-reality-based belief system failed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, eludes them.
Israel, at the same time, wants to divert world attention from its genocide and mass starvation in Gaza and the accelerated ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Internet connection has been completely shut down in Gaza. The West Bank has been placed under a total blockade.
“The Israelis understand that if you have a general conflagration, people will not be paying much attention to the Palestinians,” Mearsheimer said. He added:
“People will be willing to give Israel more of a pass than they would in peaceful times. So let’s really ramp things up. Let’s have a general conflagration, and the end result will be that we can cleanse, on a massive scale, in Gaza and hopefully in the West Bank as well.”
You can see my interview with Mearsheimer here.
Iranian attacks would eventually leave hundreds, then thousands dead. Iran will appeal to Shi’ite Muslims through the region in what the Iranian leadership will describe as a war against Shi’ism, the second largest branch of Islam.
Saudi Arabia — which condemned the attacks on Iran — has two million Shi’ites who live in the oil-rich Eastern province. There are significant Shi’ite communities in Pakistan, Bahrain and Turkey. Shi’ites form the majority in Iraq.
The Shi’ite-dominated government in Baghdad will side with Iran. Yemen will continue to disrupt maritime traffic in the Red Sea and hit Israel with drone attacks. Hezbollah, however crippled, will renew attacks on northern Israel.
Expect terrorist attacks on U.S. bases in the region and perhaps even U.S. soil, as well as widespread sabotage of oil production in the Persian Gulf.
Iran will soon have enough fissile material to produce a nuclear weapon. A war will be a powerful incentive to build a bomb, especially with Israel possessing hundreds of nuclear weapons.
If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon Saudi Arabia will be next, with Turkey, Iraq and Egypt not far behind. The efforts to blunt nuclear proliferation in the Middle East will evaporate.
A war, as Mearsheimer points out, will also solidify the alliance between Iran, Russia and China.
“The United States has pushed China, Russia, North Korea and Iran very close together,” he noted.
“They form a tight knit bloc. Largely as a result of the Ukraine war, the Russians and the Chinese have been driven together, and given what’s happening in the Middle East, the Iranians and the Russians have been drawn together. The United States may be helping Israel, but it’s important to understand that the Russians are helping Iran. It’s not to America’s advantage to have China and Russia aligned closely against Washington. It’s not in America’s interest to have Russia and Iran working together against Israel and the United States.”
“There’s always the possibility that if a war heats up involving Iran on one side and the United States and Israel on the other side, that at some point down the road that the Russians will get dragged into that war, because the Russians now have a vested interest in supporting Iran.”
A war could last months, if not years. It will be an aerial duel, one largely between Israeli warplanes and missiles and Iranian missiles. But to subdue Iran it will require perhaps a million U.S. troops being deployed to invade and occupy the country.
An occupation of Iran will end with the same humiliating defeat the U.S. experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The fantasy of Israel and the neocons is that they can break Iran with aerial assaults, an updated version of Shock and Awe, the bombing campaign in Iraq in 2003. But the amount of ordinance required, especially to pulverize Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, will be massive.
Israel, in its decapitation of the leadership of Hezbollah in Beirut, including Hezbollah’s General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah, had to employ Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) 2,000-pound bunker-buster bombs.
“If you’re going to fly F-35’s with JDAM missiles, each of those is about 14 tons,” Crooke said. “It’s not just the weight, but the fuel they use. So you have to refuel maybe once, refuel twice, then you’ll have to fight your aircraft to suppress their defenses. You’re talking about a huge performance. Is America going to be able to do this? The Iranians have multiple air defense systems and good radars, over the horizon radars as well.”
So why go to war with Iran? Why walk away from a nuclear agreement that Iran did not violate? Why demonize a government that is the mortal enemy of the Taliban, along with other Takfiri groups, including al-Qaeda and Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL)? Why further destabilize a region already dangerously volatile?
The generals, politicians, intelligence services, neocons, weapons manufacturers, so-called experts, celebrity pundits and Israeli lobbyists are not about to take the blame for two decades of military fiascos. They need a scapegoat. It is Iran.
The humiliating defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq, the failed states of Syria and Libya, the proliferation of extremist groups and militias, many of which the U.S. initially trained and armed, along with the continued worldwide terrorist attacks, have to be someone else’s fault.
The chaos and instability we unleashed, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, left Iran as the dominant country in the region. Washington empowered its nemesis. It has no idea how to reverse this other than to attack it.
International law, along with the rights of almost 90 million people in Iran, is ignored just as the rights of the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria were ignored. The Iranians, whatever they feel about their leadership, do not see the United States as allies or liberators. They do not want to be attacked or occupied. They will resist. And the U.S. and Israel will pay.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/15/c ... with-iran/
*******
‘This is self-defense’: Iran will not stop strikes until US-backed Israeli war ends
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran has evidence of Washington’s direct support for the Israeli war
News Desk
JUN 15, 2025
An Iranian missile making impact in Tel Aviv. 13 June, 2025. (Photo credit: AP)
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on 15 June that Iran will not end its strikes against Israel until the US-backed Israeli war against the country is halted.
“We are defending ourselves; our defense is entirely legitimate,” the foreign minister said.
“This defense is our response to aggression. If the aggression stops, naturally our responses will also stop,” he added.
Araghchi condemned the Israeli attack on Iran’s offshore South Pars gas field on Saturday night, warning that “dragging the conflict to the Persian Gulf is a strategic mistake, and its aim is to drag the war beyond Iranian territory.”
“Israel’s attack would never have happened without the green light and support,” he affirmed, stressing that Iran does not believe US statements claiming Washington is not involved in the Israeli war. “It is necessary for the US to condemn Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities if they want to prove their goodwill.”
Araghchi also said Iran “has hard evidence that American forces have been supporting the Israeli regime.”
Iran carried out a large-scale missile and drone attack against Israel on 14 June, resulting in significant destruction in Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Iran’s military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) used advanced ballistic and hypersonic missiles including the Haj Qassem, Khaibar Shekan, Emad, and Qader missiles.
Footage showed heavily damaged and destroyed buildings in the Bat Yam area south of Tel Aviv.
Israeli oil refineries and army radio confirmed that pipelines and transmission lines in Haifa have been damaged by Iranian strikes, resulting in the shutdown of some downstream operations.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in the city of Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv, often described as Israel’s equivalent of MIT, also sustained damage in the latest Iranian missile barrage, with at least one laboratory building catching fire.
Over 100 were injured in Bat Yam alone, while 35 Israelis remain “missing,” according to Hebrew reports. At least ten Israelis have been killed since Iran launched Operation True Promise 3 on 13 June in response to Israel’s war.
The Israeli Ministry of Health Spokesperson announced that 385 patients arrived at hospitals within 24 hours.
Iran has also announced the interception by its air defenses of dozens of Israeli drones and missiles targeting its cities over the past two days.
The Iranian military said in recent hours that it will intensify its strikes if the US-backed war does not end.
Israel has bombed several military sites across Iran, as well as oil terminals in Tehran and a South Pars gas field facility.
The Israeli army announced on 15 June that it had attacked 80 targets in Tehran on Saturday evening, “including the headquarters of the Iranian Ministry of Defense, the headquarters of the nuclear project (SPND), and additional targets where the Iranian regime hid the nuclear archive,” as well as 170 targets since the start of the war.
According to a 14 June report by Middle East Eye (MEE), the US covertly delivered about 300 Hellfire missiles to Israel before it declared war on Iran.
Two Israeli officials claimed to Axios that US President Donald Trump was pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public, while approving in private. "We had a clear US green light," one official claimed.
Axios wrote that the “goal was to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel's target list wouldn't move to new locations.”
“Two months ago, I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to ‘make a deal.’ They should have done it! Today is day 61,” Trump said on 13 June.
https://thecradle.co/articles/this-is-s ... i-war-ends
US quietly armed Israel with hundreds of Hellfire missiles for Iran war
Donald Trump boasted to western outlets that the US 'knew everything' about the unprovoked Israeli attack on Iran
News Desk
JUN 14, 2025
(Photo credit: Lockheed Martin)
The US covertly delivered about 300 Hellfire missiles to the Israeli force before it attacked Iranian nuclear and civilian sites, Middle East Eye (MEE) reported on 14 June.
The laser-guided air-to-ground missiles, which are used for precision strikes and assassinations, reached Israel on Tuesday in preparation for Friday’s attack, which has killed at least 78 people, including Iranian military leaders, nuclear scientists, and civilians.
No public notification of the transfer was made because the shipments were already approved as part of a $7.4 billion arms deal that the US Congress was notified of in February 2025.
“The transfer of such a large quantity of Hellfires suggests that the White House was well-informed of Israel’s plans to attack the Islamic Republic of Iran,” MEE wrote, citing two US officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“There is a time and place for Hellfires. They were useful to Israel,” one senior US defense official told MEE.
Israel’s military used more than 100 warplanes in its attack on Friday, which also used heavier bombs to target Iran’s nuclear sites.
Among those killed in the Israeli attacks are the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Hossein Salami, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, and an aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ali Shamkhani.
Iran’s counterattack, dubbed “Operation True Promise III,” reportedly resulted in at least three civilian deaths and more than 60 injuries as multiple missiles bypassed the Iron Dome defense system and struck urban areas in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa, causing damage to homes and infrastructure.
Israeli officials confirmed damage to both residential and military sites, but reported limited fatalities.
The US military helped shoot down Iranian missiles launched toward Israel, two US officials informed Reuters on Friday.
One of the officials said the missiles were intercepted using ground-based missile defense systems and that US warplanes and naval ships have not been used to protect Israel so far.
“We knew everything,” US President Donald Trump boasted to Reuters on Friday.
MEE previously reported that the CIA was briefed on Israel’s attack plans in April and May. The spy agency was reportedly “impressed” with Israel's plan to attack Iran without direct US assistance.
Two Israeli officials claimed to Axios that Trump was pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public, while approving in private. "We had a clear US green light," one official claimed.
Axios wrote that the “goal was to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel's target list wouldn't move to new locations.”
MEE noted that in March, Trump agreed to give Iran a 60-day deadline to agree to a new nuclear agreement to avoid a US-Israeli attack. The Israeli attack on Iran on Friday took place exactly 61 days later.
As the negotiations were ongoing, the “US continued a steady supply of arms and weapons to Israel,” MEE wrote, citing two US officials.
https://thecradle.co/articles/us-quietl ... s-iran-war
Iranian air defenses shoot down Israeli F-35: Report
The F-35 is widely considered the world's most advanced attack aircraft, boasting stealth technology to help it avoid detection
News Desk
JUN 14, 2025
(Photo credit: AP)
Iran's air defense force successfully shot down an Israeli F-35 fighter jet in the western sky of the country on 14 June, Iranian state media IRNA reported.
The pilot reportedly ejected from the fighter jet. His fate is currently unknown.
It was the third Israeli F-35 shot down since the start of Israel's attack on Iranian military, nuclear, and civilian sites since Friday.
Israel has denied that Iran successfully targeted any F-35s.
Iranian Army commandos reportedly captured the pilot of a downed Israeli fighter jet.
Before this week, no F-35 jets were known to have been shot down in combat. The warplanes are thought to be difficult to target due to a combination of stealth, sensor fusion, electronic warfare capabilities, and advanced avionics.
Israel began the attack by carrying out strikes, which hit nuclear and missile facilities and killed several top Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists, and civilians.
The unprovoked Israeli attack has killed over 104 people and injured nearly 380 people.
Iran responded to the attack by firing dozens of missiles toward Israel late Friday and into Saturday.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that dozens of its missiles successfully reached their targets.
"Field reports, satellite images, and intercepted intelligence indicate that dozens of ballistic missiles effectively hit strategic targets. Despite claiming to have intercepted them, the enemy failed to counter the waves of missile attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran," an IRGC statement said.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said seven of its soldiers were wounded in a ballistic missile strike on central Israel during Iran's overnight retaliation. According to a statement, the troops were hospitalized and later released.
This marks the first official acknowledgment of Israeli military casualties since direct hostilities with Iran began two days ago.
https://thecradle.co/articles/iranian-a ... f35-report
Israel’s war on Iran was never just about nukes
Netanyahu has always sought more than just a halt to Iran’s nuclear program. In the current war, Tel Aviv sees a historic opportunity to finally bring down the Islamic Republic.
Qassem Qassem
JUN 14, 2025
Photo Credit: The Cradle
“The Iranian regime has never been weaker. This is your moment – Iranians – to rise up, make your voices heard. We stand with you.”
— Benjamin Netanyahu, 13 June 2025
Since the 1990s, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been unwavering in his strategic objective: stopping Iran’s nuclear program. At a time when even Washington was focused on peace deals and settlements with the Palestinians, Netanyahu was already fixated on Iran.
He criticized the peace agreement with the Palestinians but consistently highlighted the “Iranian threat.” At a time when this issue was not a global or regional priority, Netanyahu stood almost alone in warning against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
In the early 2000s, while Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon focused on crushing the Al-Aqsa Intifada and what he called “Palestinian terrorism,” Netanyahu was simultaneously warning about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Sharon viewed Iran as an international problem to be handled globally, but Netanyahu sought unilateral confrontation.
Netanyahu has always wanted to leave his mark on Jewish history and to be remembered as the leader who neutralized the “Iranian nuclear threat.”
Foiled plans and revived ambitions
By 2010, Netanyahu and then-defense minister Ehud Barak ordered the Israeli military to prepare strikes against Iranian nuclear sites and assassinate Iranian scientists. The operation stalled only because key security leaders pushed back: Chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin, and Mossad chief Meir Dagan all warned that Israel lacked the military capacity to hit Iran without US backing.
The Obama administration, alerted by Barak, pivoted toward diplomacy and sealed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Tehran. Netanyahu fumed. But the dream of bombing Iran never faded. He continued this effort on the international stage – even using the UN General Assembly to display a cartoon of a bomb, warning of Iran passing the red line in uranium enrichment.
During Donald Trump’s first term, Netanyahu succeeded in convincing him to withdraw from the nuclear deal after exposing Iran’s “stolen nuclear archive.” To sustain political and military momentum, Netanyahu ordered the military to prepare for a strike on Iran without external aid, citing the motto he often repeats: “The fate of the only Jewish state in the world cannot be entrusted to strangers, even if they are our allies.”
Tel Aviv then ramped up targeted killings and cyber attacks. The 2020 assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (who had been on Mossad’s hit list since 2009), Iran’s top nuclear scientist, was a message: Israel's war on Iran had entered a new phase.
The Israel–Iran confrontation has never ceased. Netanyahu remains the architect of this conflict. Even after he became opposition leader in the Knesset under the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid government, former Israeli prime minister Bennett upheld Netanyahu’s stance, stating that “a thousand stabs” must be directed at the “head of the axis” – meaning Iran. Thus, Netanyahu has ingrained the Iranian file into Israel's daily political life – no prime minister can ignore it.
From covert war to open confrontation
The Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood deepened Israeli fears. Tel Aviv responded with escalations on multiple fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and covertly, Iran. The occupation state exploited regional shifts – weakened Syrian air defenses and a new corridor via Iraq – to strike deeper into Iranian territory.
Tel Aviv believes it made a strategic mistake by not striking Iran in 2010; now, Iran's nuclear sites are more fortified and its defenses stronger. Some Israeli analysts argue that if Tehran achieves nuclear weapons, it and its allies would become bolder, forcing Israel to act to prevent a genuine existential threat.
The current war is a culmination of Netanyahu’s decades-long obsession. Israeli media now admits that Operation Lion's Courage is targeting Iranian scientists, nuclear facilities, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sites, and military personnel. But the ambition runs deeper.
The regime-change blueprint
As documented by Israeli think tanks and strategic planners, the long-term goal is regime change: dismantle the Islamic Republic, install a friendly government, and shatter the Axis of Resistance. Some argue that with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei aging, the system is vulnerable.
Others advocate even more radical steps: a decapitation strike on Iran’s leadership combined with attacks on oil infrastructure to ignite domestic unrest. The risks are enormous, but Tel Aviv sees this as a historic opening.
This is no longer a shadow war. For the first time, Israel has openly struck deep into Iranian territory, triggering direct retaliation. Western powers have rushed to defend the Occupation State, but the trajectory is spiraling.
Israel is betting it can absorb an Iranian response, fracture the Islamic Republic, and rewrite West Asian power equations for decades to come.
But Iran is not isolated, and Netanyahu may be overreaching. Though battered and stretched across multiple fronts, the Axis of Resistance – from Hezbollah to Ansarallah to Iraqi factions – is mobilized. The region is bracing for a wider confrontation.
Netanyahu sees a window. Tehran sees not just one, but too many red lines crossed. The rest of West Asia sees a war that could redraw the map.
https://thecradle.co/articles/israels-w ... bout-nukes
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Iran
The Lion and the Promise
Posted by Internationalist 360° on June 15, 2025
Lorenzo Maria Pacini
Locals look at the fire at an impact site following missile attack from Iran on Israel, at central Israel June 15. The two sides have been trading strikes as the conflict escalates. Reuters
Attack at dawn
13 June 2025 on the Gregorian calendar, 23 Khordad 1404 on the Persian calendar, 17 Sivan 5785 on the Hebrew calendar, will be a date remembered in history.
The State of Israel attacked the Islamic Republic of Iran during the night.
The first missiles struck civilian targets. The image of a child killed in the explosion and collapse of a residential building in Tehran is both iconic and tragic. Within minutes, the IDF managed to strike the homes of several military officials and researchers, nuclear power plants scattered throughout the country, military bases, air defence and rapid response posts.
Some of Iran’s most prominent and important figures were martyred: IRGC Chief of Staff Hossein Salami, General Gholam-Ali Rashid, researchers Tehranchi and Fereydoon Abbasi, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces.
Israel used bases in Iraq to carry out the attack, also using Syrian and Jordanian airspace for its operations. The Assad regime had air defence and early warning systems and operated in coordination with Iran. After Bashar’s fall, Israel destroyed everything for a reason, not allowing the Turks to enter their bases, even going so far as to issue ultimatums. And the Islamists who have come to power make no difference to the skies over Syria.
Previously, Mossad had sabotaged Iranian air defences before carrying out the air raids, disabling radar systems and air defence units.
The damage caused by the attack was significant, both in terms of infrastructure and human lives. The calculation of civilian casualties has not yet been completed and reported.
Iran responded immediately with about 200 drones, which were intercepted by American, Israeli and British jet fighters, a coordinated effort that also involved France behind the scenes.
We must not underestimate the scale of the attack against Iran, but at the same time it is important not to exaggerate its impact or be distracted or confused by the media hype surrounding the attacks or Iran’s response, when it comes.
Israel has announced that it used 330 missiles and 100 drones in the operation. To put this into perspective, this is similar to the number used in one of Russia’s many joint missile attacks against Ukraine, operations that have been repeated hundreds of times. The Iranian military apparatus will certainly not vanish into thin air as a result of this offensive; Operation Rising Lion is, in relative terms, little more than a cloud of smoke.
Israel and its Western partners are deliberately focusing on spectacular escalation with Tehran to divert attention from their domestic failures and ongoing crises. The collective West aims to make people forget the impasse in the proxy war against Russia, as well as growing internal economic and social tensions. At the same time, the Israeli leadership is trying to silence growing criticism at home and abroad against its genocidal conduct in Gaza – criticism that now poses a real threat to the entire Zionist colonial project.
All of this is based on an imperialist/colonial calculation: the belief that Iran, while responding, will maintain its usual caution and avoid large-scale escalation. If this calculation proves correct, we will be faced with a new episode of True Promise, Iran’s missile demonstration, with the classic media images: the bright trails of Iron Dome rockets in the sky above Tel Aviv and, in response, Kheibar Shekan hypersonic missiles striking targets far from populated areas; but if the calculation is wrong and the Islamic Republic is pushed beyond the breaking point, then the theatre will end, and with it all predictions will be shattered.
The rogue state of Tel Aviv is proving once again that it is the most dangerous political construct in history. This is yet another tragic page in a Middle Eastern history defined by the presence of this completely out-of-control nation-state. No state has ever before had this combination of ethnic supremacism, utter contempt for human life, indifference to international law, and access to terminal weapons. A nation that is a threat to the entire world.
The name of the Israeli operation against Iran is a clear message: Rising Lion. The lion of Judah is the Israeli messiah and the symbol of the unified kingdom, i.e. the famous Greater Israel, but also the symbol of ancient Persia and the previous regime of the Shah.
In practice, the rabbis are declaring that Iran is the last obstacle to the appearance of their Messiah. This is declared by the rabbis, not by Shiite theologians.
In the Christian text of Revelation, in Chapter 5, we find some indications of what will happen. Whether understood as the Messiah or the anti-Messiah, the victory of the lion of Judah marks an important passage between the Seals of the Apocalypse: “The lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered, the Root of David, and he will open the book and its seven seals”. And again, in Genesis, Chapter 49, ‘Judah is a lion’s cub. Surely you will come up from the prey, my son. He crouches, he lies down like a lion, and who dares to rouse him? The sceptre will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to him shall the obedience of the peoples be.” The sequence of the seals is the Great Tribulation.
The deep theological roots for which the Zionist entity has decided to strike Iran are beyond our imagination. For them, it is a visceral, intimate, total issue, which they cannot do without. Iran represents Israel’s greatest enemy because Islamic and revolutionary Iran was born anti-Zionist, has always defended the cause of the liberation of Al Quds (Jerusalem) and Palestine, and has formed the Axis of Resistance, the main obstacle to Israeli plans. Iran represents “the other” great government founded on religious faith, not just politics, and for Israelis – unlike Israelites – there can be no other political powers besides themselves.
As Pepe Escobar has pointed out, no political construct in modern history has ever accumulated such a toxic combination of:
messianic ethnic supremacy
total disregard for human life (all others who are not “chosen” are “Amelekites”)
total disregard for international law
unlimited access to lethal weapons.
What can be done against such a cult of death?
Preparation
It should be emphasized that Iran has always complied with its obligations regarding uranium enrichment for civilian purposes, as required by international agreements, including the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), until the United States unilaterally withdrew from the treaty during the first Trump presidency. Subsequently, Rafael Grossi, director of the IAEA – known for his close ties to the Netanyahu government – suddenly declared that Tehran was no longer in line with its commitments to the Agency, raising suspicions about a possible military use of Iran’s nuclear programme.
It is important to remember that Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a fatwa expressly prohibiting nuclear weapons as contrary to the principles of Islam. One wonders, then, why Rafael Grossi has never paid the same level of attention to Israel’s nuclear programme, which is estimated to have between 75 and 200 warheads. The IAEA has confirmed in the past that Israel only allows visits to certain civilian laboratories, systematically excluding key facilities such as Dimona, a known centre of its nuclear arsenal. Furthermore, unlike Israel, India and Pakistan, Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, demonstrating, at least formally, a commitment to international transparency.
We therefore have, on the one hand, a country that has sought to conduct itself in accordance with international law; on the other, a state already accused of very serious crimes that does not recognize the same rules but claims the right to judge and punish others. It is paradoxical that Iran, despite having natural resources such as uranium and good relations with other supplier countries (such as Niger and Namibia), is being prevented from using these resources peacefully for the welfare of its own population.
Last night’s Israeli air strike represents a dangerous escalation that risks triggering a new cycle of war in the Middle East, from which it will be difficult to remain uninvolved. Israel, once again, is proving to be a real destabilizing factor for the entire region stretching from the Indus to Gibraltar. For its part, Iran has tried to avoid a large-scale conflict, particularly with the United States, but now finds itself in a position where it has to face it.
Even if, as Netanyahu has stated, the operation were to continue for days, it would not succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear programme. At best, it would slow it down, but it would most likely push Tehran towards choosing nuclear weapons as a means of self-defence and deterrence. Furthermore, Iran will have to start asking serious questions about the level of external penetration in its key institutions.
It should be borne in mind that the nuclear sites hit, including Arak, Fordow, Busheir and Isfahan, include the Natanz facility, which is in a serious condition.
Imam Khamenei’s words were not long in coming. Early this morning, the Supreme Leader declared:
‘At dawn today, the Zionist regime opened its dirty and bloody hand to a crime committed in our beloved country and revealed its evil nature by striking residential centres more than ever before. The regime must expect severe punishment. The powerful hand of the Islamic Republic’s armed forces will not abandon it, God willing. Several commanders and scientists were martyred in the enemy attacks. Their successors and colleagues will immediately resume their duties, God willing. With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful fate for itself, and it will surely suffer it.”
Equally significant were the words of condolence and support from Hamas:
“We, as the Hamas movement, express our full solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran. We also express our deepest condolences to the Iranian leadership and people for the martyrdom of several high-ranking commanders, in particular Major General Hossein Salami, Commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Lieutenant General Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, and numerous nuclear scientists. We ask God to have mercy on them and for a speedy recovery for the wounded. Today, Iran is paying the price for its firm stance in support of Palestine and its resistance, and for its adherence to its independent national decision. This requires a united stance by the nation and its vital forces in the face of this dangerous aggression”.
Iran raised the red flag of revenge above the Jamkaran Mosque in Qom after deadly Israeli airstrikes, signalling a call for justice and retaliation.
The red flag of Ashura, the flag of vengeance, was immediately raised. A sign of great power, a message to the whole world: Iran will react.
At the UN, Iran called for a Security Council meeting and denounced the aggression as a “declaration of war”, a very serious act which the Russian Federation, through its permanent representative, also recognized as a violation of international law and for which Israel bears full responsibility.
During an emergency meeting of the Security Council in New York, convened to discuss the Israeli attacks, Iravani denounced: “Last night, the Israeli regime, the most dangerous and terrorist regime in the world, with the full political support of the U.S. administration, carried out a series of coordinated and premeditated military attacks in several Iranian cities”. His words were reported by the IRNA news agency.
The ambassador specified that ‘these acts of illegal aggression targeted peaceful nuclear facilities, military sites, vital civilian infrastructure and residential areas,’ emphasizing in particular that one of the main targets was the Natanz nuclear power plant, ‘a site under strict surveillance by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).’ “These actions represent a declaration of war,” Iravani said. “They are the latest chapter in a long history of anarchic, destabilizing and aggressive behavior by the Israeli regime, which acts with impunity thanks to the protection of powerful allies. This situation must end.” The diplomat also accused the United States of ‘undoubted complicity’ in what he called ‘terrorist attacks’: ‘U.S. officials have unhesitatingly admitted their deliberate support for the crimes committed last night by Israel, including the intentional transfer of weapons.’ Iravani reiterated that Iran will not forget the Iranian victims ‘killed in Israeli attacks carried out with American weapons,’ and also condemned what he described as ‘intentional, coordinated and fully supported aggression’ by a permanent member of the Security Council – the United States – calling it ‘a serious violation of international law and the United Nations Charter.’
Within hours, comments and support came from the Russian Federation, followed by China, North Korea, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
From the United States, however, the first comment came overnight from Secretary of State Mark Rubio, who declared the U.S.’s non-involvement in the affair; but a few hours later, President Donald Trump himself posted on Truth a message threatening more brutal planned attacks on Iran and, shortly afterwards, revealed that Netanyahu and he had actually met to discuss the operation the day before.
Whether this was a move by Trump’s traitors to frame him is something we will discuss in another article. What is clear now is that, once again, the U.S. is in deep.
Counterattack
In a move that took many by surprise, as citizens took to the streets to call for revenge for their martyrs, Operation True Promise 3 was launched: in several waves, Tel Aviv was bombarded by Iranian hypersonic missiles, suffering extensive damage. It was a spectacle that was celebrated around the world, not just in the Middle East.
The Americans immediately began their media attack. Former CIA director Mike Pompeo warned that a serious incident could occur somewhere in the world and suggested that Iran could be behind it. He claimed that Iran has terrorist cells in almost every country, including the United States, and that these could soon be used to launch cyber attacks and other types of attacks. Pompeo called for strong support for Israel, saying it was necessary to stop what he considers a “global threat”.
We cannot say with certainty how long this low-intensity conventional conflict will last. The complicated machinery of international diplomacy may be very slow at the moment, but the international response must be swift and decisive.
One thing is certain: Iran will never surrender.
This is an important opportunity to stop Netanyahu and attack Israel politically, on the international stage, as a Zionist entity. Now the world has seen – once again – the evil of that country, and it is clear to everyone that its destructive fury will not abate until the country is brought to its knees and forced to surrender – or exterminated under enemy fire.
The real counterattack begins now. Iran’s next move on the chessboard will be decisive for the coming period.
Let us remember: it was not Iran that started this. History will take note of this.
Now, Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, while Yemen could close Bab al-Mandeb: both options are currently being considered. Tehran claims that it could destabilize global energy security as a direct consequence of the Zionist regime’s actions.
Interesting fact: the events in the world of Metro 2033 by Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky began with a nuclear attack by Israel against Iran.
This was followed by a world war that led to the apocalypse.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/06/ ... e-promise/
******
IRAN WILL NOT RELENT: ‘Iranians Unified in Retaliation Against Israel’ –Rachel Blevins Interviews Prof. Mohammad Marandi
June 15, 2025
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/06/ira ... d-marandi/
*****
Israel-Iran War. Day Three
June 16, 13:06
(I have elected not to post the cartoon which has a 'classic' anti-Semitic caricature while nonetheless true.)
Israel-Iran War. Day Three
Iran will respond tonight even more powerfully and destructively than yesterday. Objects in Tel Aviv and Haifa were hit. In Haifa, they even hit a power plant and a key oil refinery.
Iranian missiles hit a number of military facilities on Israeli territory. Military facilities in the Negev desert, military barracks in Galilee were hit. At the Nevatim airbase, a modern air defense system was actually destroyed - either Arrow 3 or THAAD, since as a result of a cyber attack, one of the launchers hit another with a massive detonation.
The IRGC reported that military operations against the Zionist regime will continue until it is destroyed.
The more than likely entry of the United States into the war in the next 48-72 hours (a massive transfer of air tankers is underway + the transfer of another AUG to the Middle East theater of military operations) will be a direct consequence of the fact that Israel cannot stand a war with Iran. That is why Bin Salman stated yesterday that Netanyahu wants to speed up the US entry into the war by all means. That is his plan. Hence the talk of a false flag attack on some American facility in the Middle East, which would free the US for direct aggression against Iran.
Talk of a possible ceasefire on Trump’s part is the same camouflage before preparing aggression, as before Israel’s attack on Iran.
Also, more than likely, the US and Israel are preparing to attack the top Iranian leadership.
An American-Israeli war against Iran.
Just as Russia is not fighting Ukraine, but the US and all of NATO through Ukraine, Iran is not just fighting Israel, it is fighting the US and all of its proxies, including assets from Europe through Israel;
This means calculations in Iran:
1. Iran must manage its alliances and coordinate diplomatic, economic and military actions with the rest of the BRICS countries;
2. Iran must also maintain social, economic and political stability within Iran and along its borders, as the US has invested in terrorism, subversion, sanctions and sabotage for years to destabilize and overthrow the Iranian government;
3. This is a multi-domain war that requires a multi-domain strategy that prioritizes the survival and further expansion of multipolarity (the only real means of shifting US influence in the region and around the world - primarily to support the influence of proxies like Israel (c) Brian Berletic
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9902550.html
Strike at the Weizmann Institute in Tel Aviv. 06/15/2025
June 15, 22:55
Weizmann Institute in Tel Aviv.
Before and after Israel's attack on Iran.
The Advanced and Intelligent Materials Building was heavily damaged. This building housed all the electron microscopy labs, advanced analytical labs, and research labs in various fields of chemistry. The building has several underground floors. The building was completed in 2023.
There were casualties in the nighttime attack on the Weizmann Institute in Tel Aviv.
Israeli journalist Alex Rif wrote:
I just finished talking to a researcher at the Weizmann Institute whose lab collapsed under the weight of the destruction. He says that entire labs were wiped off the face of the earth: instruments, equipment, the results of years of pioneering research, and even the people who spent their lives in these halls - all disappeared.
Among these labs was the lab of Professor Valery Krizhnovsky, who for many years researched the secrets of biological processes associated with aging. No one from the government responded: not from the tax office, not from the Ministry of Education, not from the Ministry of Science.
This is about empty buildings where there is no one. And so it is in many cases. It's just that the IDF is keeping the results of such flights as secret as possible in order to maintain the image of an unconditional victory. This is normal for information and psychological warfare.
Well, Iran has gotten to some Israeli scientists after all. As Israel likes to claim, these were legitimate military targets.
At the moment, the exchange of strikes continues. In the last few hours, there have been flights in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ashdon and Ashkelon. The Iranians are announcing a strike on the center of Tel Aviv in the near future.
All this is covered here https://t.me/boris_rozhin (if you are interested, subscribe)
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9901735.html
Google Translator
******
Absolutely They Are...
... as Larry summarizes it correctly.
Israel’s initial euphoria over its Friday morning strikes on Iranian targets is fading as Israeli inhabitants get a taste of their own medicine. Israel’s much touted Iron Dome is a total bust.
Pretty much all of the Israel's (the US) AD-ABM is nothing but a propaganda show which failed miserably. And, of course, the "plan" was to get the US involved directly. But here are some interesting details from Capitol Hill. I am not going to be talking about Thomas Massie--love him or hate him, he has balls unlike most cowards in Washington, so his position is no surprise and he openly laughs in the faces of AIPAC crowd. Same pretty much goes to Rand Paul. But suddenly other voices begin to be heard:
Trump must oppose Netanyahu’s escalation and pursue a diplomatic path to deal with Iran’s nuclear program,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) wrote on X. “Trump must not violate the Constitution by involving American troops in Netanyahu’s war without coming to Congress.” “This is a disaster of Trump and Netanyahu's own making, and now the region risks spiraling toward a new, deadly conflict. A war between Israel and Iran may be good for Netanyahu’s domestic politics, but it will likely be disastrous for both the security of Israel, the United States, and the rest of the region,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a statement. “As Secretary Rubio stated, the United States was not involved in today's strikes, and we have no obligation to follow Israel into a war we did not ask for and will make us less safe.”
Members are particularly concerned that the U.S. will move to defend Israel if Iran retaliates and furthermore acts in tandem to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Trump told Fox News last night that the U.S. is ready to defend itself and Israel if Iran retaliates. “The president cannot circumvent congressional war powers and unilaterally send U.S. troops to war with Iran. This is a violation of Article I of the Constitution which requires congressional approval to declare war,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D- Mich.) said. “The American people do not want another endless war in the Middle East that will cost lives and tear their families apart.”
Yes, Democrats, and no--Trump is not going to Congress for any authorization, but the run for mid-terms has already started and records and "paper trails" created. Now that Trump chickened-out of immigration issue, the only thing he has is one of the last fences to sit on before finishing off his presidency in a complete catastrophe.
Now, to those who still think that the US has an option of direct involvement--it sure does, but once, God forbids, any US Navy ship is sunk and the steady stream of the body-bags from defenseless (US doesn't have functional air defense, I warned about it for many years) US bases in the region begins to hit US shores, what's left? Correct--nuclear option, or blackmail or what have you, and that will be the end of the United States. I mean politically speaking, because it will be completely isolated and eventually fully boycotted. It will become a pariah nation with all that it entails.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2025/06 ... y-are.html
Posted by Internationalist 360° on June 15, 2025
Lorenzo Maria Pacini
Locals look at the fire at an impact site following missile attack from Iran on Israel, at central Israel June 15. The two sides have been trading strikes as the conflict escalates. Reuters
Attack at dawn
13 June 2025 on the Gregorian calendar, 23 Khordad 1404 on the Persian calendar, 17 Sivan 5785 on the Hebrew calendar, will be a date remembered in history.
The State of Israel attacked the Islamic Republic of Iran during the night.
The first missiles struck civilian targets. The image of a child killed in the explosion and collapse of a residential building in Tehran is both iconic and tragic. Within minutes, the IDF managed to strike the homes of several military officials and researchers, nuclear power plants scattered throughout the country, military bases, air defence and rapid response posts.
Some of Iran’s most prominent and important figures were martyred: IRGC Chief of Staff Hossein Salami, General Gholam-Ali Rashid, researchers Tehranchi and Fereydoon Abbasi, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces.
Israel used bases in Iraq to carry out the attack, also using Syrian and Jordanian airspace for its operations. The Assad regime had air defence and early warning systems and operated in coordination with Iran. After Bashar’s fall, Israel destroyed everything for a reason, not allowing the Turks to enter their bases, even going so far as to issue ultimatums. And the Islamists who have come to power make no difference to the skies over Syria.
Previously, Mossad had sabotaged Iranian air defences before carrying out the air raids, disabling radar systems and air defence units.
The damage caused by the attack was significant, both in terms of infrastructure and human lives. The calculation of civilian casualties has not yet been completed and reported.
Iran responded immediately with about 200 drones, which were intercepted by American, Israeli and British jet fighters, a coordinated effort that also involved France behind the scenes.
We must not underestimate the scale of the attack against Iran, but at the same time it is important not to exaggerate its impact or be distracted or confused by the media hype surrounding the attacks or Iran’s response, when it comes.
Israel has announced that it used 330 missiles and 100 drones in the operation. To put this into perspective, this is similar to the number used in one of Russia’s many joint missile attacks against Ukraine, operations that have been repeated hundreds of times. The Iranian military apparatus will certainly not vanish into thin air as a result of this offensive; Operation Rising Lion is, in relative terms, little more than a cloud of smoke.
Israel and its Western partners are deliberately focusing on spectacular escalation with Tehran to divert attention from their domestic failures and ongoing crises. The collective West aims to make people forget the impasse in the proxy war against Russia, as well as growing internal economic and social tensions. At the same time, the Israeli leadership is trying to silence growing criticism at home and abroad against its genocidal conduct in Gaza – criticism that now poses a real threat to the entire Zionist colonial project.
All of this is based on an imperialist/colonial calculation: the belief that Iran, while responding, will maintain its usual caution and avoid large-scale escalation. If this calculation proves correct, we will be faced with a new episode of True Promise, Iran’s missile demonstration, with the classic media images: the bright trails of Iron Dome rockets in the sky above Tel Aviv and, in response, Kheibar Shekan hypersonic missiles striking targets far from populated areas; but if the calculation is wrong and the Islamic Republic is pushed beyond the breaking point, then the theatre will end, and with it all predictions will be shattered.
The rogue state of Tel Aviv is proving once again that it is the most dangerous political construct in history. This is yet another tragic page in a Middle Eastern history defined by the presence of this completely out-of-control nation-state. No state has ever before had this combination of ethnic supremacism, utter contempt for human life, indifference to international law, and access to terminal weapons. A nation that is a threat to the entire world.
The name of the Israeli operation against Iran is a clear message: Rising Lion. The lion of Judah is the Israeli messiah and the symbol of the unified kingdom, i.e. the famous Greater Israel, but also the symbol of ancient Persia and the previous regime of the Shah.
In practice, the rabbis are declaring that Iran is the last obstacle to the appearance of their Messiah. This is declared by the rabbis, not by Shiite theologians.
In the Christian text of Revelation, in Chapter 5, we find some indications of what will happen. Whether understood as the Messiah or the anti-Messiah, the victory of the lion of Judah marks an important passage between the Seals of the Apocalypse: “The lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered, the Root of David, and he will open the book and its seven seals”. And again, in Genesis, Chapter 49, ‘Judah is a lion’s cub. Surely you will come up from the prey, my son. He crouches, he lies down like a lion, and who dares to rouse him? The sceptre will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to him shall the obedience of the peoples be.” The sequence of the seals is the Great Tribulation.
The deep theological roots for which the Zionist entity has decided to strike Iran are beyond our imagination. For them, it is a visceral, intimate, total issue, which they cannot do without. Iran represents Israel’s greatest enemy because Islamic and revolutionary Iran was born anti-Zionist, has always defended the cause of the liberation of Al Quds (Jerusalem) and Palestine, and has formed the Axis of Resistance, the main obstacle to Israeli plans. Iran represents “the other” great government founded on religious faith, not just politics, and for Israelis – unlike Israelites – there can be no other political powers besides themselves.
As Pepe Escobar has pointed out, no political construct in modern history has ever accumulated such a toxic combination of:
messianic ethnic supremacy
total disregard for human life (all others who are not “chosen” are “Amelekites”)
total disregard for international law
unlimited access to lethal weapons.
What can be done against such a cult of death?
Preparation
It should be emphasized that Iran has always complied with its obligations regarding uranium enrichment for civilian purposes, as required by international agreements, including the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), until the United States unilaterally withdrew from the treaty during the first Trump presidency. Subsequently, Rafael Grossi, director of the IAEA – known for his close ties to the Netanyahu government – suddenly declared that Tehran was no longer in line with its commitments to the Agency, raising suspicions about a possible military use of Iran’s nuclear programme.
It is important to remember that Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a fatwa expressly prohibiting nuclear weapons as contrary to the principles of Islam. One wonders, then, why Rafael Grossi has never paid the same level of attention to Israel’s nuclear programme, which is estimated to have between 75 and 200 warheads. The IAEA has confirmed in the past that Israel only allows visits to certain civilian laboratories, systematically excluding key facilities such as Dimona, a known centre of its nuclear arsenal. Furthermore, unlike Israel, India and Pakistan, Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, demonstrating, at least formally, a commitment to international transparency.
We therefore have, on the one hand, a country that has sought to conduct itself in accordance with international law; on the other, a state already accused of very serious crimes that does not recognize the same rules but claims the right to judge and punish others. It is paradoxical that Iran, despite having natural resources such as uranium and good relations with other supplier countries (such as Niger and Namibia), is being prevented from using these resources peacefully for the welfare of its own population.
Last night’s Israeli air strike represents a dangerous escalation that risks triggering a new cycle of war in the Middle East, from which it will be difficult to remain uninvolved. Israel, once again, is proving to be a real destabilizing factor for the entire region stretching from the Indus to Gibraltar. For its part, Iran has tried to avoid a large-scale conflict, particularly with the United States, but now finds itself in a position where it has to face it.
Even if, as Netanyahu has stated, the operation were to continue for days, it would not succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear programme. At best, it would slow it down, but it would most likely push Tehran towards choosing nuclear weapons as a means of self-defence and deterrence. Furthermore, Iran will have to start asking serious questions about the level of external penetration in its key institutions.
It should be borne in mind that the nuclear sites hit, including Arak, Fordow, Busheir and Isfahan, include the Natanz facility, which is in a serious condition.
Imam Khamenei’s words were not long in coming. Early this morning, the Supreme Leader declared:
‘At dawn today, the Zionist regime opened its dirty and bloody hand to a crime committed in our beloved country and revealed its evil nature by striking residential centres more than ever before. The regime must expect severe punishment. The powerful hand of the Islamic Republic’s armed forces will not abandon it, God willing. Several commanders and scientists were martyred in the enemy attacks. Their successors and colleagues will immediately resume their duties, God willing. With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful fate for itself, and it will surely suffer it.”
Equally significant were the words of condolence and support from Hamas:
“We, as the Hamas movement, express our full solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran. We also express our deepest condolences to the Iranian leadership and people for the martyrdom of several high-ranking commanders, in particular Major General Hossein Salami, Commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Lieutenant General Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, and numerous nuclear scientists. We ask God to have mercy on them and for a speedy recovery for the wounded. Today, Iran is paying the price for its firm stance in support of Palestine and its resistance, and for its adherence to its independent national decision. This requires a united stance by the nation and its vital forces in the face of this dangerous aggression”.
Iran raised the red flag of revenge above the Jamkaran Mosque in Qom after deadly Israeli airstrikes, signalling a call for justice and retaliation.
The red flag of Ashura, the flag of vengeance, was immediately raised. A sign of great power, a message to the whole world: Iran will react.
At the UN, Iran called for a Security Council meeting and denounced the aggression as a “declaration of war”, a very serious act which the Russian Federation, through its permanent representative, also recognized as a violation of international law and for which Israel bears full responsibility.
During an emergency meeting of the Security Council in New York, convened to discuss the Israeli attacks, Iravani denounced: “Last night, the Israeli regime, the most dangerous and terrorist regime in the world, with the full political support of the U.S. administration, carried out a series of coordinated and premeditated military attacks in several Iranian cities”. His words were reported by the IRNA news agency.
The ambassador specified that ‘these acts of illegal aggression targeted peaceful nuclear facilities, military sites, vital civilian infrastructure and residential areas,’ emphasizing in particular that one of the main targets was the Natanz nuclear power plant, ‘a site under strict surveillance by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).’ “These actions represent a declaration of war,” Iravani said. “They are the latest chapter in a long history of anarchic, destabilizing and aggressive behavior by the Israeli regime, which acts with impunity thanks to the protection of powerful allies. This situation must end.” The diplomat also accused the United States of ‘undoubted complicity’ in what he called ‘terrorist attacks’: ‘U.S. officials have unhesitatingly admitted their deliberate support for the crimes committed last night by Israel, including the intentional transfer of weapons.’ Iravani reiterated that Iran will not forget the Iranian victims ‘killed in Israeli attacks carried out with American weapons,’ and also condemned what he described as ‘intentional, coordinated and fully supported aggression’ by a permanent member of the Security Council – the United States – calling it ‘a serious violation of international law and the United Nations Charter.’
Within hours, comments and support came from the Russian Federation, followed by China, North Korea, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
From the United States, however, the first comment came overnight from Secretary of State Mark Rubio, who declared the U.S.’s non-involvement in the affair; but a few hours later, President Donald Trump himself posted on Truth a message threatening more brutal planned attacks on Iran and, shortly afterwards, revealed that Netanyahu and he had actually met to discuss the operation the day before.
Whether this was a move by Trump’s traitors to frame him is something we will discuss in another article. What is clear now is that, once again, the U.S. is in deep.
Counterattack
In a move that took many by surprise, as citizens took to the streets to call for revenge for their martyrs, Operation True Promise 3 was launched: in several waves, Tel Aviv was bombarded by Iranian hypersonic missiles, suffering extensive damage. It was a spectacle that was celebrated around the world, not just in the Middle East.
The Americans immediately began their media attack. Former CIA director Mike Pompeo warned that a serious incident could occur somewhere in the world and suggested that Iran could be behind it. He claimed that Iran has terrorist cells in almost every country, including the United States, and that these could soon be used to launch cyber attacks and other types of attacks. Pompeo called for strong support for Israel, saying it was necessary to stop what he considers a “global threat”.
We cannot say with certainty how long this low-intensity conventional conflict will last. The complicated machinery of international diplomacy may be very slow at the moment, but the international response must be swift and decisive.
One thing is certain: Iran will never surrender.
This is an important opportunity to stop Netanyahu and attack Israel politically, on the international stage, as a Zionist entity. Now the world has seen – once again – the evil of that country, and it is clear to everyone that its destructive fury will not abate until the country is brought to its knees and forced to surrender – or exterminated under enemy fire.
The real counterattack begins now. Iran’s next move on the chessboard will be decisive for the coming period.
Let us remember: it was not Iran that started this. History will take note of this.
Now, Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, while Yemen could close Bab al-Mandeb: both options are currently being considered. Tehran claims that it could destabilize global energy security as a direct consequence of the Zionist regime’s actions.
Interesting fact: the events in the world of Metro 2033 by Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky began with a nuclear attack by Israel against Iran.
This was followed by a world war that led to the apocalypse.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/06/ ... e-promise/
******
IRAN WILL NOT RELENT: ‘Iranians Unified in Retaliation Against Israel’ –Rachel Blevins Interviews Prof. Mohammad Marandi
June 15, 2025
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/06/ira ... d-marandi/
*****
Israel-Iran War. Day Three
June 16, 13:06
(I have elected not to post the cartoon which has a 'classic' anti-Semitic caricature while nonetheless true.)
Israel-Iran War. Day Three
Iran will respond tonight even more powerfully and destructively than yesterday. Objects in Tel Aviv and Haifa were hit. In Haifa, they even hit a power plant and a key oil refinery.
Iranian missiles hit a number of military facilities on Israeli territory. Military facilities in the Negev desert, military barracks in Galilee were hit. At the Nevatim airbase, a modern air defense system was actually destroyed - either Arrow 3 or THAAD, since as a result of a cyber attack, one of the launchers hit another with a massive detonation.
The IRGC reported that military operations against the Zionist regime will continue until it is destroyed.
The more than likely entry of the United States into the war in the next 48-72 hours (a massive transfer of air tankers is underway + the transfer of another AUG to the Middle East theater of military operations) will be a direct consequence of the fact that Israel cannot stand a war with Iran. That is why Bin Salman stated yesterday that Netanyahu wants to speed up the US entry into the war by all means. That is his plan. Hence the talk of a false flag attack on some American facility in the Middle East, which would free the US for direct aggression against Iran.
Talk of a possible ceasefire on Trump’s part is the same camouflage before preparing aggression, as before Israel’s attack on Iran.
Also, more than likely, the US and Israel are preparing to attack the top Iranian leadership.
An American-Israeli war against Iran.
Just as Russia is not fighting Ukraine, but the US and all of NATO through Ukraine, Iran is not just fighting Israel, it is fighting the US and all of its proxies, including assets from Europe through Israel;
This means calculations in Iran:
1. Iran must manage its alliances and coordinate diplomatic, economic and military actions with the rest of the BRICS countries;
2. Iran must also maintain social, economic and political stability within Iran and along its borders, as the US has invested in terrorism, subversion, sanctions and sabotage for years to destabilize and overthrow the Iranian government;
3. This is a multi-domain war that requires a multi-domain strategy that prioritizes the survival and further expansion of multipolarity (the only real means of shifting US influence in the region and around the world - primarily to support the influence of proxies like Israel (c) Brian Berletic
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9902550.html
Strike at the Weizmann Institute in Tel Aviv. 06/15/2025
June 15, 22:55
Weizmann Institute in Tel Aviv.
Before and after Israel's attack on Iran.
The Advanced and Intelligent Materials Building was heavily damaged. This building housed all the electron microscopy labs, advanced analytical labs, and research labs in various fields of chemistry. The building has several underground floors. The building was completed in 2023.
There were casualties in the nighttime attack on the Weizmann Institute in Tel Aviv.
Israeli journalist Alex Rif wrote:
I just finished talking to a researcher at the Weizmann Institute whose lab collapsed under the weight of the destruction. He says that entire labs were wiped off the face of the earth: instruments, equipment, the results of years of pioneering research, and even the people who spent their lives in these halls - all disappeared.
Among these labs was the lab of Professor Valery Krizhnovsky, who for many years researched the secrets of biological processes associated with aging. No one from the government responded: not from the tax office, not from the Ministry of Education, not from the Ministry of Science.
This is about empty buildings where there is no one. And so it is in many cases. It's just that the IDF is keeping the results of such flights as secret as possible in order to maintain the image of an unconditional victory. This is normal for information and psychological warfare.
Well, Iran has gotten to some Israeli scientists after all. As Israel likes to claim, these were legitimate military targets.
At the moment, the exchange of strikes continues. In the last few hours, there have been flights in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ashdon and Ashkelon. The Iranians are announcing a strike on the center of Tel Aviv in the near future.
All this is covered here https://t.me/boris_rozhin (if you are interested, subscribe)
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9901735.html
Google Translator
******
Absolutely They Are...
... as Larry summarizes it correctly.
Israel’s initial euphoria over its Friday morning strikes on Iranian targets is fading as Israeli inhabitants get a taste of their own medicine. Israel’s much touted Iron Dome is a total bust.
Pretty much all of the Israel's (the US) AD-ABM is nothing but a propaganda show which failed miserably. And, of course, the "plan" was to get the US involved directly. But here are some interesting details from Capitol Hill. I am not going to be talking about Thomas Massie--love him or hate him, he has balls unlike most cowards in Washington, so his position is no surprise and he openly laughs in the faces of AIPAC crowd. Same pretty much goes to Rand Paul. But suddenly other voices begin to be heard:
Trump must oppose Netanyahu’s escalation and pursue a diplomatic path to deal with Iran’s nuclear program,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) wrote on X. “Trump must not violate the Constitution by involving American troops in Netanyahu’s war without coming to Congress.” “This is a disaster of Trump and Netanyahu's own making, and now the region risks spiraling toward a new, deadly conflict. A war between Israel and Iran may be good for Netanyahu’s domestic politics, but it will likely be disastrous for both the security of Israel, the United States, and the rest of the region,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a statement. “As Secretary Rubio stated, the United States was not involved in today's strikes, and we have no obligation to follow Israel into a war we did not ask for and will make us less safe.”
Members are particularly concerned that the U.S. will move to defend Israel if Iran retaliates and furthermore acts in tandem to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Trump told Fox News last night that the U.S. is ready to defend itself and Israel if Iran retaliates. “The president cannot circumvent congressional war powers and unilaterally send U.S. troops to war with Iran. This is a violation of Article I of the Constitution which requires congressional approval to declare war,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D- Mich.) said. “The American people do not want another endless war in the Middle East that will cost lives and tear their families apart.”
Yes, Democrats, and no--Trump is not going to Congress for any authorization, but the run for mid-terms has already started and records and "paper trails" created. Now that Trump chickened-out of immigration issue, the only thing he has is one of the last fences to sit on before finishing off his presidency in a complete catastrophe.
Now, to those who still think that the US has an option of direct involvement--it sure does, but once, God forbids, any US Navy ship is sunk and the steady stream of the body-bags from defenseless (US doesn't have functional air defense, I warned about it for many years) US bases in the region begins to hit US shores, what's left? Correct--nuclear option, or blackmail or what have you, and that will be the end of the United States. I mean politically speaking, because it will be completely isolated and eventually fully boycotted. It will become a pariah nation with all that it entails.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2025/06 ... y-are.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Iran
Key Moments of the Israel-Iran War
June 17, 13:27
Key Moments of the Israel-Iran War
Some comments on the new war in the Middle East.
The following points remain outside the discussion of the course of military operations.
1. The United States is participating in this war.
It is naive to think that Israel relies only on its intelligence. The accuracy of Israel's strikes is such that only one country in the world can ensure this. Only the United States has the ability to collect primary data on all mobile network subscribers and either process it themselves, identifying the necessary contacts and establishing online surveillance of target people, or leak this database to Israel for processing. But only the Americans can do the collection. They also have space reconnaissance systems that allow them to take accurate radar images of the terrain and military equipment several times a day in some cases, and to track the situation in real time in others, and to transmit this data to whoever they deem necessary. In addition, the United States is directly involved in the destruction of Iranian missiles and UAVs outside Iranian territory. The United States is a participant in the attack on Iran, but the extent of US participation allows them to declare their non-involvement.
2. The factor of the so-called "sayyanim".
Sayanim (from Hebrew סייענים, English sayanim, in Hebrew - "helpers", assistants, (singular sayan, pl. sayanim) in the singular - sayan) - a secret international network of voluntary agents of Israel, managed by the operational units of the Mossad. These are Jews who under normal circumstances remain loyal to the country of residence and do not break the law, but on command are ready to provide assistance to the Mossad or another Israeli intelligence service without asking unnecessary questions. Sayans are usually not involved in operational work, due to their lack of training. Their tasks are simpler - for example, renting a large garage, finding and buying a car, providing some strangers with a place to live that meets the specified criteria, etc. Theoretically, they can be entrusted with more complex tasks if the supervisory officer considers it worth it.
In 1990, a book called "By Way of Deception" was published in Canada by retired Mossad officer Viktor Ostrovsky (co-authored with Canadian journalist Claire Hoy), who worked with the "sayanim". According to him, in London in the 80s, Mossad had 7,000 sayanim, which at that time was 0.1% of the entire city population. Zionist
organizations are engaged in the recruitment of sayanim.
In Iran, anti-Semitism is officially condemned, and the Jewish minority has two reserve seats in parliament. The Jewish diaspora in Iran still exists, but officially at the turn of the 2000s there was a collapse in its numbers, from tens of thousands to thousands of people.
Nevertheless, this collapse was not accompanied by a reduction in the presence of Jews in public life, and a sharp, proportional reduction in the number of synagogues.Which may indicate that a significant part of the Jewish community of Iran has gone into the "shadows".
Perhaps it was then that the Sayans began to be activated en masse, because it was in those years that Iran's progress in a number of areas slowed down sharply, as its space program literally "came to a standstill."
The attack on Iran with the deployment of large contingents of special forces on Iranian territory, with the deployment of UAVs and missile systems near military facilities, with the outright failure of Iranian counterintelligence, could not have happened without the "sayans."
Anthropologically, Jews and Persians in Iran are indistinguishable, which makes it easier for the former to infiltrate anywhere. To understand the degree of indistinguishability (and infiltration capabilities), you can compare a photo of a rabbi with a photo of Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
3. Despite the spectacularity of the Israeli attack, it is more stunning than deadly.
Moreover, there is every reason to believe that in a fairly short time Israel will face a shortage of high-precision weapons. Forecast - they will be able to maintain the pace of strikes for several dozen days, but not more than a hundred.
Then everything will depend on the political will of the Iranian leadership and the degree of its control over the population.
At the cost of overexertion and disproportionately high losses, Iran can still win. But it will be very difficult
@playcivilization - zinc
A lot of materials on strikes from Iran and Israel as usual in Telegram https://t.me/boris_rozhin - if you are interested, subscribe
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9904369.html
Google Translator
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From Cassad's telegram account:
Colonelcassad
I have no desire to negotiate with Iran. Expect nothing but their complete capitulation (c) Trump
Here is your "great peacemaker and master of deal-making".
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
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Manufacturing Consent Machine Goes Into Overdrive
Nate Bear
Jun 16, 2025
My last article about nuclear weapons, and Israel’s nuclear weapons in particular, was published about three hours before Israel started bombing Iran. The discredited pundit class thought an attack unlikely because they bought the lie of a rift between Trump and Netanyahu. Those who watched Israel commit a genocide and who’ve paid attention to the ultimate goals of Zionists in Israel and the west had no doubt the attack was coming.
After the bombing started, the propaganda began.
The western media regurgitated Israeli propaganda that these were ‘strikes on nuclear and military targets,’ (like the BBC here) and then we found out that more than two hundred civilians had been killed across Iran, including children, in apartment blocks in Tehran and other cities.
Iran inevitably retaliated. But what was completely missing from all western news coverage was the fact that under international law, Israel’s bombing of Iran was illegal (first strike, no UN resolution, not in response to an attack), whereas Iran’s was legal (a response to actually being bombed and therefore a legitimate claim of self-defence). On top of that, attacking nuclear power stations (Israel bombed Iran’s Natanz power station) is explicitly prohibited under Article 56 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention. The IAEA said Israel’s strike had caused ‘radioactive and chemical contamination,’ but I’m guessing you missed the news. (Compare this to when Russia attacks Zaporizhzhia or Chernobyl. Bombing nuclear power stations is only selectively bad, appears to be the western rule). On social media, experts in international law were exasperated that none of the coverage mentioned this at all. One of the world’s pre-eminent experts on the subject, Professor Ben Saul, the head of Sydney University’s international law department and the UN special rapporteur on human rights, was clear: Israel’s action was illegal and Iran’s was legal.
Professor Kevin Jon Heller, professor of international law and security at the University of Copenhagen said Israel’s attack was ‘unequivocally illegal.’ The straightforward fact of one party acting illegally and other other acting legally is one you won’t find anywhere outside social media.
Why? Because when it comes to Israel, none of this matters. The law literally doesn’t apply. And the so-called free press has no interest in reminding its readers about something as antiquated as international law. Western leaders sided with the illegal action. From Mark Carney in Canada, to Starmer in the UK to the EU chief Von Der Leyen to Germany’s Merz, and of course Trump. They all posted similar statements about the ‘grave concerns’ over Iran’s nuclear programme, and ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’, as if choreographed from Tel Aviv. Germany posted a statement about ‘Iran’s indiscriminate attack’ before Iran had even retaliated! And all presented as if the country that attacked first isn’t currently committing genocide.
International law lies dead in the rubble of Gaza, and it’s frightening to watch the impunity expand. It’s frightening to watch the attempts to manufacture consent for illegal mass murder. It’s frightening to see the Orwellian-level inversion of reality. It’s frightening to watch Israel be granted the right to kill whoever it wants, wherever it wants. It’s frightening that international law is no longer even a footnote in reports of Israel’s violence. We’re watching the obliteration of legal guardrails against the mass slaughter of innocents. We’re witnessing the complete devaluing of human life. In Tehran, an entire family were killed in their homes, possibly, and it’s hard to believe but appears to be true, because they shared the same surname as one of Iran’s top nuclear scientists. Just living your life and marked for missile death by a stranger in another land because you have the same surname as someone they don’t like. And the Israelis can do as much mass murder as they want because they know there’ll be no consequences. Allowing so much consequence-free slaughter imperils all of humanity.
There has also been a huge amount of propaganda by omission.
The first, and to my mind the most important one, is that Iran is one of the world's biggest producers of radiopharmaceuticals used for cancer diagnostics and treatments. And to diagnose cancer and make cancer drugs, you need medical isotopes. And you can’t make medical isotopes without enriching uranium. Iran is in the top five global exporters of radioactive drugs, supplying fifteen countries, including in Europe, with nuclear medicines. On top of that, sanctions against Iran prohibit the import of radiopharmaceuticals. So without a nuclear program, Iran would find it hard, if not impossible, to diagnose and treat people with cancer and other illnesses. CT scans and PET scans use radioactive tracers to image your body. Radiation therapy, which requires medical isotopes, which require uranium, is the primary way to treat cancer. In other words the enrichment of uranium is foundational to modern medicine. When Israel, the US and the west demand zero enrichment from Iran, as they have done, they are demanding Iran abandons modern medicine and condemns millions to illness and death.
It’s an impossible condition to fulfil.
Which is why you never hear about it. Because the manufacturing of consent for bombing Iran requires that we are ignorant about how Iran uses nuclear technology. Alongside the radiopharmaceuticals, the programme also provides electricity to millions of people.
Iran has always agreed to limit enrichment for medicine and energy, and this was precisely the terms of the agreement the US ripped up in 2018. Iran was in full compliance with that deal, a deal which allowed enrichment for peaceful purposes. The west is well aware that Iran needs uranium for critical life-saving reasons. They know, rationally, that zero enrichment is impossible to accept. Which means Israel, with the backing of the US and the west, bombed Iran for not agreeing to something that would destroy an industry critical to Iran’s economy, and would kill people. Iran was bombed for wanting to treat cancer.
I’m not trying to do propaganda for Iran. I’m just relaying factual information that mainstream reporting on Iran completely starves us of. And the media starve us of these facts because they know those three magic words - “Iran’s Nuclear Programme” - hide all context. The media and political class know that most people will hear these words and simply think: nuclear weapons. They’ll hear “nuclear scientists” and think of cartoon evil-style baddies in underground lairs stroking missiles, not nuclear medicine and cancer specialists.
However, it’s also pretty obvious that if Iran did have nuclear weapons, they wouldn’t be facing Israeli aggression, hundreds of innocent people would still be alive, we wouldn’t be on the way to a bigger war, and Israeli hegemony over the region would be weaker. Iran has consistently said it was not making a nuclear weapon and would have returned to the conditions of the Obama-era deal if they’d been offered again. But now, if Iran comes out of these attacks with nuclear capacity still intact, they will of course seek a nuclear weapon. They’d be naive not to. This is the logic that Israel’s attack has forced on them.
Then there’s the regime change element in all of this. In the last 24 hours it's been reported that Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. We now know that the reporting about a ‘rift’ between Trump and Netanyahu over attacking Iran was a ruse to lull Iran into a false sense of security. What this means is that Trump probably has given the go ahead for an assassination, and this is another ruse to trick Iran.
And Western media are salivating over the thought of regime change. The Times called for it in an opinion piece on Sunday.
A few hours later, The Guardian became the latest to smack its lips over the prospect.
Regime change in Iran of course has long been the wet dream of many politicians and security state figures, from liberals to conservatives. In February a resolution in the US House of Representatives calling for regime change in Iran was supported by 150 politicians, Democrats and Republicans.
What would the reality of regime change precipitated by western aggression look like? We only have to cast our eyes to Iraq, to Libya, or to Afghanistan where the results of violent western-backed regime change have been catastrophic. Iran would descend into sectarian violence, many thousands would be killed, the economy would collapse, millions would fall into poverty and the country wouldn’t see stability for a generation. This is what the majority of the media and political class are hoping to happen. It’s utterly depraved. Of course there are Iranians who oppose the current rulers. But opposition groups have said they want to determine their own future, because they know what western intervention leads to. Because they’ve seen western models of regime change. The Iraq model, where a puppet regime granted western companies all the oil contracts, did one election then watched as the country effectively balkanised. The Afghanistan model, where twenty years of corrupt leaders backed by the west ended in the same place they started and with the return of the Taliban. The Libya model, where Gaddafi’s murder in the aftermath of NATO bombing has unleashed brutal clan-on-clan violence, mass death and the effective end of the Libyan state.
It’s not for the west to decide any of this. It’s not for our leaders to use our votes and our bombs to violently change the political structures of other countries. What arrogance. And it’s not for us to judge who should or who shouldn’t lead Iran, how religious or secular they should be. We have more than enough of our own problems to deal with. But so far, the western media class has refused to acknowledge how our own brand of secular authoritarianism has emerged. From America to Germany to the UK, western countries are disappearing, prosecuting and locking people up for peaceful protest and for speech. The British government just charged a member of a rap group with terrorism for flying a Hezbollah flag at a gig. He might go to prison. For opposing a genocidal state our leaders support. A state our leaders provide weapons and political cover to as they murder, starve, maim, torture and summarily execute hundreds of thousands of people. All the talk of the ‘tyranny of the Iranian regime’ is premised on a moral high ground we simply don’t occupy. It’s laughable.
And never forget that none of the morally righteous talk about repression in Iran we’ll hear in the coming days and weeks is uttered in good faith. From Egypt to Jordan to Saudi Arabia to the UAE, the west backs religious and military dictatorships because they’re on our side. In Jordan, which is ruled by a monarchy, the government has actively entered the war on the side of Israel. In Egypt, which is ruled by a military dictatorship, government agents are detaining and deporting activists for trying to deliver aid to Gaza. We like them because they turn a blind eye to genocide and western aggression. These dictators are our dictators.
Weasel words about freedom in Iran are so audaciously hypocritical it’s enough to send you insane. And while hypocrisy isn’t a crime, it’s a clue. A clue about what the media and political class think of us. A clue about what they think we’ll fall for. A clue about how they are manipulating narratives.
So stay sane. Stay clued up. Understand the propaganda when you’re fed it. Understand the war on Iran is about western geostrategic interests, nothing more, nothing less. Iran poses absolutely zero threat to the west. It’s a war for Israel. Understand that when the BBC tells you how hard it is to to report from Iran, it’s an excuse for them to spew Israeli propaganda.
Question why they never had the same disclaimer about Gaza, even though Israel has prohibited western reporters from going to Gaza to report first-hand on genocide.
Question why the BBC will tell you about Iran’s censorship but won’t tell you Israel has a military censorship law and a military censor unit that pre-approves news articles. And then understand it’s because they are hacks and stenographers for empire, not journalists.
Understand it’s because the consent manufacturing machine is in overdrive, and they want your blessing for even more violence and war.
Don’t give it to them.
https://www.donotpanic.news/p/manufactu ... dium=email
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The Iranian Hypersonic Weapons That Have Breached Israel’s Iron Dome
Photo: EFE/EPA/ATEF SAFADI
June 15, 2025 Hour: 8:24 pm
In the ever-evolving landscape of modern warfare, the advent of hypersonic weapons has radically changed the dynamics of offensive and defensive military strategies.
This is especially true in the Middle East, where tensions between Iran and Israel have reached new heights.
Following a recent attacks by Iran on Israel, it has become evident that these hypersonic missiles pose a significant challenge to Israel’s famed Iron Dome defense system, something the nation has relied on for its security.
Understanding Hypersonic Weapons
Hypersonic weapons, as defined by their capability to travel at speeds exceeding Mach 5 (over 6,174 km/h), represent a new frontier in military technology.
They are designed not just for speed but also for maneuverability, making them notoriously difficult to intercept.
Iran has significantly advanced its weapons development, notably with the Fattah series.
These missiles are not just fast; they are highly agile, capable of changing course mid-flight to evade interceptors.
The Fattah Missiles: A Game Changer
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the deployment of its hypersonic missiles during a recent strike against Israel, reportedly launching around 180 ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
Among them were the Fattah I and Fattah II missiles, which Iran has showcased as a cornerstone of its military strategy against what it considers its primary adversary—the Israeli state.
Unveiled in July 2023, the Fattah missile, which translates to “the opener of victory,” marked a significant milestone in Iran’s military capabilities.
Noteworthy for its striking black color, which sets it apart from traditional missile designs, the Fattah I can achieve speeds of Mach 12 to 13 (approximately 14,000 to 15,000 km/h).
This speed, combined with its ability to perform evasive maneuvers while maintaining precision, fundamentally challenges the operational efficacy of Israel’s Iron Dome.
What sets the Fattah II apart is its advanced propulsion system that utilizes a liquid fuel rocket engine.
This innovative design enhances its speed, potentially reaching up to 17,000 km/h, and improves its trajectory management, making it even more unpredictable during flight.
With an operational range of about 1,800 kilometers, it poses a formidable threat not only to Israel but also to U.S. allies in the region.
Impact on Israel’s Defense Strategy
Israel has long prided itself on the effectiveness of its Iron Dome system, designed to intercept incoming threats such as rockets and artillery shells.
However, the introduction of Iranian hypersonic missiles has raised concerns regarding the Iron Dome’s limitations.
Reports indicate that the recent barrage overwhelmed the system, underscoring the vulnerabilities that hypersonic technology introduces into the defense landscape.
The capability of hypersonic weapons to execute unpredictable maneuvers means that traditional interceptors may struggle to track and engage them effectively.
As hypersonic technology continues to advance, Israel may need to shift its defensive tactics, potentially investing in new technologies that can keep pace with evolving threats.
Global Dynamics: Iran’s Influence and Regional Implications
The implications of Iran’s hypersonic advancements extend beyond the immediate conflict with Israel.
Other non-state actors, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen, have reported successes using Iranian technology to develop their own hypersonic systems.
In September 2024, the Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack on Tel Aviv using their Palestine-2 missile.
This variant reportedly boasts a reach of 2,150 kilometers, equipped with solid-fuel engines and advanced maneuverability.
Such developments signify that hypersonic weapons are no longer exclusive to state armies; they are becoming accessible to various groups, thereby reshaping power dynamics in the region.
The proliferation of this technology could lead to an arms race, prompting neighboring countries to accelerate their own military research and development efforts.
The New Era of Warfare
As hypersonic technology matures, the challenges it presents will continue to redefine military strategies and geopolitical relationships.
Iran’s achievements in hypersonic weaponry have not only altered the balance of power in the Middle East but also raised pressing questions about the future efficacy of established defense systems like Israel’s Iron Dome.
It is clear that nations must adapt to this rapidly changing landscape to ensure their security in an era where speed and maneuverability could very well determine the outcome of conflicts.
The reality of hypersonic warfare is here, and understanding its implications is critical for policymakers and military strategists alike.
As nations like Iran continue to innovate and enhance their military capabilities, the global order may witness profound shifts that demand careful navigation amidst escalating tensions.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/iranian- ... iron-dome/
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Attack on Iranian state TV office, 18.06.
June 16, 21:06
Israel attacked the Iranian TV office in Tehran. The building was damaged after landing.
After a short break, broadcasting resumed.
(Videos at link.)
Iran promised to strike Israeli TV stations.
The strike killed 18 people.
The female presenter returned to the air after the Israeli strike and called on Israel to "strike again," saying that you were not hitting enough.
According to the Iranians, the staff knew that a strike was possible, but they chose to stay and continue working.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9903435.html
Google Translator
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Tel Aviv miscalculates: Why Israel’s shock strategy failed against Iran
Israel’s bid to export its assassination doctrine from Lebanon to Iran has backfired. Tehran’s rapid retaliation and deep strategic reserves have exposed the limits of Israeli power – and may drag Washington to the brink of a regional confrontation it can neither afford nor fully control.
Ali Salehian
JUN 16, 2025
Photo Credit: The Cradle
The Israeli occupation state’s early morning blitz on 13 June – the most brazen assault on Iranian soil in decades – was designed to replicate its past successes in Lebanon. It didn’t work.
That Friday morning, Israeli fighter jets launched multiple attacks across Iran: 60 civilians were killed in a residential tower, several top nuclear scientists and senior military commanders were assassinated, and key air defense and nuclear infrastructure sites were hit.
The strikes marked a high-risk escalation, modeled in part on Israel’s September 2024 campaign in Lebanon, where a coordinated assassination spree eliminated Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit leadership and, ultimately, secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah himself and his presumed successor, Hashem Safieddine.
A failed template
This “shock and awe” blueprint found some success in Lebanon, where Israeli intelligence had achieved deep penetration. In Tehran, however, it met a far more resilient nation.
While US President Donald Trump loudly demanded Iran abandon its nuclear enrichment rights, he pursued a carrot-and-stick approach of ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, military threats, and negotiations to try and persuade Tehran to accept his unilateral demands during indirect talks.
This pattern had previously been repeated in the Ukraine–Russia conflict after negotiation deadlocks, involving operations deep inside Russia and attacks on Russian strategic bombers.
For months, Tehran had calculated Israel's Hezbollah strike model as one likely scenario for an attack on Iran. Accordingly, measures were taken to quickly replace commanders in such an event. At least tactically, however, Israel still managed to shock Iran with its attacks, mostly resulting from domestic infiltration and sabotage operations.
Tehran counters swiftly
But Iran's response was swift. Within 72 hours, Tehran had launched three significant retaliatory operations. The country's air defenses were restored, drone units re-engaged, and key command posts replenished. Footage and images of Israeli targets struck by Iranian munitions soon proliferated online, signaling both Tehran's operational recovery and strategic messaging.
Iran’s offensive and defensive response was such, that Trump, initially jubilant about Israel’s actions and seeking to offer Iran a “second chance” for negotiation – even possibly entertaining the idea of joining a war with a certain victory against the Islamic Republic – returned to a declared neutral stance, seeking to rapidly end tensions.
But Tehran's message has been clear and consistent: It views any Israeli aggression as inseparable from US support. The Islamic Republic has long warned that Washington's logistical, intelligence, and operational backing enables all of Tel Aviv's military campaigns. And while right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to try to entangle the US in his Iranian regime-change agenda, Trump and others appear increasingly cautious.
Security for all or none
Iran has clearly stated its strategy in case of a US attack: security for all or none, meaning maritime security, energy security, and the security of US bases in West Asia.
Mohsen Rezaei, former overall Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said in a recent interview that:
“America and Europe must withdraw their statesmen from behind Israel as soon as possible. If this does not happen, we cannot witness the United States and other countries continuing to supply ammunition to Israel. Their planes will enter the sky and will collide with our missiles; whether they are British, French, or American planes. Therefore, the dimensions of the war may become more serious and we have prepared ourselves for it.”
He added, “Of course, our effort has always been not to be the initiator, but we will be the finisher. If support for Israel continues, my prediction is that the supporters may also be drawn into the conflict.”
Iran possesses diverse defensive and offensive tools and conventional and unconventional options, which it will certainly reconsider seriously after the recent exchange of heavy fire.
As Mohammad-Javad Larijani, a top foreign policy advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and secretary of the nation's High Council for Human Rights, has said:
“There is an old rule in the Persian Gulf, if our (Iran's) oil facilities are seriously damaged, we will not allow any country in the region to use its oil.”
There are many options Iran can employ to execute on that threat. Brigadier General Esmail Kowsari, a member of the Parliament's National Security Commission, argued that “closing the Strait of Hormuz” could easily be one tactic on Iran's agenda.
Misreading the Iranian battlefield
Tel Aviv has mistakenly assumed its Lebanon strategy was scalable. Several miscalculations undermined its copy-paste plan to decapitate Iran's leadership.
First, Iran’s military command is vast, experienced, and rapidly replaceable. Unlike Hezbollah, a non-state actor with more limited resources, Iran maintains depth and redundancy across its armed forces. Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi pointed to this capacity, dismissing Israeli assumptions that a few assassinations could cripple national defense.
Second, geography matters. Iran’s sheer size allows the strategic dispersal of critical assets. Israeli jets may have briefly penetrated key western nodes, but much of Iran’s infrastructure remains embedded in its eastern and central territories. The state’s military doctrine is built around such depth.
Third, while Israel’s intelligence apparatus did succeed in penetrating Iranian command circles, it did not achieve full-spectrum dominance. The Islamic Republic retains the capacity for counter-intelligence operations, and in the days since the attack, internal security has reportedly dismantled multiple espionage cells, which caused most of the recent explosions.
The Iranian version of solidarity as a strategic weapon
But perhaps Tel Aviv’s gravest misjudgment lay in its reading of Iran’s internal cohesion. Israeli PM Netanyahu appeared to believe that a sudden external strike would activate opposition forces within Iran – unleashing separatists, militants, and government critics to destabilize the state. This calculation has an equally ill-informed precedent: Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein made a similar error in the 1980s.
But Iran’s political unity in the face of external threats has been repeatedly demonstrated. Even segments of society critical of the Islamic Republic have closed ranks when faced with foreign aggression. It is a nationalism forged not from state propaganda, but from the collective memory of wars, invasions, and isolation.
Tel Aviv has, in three short days, killed 224 Iranian nationals, the majority civilians, and reduced several residential buildings to rubble. That level of provocation has consequences. In this conflict, Iran’s deterrence is not only military – it is social.
A war not yet decided
As of now, the situation remains fluid. Tel Aviv’s campaign has triggered a rapid Iranian response, both in rhetoric and in kind. But more than that, it has exposed the limits of Israel’s military doctrine when applied to a state actor with deep – and even unknown – defenses and a mobilized population.
Tel Aviv's western allies, once content to issue muted statements during months of Israeli attacks on Gaza, and its more recent strikes on Iran, have since shifted to active diplomacy. Washington is now scrambling to prevent a regional conflagration. What was once passive support is now active mediation, as Tel Aviv pushes to pull Washington deeper into its confrontation with Iran. Netanyahu, meanwhile, still eyes a broader war to settle Iran’s nuclear file by force and aims for a complete regime change. Israel's aim is clearly to draw the US into a military campaign that could damage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and weaken its military strength.
But Tehran has drawn its line. As Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh warned in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli strikes:
“We are fully prepared and will support our operational forces in any way we can. We are ready for years of continued combat, and the armed forces are fully equipped.”
As with any conflict, outcomes remain uncertain. Yet, whether this spirals into a wider war or stalls into another frozen regional standoff depends less on Israel and more on whether the US is willing to follow Tel Aviv into the fire.
https://thecradle.co/articles/tel-aviv- ... ainst-iran
Assassinating Khamenei will 'end war': Netanyahu
Western media reports claim Donald Trump recently 'vetoed' an Israeli plan to assassinate the Iranian supreme leader
News Desk
JUN 16, 2025
(Photo Credit: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC News on 16 June that killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is "not going to escalate the conflict, it's going to end the conflict."
The premier's answer came after the interviewer pressed him on recent reports that said US President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to assassinate the Iranian leader.
"We've had half a century of conflict spread by this regime that terrorizes everyone in the Middle East; has bombed the Aramco oil fields in Saudi Arabia; is spreading terrorism and subversion and sabotage everywhere," Netanyahu told the US news outlet.
"The 'forever war' is what Iran wants, and they're bringing us to the brink of nuclear war. In fact, what Israel is doing is preventing this, bringing an end to this aggression, and we can only do so by standing up to the forces of evil," he added.
Netanyahu also said Israel was “doing what we need to do” when asked if he still plans to target Khamenei.
"Today, it's Tel Aviv. Tomorrow, it's New York. Look, I understand 'America First'. I don't understand 'America Dead'. That's what these people want. They chant 'Death to America.' So we're doing something that is in the service of mankind, of humanity, and it's a battle of good against evil. America does, should, and does stand with the good. That's what President Trump is doing, And I deeply appreciate his support," the embattled Israeli premier stressed.
War has been raging between Iran and Israel since 13 June, when Tel Aviv launched a surprise attack on the Islamic Republic with the full support of the US government.
In retaliation for the targeted assassinations of several top military commanders and nuclear scientists, and the deaths of dozens of civilians, Iran has been raining down ballistic missiles on Israel, targeting major cities, key military sites, power plants, and hydrocarbon facilities.
https://thecradle.co/articles/assassina ... -netanyahu
June 17, 13:27
Key Moments of the Israel-Iran War
Some comments on the new war in the Middle East.
The following points remain outside the discussion of the course of military operations.
1. The United States is participating in this war.
It is naive to think that Israel relies only on its intelligence. The accuracy of Israel's strikes is such that only one country in the world can ensure this. Only the United States has the ability to collect primary data on all mobile network subscribers and either process it themselves, identifying the necessary contacts and establishing online surveillance of target people, or leak this database to Israel for processing. But only the Americans can do the collection. They also have space reconnaissance systems that allow them to take accurate radar images of the terrain and military equipment several times a day in some cases, and to track the situation in real time in others, and to transmit this data to whoever they deem necessary. In addition, the United States is directly involved in the destruction of Iranian missiles and UAVs outside Iranian territory. The United States is a participant in the attack on Iran, but the extent of US participation allows them to declare their non-involvement.
2. The factor of the so-called "sayyanim".
Sayanim (from Hebrew סייענים, English sayanim, in Hebrew - "helpers", assistants, (singular sayan, pl. sayanim) in the singular - sayan) - a secret international network of voluntary agents of Israel, managed by the operational units of the Mossad. These are Jews who under normal circumstances remain loyal to the country of residence and do not break the law, but on command are ready to provide assistance to the Mossad or another Israeli intelligence service without asking unnecessary questions. Sayans are usually not involved in operational work, due to their lack of training. Their tasks are simpler - for example, renting a large garage, finding and buying a car, providing some strangers with a place to live that meets the specified criteria, etc. Theoretically, they can be entrusted with more complex tasks if the supervisory officer considers it worth it.
In 1990, a book called "By Way of Deception" was published in Canada by retired Mossad officer Viktor Ostrovsky (co-authored with Canadian journalist Claire Hoy), who worked with the "sayanim". According to him, in London in the 80s, Mossad had 7,000 sayanim, which at that time was 0.1% of the entire city population. Zionist
organizations are engaged in the recruitment of sayanim.
In Iran, anti-Semitism is officially condemned, and the Jewish minority has two reserve seats in parliament. The Jewish diaspora in Iran still exists, but officially at the turn of the 2000s there was a collapse in its numbers, from tens of thousands to thousands of people.
Nevertheless, this collapse was not accompanied by a reduction in the presence of Jews in public life, and a sharp, proportional reduction in the number of synagogues.Which may indicate that a significant part of the Jewish community of Iran has gone into the "shadows".
Perhaps it was then that the Sayans began to be activated en masse, because it was in those years that Iran's progress in a number of areas slowed down sharply, as its space program literally "came to a standstill."
The attack on Iran with the deployment of large contingents of special forces on Iranian territory, with the deployment of UAVs and missile systems near military facilities, with the outright failure of Iranian counterintelligence, could not have happened without the "sayans."
Anthropologically, Jews and Persians in Iran are indistinguishable, which makes it easier for the former to infiltrate anywhere. To understand the degree of indistinguishability (and infiltration capabilities), you can compare a photo of a rabbi with a photo of Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
3. Despite the spectacularity of the Israeli attack, it is more stunning than deadly.
Moreover, there is every reason to believe that in a fairly short time Israel will face a shortage of high-precision weapons. Forecast - they will be able to maintain the pace of strikes for several dozen days, but not more than a hundred.
Then everything will depend on the political will of the Iranian leadership and the degree of its control over the population.
At the cost of overexertion and disproportionately high losses, Iran can still win. But it will be very difficult
@playcivilization - zinc
A lot of materials on strikes from Iran and Israel as usual in Telegram https://t.me/boris_rozhin - if you are interested, subscribe
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9904369.html
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From Cassad's telegram account:
Colonelcassad
I have no desire to negotiate with Iran. Expect nothing but their complete capitulation (c) Trump
Here is your "great peacemaker and master of deal-making".
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
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Manufacturing Consent Machine Goes Into Overdrive
Nate Bear
Jun 16, 2025
My last article about nuclear weapons, and Israel’s nuclear weapons in particular, was published about three hours before Israel started bombing Iran. The discredited pundit class thought an attack unlikely because they bought the lie of a rift between Trump and Netanyahu. Those who watched Israel commit a genocide and who’ve paid attention to the ultimate goals of Zionists in Israel and the west had no doubt the attack was coming.
After the bombing started, the propaganda began.
The western media regurgitated Israeli propaganda that these were ‘strikes on nuclear and military targets,’ (like the BBC here) and then we found out that more than two hundred civilians had been killed across Iran, including children, in apartment blocks in Tehran and other cities.
Iran inevitably retaliated. But what was completely missing from all western news coverage was the fact that under international law, Israel’s bombing of Iran was illegal (first strike, no UN resolution, not in response to an attack), whereas Iran’s was legal (a response to actually being bombed and therefore a legitimate claim of self-defence). On top of that, attacking nuclear power stations (Israel bombed Iran’s Natanz power station) is explicitly prohibited under Article 56 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention. The IAEA said Israel’s strike had caused ‘radioactive and chemical contamination,’ but I’m guessing you missed the news. (Compare this to when Russia attacks Zaporizhzhia or Chernobyl. Bombing nuclear power stations is only selectively bad, appears to be the western rule). On social media, experts in international law were exasperated that none of the coverage mentioned this at all. One of the world’s pre-eminent experts on the subject, Professor Ben Saul, the head of Sydney University’s international law department and the UN special rapporteur on human rights, was clear: Israel’s action was illegal and Iran’s was legal.
Professor Kevin Jon Heller, professor of international law and security at the University of Copenhagen said Israel’s attack was ‘unequivocally illegal.’ The straightforward fact of one party acting illegally and other other acting legally is one you won’t find anywhere outside social media.
Why? Because when it comes to Israel, none of this matters. The law literally doesn’t apply. And the so-called free press has no interest in reminding its readers about something as antiquated as international law. Western leaders sided with the illegal action. From Mark Carney in Canada, to Starmer in the UK to the EU chief Von Der Leyen to Germany’s Merz, and of course Trump. They all posted similar statements about the ‘grave concerns’ over Iran’s nuclear programme, and ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’, as if choreographed from Tel Aviv. Germany posted a statement about ‘Iran’s indiscriminate attack’ before Iran had even retaliated! And all presented as if the country that attacked first isn’t currently committing genocide.
International law lies dead in the rubble of Gaza, and it’s frightening to watch the impunity expand. It’s frightening to watch the attempts to manufacture consent for illegal mass murder. It’s frightening to see the Orwellian-level inversion of reality. It’s frightening to watch Israel be granted the right to kill whoever it wants, wherever it wants. It’s frightening that international law is no longer even a footnote in reports of Israel’s violence. We’re watching the obliteration of legal guardrails against the mass slaughter of innocents. We’re witnessing the complete devaluing of human life. In Tehran, an entire family were killed in their homes, possibly, and it’s hard to believe but appears to be true, because they shared the same surname as one of Iran’s top nuclear scientists. Just living your life and marked for missile death by a stranger in another land because you have the same surname as someone they don’t like. And the Israelis can do as much mass murder as they want because they know there’ll be no consequences. Allowing so much consequence-free slaughter imperils all of humanity.
There has also been a huge amount of propaganda by omission.
The first, and to my mind the most important one, is that Iran is one of the world's biggest producers of radiopharmaceuticals used for cancer diagnostics and treatments. And to diagnose cancer and make cancer drugs, you need medical isotopes. And you can’t make medical isotopes without enriching uranium. Iran is in the top five global exporters of radioactive drugs, supplying fifteen countries, including in Europe, with nuclear medicines. On top of that, sanctions against Iran prohibit the import of radiopharmaceuticals. So without a nuclear program, Iran would find it hard, if not impossible, to diagnose and treat people with cancer and other illnesses. CT scans and PET scans use radioactive tracers to image your body. Radiation therapy, which requires medical isotopes, which require uranium, is the primary way to treat cancer. In other words the enrichment of uranium is foundational to modern medicine. When Israel, the US and the west demand zero enrichment from Iran, as they have done, they are demanding Iran abandons modern medicine and condemns millions to illness and death.
It’s an impossible condition to fulfil.
Which is why you never hear about it. Because the manufacturing of consent for bombing Iran requires that we are ignorant about how Iran uses nuclear technology. Alongside the radiopharmaceuticals, the programme also provides electricity to millions of people.
Iran has always agreed to limit enrichment for medicine and energy, and this was precisely the terms of the agreement the US ripped up in 2018. Iran was in full compliance with that deal, a deal which allowed enrichment for peaceful purposes. The west is well aware that Iran needs uranium for critical life-saving reasons. They know, rationally, that zero enrichment is impossible to accept. Which means Israel, with the backing of the US and the west, bombed Iran for not agreeing to something that would destroy an industry critical to Iran’s economy, and would kill people. Iran was bombed for wanting to treat cancer.
I’m not trying to do propaganda for Iran. I’m just relaying factual information that mainstream reporting on Iran completely starves us of. And the media starve us of these facts because they know those three magic words - “Iran’s Nuclear Programme” - hide all context. The media and political class know that most people will hear these words and simply think: nuclear weapons. They’ll hear “nuclear scientists” and think of cartoon evil-style baddies in underground lairs stroking missiles, not nuclear medicine and cancer specialists.
However, it’s also pretty obvious that if Iran did have nuclear weapons, they wouldn’t be facing Israeli aggression, hundreds of innocent people would still be alive, we wouldn’t be on the way to a bigger war, and Israeli hegemony over the region would be weaker. Iran has consistently said it was not making a nuclear weapon and would have returned to the conditions of the Obama-era deal if they’d been offered again. But now, if Iran comes out of these attacks with nuclear capacity still intact, they will of course seek a nuclear weapon. They’d be naive not to. This is the logic that Israel’s attack has forced on them.
Then there’s the regime change element in all of this. In the last 24 hours it's been reported that Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. We now know that the reporting about a ‘rift’ between Trump and Netanyahu over attacking Iran was a ruse to lull Iran into a false sense of security. What this means is that Trump probably has given the go ahead for an assassination, and this is another ruse to trick Iran.
And Western media are salivating over the thought of regime change. The Times called for it in an opinion piece on Sunday.
A few hours later, The Guardian became the latest to smack its lips over the prospect.
Regime change in Iran of course has long been the wet dream of many politicians and security state figures, from liberals to conservatives. In February a resolution in the US House of Representatives calling for regime change in Iran was supported by 150 politicians, Democrats and Republicans.
What would the reality of regime change precipitated by western aggression look like? We only have to cast our eyes to Iraq, to Libya, or to Afghanistan where the results of violent western-backed regime change have been catastrophic. Iran would descend into sectarian violence, many thousands would be killed, the economy would collapse, millions would fall into poverty and the country wouldn’t see stability for a generation. This is what the majority of the media and political class are hoping to happen. It’s utterly depraved. Of course there are Iranians who oppose the current rulers. But opposition groups have said they want to determine their own future, because they know what western intervention leads to. Because they’ve seen western models of regime change. The Iraq model, where a puppet regime granted western companies all the oil contracts, did one election then watched as the country effectively balkanised. The Afghanistan model, where twenty years of corrupt leaders backed by the west ended in the same place they started and with the return of the Taliban. The Libya model, where Gaddafi’s murder in the aftermath of NATO bombing has unleashed brutal clan-on-clan violence, mass death and the effective end of the Libyan state.
It’s not for the west to decide any of this. It’s not for our leaders to use our votes and our bombs to violently change the political structures of other countries. What arrogance. And it’s not for us to judge who should or who shouldn’t lead Iran, how religious or secular they should be. We have more than enough of our own problems to deal with. But so far, the western media class has refused to acknowledge how our own brand of secular authoritarianism has emerged. From America to Germany to the UK, western countries are disappearing, prosecuting and locking people up for peaceful protest and for speech. The British government just charged a member of a rap group with terrorism for flying a Hezbollah flag at a gig. He might go to prison. For opposing a genocidal state our leaders support. A state our leaders provide weapons and political cover to as they murder, starve, maim, torture and summarily execute hundreds of thousands of people. All the talk of the ‘tyranny of the Iranian regime’ is premised on a moral high ground we simply don’t occupy. It’s laughable.
And never forget that none of the morally righteous talk about repression in Iran we’ll hear in the coming days and weeks is uttered in good faith. From Egypt to Jordan to Saudi Arabia to the UAE, the west backs religious and military dictatorships because they’re on our side. In Jordan, which is ruled by a monarchy, the government has actively entered the war on the side of Israel. In Egypt, which is ruled by a military dictatorship, government agents are detaining and deporting activists for trying to deliver aid to Gaza. We like them because they turn a blind eye to genocide and western aggression. These dictators are our dictators.
Weasel words about freedom in Iran are so audaciously hypocritical it’s enough to send you insane. And while hypocrisy isn’t a crime, it’s a clue. A clue about what the media and political class think of us. A clue about what they think we’ll fall for. A clue about how they are manipulating narratives.
So stay sane. Stay clued up. Understand the propaganda when you’re fed it. Understand the war on Iran is about western geostrategic interests, nothing more, nothing less. Iran poses absolutely zero threat to the west. It’s a war for Israel. Understand that when the BBC tells you how hard it is to to report from Iran, it’s an excuse for them to spew Israeli propaganda.
Question why they never had the same disclaimer about Gaza, even though Israel has prohibited western reporters from going to Gaza to report first-hand on genocide.
Question why the BBC will tell you about Iran’s censorship but won’t tell you Israel has a military censorship law and a military censor unit that pre-approves news articles. And then understand it’s because they are hacks and stenographers for empire, not journalists.
Understand it’s because the consent manufacturing machine is in overdrive, and they want your blessing for even more violence and war.
Don’t give it to them.
https://www.donotpanic.news/p/manufactu ... dium=email
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The Iranian Hypersonic Weapons That Have Breached Israel’s Iron Dome
Photo: EFE/EPA/ATEF SAFADI
June 15, 2025 Hour: 8:24 pm
In the ever-evolving landscape of modern warfare, the advent of hypersonic weapons has radically changed the dynamics of offensive and defensive military strategies.
This is especially true in the Middle East, where tensions between Iran and Israel have reached new heights.
Following a recent attacks by Iran on Israel, it has become evident that these hypersonic missiles pose a significant challenge to Israel’s famed Iron Dome defense system, something the nation has relied on for its security.
Understanding Hypersonic Weapons
Hypersonic weapons, as defined by their capability to travel at speeds exceeding Mach 5 (over 6,174 km/h), represent a new frontier in military technology.
They are designed not just for speed but also for maneuverability, making them notoriously difficult to intercept.
Iran has significantly advanced its weapons development, notably with the Fattah series.
These missiles are not just fast; they are highly agile, capable of changing course mid-flight to evade interceptors.
The Fattah Missiles: A Game Changer
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the deployment of its hypersonic missiles during a recent strike against Israel, reportedly launching around 180 ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
Among them were the Fattah I and Fattah II missiles, which Iran has showcased as a cornerstone of its military strategy against what it considers its primary adversary—the Israeli state.
Unveiled in July 2023, the Fattah missile, which translates to “the opener of victory,” marked a significant milestone in Iran’s military capabilities.
Noteworthy for its striking black color, which sets it apart from traditional missile designs, the Fattah I can achieve speeds of Mach 12 to 13 (approximately 14,000 to 15,000 km/h).
This speed, combined with its ability to perform evasive maneuvers while maintaining precision, fundamentally challenges the operational efficacy of Israel’s Iron Dome.
What sets the Fattah II apart is its advanced propulsion system that utilizes a liquid fuel rocket engine.
This innovative design enhances its speed, potentially reaching up to 17,000 km/h, and improves its trajectory management, making it even more unpredictable during flight.
With an operational range of about 1,800 kilometers, it poses a formidable threat not only to Israel but also to U.S. allies in the region.
Impact on Israel’s Defense Strategy
Israel has long prided itself on the effectiveness of its Iron Dome system, designed to intercept incoming threats such as rockets and artillery shells.
However, the introduction of Iranian hypersonic missiles has raised concerns regarding the Iron Dome’s limitations.
Reports indicate that the recent barrage overwhelmed the system, underscoring the vulnerabilities that hypersonic technology introduces into the defense landscape.
The capability of hypersonic weapons to execute unpredictable maneuvers means that traditional interceptors may struggle to track and engage them effectively.
As hypersonic technology continues to advance, Israel may need to shift its defensive tactics, potentially investing in new technologies that can keep pace with evolving threats.
Global Dynamics: Iran’s Influence and Regional Implications
The implications of Iran’s hypersonic advancements extend beyond the immediate conflict with Israel.
Other non-state actors, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen, have reported successes using Iranian technology to develop their own hypersonic systems.
In September 2024, the Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack on Tel Aviv using their Palestine-2 missile.
This variant reportedly boasts a reach of 2,150 kilometers, equipped with solid-fuel engines and advanced maneuverability.
Such developments signify that hypersonic weapons are no longer exclusive to state armies; they are becoming accessible to various groups, thereby reshaping power dynamics in the region.
The proliferation of this technology could lead to an arms race, prompting neighboring countries to accelerate their own military research and development efforts.
The New Era of Warfare
As hypersonic technology matures, the challenges it presents will continue to redefine military strategies and geopolitical relationships.
Iran’s achievements in hypersonic weaponry have not only altered the balance of power in the Middle East but also raised pressing questions about the future efficacy of established defense systems like Israel’s Iron Dome.
It is clear that nations must adapt to this rapidly changing landscape to ensure their security in an era where speed and maneuverability could very well determine the outcome of conflicts.
The reality of hypersonic warfare is here, and understanding its implications is critical for policymakers and military strategists alike.
As nations like Iran continue to innovate and enhance their military capabilities, the global order may witness profound shifts that demand careful navigation amidst escalating tensions.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/iranian- ... iron-dome/
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Attack on Iranian state TV office, 18.06.
June 16, 21:06
Israel attacked the Iranian TV office in Tehran. The building was damaged after landing.
After a short break, broadcasting resumed.
(Videos at link.)
Iran promised to strike Israeli TV stations.
The strike killed 18 people.
The female presenter returned to the air after the Israeli strike and called on Israel to "strike again," saying that you were not hitting enough.
According to the Iranians, the staff knew that a strike was possible, but they chose to stay and continue working.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9903435.html
Google Translator
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Tel Aviv miscalculates: Why Israel’s shock strategy failed against Iran
Israel’s bid to export its assassination doctrine from Lebanon to Iran has backfired. Tehran’s rapid retaliation and deep strategic reserves have exposed the limits of Israeli power – and may drag Washington to the brink of a regional confrontation it can neither afford nor fully control.
Ali Salehian
JUN 16, 2025
Photo Credit: The Cradle
The Israeli occupation state’s early morning blitz on 13 June – the most brazen assault on Iranian soil in decades – was designed to replicate its past successes in Lebanon. It didn’t work.
That Friday morning, Israeli fighter jets launched multiple attacks across Iran: 60 civilians were killed in a residential tower, several top nuclear scientists and senior military commanders were assassinated, and key air defense and nuclear infrastructure sites were hit.
The strikes marked a high-risk escalation, modeled in part on Israel’s September 2024 campaign in Lebanon, where a coordinated assassination spree eliminated Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit leadership and, ultimately, secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah himself and his presumed successor, Hashem Safieddine.
A failed template
This “shock and awe” blueprint found some success in Lebanon, where Israeli intelligence had achieved deep penetration. In Tehran, however, it met a far more resilient nation.
While US President Donald Trump loudly demanded Iran abandon its nuclear enrichment rights, he pursued a carrot-and-stick approach of ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, military threats, and negotiations to try and persuade Tehran to accept his unilateral demands during indirect talks.
This pattern had previously been repeated in the Ukraine–Russia conflict after negotiation deadlocks, involving operations deep inside Russia and attacks on Russian strategic bombers.
For months, Tehran had calculated Israel's Hezbollah strike model as one likely scenario for an attack on Iran. Accordingly, measures were taken to quickly replace commanders in such an event. At least tactically, however, Israel still managed to shock Iran with its attacks, mostly resulting from domestic infiltration and sabotage operations.
Tehran counters swiftly
But Iran's response was swift. Within 72 hours, Tehran had launched three significant retaliatory operations. The country's air defenses were restored, drone units re-engaged, and key command posts replenished. Footage and images of Israeli targets struck by Iranian munitions soon proliferated online, signaling both Tehran's operational recovery and strategic messaging.
Iran’s offensive and defensive response was such, that Trump, initially jubilant about Israel’s actions and seeking to offer Iran a “second chance” for negotiation – even possibly entertaining the idea of joining a war with a certain victory against the Islamic Republic – returned to a declared neutral stance, seeking to rapidly end tensions.
But Tehran's message has been clear and consistent: It views any Israeli aggression as inseparable from US support. The Islamic Republic has long warned that Washington's logistical, intelligence, and operational backing enables all of Tel Aviv's military campaigns. And while right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to try to entangle the US in his Iranian regime-change agenda, Trump and others appear increasingly cautious.
Security for all or none
Iran has clearly stated its strategy in case of a US attack: security for all or none, meaning maritime security, energy security, and the security of US bases in West Asia.
Mohsen Rezaei, former overall Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said in a recent interview that:
“America and Europe must withdraw their statesmen from behind Israel as soon as possible. If this does not happen, we cannot witness the United States and other countries continuing to supply ammunition to Israel. Their planes will enter the sky and will collide with our missiles; whether they are British, French, or American planes. Therefore, the dimensions of the war may become more serious and we have prepared ourselves for it.”
He added, “Of course, our effort has always been not to be the initiator, but we will be the finisher. If support for Israel continues, my prediction is that the supporters may also be drawn into the conflict.”
Iran possesses diverse defensive and offensive tools and conventional and unconventional options, which it will certainly reconsider seriously after the recent exchange of heavy fire.
As Mohammad-Javad Larijani, a top foreign policy advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and secretary of the nation's High Council for Human Rights, has said:
“There is an old rule in the Persian Gulf, if our (Iran's) oil facilities are seriously damaged, we will not allow any country in the region to use its oil.”
There are many options Iran can employ to execute on that threat. Brigadier General Esmail Kowsari, a member of the Parliament's National Security Commission, argued that “closing the Strait of Hormuz” could easily be one tactic on Iran's agenda.
Misreading the Iranian battlefield
Tel Aviv has mistakenly assumed its Lebanon strategy was scalable. Several miscalculations undermined its copy-paste plan to decapitate Iran's leadership.
First, Iran’s military command is vast, experienced, and rapidly replaceable. Unlike Hezbollah, a non-state actor with more limited resources, Iran maintains depth and redundancy across its armed forces. Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi pointed to this capacity, dismissing Israeli assumptions that a few assassinations could cripple national defense.
Second, geography matters. Iran’s sheer size allows the strategic dispersal of critical assets. Israeli jets may have briefly penetrated key western nodes, but much of Iran’s infrastructure remains embedded in its eastern and central territories. The state’s military doctrine is built around such depth.
Third, while Israel’s intelligence apparatus did succeed in penetrating Iranian command circles, it did not achieve full-spectrum dominance. The Islamic Republic retains the capacity for counter-intelligence operations, and in the days since the attack, internal security has reportedly dismantled multiple espionage cells, which caused most of the recent explosions.
The Iranian version of solidarity as a strategic weapon
But perhaps Tel Aviv’s gravest misjudgment lay in its reading of Iran’s internal cohesion. Israeli PM Netanyahu appeared to believe that a sudden external strike would activate opposition forces within Iran – unleashing separatists, militants, and government critics to destabilize the state. This calculation has an equally ill-informed precedent: Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein made a similar error in the 1980s.
But Iran’s political unity in the face of external threats has been repeatedly demonstrated. Even segments of society critical of the Islamic Republic have closed ranks when faced with foreign aggression. It is a nationalism forged not from state propaganda, but from the collective memory of wars, invasions, and isolation.
Tel Aviv has, in three short days, killed 224 Iranian nationals, the majority civilians, and reduced several residential buildings to rubble. That level of provocation has consequences. In this conflict, Iran’s deterrence is not only military – it is social.
A war not yet decided
As of now, the situation remains fluid. Tel Aviv’s campaign has triggered a rapid Iranian response, both in rhetoric and in kind. But more than that, it has exposed the limits of Israel’s military doctrine when applied to a state actor with deep – and even unknown – defenses and a mobilized population.
Tel Aviv's western allies, once content to issue muted statements during months of Israeli attacks on Gaza, and its more recent strikes on Iran, have since shifted to active diplomacy. Washington is now scrambling to prevent a regional conflagration. What was once passive support is now active mediation, as Tel Aviv pushes to pull Washington deeper into its confrontation with Iran. Netanyahu, meanwhile, still eyes a broader war to settle Iran’s nuclear file by force and aims for a complete regime change. Israel's aim is clearly to draw the US into a military campaign that could damage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and weaken its military strength.
But Tehran has drawn its line. As Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh warned in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli strikes:
“We are fully prepared and will support our operational forces in any way we can. We are ready for years of continued combat, and the armed forces are fully equipped.”
As with any conflict, outcomes remain uncertain. Yet, whether this spirals into a wider war or stalls into another frozen regional standoff depends less on Israel and more on whether the US is willing to follow Tel Aviv into the fire.
https://thecradle.co/articles/tel-aviv- ... ainst-iran
Assassinating Khamenei will 'end war': Netanyahu
Western media reports claim Donald Trump recently 'vetoed' an Israeli plan to assassinate the Iranian supreme leader
News Desk
JUN 16, 2025
(Photo Credit: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC News on 16 June that killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is "not going to escalate the conflict, it's going to end the conflict."
The premier's answer came after the interviewer pressed him on recent reports that said US President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to assassinate the Iranian leader.
"We've had half a century of conflict spread by this regime that terrorizes everyone in the Middle East; has bombed the Aramco oil fields in Saudi Arabia; is spreading terrorism and subversion and sabotage everywhere," Netanyahu told the US news outlet.
"The 'forever war' is what Iran wants, and they're bringing us to the brink of nuclear war. In fact, what Israel is doing is preventing this, bringing an end to this aggression, and we can only do so by standing up to the forces of evil," he added.
Netanyahu also said Israel was “doing what we need to do” when asked if he still plans to target Khamenei.
"Today, it's Tel Aviv. Tomorrow, it's New York. Look, I understand 'America First'. I don't understand 'America Dead'. That's what these people want. They chant 'Death to America.' So we're doing something that is in the service of mankind, of humanity, and it's a battle of good against evil. America does, should, and does stand with the good. That's what President Trump is doing, And I deeply appreciate his support," the embattled Israeli premier stressed.
War has been raging between Iran and Israel since 13 June, when Tel Aviv launched a surprise attack on the Islamic Republic with the full support of the US government.
In retaliation for the targeted assassinations of several top military commanders and nuclear scientists, and the deaths of dozens of civilians, Iran has been raining down ballistic missiles on Israel, targeting major cities, key military sites, power plants, and hydrocarbon facilities.
https://thecradle.co/articles/assassina ... -netanyahu
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Iran
TRUMP IS ABOUT TO PLAY STALIN’S CARD IN IRAN – TWO MAPS AND TWO TWEETS TO EXPLAIN
By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
The plan to attack Iran, force regime change in Teheran, decapitate and disarm Iranian forces, and partition the country into ethnic autonomies is nothing new.
In August 1941 British and empire forces (Indian, Australian) acted in coordination with Soviet forces to occupy the country, ostensibly to prevent the Shah of Iran from allowing German forces to seize Iranian oilfields and attack the land corridor from the Persian Gulf northwards across the country and into the Soviet Union through which US Lend-Lease aid for the war effort was being transported. At the time, with British air superiority in the south and Soviet air superiority in the north, the regime in Teheran had no choice but to capitulate.
By November 1943, when Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met together in Teheran (lead image, left), Stalin already knew the British were aiming to monopolize Iranian oil supplies for themselves, and with the Americans were “creat[ing] a real threat to the interests of our country if we do not take timely countermeasures.” – Page 71. Stalin’s reaction was first to test Iran’s parliamentary leadership for signing an oil concession agreement. When the Iranians rejected that, Stalin ordered a Red Army-backed secession movement for an independent Azeri statelet based in Tabriz. He abandoned this scheme at the end of March 1946.
A recent anti-Soviet history of the episode claims Stalin retreated because he was afraid of direct conflict with the US, which was then planning atom bomb attacks on the Soviet Union. Also, Stalin “underestimated his Iranian opponents who ultimately left him out in the cold”.
Between 1982 and 1988 the collective Soviet leadership faced a similar problem from the hostile regime in Teheran led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; he called the Kremlin the “lesser Satan” after the “Great Satan” (US) and “Little Satan” (Israel). Khomeini implemented his hyperbole by threatening the Soviet Islamic republics, as well as the Red Army in Afghanistan. The Politburo retaliated by arming Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein sufficiently well to preserve his regime from being toppled by Khomeini’s counter-invasion; this followed after the failure of Soviet efforts to dissuade Hussein from starting his war against Iran, and then to maintain neutrality between the two sides.
This week the evidence is mounting of a US plan to attack Iran, using Israeli forces in the air and on the ground, plus German, British, and other NATO logistic assets. The public cause of war has been repeated by President Donald Trump (lead image, right centre) – to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment, weaponization, and ballistic missile capabilities. “Look, Iran should have signed sign the deal,” Trump said on Monday at the G7 summit conference in Canada. ”Something’s going to happen…[Question: President, do you want to see regime change in Iran?] I want to see no nuclear weapon in Iran and we’re well on our way to making sure that happens….”
Operationally, however, repeated missions by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) since last Friday (June 13) have failed to do this. US and Russian sources have been reporting that only US B-2 and B-52 bombers, currently based in Qatar and Diego Garcia and armed with GBU-57A/B MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) bombs can achieve this result.
Such an operation, in combination with other IAF raids on Iranian defences, missile stocks and firing platforms, requires intensive and coordinated US, Israeli and allied intelligence, plus a large fleet of aerial refuelling tankers based in Cyprus and other close-in staging points.
This operation, US and Russian sources believe, is the reason Trump abruptly cancelled his G7 meetings and returned to the White House Situation Room. “As soon as I leave here, we’re going to be doing something. But I have to leave here.”
Censorship, deception operations, and propaganda screens make it difficult to judge how much time, weapons stocks, and effective air defences the Israeli and Iranian forces have on the fourth day of the war. In this US-produced video summary, the conclusion is that the IAF has failed to achieve air superiority over Iran, except for the west border regions; and that therefore the risk to a US bombing operation over central Iran continues to be much higher than has been revealed in public.
The film also claims that if Iran can protract its drone and missile barrages for several more days, accelerating the tempo and adding new types of weapons, it will exhaust Israel’s air defence missile stocks and its inventory of air and ground attack weapons. “It seems that Iran can sustain the missile salvos for a longer period than Israel can maintain operational and non-depleted missile defence systems…time appears to be on the Iranian side despite the constant strikes deep inside the country conducted by in-situ covert sabotage drones and missiles.” Min 12:45
If this is accurate, Trump is under pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (lead image, right) to hurry up; and Russian President Vladimir Putin (lead image, right) knows it.
“The United States still needs some time”, Boris Rozhin reports for the Russian military blog Colonel Cassad in Moscow, “to gather in the theatre all the required ships, tankers and bombers…And so there has been talk of ‘another chance’, ‘send Witkoff’, etc. But then Iran will again be offered to abandon its nuclear program and missiles which Iran cannot accept. At the same time, if it was only about nuclear weapons, Iran was always ready to refuse them in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. But this isn’t about nuclear weapons – it is the desire to change the regime in Teheran.” — June 17, 06:41.
“If Israel could have handled Iran itself, the launch of this scenario would not be required. But it is required primarily for Israel, because it was not possible to crush Iran quickly. Iran began to recover from the strikes and reorganize under a long-term war, which is like death for Israel… There is every reason to believe that in a fairly short time Israel will face a shortage of high-precision weapons. The forecast – they will be able to maintain the pace of blows for several tens of days, but not more than a hundred. Further, everything will depend on the political will of the Iranian leadership and the degree of its control over the population. At the cost of supertension and disproportionately high losses, Iran can still win. But it will be very difficult.” — June 17, 12:21.
Source: https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/06/15/ ... over-iraq/
Source: https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/06/14/awacs-night/
Source: https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/06/16/ ... to-europe/
16, 6:30 pm ET, 1:30 am Moscow time -- source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrum ... 7357588413
https://johnhelmer.net/trump-is-about-t ... more-91891
*****
Laith Marouf on Iran’s Escalatory Path and Its Expectations of a Long War
Posted on June 17, 2025 by Yves Smith
Yves here. Your humble blogger is typically sparing about featuring YouTube interviews as posts. However, this Rachel Bevin interview with Lebonon-based Laith Marouf, host of Free Palestine TV, gives a good overview of the initial Iranian failure to anticipate the Israeli attack, the pacing and focus of Iranian strikes on Israel, and what Iran’s targeting priorities are likely to be when the US formally enters the fray (Marouf is dismissive of the idea that the US is not already deeply involved).
The transcript is machine generated. I cleaned it up but please forgive any errors or omissions.
By Rachel Blevins. Originally published at her channel
Blevins: It is June 16th 2025 and Israel and Iran continue to trade strikes for a fourth day. As you have Israel coming out and claiming that it has air superiority over Iran, I would argue that Israel has superiority over the media coverage here in the US because they are certainly spinning it any way they want to talking about regime change in Iran and all of these things that they’re going to do.
But what is Iran going to do? Because that is the question that we are now starting to see the answer to as they continue to respond with strikes on Israel as we continue to see damage reported in Israel, as we continue to see casualties reported on both sides. And as you have these reports of course that the US is getting ready and making moves to directly enter this war, instead of
just the support that they’ve had for Israel this entire time. So what could that mean for where tensions are headed?
Well we got into all of the latest with a special guest earlier so let’s take a listen to that conversation. Now joining me now to discuss is Leith Marouf a Palestinian Syrian journalist and host
of Free Palestine TV based in Lebanon. Leith, thanks so much for taking the time to join me
Marouf: Great to be with you Rachel.
Blevins: Now I want to get your take on the latest here as Israel and really now the US are engaged in an all-out war against Iran as Israel and Iran continue to trade strikes for a fourth day. We’re seeing casualties reported on both sides. But now Israel is claiming that it has destroyed more than 100 surface-to-surface missile launchers in central Iran and therefore achieved air superiority over
Iran.
What do you make of this claim? Is this about Israel trying to almost kind of tell the media to look over here to distract from the damage that Iran has been able to carry out in Israel?
Marouf: Yeah iI mean from day one part of the Israeli/American attack has been this psychological warfare. If people remember, within the first hours of the beginnings of the attacks on Iran the
American leadership was telling the Ayatollah to just surrender, that we killed everyone around you just give up now. And we’ve heard this claim of full control of the airspace over Iran by the Zionists repeated over and over.
But the what we know now from the reality and the truth on the ground in Iran is that the vast majority of attacks, over 80 somewhat percent of the attacks that are happening, are being
conducted by infiltration and spies that have been planted on the ground, Over the last 24 hours, the Iranian television have showed at least three factories of drones and hideouts of uh these infiltrators that include ATGMs.
And this is what has been really happening: all the attacks that we see inside Tehran and the deeper cities that are not on the border with Iraq have been conducted by these ATGM attacks including the
assassinations on the first night. It was somebody with a a shoulder-mounted ATGM firing within the neighborhood on the buildings where these generals and scientists were sleeping with their families. This is why Iran wasn’t expecting.
I know a lot of people are wondering why these assassinations happened, why were these people not hidden somewhere. Because they were in Tehran they were not on the border, there’s no way for Israel to assassinate them through an air strike as it did in Lebanon. And now we have even proof that the assassination of Haniyeg inside, the leader of Hamas, a year ago was actually conducted again by one of these attacks from somebody on the ground.
So Iran has managed to capture all these infiltration, majority of them squads and captured most of their assets and weapons and this is accelerating.
So the first minutes of shock that we saw and the maneuverability of Israel on the ground in Iran is now u becoming very limited. And given that their air strikes are happening from Iraqi airspace with these Golden Horizon missiles ballistic missiles fired from a jet. They have a very short limit of where they can hit inside Iran.
Then this is why the US is having to enter the battle now because all of that propaganda and fantasy of that the chosen people have the ability to hit you anywhere they want to has now been debunked.
Blevins: Yeah and I think that that’s a great point. And it’s also interesting to see that psychological warfare right, this idea that Iran is having to fight this dual war of you can’t trust anyone in your country or anyone outside of your country.
And it has been notable I know that there’s been a lot of footage on social media showing the destruction that we’ve seen in Israel from Iranian attacks. I guess suddenly the Israelis .
But how do you view the damage that Iran has been able to inflict so far and kind of what that tells us about their broader capabilities but also what Israel is doing?
Marouf: On its end yeah, the Iranian strategy up until now has been to escalate in stages and to
deplete the uh resources that Israel has. So what we saw on the first day for instance, first night the Iranians used a couple hundred old ballistic missiles that forced the air defenses of the whole West combined, that is stationed in the region, as well as the Israeli air defenses to reveal themselves.
And so we had that wave of slow drones that forced every radar and every battery of air defense to activate and with them those hyper sonic ballistic missiles and that painted everything in red. basically all the
targets and we saw the first night just maybe around five hypersonic missiles
hit very important air defense batteries and radars in this pathway and then the
second night we saw an increase of the number of hypersonic missiles
uh and uh while the you know increase also in the waves of drones and
ballistic missiles that again forced the activation of more important assets that
they the whole west had in the path of these drones and missiles and that
uh led to the vast destruction of all of the air defenses that the Israelis
rolled from the Golan Heights all the way to Tel Aviv a highway was opened and
this is why by the end of the night by the third wave of missiles last night
there was practically nothing to stop the uh missiles that are coming and we
saw the destruction of the uh majority of the port of Hifa
the electric plant just north of Hifa also uh the
Israelis have only two electricity plants in the whole country and uh the
major transformers in Hayra in the north of Palestine that distribute electricity
to the Golan Heights in the north of Palestine so last night since last night
the Israelis lost half of their capability of electricity generation they’ve had to activate uh the
electricity plant uh south of Tel Aviv on 24 hours and the Jordanians and the
Egyptians the treacherous regimes of Jordan and Egypt increased their electricity pumping into the grid inside
the Zionist colony uh cutting electricity from their own population uh
you know so now there’s uh electricity u you know blackouts in both Egypt and and
Jordan just to keep the Israelis in under you know light and so tonight we
should expect that uh the other electricity plant that the Israelis have and the high transforming transformer
lines that come from is Jordan Jordan and Egypt to be hit uh and um look I
think right now already the the Zionists are defeated in their battle with Iran and this is why we see a rush of uh
American air fuelers coming with waves of uh NATO jets to the region we saw
since last night 25 air refuelers from fly out from the US towards the region
uh these are the ones that we see their transponders turned on so the we will
find ourselves in a direct American uh western attack on Iran momentarily uh
and I think the the biggest fear right now that the Israelis have uh is the
possibility of infiltration from uh other forces uh I know everybody watched
those videos in Tel Aviv and Hifa and the mass destruction but more than 60%
of Iran’s attacks last night were on Israeli bases on the border with Lebanon
and in the Golan Heights and uh people in South Lebanon uh around 20 kilometers
you know 15 miles away from the border their homes were shaking and they could see the explosions on the border so
right now uh you know the Israelis have to worry about more than just Iran’s
missiles their whole frontline defenses in the Golan Heights and South Li
Palestine are very vulnerable right now wow that is that’s really interesting
and I’m glad that you bring that up because that’s another thing that I was thinking about the fact that you know
Israel has been in this position has carried out it has really implemented
this regional war right it’s carried out genocide against the Palestinians it has been bombing Lebanon and all of that has
kind of been this glass house that has stood for so long but then they’ve gone to Iran and they’ve said “Okay we want
direct war.” And Iran is like “Okay well we can target you here here and here.” And guess what we still have this
overall axis of resistance that can target you from all of these different areas right around your border and this
is the fight that you pick and now when it comes to the reports that we’re seeing that Iran is keeping its most
modern ballistic missiles for a wider war is that about the US potentially
getting involved and some of these other you know American British French bases
in the region that Iran could be targeting how do you see kind of the position that Iran is in right now and
how it’s choosing to escalate based on how Israel and the West respond you know
I I watched a few interviews of uh the new um command within the Iranian
military on Iranian television and a few things that we should note from what they said
one is that they already knew that the United States is trying to fool them uh
during these negotiations and that the attack was going to happen uh what they didn’t realize is that there’s those
infiltration uh squads on the ground that they’re going to commit those assassinations they and that’s a a
mistake on their behalf uh but they knew that this is what’s going to happen uh
that they were going to go to war with the Zionist colony and also these same generals in these interviews said that
they already know that they are going to go to war against the United States and
the whole might of NATO from that moment and that they are thus uh preparing for
this long war and part of this uh ability to have this long war with the
west is making sure that not all of your assets are exposed from day one uh you
know they could have threw a couple of 10,000 uh missiles all at the same time
on the Zinus colony and blasted it from the first day but that would have mean that all their uh you know warehouses
and their hideouts and you know launchers would have been exposed for the Americans to target them so what we
will see is uh once the Americans openly
attack Iran because by the way in my opinion the Americans and the west is already attacking Iran israel only has
250 jets and uh they cannot be conducting
all those bombardments on Iran on Syria on Lebanon on Gaza and Yemen all at the
same time they’re not they’re not they don’t have the hand of God with them although we were supposed to believe
that right so they’re already involved uh the Americans in the West but they’re
going to now have to openly say that they’re involved uh as the Zionists are
totally destroyed and unable to even lie about their involvement in attacks on Iran and once that happens I think the
Iranians will first and foremost attack all the airfields in the region
uh they will not be attacking American bases at the first stage uh and they
will be attacking all the uh um you know refineries for jet fuel and the holding
um facilities for jet fuel in the region we saw the the Iranians do that on the first day in Israel by the way sorry the
second night on the second night uh before the destruction of the Hifa port
yesterday on the second night the uh Iranians destroyed the refinery that
specialized in uh jet fuel in the Hifa port and the facilities all across the
colony of distribution and storage of jet fuel okay so that gives us an
indication of what the Iranians are going to do in their first stage of responding to any direct uh western
attack on it and thus I would say the um
um the airfields in Cyprus uh that the British uh have in their
occupied territories inside Cypress there’s two parts of Cypress that are occupied by the Brits and where the
majority of the uh command and control of the air operations right now is
happening from there those will be the first uh airfields and um jet fuel
storage uh locations that will be attacked and then uh if that the US
dares to uh openly fly out of airfields
in Qatar or Saudi or Bahin or the Emirates then they will be attacked also
and that’s going to drag us of course into a full uh oil crisis in the world
even before attacking the oil fields uh of the Gulf yeah that is something that
I would think that those kingdoms that I’ve been very supportive of the US and of genocide have that they should be
keeping in mind as they’re watching this play out and I’m also curious too when it comes to the political element here
because I know that when I talked to you just a couple of weeks ago we were talking here about the Knesset being on
the verge of being dissolved altogether right netanyahu being in political trouble and one thing about Netanyahu
anytime he gets into any kind of political trouble he’s like “All right what war can I start?” And here we are
with war on Iran and kind of what you were talking about earlier with you know
Israel’s electricity being impacted i know that there are reports out there saying that Israelis are being forced to
stay and that they are going to be forced to stay now being used as human shields ironically how do you view the
position that Israel is in and kind of how long they are going to be able to
stand with everything that is happening really the consequences of their actions
starting to come back home yeah I’m glad you brought that up um the Har newspaper
is saying the uh Israeli authorities have banned any airlines from carrying
allowing Israelis on board to depart under any reason so we saw a rush of uh
2 million Israelis trying to buy tickets to leave and that’s why the Zionist
authorities are freaking out they already have lost like a million and a half settlers over the last two years
that ran away to the west and another two million would mean more than 50%
have left and there’s no more state at that point and so right now we see a
rush of these colonist uh to the um fairies that take people to uh Cyprus uh
so there’s uh all booked fairies uh there’s a rush to the borders with
Jordan and Egypt and the treacherous Jordanian and Egyptian regime are helping these Zionists leave i mean I I
would like them to leave i’m happy but uh obviously those two regimes never cared for the Palestinians and in fact
the Jordanian regime who took a few hundred uh Palestinian children from Gaza for medical treatment
uh returned them to their death in Gaza after right and nobody talks about that
those same supposedly u you know children that that Jordan pride itself
about saving and helping in medical uh terms are dead now because the Jordanian
regime returned them to the death camp so uh you know the the exit of the Zionist
is happening um there is in all practical uh sense no more Zionist
colony uh the collapse that we were talking about in our last interview in
terms of their political uh cohesion um has happened uh Netanyahu isn’t you know
just using this to distract uh he had no choice this was the strategy from the
beginning october 7th there was a rag tag militia of 2,000
fighters that defeated the Israeli military that captured 12 Israeli bases
and killed or captured 12 Israeli generals the uh Americans had to send
generals to the command and control to actually run the war from day one
um the Israeli ground forces are a bunch of pedophiles and transvestites that
like to put on women’s uh underwear okay and they were defeated in Gaza since
then they haven’t been able to win this war against this ragtag militia uh they
were defeated in Lebanon they were not able to enter one Lebanese village without the ceasefire they were defeated
as the whole the United States by Yemen and now they’re going they have no
choice because of if they stop at any moment this defeat becomes a reality they have no choice but to escalate to
try to win something okay and now as we see the whole uh you
know um mythology of uh air superiority of the Zionist is being popped up as the
balloon is is okay so we’re at this moment that if the United States doesn’t
come to save this Zionist colony from full collapse uh they the United States
itself will start losing uh its prestige as a military power and this is why the
US is risking everything and the whole west is risking everything on the uh you
know golden calf of Zionism one last thing I would say here on this point is that up until now Iran didn’t target the
water infrastructure okay and the Israelis were stupid enough to attack one of the uh main water
pipelines into uh Tahan last night or stupid enough because in the Zionist
colony uh you know close to 90% of the people live in the area between
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and this area is not fed by water from the aquifers of
the West Bank or the water of the Jordan River uh it’s fed by eight disselination
plants on the Mediterranean and if those disselination plants are hit uh even
just half of them are out of service they Zionist colonists will go thirsty
immediately there’s no there’s no other water source for them uh and um this is
I think what we will be seeing in the next 24 hours attacks on the water infrastructure that feeds the colony
yeah and it’ll be interesting to see i’m curious what the US is going to do and
how it’s going to really well I say get involved they’re already involved right as we were noting earlier everything
that Israel is doing and has done in this ongoing genocide in this regional
war it’s made possible by the US and we’ve watched as President Trump has
kind of gone back and forth right on one hand he claims that oh yeah Israel used
the weapons that were provided by the US And then on the other hand he’s like “We didn’t have anything to do in with
tonight’s attacks.” Talking about what transpired on Saturday night and so on
and so forth the last thing I want to bring up is just kind of how far the US
is willing to go because I know that that the think tanks in Washington DC have wanted war against Iran for a while
now right they have wanted an allout war that is going to weaken Iran but as
they’re seeing Iran’s response as they’re as we’re seeing the fact that it didn’t just crumble after the string of
assassinations and say “Okay we’ll agree to whatever nuclear deal that Trump is throwing at us.” How do you see the
position that the US is in and kind of how far it’s willing to go because Israel the Zionists seem to be willing
to go to the bitter end for this war yeah I think it’s starting to make sense
more to me the strategy of the Axis of resistance of not going all in on
October 7th uh for one reason is that um I think the access of resistance
leadership understood that this is an existential war in the sense of not only
the colony but of western hijgey and that the western elite will uh hinge
everything they have to make sure that the Zionist colony is not defeated thus
if the response of the access of resistance was coordinated simultaneous
attack on October 8th uh to glass the Zionist colony we would
have have a nuclear response immediately from the United States and the West and
we would already be living a nuclear holocaust and a nuclear winter all of us as humanity so at a great sacrifice
in blood the axis of resistance slowed the uh development of this war in order
to saturate the western populace in real knowledge of what things are happening
in order to give a breather for people between the stages of this war for the
uh uh populations uh to start moving against the craziness of their elite in
the west and maybe maybe just maybe that the elite in the west will uh you know
uh back down from the edge of the abyss okay and this is where we at you know so
uh you know we’re at the last stages here and I think uh the there is nobody
uh anywhere in the western uh domains that actually believes the lies that
they are hearing from the Zionists and the elite in the west and the vast majority of the population in the west
overwhelmingly is anti-ionist now uh and that’s all because of this strategy and
as we see the pressure is building so heavily inside western societies that we got to a point of uh armed resistance
like that assassination of the two Israeli uh min embassy officials by
Elias Rodriguez in Washington DC that those are indicators of how uh you know
pent up right now the feelings are in the populace in the west and that’s the
United States which is a country that doesn’t have many Muslims or Arabs uh like France or Europe for instance so we
can understand that if the west right now takes takes us to
this war which it will happen I expect uh violent resistance to rise inside
western societies it’s not what I want but this is what’s going to happen and that is wouldn’t have happened if Iran
and the Axis of resistance went all in uh two years ago 20 months ago uh and so
uh uh there is still a chance for us to uh return from the abyss uh and that is
now dependent on how serious the populace in the west are to make sure
that their elite follow their will otherwise once this war rolls out and if
the West either nukes Iran and or uh
bombs a nuclear reactor in Iran that results in nuclear fallout
within minutes Pakistan which will be the biggest victim of this nuclear
fallout this has a very thin country that’s right on the border of Iran they
and there as the Pakistani military promised will retaliate with a nuclear
attack on Tel Aviv if there is nuclear fallout that falls on China we should be expecting China to
also move accordingly this is not a joke anymore right so even if there’s a
Pakistan is a country that’s captured by the West and the Saudi money those
Pakistani generals have children and they’re going to die from nuclear poisoning okay so there is a limit to
how much they’ll collaborate okay and that’s why we’re seeing Pakistan take this position and the fact
that Pakistan is the only nuclear Muslim country they know that they’re on the cutting uh board right after Iran if
Iran falls even if they kiss the feet of Zionist they will be attacked uh so uh
right now anyone that wants to avoid a nuclear holocaust in the west they have
a very short window to move uh take serious action to stop their
governments from dragging us into a nuclear holocaust yeah there is certainly a lot at stake here i think
that that is an understatement at this point and I really appreciate you taking the time to join me today to really
educate the audience on where things stand with all of these moving parts here le Maru a Palestinian Syrian
journalist and host of Free Palestine TV thank you so much for your time and
insight good to be with you Rachel see you soon if anything in this video resonated with you be sure to like it
share it with your friends leave a comment and as always don’t forget to subscribe and if you want to keep up
with all of my work make sure that you’re subscribed to my page on Substack that’s rachelven.substack.com
that’s where you’ll find adree videos and new weekly episodes of my exclusive series for paid subscribers called
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as always thank you all so much for all of your support and I’ll see you next
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/06 ... g-war.html
'You call that clean?'))
******
Vijay Prashad: The Illegal Attack on Iran
June 16, 2025
Since the 2020 U.S. assassination of General Soleimani, Washington and Tel Aviv had been working to weaken Tehran. Now Israel smells an opportunity to overthrow the Iranian government by force.
Fire in Tehran on Friday after the Israeli attack. (Avash Media, Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 4.0)
By Vijay Prashad
PeoplesDispatch
Israel’s consistent attacks on Iran since 2023 have all been illegal, violations of the United Nations Charter (1945). Iran is a member state of the United Nations and is therefore a sovereign state in the international order.
If Israel had a problem with Iran, there are many mechanisms mandated by international law that permit Israel to bring complaints against Iran.
Thus far, Israel has avoided these international forums because it is clear that it has no case against Iran. Allegations that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, which are constantly raised by the United States, the European Union and Israel, have been fully investigated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and found to be unfounded.
It is certainly true that Iran has a nuclear energy programme that is within the rules in place through the IAEA, and it is also true that Iran’s clerical establishment has a fatwa (religious edict) in place against the production of nuclear weapons.
Despite the IAEA findings and the existence of this fatwa, the West — egged on by Israel — has accepted this irrational idea that Iran is building a nuclear weapon and that Iran is therefore a threat to the international order. On the contrary, by its punctual and illegal attacks on Iran, it is Israel that is a threat to the international order.
Over the past decades, Iran has called for the establishment of a Middle East Nuclear Free Zone, a strange idea coming from a country accused of wanting to build a nuclear weapon. But this idea of the nuclear free zone has been rejected by the West, largely to protect Israel, which has an illegal nuclear weapons programme.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a nuclear weapon, although it has never tested it openly nor acknowledged its existence. If Israel was so keen on eliminating any nuclear threat, it should have taken the offer for the creation of a nuclear-free zone heartily.
Neither the Europeans, who so often posture as defenders of international law, nor the United Nations leadership have publicly pushed Israel to adopt this idea because both recognise that this would require Israel, not Iran, to denuclearise.
That this is an improbable situation has meant that there has been no movement from the West or from the international institutions to take this idea forward and build an international consensus to develop a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
Irael does not want to build a nuclear-free zone in the region. What Israel wants is to be the sole nuclear power in the region, and therefore to be exactly what it is – namely, the largest United States military base in the world that happens to be the home to a large civilian population.
Iran has no ambition to be a nuclear power. But it has an ambition to be a sovereign state that remains committed to justice for the Palestinians. Israel has no problem with the idea of sovereignty per se, but has a problem with any state in the region that commits itself to Palestinian emancipation.
If Iran normalised relations with Israel and ceased its opposition to U.S. dominion in the region, then it is likely that Israel would end its opposition to Iran.
Israel & US Prepared the Way
Funeral of General Qasem Soleimani in Qom, Iran, Jan. 7, 2020. (Mehdi Bakhshi, Mehr News Agency, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
In January 2020, the United States conducted an illegal assassination at Iraq’s Baghdad Airport to kill General Qassim Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Soleimani, through the Quds Force, had produced for Iran an insurance policy against further Israeli attacks on the country. The Quds Force is responsible for Iranian military operations outside the boundaries of the country, including building what is called the “Axis of Resistance” that includes the various pro-Iranian governments and non-governmental military forces.
These included: Hezbollah in Lebanon, various IRGC groups in Syria that worked with Syrian militia groups, the former government of deposed President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, several Palestinian factions in Occupied Palestine, and the Ansar Allah government in Yemen.
Without its own nuclear deterrent, Iran required some way to balance the military superiority of Israel and the United States. This deterrence was created by the “Axis of Resistance,” an insurance policy that allowed Iran to let Israel know that if Israel fired at Iran, these groups would rain missiles on Tel Aviv in retaliation.
The assassination of Soleimani began a determined new political and military campaign by the United States, Israel and their European allies to weaken Iran.
Israel and the United States began to punctually strike Iranian logistical bases in Syria and Iraq to weaken Iran’s forward posture and to demoralise the Syrian and Iraqi militia groups that operated against Israeli interests.
Israel began to assassinate IRGC military officers in Syria, Iran and Iraq, a campaign of murder that began to have an impact on the IRGC and the Quds Force.
Taking advantage of its genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza, Israel, with full support from the United States and Europe, began to damage the “Axis of Resistance,” Iran’s insurance policy.
Israel took its war into Lebanon, with a ruthless bombing campaign that included the assassination of the Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27, 2024.
This campaign, while it has not totally demolished Hezbollah, has certainly weakened it. Meanwhile, Israel began a regular bombing campaign against the Syrian military positions around Damascus and along the road to Idlib in the north.
This bombing campaign, coordinated with the U.S. military and with the U.S. intelligence services, was designed to open the roadway for the entry of the former Al-Qaeda fighters into Damascus and to overthrow the government of al-Assad on Dec. 8, 2024.
The fall of the al-Assad government dented Iran’s strength across the Levant region (from the Turkish border to the Occupied Palestinian Territory) as well as along the plains from southern Syria to the Iranian border.
The consistent campaign by the United States to bomb Yemeni positions further resulted in the loss of Ansar Allah’s heavy equipment (including long-range missiles) that fundamentally threatened Israel.
What this meant was that by early 2025, the Iranian insurance policy against Israel had collapsed. Israel began its march to war, suggesting an attack on Iran was imminent.
Such an attack, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows, would help him in a domestic political fight with the ultra-orthodox parties over the question of a military exemption for their communities; this will prevent his government from falling.
Cynical Netanyahu is using genocide and the possibility of a horrendous war with Iran for narrow political ends. But that is not what is motivating this attack. What is motivating this attack is that Israel smells an opportunity to try to overthrow the Iranian government by force.
Iran returned to the negotiations brokered by the IAEA to prevent such an attack. Its leadership knew full well that nothing would stop a scofflaw such as Israel from bombing Iran. And nothing did.
Not even the fact that Iran is still at the negotiation table. Israel has taken advantage of Iran’s momentary weakness to strike. And that strike might escalate further.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/16/v ... k-on-iran/
******
From Cassad's telegram account:
Colonelcassad
This is a US war against Iran, using Israel as a proxy force, just as the US is waging war on Russia via Ukraine. The plan was always to use Israel, armed and supported by the US, to create the diplomatic and strategic conditions for direct US intervention. The same people who failed to see this coming are now trying to convince people that Trump is being dragged into a war that America started. We know that Trump intended from the beginning to pick up where Biden left off. If Trump wanted to avoid war, he would not have even raised the Iranian nuclear program, because it was not Washington’s business to begin with. The negotiations were always doomed to “failure,” and were merely a pretext that Trump himself openly uses. And if Trump did not want Israel to attack, he would have denied Israel the ammunition, intelligence, and logistical support it needed to carry out the operation in the first place. Indulging in these excuses gives the US the denial it sought to create, which was detailed in
MAGA's policy documents over a decade ago in their own words... It always meant picking up where Biden left off, continuing the existing endless wars and starting new ones. Bannon and Flynn always wanted to pass the buck for Ukraine to Europe (to freeze, not to end) so they could destroy Iran and move on to China. The neocons Trump surrounded himself with did accept multipolarity, but only as something to be bombed and burned to the ground. Flynn eventually declared that destroying Iran would help establish US global dominance. It was never about defending the US from Russian, Chinese or Iranian threats. It was always about preventing those countries from defending themselves from US threats. You have been warned. Take off your masks. No more excuses or rationalizations.
(c) Brian Berletic
***
Colonelcassad
Mossad confirmed the defeat of its headquarters, but claims that "there was no one there, since everyone is in Iran." They seem to be responding to yesterday's trolling by an Iranian journalist after the TV center was hit.
Iran claims that not everything is so rosy for Mossad and that as a result of strikes on Mossad facilities, officers of the Israeli special services were killed and wounded.
Israel, for obvious reasons, completely keeps its military losses in people and equipment secret.
***
Colonelcassad
Israel plans to strike a number of administrative facilities in Tehran in the next 24 hours, will continue to try to bomb the facility in Fordow, and promises new terrorist attacks and sabotage inside Iran (obviously, Iranian intelligence services are still far from completely destroying the enemy's networks inside the country).
Iran, in turn, is preparing for new strikes on Israel and promises to use new types of weapons.
Ideally, Iran should already be acting with an eye on a possible US attack on Iran in the next 48 hours and preparing to attack US bases in the region and US carrier strike groups. Ideally, submarines should already be deployed.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
The plan to attack Iran, force regime change in Teheran, decapitate and disarm Iranian forces, and partition the country into ethnic autonomies is nothing new.
In August 1941 British and empire forces (Indian, Australian) acted in coordination with Soviet forces to occupy the country, ostensibly to prevent the Shah of Iran from allowing German forces to seize Iranian oilfields and attack the land corridor from the Persian Gulf northwards across the country and into the Soviet Union through which US Lend-Lease aid for the war effort was being transported. At the time, with British air superiority in the south and Soviet air superiority in the north, the regime in Teheran had no choice but to capitulate.
By November 1943, when Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met together in Teheran (lead image, left), Stalin already knew the British were aiming to monopolize Iranian oil supplies for themselves, and with the Americans were “creat[ing] a real threat to the interests of our country if we do not take timely countermeasures.” – Page 71. Stalin’s reaction was first to test Iran’s parliamentary leadership for signing an oil concession agreement. When the Iranians rejected that, Stalin ordered a Red Army-backed secession movement for an independent Azeri statelet based in Tabriz. He abandoned this scheme at the end of March 1946.
A recent anti-Soviet history of the episode claims Stalin retreated because he was afraid of direct conflict with the US, which was then planning atom bomb attacks on the Soviet Union. Also, Stalin “underestimated his Iranian opponents who ultimately left him out in the cold”.
Between 1982 and 1988 the collective Soviet leadership faced a similar problem from the hostile regime in Teheran led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; he called the Kremlin the “lesser Satan” after the “Great Satan” (US) and “Little Satan” (Israel). Khomeini implemented his hyperbole by threatening the Soviet Islamic republics, as well as the Red Army in Afghanistan. The Politburo retaliated by arming Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein sufficiently well to preserve his regime from being toppled by Khomeini’s counter-invasion; this followed after the failure of Soviet efforts to dissuade Hussein from starting his war against Iran, and then to maintain neutrality between the two sides.
This week the evidence is mounting of a US plan to attack Iran, using Israeli forces in the air and on the ground, plus German, British, and other NATO logistic assets. The public cause of war has been repeated by President Donald Trump (lead image, right centre) – to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment, weaponization, and ballistic missile capabilities. “Look, Iran should have signed sign the deal,” Trump said on Monday at the G7 summit conference in Canada. ”Something’s going to happen…[Question: President, do you want to see regime change in Iran?] I want to see no nuclear weapon in Iran and we’re well on our way to making sure that happens….”
Operationally, however, repeated missions by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) since last Friday (June 13) have failed to do this. US and Russian sources have been reporting that only US B-2 and B-52 bombers, currently based in Qatar and Diego Garcia and armed with GBU-57A/B MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) bombs can achieve this result.
Such an operation, in combination with other IAF raids on Iranian defences, missile stocks and firing platforms, requires intensive and coordinated US, Israeli and allied intelligence, plus a large fleet of aerial refuelling tankers based in Cyprus and other close-in staging points.
This operation, US and Russian sources believe, is the reason Trump abruptly cancelled his G7 meetings and returned to the White House Situation Room. “As soon as I leave here, we’re going to be doing something. But I have to leave here.”
Censorship, deception operations, and propaganda screens make it difficult to judge how much time, weapons stocks, and effective air defences the Israeli and Iranian forces have on the fourth day of the war. In this US-produced video summary, the conclusion is that the IAF has failed to achieve air superiority over Iran, except for the west border regions; and that therefore the risk to a US bombing operation over central Iran continues to be much higher than has been revealed in public.
The film also claims that if Iran can protract its drone and missile barrages for several more days, accelerating the tempo and adding new types of weapons, it will exhaust Israel’s air defence missile stocks and its inventory of air and ground attack weapons. “It seems that Iran can sustain the missile salvos for a longer period than Israel can maintain operational and non-depleted missile defence systems…time appears to be on the Iranian side despite the constant strikes deep inside the country conducted by in-situ covert sabotage drones and missiles.” Min 12:45
If this is accurate, Trump is under pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (lead image, right) to hurry up; and Russian President Vladimir Putin (lead image, right) knows it.
“The United States still needs some time”, Boris Rozhin reports for the Russian military blog Colonel Cassad in Moscow, “to gather in the theatre all the required ships, tankers and bombers…And so there has been talk of ‘another chance’, ‘send Witkoff’, etc. But then Iran will again be offered to abandon its nuclear program and missiles which Iran cannot accept. At the same time, if it was only about nuclear weapons, Iran was always ready to refuse them in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. But this isn’t about nuclear weapons – it is the desire to change the regime in Teheran.” — June 17, 06:41.
“If Israel could have handled Iran itself, the launch of this scenario would not be required. But it is required primarily for Israel, because it was not possible to crush Iran quickly. Iran began to recover from the strikes and reorganize under a long-term war, which is like death for Israel… There is every reason to believe that in a fairly short time Israel will face a shortage of high-precision weapons. The forecast – they will be able to maintain the pace of blows for several tens of days, but not more than a hundred. Further, everything will depend on the political will of the Iranian leadership and the degree of its control over the population. At the cost of supertension and disproportionately high losses, Iran can still win. But it will be very difficult.” — June 17, 12:21.
Source: https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/06/15/ ... over-iraq/
Source: https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/06/14/awacs-night/
Source: https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/06/16/ ... to-europe/
16, 6:30 pm ET, 1:30 am Moscow time -- source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrum ... 7357588413
https://johnhelmer.net/trump-is-about-t ... more-91891
*****
Laith Marouf on Iran’s Escalatory Path and Its Expectations of a Long War
Posted on June 17, 2025 by Yves Smith
Yves here. Your humble blogger is typically sparing about featuring YouTube interviews as posts. However, this Rachel Bevin interview with Lebonon-based Laith Marouf, host of Free Palestine TV, gives a good overview of the initial Iranian failure to anticipate the Israeli attack, the pacing and focus of Iranian strikes on Israel, and what Iran’s targeting priorities are likely to be when the US formally enters the fray (Marouf is dismissive of the idea that the US is not already deeply involved).
The transcript is machine generated. I cleaned it up but please forgive any errors or omissions.
By Rachel Blevins. Originally published at her channel
Blevins: It is June 16th 2025 and Israel and Iran continue to trade strikes for a fourth day. As you have Israel coming out and claiming that it has air superiority over Iran, I would argue that Israel has superiority over the media coverage here in the US because they are certainly spinning it any way they want to talking about regime change in Iran and all of these things that they’re going to do.
But what is Iran going to do? Because that is the question that we are now starting to see the answer to as they continue to respond with strikes on Israel as we continue to see damage reported in Israel, as we continue to see casualties reported on both sides. And as you have these reports of course that the US is getting ready and making moves to directly enter this war, instead of
just the support that they’ve had for Israel this entire time. So what could that mean for where tensions are headed?
Well we got into all of the latest with a special guest earlier so let’s take a listen to that conversation. Now joining me now to discuss is Leith Marouf a Palestinian Syrian journalist and host
of Free Palestine TV based in Lebanon. Leith, thanks so much for taking the time to join me
Marouf: Great to be with you Rachel.
Blevins: Now I want to get your take on the latest here as Israel and really now the US are engaged in an all-out war against Iran as Israel and Iran continue to trade strikes for a fourth day. We’re seeing casualties reported on both sides. But now Israel is claiming that it has destroyed more than 100 surface-to-surface missile launchers in central Iran and therefore achieved air superiority over
Iran.
What do you make of this claim? Is this about Israel trying to almost kind of tell the media to look over here to distract from the damage that Iran has been able to carry out in Israel?
Marouf: Yeah iI mean from day one part of the Israeli/American attack has been this psychological warfare. If people remember, within the first hours of the beginnings of the attacks on Iran the
American leadership was telling the Ayatollah to just surrender, that we killed everyone around you just give up now. And we’ve heard this claim of full control of the airspace over Iran by the Zionists repeated over and over.
But the what we know now from the reality and the truth on the ground in Iran is that the vast majority of attacks, over 80 somewhat percent of the attacks that are happening, are being
conducted by infiltration and spies that have been planted on the ground, Over the last 24 hours, the Iranian television have showed at least three factories of drones and hideouts of uh these infiltrators that include ATGMs.
And this is what has been really happening: all the attacks that we see inside Tehran and the deeper cities that are not on the border with Iraq have been conducted by these ATGM attacks including the
assassinations on the first night. It was somebody with a a shoulder-mounted ATGM firing within the neighborhood on the buildings where these generals and scientists were sleeping with their families. This is why Iran wasn’t expecting.
I know a lot of people are wondering why these assassinations happened, why were these people not hidden somewhere. Because they were in Tehran they were not on the border, there’s no way for Israel to assassinate them through an air strike as it did in Lebanon. And now we have even proof that the assassination of Haniyeg inside, the leader of Hamas, a year ago was actually conducted again by one of these attacks from somebody on the ground.
So Iran has managed to capture all these infiltration, majority of them squads and captured most of their assets and weapons and this is accelerating.
So the first minutes of shock that we saw and the maneuverability of Israel on the ground in Iran is now u becoming very limited. And given that their air strikes are happening from Iraqi airspace with these Golden Horizon missiles ballistic missiles fired from a jet. They have a very short limit of where they can hit inside Iran.
Then this is why the US is having to enter the battle now because all of that propaganda and fantasy of that the chosen people have the ability to hit you anywhere they want to has now been debunked.
Blevins: Yeah and I think that that’s a great point. And it’s also interesting to see that psychological warfare right, this idea that Iran is having to fight this dual war of you can’t trust anyone in your country or anyone outside of your country.
And it has been notable I know that there’s been a lot of footage on social media showing the destruction that we’ve seen in Israel from Iranian attacks. I guess suddenly the Israelis .
But how do you view the damage that Iran has been able to inflict so far and kind of what that tells us about their broader capabilities but also what Israel is doing?
Marouf: On its end yeah, the Iranian strategy up until now has been to escalate in stages and to
deplete the uh resources that Israel has. So what we saw on the first day for instance, first night the Iranians used a couple hundred old ballistic missiles that forced the air defenses of the whole West combined, that is stationed in the region, as well as the Israeli air defenses to reveal themselves.
And so we had that wave of slow drones that forced every radar and every battery of air defense to activate and with them those hyper sonic ballistic missiles and that painted everything in red. basically all the
targets and we saw the first night just maybe around five hypersonic missiles
hit very important air defense batteries and radars in this pathway and then the
second night we saw an increase of the number of hypersonic missiles
uh and uh while the you know increase also in the waves of drones and
ballistic missiles that again forced the activation of more important assets that
they the whole west had in the path of these drones and missiles and that
uh led to the vast destruction of all of the air defenses that the Israelis
rolled from the Golan Heights all the way to Tel Aviv a highway was opened and
this is why by the end of the night by the third wave of missiles last night
there was practically nothing to stop the uh missiles that are coming and we
saw the destruction of the uh majority of the port of Hifa
the electric plant just north of Hifa also uh the
Israelis have only two electricity plants in the whole country and uh the
major transformers in Hayra in the north of Palestine that distribute electricity
to the Golan Heights in the north of Palestine so last night since last night
the Israelis lost half of their capability of electricity generation they’ve had to activate uh the
electricity plant uh south of Tel Aviv on 24 hours and the Jordanians and the
Egyptians the treacherous regimes of Jordan and Egypt increased their electricity pumping into the grid inside
the Zionist colony uh cutting electricity from their own population uh
you know so now there’s uh electricity u you know blackouts in both Egypt and and
Jordan just to keep the Israelis in under you know light and so tonight we
should expect that uh the other electricity plant that the Israelis have and the high transforming transformer
lines that come from is Jordan Jordan and Egypt to be hit uh and um look I
think right now already the the Zionists are defeated in their battle with Iran and this is why we see a rush of uh
American air fuelers coming with waves of uh NATO jets to the region we saw
since last night 25 air refuelers from fly out from the US towards the region
uh these are the ones that we see their transponders turned on so the we will
find ourselves in a direct American uh western attack on Iran momentarily uh
and I think the the biggest fear right now that the Israelis have uh is the
possibility of infiltration from uh other forces uh I know everybody watched
those videos in Tel Aviv and Hifa and the mass destruction but more than 60%
of Iran’s attacks last night were on Israeli bases on the border with Lebanon
and in the Golan Heights and uh people in South Lebanon uh around 20 kilometers
you know 15 miles away from the border their homes were shaking and they could see the explosions on the border so
right now uh you know the Israelis have to worry about more than just Iran’s
missiles their whole frontline defenses in the Golan Heights and South Li
Palestine are very vulnerable right now wow that is that’s really interesting
and I’m glad that you bring that up because that’s another thing that I was thinking about the fact that you know
Israel has been in this position has carried out it has really implemented
this regional war right it’s carried out genocide against the Palestinians it has been bombing Lebanon and all of that has
kind of been this glass house that has stood for so long but then they’ve gone to Iran and they’ve said “Okay we want
direct war.” And Iran is like “Okay well we can target you here here and here.” And guess what we still have this
overall axis of resistance that can target you from all of these different areas right around your border and this
is the fight that you pick and now when it comes to the reports that we’re seeing that Iran is keeping its most
modern ballistic missiles for a wider war is that about the US potentially
getting involved and some of these other you know American British French bases
in the region that Iran could be targeting how do you see kind of the position that Iran is in right now and
how it’s choosing to escalate based on how Israel and the West respond you know
I I watched a few interviews of uh the new um command within the Iranian
military on Iranian television and a few things that we should note from what they said
one is that they already knew that the United States is trying to fool them uh
during these negotiations and that the attack was going to happen uh what they didn’t realize is that there’s those
infiltration uh squads on the ground that they’re going to commit those assassinations they and that’s a a
mistake on their behalf uh but they knew that this is what’s going to happen uh
that they were going to go to war with the Zionist colony and also these same generals in these interviews said that
they already know that they are going to go to war against the United States and
the whole might of NATO from that moment and that they are thus uh preparing for
this long war and part of this uh ability to have this long war with the
west is making sure that not all of your assets are exposed from day one uh you
know they could have threw a couple of 10,000 uh missiles all at the same time
on the Zinus colony and blasted it from the first day but that would have mean that all their uh you know warehouses
and their hideouts and you know launchers would have been exposed for the Americans to target them so what we
will see is uh once the Americans openly
attack Iran because by the way in my opinion the Americans and the west is already attacking Iran israel only has
250 jets and uh they cannot be conducting
all those bombardments on Iran on Syria on Lebanon on Gaza and Yemen all at the
same time they’re not they’re not they don’t have the hand of God with them although we were supposed to believe
that right so they’re already involved uh the Americans in the West but they’re
going to now have to openly say that they’re involved uh as the Zionists are
totally destroyed and unable to even lie about their involvement in attacks on Iran and once that happens I think the
Iranians will first and foremost attack all the airfields in the region
uh they will not be attacking American bases at the first stage uh and they
will be attacking all the uh um you know refineries for jet fuel and the holding
um facilities for jet fuel in the region we saw the the Iranians do that on the first day in Israel by the way sorry the
second night on the second night uh before the destruction of the Hifa port
yesterday on the second night the uh Iranians destroyed the refinery that
specialized in uh jet fuel in the Hifa port and the facilities all across the
colony of distribution and storage of jet fuel okay so that gives us an
indication of what the Iranians are going to do in their first stage of responding to any direct uh western
attack on it and thus I would say the um
um the airfields in Cyprus uh that the British uh have in their
occupied territories inside Cypress there’s two parts of Cypress that are occupied by the Brits and where the
majority of the uh command and control of the air operations right now is
happening from there those will be the first uh airfields and um jet fuel
storage uh locations that will be attacked and then uh if that the US
dares to uh openly fly out of airfields
in Qatar or Saudi or Bahin or the Emirates then they will be attacked also
and that’s going to drag us of course into a full uh oil crisis in the world
even before attacking the oil fields uh of the Gulf yeah that is something that
I would think that those kingdoms that I’ve been very supportive of the US and of genocide have that they should be
keeping in mind as they’re watching this play out and I’m also curious too when it comes to the political element here
because I know that when I talked to you just a couple of weeks ago we were talking here about the Knesset being on
the verge of being dissolved altogether right netanyahu being in political trouble and one thing about Netanyahu
anytime he gets into any kind of political trouble he’s like “All right what war can I start?” And here we are
with war on Iran and kind of what you were talking about earlier with you know
Israel’s electricity being impacted i know that there are reports out there saying that Israelis are being forced to
stay and that they are going to be forced to stay now being used as human shields ironically how do you view the
position that Israel is in and kind of how long they are going to be able to
stand with everything that is happening really the consequences of their actions
starting to come back home yeah I’m glad you brought that up um the Har newspaper
is saying the uh Israeli authorities have banned any airlines from carrying
allowing Israelis on board to depart under any reason so we saw a rush of uh
2 million Israelis trying to buy tickets to leave and that’s why the Zionist
authorities are freaking out they already have lost like a million and a half settlers over the last two years
that ran away to the west and another two million would mean more than 50%
have left and there’s no more state at that point and so right now we see a
rush of these colonist uh to the um fairies that take people to uh Cyprus uh
so there’s uh all booked fairies uh there’s a rush to the borders with
Jordan and Egypt and the treacherous Jordanian and Egyptian regime are helping these Zionists leave i mean I I
would like them to leave i’m happy but uh obviously those two regimes never cared for the Palestinians and in fact
the Jordanian regime who took a few hundred uh Palestinian children from Gaza for medical treatment
uh returned them to their death in Gaza after right and nobody talks about that
those same supposedly u you know children that that Jordan pride itself
about saving and helping in medical uh terms are dead now because the Jordanian
regime returned them to the death camp so uh you know the the exit of the Zionist
is happening um there is in all practical uh sense no more Zionist
colony uh the collapse that we were talking about in our last interview in
terms of their political uh cohesion um has happened uh Netanyahu isn’t you know
just using this to distract uh he had no choice this was the strategy from the
beginning october 7th there was a rag tag militia of 2,000
fighters that defeated the Israeli military that captured 12 Israeli bases
and killed or captured 12 Israeli generals the uh Americans had to send
generals to the command and control to actually run the war from day one
um the Israeli ground forces are a bunch of pedophiles and transvestites that
like to put on women’s uh underwear okay and they were defeated in Gaza since
then they haven’t been able to win this war against this ragtag militia uh they
were defeated in Lebanon they were not able to enter one Lebanese village without the ceasefire they were defeated
as the whole the United States by Yemen and now they’re going they have no
choice because of if they stop at any moment this defeat becomes a reality they have no choice but to escalate to
try to win something okay and now as we see the whole uh you
know um mythology of uh air superiority of the Zionist is being popped up as the
balloon is is okay so we’re at this moment that if the United States doesn’t
come to save this Zionist colony from full collapse uh they the United States
itself will start losing uh its prestige as a military power and this is why the
US is risking everything and the whole west is risking everything on the uh you
know golden calf of Zionism one last thing I would say here on this point is that up until now Iran didn’t target the
water infrastructure okay and the Israelis were stupid enough to attack one of the uh main water
pipelines into uh Tahan last night or stupid enough because in the Zionist
colony uh you know close to 90% of the people live in the area between
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and this area is not fed by water from the aquifers of
the West Bank or the water of the Jordan River uh it’s fed by eight disselination
plants on the Mediterranean and if those disselination plants are hit uh even
just half of them are out of service they Zionist colonists will go thirsty
immediately there’s no there’s no other water source for them uh and um this is
I think what we will be seeing in the next 24 hours attacks on the water infrastructure that feeds the colony
yeah and it’ll be interesting to see i’m curious what the US is going to do and
how it’s going to really well I say get involved they’re already involved right as we were noting earlier everything
that Israel is doing and has done in this ongoing genocide in this regional
war it’s made possible by the US and we’ve watched as President Trump has
kind of gone back and forth right on one hand he claims that oh yeah Israel used
the weapons that were provided by the US And then on the other hand he’s like “We didn’t have anything to do in with
tonight’s attacks.” Talking about what transpired on Saturday night and so on
and so forth the last thing I want to bring up is just kind of how far the US
is willing to go because I know that that the think tanks in Washington DC have wanted war against Iran for a while
now right they have wanted an allout war that is going to weaken Iran but as
they’re seeing Iran’s response as they’re as we’re seeing the fact that it didn’t just crumble after the string of
assassinations and say “Okay we’ll agree to whatever nuclear deal that Trump is throwing at us.” How do you see the
position that the US is in and kind of how far it’s willing to go because Israel the Zionists seem to be willing
to go to the bitter end for this war yeah I think it’s starting to make sense
more to me the strategy of the Axis of resistance of not going all in on
October 7th uh for one reason is that um I think the access of resistance
leadership understood that this is an existential war in the sense of not only
the colony but of western hijgey and that the western elite will uh hinge
everything they have to make sure that the Zionist colony is not defeated thus
if the response of the access of resistance was coordinated simultaneous
attack on October 8th uh to glass the Zionist colony we would
have have a nuclear response immediately from the United States and the West and
we would already be living a nuclear holocaust and a nuclear winter all of us as humanity so at a great sacrifice
in blood the axis of resistance slowed the uh development of this war in order
to saturate the western populace in real knowledge of what things are happening
in order to give a breather for people between the stages of this war for the
uh uh populations uh to start moving against the craziness of their elite in
the west and maybe maybe just maybe that the elite in the west will uh you know
uh back down from the edge of the abyss okay and this is where we at you know so
uh you know we’re at the last stages here and I think uh the there is nobody
uh anywhere in the western uh domains that actually believes the lies that
they are hearing from the Zionists and the elite in the west and the vast majority of the population in the west
overwhelmingly is anti-ionist now uh and that’s all because of this strategy and
as we see the pressure is building so heavily inside western societies that we got to a point of uh armed resistance
like that assassination of the two Israeli uh min embassy officials by
Elias Rodriguez in Washington DC that those are indicators of how uh you know
pent up right now the feelings are in the populace in the west and that’s the
United States which is a country that doesn’t have many Muslims or Arabs uh like France or Europe for instance so we
can understand that if the west right now takes takes us to
this war which it will happen I expect uh violent resistance to rise inside
western societies it’s not what I want but this is what’s going to happen and that is wouldn’t have happened if Iran
and the Axis of resistance went all in uh two years ago 20 months ago uh and so
uh uh there is still a chance for us to uh return from the abyss uh and that is
now dependent on how serious the populace in the west are to make sure
that their elite follow their will otherwise once this war rolls out and if
the West either nukes Iran and or uh
bombs a nuclear reactor in Iran that results in nuclear fallout
within minutes Pakistan which will be the biggest victim of this nuclear
fallout this has a very thin country that’s right on the border of Iran they
and there as the Pakistani military promised will retaliate with a nuclear
attack on Tel Aviv if there is nuclear fallout that falls on China we should be expecting China to
also move accordingly this is not a joke anymore right so even if there’s a
Pakistan is a country that’s captured by the West and the Saudi money those
Pakistani generals have children and they’re going to die from nuclear poisoning okay so there is a limit to
how much they’ll collaborate okay and that’s why we’re seeing Pakistan take this position and the fact
that Pakistan is the only nuclear Muslim country they know that they’re on the cutting uh board right after Iran if
Iran falls even if they kiss the feet of Zionist they will be attacked uh so uh
right now anyone that wants to avoid a nuclear holocaust in the west they have
a very short window to move uh take serious action to stop their
governments from dragging us into a nuclear holocaust yeah there is certainly a lot at stake here i think
that that is an understatement at this point and I really appreciate you taking the time to join me today to really
educate the audience on where things stand with all of these moving parts here le Maru a Palestinian Syrian
journalist and host of Free Palestine TV thank you so much for your time and
insight good to be with you Rachel see you soon if anything in this video resonated with you be sure to like it
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as always thank you all so much for all of your support and I’ll see you next
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/06 ... g-war.html
'You call that clean?'))
******
Vijay Prashad: The Illegal Attack on Iran
June 16, 2025
Since the 2020 U.S. assassination of General Soleimani, Washington and Tel Aviv had been working to weaken Tehran. Now Israel smells an opportunity to overthrow the Iranian government by force.
Fire in Tehran on Friday after the Israeli attack. (Avash Media, Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 4.0)
By Vijay Prashad
PeoplesDispatch
Israel’s consistent attacks on Iran since 2023 have all been illegal, violations of the United Nations Charter (1945). Iran is a member state of the United Nations and is therefore a sovereign state in the international order.
If Israel had a problem with Iran, there are many mechanisms mandated by international law that permit Israel to bring complaints against Iran.
Thus far, Israel has avoided these international forums because it is clear that it has no case against Iran. Allegations that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, which are constantly raised by the United States, the European Union and Israel, have been fully investigated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and found to be unfounded.
It is certainly true that Iran has a nuclear energy programme that is within the rules in place through the IAEA, and it is also true that Iran’s clerical establishment has a fatwa (religious edict) in place against the production of nuclear weapons.
Despite the IAEA findings and the existence of this fatwa, the West — egged on by Israel — has accepted this irrational idea that Iran is building a nuclear weapon and that Iran is therefore a threat to the international order. On the contrary, by its punctual and illegal attacks on Iran, it is Israel that is a threat to the international order.
Over the past decades, Iran has called for the establishment of a Middle East Nuclear Free Zone, a strange idea coming from a country accused of wanting to build a nuclear weapon. But this idea of the nuclear free zone has been rejected by the West, largely to protect Israel, which has an illegal nuclear weapons programme.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a nuclear weapon, although it has never tested it openly nor acknowledged its existence. If Israel was so keen on eliminating any nuclear threat, it should have taken the offer for the creation of a nuclear-free zone heartily.
Neither the Europeans, who so often posture as defenders of international law, nor the United Nations leadership have publicly pushed Israel to adopt this idea because both recognise that this would require Israel, not Iran, to denuclearise.
That this is an improbable situation has meant that there has been no movement from the West or from the international institutions to take this idea forward and build an international consensus to develop a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
Irael does not want to build a nuclear-free zone in the region. What Israel wants is to be the sole nuclear power in the region, and therefore to be exactly what it is – namely, the largest United States military base in the world that happens to be the home to a large civilian population.
Iran has no ambition to be a nuclear power. But it has an ambition to be a sovereign state that remains committed to justice for the Palestinians. Israel has no problem with the idea of sovereignty per se, but has a problem with any state in the region that commits itself to Palestinian emancipation.
If Iran normalised relations with Israel and ceased its opposition to U.S. dominion in the region, then it is likely that Israel would end its opposition to Iran.
Israel & US Prepared the Way
Funeral of General Qasem Soleimani in Qom, Iran, Jan. 7, 2020. (Mehdi Bakhshi, Mehr News Agency, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
In January 2020, the United States conducted an illegal assassination at Iraq’s Baghdad Airport to kill General Qassim Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Soleimani, through the Quds Force, had produced for Iran an insurance policy against further Israeli attacks on the country. The Quds Force is responsible for Iranian military operations outside the boundaries of the country, including building what is called the “Axis of Resistance” that includes the various pro-Iranian governments and non-governmental military forces.
These included: Hezbollah in Lebanon, various IRGC groups in Syria that worked with Syrian militia groups, the former government of deposed President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, several Palestinian factions in Occupied Palestine, and the Ansar Allah government in Yemen.
Without its own nuclear deterrent, Iran required some way to balance the military superiority of Israel and the United States. This deterrence was created by the “Axis of Resistance,” an insurance policy that allowed Iran to let Israel know that if Israel fired at Iran, these groups would rain missiles on Tel Aviv in retaliation.
The assassination of Soleimani began a determined new political and military campaign by the United States, Israel and their European allies to weaken Iran.
Israel and the United States began to punctually strike Iranian logistical bases in Syria and Iraq to weaken Iran’s forward posture and to demoralise the Syrian and Iraqi militia groups that operated against Israeli interests.
Israel began to assassinate IRGC military officers in Syria, Iran and Iraq, a campaign of murder that began to have an impact on the IRGC and the Quds Force.
Taking advantage of its genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza, Israel, with full support from the United States and Europe, began to damage the “Axis of Resistance,” Iran’s insurance policy.
Israel took its war into Lebanon, with a ruthless bombing campaign that included the assassination of the Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27, 2024.
This campaign, while it has not totally demolished Hezbollah, has certainly weakened it. Meanwhile, Israel began a regular bombing campaign against the Syrian military positions around Damascus and along the road to Idlib in the north.
This bombing campaign, coordinated with the U.S. military and with the U.S. intelligence services, was designed to open the roadway for the entry of the former Al-Qaeda fighters into Damascus and to overthrow the government of al-Assad on Dec. 8, 2024.
The fall of the al-Assad government dented Iran’s strength across the Levant region (from the Turkish border to the Occupied Palestinian Territory) as well as along the plains from southern Syria to the Iranian border.
The consistent campaign by the United States to bomb Yemeni positions further resulted in the loss of Ansar Allah’s heavy equipment (including long-range missiles) that fundamentally threatened Israel.
What this meant was that by early 2025, the Iranian insurance policy against Israel had collapsed. Israel began its march to war, suggesting an attack on Iran was imminent.
Such an attack, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows, would help him in a domestic political fight with the ultra-orthodox parties over the question of a military exemption for their communities; this will prevent his government from falling.
Cynical Netanyahu is using genocide and the possibility of a horrendous war with Iran for narrow political ends. But that is not what is motivating this attack. What is motivating this attack is that Israel smells an opportunity to try to overthrow the Iranian government by force.
Iran returned to the negotiations brokered by the IAEA to prevent such an attack. Its leadership knew full well that nothing would stop a scofflaw such as Israel from bombing Iran. And nothing did.
Not even the fact that Iran is still at the negotiation table. Israel has taken advantage of Iran’s momentary weakness to strike. And that strike might escalate further.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/16/v ... k-on-iran/
******
From Cassad's telegram account:
Colonelcassad
This is a US war against Iran, using Israel as a proxy force, just as the US is waging war on Russia via Ukraine. The plan was always to use Israel, armed and supported by the US, to create the diplomatic and strategic conditions for direct US intervention. The same people who failed to see this coming are now trying to convince people that Trump is being dragged into a war that America started. We know that Trump intended from the beginning to pick up where Biden left off. If Trump wanted to avoid war, he would not have even raised the Iranian nuclear program, because it was not Washington’s business to begin with. The negotiations were always doomed to “failure,” and were merely a pretext that Trump himself openly uses. And if Trump did not want Israel to attack, he would have denied Israel the ammunition, intelligence, and logistical support it needed to carry out the operation in the first place. Indulging in these excuses gives the US the denial it sought to create, which was detailed in
MAGA's policy documents over a decade ago in their own words... It always meant picking up where Biden left off, continuing the existing endless wars and starting new ones. Bannon and Flynn always wanted to pass the buck for Ukraine to Europe (to freeze, not to end) so they could destroy Iran and move on to China. The neocons Trump surrounded himself with did accept multipolarity, but only as something to be bombed and burned to the ground. Flynn eventually declared that destroying Iran would help establish US global dominance. It was never about defending the US from Russian, Chinese or Iranian threats. It was always about preventing those countries from defending themselves from US threats. You have been warned. Take off your masks. No more excuses or rationalizations.
(c) Brian Berletic
***
Colonelcassad
Mossad confirmed the defeat of its headquarters, but claims that "there was no one there, since everyone is in Iran." They seem to be responding to yesterday's trolling by an Iranian journalist after the TV center was hit.
Iran claims that not everything is so rosy for Mossad and that as a result of strikes on Mossad facilities, officers of the Israeli special services were killed and wounded.
Israel, for obvious reasons, completely keeps its military losses in people and equipment secret.
***
Colonelcassad
Israel plans to strike a number of administrative facilities in Tehran in the next 24 hours, will continue to try to bomb the facility in Fordow, and promises new terrorist attacks and sabotage inside Iran (obviously, Iranian intelligence services are still far from completely destroying the enemy's networks inside the country).
Iran, in turn, is preparing for new strikes on Israel and promises to use new types of weapons.
Ideally, Iran should already be acting with an eye on a possible US attack on Iran in the next 48 hours and preparing to attack US bases in the region and US carrier strike groups. Ideally, submarines should already be deployed.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Iran
Iran Now First Line of Defense of BRICS and the Global South
Posted by Internationalist 360° on June 17, 2025
Pepe Escobar
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
– T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
The question then is, in a scenario of the US de facto at war, what will it take for Russia and China, in concertation, to lose their own strategic patience.
Israel’s shock’n awe on Iran – straight from the trademark US playbook – essentially failed, despite the initial combination of speed, meticulous military planning and the element of surprise, including hacking the Iranian electronic communications within the military grid; decapitation of the vertical IRGC nomenklatura; the spiderweb drone attack playbook; and bombing – ultimately ineffectual – of key nodes of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
It took hours for top Iranian technicians to get their grid back. And once that happened, the tide began to turn, to the point that after surgical missile volleys deep in the night on Sunday, the IRGC announced its capability to seriously disrupt Israel’s command and control systems using “enhanced intelligence”, thus breaching Iron – or Paper – Dome.
Key infrastructure nodes in Tel Aviv and Haifa have been destroyed – from the Rafael weapons complex (specialized in missiles, drones, cyber warfare and Iron Dome components) to the power plant and oil refinery in Haifa. This is historic in more ways than one.
Compound the cries of joy all across the lands of Islam to the massive psychological trauma inflicted on Israel. The myth of Israeli invincibility has been definitely shattered. Unleashing hell from above, killing women and children and spinning like there’s no tomorrow does not win a war against a real opponent.
The tweaked IRGC strategy – applied by an instantly revamped leadership – is being fine-tuned day by day in a calculated, surgical manner. It’s not that hard for the IRGC to totally paralyze Israel’s economy. Israel has only one oil refinery (already bombed); three ports, of which one is already bankrupt (Eilat) and another is on fire (Haifa); and one airport (already in dire straits).
The blowback on Tel Aviv’s desperate, indeed suicidal move – no chess involved – is in effect. Tehran is proving that every Zionist axis calculation that Iran could – and was – bled dry in a matter of hours was, predictably, false.
The POTUS, for his part, fell into a voracious trap. His MAGA base is already fractured – in depth. Non-Zionist MAGA is the overwhelming majority. He admitted in a stunning infantilist post that he knew everything about the Israeli shock’n awe all along.
Less than 10 days ago, in a meeting in New York packed with billionaire usual suspects, Steve Witkoff himself – Trump’s Talleyrand – explicitly noted that Iranian ballistic missiles are “a threat to America”. Considering their performance in the last 48 hours, everything points to Washington de facto entering the Hot War.
Diplomatic sources in Tehran point out that the leadership is working under this scenario. That’s why they are essentially still holding their capabilities – and carefully calibrating the next big steps in the escalatory ladder. Once again: Iranian strategic patience on display.
The question then is, in a scenario of the US de facto at war, what will it take for Russia and China, in concertation, to lose their own strategic patience.
Persian pride – and trust in their own capabilities, as I observed last month in Iran – rules that they consider to have all the necessary resources to outlast the Zionist axis, US included. After all they are only now starting to use their really advanced missiles – from the Kheybar-Shekan 2 and the Fattah-1 to the Haji Qassem.
The Real War: Against BRICS
So, in a nutshell, the Iranian response turned the chessboard completely upside down. The Circus Ringmaster – complete with hosting a pathetic military parade in Washington – is naked. And unmasked. He now owns not one but two proxy wars: against Russia, and against Iran, with neo-nazis in Kiev and genocidals in Tel Aviv on the frontlines. All part of the Big Picture War: against BRICS.
By now it’s clear even for the deaf, dumb and blind that this was never about the Iranian nuclear program, or the “effort” to construct a Trump-owned JCPOA 2.0. It is about the lifelong Zionist axis obsession: regime change in Tehran. That is the Holy Grail, dreamed of since the late 1990s, capable of opening the door for the deeply troubled Empire of Chaos of Iran’s immense wealth in natural resources – from energy to rare earth deposits, thus prolonging the life of the multi-trillion-dollar-indebted Empire.
The extra bonuses are even more seductive: cutting off China from a matter of national security – energy imports – and from crucial New Silk Road connectivity corridors, in tandem with opening a monster abscess in Russia’s underbelly. A definitive trifecta blow, in one swoop, to three top BRICS – Iran, Russia, China; to Eurasia integration; and to the drive towards a multi-nodal (italics mine), multipolar system of international relations.
Even as top civilization-states are doing somersaults to outlast the Empire of Chaos and its masters’ drive to unleash WWIII, there are no illusions in Moscow and Beijing that to confront this scenario it’s imperative to act asymmetrically – with supreme cunning, instead of merely responding to provocations (which has been the predominant Russian playbook in the proxy war in Ukraine).
Russian intel, meanwhile, has already done the math on the mirror effect of Israel’s own Operation Spiderweb, which employed exactly the same modus operandi of what Ukraine’s SBU – fronting for MI6 and Mossad – unleashed against Russian strategic bombers that are part of the nuclear triad.
Serious questions are being asked about Tel Aviv being directly involved in sabotaging Moscow. Just as serious questions are now popping up regarding the Ukrainian track. Intel information silos in Moscow consider that the Trump “ceasefire” process walks and talks like a crude camouflage to force Russia to back off for a while, as NATO chihuahuas on the beck and call of the deep state prepare a first strike (at least in their warped dreams).
So sooner rather than later, we may see Russia actually expanding on the current Iranian strategy: a massive infrastructural war, plunging Ukraine into complete blackout, metaphorical and otherwise – just like the bombing of a power plant in Haifa plunged the city into a complete blackout.
Why Iran Must Not be Allowed to Fail
Of course the current, insane escalatory ladder would be non-existent if Trump had been mature enough to accept the offer by Ali Shamkhani – later assassinated by Israel: Iran could get rid of its highly enriched uranium and sign a new nuclear deal if sanctions were lifted. Tehran would then only enrich uranium at low levels for its civilian program.
In parallel, Tehran had also even suggested a joint nuclear enrichment project with US investment plus Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi personally outlined it to US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Oman – before the talks broke down.
The Global South, meanwhile, watches the horrendously deadly ping-pong between Israel and Iran – with increasing awareness that the cornered West is an even more dangerous animal day after day, waging Total War under the mask of peace.
Tel Aviv burning is the beginning of a new era. In their rage, they now threaten the “Beirut” model on Tehran: wanton destruction of civilian neighborhoods. Once again, what they do best: terrorism. And yet, there will be no impunity for a genocidal system anymore. Consequences will be inevitably discussed this week at the St. Economic Forum, all the way to Putin’s address at the plenary session on Friday, and all the way to the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro in early July.
Taking the pulse of the Global South, the feeling is that Iran de facto is in the process of restoring ethics and geopolitical authority all across West Asia, as the Persian empire exercised it for centuries. That’s what civilization-states do: their role as privileged guardians of their sphere of influence is always essential.
It’s unlikely – under the Brazilian presidency; but BRICS sooner or later will have to make the strategic transition from a hyper-polite declaration machine to become the true, solid, unbreakable spine of the Global South and the Global Axis of Resistance. Because the enraged, discombobulated West is not in hybrid war mode anymore; it has gone Totalen Krieg – as hot as it comes. Hence, the Global South’s got to switch on to a post-hybrid, Rebels with a Cause mode.
From Nigeria to Indonesia to Vietnam – BRICS members and BRICS partners – there’s a growing consensus that Iran must not be allowed to fall. It’s that serious. The spell of unrestricted Western diktat has finally been broken: all that will survive is “the loud lament of the disconsolate chimera”. It takes a – failed – shock’n awe to break the camel’s back.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/06/ ... bal-south/
******
Iran is weeks away from nuclear weapons. And so it has been for 30 years
June 18, 15:16
Netanyahu has been telling stories for decades that Iran is months away from obtaining nuclear weapons.
(Video at link.)
According to polls, more than 60% of Americans currently do not support US aggression against Iran.
However, it is not difficult to prepare public opinion for another war. Some kind of false flag operation will do.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9906597.html
******
Hypersonic missile "Fattah-1"
June 18, 13:09
Iran has released a video of a new solid-fuel hypersonic missile, Fattah-1, used at night, which hit a target in the center of Tel Aviv at night. The missile is said to have a speed of 13-15 Machs and can maneuver both in and outside the atmosphere due to its movable nozzle. It took less than 5 minutes to cover the 1,400 kilometers from the launch area to Tel Aviv. 12 launched anti-missiles were unable to stop it.
Below is a video of the missile landing in Tel Aviv at night (Iran claims the missile hit the Israeli Defense Ministry building).
(Videos at link.)
If Iran had nuclear weapons, installing nuclear warheads on such missiles would fundamentally change the entire balance of power in the region.
So far, Iran has only demonstrated the presence of an effective means of delivering nuclear warheads. But without the warheads themselves, the value of such a missile is obviously not complete.
It also remains unknown how many such missiles Iran has, what is the speed and cost of their production. But we will probably find out in the course of further military actions.
For now, the exchange of blows continues.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9906232.html
Google Translator
******
Iranian missile strikes force closure of Israel's largest oil refinery
Amid escalating diplomatic threats and the rising death toll, both powers face a growing international pressure to de-escalate
News Desk
JUN 17, 2025
(Photo credit: Gil Nehoshtan)
Israel’s largest oil refinery was forced to shut down on 16 June after an Iranian missile strike caused extensive damage to the Bazan Group’s Haifa complex, killing three workers and disabling its main power station, Israel’s Calcalist reported.
“As a result of the damage to the Bazan Group complex, the power plant responsible for generating part of the steam and electricity used by the group’s facilities was significantly damaged. Additional damage was also sustained.” Barzan Group announced.
“For the time being, all operations at the refinery and its subsidiaries in Haifa have been shut down. The company is working in coordination with the Israel Electric Corporation, which mobilized immediately, to restore a regular electricity supply to the complex as soon as possible.” the company added.
The Bazan complex supplies nearly 60 percent of Israel’s diesel and close to half of its gasoline.
Trading in Bazan Group shares was suspended for several hours on Monday, with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange citing a “lack of clarity” as the reason for the halt. It was later confirmed that the suspension followed the Iranian missile strike on the company’s Haifa complex.
While Bazan’s primary activity is oil refining, it also manufactures raw materials for the plastics and chemical sectors.
Iran's latest missile strikes shatter illusion of Israeli safety, breach US-Israeli air shields, and hit critical targets
——
Early this morning, at least 100 Iranian ballistic missiles, some hypersonic, came crashing down on sites in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, and the Negev… pic.twitter.com/yjug9hR2MD
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) June 16, 2025
A day earlier, on 15 June, Iranian missile and drone strikes caused localised damage to pipelines within the complex’s downstream facilities, resulting in partial shutdowns.
Most operations, however, remained functional at the time.
Since the sudden Israeli attack on Iran and the subsequent exchanges of fire, both sides have sought to cripple each other’s energy infrastructure in an effort to undermine economic stability and disrupt vital supply chains.
As Iranian missiles struck Israeli energy infrastructure and Tel Aviv escalated its bombing campaign on civilian sites across Iran, diplomatic statements from both sides revealed growing international concern over the rapid escalation of the war.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told parliament that Tehran is “not seeking nuclear weapons” and that the country “must stand strong against this genocidal criminal aggression.”
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “a war criminal,” accusing him of deliberately provoking war to sabotage efforts toward a diplomatic breakthrough between Tehran and Washington.
Asked whether he would consider targeting Iran’s supreme leader, Netanyahu said, “It’s not going to escalate the conflict. It’s going to end the conflict.”
US President Donald Trump, speaking at the G7 summit in Canada, urged Tehran to engage in de-escalation talks with Israel “before it’s too late.”
https://thecradle.co/articles/iranian-m ... l-refinery
Iran targets Israel’s Unit 8200 near Tel Aviv
Heavy Israeli media censorship has been imposed on sites impacted by Iranian ballistic missiles
News Desk
JUN 17, 2025
(Photo credit: X)
Iranian ballistic missiles targeted Israeli Military Intelligence Unit 8200 at the Glilot base near Tel Aviv on 17 June, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced – as part of the ninth phase of Operation True Promise 3.
“In the early hours of today, Tuesday, 17 June, IRGC Aerospace Force fighters, in an impact-oriented operation, despite the presence of highly advanced defense systems, struck the Zionist regime's military intelligence center known as Aman and the center for planning terror operations and evils of the Zionist regime (Mossad) in Tel Aviv, and this center is currently burning,” the IRGC said in a statement.
Several impacts were made in the Herzliya area in the Tel Aviv district. A bus was set ablaze and an eight-story building was damaged, according to Hebrew news site Ynet.
Video footage captured the moment several missiles impacted the area, causing large explosions.
Israeli media reported that military censorship has imposed a blackout on the location impacted by Iranian missiles in the Glilot area, a suburb of Tel Aviv previously targeted by Hezbollah.
The Glilot area houses the headquarters of Mossad, as well as several other key Israeli intelligence units, including Unit 8200 – also referred to as Aman.
Hebrew reports also said a warehouse or logistical facility used by Unit 8200 was targeted.
Online users geolocated the impact sites in the Glilot area using satellite imagery and visual markers from footage taken shortly after the strikes. The coordinates indicate that multiple missiles landed in close proximity to the suspected Mossad facilities, but not directly on them.
Israel has imposed strict media censorship, prohibiting the publication of information and footage relating to Iranian ballistic missile impact sites.
The IRGC announced on 16 June that it has launched the ninth phase of Operation True Promise 3 in response to a brutal US-backed war launched by Israel against Iran on 13 June.
It said it is planning to intensify its strikes against Israel in the coming hours.
Recent ballistic missile attacks on Israel have caused unprecedented destruction across Tel Aviv and Haifa. Dozens have been killed and hundreds injured.
Iranian drones have also continuously infiltrated Israeli airspace over the past several hours.
Meanwhile, Israel has continued to launch deadly attacks on Iran. Over 224 Iranians have been killed, including at least 45 women and children.
Thick smoke was seen rising over the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz following an explosion at approximately 8:45 am local time, according to Mehr news agency.
The outlet shared video footage of the incident on its Telegram channel, but no further details have been released as of yet.
On Monday, the Israeli air force bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) corporation, the country’s national broadcaster, during a live broadcast.
https://thecradle.co/articles/iran-targ ... r-tel-aviv
Assassinating Khamenei will 'end war': Netanyahu
Western media reports claim Donald Trump recently 'vetoed' an Israeli plan to assassinate the Iranian supreme leader
News Desk
JUN 16, 2025
(Photo Credit: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC News on 16 June that killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is “not going to escalate the conflict, it's going to end the conflict.”
The premier's answer came after the interviewer pressed him on recent reports that said US President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to assassinate the Iranian leader.
“We've had half a century of conflict spread by this regime that terrorizes everyone in the Middle East; has bombed the Aramco oil fields in Saudi Arabia; is spreading terrorism and subversion and sabotage everywhere,” Netanyahu told the US news outlet.
“The ‘forever war’ is what Iran wants, and they're bringing us to the brink of nuclear war. In fact, what Israel is doing is preventing this, bringing an end to this aggression, and we can only do so by standing up to the forces of evil,” he added.
Netanyahu also said Israel was “doing what we need to do” when asked if he still plans to target Khamenei.
“Today, it's Tel Aviv. Tomorrow, it's New York. Look, I understand 'America First'. I don't understand 'America Dead'. That's what these people want. They chant 'Death to America.' So we're doing something that is in the service of mankind, of humanity, and it's a battle of good against evil. America does, should, and does stand with the good. That's what President Trump is doing, And I deeply appreciate his support,” the embattled Israeli premier stressed.
War has been raging between Iran and Israel since 13 June, when Tel Aviv launched a surprise attack on the Islamic Republic with the full support of the US government.
In retaliation for the targeted assassinations of several top military commanders and nuclear scientists, and the deaths of dozens of civilians, Iran has been raining down ballistic missiles on Israel, targeting major cities, key military sites, power plants, and hydrocarbon facilities.
https://thecradle.co/articles/assassina ... -netanyahu
Posted by Internationalist 360° on June 17, 2025
Pepe Escobar
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
– T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
The question then is, in a scenario of the US de facto at war, what will it take for Russia and China, in concertation, to lose their own strategic patience.
Israel’s shock’n awe on Iran – straight from the trademark US playbook – essentially failed, despite the initial combination of speed, meticulous military planning and the element of surprise, including hacking the Iranian electronic communications within the military grid; decapitation of the vertical IRGC nomenklatura; the spiderweb drone attack playbook; and bombing – ultimately ineffectual – of key nodes of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
It took hours for top Iranian technicians to get their grid back. And once that happened, the tide began to turn, to the point that after surgical missile volleys deep in the night on Sunday, the IRGC announced its capability to seriously disrupt Israel’s command and control systems using “enhanced intelligence”, thus breaching Iron – or Paper – Dome.
Key infrastructure nodes in Tel Aviv and Haifa have been destroyed – from the Rafael weapons complex (specialized in missiles, drones, cyber warfare and Iron Dome components) to the power plant and oil refinery in Haifa. This is historic in more ways than one.
Compound the cries of joy all across the lands of Islam to the massive psychological trauma inflicted on Israel. The myth of Israeli invincibility has been definitely shattered. Unleashing hell from above, killing women and children and spinning like there’s no tomorrow does not win a war against a real opponent.
The tweaked IRGC strategy – applied by an instantly revamped leadership – is being fine-tuned day by day in a calculated, surgical manner. It’s not that hard for the IRGC to totally paralyze Israel’s economy. Israel has only one oil refinery (already bombed); three ports, of which one is already bankrupt (Eilat) and another is on fire (Haifa); and one airport (already in dire straits).
The blowback on Tel Aviv’s desperate, indeed suicidal move – no chess involved – is in effect. Tehran is proving that every Zionist axis calculation that Iran could – and was – bled dry in a matter of hours was, predictably, false.
The POTUS, for his part, fell into a voracious trap. His MAGA base is already fractured – in depth. Non-Zionist MAGA is the overwhelming majority. He admitted in a stunning infantilist post that he knew everything about the Israeli shock’n awe all along.
Less than 10 days ago, in a meeting in New York packed with billionaire usual suspects, Steve Witkoff himself – Trump’s Talleyrand – explicitly noted that Iranian ballistic missiles are “a threat to America”. Considering their performance in the last 48 hours, everything points to Washington de facto entering the Hot War.
Diplomatic sources in Tehran point out that the leadership is working under this scenario. That’s why they are essentially still holding their capabilities – and carefully calibrating the next big steps in the escalatory ladder. Once again: Iranian strategic patience on display.
The question then is, in a scenario of the US de facto at war, what will it take for Russia and China, in concertation, to lose their own strategic patience.
Persian pride – and trust in their own capabilities, as I observed last month in Iran – rules that they consider to have all the necessary resources to outlast the Zionist axis, US included. After all they are only now starting to use their really advanced missiles – from the Kheybar-Shekan 2 and the Fattah-1 to the Haji Qassem.
The Real War: Against BRICS
So, in a nutshell, the Iranian response turned the chessboard completely upside down. The Circus Ringmaster – complete with hosting a pathetic military parade in Washington – is naked. And unmasked. He now owns not one but two proxy wars: against Russia, and against Iran, with neo-nazis in Kiev and genocidals in Tel Aviv on the frontlines. All part of the Big Picture War: against BRICS.
By now it’s clear even for the deaf, dumb and blind that this was never about the Iranian nuclear program, or the “effort” to construct a Trump-owned JCPOA 2.0. It is about the lifelong Zionist axis obsession: regime change in Tehran. That is the Holy Grail, dreamed of since the late 1990s, capable of opening the door for the deeply troubled Empire of Chaos of Iran’s immense wealth in natural resources – from energy to rare earth deposits, thus prolonging the life of the multi-trillion-dollar-indebted Empire.
The extra bonuses are even more seductive: cutting off China from a matter of national security – energy imports – and from crucial New Silk Road connectivity corridors, in tandem with opening a monster abscess in Russia’s underbelly. A definitive trifecta blow, in one swoop, to three top BRICS – Iran, Russia, China; to Eurasia integration; and to the drive towards a multi-nodal (italics mine), multipolar system of international relations.
Even as top civilization-states are doing somersaults to outlast the Empire of Chaos and its masters’ drive to unleash WWIII, there are no illusions in Moscow and Beijing that to confront this scenario it’s imperative to act asymmetrically – with supreme cunning, instead of merely responding to provocations (which has been the predominant Russian playbook in the proxy war in Ukraine).
Russian intel, meanwhile, has already done the math on the mirror effect of Israel’s own Operation Spiderweb, which employed exactly the same modus operandi of what Ukraine’s SBU – fronting for MI6 and Mossad – unleashed against Russian strategic bombers that are part of the nuclear triad.
Serious questions are being asked about Tel Aviv being directly involved in sabotaging Moscow. Just as serious questions are now popping up regarding the Ukrainian track. Intel information silos in Moscow consider that the Trump “ceasefire” process walks and talks like a crude camouflage to force Russia to back off for a while, as NATO chihuahuas on the beck and call of the deep state prepare a first strike (at least in their warped dreams).
So sooner rather than later, we may see Russia actually expanding on the current Iranian strategy: a massive infrastructural war, plunging Ukraine into complete blackout, metaphorical and otherwise – just like the bombing of a power plant in Haifa plunged the city into a complete blackout.
Why Iran Must Not be Allowed to Fail
Of course the current, insane escalatory ladder would be non-existent if Trump had been mature enough to accept the offer by Ali Shamkhani – later assassinated by Israel: Iran could get rid of its highly enriched uranium and sign a new nuclear deal if sanctions were lifted. Tehran would then only enrich uranium at low levels for its civilian program.
In parallel, Tehran had also even suggested a joint nuclear enrichment project with US investment plus Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi personally outlined it to US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Oman – before the talks broke down.
The Global South, meanwhile, watches the horrendously deadly ping-pong between Israel and Iran – with increasing awareness that the cornered West is an even more dangerous animal day after day, waging Total War under the mask of peace.
Tel Aviv burning is the beginning of a new era. In their rage, they now threaten the “Beirut” model on Tehran: wanton destruction of civilian neighborhoods. Once again, what they do best: terrorism. And yet, there will be no impunity for a genocidal system anymore. Consequences will be inevitably discussed this week at the St. Economic Forum, all the way to Putin’s address at the plenary session on Friday, and all the way to the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro in early July.
Taking the pulse of the Global South, the feeling is that Iran de facto is in the process of restoring ethics and geopolitical authority all across West Asia, as the Persian empire exercised it for centuries. That’s what civilization-states do: their role as privileged guardians of their sphere of influence is always essential.
It’s unlikely – under the Brazilian presidency; but BRICS sooner or later will have to make the strategic transition from a hyper-polite declaration machine to become the true, solid, unbreakable spine of the Global South and the Global Axis of Resistance. Because the enraged, discombobulated West is not in hybrid war mode anymore; it has gone Totalen Krieg – as hot as it comes. Hence, the Global South’s got to switch on to a post-hybrid, Rebels with a Cause mode.
From Nigeria to Indonesia to Vietnam – BRICS members and BRICS partners – there’s a growing consensus that Iran must not be allowed to fall. It’s that serious. The spell of unrestricted Western diktat has finally been broken: all that will survive is “the loud lament of the disconsolate chimera”. It takes a – failed – shock’n awe to break the camel’s back.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/06/ ... bal-south/
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Iran is weeks away from nuclear weapons. And so it has been for 30 years
June 18, 15:16
Netanyahu has been telling stories for decades that Iran is months away from obtaining nuclear weapons.
(Video at link.)
According to polls, more than 60% of Americans currently do not support US aggression against Iran.
However, it is not difficult to prepare public opinion for another war. Some kind of false flag operation will do.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9906597.html
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Hypersonic missile "Fattah-1"
June 18, 13:09
Iran has released a video of a new solid-fuel hypersonic missile, Fattah-1, used at night, which hit a target in the center of Tel Aviv at night. The missile is said to have a speed of 13-15 Machs and can maneuver both in and outside the atmosphere due to its movable nozzle. It took less than 5 minutes to cover the 1,400 kilometers from the launch area to Tel Aviv. 12 launched anti-missiles were unable to stop it.
Below is a video of the missile landing in Tel Aviv at night (Iran claims the missile hit the Israeli Defense Ministry building).
(Videos at link.)
If Iran had nuclear weapons, installing nuclear warheads on such missiles would fundamentally change the entire balance of power in the region.
So far, Iran has only demonstrated the presence of an effective means of delivering nuclear warheads. But without the warheads themselves, the value of such a missile is obviously not complete.
It also remains unknown how many such missiles Iran has, what is the speed and cost of their production. But we will probably find out in the course of further military actions.
For now, the exchange of blows continues.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9906232.html
Google Translator
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Iranian missile strikes force closure of Israel's largest oil refinery
Amid escalating diplomatic threats and the rising death toll, both powers face a growing international pressure to de-escalate
News Desk
JUN 17, 2025
(Photo credit: Gil Nehoshtan)
Israel’s largest oil refinery was forced to shut down on 16 June after an Iranian missile strike caused extensive damage to the Bazan Group’s Haifa complex, killing three workers and disabling its main power station, Israel’s Calcalist reported.
“As a result of the damage to the Bazan Group complex, the power plant responsible for generating part of the steam and electricity used by the group’s facilities was significantly damaged. Additional damage was also sustained.” Barzan Group announced.
“For the time being, all operations at the refinery and its subsidiaries in Haifa have been shut down. The company is working in coordination with the Israel Electric Corporation, which mobilized immediately, to restore a regular electricity supply to the complex as soon as possible.” the company added.
The Bazan complex supplies nearly 60 percent of Israel’s diesel and close to half of its gasoline.
Trading in Bazan Group shares was suspended for several hours on Monday, with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange citing a “lack of clarity” as the reason for the halt. It was later confirmed that the suspension followed the Iranian missile strike on the company’s Haifa complex.
While Bazan’s primary activity is oil refining, it also manufactures raw materials for the plastics and chemical sectors.
Iran's latest missile strikes shatter illusion of Israeli safety, breach US-Israeli air shields, and hit critical targets
——
Early this morning, at least 100 Iranian ballistic missiles, some hypersonic, came crashing down on sites in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, and the Negev… pic.twitter.com/yjug9hR2MD
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) June 16, 2025
A day earlier, on 15 June, Iranian missile and drone strikes caused localised damage to pipelines within the complex’s downstream facilities, resulting in partial shutdowns.
Most operations, however, remained functional at the time.
Since the sudden Israeli attack on Iran and the subsequent exchanges of fire, both sides have sought to cripple each other’s energy infrastructure in an effort to undermine economic stability and disrupt vital supply chains.
As Iranian missiles struck Israeli energy infrastructure and Tel Aviv escalated its bombing campaign on civilian sites across Iran, diplomatic statements from both sides revealed growing international concern over the rapid escalation of the war.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told parliament that Tehran is “not seeking nuclear weapons” and that the country “must stand strong against this genocidal criminal aggression.”
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “a war criminal,” accusing him of deliberately provoking war to sabotage efforts toward a diplomatic breakthrough between Tehran and Washington.
Asked whether he would consider targeting Iran’s supreme leader, Netanyahu said, “It’s not going to escalate the conflict. It’s going to end the conflict.”
US President Donald Trump, speaking at the G7 summit in Canada, urged Tehran to engage in de-escalation talks with Israel “before it’s too late.”
https://thecradle.co/articles/iranian-m ... l-refinery
Iran targets Israel’s Unit 8200 near Tel Aviv
Heavy Israeli media censorship has been imposed on sites impacted by Iranian ballistic missiles
News Desk
JUN 17, 2025
(Photo credit: X)
Iranian ballistic missiles targeted Israeli Military Intelligence Unit 8200 at the Glilot base near Tel Aviv on 17 June, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced – as part of the ninth phase of Operation True Promise 3.
“In the early hours of today, Tuesday, 17 June, IRGC Aerospace Force fighters, in an impact-oriented operation, despite the presence of highly advanced defense systems, struck the Zionist regime's military intelligence center known as Aman and the center for planning terror operations and evils of the Zionist regime (Mossad) in Tel Aviv, and this center is currently burning,” the IRGC said in a statement.
Several impacts were made in the Herzliya area in the Tel Aviv district. A bus was set ablaze and an eight-story building was damaged, according to Hebrew news site Ynet.
Video footage captured the moment several missiles impacted the area, causing large explosions.
Israeli media reported that military censorship has imposed a blackout on the location impacted by Iranian missiles in the Glilot area, a suburb of Tel Aviv previously targeted by Hezbollah.
The Glilot area houses the headquarters of Mossad, as well as several other key Israeli intelligence units, including Unit 8200 – also referred to as Aman.
Hebrew reports also said a warehouse or logistical facility used by Unit 8200 was targeted.
Online users geolocated the impact sites in the Glilot area using satellite imagery and visual markers from footage taken shortly after the strikes. The coordinates indicate that multiple missiles landed in close proximity to the suspected Mossad facilities, but not directly on them.
Israel has imposed strict media censorship, prohibiting the publication of information and footage relating to Iranian ballistic missile impact sites.
The IRGC announced on 16 June that it has launched the ninth phase of Operation True Promise 3 in response to a brutal US-backed war launched by Israel against Iran on 13 June.
It said it is planning to intensify its strikes against Israel in the coming hours.
Recent ballistic missile attacks on Israel have caused unprecedented destruction across Tel Aviv and Haifa. Dozens have been killed and hundreds injured.
Iranian drones have also continuously infiltrated Israeli airspace over the past several hours.
Meanwhile, Israel has continued to launch deadly attacks on Iran. Over 224 Iranians have been killed, including at least 45 women and children.
Thick smoke was seen rising over the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz following an explosion at approximately 8:45 am local time, according to Mehr news agency.
The outlet shared video footage of the incident on its Telegram channel, but no further details have been released as of yet.
On Monday, the Israeli air force bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) corporation, the country’s national broadcaster, during a live broadcast.
https://thecradle.co/articles/iran-targ ... r-tel-aviv
Assassinating Khamenei will 'end war': Netanyahu
Western media reports claim Donald Trump recently 'vetoed' an Israeli plan to assassinate the Iranian supreme leader
News Desk
JUN 16, 2025
(Photo Credit: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC News on 16 June that killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is “not going to escalate the conflict, it's going to end the conflict.”
The premier's answer came after the interviewer pressed him on recent reports that said US President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to assassinate the Iranian leader.
“We've had half a century of conflict spread by this regime that terrorizes everyone in the Middle East; has bombed the Aramco oil fields in Saudi Arabia; is spreading terrorism and subversion and sabotage everywhere,” Netanyahu told the US news outlet.
“The ‘forever war’ is what Iran wants, and they're bringing us to the brink of nuclear war. In fact, what Israel is doing is preventing this, bringing an end to this aggression, and we can only do so by standing up to the forces of evil,” he added.
Netanyahu also said Israel was “doing what we need to do” when asked if he still plans to target Khamenei.
“Today, it's Tel Aviv. Tomorrow, it's New York. Look, I understand 'America First'. I don't understand 'America Dead'. That's what these people want. They chant 'Death to America.' So we're doing something that is in the service of mankind, of humanity, and it's a battle of good against evil. America does, should, and does stand with the good. That's what President Trump is doing, And I deeply appreciate his support,” the embattled Israeli premier stressed.
War has been raging between Iran and Israel since 13 June, when Tel Aviv launched a surprise attack on the Islamic Republic with the full support of the US government.
In retaliation for the targeted assassinations of several top military commanders and nuclear scientists, and the deaths of dozens of civilians, Iran has been raining down ballistic missiles on Israel, targeting major cities, key military sites, power plants, and hydrocarbon facilities.
https://thecradle.co/articles/assassina ... -netanyahu
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Iran
June 18, 2025 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Middle East in Crisis – 3
Israel’s Dimona nuclear facility from where, according to Iranian reports, ‘plumes of smoke were rising’, June 17, 2025
Trump orders ‘unconditional surrender’ by Iran. Who’s listening?
Israel’s blitzkrieg against Iran five days ago is failing spectacularly. The Russian media reported that: i) Israel’s Rafael weapons complex has been destroyed; ii) Haifa oil refinery is in flames; iii) the Iron Dome has been breached; iv) and, Israel’s air dominance is a figment of imagination.
On Tuesday, Iran fired cruise missiles for the first time against Israel. Another wave of Iranian missile and drone attack targeted the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel, where stealth fighter jets, transport aircraft, tanker aircraft and machines for electronic reconnaissance/surveillance, etc. are stationed.
Some Iranian reports claim that “plumes of smoke were rising from areas near the Dimona nuclear facility,” where an estimated 90 Israeli nuclear warheads are stored. If true, this must be highly embarrassing for Israel which has been maintaining a policy of deliberate ambiguity in regard to its nuclear capabilities as well as for President Donald Trump who is constantly hectoring Iran while turning a blind eye on Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapon stockpiles right under his nose — apart from exposing the IAEA.
According to the independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Israel’s nuclear warheads are capable of being delivered anywhere within a maximum radius of 4,500 km by its F-15, F-161, and F-35I “Adir” aircraft, its 50 land-based Jericho II and III missiles, and by about 20 Popeye Turbo cruise missiles, launched from submarines.
Suffice to say, rational minds among the Israeli elite feel worried. Typically, Danny Yatom, former head of Mossad, is quoted as saying, “Iranians will not kneel; they will not raise the flag of surrender and they will not give in!”
The American broadcast television network NBC has reported that Israel asked Iran, through western mediators, to stop its retaliatory attacks and return to nuclear negotiations. This would probably explain Trump’s bombastic post on Sunday in Truth Social that Israel and Iran will end their violent conflict by “making a deal” through his mediation. Trump wrote, ”We will have peace, soon, between Israel and Iran. Many calls and meetings now taking place.” He even drew the analogy of his success in brokering peace between India and Pakistan recently.
However, the realisation may have since dawned on Trump that Iranians will not forget or forgive the assassinations of their military commanders or the destruction and loss of life of dozens of civilians in the Israeli Blitzkrieg, which targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities, military infrastructure, and residential buildings in Tehran and other cities.
Trump has a major decision to take in coming days as regards the next move — specifically, how to rescue Israel from the attritional war that lies ahead. Pressure for US military intervention is mounting. Trump is obligated one way or another to all three segments of the Israel Lobby — Zionists, evangelical Christians and wealthy Jewish elites who are kingmakers in American politics.
The pendulum is wildly swinging in Trump’s mercurial mind. He was in an irritable mood at the G-7 summit in Canada on Monday, cut short his trip and picked a nasty public quarrel with French President Emmanuel Macron for simply commenting that Trump hurried back to wrap up a ceasefire.
Trump wrote angrily, “Publicity seeking President Emmanuel Macron, of France, mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a “cease fire” between Israel and Iran. Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that. Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!”
Four hours later, he clarified, “I have not reached out to Iran for “Peace Talks” in any way, shape, or form. This is just more HIGHLY FABRICATED, FAKE NEWS! If they want to talk, they know how to reach me. They should have taken the deal that was on the table — Would have saved a lot of lives!!!”
Seven hours later, Trump claimed, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured “stuff.” Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”
But a few minutes later, Trump threatened Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “We know exactly where the so-called “Supreme Leader” is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Seven minutes later, another nasty post followed in capital letters: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
That was 9 hours ago. Presumably, Trump wound up Tuesday by ordering Iran to crawl on its knees. The chances of Iran obliging him are zero. In fact, the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi said on Tuesday that the operations carried out so far have served as a deterrent warning, and the actual “punitive operations” are set to begin soon. The general asked the inhabitants of Tel Aviv and Haifa “to leave these areas for the sake of their lives.”
In fact, an Iranian commentary underscored yesterday that “Israeli strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure and southern ports near the Persian Gulf could shift the nature of the conflict dramatically… This is precisely what Iran identifies as its strategic red line.”
The commentary continues: “What we’re witnessing is a multi-level hybrid conflict, a complex puzzle involving direct warfare, proxy engagement, diplomatic pressure, and a simmering “cold peace”—all unfolding at once… But such a scenario is unsustainable, as Israel… knows it cannot endure a prolonged high-intensity conflict.
The commentary estimates that a ceasefire “would likely be a tense calm or a “cold peace” rather than true stability.” Because, “What’s emerging now is a fluid and brutal new balance of power… The Persian Gulf, Israel, the Axis of Resistance, and the global energy market are no longer separate arenas—but interconnected pieces in a simultaneous, high-stakes game.” (here)
The great dilemma for Trump is that there’s no quick fix solution in sight. On his way back to the US yesterday evening, Trump said he wanted a “real end” to the conflict and that he was “not too much in a mood to negotiate.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also noted that Trump was indeed considering that option. The US is rapidly building up its forces in the Gulf region.
However, US intervention may trigger a continental war that will outlive Trump’s presidency and destroy his presidency, as Bush’s 2003 Iraq invasion destroyed his. And Trump might as well forget about America First, MAGA, Ukraine, Taiwan, tariff wars, immigration, inflation, China, etc.
Even European allies won’t stand by Trump. Macron told reporters on the sidelines of the G7 summit after Trump’s departure, “The biggest mistake today would be to try to do a regime change in Iran through military means because that would lead to chaos.” Macron warned that “no one can say what comes next…We never support actions of regional de-stabilisation.”
Do not forget that the skeptics include Vice President JD Vance also, whose suspicion of foreign entanglements had its origins in his time as a US Marine in Iraq, where he became disillusioned with America’s interventionist regime change projects and ill-fated ‘forever wars’ in the region.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/middle- ... -crisis-3/
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Tell Congress, No War on Iran!
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 18 Jun 2025
If Trump asks congress for approval to wage a war on Iran, he will probably get it.
“...the United States would encourage—and perhaps even assist—the Israelis in conducting the strikes themselves, in the expectation that both international criticism and Iranian retaliation would be deflected away from the United States and onto israel.” - Brookings Institution, 2009, “Which Path to Persia? ”
"Any Democrat who supports this war with Iran needs to be primaried” - David Hogg , recently ousted Democratic National Committee Vice Chair
Is there a member of the United States congress who is unequivocally opposed to a military attack on Iran? Since Israel began its missile attack on June 13, 2025, most of the public comments from members of the House and the Senate have been decidedly pro-Israel. “Let Israel finish the job,” and even “Pray for Israel ,” have been typical statements from the officials who are charged with representing the people of their country, most of whom oppose a U.S. war in that region.
In typical fashion, the Donald Trump administration first claimed that Israel’s attack was “unilateral ” and that the U.S. had no involvement . The lie was so obvious as to be amusing, but Trump, in typical fashion, later said , “I always knew the date. Because I know everything.” No one needed Trump’s foolish bloviations to determine the truth. Israel would never have carried it out absent a U.S. stamp of approval and assistance.
But Iran struck back, and more successfully than Israel expected, proving that its “iron dome” missile defense system was not as impervious as had been claimed for many years. But there are other issues at hand. The argument against a nuclear armed Iran is a ruse, meant to cover up for a long held plot. Even Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard , made clear that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. But Trump has thrown her under the bus, declaring, "I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.” In any case, regime change against the Iranian state has been settled U.S. foreign policy for decades. The would-be perpetrators have finally acted on what had been said openly by presidents, members of congress, and state controlled think tanks in their position papers.
There have been some tepid and mealy-mouthed efforts to constrain the Donald Trump administration from the U.S. entering the war openly and directly using its assets against Iran but they are not serious in intent. Republican congressman Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna have co-sponsored a resolution requiring congressional approval before any action is taken.
“Congress hereby directs the President to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran or any part of its government or military, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran. (b) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent the United States from defending itself from imminent attack.”
Massie and Khanna may be bragging about the resolution but it only says that Trump would have to go to congress before taking action. The words “unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran” give Trump and congress an out. If Trump asks permission we can only assume he will get it. Also, the words “imminent attack” are reminiscent of previous actions used allegedly preemptively. If the Trump administration claims that Iran is going to attack, then one can safely assume that congress would give bipartisan support and authorize warfare.
The same charade is playing out in the Senate. Bernie Sanders sponsored a bill called the No War Against Iran Act but as in the case of the House legislation, it proves that the devil is in the details .
“Except as provided in paragraph (2), no Federal funds may be obligated or expended for any use of military force in or against 25 Iran unless Congress has— (A) declared war; or (B) enacted specific statutory authorization for such use of military force after the date of the enactment of this Act that meets the requirements of the War Powers Resolution”
Like their House colleagues, Sanders and his co-sponsors only demand that Trump come to them for approval to directly wage war against Iran and we have little indication that a majority of Senators would do anything other than give him the go-ahead. So far, there has been no member of the House or Senate who has said they would oppose war between the U.S. and Iran whether authorization was requested or not.
The drive for war did not just begin this month. Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have been bluntly asking the U.S. to help in its dirty work for years. But Israel has friends in Washington, and not just because of American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) money. Israel is an integral part of U.S. imperialist designs on the region and the constant quest to gain and maintain hegemony.
Democrats as well as republicans have also been pushing Trump to scuttle any prospect of a nuclear agreement with Iran. In 2015, Barack Obama succeeded in getting a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which ended sanctions against Iran in exchange for a promise not to enrich uranium. Yet both democrats and republicans responded by inviting Netanyahu to speak to congress and declare his opposition to the president. Opposition to the JCPOA never ended, and in his first term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement. His successor Joe Biden, could have easily rejoined the JCPOA but he followed Trump in staying out and in effect making the case for war.
It is very important to know this history of continued official U.S. hostility directed towards Iran. Despite the fact that Trump pretended to be engaged in good faith negotiations with Iran, warmongering democrats wanted to make sure he didn’t fail them. Charles Schumer, leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate, even made a video expressly condemning Trump for making what he called a “side deal” with Iran. It isn’t clear to anyone else what Schumer was talking about, but he made clear that war with Iran should remain U.S. policy, and so it has.
Trump may be the only president with his own social media site. He uses Truth Social to threaten the life of Iran’s head of state or tell the 10 million people living in the capital of Tehran to evacuate. It is easy to be distracted by Trump’s noise but he only differs from the rest of Washington in having a big mouth. There is consensus to directly use U.S. assets and join Israel in the attack.
There are no more than a handful of people in the House or the Senate who would vote against more war. The war party has always been bipartisan and recently ousted Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg knows that better than anyone. He is correct that Democratic Party voters don’t want war and that anyone who votes for it should face a primary challenge. But Hogg was ousted precisely because he wouldn’t go along with the democrats' pretense of being an opposition party.
The people must be ready to mobilize themselves, and that is precisely because on the issue of war as with many others, they do not have any representation in Washington. Most Americans, even Trump voters, don’t want war , but once again, their concerns have been deemed irrelevant. By all means, write and call members of congress, but know that such actions won’t be substitutes for organizing against them.
https://blackagendareport.com/tell-congress-no-war-iran
ESSAY: Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon, Glen Ford, 2007
Editors, The Black Agenda Review 18 Jun 2025
“So they go forward with the old plan, the only one they've got. Attack Iran.”
“A larger war is looming…and might ultimately consume us.” This was the late Glen Ford in an article titled “Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon,” published in Black Agenda Report on July 17, 2007. Back then, the regime of George W. Bush, reeling from failure of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was pushing for more war. Ford pointed out that the original plan for the invasion of Iraq was to take over control of West Asia’s vast resources while turning the region’s peoples and governments into US vassals. This has always been the plan. This will always be the US plan: “to change the world balance of power by military force.”
Ford repeatedly warned us about the United States’s incessant calls for war on Iran. (See, for instance, his essays here, here, and here). Ford also showed us that the US call to assert full spectrum dominance in West Asia and throughout the world has been bipartisan. For example, here’s Hillary Clinton in 2015 :
If I’m the president, we will attack Iran…Whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to, totally, obliterate them.
But when Ford wrote in 2007, he did not mention the zionist entity. He probably could not have foreseen the 2009 Brookings Institute Report, Which Way to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran. The report argued that Iran is a massive threat to the existence of zionist entity, and, therefore, a challenge to US policy in the region. The Brookings Institute called on the US to “leave it to Bibi” to initiate the attack on Iran. Sure enough, this has happened. Already in a 21-month genocidal ravage against the Palestinian people trapped in Gaza and the occupied territories, and concurrently bombing Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria, the zionist entity is now also bombing Iran.
In his essay, Ford knew that this attack on Iran was inevitable – because the white west’s thirst for war and for domination is insatiable. Further, he understood that the growing contradictions for the “captains of capital” – with no actual capital – would grow too much to bear, and that these captains would have “no rational way out,” except to forcibly take over the rest of the world’s resources:
And so it is on to Tehran, by sea and by air. It does not matter that the attack may ignite an apocalypse; the ruling parasites cannot envision a world in which they are not supreme, in any case. Why not get it over with?
We reprint Glen Ford’s “Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon” below.
Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon
Glen Ford
The mindset that launched the invasion of Iraq remains embedded in the mentality of the ruling circles of the United States - and compels them to lash out at Iran. Actually, Iran was supposed to have been vanquished, already, rolled up in the euphoria of America-Love that the delusional architects of the Iraq operation imagined existed among the people of the Middle East and the rest of the world. It didn't turn out that way, because it could not. Americans are not loved, because they are not lovable. They kill, big time.
More than half a million deaths later, the same Americans imagine that they can resurrect the cemetery they have created, and make the corpses march under the Red, White, and Blue banner. But that is not possible. There are millions of grieving family members who know who the murderers are: the Americans. These sins will never be forgiven, and they are wounds to the entire Arab family. That's a lot of folks.
When the Bush regime told the generals to cross the Kuwaiti border, and introduced the world to hi-tech "Shock and Awe," they fully expected that the dominoes would fall in Tehran, Damascus and throughout the Arab/Persian/Turkik world. Such was their hubris, and their ignorance. They have not gotten any smarter, in defeat. They still savor taking Tehran, the capital of Iran, and are ramping up for an attack on that nation.
The Bush gang's game plan remains the same: to somehow move beyond Iraq into Iran and Central Asia, to secure the geo-resource space that was the original goal of the Iraqi invasion - to change the world balance of power by military force. The Project for the New American Century was their blueprint for world conquest. It would have carried U.S. forces deep into places in Central Asia that most Americans had never heard of. The Americans planned to plant the flag among happy natives trodding atop vast oil and gas fields, and to effectively partition vast stretches of the planet from the Russians, Chinese, Indians, Europeans and anybody else. That was the plan. It failed, and they have no other plan.
So they go forward with the old plan, the only one they've got. Attack Iran.
In this demonic endeavor, the Bush men have many allies. Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and everybody else among the Democratic candidates but Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, act like Dracula when the word Iran comes up. Nuke it! Bomb it! Invade it! Punish it!
By doing so, they give a clear sign to the Bush regime that it's alright to launch another war. Indeed, the Republicans cannot possibly win the 2008 election unless there is another war - something the "American people" can coalesce around. The Iraq war is lost. Let's start another one. Time for a New American Century.
In the corporate media, we hear the same nonsense that we were forced to imbibe in 2003, at the time of the invasion. The same craziness that is rooted in American Manifest Destiny, which maintains that the U.S. is God's gift to the world. God's gift can do no wrong, by definition. America is a good force on the Earth. If half a million people die, that's just collateral damage. On to Tehran.
A larger war is looming. This one will be bigger than the current conflict, and might ultimately consume us. The captains of capital - caught in multiple contradictions of their own making - don't know what to do; they are in a box, with no rational way out. The Great Offensive of 2003, of which the conquest of Baghdad was to have been only phase one, was designed to irrevocably alter the global chess board to establish permanent U.S. hegemony over the earth's most vital resources. China, India and Russia would be reduced to supplicants, begging for entrée to the oil and gas spigots. With the world's actual capital - energy resources - under U.S. control, the artificially inflated dollar would be re-established as the uncontested global currency - monopoly money for the monopoly capitalist class that rules in Washington. No more threat from the euro.
Iraqi nationalists stopped the juggernaut in its tracks, and have broken the back of U.S. ground forces. The Iraq invasion was a wakeup call to the world, a warning that the Americans were determined to enslave...everybody. The warning has been duly noted in every world capital. The elites of Indonesia, Malaysia, Latin America and Europe were shocked and awed into an understanding that the U.S. was out to subjugate them. Since 2003, the Americans have been unwelcome at the table of business, excluded from regional conferences and uninvited from development planning events. Nobody wants the bully in the room. Not even the Europeans.
America has been redlined by the global community. Many American corporations understand that, to their horror. Firms that must cultivate goodwill to do business in foreign lands increasingly view the current regime in Washington as an albatross around their necks, poisoning every prospective deal and soiling the company name. But these companies are not at the heart of the ruling cabal, which is centered on finance and military-industrial capital. These non-productive sectors profit by manipulating markets to create unfair advantage - while creating nothing. They are parasites, retarding global development and standing like George Wallace in the door to prevent the solution of the manifold crises that pose imminent threats to humanity.
Ultimately, the parasitic class can only maintain its rule by force. Manufacturing nothing, creating no value except on paper, they must finally call upon the Armed Forces to impose their unearned advantage on the planet. Such was the logic of March, 2003. The Great Offensive failed, but the contradictions that compelled the captains of finance capital to order their political servants to wage war, remain - and are in fact more acute than four years ago. They must wage war, again, to fight their way out of the box.
And so it is on to Tehran, by sea and by air. It does not matter that the attack may ignite an apocalypse; the ruling parasites cannot envision a world in which they are not supreme, in any case. Why not get it over with?
African Americans have no stake in this coming war, but our misleadership has failed to warn us of its imminence. Stuck in Jim Crow politics, we applaud Senator Barack Obama, a pure imperialist who wants to add 100,000 more troops to the Armed Forces to bolster U.S. capability to shape the world's economies to the advantage of his campaign contributors. Although Black Americans are reflexively suspicious of U.S. motives in the world and have opposed every military adventure since the media decided we were worth polling, we are blind-sided by narrow interests of racial pride.
The crisis of capital is coming to a head. It will be very bloody, not because the people of the world want it so - indeed, everyone wants to avoid it - but because the imperatives of a parasitic class require it. They have unfinished business, and war is their only answer.
Glen Ford, “Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon,” Black Agenda Report, 17 July, 2007
https://blackagendareport.com/essay-ira ... -ford-2007
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Transcript of WION interview of 17 June
Transcript submitted by a reader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUQw6ECkhvk
Netanyahu: 0:06
Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted almost every day “death to Israel”.
Trump:
I want to see no nuclear weapon in Iran.
WION: 0:32
Well, US President Donald Trump has left the G7 summit in Canada a day early, heading back to Washington. Trump’s helicopter lifted off from the summit venue in the Canadian Rockies to take him to his plane shortly after G7 issued a joint statement calling for de-escalation on Iran while stressing Israel had the right to defend itself in the escalating West Asia crisis.
Now the statement said, and I’m quoting, “We affirm that Israel has the right to defend itself. We reiterate our support for the security of Israel. We also affirm the importance of the protection of civilians. Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror. We have been consistently clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”
1:22
Now earlier French president Emmanuel Macron claimed Trump was considering the prospect of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Calling Macron a publicity-seeking president, Trump said that his French counterpart had mistakenly said that he had left the G7 summit in Canada to go back to work on a ceasefire. The US president further said Macron had no idea why he was on his way to Washington and that it had nothing to do with ceasefire but something much bigger than that.
This is not the first time. At the 2018 summit, coincidentally also hosted in Canada, Trump left the gathering of the world leaders to meet with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. Now, owing to his early departure, Trump will miss important discussions, including that on the Russia-Ukraine war. But he kicked off the summit with a big statement on the war, though. He said it would never have begun had Russia continued to be part of Group of 7, which used to be Group of 8, until Moscow’s removal in 2014, following its annexation of Crimea. He called it a mistake and pinned the blame on former US President Barack Obama and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trump: 2:48
The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in. And I would say that that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in. And you wouldn’t have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago, but it didn’t work out that way.
WION: 3:18
All right for more we are being joined by Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, who is joining us from Berlin. He is a Russia affairs analyst and an international relations expert, author and historian. Thank you so much for joining us on the broadcast.
Now, let me begin by asking you, sir. US President Donald Trump has departed the G7 summit early amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. And he said that– well, it’s when President Macron has said that perhaps this, he has also mentioned the crisis in Israel-Iran– Trump said it’s something bigger. What could be bigger than a ceasefire?
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 4:01
Saving American military assets in the Middle East from an impending Iranian attack if the United States pursues its support for Israel by providing it with bombs capable of destroying underground Iranian nuclear facilities. The situation is very fragile. It is improbable that Iran will attack these assets, but it is a possibility.
WION: 4:30
Right. Also another thing that I want to point out was earlier Trump did say that he will impose sanctions and back to secondary sanctions on Russia because he was not happy with how Russia acted. However just recently while he was speaking with the UK prime minister, he said when asked about the sanctions, he said that Europeans should do it first and that “sanctions cost us a lot of money”. What do you make of this comment?
Doctorow:
Well, I do not follow very closely what Mr. Trump says. I follow very closely what he does. And the two are very often in sharp contradiction. He is an opportunist. He tries to make the best of things which are outside his control. The imposition of new sanctions on Russia is outside his control. It is now being steered through the Senate by opponents of Trump’s rapprochement policy towards Russia, and it has 82 senators backing it, which means that it is impossible for him to veto it if it should be passed by the Senate.
5:41
He is making the best of the situation and pretending that he is deliberating over sanctions to do this or that. I don’t believe that for a minute. But it also is a key to understanding his behavior overall. When he waffled, when he went back and forth this past weekend as to whether he knew anything about the Israeli attack on Iran, first saying he knew nothing about it, and then when it looked like he was being very successful in the first wave of Israeli strikes against Iran, then he took credit for it and said that he was in from the beginning.
He– as I say, you should not pay too much attention to what he says. What he does is often extremely important. So I don’t mean to suggest that the man is not worth paying attention to. He certainly is, but not his words.
WION: 6:37
Right. Also, since you’ve mentioned Israel, now he has been speaking of a good deal with Iran, while also asking Iranians to evacuate Iran. And we have seen Iranians do evacuate, they are evacuating. What do you make of this, what do you expect in the coming days after these statements from Trump? Do you think that has, is going to force Iran to come on the table?
Doctorow:
Yeah, he’s jumping on the seeming success of Netanyahu in the first stages of his attack on Iran. The situation is very difficult to judge. I’m not a military expert, and I will not pretend to give an evaluation. I can only say that following the remarks of people who are experts in these matters, it appears that we are in a state of war, and that is a fog of war. We, the commentators, are not privy to the real level of destruction that Iran has been wreaking on Israel. All Western reporting, not speaking about yourselves, but the BBC, the “New York Times”, the “Financial Times”, all of them highlight the level of destruction of residential properties in Israel, the suffering of individuals whose apartments have been destroyed, how somebody pulls a dog out of a wrecked house or a baby out of a wrecked house. That sort of human interest story is what this featured in the major coverage of the war by Western media.
8:14
The reality is that Iran has struck many military assets, starting with Ministry of Defense headquarters and intelligence headquarters in downtown Tel Aviv. So there is a lot of military impairment that Iran has inflicted on Israel, about which we know nothing.
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/06/18/ ... f-17-june/
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Blackout: ‘Israel’ Bans Live Aerial Feeds as Iranian Missiles Pound Occupied Territories
June 17, 2025
"Israeli" regime has imposed a sweeping media blackout to prevent the world from witnessing the Iranian retaliatory operations. File photo.
As soon as Iran launched the ninth phase of its retaliatory military operation, True Promise III, late Monday, the ‘Israeli’ regime imposed a sweeping media blackout.
According to reports, live broadcasts from the skies over “Tel Aviv” and Haifa, illuminated by a large barrage of Iranian missiles and drones, were abruptly cut off by regime authorities.
Simultaneously, major Western media outlets, including American broadcaster CNN, halted their live aerial coverage from multiple cities across the “Israeli-“occupied territories.
As the night progressed and Iranian strikes intensified, some livestreams showing the skies over the occupied land on video-streaming and social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram were rapidly removed, deepening the media blackout.
Inside the occupied territories, the crackdown has escalated in recent days.
“Israeli” media outlets have confirmed the arrest of several domestic and foreign journalists for filming the multiple waves of Iranian retaliatory missile and drone attacks.
The “Israeli” military had previously warned that recording and sharing footage of missile and drone impacts, especially their timing and locations, would be considered “aiding the enemy during wartime.”
Since Friday, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) aerospace division has carried out nine phases of Operation True Promise III, targeting sensitive and strategic Israeli sites.
On Monday morning, Iranian missiles specifically struck the Zionist regime’s command and control centers, employing advanced tactics and upgraded intelligence technologies, capabilities the IRGC attributes to the legacy and sacrifices of martyred commanders.
A day earlier, on Sunday, the IRGC announced that it had hit “Israeli” fighter jet fuel production facilities and energy supply lines in a major drone and missile operation on Haifa.
According to military analysts, these precision operations have dealt a significant blow to the regime’s image, exposing vulnerabilities and shattering the myth of its military invincibility, which has prompted it to enact a media blackout.
https://orinocotribune.com/blackout-isr ... rritories/
Middle East in Crisis – 3
Israel’s Dimona nuclear facility from where, according to Iranian reports, ‘plumes of smoke were rising’, June 17, 2025
Trump orders ‘unconditional surrender’ by Iran. Who’s listening?
Israel’s blitzkrieg against Iran five days ago is failing spectacularly. The Russian media reported that: i) Israel’s Rafael weapons complex has been destroyed; ii) Haifa oil refinery is in flames; iii) the Iron Dome has been breached; iv) and, Israel’s air dominance is a figment of imagination.
On Tuesday, Iran fired cruise missiles for the first time against Israel. Another wave of Iranian missile and drone attack targeted the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel, where stealth fighter jets, transport aircraft, tanker aircraft and machines for electronic reconnaissance/surveillance, etc. are stationed.
Some Iranian reports claim that “plumes of smoke were rising from areas near the Dimona nuclear facility,” where an estimated 90 Israeli nuclear warheads are stored. If true, this must be highly embarrassing for Israel which has been maintaining a policy of deliberate ambiguity in regard to its nuclear capabilities as well as for President Donald Trump who is constantly hectoring Iran while turning a blind eye on Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapon stockpiles right under his nose — apart from exposing the IAEA.
According to the independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Israel’s nuclear warheads are capable of being delivered anywhere within a maximum radius of 4,500 km by its F-15, F-161, and F-35I “Adir” aircraft, its 50 land-based Jericho II and III missiles, and by about 20 Popeye Turbo cruise missiles, launched from submarines.
Suffice to say, rational minds among the Israeli elite feel worried. Typically, Danny Yatom, former head of Mossad, is quoted as saying, “Iranians will not kneel; they will not raise the flag of surrender and they will not give in!”
The American broadcast television network NBC has reported that Israel asked Iran, through western mediators, to stop its retaliatory attacks and return to nuclear negotiations. This would probably explain Trump’s bombastic post on Sunday in Truth Social that Israel and Iran will end their violent conflict by “making a deal” through his mediation. Trump wrote, ”We will have peace, soon, between Israel and Iran. Many calls and meetings now taking place.” He even drew the analogy of his success in brokering peace between India and Pakistan recently.
However, the realisation may have since dawned on Trump that Iranians will not forget or forgive the assassinations of their military commanders or the destruction and loss of life of dozens of civilians in the Israeli Blitzkrieg, which targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities, military infrastructure, and residential buildings in Tehran and other cities.
Trump has a major decision to take in coming days as regards the next move — specifically, how to rescue Israel from the attritional war that lies ahead. Pressure for US military intervention is mounting. Trump is obligated one way or another to all three segments of the Israel Lobby — Zionists, evangelical Christians and wealthy Jewish elites who are kingmakers in American politics.
The pendulum is wildly swinging in Trump’s mercurial mind. He was in an irritable mood at the G-7 summit in Canada on Monday, cut short his trip and picked a nasty public quarrel with French President Emmanuel Macron for simply commenting that Trump hurried back to wrap up a ceasefire.
Trump wrote angrily, “Publicity seeking President Emmanuel Macron, of France, mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a “cease fire” between Israel and Iran. Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that. Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!”
Four hours later, he clarified, “I have not reached out to Iran for “Peace Talks” in any way, shape, or form. This is just more HIGHLY FABRICATED, FAKE NEWS! If they want to talk, they know how to reach me. They should have taken the deal that was on the table — Would have saved a lot of lives!!!”
Seven hours later, Trump claimed, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured “stuff.” Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”
But a few minutes later, Trump threatened Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “We know exactly where the so-called “Supreme Leader” is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Seven minutes later, another nasty post followed in capital letters: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
That was 9 hours ago. Presumably, Trump wound up Tuesday by ordering Iran to crawl on its knees. The chances of Iran obliging him are zero. In fact, the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi said on Tuesday that the operations carried out so far have served as a deterrent warning, and the actual “punitive operations” are set to begin soon. The general asked the inhabitants of Tel Aviv and Haifa “to leave these areas for the sake of their lives.”
In fact, an Iranian commentary underscored yesterday that “Israeli strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure and southern ports near the Persian Gulf could shift the nature of the conflict dramatically… This is precisely what Iran identifies as its strategic red line.”
The commentary continues: “What we’re witnessing is a multi-level hybrid conflict, a complex puzzle involving direct warfare, proxy engagement, diplomatic pressure, and a simmering “cold peace”—all unfolding at once… But such a scenario is unsustainable, as Israel… knows it cannot endure a prolonged high-intensity conflict.
The commentary estimates that a ceasefire “would likely be a tense calm or a “cold peace” rather than true stability.” Because, “What’s emerging now is a fluid and brutal new balance of power… The Persian Gulf, Israel, the Axis of Resistance, and the global energy market are no longer separate arenas—but interconnected pieces in a simultaneous, high-stakes game.” (here)
The great dilemma for Trump is that there’s no quick fix solution in sight. On his way back to the US yesterday evening, Trump said he wanted a “real end” to the conflict and that he was “not too much in a mood to negotiate.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also noted that Trump was indeed considering that option. The US is rapidly building up its forces in the Gulf region.
However, US intervention may trigger a continental war that will outlive Trump’s presidency and destroy his presidency, as Bush’s 2003 Iraq invasion destroyed his. And Trump might as well forget about America First, MAGA, Ukraine, Taiwan, tariff wars, immigration, inflation, China, etc.
Even European allies won’t stand by Trump. Macron told reporters on the sidelines of the G7 summit after Trump’s departure, “The biggest mistake today would be to try to do a regime change in Iran through military means because that would lead to chaos.” Macron warned that “no one can say what comes next…We never support actions of regional de-stabilisation.”
Do not forget that the skeptics include Vice President JD Vance also, whose suspicion of foreign entanglements had its origins in his time as a US Marine in Iraq, where he became disillusioned with America’s interventionist regime change projects and ill-fated ‘forever wars’ in the region.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/middle- ... -crisis-3/
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Tell Congress, No War on Iran!
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 18 Jun 2025
If Trump asks congress for approval to wage a war on Iran, he will probably get it.
“...the United States would encourage—and perhaps even assist—the Israelis in conducting the strikes themselves, in the expectation that both international criticism and Iranian retaliation would be deflected away from the United States and onto israel.” - Brookings Institution, 2009, “Which Path to Persia? ”
"Any Democrat who supports this war with Iran needs to be primaried” - David Hogg , recently ousted Democratic National Committee Vice Chair
Is there a member of the United States congress who is unequivocally opposed to a military attack on Iran? Since Israel began its missile attack on June 13, 2025, most of the public comments from members of the House and the Senate have been decidedly pro-Israel. “Let Israel finish the job,” and even “Pray for Israel ,” have been typical statements from the officials who are charged with representing the people of their country, most of whom oppose a U.S. war in that region.
In typical fashion, the Donald Trump administration first claimed that Israel’s attack was “unilateral ” and that the U.S. had no involvement . The lie was so obvious as to be amusing, but Trump, in typical fashion, later said , “I always knew the date. Because I know everything.” No one needed Trump’s foolish bloviations to determine the truth. Israel would never have carried it out absent a U.S. stamp of approval and assistance.
But Iran struck back, and more successfully than Israel expected, proving that its “iron dome” missile defense system was not as impervious as had been claimed for many years. But there are other issues at hand. The argument against a nuclear armed Iran is a ruse, meant to cover up for a long held plot. Even Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard , made clear that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. But Trump has thrown her under the bus, declaring, "I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.” In any case, regime change against the Iranian state has been settled U.S. foreign policy for decades. The would-be perpetrators have finally acted on what had been said openly by presidents, members of congress, and state controlled think tanks in their position papers.
There have been some tepid and mealy-mouthed efforts to constrain the Donald Trump administration from the U.S. entering the war openly and directly using its assets against Iran but they are not serious in intent. Republican congressman Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna have co-sponsored a resolution requiring congressional approval before any action is taken.
“Congress hereby directs the President to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran or any part of its government or military, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran. (b) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent the United States from defending itself from imminent attack.”
Massie and Khanna may be bragging about the resolution but it only says that Trump would have to go to congress before taking action. The words “unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran” give Trump and congress an out. If Trump asks permission we can only assume he will get it. Also, the words “imminent attack” are reminiscent of previous actions used allegedly preemptively. If the Trump administration claims that Iran is going to attack, then one can safely assume that congress would give bipartisan support and authorize warfare.
The same charade is playing out in the Senate. Bernie Sanders sponsored a bill called the No War Against Iran Act but as in the case of the House legislation, it proves that the devil is in the details .
“Except as provided in paragraph (2), no Federal funds may be obligated or expended for any use of military force in or against 25 Iran unless Congress has— (A) declared war; or (B) enacted specific statutory authorization for such use of military force after the date of the enactment of this Act that meets the requirements of the War Powers Resolution”
Like their House colleagues, Sanders and his co-sponsors only demand that Trump come to them for approval to directly wage war against Iran and we have little indication that a majority of Senators would do anything other than give him the go-ahead. So far, there has been no member of the House or Senate who has said they would oppose war between the U.S. and Iran whether authorization was requested or not.
The drive for war did not just begin this month. Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have been bluntly asking the U.S. to help in its dirty work for years. But Israel has friends in Washington, and not just because of American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) money. Israel is an integral part of U.S. imperialist designs on the region and the constant quest to gain and maintain hegemony.
Democrats as well as republicans have also been pushing Trump to scuttle any prospect of a nuclear agreement with Iran. In 2015, Barack Obama succeeded in getting a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which ended sanctions against Iran in exchange for a promise not to enrich uranium. Yet both democrats and republicans responded by inviting Netanyahu to speak to congress and declare his opposition to the president. Opposition to the JCPOA never ended, and in his first term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement. His successor Joe Biden, could have easily rejoined the JCPOA but he followed Trump in staying out and in effect making the case for war.
It is very important to know this history of continued official U.S. hostility directed towards Iran. Despite the fact that Trump pretended to be engaged in good faith negotiations with Iran, warmongering democrats wanted to make sure he didn’t fail them. Charles Schumer, leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate, even made a video expressly condemning Trump for making what he called a “side deal” with Iran. It isn’t clear to anyone else what Schumer was talking about, but he made clear that war with Iran should remain U.S. policy, and so it has.
Trump may be the only president with his own social media site. He uses Truth Social to threaten the life of Iran’s head of state or tell the 10 million people living in the capital of Tehran to evacuate. It is easy to be distracted by Trump’s noise but he only differs from the rest of Washington in having a big mouth. There is consensus to directly use U.S. assets and join Israel in the attack.
There are no more than a handful of people in the House or the Senate who would vote against more war. The war party has always been bipartisan and recently ousted Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg knows that better than anyone. He is correct that Democratic Party voters don’t want war and that anyone who votes for it should face a primary challenge. But Hogg was ousted precisely because he wouldn’t go along with the democrats' pretense of being an opposition party.
The people must be ready to mobilize themselves, and that is precisely because on the issue of war as with many others, they do not have any representation in Washington. Most Americans, even Trump voters, don’t want war , but once again, their concerns have been deemed irrelevant. By all means, write and call members of congress, but know that such actions won’t be substitutes for organizing against them.
https://blackagendareport.com/tell-congress-no-war-iran
ESSAY: Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon, Glen Ford, 2007
Editors, The Black Agenda Review 18 Jun 2025
“So they go forward with the old plan, the only one they've got. Attack Iran.”
“A larger war is looming…and might ultimately consume us.” This was the late Glen Ford in an article titled “Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon,” published in Black Agenda Report on July 17, 2007. Back then, the regime of George W. Bush, reeling from failure of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was pushing for more war. Ford pointed out that the original plan for the invasion of Iraq was to take over control of West Asia’s vast resources while turning the region’s peoples and governments into US vassals. This has always been the plan. This will always be the US plan: “to change the world balance of power by military force.”
Ford repeatedly warned us about the United States’s incessant calls for war on Iran. (See, for instance, his essays here, here, and here). Ford also showed us that the US call to assert full spectrum dominance in West Asia and throughout the world has been bipartisan. For example, here’s Hillary Clinton in 2015 :
If I’m the president, we will attack Iran…Whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to, totally, obliterate them.
But when Ford wrote in 2007, he did not mention the zionist entity. He probably could not have foreseen the 2009 Brookings Institute Report, Which Way to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran. The report argued that Iran is a massive threat to the existence of zionist entity, and, therefore, a challenge to US policy in the region. The Brookings Institute called on the US to “leave it to Bibi” to initiate the attack on Iran. Sure enough, this has happened. Already in a 21-month genocidal ravage against the Palestinian people trapped in Gaza and the occupied territories, and concurrently bombing Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria, the zionist entity is now also bombing Iran.
In his essay, Ford knew that this attack on Iran was inevitable – because the white west’s thirst for war and for domination is insatiable. Further, he understood that the growing contradictions for the “captains of capital” – with no actual capital – would grow too much to bear, and that these captains would have “no rational way out,” except to forcibly take over the rest of the world’s resources:
And so it is on to Tehran, by sea and by air. It does not matter that the attack may ignite an apocalypse; the ruling parasites cannot envision a world in which they are not supreme, in any case. Why not get it over with?
We reprint Glen Ford’s “Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon” below.
Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon
Glen Ford
The mindset that launched the invasion of Iraq remains embedded in the mentality of the ruling circles of the United States - and compels them to lash out at Iran. Actually, Iran was supposed to have been vanquished, already, rolled up in the euphoria of America-Love that the delusional architects of the Iraq operation imagined existed among the people of the Middle East and the rest of the world. It didn't turn out that way, because it could not. Americans are not loved, because they are not lovable. They kill, big time.
More than half a million deaths later, the same Americans imagine that they can resurrect the cemetery they have created, and make the corpses march under the Red, White, and Blue banner. But that is not possible. There are millions of grieving family members who know who the murderers are: the Americans. These sins will never be forgiven, and they are wounds to the entire Arab family. That's a lot of folks.
When the Bush regime told the generals to cross the Kuwaiti border, and introduced the world to hi-tech "Shock and Awe," they fully expected that the dominoes would fall in Tehran, Damascus and throughout the Arab/Persian/Turkik world. Such was their hubris, and their ignorance. They have not gotten any smarter, in defeat. They still savor taking Tehran, the capital of Iran, and are ramping up for an attack on that nation.
The Bush gang's game plan remains the same: to somehow move beyond Iraq into Iran and Central Asia, to secure the geo-resource space that was the original goal of the Iraqi invasion - to change the world balance of power by military force. The Project for the New American Century was their blueprint for world conquest. It would have carried U.S. forces deep into places in Central Asia that most Americans had never heard of. The Americans planned to plant the flag among happy natives trodding atop vast oil and gas fields, and to effectively partition vast stretches of the planet from the Russians, Chinese, Indians, Europeans and anybody else. That was the plan. It failed, and they have no other plan.
So they go forward with the old plan, the only one they've got. Attack Iran.
In this demonic endeavor, the Bush men have many allies. Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and everybody else among the Democratic candidates but Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, act like Dracula when the word Iran comes up. Nuke it! Bomb it! Invade it! Punish it!
By doing so, they give a clear sign to the Bush regime that it's alright to launch another war. Indeed, the Republicans cannot possibly win the 2008 election unless there is another war - something the "American people" can coalesce around. The Iraq war is lost. Let's start another one. Time for a New American Century.
In the corporate media, we hear the same nonsense that we were forced to imbibe in 2003, at the time of the invasion. The same craziness that is rooted in American Manifest Destiny, which maintains that the U.S. is God's gift to the world. God's gift can do no wrong, by definition. America is a good force on the Earth. If half a million people die, that's just collateral damage. On to Tehran.
A larger war is looming. This one will be bigger than the current conflict, and might ultimately consume us. The captains of capital - caught in multiple contradictions of their own making - don't know what to do; they are in a box, with no rational way out. The Great Offensive of 2003, of which the conquest of Baghdad was to have been only phase one, was designed to irrevocably alter the global chess board to establish permanent U.S. hegemony over the earth's most vital resources. China, India and Russia would be reduced to supplicants, begging for entrée to the oil and gas spigots. With the world's actual capital - energy resources - under U.S. control, the artificially inflated dollar would be re-established as the uncontested global currency - monopoly money for the monopoly capitalist class that rules in Washington. No more threat from the euro.
Iraqi nationalists stopped the juggernaut in its tracks, and have broken the back of U.S. ground forces. The Iraq invasion was a wakeup call to the world, a warning that the Americans were determined to enslave...everybody. The warning has been duly noted in every world capital. The elites of Indonesia, Malaysia, Latin America and Europe were shocked and awed into an understanding that the U.S. was out to subjugate them. Since 2003, the Americans have been unwelcome at the table of business, excluded from regional conferences and uninvited from development planning events. Nobody wants the bully in the room. Not even the Europeans.
America has been redlined by the global community. Many American corporations understand that, to their horror. Firms that must cultivate goodwill to do business in foreign lands increasingly view the current regime in Washington as an albatross around their necks, poisoning every prospective deal and soiling the company name. But these companies are not at the heart of the ruling cabal, which is centered on finance and military-industrial capital. These non-productive sectors profit by manipulating markets to create unfair advantage - while creating nothing. They are parasites, retarding global development and standing like George Wallace in the door to prevent the solution of the manifold crises that pose imminent threats to humanity.
Ultimately, the parasitic class can only maintain its rule by force. Manufacturing nothing, creating no value except on paper, they must finally call upon the Armed Forces to impose their unearned advantage on the planet. Such was the logic of March, 2003. The Great Offensive failed, but the contradictions that compelled the captains of finance capital to order their political servants to wage war, remain - and are in fact more acute than four years ago. They must wage war, again, to fight their way out of the box.
And so it is on to Tehran, by sea and by air. It does not matter that the attack may ignite an apocalypse; the ruling parasites cannot envision a world in which they are not supreme, in any case. Why not get it over with?
African Americans have no stake in this coming war, but our misleadership has failed to warn us of its imminence. Stuck in Jim Crow politics, we applaud Senator Barack Obama, a pure imperialist who wants to add 100,000 more troops to the Armed Forces to bolster U.S. capability to shape the world's economies to the advantage of his campaign contributors. Although Black Americans are reflexively suspicious of U.S. motives in the world and have opposed every military adventure since the media decided we were worth polling, we are blind-sided by narrow interests of racial pride.
The crisis of capital is coming to a head. It will be very bloody, not because the people of the world want it so - indeed, everyone wants to avoid it - but because the imperatives of a parasitic class require it. They have unfinished business, and war is their only answer.
Glen Ford, “Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon,” Black Agenda Report, 17 July, 2007
https://blackagendareport.com/essay-ira ... -ford-2007
******
Transcript of WION interview of 17 June
Transcript submitted by a reader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUQw6ECkhvk
Netanyahu: 0:06
Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted almost every day “death to Israel”.
Trump:
I want to see no nuclear weapon in Iran.
WION: 0:32
Well, US President Donald Trump has left the G7 summit in Canada a day early, heading back to Washington. Trump’s helicopter lifted off from the summit venue in the Canadian Rockies to take him to his plane shortly after G7 issued a joint statement calling for de-escalation on Iran while stressing Israel had the right to defend itself in the escalating West Asia crisis.
Now the statement said, and I’m quoting, “We affirm that Israel has the right to defend itself. We reiterate our support for the security of Israel. We also affirm the importance of the protection of civilians. Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror. We have been consistently clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”
1:22
Now earlier French president Emmanuel Macron claimed Trump was considering the prospect of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Calling Macron a publicity-seeking president, Trump said that his French counterpart had mistakenly said that he had left the G7 summit in Canada to go back to work on a ceasefire. The US president further said Macron had no idea why he was on his way to Washington and that it had nothing to do with ceasefire but something much bigger than that.
This is not the first time. At the 2018 summit, coincidentally also hosted in Canada, Trump left the gathering of the world leaders to meet with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. Now, owing to his early departure, Trump will miss important discussions, including that on the Russia-Ukraine war. But he kicked off the summit with a big statement on the war, though. He said it would never have begun had Russia continued to be part of Group of 7, which used to be Group of 8, until Moscow’s removal in 2014, following its annexation of Crimea. He called it a mistake and pinned the blame on former US President Barack Obama and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trump: 2:48
The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in. And I would say that that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in. And you wouldn’t have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago, but it didn’t work out that way.
WION: 3:18
All right for more we are being joined by Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, who is joining us from Berlin. He is a Russia affairs analyst and an international relations expert, author and historian. Thank you so much for joining us on the broadcast.
Now, let me begin by asking you, sir. US President Donald Trump has departed the G7 summit early amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. And he said that– well, it’s when President Macron has said that perhaps this, he has also mentioned the crisis in Israel-Iran– Trump said it’s something bigger. What could be bigger than a ceasefire?
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 4:01
Saving American military assets in the Middle East from an impending Iranian attack if the United States pursues its support for Israel by providing it with bombs capable of destroying underground Iranian nuclear facilities. The situation is very fragile. It is improbable that Iran will attack these assets, but it is a possibility.
WION: 4:30
Right. Also another thing that I want to point out was earlier Trump did say that he will impose sanctions and back to secondary sanctions on Russia because he was not happy with how Russia acted. However just recently while he was speaking with the UK prime minister, he said when asked about the sanctions, he said that Europeans should do it first and that “sanctions cost us a lot of money”. What do you make of this comment?
Doctorow:
Well, I do not follow very closely what Mr. Trump says. I follow very closely what he does. And the two are very often in sharp contradiction. He is an opportunist. He tries to make the best of things which are outside his control. The imposition of new sanctions on Russia is outside his control. It is now being steered through the Senate by opponents of Trump’s rapprochement policy towards Russia, and it has 82 senators backing it, which means that it is impossible for him to veto it if it should be passed by the Senate.
5:41
He is making the best of the situation and pretending that he is deliberating over sanctions to do this or that. I don’t believe that for a minute. But it also is a key to understanding his behavior overall. When he waffled, when he went back and forth this past weekend as to whether he knew anything about the Israeli attack on Iran, first saying he knew nothing about it, and then when it looked like he was being very successful in the first wave of Israeli strikes against Iran, then he took credit for it and said that he was in from the beginning.
He– as I say, you should not pay too much attention to what he says. What he does is often extremely important. So I don’t mean to suggest that the man is not worth paying attention to. He certainly is, but not his words.
WION: 6:37
Right. Also, since you’ve mentioned Israel, now he has been speaking of a good deal with Iran, while also asking Iranians to evacuate Iran. And we have seen Iranians do evacuate, they are evacuating. What do you make of this, what do you expect in the coming days after these statements from Trump? Do you think that has, is going to force Iran to come on the table?
Doctorow:
Yeah, he’s jumping on the seeming success of Netanyahu in the first stages of his attack on Iran. The situation is very difficult to judge. I’m not a military expert, and I will not pretend to give an evaluation. I can only say that following the remarks of people who are experts in these matters, it appears that we are in a state of war, and that is a fog of war. We, the commentators, are not privy to the real level of destruction that Iran has been wreaking on Israel. All Western reporting, not speaking about yourselves, but the BBC, the “New York Times”, the “Financial Times”, all of them highlight the level of destruction of residential properties in Israel, the suffering of individuals whose apartments have been destroyed, how somebody pulls a dog out of a wrecked house or a baby out of a wrecked house. That sort of human interest story is what this featured in the major coverage of the war by Western media.
8:14
The reality is that Iran has struck many military assets, starting with Ministry of Defense headquarters and intelligence headquarters in downtown Tel Aviv. So there is a lot of military impairment that Iran has inflicted on Israel, about which we know nothing.
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/06/18/ ... f-17-june/
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Blackout: ‘Israel’ Bans Live Aerial Feeds as Iranian Missiles Pound Occupied Territories
June 17, 2025
"Israeli" regime has imposed a sweeping media blackout to prevent the world from witnessing the Iranian retaliatory operations. File photo.
As soon as Iran launched the ninth phase of its retaliatory military operation, True Promise III, late Monday, the ‘Israeli’ regime imposed a sweeping media blackout.
According to reports, live broadcasts from the skies over “Tel Aviv” and Haifa, illuminated by a large barrage of Iranian missiles and drones, were abruptly cut off by regime authorities.
Simultaneously, major Western media outlets, including American broadcaster CNN, halted their live aerial coverage from multiple cities across the “Israeli-“occupied territories.
As the night progressed and Iranian strikes intensified, some livestreams showing the skies over the occupied land on video-streaming and social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram were rapidly removed, deepening the media blackout.
Inside the occupied territories, the crackdown has escalated in recent days.
“Israeli” media outlets have confirmed the arrest of several domestic and foreign journalists for filming the multiple waves of Iranian retaliatory missile and drone attacks.
The “Israeli” military had previously warned that recording and sharing footage of missile and drone impacts, especially their timing and locations, would be considered “aiding the enemy during wartime.”
Since Friday, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) aerospace division has carried out nine phases of Operation True Promise III, targeting sensitive and strategic Israeli sites.
On Monday morning, Iranian missiles specifically struck the Zionist regime’s command and control centers, employing advanced tactics and upgraded intelligence technologies, capabilities the IRGC attributes to the legacy and sacrifices of martyred commanders.
A day earlier, on Sunday, the IRGC announced that it had hit “Israeli” fighter jet fuel production facilities and energy supply lines in a major drone and missile operation on Haifa.
According to military analysts, these precision operations have dealt a significant blow to the regime’s image, exposing vulnerabilities and shattering the myth of its military invincibility, which has prompted it to enact a media blackout.
https://orinocotribune.com/blackout-isr ... rritories/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Iran
Tic-Toc Thread On The War On Iran - 4
Alastair Crooke is summarizing the first days of USrael's war on Iran:
The situation in the broadest terms is that the attempt by Israel and allied Intelligence services to launch a surprise ‘synergistic psychic-shock’ to the Iranian state through simultaneous muti-domain decapitations, assassinations of scientists, disruption of Air Defence systems and the insertion of drone saboteur teams, failed.
It failed in its expected outcome -- that of paralysing and panicking the Iranian leadership and even creating the space for ‘the hoped for’ regime-change vibe to take hold. (It never happened. Iranians buried political differences and rallied to national sovereignty).
Rather, despite the loss of eight military line commanders, the system quickly re-booted itself: the Air Defence systems were restored within 8 hours, and Iran retaliated with missile attacks on Israel.
The point here was that – other than superficial surface damage – there was no setback made to Iran’s nuclear programme. And to be clear, that was never the Israeli aim. They simply do not have the ability to destroy infrastructure buried 800 metres into mountains. They (with their allies -- the US and European States) rather hope for ‘regime change’.
[...]
So, the situation has inverted from that of 13 June. Israel now is in big trouble: Its Air Defences are performing badly and it is Israel sustaining (verified) substantive damage to key assets. Basically, every politician in Israel now is begging the US to enter the war for them.
Israeli Minister & Cabinet member, Gila Gamliel: “We categorically demand that the United States join the war against Iran”.
While it first looked yesterday as if Trump may join the war with more overt action that changed after a meeting with his national security council.
As Larry Johnson observes:
Trump continued his intemperate postings on Truth Social until he convened a meeting of his National Security Council in Washington, DC this afternoon.
Something happened in that meeting to derail what seemed to be an inevitable collision with Iran because Trump’s subsequent social media posts only focused on mundane domestic matters, such as erecting two new flag poles on the White House grounds. I have seen one news item claiming that Trump is giving Iran 24 hours to surrender. That ain’t going to happen.
Ayatollah Khamenei confirms that this "ain't going to happen":
Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir - 11:18 UTC · Jun 18, 2025
The US President threatens us. With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him.
They should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats.
Since the first day of the war there have been waves of attacks by Israeli forces against Iran each followed by a wave of missile attacks by Iranian forces. Neither side has sufficient air defenses to prevent all hits. Neither side has air supremacy over the territory of the other country.
Iran has intercepted long range drones from Israel. It claims to have shot down several F-35 airplanes but has shown no proof for that. Israel has made claims of having hit Iranian missile launchers. But the video evidence of such strikes is poor and many hits seem to have been on decoys.
The tit for tat strike exchange is likely to continue for a while. Iran has several thousand of missiles. It is firing a mix of old ones, which can be intercepted, with a number of new ones which can't. It has changed its tactic from one big strike per day to multiple strikes per day with smaller numbers.
Israel's air defense seems prone to hit itself. The number of interceptors it is using is limited the Wall Street journal says (archived). It may be less than two weeks before those run out.
Israel claims to have launched some 800 sorties against Iran with which it hit 1,000 targets. It also claims that Iran has fired 400 missiles and 1,000 drones of which only 20 missiles reached their targets while only 200 drones reached Israel but did not hit anywhere. I can assure you that none of those numbers is true.
Both sides censor the results of strikes. From what is known both appear to have taken some significant damage.
But Iran is the much bigger country. It has more than ten times the people than Israel. Its area is 1.5 million square kilometer versus Israel's 21,000 square kilometer. Iran is mostly self sufficient. It has a widely dispersed industry and a well trained work force which can be switched from civil to military production. Israel depends on imports which can be interrupted. Its industry is small and highly concentrated in a few areas.
There is no doubt that Iran would win in a (long) war of attrition.
That is why Israel needs the U.S. to jump in.
I still have doubt that Trump, despite his rhetoric, is willing to do so. The risk is high and the outcome uncertain. Even if U.S. bombers manage to demolish Iran's centrifuges, buried below mountains, Iran will be able to reconstitute its nuclear program within a few months.
His intelligence people will tell him that this threat is not empty:
Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir - 11:38 UTC · Jun 18, 2025
The US entering in this matter [war] is 100% to its own detriment. The damage it will suffer will be far greater than any harm that Iran may encounter.
At the UN Security Council Russia and China have taken strong positions against Israel's war of aggression. Neither can be expected to give overt support to Iran - at least not yet. The content of a few transport planes from China arriving in Iran will not change the big picture.
Posted by b on June 18, 2025 at 14:38 UTC | Permalink
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/06/t ... .html#more
******
From Cassad's Telegram account:
Colonelcassad
0:19
0:13
0:30
0:15
Morning Iranian strike on Tel Aviv
During the night and in the morning, Iran launched a series of strikes on Israeli territory. 20-30 ballistic missiles were launched, some of which managed to bypass air defense systems. Landings were recorded in Tel Aviv , as well as in the south of the country in Beersheba .
One of the affected facilities was the Soroka Medical Center: several people were injured, the admissions department and other buildings received minor damage that does not affect the hospital's functionality.
And although the publications of pro-Iranian resources about the presence of a whole fleet of Merkava tanks under the hospital and the claims about the military nature of the facility are far-fetched (it is possible that they come from Israeli IPSO specialists to show the "stupidity" of the Iranians), it was partly used for these needs.
It is well known that IDF soldiers wounded during the fighting in the Gaza Strip were often evacuated by helicopter to Soroka, including elite fighters and intelligence officers.
The medical center is also located near strategic military and intelligence facilities, in particular on the territory of the Kiryat HaMemshala complex . These include special forces centers and the CyberSpark cyber cluster: they could probably have been aimed there.
So Soroka is no less a legitimate target in the eyes of Iran than any other hospital in the Gaza Strip for Israel itself, which the Israeli army carefully protects from medical personnel, patients and the arrival of aid.
@rybar
***
Colonelcassad
The Israeli Defense Minister said one of the goals of the military operation against Iran was "to end the existence" of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The masks have finally come off.
@ks_strigunov
This was the goal from the start.
Nuclear weapons are just a pretext.
The ultimate goal of the US and Israel is regime change in Iran.
***
Colonelcassad
Ayatollah Khamenei has issued an address to the Iranian nation regarding the threat of US aggression.
I greet the honorable people of Iran! The first thing I want to say is words of praise to our dear people for their actions during the events that the enemies imposed on the country the day before. The people of Iran have shown that they are both restrained and courageous and know when to act. The powerful movement that the people demonstrated to the world on the day of Ghadir Khum was magnificent. The gatherings of the people, the demonstrations of the people in recent days, their participation in Friday prayers and their demonstrations after the prayer – all this testifies to the growth of the people of Iran and the emergence of rationality and spirituality in our dear people, coupled with courage and timely actions. I thank God for raising this pious nation to such a level of spiritual and material abilities and capabilities, praise be to Allah!
Here I consider it necessary to note the beautiful and meaningful action of the TV presenter in relation to the enemy attack: pronouncing the takbir, and, in fact, demonstrating to the whole world a sign of the strength of the people. This was a historical event, a very valuable event.
The second point is that this event - the stupid and vile aggression of the Zionist regime against our country - occurred at the very moment when our government officials were busy with indirect negotiations through intermediaries with the American side. There was not the slightest action on the part of Iran that would indicate military measures, abrupt and harsh actions. Of course, from the very beginning there were assumptions that the United States was also involved in this vile act of the Zionist regime, but given the statements they have been making recently, these assumptions are growing stronger every day. The people of Iran are steadfastly resisting the imposed war, just as they have been until now, and they are resisting the imposed peace. In the face of imposition, the Iranian people will not capitulate to anyone. I expect thinkers, speakers and publicists, especially those who deal with world public opinion, to voice and explain these meanings and concepts; to clarify them for the audience and not allow the enemy to distort the truth with his deceptive propaganda. The Zionist enemy has made a great mistake, he has committed a great crime and he must be punished, and he is being punished, he is being punished right now. The punishment of this vile enemy by the people of Iran and our Armed Forces, which was, is and, according to plans, will be in the future, is a severe punishment and it has weakened him. The fact that his American friends are getting involved in the conflict and speaking out is evidence of his weakness, is evidence of his impotence.
And the last point. Recently, the US President has made threats, he is threatening us. He is threatening and, making absurd and unacceptable statements, he is openly demanding from the Iranian people: capitulate to me! When a person sees these things, he is truly surprised. First of all, let them threaten those who are afraid of their threats. The Iranian people have shown that they are not afraid of the threats of those who threaten. “So do not be discouraged, do not be distressed: indeed, you are superior if you believe” (Quran 3:139). The Iranian people believe this. Threats do not affect the behavior of the Iranian people and the views of the Iranian people. Secondly, the offer to the Iranian people: capitulate, is not rational. Reasonable people who know Iran, who know the Iranian people, who know the history of Iran, will never utter such a thing. What should they surrender to? The Iranian people are invincible. We have not attacked anyone, and we will never tolerate anyone's attack or capitulate to anyone's aggression. This is the logic of the Iranian people, this is the spirit of the Iranian people.
Of course, the Americans and those familiar with the politics of this region know that US intervention in this conflict will definitely be harmful to them. The blow they will receive in this regard will be many times greater than the damage that Iran may suffer. The damage to the US, in the event of their military intervention, will undoubtedly be irreparable.
https://russian.khamenei.ir/news/6931 - zinc
***
Colonelcassad
Israel to jail citizens who post videos of Iranian attacks
Israel's top censor has issued a new order that will subject citizens and media outlets who post videos of missile strikes, drone attacks or other classified information to criminal prosecution, according to Israeli media reports. The
move shows that the Israeli government is desperate to control the narrative surrounding the conflict with Iran and views any revelation of the aftermath of the attacks as a threat to national security.
https://t.me/sepah_pasdaran_ru/8296
Now, after missile strikes on Israel, there is a drone attack. There will likely be launches on Israel and launches on Iran tonight.
***
Colonelcassad
Iran has not requested military assistance from Russia. The strategic partnership agreement between Russia and Iran does not contain any articles related to the defense sector. Russia has offered Iran projects to create an air defense system, but Tehran has not shown much interest. (c) Putin
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
*******
Iranian missile strikes force closure of Israel's largest oil refinery
Amid escalating diplomatic threats and the rising death toll, both powers face a growing international pressure to de-escalate
News Desk
JUN 17, 2025
(Photo credit: Gil Nehoshtan)
Israel’s largest oil refinery was forced to shut down on 16 June after an Iranian missile strike caused extensive damage to the Bazan Group’s Haifa complex, killing three workers and disabling its main power station, Israel’s Calcalist reported.
“As a result of the damage to the Bazan Group complex, the power plant responsible for generating part of the steam and electricity used by the group’s facilities was significantly damaged. Additional damage was also sustained.” Barzan Group announced.
“For the time being, all operations at the refinery and its subsidiaries in Haifa have been shut down. The company is working in coordination with the Israel Electric Corporation, which mobilized immediately, to restore a regular electricity supply to the complex as soon as possible.” the company added.
The Bazan complex supplies nearly 60 percent of Israel’s diesel and close to half of its gasoline.
Trading in Bazan Group shares was suspended for several hours on Monday, with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange citing a “lack of clarity” as the reason for the halt. It was later confirmed that the suspension followed the Iranian missile strike on the company’s Haifa complex.
While Bazan’s primary activity is oil refining, it also manufactures raw materials for the plastics and chemical sectors.
A day earlier, on 15 June, Iranian missile and drone strikes caused localised damage to pipelines within the complex’s downstream facilities, resulting in partial shutdowns.
Most operations, however, remained functional at the time.
Since the sudden Israeli attack on Iran and the subsequent exchanges of fire, both sides have sought to cripple each other’s energy infrastructure in an effort to undermine economic stability and disrupt vital supply chains.
As Iranian missiles struck Israeli energy infrastructure and Tel Aviv escalated its bombing campaign on civilian sites across Iran, diplomatic statements from both sides revealed growing international concern over the rapid escalation of the war.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told parliament that Tehran is “not seeking nuclear weapons” and that the country “must stand strong against this genocidal criminal aggression.”
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “a war criminal,” accusing him of deliberately provoking war to sabotage efforts toward a diplomatic breakthrough between Tehran and Washington.
Asked whether he would consider targeting Iran’s supreme leader, Netanyahu said, “It’s not going to escalate the conflict. It’s going to end the conflict.”
US President Donald Trump, speaking at the G7 summit in Canada, urged Tehran to engage in de-escalation talks with Israel “before it’s too late.”
https://thecradle.co/articles/iranian-m ... l-refinery
IRGC targets Israeli command center in Beersheva
The latest Iranian missile strikes caused significant damage to several sites in Israel, including the Tel Aviv stock exchange building
News Desk
JUN 19, 2025
(Photo credit: X)
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced on 19 June that it targeted an Israeli command center near Soroka Hospital in the city of Beersheva, following the launch of approximately 30 ballistic missiles at Israel that morning.
“The fourteenth wave of Operation ‘True Promise 3’ has commenced with a coordinated attack using suicide drones and strategic missiles. In this operation, a [Israeli] regime army command and intelligence center located near a hospital was struck with high precision and absolute accuracy,” the IRGC said in a statement on Thursday morning.
“The intelligence and target identification capabilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s armed forces are now evident to the entire world,” it added.
“All military centers have been evacuated, and the regime’s army has deployed ineffective missile and defense systems amid urban centers, covering civilian areas. We previously warned that the entire sky above the occupied territories is now defenseless, and no place is safe,” the IRGC went on to say.
The IRGC “now warns that the Zionist regime’s corpse will not withstand the ongoing economic strikes.”
Over two dozen ballistic missiles were launched from Iran towards Israel early on 19 June, with many making impact in several locations and causing destruction, including in Tel Aviv.
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange building was damaged in the attack.
Several sites in the Gush Dan region (Greater Tel Aviv) were struck. Buildings in Holon were heavily damaged, as well as high-rises in the Ramat Gan area. Additional areas in central Tel Aviv were also impacted by the strikes.
According to Israel's Channel 12, one of the missiles hit the home of Danny Naveh, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and former environment minister.
Six injured Israelis are in serious condition as a result of the missile strikes.
Two of them are at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, and the other four are at Holon’s Wolfson Medical Center. Around 65 others have been wounded by Iran’s latest attack.
Heavy Israeli media censorship has been imposed on the targeted sites, including near Soroka Hospital – which is known to treat wounded Israeli soldiers fighting in Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.
The hospital was damaged by the missiles, and Israelis have been warned not to approach the area. Israeli police halted the broadcast of several foreign news outlets reporting from missile impact sites on Thursday morning.
“Iran’s terrorist tyrants launched missiles at Soroka Hospital in Beersheva and at a civilian population in the center of the country. We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran,” Netanyahu said on 19 June.
The Israeli military has destroyed numerous hospitals across the Gaza Strip with airstrikes. Israeli ground troops have also raided Gaza’s medical facilities, kidnapped patients and doctors, held staff at gunpoint, and carried out executions.
Thursday’s Iranian strike was among the heaviest since the start of Operation True Promise 3. Iran has vowed to continue responding to Israel’s brutal war against the country.
The Israeli army is reportedly “running low” on interceptors for the Arrow missile defense system, a US official told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on 18 June.
According to a source cited by the Washington Post, the Israeli missile defense system is “already overwhelmed.”
The IRGC declared “complete control over the skies” of Israel in a statement on 18 June, following a wave of missile strikes on Wednesday night.
https://thecradle.co/articles/irgc-targ ... -beersheva
US fears Israel 'running low' on missile interceptors: Report
Iranian ballistic missiles have caused severe damage across Israel and resulted in hundreds of casualties over the past five days
News Desk
JUN 18, 2025
(Photo credit: AP)
The Israeli army is “running low” on interceptors for the Arrow missile defense system, a US official told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on 18 June.
The issue is “raising concern” about Israel’s ability to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles.
“The US has been aware of the capacity problems for months,” the US official said. “Washington has been augmenting Israel’s defenses with systems on the ground, at sea, and in the air. Since the conflict escalated in June, the Pentagon has sent more missile defense assets into the region, and now there is concern about the US burning through interceptors as well.”
Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told WSJ that “neither the US nor the Israelis can continue to sit and intercept missiles all day.”
“The Israelis and their friends need to move with all deliberate haste to do whatever needs to be done, because we cannot afford to sit and play catch,” he added.
Washington has deployed additional troops and fighter jets to the region, and is taking part in Israeli efforts to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles, which have been fired at Israel every day since the start of the war on 13 June.
According to WSJ, “the Pentagon has sent more missile defense assets into the region, and now there is concern about the US burning through interceptors as well.”
Israel Aerospace Industries, which manufactures Arrow interceptors, did not respond to a request for comment.
“The IDF is prepared and ready to handle any scenario. Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on matters related to munitions,” the Israeli military said.
Tel Aviv claims it has established complete air superiority over Iran, and that it has destroyed around one-third of Tehran’s ballistic missile arsenal, which was previously estimated to be about 2,000 missiles capable of reaching Israel.
Israeli analysts say that more than half of the Iranian arsenal remains intact, and that an unknown amount could possibly be hidden in underground facilities.
“Iran has to make a very, very difficult calculation, because they have a limited number of missiles, and considering the rate of fire, they cannot replenish in real time,” Fabian Hinz, a military analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the Washington Post on Tuesday.
As a result, Iranian forces have significantly reduced the daily number of missiles fired at Israel over the past two days, compared to what was launched in the first three days of the war.
The Washington Post notes, however, that Israel will have to start rationing interceptor missiles soon, citing some assessments as saying that the Israeli army can only maintain missile defense for 12 more days without immediate resupply from the US.
“They will need to select what they want to intercept. The system is already overwhelmed,” an anonymous source briefed on intelligence assessments told the outlet.
While Israel has been able to shoot down many of the missiles that have been launched so far, many others have landed, causing serious damage and Israeli casualties, and marking a significant failure of Tel Aviv’s missile defense apparatus.
At least 24 Israelis have been killed and over 600 injured since 13 June.
Iran has vowed to continue responding to Israel’s violent campaign against the country, and has warned that US bases in the region will be targeted if Washington decides on a direct entry into the war.
https://thecradle.co/articles/us-fears- ... ors-report
Alastair Crooke is summarizing the first days of USrael's war on Iran:
The situation in the broadest terms is that the attempt by Israel and allied Intelligence services to launch a surprise ‘synergistic psychic-shock’ to the Iranian state through simultaneous muti-domain decapitations, assassinations of scientists, disruption of Air Defence systems and the insertion of drone saboteur teams, failed.
It failed in its expected outcome -- that of paralysing and panicking the Iranian leadership and even creating the space for ‘the hoped for’ regime-change vibe to take hold. (It never happened. Iranians buried political differences and rallied to national sovereignty).
Rather, despite the loss of eight military line commanders, the system quickly re-booted itself: the Air Defence systems were restored within 8 hours, and Iran retaliated with missile attacks on Israel.
The point here was that – other than superficial surface damage – there was no setback made to Iran’s nuclear programme. And to be clear, that was never the Israeli aim. They simply do not have the ability to destroy infrastructure buried 800 metres into mountains. They (with their allies -- the US and European States) rather hope for ‘regime change’.
[...]
So, the situation has inverted from that of 13 June. Israel now is in big trouble: Its Air Defences are performing badly and it is Israel sustaining (verified) substantive damage to key assets. Basically, every politician in Israel now is begging the US to enter the war for them.
Israeli Minister & Cabinet member, Gila Gamliel: “We categorically demand that the United States join the war against Iran”.
While it first looked yesterday as if Trump may join the war with more overt action that changed after a meeting with his national security council.
As Larry Johnson observes:
Trump continued his intemperate postings on Truth Social until he convened a meeting of his National Security Council in Washington, DC this afternoon.
Something happened in that meeting to derail what seemed to be an inevitable collision with Iran because Trump’s subsequent social media posts only focused on mundane domestic matters, such as erecting two new flag poles on the White House grounds. I have seen one news item claiming that Trump is giving Iran 24 hours to surrender. That ain’t going to happen.
Ayatollah Khamenei confirms that this "ain't going to happen":
Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir - 11:18 UTC · Jun 18, 2025
The US President threatens us. With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him.
They should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats.
Since the first day of the war there have been waves of attacks by Israeli forces against Iran each followed by a wave of missile attacks by Iranian forces. Neither side has sufficient air defenses to prevent all hits. Neither side has air supremacy over the territory of the other country.
Iran has intercepted long range drones from Israel. It claims to have shot down several F-35 airplanes but has shown no proof for that. Israel has made claims of having hit Iranian missile launchers. But the video evidence of such strikes is poor and many hits seem to have been on decoys.
The tit for tat strike exchange is likely to continue for a while. Iran has several thousand of missiles. It is firing a mix of old ones, which can be intercepted, with a number of new ones which can't. It has changed its tactic from one big strike per day to multiple strikes per day with smaller numbers.
Israel's air defense seems prone to hit itself. The number of interceptors it is using is limited the Wall Street journal says (archived). It may be less than two weeks before those run out.
Israel claims to have launched some 800 sorties against Iran with which it hit 1,000 targets. It also claims that Iran has fired 400 missiles and 1,000 drones of which only 20 missiles reached their targets while only 200 drones reached Israel but did not hit anywhere. I can assure you that none of those numbers is true.
Both sides censor the results of strikes. From what is known both appear to have taken some significant damage.
But Iran is the much bigger country. It has more than ten times the people than Israel. Its area is 1.5 million square kilometer versus Israel's 21,000 square kilometer. Iran is mostly self sufficient. It has a widely dispersed industry and a well trained work force which can be switched from civil to military production. Israel depends on imports which can be interrupted. Its industry is small and highly concentrated in a few areas.
There is no doubt that Iran would win in a (long) war of attrition.
That is why Israel needs the U.S. to jump in.
I still have doubt that Trump, despite his rhetoric, is willing to do so. The risk is high and the outcome uncertain. Even if U.S. bombers manage to demolish Iran's centrifuges, buried below mountains, Iran will be able to reconstitute its nuclear program within a few months.
His intelligence people will tell him that this threat is not empty:
Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir - 11:38 UTC · Jun 18, 2025
The US entering in this matter [war] is 100% to its own detriment. The damage it will suffer will be far greater than any harm that Iran may encounter.
At the UN Security Council Russia and China have taken strong positions against Israel's war of aggression. Neither can be expected to give overt support to Iran - at least not yet. The content of a few transport planes from China arriving in Iran will not change the big picture.
Posted by b on June 18, 2025 at 14:38 UTC | Permalink
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/06/t ... .html#more
******
From Cassad's Telegram account:
Colonelcassad
0:19
0:13
0:30
0:15
Morning Iranian strike on Tel Aviv
During the night and in the morning, Iran launched a series of strikes on Israeli territory. 20-30 ballistic missiles were launched, some of which managed to bypass air defense systems. Landings were recorded in Tel Aviv , as well as in the south of the country in Beersheba .
One of the affected facilities was the Soroka Medical Center: several people were injured, the admissions department and other buildings received minor damage that does not affect the hospital's functionality.
And although the publications of pro-Iranian resources about the presence of a whole fleet of Merkava tanks under the hospital and the claims about the military nature of the facility are far-fetched (it is possible that they come from Israeli IPSO specialists to show the "stupidity" of the Iranians), it was partly used for these needs.
It is well known that IDF soldiers wounded during the fighting in the Gaza Strip were often evacuated by helicopter to Soroka, including elite fighters and intelligence officers.
The medical center is also located near strategic military and intelligence facilities, in particular on the territory of the Kiryat HaMemshala complex . These include special forces centers and the CyberSpark cyber cluster: they could probably have been aimed there.
So Soroka is no less a legitimate target in the eyes of Iran than any other hospital in the Gaza Strip for Israel itself, which the Israeli army carefully protects from medical personnel, patients and the arrival of aid.
@rybar
***
Colonelcassad
The Israeli Defense Minister said one of the goals of the military operation against Iran was "to end the existence" of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The masks have finally come off.
@ks_strigunov
This was the goal from the start.
Nuclear weapons are just a pretext.
The ultimate goal of the US and Israel is regime change in Iran.
***
Colonelcassad
Ayatollah Khamenei has issued an address to the Iranian nation regarding the threat of US aggression.
I greet the honorable people of Iran! The first thing I want to say is words of praise to our dear people for their actions during the events that the enemies imposed on the country the day before. The people of Iran have shown that they are both restrained and courageous and know when to act. The powerful movement that the people demonstrated to the world on the day of Ghadir Khum was magnificent. The gatherings of the people, the demonstrations of the people in recent days, their participation in Friday prayers and their demonstrations after the prayer – all this testifies to the growth of the people of Iran and the emergence of rationality and spirituality in our dear people, coupled with courage and timely actions. I thank God for raising this pious nation to such a level of spiritual and material abilities and capabilities, praise be to Allah!
Here I consider it necessary to note the beautiful and meaningful action of the TV presenter in relation to the enemy attack: pronouncing the takbir, and, in fact, demonstrating to the whole world a sign of the strength of the people. This was a historical event, a very valuable event.
The second point is that this event - the stupid and vile aggression of the Zionist regime against our country - occurred at the very moment when our government officials were busy with indirect negotiations through intermediaries with the American side. There was not the slightest action on the part of Iran that would indicate military measures, abrupt and harsh actions. Of course, from the very beginning there were assumptions that the United States was also involved in this vile act of the Zionist regime, but given the statements they have been making recently, these assumptions are growing stronger every day. The people of Iran are steadfastly resisting the imposed war, just as they have been until now, and they are resisting the imposed peace. In the face of imposition, the Iranian people will not capitulate to anyone. I expect thinkers, speakers and publicists, especially those who deal with world public opinion, to voice and explain these meanings and concepts; to clarify them for the audience and not allow the enemy to distort the truth with his deceptive propaganda. The Zionist enemy has made a great mistake, he has committed a great crime and he must be punished, and he is being punished, he is being punished right now. The punishment of this vile enemy by the people of Iran and our Armed Forces, which was, is and, according to plans, will be in the future, is a severe punishment and it has weakened him. The fact that his American friends are getting involved in the conflict and speaking out is evidence of his weakness, is evidence of his impotence.
And the last point. Recently, the US President has made threats, he is threatening us. He is threatening and, making absurd and unacceptable statements, he is openly demanding from the Iranian people: capitulate to me! When a person sees these things, he is truly surprised. First of all, let them threaten those who are afraid of their threats. The Iranian people have shown that they are not afraid of the threats of those who threaten. “So do not be discouraged, do not be distressed: indeed, you are superior if you believe” (Quran 3:139). The Iranian people believe this. Threats do not affect the behavior of the Iranian people and the views of the Iranian people. Secondly, the offer to the Iranian people: capitulate, is not rational. Reasonable people who know Iran, who know the Iranian people, who know the history of Iran, will never utter such a thing. What should they surrender to? The Iranian people are invincible. We have not attacked anyone, and we will never tolerate anyone's attack or capitulate to anyone's aggression. This is the logic of the Iranian people, this is the spirit of the Iranian people.
Of course, the Americans and those familiar with the politics of this region know that US intervention in this conflict will definitely be harmful to them. The blow they will receive in this regard will be many times greater than the damage that Iran may suffer. The damage to the US, in the event of their military intervention, will undoubtedly be irreparable.
https://russian.khamenei.ir/news/6931 - zinc
***
Colonelcassad
Israel to jail citizens who post videos of Iranian attacks
Israel's top censor has issued a new order that will subject citizens and media outlets who post videos of missile strikes, drone attacks or other classified information to criminal prosecution, according to Israeli media reports. The
move shows that the Israeli government is desperate to control the narrative surrounding the conflict with Iran and views any revelation of the aftermath of the attacks as a threat to national security.
https://t.me/sepah_pasdaran_ru/8296
Now, after missile strikes on Israel, there is a drone attack. There will likely be launches on Israel and launches on Iran tonight.
***
Colonelcassad
Iran has not requested military assistance from Russia. The strategic partnership agreement between Russia and Iran does not contain any articles related to the defense sector. Russia has offered Iran projects to create an air defense system, but Tehran has not shown much interest. (c) Putin
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
*******
Iranian missile strikes force closure of Israel's largest oil refinery
Amid escalating diplomatic threats and the rising death toll, both powers face a growing international pressure to de-escalate
News Desk
JUN 17, 2025
(Photo credit: Gil Nehoshtan)
Israel’s largest oil refinery was forced to shut down on 16 June after an Iranian missile strike caused extensive damage to the Bazan Group’s Haifa complex, killing three workers and disabling its main power station, Israel’s Calcalist reported.
“As a result of the damage to the Bazan Group complex, the power plant responsible for generating part of the steam and electricity used by the group’s facilities was significantly damaged. Additional damage was also sustained.” Barzan Group announced.
“For the time being, all operations at the refinery and its subsidiaries in Haifa have been shut down. The company is working in coordination with the Israel Electric Corporation, which mobilized immediately, to restore a regular electricity supply to the complex as soon as possible.” the company added.
The Bazan complex supplies nearly 60 percent of Israel’s diesel and close to half of its gasoline.
Trading in Bazan Group shares was suspended for several hours on Monday, with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange citing a “lack of clarity” as the reason for the halt. It was later confirmed that the suspension followed the Iranian missile strike on the company’s Haifa complex.
While Bazan’s primary activity is oil refining, it also manufactures raw materials for the plastics and chemical sectors.
A day earlier, on 15 June, Iranian missile and drone strikes caused localised damage to pipelines within the complex’s downstream facilities, resulting in partial shutdowns.
Most operations, however, remained functional at the time.
Since the sudden Israeli attack on Iran and the subsequent exchanges of fire, both sides have sought to cripple each other’s energy infrastructure in an effort to undermine economic stability and disrupt vital supply chains.
As Iranian missiles struck Israeli energy infrastructure and Tel Aviv escalated its bombing campaign on civilian sites across Iran, diplomatic statements from both sides revealed growing international concern over the rapid escalation of the war.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told parliament that Tehran is “not seeking nuclear weapons” and that the country “must stand strong against this genocidal criminal aggression.”
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “a war criminal,” accusing him of deliberately provoking war to sabotage efforts toward a diplomatic breakthrough between Tehran and Washington.
Asked whether he would consider targeting Iran’s supreme leader, Netanyahu said, “It’s not going to escalate the conflict. It’s going to end the conflict.”
US President Donald Trump, speaking at the G7 summit in Canada, urged Tehran to engage in de-escalation talks with Israel “before it’s too late.”
https://thecradle.co/articles/iranian-m ... l-refinery
IRGC targets Israeli command center in Beersheva
The latest Iranian missile strikes caused significant damage to several sites in Israel, including the Tel Aviv stock exchange building
News Desk
JUN 19, 2025
(Photo credit: X)
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced on 19 June that it targeted an Israeli command center near Soroka Hospital in the city of Beersheva, following the launch of approximately 30 ballistic missiles at Israel that morning.
“The fourteenth wave of Operation ‘True Promise 3’ has commenced with a coordinated attack using suicide drones and strategic missiles. In this operation, a [Israeli] regime army command and intelligence center located near a hospital was struck with high precision and absolute accuracy,” the IRGC said in a statement on Thursday morning.
“The intelligence and target identification capabilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s armed forces are now evident to the entire world,” it added.
“All military centers have been evacuated, and the regime’s army has deployed ineffective missile and defense systems amid urban centers, covering civilian areas. We previously warned that the entire sky above the occupied territories is now defenseless, and no place is safe,” the IRGC went on to say.
The IRGC “now warns that the Zionist regime’s corpse will not withstand the ongoing economic strikes.”
Over two dozen ballistic missiles were launched from Iran towards Israel early on 19 June, with many making impact in several locations and causing destruction, including in Tel Aviv.
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange building was damaged in the attack.
Several sites in the Gush Dan region (Greater Tel Aviv) were struck. Buildings in Holon were heavily damaged, as well as high-rises in the Ramat Gan area. Additional areas in central Tel Aviv were also impacted by the strikes.
According to Israel's Channel 12, one of the missiles hit the home of Danny Naveh, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and former environment minister.
Six injured Israelis are in serious condition as a result of the missile strikes.
Two of them are at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, and the other four are at Holon’s Wolfson Medical Center. Around 65 others have been wounded by Iran’s latest attack.
Heavy Israeli media censorship has been imposed on the targeted sites, including near Soroka Hospital – which is known to treat wounded Israeli soldiers fighting in Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.
The hospital was damaged by the missiles, and Israelis have been warned not to approach the area. Israeli police halted the broadcast of several foreign news outlets reporting from missile impact sites on Thursday morning.
“Iran’s terrorist tyrants launched missiles at Soroka Hospital in Beersheva and at a civilian population in the center of the country. We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran,” Netanyahu said on 19 June.
The Israeli military has destroyed numerous hospitals across the Gaza Strip with airstrikes. Israeli ground troops have also raided Gaza’s medical facilities, kidnapped patients and doctors, held staff at gunpoint, and carried out executions.
Thursday’s Iranian strike was among the heaviest since the start of Operation True Promise 3. Iran has vowed to continue responding to Israel’s brutal war against the country.
The Israeli army is reportedly “running low” on interceptors for the Arrow missile defense system, a US official told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on 18 June.
According to a source cited by the Washington Post, the Israeli missile defense system is “already overwhelmed.”
The IRGC declared “complete control over the skies” of Israel in a statement on 18 June, following a wave of missile strikes on Wednesday night.
https://thecradle.co/articles/irgc-targ ... -beersheva
US fears Israel 'running low' on missile interceptors: Report
Iranian ballistic missiles have caused severe damage across Israel and resulted in hundreds of casualties over the past five days
News Desk
JUN 18, 2025
(Photo credit: AP)
The Israeli army is “running low” on interceptors for the Arrow missile defense system, a US official told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on 18 June.
The issue is “raising concern” about Israel’s ability to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles.
“The US has been aware of the capacity problems for months,” the US official said. “Washington has been augmenting Israel’s defenses with systems on the ground, at sea, and in the air. Since the conflict escalated in June, the Pentagon has sent more missile defense assets into the region, and now there is concern about the US burning through interceptors as well.”
Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told WSJ that “neither the US nor the Israelis can continue to sit and intercept missiles all day.”
“The Israelis and their friends need to move with all deliberate haste to do whatever needs to be done, because we cannot afford to sit and play catch,” he added.
Washington has deployed additional troops and fighter jets to the region, and is taking part in Israeli efforts to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles, which have been fired at Israel every day since the start of the war on 13 June.
According to WSJ, “the Pentagon has sent more missile defense assets into the region, and now there is concern about the US burning through interceptors as well.”
Israel Aerospace Industries, which manufactures Arrow interceptors, did not respond to a request for comment.
“The IDF is prepared and ready to handle any scenario. Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on matters related to munitions,” the Israeli military said.
Tel Aviv claims it has established complete air superiority over Iran, and that it has destroyed around one-third of Tehran’s ballistic missile arsenal, which was previously estimated to be about 2,000 missiles capable of reaching Israel.
Israeli analysts say that more than half of the Iranian arsenal remains intact, and that an unknown amount could possibly be hidden in underground facilities.
“Iran has to make a very, very difficult calculation, because they have a limited number of missiles, and considering the rate of fire, they cannot replenish in real time,” Fabian Hinz, a military analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the Washington Post on Tuesday.
As a result, Iranian forces have significantly reduced the daily number of missiles fired at Israel over the past two days, compared to what was launched in the first three days of the war.
The Washington Post notes, however, that Israel will have to start rationing interceptor missiles soon, citing some assessments as saying that the Israeli army can only maintain missile defense for 12 more days without immediate resupply from the US.
“They will need to select what they want to intercept. The system is already overwhelmed,” an anonymous source briefed on intelligence assessments told the outlet.
While Israel has been able to shoot down many of the missiles that have been launched so far, many others have landed, causing serious damage and Israeli casualties, and marking a significant failure of Tel Aviv’s missile defense apparatus.
At least 24 Israelis have been killed and over 600 injured since 13 June.
Iran has vowed to continue responding to Israel’s violent campaign against the country, and has warned that US bases in the region will be targeted if Washington decides on a direct entry into the war.
https://thecradle.co/articles/us-fears- ... ors-report
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Iran
THE FACTS, NOT THE FACTOIDS ON THE US-ISRAELI SCHLOCK & FLAW CAMPAIGN
By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
Exaggerating the true fact to mean the false factoid is SOP (standard operating procedure) in information warfare. It’s to be expected from President Donald Trump (lead image, right) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and their intelligence chiefs (centre), military officers, and media supporters.
The truest of the facts in the war so far are arithmetic: (1) that the clock is showing five days and nights long; (2) that there is no lessening in the tempo of the Iranian barrages against Israel; (3) that the Israeli counts of interceptions and target strikes represent less than 5% of US and Israeli estimates of Iran’s drone and missile stocks before the war.
There is more arithmetic. If Russia, China, and North Korea aim to re-supply Iran, there is no sign yet of increased shipborne deliveries from Astrakhan, Mahachkala and Olya, the Russian ports on the Caspian Sea, or from Turkmenbashi, the main port of Turkmenistan on the Caspian. If President Vladimir Putin, President Xi jinping, and Kim Jong Un have agreed in secret to assist the Iranian side, then their deliveries are likely to travel by air and rail into Turkmenistan first, and then by road across the border at Sarakhs into Iran. For the time being, the reports at Sarakhs say “light traffic” and “currently no alerts”.
Conclusion from these facts: Israel’s first shock-and-awe strikes have failed to produce a significant loss of Iran’s military capacities and political will to continue the war until Israel loses its capacities and will. Consequence of conclusion: if shock-and-awe fails, then schlock-and-flaw follows. Schlock is New York Yiddish for badly made merchandise, cheap junk.
This was demonstrated by Trump’s airplane remarks as he headed into Washington the night before his June 18 Situation Room session. Asked what end of war terms he is planning for Iran, he said: “An end. A real end, not a ceasefire. An end…[Question: So something that would be permanent?] Yeah, or — or, uh, giving up entirely…Certainly possible that they would give up. That’s possible.”
This is the schlock. For analysis of the flaw in the US-Israel war plan, click to listen to the new podcast with Nima Alkhorshid and Ray McGovern.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQnc4ZkIzZI
The AI source for fact-checking all media, ChatGPT, was asked what Russian aircraft and other military supplies have landed in Iran since June 13. The answer: “As of June 18, 2025, there have been no confirmed reports of Russian aircraft deliveries to Iran since June 13. However, several significant military aircraft transfers from Russia to Iran were reported earlier in 2025, including: Sukhoi Su-35 Fighter Jets: Iran reportedly received an initial batch of Su-35 aircraft from Russia, with deliveries possibly occurring in knock-down kit form. These advanced multirole fighters are intended to replace aging U.S.-made aircraft in Iran’s fleet . Attack Helicopters: Iran has confirmed the receipt of Mi-28 attack helicopters from Russia, enhancing its close air support capabilities . Yak-130 Trainer Aircraft: The Yak-130, a light combat and advanced trainer aircraft, has been delivered to Iran, potentially serving as a precursor to more advanced Russian jets in the Iranian Air Force.”
And what of other military supplies from Russia? “As of June 18, 2025, there are no confirmed reports of new military supplies from Russia to Iran since June 13. However, several developments have occurred that may influence future military cooperation between the two nations… Suspension of Iranian Weapons Supplies to Russia: On June 14, Iran announced the suspension of all weapons supplies to Russia. This decision includes halting the export of Shahed drone components, such as Mado MD-550 piston engines and Tolue micro-jets, which were previously used in the production of drones for Russian military operations in Ukraine.”
From China, ChatGPT reports “since June 13, 2025, there have been no publicly confirmed reports of new military supplies from China to Iran.” It is unclear to ChatGPT what has become of Iran’s order “of thousands of tons of ammonium perchlorate, a key component in solid rocket propellant, from China. These shipments, expected to arrive in the coming months, could produce up to 800 missiles.” There is no report of whether an Israeli sabotage operation at Bandar Abbas on April 25, this year, destroyed more than a thousand tonnes of sodium perchlorate stored at the port; the chemical is used to manufacture the rocket fuel.
From North Korea, ChatGPT says, “as of June 18, 2025, there are no confirmed reports of new military supplies from North Korea to Iran since June 13. However, the longstanding military collaboration between the two nations continues to be a subject of concern for international security analysts. Historically, North Korea has been a significant supplier of military technology to Iran, including missile components and artillery systems.”
CASPIAN SEA TRAFFIC BETWEEN RUSSIAN, TURKMEN AND IRANIAN PORTS – NO MOVEMENT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND IRAN
Source: https://www.ships.com.ua/en/maps/caspian-sea/
USAF REFUELLING TANKERS MOVE FROM THEIR EUROPEAN BASES SOUTH AND EAST TOWARDS SYRIA, IRAQ AND IRAN
“Yesterday [June 16], we tracked over 30 tankers moving from the USA to Europe, landing at bases including Prestwick, Morón, Aviano, Ramstein, and Souda Bay.Until now, none of these tankers had moved. However, about an hour ago [midday June 17], several aircraft (Boeing KC-46A and KC-135R/T) took off from their respective bases and headed southeast…At the moment, we are tracking around a dozen tankers in flight, with others taking off in the last few minutes. As we had anticipated, their final destination appears to be the Middle East — we’ll see where they eventually position themselves…Among the most visible movements, a group of at least 12 F-35A Lightning II fighters (c/s TABOR) departed RAF Lakenheath (UK) heading toward the Middle East. While there is no official confirmation, the scale of the aerial refueling effort strongly suggests that additional fighter aircraft, most likely F-15s, may have also been involved in this operation. Air-to-air refueling (AAR) took place over the northern Tyrrhenian Sea and—more intensively—over the Ionian Sea east of Sicily, with tankers forming prolonged holding patterns to support the transiting fighters. After completing their missions, part of the tanker fleet returned to their European bases, while a second group continued eastward, likely to forward-deployed positions in the Middle East. These aircraft are no longer visible via open-source tracking platforms, indicating that their transponders have been turned off or that they have entered coverage gaps. Given the scale and logistics of this deployment, it is possible that additional waves of fighters and support aircraft may follow in the coming days as the U.S. continues to reinforce its presence in the region amid heightened tensions.” https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/06/17/ ... -the-move/
https://johnhelmer.net/the-facts-not-th ... more-91904
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Israel’s War on Iran Has No Future
June 18, 2025
M.K. Bhadrakumar predicts that Netanyahu, by underestimating the Islamic Republic’s powers of resistance, will meet the same fate as Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran War.
Iranian attacks on Haifa oil refineries in Israel on Sunday night. (Hanay/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
By M.K. Bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline
An unnoticed undercurrent of the Israel-Iran War is that three Christian nations in Europe — the U.K., France and Germany — have joined the fray with alacrity on the side of Israel.
Strange, isn’t it, that these European countries comprising the so-called E-3 have a well-established exclusive path of dialogue with Iran but are joining Israel’s warpath? It’s a Crusade, stupid!
The three “Crusader nations” share Israel’s obsession to check the rise of a Muslim nation as an emerging power in the Middle East that could radically transform its geopolitical alignments. Simply put, destroying the Islamic regime in Iran is the real objective of Israel’s war — and of the three Christian nations from Europe.
Reportedly, Israeli fighter jets which attacked Iran used the British air base in Cyprus; British refueling planes are on deployment in Syrian-Iraqi airspace for use of Israeli fighter jets; French President Emmanuel Macron, as defender of Roman Catholicism openly vows that he will act to prevent Israel’s defeat; Germany, the fountainhead of Protestantism, has also similarly positioned itself behind Israel.
However, on the other hand, what emerges from the hour-long phone conversation between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday is that they will work together to advance the path of dialogue with Iran, the current conflict situation notwithstanding. The Kremlin readout stresses that Putin forcefully denounced the Israeli aggression.
Such a line-up of the principal actors signals that Israel’s best bet lies in killing the war itself as a strategic error and create a “new normal?” But will Tehran allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get away with murder? That’s the million dollar question. Putin will have to use all his persuasive power doing the planned visit to Iran, if it still goes ahead.
The Israeli thinking behind its assassination of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leadership and military commanders stemmed out of the foolish miscalculation that Tehran lacks a political will to resist aggression. The Israeli objective is on the one hand to create conditions for a regime change in Iran and on the other hand to derail any form of U.S.-Iran constructive engagement.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on a Ukraine-bound train on May 9. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street/Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)(Driven' that train...))
Throughout, terror has been the chosen weapon for Israel and the Western powers to undermine and weaken Iran. But a point has been reached where a containment of Iran is no longer feasible. Logically, Iran’s neighbours in the Muslim world should have rallied in support of Iran but that’s too much to expect, given their limited sovereignty to act independently.
Nonetheless, Iran will not capitulate. Iran’s sense of national pride and honour as a civilisation state will prompt it to circle the wagons and wage a protracted war until victory. From the early days of the revolution, the Islamic republic which was founded on the principles of justice and resistance on the bedrock of nationalism and independence, got attracted to Mao Zedong’s concept of “protracted people’s war” to keep predator nations at bay. That strategy paid off during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).
Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, like Netanyahu, miscalculated that Iran was a hopelessly weakened nation in the civil war conditions with its economy in virtual collapse, army in disarray, state formation yet to crystallise and with no allies in the region to lend a helping hand. But as it turned out, Iran fought an eight-year war defiantly to a stalemate, undeterred by the lavish support extended to Saddam by the Western powers and their regional allies.
Iranian soldier in gas mask during the Iran–Iraq War, March 1985. (Mahmoud Badrfar, Wikimedia Commons,GNU Free Documentation License)
The U.S. even equipped Saddam’s army with chemical weapons to stop the human-wave–attack tactics of Iranian fighters, but to no avail — although, an estimated quarter million Iranians sacrificed their lives.
At some point, in a very near future, Israel will also meet the fate of Saddam, having miscalculated Iran’s grit to resist. Netanyahu also estimated that Iran is a much weakened country compared to last year due to the setbacks taken by the Axis of Resistance. Such naïveté underestimates the potency of resistance at the very core of Shi’ism.
Last week, the resistance forces that were supposedly vanquished from the face of the earth regrouped and began firing missiles at Israel — from Syria, of all places! On May 4, Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv hitting the perimeter of the main terminal of Ben Gurion Airport. Reports suggest that Hezbollah has restored its supply routes from Iran.
What Israel fails to grasp is that resistance movements do not die; their raison d’être remains. Israel is, in reality, in very deep crisis fighting on multiple fronts amidst a cascading domestic political crisis and an economy that requires drip feeding by Washington.
As the U.S.’ capacity to influence events in the Middle East keeps diminishing, Israel’s unviability as a nation propped by the Jewish Lobby in the Beltway appears sharper in focus. Already, there is resentment within the U.S. about bankrolling Israel and fighting its wars.
Meanwhile, the rise of Iran is inevitable — with a population base 10 times bigger than Israel’s, vast mineral resources, a self-sufficient agricultural sector and broad-based industry, innovative progress in technology, big domestic market, highly strategic location and trained manpower.
Onshore facility in Pars Special Economic Zone in Iran’s South Pars Gas-Condensate field, one of the world’s largest gas fields. (Tasnim News Agency/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
Iran’s stamina is of a long distance runner, as the Iran-Iraq war showed, whereas, Israel’s forte is as sprinter on a 100-metre track. Make no mistake, Israel, a small country with a population of 8 million people will get hollowed out in a protracted war.
In the current scenario, what goes against Israel critically is that while Trump tried and failed to stop Netanyahu on the warpath, he is not going to deploy American forces to fight Israel’s war.
Trump has an evangelical base in U.S. politics and is on friendly terms with wealthy Jewish donors, but has nothing in common with the Crusader nations of the Old World — be it on Ukraine or Iran. In both cases, actually, he tends to view the paradigm through the America First prism where he sees immense potential to generate wealth through business links with Russia or Iran.
Besides, Trump is far too smart a politician to risk the future of his MAGA movement whose core tenet is the total rejection of all interventionist “forever wars.” Trump knows only too well that American public opinion is staunchly opposed to Middle Eastern wars.
The replacement of Mike Waltz as national security adviser on May 1 (a known Israeli proxy who found himself in the top echelons of Trump administration) and the subsequent purge of the entire pack of “Iran hawks” in his national security staff, signaled that Trump is wary of Netanyahu’s diabolical plots to derail his negotiations with Iran through back channels.
During their phone conversation on Saturday, according to the Kremlin readout, Trump and Putin agreed to prioritise the “negotiating track in Iran’s nuclear programme … Trump noted, the team of U.S. negotiators is ready for resuming work with Iranian representatives.” Clearly, a military confrontation with Iran does not figure in Trump’s calculus.
That being the case, and Netanyahu’s bombastic rhetoric apart, Israel’s best interests lie in ending this futile war in the quickest way possible. Conceivably, that is also the preference of the IDF. A protracted war on its own steam with a clutch of crusader nations in tow as cheer leaders is not something that can save Israel from destruction.
Curiously, Trump in his latest Truth Social post on Sunday after the conversation with Putin advised Israel “to make a deal” with Iran! Does that fit into Netanyahu’s war mongering? And Trump went on to burnish his own credentials as a peacemaker president.
Trump concluded predicting that “we will have PEACE, soon, between Israel and Iran!” Succinctly put, Trump has no intentions whatsoever to risk American lives by fighting Netanyahu’s wars.
Obviously, “PEACE, soon” will be Russia and Iran’s preference too, as serious negotiations can be resumed and agreement reached that would herald a U.S.-Iran normalisation and the lifting of American sanctions. But does that suit Netanyahu?
The paradox is, Israel has no future in a protracted war with Iran, but an inconclusive end to this war will pose the high risk for Netanyahu of a cascading demand for a regime change in Israel. Loss of power means loss of parliamentary immunity from prosecution that Netanyahu hitherto enjoyed from corruption charges against him and his family members, and a possible imprisonment.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/18/i ... no-future/
*******
Redacted: “Israel’s IRON DOME is nearly FINISHED!” Dr. Gilbert Doctorow says Israel has 1 week left
June 19, 2025
It was a pleasure, after a break of several months, to rejoin Natali Morris and her husband on their interview program Redacted for a discussion of the Israeli-Iran war: its likely duration, global significance and the position on this conflict taken by other world powers including the USA, Russia, China and Pakistan.
Redacted is an enormously popular program in the United States, in Europe and, I imagine, in other parts of the world. The viewer numbers on this show are indicative of the interest that the moderators have developed in a loyal audience.
As one Comment mentions, the Israeli air defense is a lot more than the Iron Dome, which is intended to intercept short range projectiles. Other, higher altitude interceptors protect Israeli from ballistic missiles. The problem that few commentators discuss is that the supply of missiles for these air defenses is not unlimited. The Iranian wave attacks are depleting these interceptors so that the effective protection of Israel from incoming missiles may not last more than 10 days. If that is true, then Israel will not pursue the war beyond that point and Iran has already publicly stated that it will halt its attacks in turn.
Accordingly, there seems to be a lot of hyperventilating on the part of my fellow commentators. Moreover, the environmental threats from Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear installations are being blown out of proportion for purposes of sensationalism. The world is not facing a new Chernobyl disaster from Israeli bombing raids.
That being said, the direct entry of Washington into the conflict by supplying its heaviest bombs to Israel or, still worse, by flying B2s into Iran and destroying the underground facilities that are best protected, could create a broad regional, even global conflict. Nonetheless, this is all still a hypothetical risk.
In the meantime, the Russians, like the Chinese, are probably quietly supplying Teheran with air defense installations and other military materiel. One has to wonder how long it will be before the North Koreans offer to sell a bomb or two to Teheran. Why build when you can buy?
In any case, barring some dramatic development in the Iranian political structure, the balance of power in the Middle East between Israel and Iran is likely to continue be a major issue in the region for years to come whatever the outcome of the present exchange of missile strikes and bombing raids.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/06/19/ ... week-left/
******
Tic-Toc Thread On The War On Iran - 5
This is dangerous. The majority of Muslim in the Middle East are Shia. Killing the Ayatollah would make the war personal to them.
Defense Minister: Taking out Khamenei, ‘the modern Hitler,’ is a goal of the operation - YnetNews, Jun 19 2025
Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a statement to the media at the site of the direct missile hit in Holon, and for the first time threatened to eliminate Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. "Preventing the existence of Khamenei, the modern Hitler - one of the goals of the operation," he said. "A dictator like Khamenei, who leads Iran and has inscribed the destruction of Israel on his flag - he cannot continue to exist."
Fake outrage:
Hala Jaber @HalaJaber - 9:53 UTC · Jun 19, 2025
IMPORTANT: Israel is yelling “hospital!” to distract from the real headline - the actual targets. Iran didn’t strike Soroka Hospital directly, it hit IDF’s C4I & cyber ops HQ in Gav-Yam tech park, Be’er Sheva:
Digital command & C4ISR systems
Thousands of troops stationed
Just 1–2 km from the hospital, not “far,” not “accidental,” not “random.”
The military intelligence nerve center was the real target.
Soroka’s damage? Collateral from a strike on an active war machine.
PS: If you set up a military base next to a hospital, don’t act shocked when the windows rattle.
Behind the scenes negotiations continue:
Exclusive: Iran delivers response to new US proposal
The Iranian response was sent to the White House just before noon EDT on June 18. The high-ranking source with insight into proceedings described the document to Amwaj.media as "a polite no, but with a good explanation.”
A second senior source described the communication as "long" and in essence stating that Iran, in principle, does not object to negotiations to "discuss possible ways forward." However, the source stated, it is not politically feasible to do so "while our people are under bombardment."
The source declined to get into specifics on the substance of the response, but Iran has in the past indicated that it would be open to the idea of a multilateral consortium—as long as such a facility is built on Iranian soil.
The exchanges over June 17-18, which are believed to be direct, come as President Trump has publicly demanded Iran's “unconditional surrender” while hinting that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may be Israel’s next target.
Posted by b on June 19, 2025 at 12:25 UTC | Permalink
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/06/t ... l#comments
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Iranian and Israeli Communists condemn Netanyahu’s war on Iran
Originally published: The Communist Party of Israel on June 18, 2025 by CPI (more by The Communist Party of Israel) (Posted Jun 19, 2025)
Communists in Iran and Israel strongly condemn Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attack on Iran and President Donald Trump’s backing for it. In a common statement issued Tuesday, June 17, the Tudeh Party of Iran and the Communist Party of Israel said “The crimes committed by the right wing reactionary government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza and the West bank with the support of US Imperialism, the UK and allies in the EU has not only resulted in more than 55,000 Palestinians losing their lives and over 18,000 children being killed but has also given the Israeli government a green light for further aggression against countries of the region, with the aim of redrawing the map of the Middle East in accordance with the strategic goals of US imperialism. This is a government whose leaders have rightly been accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.”
While we are witnessing war and destruction in Iran and Israel, we also warn against the exploitation of the situation to intensify and continue the inhumane suffering and oppression of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. We call upon the international community to take real and concrete actions to prevent further disaster to the Palestinian people and to the peoples of the region.
Recognize a Palestinian state now! End the genocide in Gaza. Only imperialism, its client forces, reactionaries, and the ruling dictatorship benefit from tensions and war.
Israel and the US – after Iraq, Libya and Syria – are now determined to undermine Iranian sovereignty and will not stop until all regimes in the region are coerced under the same project of imperialism and hegemony in the Middle East that aims at subjugating the people’s will and their right to self-determination.
We express our fundamental opposition to all nuclear armament programs in the Middle East and worldwide. The road to stop the nuclear race in the Middle East does not pass through an aggressive war on Iran but rather goes via demilitarization of the entire region of nuclear weapons, and the signing up of all its countries, including Israel, to a non-proliferation of nuclear weapons treaty.
We call upon on all progressive and freedom-loving forces in Israel, Iran, and the world to unite in condemning this blatant and brutal violation of international law and to focus all efforts on prevention of a far-reaching, destructive military conflict and the establishment of peace in the Middle East.
The global public must go beyond mere concern expressed by the UN Secretary-General over Israel’s attack on Iran. All international mechanisms available through the United Nations and its Security Council must be used to stop the region from plunging into a catastrophic far-reaching war.
https://mronline.org/2025/06/19/iranian ... r-on-iran/
Russian and Chinese Military cargo planes shuttling weapons, missiles, supplies into Iran
Originally published: Defend Democracy Press on June 16, 2025 by Hal Turner (more by Defend Democracy Press) | (Posted Jun 19, 2025)
For the first time in history, a Chinese military cargo plane landed in Iran, presumably to offload Chinese “support.” An Airbus A330-243F cargo aircraft (file photo picture above) departed from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport was tracked flying southwest over eastern Turkmenistan. It turned off its transponder before reaching Iranian air space.
The Russians and the Chinese see clearly that Israel is being used as a Proxy by the United States, to harm Iran. That is BELIEVED to serve multiple purposes; it deals with a powerful Middle East neighbor that Israel has been fearful of for 40 years. It also disrupts Iranian weapons support for Russia’s ongoing Ukraine Conflict, through the destruction of Iranian military supply chains.
China warned of potential “serious consequences” of Israel’s attacks on Iran Friday, opposing any violation of the country’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.
Iran’s continued missile strikes on Israel are showing Tehran forces can regroup even after Israel killed multiple military commanders in its initial attack.
“They (the Israelis) underestimated the Iranian ability to regroup after the Israelis very successfully targeted the top leadership of the Iranian military and managed to kill several of them,” said Trita Parsi, vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Parsi said Israel believed they had “disrupted Iranian command and control” but that idea was proved wrong because Iran “quickly restructured.”
What we are seeing now is that “Iranian missiles are successful in penetrating all layers of Israel’s air defense systems,” Parsi said.
Parsi was speaking to CNN as new waves of Iranian missiles rained down in Israel during the early hours of Monday morning and struck multiple locations.
Iran has been firing 100 to 150 missiles per day. On day one, 40 missiles got through on day two, 50 missiles got though and on day three, 75 got through.
The IDF kill ratio is GOING DOWN FAST. If the Iranians keep this pace there will be NO USABLE AIRFIELDS in Israel next week. That is in Seven days!
Bibi is on TV in the States 24/7 because two IDF airbases have been hit hard. The TV is controlled and so is the internet. So the Israeli point of view is ALWAYS being given preferential treatment. But their point of view is not accurate when it comes to Iranian missiles getting through.
One unanticipated eventuality has already occurred: Pakistan ran a land resupply to Iran for supplies related to anti-air! Pakistan sent 720 missiles to Iran.
The Chinese and the Russians both landed new (advanced) Anti-air systems for use in defending Tehran and they should be up by the morning of the 17th!
Both China and Russian want to test their systems in combat against the F-35. The IDF has already lost Aircraft and pilots!
Hal Turner Remarks
As of Monday, June 16, it is starting to appear the IDF is in Deep shit and BiBi Netanyahu is the reason why. His bullshit this morning, talking about taking Pakistan next, got the Pakis into FUCK you TOO mood ASAP!
Israel bluntly warned Pakistan to stop supplying arms to Iran “or else.” The Pakistanis promptly tripled their help to Iran.
This situation is very rapidly going wild weasel in ways that few thought possible. World War 3 is actually here. All because Israel made a sneak attack upon Iran.
This situation is far more serious than anyone is letting on and there’s people in a position to know quietly talking about how the situation has gotten much darker and more dangerous.
There are videos from last night where iron dome and arrow batteries both fratricide; hit other arrow and iron dome sites last night.
And then the fucking refueling tankers took off from the USA and kept taking off and those are just the ones that were squawking so ads-b tracking could see them.
Moreover, anyone telling you Israel isn’t censoring both damage and hit videos, and even more serious shit, is either stupid or lying.
Am I saying Iran is winning? Definitely not
Frankly I don’t think anybody knows who’s winning or what the fuck is going on right now, this has firmly taken on a life of it’s own.
https://mronline.org/2025/06/19/russian ... into-iran/
By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
Exaggerating the true fact to mean the false factoid is SOP (standard operating procedure) in information warfare. It’s to be expected from President Donald Trump (lead image, right) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and their intelligence chiefs (centre), military officers, and media supporters.
The truest of the facts in the war so far are arithmetic: (1) that the clock is showing five days and nights long; (2) that there is no lessening in the tempo of the Iranian barrages against Israel; (3) that the Israeli counts of interceptions and target strikes represent less than 5% of US and Israeli estimates of Iran’s drone and missile stocks before the war.
There is more arithmetic. If Russia, China, and North Korea aim to re-supply Iran, there is no sign yet of increased shipborne deliveries from Astrakhan, Mahachkala and Olya, the Russian ports on the Caspian Sea, or from Turkmenbashi, the main port of Turkmenistan on the Caspian. If President Vladimir Putin, President Xi jinping, and Kim Jong Un have agreed in secret to assist the Iranian side, then their deliveries are likely to travel by air and rail into Turkmenistan first, and then by road across the border at Sarakhs into Iran. For the time being, the reports at Sarakhs say “light traffic” and “currently no alerts”.
Conclusion from these facts: Israel’s first shock-and-awe strikes have failed to produce a significant loss of Iran’s military capacities and political will to continue the war until Israel loses its capacities and will. Consequence of conclusion: if shock-and-awe fails, then schlock-and-flaw follows. Schlock is New York Yiddish for badly made merchandise, cheap junk.
This was demonstrated by Trump’s airplane remarks as he headed into Washington the night before his June 18 Situation Room session. Asked what end of war terms he is planning for Iran, he said: “An end. A real end, not a ceasefire. An end…[Question: So something that would be permanent?] Yeah, or — or, uh, giving up entirely…Certainly possible that they would give up. That’s possible.”
This is the schlock. For analysis of the flaw in the US-Israel war plan, click to listen to the new podcast with Nima Alkhorshid and Ray McGovern.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQnc4ZkIzZI
The AI source for fact-checking all media, ChatGPT, was asked what Russian aircraft and other military supplies have landed in Iran since June 13. The answer: “As of June 18, 2025, there have been no confirmed reports of Russian aircraft deliveries to Iran since June 13. However, several significant military aircraft transfers from Russia to Iran were reported earlier in 2025, including: Sukhoi Su-35 Fighter Jets: Iran reportedly received an initial batch of Su-35 aircraft from Russia, with deliveries possibly occurring in knock-down kit form. These advanced multirole fighters are intended to replace aging U.S.-made aircraft in Iran’s fleet . Attack Helicopters: Iran has confirmed the receipt of Mi-28 attack helicopters from Russia, enhancing its close air support capabilities . Yak-130 Trainer Aircraft: The Yak-130, a light combat and advanced trainer aircraft, has been delivered to Iran, potentially serving as a precursor to more advanced Russian jets in the Iranian Air Force.”
And what of other military supplies from Russia? “As of June 18, 2025, there are no confirmed reports of new military supplies from Russia to Iran since June 13. However, several developments have occurred that may influence future military cooperation between the two nations… Suspension of Iranian Weapons Supplies to Russia: On June 14, Iran announced the suspension of all weapons supplies to Russia. This decision includes halting the export of Shahed drone components, such as Mado MD-550 piston engines and Tolue micro-jets, which were previously used in the production of drones for Russian military operations in Ukraine.”
From China, ChatGPT reports “since June 13, 2025, there have been no publicly confirmed reports of new military supplies from China to Iran.” It is unclear to ChatGPT what has become of Iran’s order “of thousands of tons of ammonium perchlorate, a key component in solid rocket propellant, from China. These shipments, expected to arrive in the coming months, could produce up to 800 missiles.” There is no report of whether an Israeli sabotage operation at Bandar Abbas on April 25, this year, destroyed more than a thousand tonnes of sodium perchlorate stored at the port; the chemical is used to manufacture the rocket fuel.
From North Korea, ChatGPT says, “as of June 18, 2025, there are no confirmed reports of new military supplies from North Korea to Iran since June 13. However, the longstanding military collaboration between the two nations continues to be a subject of concern for international security analysts. Historically, North Korea has been a significant supplier of military technology to Iran, including missile components and artillery systems.”
CASPIAN SEA TRAFFIC BETWEEN RUSSIAN, TURKMEN AND IRANIAN PORTS – NO MOVEMENT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND IRAN
Source: https://www.ships.com.ua/en/maps/caspian-sea/
USAF REFUELLING TANKERS MOVE FROM THEIR EUROPEAN BASES SOUTH AND EAST TOWARDS SYRIA, IRAQ AND IRAN
“Yesterday [June 16], we tracked over 30 tankers moving from the USA to Europe, landing at bases including Prestwick, Morón, Aviano, Ramstein, and Souda Bay.Until now, none of these tankers had moved. However, about an hour ago [midday June 17], several aircraft (Boeing KC-46A and KC-135R/T) took off from their respective bases and headed southeast…At the moment, we are tracking around a dozen tankers in flight, with others taking off in the last few minutes. As we had anticipated, their final destination appears to be the Middle East — we’ll see where they eventually position themselves…Among the most visible movements, a group of at least 12 F-35A Lightning II fighters (c/s TABOR) departed RAF Lakenheath (UK) heading toward the Middle East. While there is no official confirmation, the scale of the aerial refueling effort strongly suggests that additional fighter aircraft, most likely F-15s, may have also been involved in this operation. Air-to-air refueling (AAR) took place over the northern Tyrrhenian Sea and—more intensively—over the Ionian Sea east of Sicily, with tankers forming prolonged holding patterns to support the transiting fighters. After completing their missions, part of the tanker fleet returned to their European bases, while a second group continued eastward, likely to forward-deployed positions in the Middle East. These aircraft are no longer visible via open-source tracking platforms, indicating that their transponders have been turned off or that they have entered coverage gaps. Given the scale and logistics of this deployment, it is possible that additional waves of fighters and support aircraft may follow in the coming days as the U.S. continues to reinforce its presence in the region amid heightened tensions.” https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/06/17/ ... -the-move/
https://johnhelmer.net/the-facts-not-th ... more-91904
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Israel’s War on Iran Has No Future
June 18, 2025
M.K. Bhadrakumar predicts that Netanyahu, by underestimating the Islamic Republic’s powers of resistance, will meet the same fate as Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran War.
Iranian attacks on Haifa oil refineries in Israel on Sunday night. (Hanay/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
By M.K. Bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline
An unnoticed undercurrent of the Israel-Iran War is that three Christian nations in Europe — the U.K., France and Germany — have joined the fray with alacrity on the side of Israel.
Strange, isn’t it, that these European countries comprising the so-called E-3 have a well-established exclusive path of dialogue with Iran but are joining Israel’s warpath? It’s a Crusade, stupid!
The three “Crusader nations” share Israel’s obsession to check the rise of a Muslim nation as an emerging power in the Middle East that could radically transform its geopolitical alignments. Simply put, destroying the Islamic regime in Iran is the real objective of Israel’s war — and of the three Christian nations from Europe.
Reportedly, Israeli fighter jets which attacked Iran used the British air base in Cyprus; British refueling planes are on deployment in Syrian-Iraqi airspace for use of Israeli fighter jets; French President Emmanuel Macron, as defender of Roman Catholicism openly vows that he will act to prevent Israel’s defeat; Germany, the fountainhead of Protestantism, has also similarly positioned itself behind Israel.
However, on the other hand, what emerges from the hour-long phone conversation between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday is that they will work together to advance the path of dialogue with Iran, the current conflict situation notwithstanding. The Kremlin readout stresses that Putin forcefully denounced the Israeli aggression.
Such a line-up of the principal actors signals that Israel’s best bet lies in killing the war itself as a strategic error and create a “new normal?” But will Tehran allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get away with murder? That’s the million dollar question. Putin will have to use all his persuasive power doing the planned visit to Iran, if it still goes ahead.
The Israeli thinking behind its assassination of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leadership and military commanders stemmed out of the foolish miscalculation that Tehran lacks a political will to resist aggression. The Israeli objective is on the one hand to create conditions for a regime change in Iran and on the other hand to derail any form of U.S.-Iran constructive engagement.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on a Ukraine-bound train on May 9. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street/Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)(Driven' that train...))
Throughout, terror has been the chosen weapon for Israel and the Western powers to undermine and weaken Iran. But a point has been reached where a containment of Iran is no longer feasible. Logically, Iran’s neighbours in the Muslim world should have rallied in support of Iran but that’s too much to expect, given their limited sovereignty to act independently.
Nonetheless, Iran will not capitulate. Iran’s sense of national pride and honour as a civilisation state will prompt it to circle the wagons and wage a protracted war until victory. From the early days of the revolution, the Islamic republic which was founded on the principles of justice and resistance on the bedrock of nationalism and independence, got attracted to Mao Zedong’s concept of “protracted people’s war” to keep predator nations at bay. That strategy paid off during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).
Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, like Netanyahu, miscalculated that Iran was a hopelessly weakened nation in the civil war conditions with its economy in virtual collapse, army in disarray, state formation yet to crystallise and with no allies in the region to lend a helping hand. But as it turned out, Iran fought an eight-year war defiantly to a stalemate, undeterred by the lavish support extended to Saddam by the Western powers and their regional allies.
Iranian soldier in gas mask during the Iran–Iraq War, March 1985. (Mahmoud Badrfar, Wikimedia Commons,GNU Free Documentation License)
The U.S. even equipped Saddam’s army with chemical weapons to stop the human-wave–attack tactics of Iranian fighters, but to no avail — although, an estimated quarter million Iranians sacrificed their lives.
At some point, in a very near future, Israel will also meet the fate of Saddam, having miscalculated Iran’s grit to resist. Netanyahu also estimated that Iran is a much weakened country compared to last year due to the setbacks taken by the Axis of Resistance. Such naïveté underestimates the potency of resistance at the very core of Shi’ism.
Last week, the resistance forces that were supposedly vanquished from the face of the earth regrouped and began firing missiles at Israel — from Syria, of all places! On May 4, Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv hitting the perimeter of the main terminal of Ben Gurion Airport. Reports suggest that Hezbollah has restored its supply routes from Iran.
What Israel fails to grasp is that resistance movements do not die; their raison d’être remains. Israel is, in reality, in very deep crisis fighting on multiple fronts amidst a cascading domestic political crisis and an economy that requires drip feeding by Washington.
As the U.S.’ capacity to influence events in the Middle East keeps diminishing, Israel’s unviability as a nation propped by the Jewish Lobby in the Beltway appears sharper in focus. Already, there is resentment within the U.S. about bankrolling Israel and fighting its wars.
Meanwhile, the rise of Iran is inevitable — with a population base 10 times bigger than Israel’s, vast mineral resources, a self-sufficient agricultural sector and broad-based industry, innovative progress in technology, big domestic market, highly strategic location and trained manpower.
Onshore facility in Pars Special Economic Zone in Iran’s South Pars Gas-Condensate field, one of the world’s largest gas fields. (Tasnim News Agency/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
Iran’s stamina is of a long distance runner, as the Iran-Iraq war showed, whereas, Israel’s forte is as sprinter on a 100-metre track. Make no mistake, Israel, a small country with a population of 8 million people will get hollowed out in a protracted war.
In the current scenario, what goes against Israel critically is that while Trump tried and failed to stop Netanyahu on the warpath, he is not going to deploy American forces to fight Israel’s war.
Trump has an evangelical base in U.S. politics and is on friendly terms with wealthy Jewish donors, but has nothing in common with the Crusader nations of the Old World — be it on Ukraine or Iran. In both cases, actually, he tends to view the paradigm through the America First prism where he sees immense potential to generate wealth through business links with Russia or Iran.
Besides, Trump is far too smart a politician to risk the future of his MAGA movement whose core tenet is the total rejection of all interventionist “forever wars.” Trump knows only too well that American public opinion is staunchly opposed to Middle Eastern wars.
The replacement of Mike Waltz as national security adviser on May 1 (a known Israeli proxy who found himself in the top echelons of Trump administration) and the subsequent purge of the entire pack of “Iran hawks” in his national security staff, signaled that Trump is wary of Netanyahu’s diabolical plots to derail his negotiations with Iran through back channels.
During their phone conversation on Saturday, according to the Kremlin readout, Trump and Putin agreed to prioritise the “negotiating track in Iran’s nuclear programme … Trump noted, the team of U.S. negotiators is ready for resuming work with Iranian representatives.” Clearly, a military confrontation with Iran does not figure in Trump’s calculus.
That being the case, and Netanyahu’s bombastic rhetoric apart, Israel’s best interests lie in ending this futile war in the quickest way possible. Conceivably, that is also the preference of the IDF. A protracted war on its own steam with a clutch of crusader nations in tow as cheer leaders is not something that can save Israel from destruction.
Curiously, Trump in his latest Truth Social post on Sunday after the conversation with Putin advised Israel “to make a deal” with Iran! Does that fit into Netanyahu’s war mongering? And Trump went on to burnish his own credentials as a peacemaker president.
Trump concluded predicting that “we will have PEACE, soon, between Israel and Iran!” Succinctly put, Trump has no intentions whatsoever to risk American lives by fighting Netanyahu’s wars.
Obviously, “PEACE, soon” will be Russia and Iran’s preference too, as serious negotiations can be resumed and agreement reached that would herald a U.S.-Iran normalisation and the lifting of American sanctions. But does that suit Netanyahu?
The paradox is, Israel has no future in a protracted war with Iran, but an inconclusive end to this war will pose the high risk for Netanyahu of a cascading demand for a regime change in Israel. Loss of power means loss of parliamentary immunity from prosecution that Netanyahu hitherto enjoyed from corruption charges against him and his family members, and a possible imprisonment.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/18/i ... no-future/
*******
Redacted: “Israel’s IRON DOME is nearly FINISHED!” Dr. Gilbert Doctorow says Israel has 1 week left
June 19, 2025
It was a pleasure, after a break of several months, to rejoin Natali Morris and her husband on their interview program Redacted for a discussion of the Israeli-Iran war: its likely duration, global significance and the position on this conflict taken by other world powers including the USA, Russia, China and Pakistan.
Redacted is an enormously popular program in the United States, in Europe and, I imagine, in other parts of the world. The viewer numbers on this show are indicative of the interest that the moderators have developed in a loyal audience.
As one Comment mentions, the Israeli air defense is a lot more than the Iron Dome, which is intended to intercept short range projectiles. Other, higher altitude interceptors protect Israeli from ballistic missiles. The problem that few commentators discuss is that the supply of missiles for these air defenses is not unlimited. The Iranian wave attacks are depleting these interceptors so that the effective protection of Israel from incoming missiles may not last more than 10 days. If that is true, then Israel will not pursue the war beyond that point and Iran has already publicly stated that it will halt its attacks in turn.
Accordingly, there seems to be a lot of hyperventilating on the part of my fellow commentators. Moreover, the environmental threats from Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear installations are being blown out of proportion for purposes of sensationalism. The world is not facing a new Chernobyl disaster from Israeli bombing raids.
That being said, the direct entry of Washington into the conflict by supplying its heaviest bombs to Israel or, still worse, by flying B2s into Iran and destroying the underground facilities that are best protected, could create a broad regional, even global conflict. Nonetheless, this is all still a hypothetical risk.
In the meantime, the Russians, like the Chinese, are probably quietly supplying Teheran with air defense installations and other military materiel. One has to wonder how long it will be before the North Koreans offer to sell a bomb or two to Teheran. Why build when you can buy?
In any case, barring some dramatic development in the Iranian political structure, the balance of power in the Middle East between Israel and Iran is likely to continue be a major issue in the region for years to come whatever the outcome of the present exchange of missile strikes and bombing raids.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/06/19/ ... week-left/
******
Tic-Toc Thread On The War On Iran - 5
This is dangerous. The majority of Muslim in the Middle East are Shia. Killing the Ayatollah would make the war personal to them.
Defense Minister: Taking out Khamenei, ‘the modern Hitler,’ is a goal of the operation - YnetNews, Jun 19 2025
Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a statement to the media at the site of the direct missile hit in Holon, and for the first time threatened to eliminate Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. "Preventing the existence of Khamenei, the modern Hitler - one of the goals of the operation," he said. "A dictator like Khamenei, who leads Iran and has inscribed the destruction of Israel on his flag - he cannot continue to exist."
Fake outrage:
Hala Jaber @HalaJaber - 9:53 UTC · Jun 19, 2025
IMPORTANT: Israel is yelling “hospital!” to distract from the real headline - the actual targets. Iran didn’t strike Soroka Hospital directly, it hit IDF’s C4I & cyber ops HQ in Gav-Yam tech park, Be’er Sheva:
Digital command & C4ISR systems
Thousands of troops stationed
Just 1–2 km from the hospital, not “far,” not “accidental,” not “random.”The military intelligence nerve center was the real target.
Soroka’s damage? Collateral from a strike on an active war machine.
PS: If you set up a military base next to a hospital, don’t act shocked when the windows rattle.
Behind the scenes negotiations continue:
Exclusive: Iran delivers response to new US proposal
The Iranian response was sent to the White House just before noon EDT on June 18. The high-ranking source with insight into proceedings described the document to Amwaj.media as "a polite no, but with a good explanation.”
A second senior source described the communication as "long" and in essence stating that Iran, in principle, does not object to negotiations to "discuss possible ways forward." However, the source stated, it is not politically feasible to do so "while our people are under bombardment."
The source declined to get into specifics on the substance of the response, but Iran has in the past indicated that it would be open to the idea of a multilateral consortium—as long as such a facility is built on Iranian soil.
The exchanges over June 17-18, which are believed to be direct, come as President Trump has publicly demanded Iran's “unconditional surrender” while hinting that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may be Israel’s next target.
Posted by b on June 19, 2025 at 12:25 UTC | Permalink
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/06/t ... l#comments
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Iranian and Israeli Communists condemn Netanyahu’s war on Iran
Originally published: The Communist Party of Israel on June 18, 2025 by CPI (more by The Communist Party of Israel) (Posted Jun 19, 2025)
Communists in Iran and Israel strongly condemn Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attack on Iran and President Donald Trump’s backing for it. In a common statement issued Tuesday, June 17, the Tudeh Party of Iran and the Communist Party of Israel said “The crimes committed by the right wing reactionary government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza and the West bank with the support of US Imperialism, the UK and allies in the EU has not only resulted in more than 55,000 Palestinians losing their lives and over 18,000 children being killed but has also given the Israeli government a green light for further aggression against countries of the region, with the aim of redrawing the map of the Middle East in accordance with the strategic goals of US imperialism. This is a government whose leaders have rightly been accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.”
While we are witnessing war and destruction in Iran and Israel, we also warn against the exploitation of the situation to intensify and continue the inhumane suffering and oppression of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. We call upon the international community to take real and concrete actions to prevent further disaster to the Palestinian people and to the peoples of the region.
Recognize a Palestinian state now! End the genocide in Gaza. Only imperialism, its client forces, reactionaries, and the ruling dictatorship benefit from tensions and war.
Israel and the US – after Iraq, Libya and Syria – are now determined to undermine Iranian sovereignty and will not stop until all regimes in the region are coerced under the same project of imperialism and hegemony in the Middle East that aims at subjugating the people’s will and their right to self-determination.
We express our fundamental opposition to all nuclear armament programs in the Middle East and worldwide. The road to stop the nuclear race in the Middle East does not pass through an aggressive war on Iran but rather goes via demilitarization of the entire region of nuclear weapons, and the signing up of all its countries, including Israel, to a non-proliferation of nuclear weapons treaty.
We call upon on all progressive and freedom-loving forces in Israel, Iran, and the world to unite in condemning this blatant and brutal violation of international law and to focus all efforts on prevention of a far-reaching, destructive military conflict and the establishment of peace in the Middle East.
The global public must go beyond mere concern expressed by the UN Secretary-General over Israel’s attack on Iran. All international mechanisms available through the United Nations and its Security Council must be used to stop the region from plunging into a catastrophic far-reaching war.
https://mronline.org/2025/06/19/iranian ... r-on-iran/
Russian and Chinese Military cargo planes shuttling weapons, missiles, supplies into Iran
Originally published: Defend Democracy Press on June 16, 2025 by Hal Turner (more by Defend Democracy Press) | (Posted Jun 19, 2025)
For the first time in history, a Chinese military cargo plane landed in Iran, presumably to offload Chinese “support.” An Airbus A330-243F cargo aircraft (file photo picture above) departed from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport was tracked flying southwest over eastern Turkmenistan. It turned off its transponder before reaching Iranian air space.
The Russians and the Chinese see clearly that Israel is being used as a Proxy by the United States, to harm Iran. That is BELIEVED to serve multiple purposes; it deals with a powerful Middle East neighbor that Israel has been fearful of for 40 years. It also disrupts Iranian weapons support for Russia’s ongoing Ukraine Conflict, through the destruction of Iranian military supply chains.
China warned of potential “serious consequences” of Israel’s attacks on Iran Friday, opposing any violation of the country’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.
Iran’s continued missile strikes on Israel are showing Tehran forces can regroup even after Israel killed multiple military commanders in its initial attack.
“They (the Israelis) underestimated the Iranian ability to regroup after the Israelis very successfully targeted the top leadership of the Iranian military and managed to kill several of them,” said Trita Parsi, vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Parsi said Israel believed they had “disrupted Iranian command and control” but that idea was proved wrong because Iran “quickly restructured.”
What we are seeing now is that “Iranian missiles are successful in penetrating all layers of Israel’s air defense systems,” Parsi said.
Parsi was speaking to CNN as new waves of Iranian missiles rained down in Israel during the early hours of Monday morning and struck multiple locations.
Iran has been firing 100 to 150 missiles per day. On day one, 40 missiles got through on day two, 50 missiles got though and on day three, 75 got through.
The IDF kill ratio is GOING DOWN FAST. If the Iranians keep this pace there will be NO USABLE AIRFIELDS in Israel next week. That is in Seven days!
Bibi is on TV in the States 24/7 because two IDF airbases have been hit hard. The TV is controlled and so is the internet. So the Israeli point of view is ALWAYS being given preferential treatment. But their point of view is not accurate when it comes to Iranian missiles getting through.
One unanticipated eventuality has already occurred: Pakistan ran a land resupply to Iran for supplies related to anti-air! Pakistan sent 720 missiles to Iran.
The Chinese and the Russians both landed new (advanced) Anti-air systems for use in defending Tehran and they should be up by the morning of the 17th!
Both China and Russian want to test their systems in combat against the F-35. The IDF has already lost Aircraft and pilots!
Hal Turner Remarks
As of Monday, June 16, it is starting to appear the IDF is in Deep shit and BiBi Netanyahu is the reason why. His bullshit this morning, talking about taking Pakistan next, got the Pakis into FUCK you TOO mood ASAP!
Israel bluntly warned Pakistan to stop supplying arms to Iran “or else.” The Pakistanis promptly tripled their help to Iran.
This situation is very rapidly going wild weasel in ways that few thought possible. World War 3 is actually here. All because Israel made a sneak attack upon Iran.
This situation is far more serious than anyone is letting on and there’s people in a position to know quietly talking about how the situation has gotten much darker and more dangerous.
There are videos from last night where iron dome and arrow batteries both fratricide; hit other arrow and iron dome sites last night.
And then the fucking refueling tankers took off from the USA and kept taking off and those are just the ones that were squawking so ads-b tracking could see them.
Moreover, anyone telling you Israel isn’t censoring both damage and hit videos, and even more serious shit, is either stupid or lying.
Am I saying Iran is winning? Definitely not
Frankly I don’t think anybody knows who’s winning or what the fuck is going on right now, this has firmly taken on a life of it’s own.
https://mronline.org/2025/06/19/russian ... into-iran/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Iran
Why Iran? The Context & The Consequences
Roger Boyd
Jun 19, 2025
The first thing that the likes of the ignorant Senator Ted Cruz should understand is that Iran is Persian not Arab, and represents an independent civilization going back to the times of ancient Greece. And that Islam is a religion not an ethnicity, as is Judaism. He also needs to go re-read his Bible, specifically Genesis 12:1-3 which says:
Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
This is Abram, the father of the three great Abrahamic religions; Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Israel is never mentioned, and it also very specifically states that “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you”. To misquote the Bible, explicitly misrepresenting the stated words of the Christian God, is to be a heretic. Ted Cruz should be reminded that he was elected to serve Americans, not to serve a foreign power. Here, displaying his utter ignorance and mendacity in his service of a foreign power:
The Scofield Bible, a heretical reinterpretation of the King James Bible by Scofield, is a core text of the Dispensationalist movement that believes in an End Times in the present (rather than the End Times being seen as the fall of Rome as accepted in mainstream Christianity). I have written about the highly questionable origins and mainstreaming of the Scofield Bible, together with the related mainstreaming of the capitalist-friendly Prosperity Gospel. All of which was a political project, not a religious one.
After Scofield died the Oxford University Press issued a 1967 (the year of the Six Day War) update entitled The New Scofield Bible which included specific additions that greatly increased the support for the state of Israel and its rights to take the Palestinian lands; “close to an endorsement of US foreign policy on the state of Israel” (Donald Akenson, The Americanization Of The Apocalypse, p. 435). The Scofield Bible teaches the notion that Gentiles are “blessed in association with Israel”, and that God supports the stealing of the Palestinian lands to create Israel and the demolition of the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in the Muslim world, to rebuild The Temple (a core belief of the most extremist Zionists); also the return of Jewish religious sacrifices.
This very political project of spreading a gospel that thoroughly supported capitalism and Western civilizational supremacy in a US that at the end of WW2 was not particularly religious (and where the religious slanted toward the social gospel that was supportive of the New Deal) is detailed by Kevin M. Kruse, in One Nation Under God. An extremely successful political project that mirrored the Othering of the Soviet Union and China as “godless communists”, and later the Othering of “Muslim terrorists”.
The deranged neoliberal armageddon cultist Mike Huckabee, the US Ambassador to Israel, is but one of the more severe examples of the success of this Christian Zionism and Prosperity Gospel project, in producing a significant religious fundamentalist section of the US population that perfectly serves US imperial objectives. A classic case of Gramsci’s cultural hegemony used to cognitively corral a major part of the population into supporting the US oligarchy against its own political-economic interests, the creation of a false consciousness.
In the same piece, I covered how the US Jewish community turned to the political right during the attack upon their community during the McCarthy era of the 1950s. Embracing the US Empire and capitalism and clinging close to the centres of US power as a defensive mechanism; a project methodically carried out over seven decades. It is a strategy also carried out by the government of Israel, making itself indispensable to the West while also seeking power within the Western polity aided by significant parts of the Jewish diaspora. This greatly suited a West that was happy to have its own neo-colonial servant in such an important region, one that would carry out the Western dirty work not just in the Middle East but across the world with plausible deniability for the West. As Joe Biden stated, if an Israel had not existed the US would have had to invent one.
Theodor Herzl, the grandfather of Zionism, was an atheist. Just as an atheist cannot be a Christian or a Moslem, they cannot be a Jew if we accept that Judaism is a religion and not an ethnicity (with the latter disproven by basic genetics). Herzl was open to different locations for his Jewish state, as a political and secular project. Netanyahu was raised in a secular family, and from his statements and actions can be seen also as an atheist. He was the personal secretary to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the atheist founder of Revisionist Zionism, a man who with Netanyahu’s atheist father had an overwhelming influence on his political philosophy.
But time is running out for both the US and Israel with respect to these political projects. From 2007 to 2021 Evangelical (the core of religious Zionism in the US) worship fell from 30% to 24% of the population, and more recently that number is 23%; with only 14% of those 18 to 29 against 30% of those 30 and older. Evangelical worship is slowly but surely dying out and by 2025 that 14% may very well be all under the age of 39, while those currently 50 and above enter the years of accelerating death rates. The majority of US Jews under the age of 50 are already not Zionist, with the core of US Zionism funded by a small group of the ageing Jewish Zionist rich. At the same time the secular project of Israel is being rent asunder by the civil war between the secular (mostly Ashkenazi) liberal European Jews and the ultra-orthodox predominantly European Haredi Jews and the non-European Mizrahi Jews who have been historically racially discriminated against within Israel. All are happy to slaughter Arabs and steal their land, but the latter two want to establish a truly Jewish fundamentalist state which would reject the whole liberal project of the Ashkenazi.
In extremis, Israel would become the Jewish version of the ISIS Caliphate. A state and political project that disingenuously and aggressively thrusts its “Jewishness” forwards to claim the victimhood of the Holocaust is now ironically threatened by the imposition of an actual Jewish religious state; underlining the fact that Zionism is not a religious project and is a separate thing to Judaism. All the while, the US and Western global power that peaked in the 1990s is in a secular decline and with it the ability of Israel’s “big brother” to sustain and protect it.
The antagonism of the West to Iran has always been about energy and geopolitics, not about religion or “human rights” or any other such disingenuous blather. As with Russia and China, Iran resisted outright colonization, although there was a great amount of UK internal interference and influence in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. It possessed both vast amounts of fossil fuels and a strategic geographic location in the Middle East, while maintaining its own culture and civilization. In the post-WW2 years its politics took a more democratic turn and in the early 1950s a nationalist leader, Mosaddegh came to power and moved to take control of the vast fossil fuel resources for the benefit of Iranians. This could not be allowed by the West and an MI6/CIA coup took place in 1953, installing Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (of the previously obedient vassal Pahlavi dynasty) as the dictator Shah of Iran. He set about destroying the socialist opposition through extensive arrests, torture and disappearances carried out by the brutal Savak secret police. The propagandistic use of pictures from this era showing a “prosperous” and “Western” Iran show how the elites lived, not the majority. It also shows how disingenuous so many of the Western “critical” scholars are, who push “critical” and “feminist” tropes in the service of empire while utterly ignoring political-economic, imperial and neocolonial realities. After 26 years of the Shah the only real opposition that was left was the religious establishment and that is why they dominated the revolution of 1979 that overthrew the Shah.
With the revolution there was no purging of the capitalist elite and other oppositional forces, as with the Soviet Union and China; while a significant portion fled the majority stayed to represent a liberal and Western leaning minority that is open to Western dominance and treason against the state. The West calls these the “progressives” when in fact they are hardline neoliberals who would be happy to turn their nation into a Western vassal that facilitates their own internal domination and kleptocracy; just as under the Shah. A newly independent Iran was not acceptable to the West and it pushed Iraq to invade Iran to crush the new regime, resulting in the Iran-Iraq War that stretched from September 1980 to August 1988. Iran was not defeated, but massive amounts of resources that should have gone toward building a new Iran were consumed by a war that included the widespread use of poisoned gas by the Iraqis (made from ingredients knowingly and happily supplied by the West). This can be seen somewhat as a parallel for the Western invasions of the Soviet Union in support of the White Russian forces, together with the Polish invasion, following the Russian Revolution of 1917; an attempt to snuff out the new regime before it could truly establish itself. Both failed, but at great cost to the new regimes. And yes, as late as 1988 Iraq was doing the US Empire’s dirty work, the massive cost of which drove Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait (after being given the nod by the US) to gain new revenues.
In the 1990s, and 2000s, the US became bogged down in its wars in the Middle East; failing at the first Iraqi hurdle of its “seven nations in five years” project or Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan; while also becoming bogged down in Afghanistan. With the focus of the US Empire elsewhere, Iran gained some room for manoeuvre and prospered on a relative basis. Using purchasing power parity, Iran’s GDP per capita increased from US$7,260 in 1990 to US$18,490 in 2010. Then came the oil price collapse of the mid 2010s on top of the sanctions against Iran’s legal nuclear enrichment activities. These included the actions of the US vassal EU to disconnect Iran from the SWIFT international payments system. At no time has there been any call for sanctions against an Israel which is in open violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; the issue with Iran has nothing to do with its civilian nuclear program. If Iran actually had nuclear weapons it would more be in the stronger position that a nuclear-armed North Korea enjoys. The US failed occupation of Iraq from 2003 onwards actually lead to significant Iranian influence in an Iraq that had previously been its enemy, possibly a reason for the US to escalate sanctions against Iran; especially with Iran’s role in combating the Western destabilization of Syria and the Western security services created ISIS project.
In 2015 Iran agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (China, US, Russia, France, UK) plus Germany and the EU to limit its uranium enrichment activities in return for sanctions relief and other provisions; taking effect in January 2016. In May 2018, the Trump administration pulled out of the JCPOA on utterly spurious grounds even though the IAEA confirmed that Iran was following the terms of the agreement, as Iran did until July 2019 when it became obvious that the US vassals would not continue with sanctions relief given the US position. The previous sanctions, plus increased sanctions were imposed from May 2018 onwards. The Biden administration disingenuously took part in new negotiations, but escalated the conditions upon Iran significantly above those in the JCPOA.
Iran successfully pivoted away from the West, signing a 25-year cooperation program with China in 2020 which promised long term investment and trade. China has been the predominant purchaser of Iranian oil (Iran’s gas reserves are used for domestic energy consumption needs) in the past years. Then, with the mass sanctioning of Russia after the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Iran was able to develop much closer relations with a Russia that had nothing to lose in working with a fellow sanctioned nation. In January 2025, Iran and Russia signed a Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership that aims to boost bilateral economic and trade ties. Russia is building a number of nuclear reactors in Iran to aid it with its electricity supply shortfalls. In 2024 Iran also became a full member of BRICS, and in late May 2025 the first train ran on the Urumqi (China) to Tehran (Iran) railway, providing a direct rail freight link between the two nations; developing Iran as a transport hub with links to both China and Russia.
Iran has already nearly regained the peak PPP GDP per capita level of 2011, with GDP growth of 5% in 2023 and 3% in 2024 and is now threatening to become a development success that is totally independent of the West. On top of this, it has established peaceful diplomatic relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council states and the US had been ignominiously thrown out of Afghanistan. All the while, US global power is declining and its soft power significantly undermined by its support of the Zionist genocide; with Israel increasingly becoming a pariah even among the populations (but not the oligarchies) of the West. Syria has been subjugated under the rule of an ex-ISIS leader remade as a politician by the Western intelligence agencies, and significantly occupied by both Israel and Turkey, but this also signifies a new challenge to Israeli regional dominance in Turkey. At the same time, the Israeli economy and society are being worn down by the ongoing genocide, low intensity war with Hezbollah and Ansar Allah, and the internal civil war. Israel is in danger of falling while Iran rises as an integrated and important part of BRINCISTAN (now with only one S with the subjugation of Syria) of Belarus, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, Iraq and the “Stans”.
While Russia refuses to accept any US terms with respect to the Ukrainian War that would represent a “defeat at the negotiating table”, and is gaining in strength rather than having been destroyed by Western sanctions and proxy military aggression. And while the Trump administration did a TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) on its trade war with China once the latter displayed its relative economic and financial power, the fiasco of the Trump birthday military procession took place and the administration was unable to bully the rest of the world into trade surrender. Then to add to this was the utter inability of the vaunted US military to quell the Ansar Allah movement in Yemen, with Ansar Allah still acting to control traffic in the Red Sea and to bombard Israel. With the increasing civil resistance against the new authoritarianism at home, which has nothing to do with an illegal immigration which could be rapidly dealt with by arresting a few of the illegal immigrant-hiring CEOs, and also the increasing psychological dishevelment of 79-year-old Trump himself. The Trump of today is not the Trump of his first term and not even the Trump of 2024 that already looked like a shadow of his former self. He may not have declined to the level of Biden who was 81 in the final year of his administration, but is most certainly in the age of decline; not helped by his historical lack of exercise, obesity and diet. We should not underestimate the readiness of his administration to cover up this decline, given the great lengths that the previous administration went to to cover up and deny Biden’s decline into dementia. The parallels with the end of the Soviet Union with one sick and ageing leader after another are redolent.
The US is becoming increasingly strife-torn and internationally derided and resisted. In such a situation, regime change in Iran would be a “Hail Mary” pass that delivered both Iraq and Iran to Western domination, while greatly undermining the positions of Russia and China, and displaying that the US “still has it”.
That was the real reason for the attack upon Iran, nothing to do with its nuclear program that was confirmed by Tulsi Gabbard, the US Director of National Intelligence, only recently as not being military in nature; echoing the findings of the IAEA. Even Jon Stewart called out the utter BS of the “urgent” need for an attack on Iran (as well as the fiasco of Trump’s birthday military parade and the parallels between US imperial discourse and the new domestic authoritarian discourse).
It has nothing to do with Iran “supporting terrorists” which is just Western code for Iran supporting groups that resist the West’s imperial agenda. It has nothing to do with religion, especially when Iran is the home to a Jewish community that has never been persecuted. It is about geopolitics, and the maintenance of US/Western global power for as long as possible. And also about the survival of a Netanyahu that knows that he will be off to jail for both his corruption and the genocide once he loses power, a man who needed his own “Hail Mary” pass.
But this was based on the usual Western fantasies that greatly underestimate the enemy and greatly overestimate their own capabilities. Iran was not a Syria that had been undermined for a decade and a half of Western (including the Gulf states) aggression and a sanctions blockade, ruled by an incompetent and corrupt Assad regime sitting between the Western dominated Israel, Jordan and Iraq, and an avaricious Turkey and a destroyed and infiltrated Lebanon. Iran is a strong nation of 93 million, equipped with its own independent industrial and military sectors with a colossal mountainous geography situated between fellow Moslem nations to the east, north and west. Together with the ability to destroy the oil and gas infrastructure which is critical to world energy supplies.
That the US, and other Western nations, were very fully involved in the “Israeli” surprise attack upon Iran on June 13th is blindingly obvious to those that look closely, and listen to the statements of Western politicians. The US President was actively involved through disingenuous negotiations with Iran, and his statements saying that he was against any Israeli attack until after the next round of negotiations which would have taken place after the Israeli attack started. This attack was planned for at least eight months, if not longer, and was designed through the use of Iranian traitorous elements to decapitate the Iranian leadership and destabilize the nation to the point that it could be divided and subjugated.
But none of this happened. The murdered Iranian leaders were rapidly replaced with newer (and most probably more hard line) cadres, the Iranian air defence system was brought back online quickly rather than being down much longer as envisaged by the attackers, much of the traitorous network was quickly rolled up by the Iranian security forces, and Iran’s military capabilities were not seriously undermined as many hits seemed to be on fake mockups and only affected above ground installations. In addition, Iran did not unleash thousands of missiles upon an Israel that could then once again sell itself as a victim requiring Western rescue from the consequences of its crimes, but rather went for the slow economic, financial and social bleed of relatively small numbers of rockets each day. Both using up the capabilities of the vaunted “Iron Sieve” and utterly destabilizing an Israel that has no strategic depth and is utterly dependent upon imports and the willingness of the productive liberal Ashkenazi to remain in the country.
Netanyahu’s move to stop Israeli’s from leaving their country is a sign of the success of the Iranian campaign after only a matter of days. The liberal Ashkenazi want Brooklyn-on-the-Mediterranean with the genocide carried out of sight “over there”, and certainly not to feel even some of the fear that the Palestinians feel every day, and definitely not within a fundamentalist religious state. They did not move to the occupied lands of Palestine to experience this:
They are more than ready to flee to their ancestral homes abroad if their Brooklyn-on-the-Mediterranean liberal project is seen as ended. As many already have; they have no stomach for the punishments that they so easily and enthusiastically dish out to others.
With the “shock and awe” attempt and utter failure, and Iran now slowly bleeding out Israel, Netanyahu’s only option is to embroil the West fully in the conflict. Something that the West did not want, instead wanting to have its “deniability” fig leaf while fully taking part in the subjugation of a destabilized Iran a la Libya and Syria under the cover of “humanitarian intervention” and the puppet Pahlavi regime kept in reserve in the West. So now it must either retreat and order Israel to stop its attacks, which may very well require the taking out of Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders and cause consternation among the US Zionist donor class, or roll up its sleeves and descend into another Middle Eastern quagmire which will sap its strength. It is the latter prospect that is currently holding back the Trump administration from directly attacking Iran, together with up to date - most probably much more accurate and less sanguine than the misleading and self-serving Israeli intelligence - US intelligence reports on Iran’s capabilities and regime stability.
Trump also stands on the edge of a precipice, having to decide between the Zionist donor class that brought him to power and has financially rescued him a number of times and the MAGA coalition that elected him to focus on making America great again by focusing on domestic issues and ending, and especially not starting, foreign wars. With more Republican voters than Democrat voters against direct US involvement in a war with Iran, the mid-terms could return Democratic and RINO (Republican In Name Only) House and Senate majorities that would be more than happy to once again bring impeachment proceedings against him. Any financial and economic crisis stemming from direct US involvement would also destroy his economic agenda. He would truly become a lame duck president, hated by both Democrats and Republicans. This is the dilemma that faces a Trump that is so obviously in decline under the pressures of the presidency at the age of 79.
Both Putin and Xi are a much younger and seemingly healthier 72, both with extremely high levels of domestic and international legitimacy and with the former able to stand for reelection in 2030 and the latter not bothered with such liberal democratic trappings. To them Trump is a passing phenomenon to be dealt with during the secular decline of the West. They win if Trump decides to intervene directly (with the West sucked into a Middle Eastern quagmire and possibly engulfed in an economic and financial maelstrom while further losing support in the rest of the world) and win if he doesn’t (with Iran and BRINCISTAN growing stronger while Israel is thrown into domestic crisis and with the Trump administration in conflict with the Zionist donor class); they will not become directly involved in the conflict. Trump and the West have walked themselves into a trap with no positive outcome available.
Fundamentally, the US and its Western vassals are faced with a defeat or a defeat; a conundrum. Made worse by the very real possible issue of a financial collapse given the probable closure of the Straits of Hormuz and the prospect of yet more massive debt-fuelled US government war spending. Will the losing struggle of the West to maintain its dominance take on an even greater military aggression, to add to the Ukraine proxy war and the Zionist genocide? Or will it maintain its somewhat peaceful progress? For Israel there is an existential threat as a continued campaign without direct Western intervention is simply not tenable, especially given the Iranian intelligent slow-bleed strategy, while an ending of its attacks upon Iran may very well bring the fall of the government and a more intense stage of internal conflict. Its only positive option is US and Western direct intervention, and that is why the US Zionist donor network is being utilized to the hilt as the foreign interference operation (along with AIPAC etc.) that it is.
The YouTube channel “The Mizrahi Perspective” provides excellent insights into the internal political workings of Israel, its colossal internal and external propaganda machines and its colossal state of denial. A denial cracked by October 7th, cracked again by the Iranian missile attacks, and a denial which will finally break under the force of geopolitical realities; its time is limited. Also, the wider impacts of Israel’s genocidal and aggressor stance. Here, he talks about the dilemma that Netanyahu and Trump now face:
Today, Trump seems to have taken a step back by saying that he will give diplomacy another couple of weeks. But who can trust a Trump that lied so deliberately to mislead the Iranians prior to the attack? One can assume that Iran’s slow bleed of Israel will continue, one so devastating that Israel has now made the filming and reporting of Iranian missile strikes a gaolable offence and banned Al Jazeera from reporting from within Israel.
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/why-ir ... nsequences
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Interpretation of Iran's missile doctrine coincides with reality
June 19, 17:00
Scheme of an underground missile facility for the mass launch of ballistic missiles at a range of up to 2000 km.
As we can see, this material from 5 years ago has almost completely come true. Iran's strikes on Israel are now fully consistent with its missile doctrine, which took into account, among other things, the disorganization of the country's top leadership. Despite the damage suffered from attacks and sabotage, Iran retains the ability to inflict costly targeted damage, as it planned 5 years before the war. Today's strikes on the center of Tel Aviv have become quite indicative.
Interpretation of Iran's missile doctrine
Non-nuclear weapon states may have the highest conventional military capabilities, but this is always considered insufficient when it comes to nuclear war.
This intuitive view is based on two main ideas:
There is no reliable defense against nuclear weapons
Conventional weapons cannot provide a significant counter-response to the use of nuclear weapons.
Iran’s 21st century missile warfare doctrine relies on three main capabilities:
Ballistic missiles precise enough to deliver pinpoint strikes (~50 m) against key enemy assets. These could be critical targets such as power plants and other critical infrastructure, or military targets such as missile silos or missile defense early warning radars.
The launch and deployment options for ballistic missiles are designed to survive the decapitation of the military-political leadership by an adversary's nuclear attack and to accomplish the mission of inflicting serious damage on the adversary.
The damage to the adversary is inflicted at a high enough rate that any counter-campaign aimed at neutralizing Iran's missile forces will be ineffective. Once this capability can be neutralized, it has already exhausted its ballistic missile arsenal and can no longer participate in the conflict.
Once this capability is achieved, the adversary's nuclear option is neutralized by two facts:
A nuclear preemptive strike will not deprive Iran of the ability to counterattack, and what survives is sufficient to inflict damage on a scale that the adversary cannot afford.
The scale of damage, due to the ability to strike critical and high-value targets at a pinpoint level, reaches a level high enough to be comparable to what was previously possible only with nuclear weapons or, at least, with complete air superiority.
The basis of survivability.
In August 2020, Iran revealed a new method of basing solid-fuel ballistic missiles in underground launchers. This concept is based on the ambiguity of true and false sites, as well as the large spaces that can be exploited at so-called “missile farms.”
For a nuclear preemptive strike to neutralize these weakly defended sites, it would be necessary to strike large areas, which would increase the number of nuclear weapons needed.
Other solid-fuel ballistic missiles in Iran’s arsenal include:
Autonomous vehicles that can launch a missile quickly upon receiving an order (e.g., Sejil).
Or off-road launcher-transporters that can hide in the terrain (e.g., Dezful).
Iran’s mountainous terrain is particularly well suited to the latter of the two launch methods. Deep valleys eliminate line-of-sight for the standoff reconnaissance assets that would need it, and also provide some protection against conventional and nuclear weapons.
Another means Iran uses to improve the survivability of its missile systems is to design them small enough to disguise them as civilian trucks, for example by using plastic containers.
Liquid-fueled missiles are a more complex matter.
Iran prefers to retain and even expand its liquid-fueled ballistic missiles despite the availability of solid-fueled missiles for three main reasons:
The superior performance of liquid-fueled intermediate-range ballistic missiles allows for heavier payloads and longer ranges in the same size.
They can be safely stored without the risk of explosion or catastrophic cascade, making them attractive for deep tunnel construction. This is primarily due to the physical separation of the fuel and oxidizer tanks and the warheads.
When stored dry and without fuel, their service life without significant maintenance is enormous. Thus, the investment in the arsenal is designed to last for several generations, and the life cycle costs make such conventional liquid-fueled ballistic missiles attractive.
However, the problems that liquid-fueled missiles pose are also significant: A well-trained crew is needed to fuel and handle the missile.
Iran’s new generation of missiles use fuel and oxidizer combinations that cannot be used at the high temperatures typical of Iran.
So while the solid-fueled Sejil-2 can travel hundreds of kilometers disguised as a civilian truck and hide anywhere, a similar liquid-fueled missile cannot operate very far from its base.
Missile Cities
The concept of storing a valuable arsenal of ballistic missiles in deep tunnel complexes is not new, with China, North Korea and Iran being the countries that have made the most extensive use of this basing concept. Iran calls such complexes “missile cities” due to their scale.
These bases are often buried so deeply in the mountains that their arsenal is protected from nuclear strikes. However, nuclear strikes on the entrances to such bases could potentially disable them for the remainder of a high-intensity conflict or reduce their value because they cannot operate their missiles until the damage is repaired.
A typical missile tunnel.
In conventional attacks on such missile tunnel complexes, excavators and other construction equipment either reopen the entrance within a short period of time or create alternative emergency exits if necessary.
High-quality tunnel linings made of high-performance composite concrete are also used at the entrance sites.
The damage caused by conventional bunker buster bombs to such entrance structures is less than often intuitively assumed. This is true for both bunker buster bombs that can be delivered by manned aircraft and for special means such as the GBU-57.
Thus, while tens of meters of soft rock can be penetrated by such weapons, including several concrete slabs, penetration values drop sharply to a few meters or less when dealing with hard granite rock formations and/or high-performance composite concrete.
The impact of such conventional weapons on critical targets inside the tunnel complexes is virtually non-existent due to the overlying rock thickness, typically 50-100 m for the least fortified of them.
Therefore, reliable capability for rapid repair and continuous operation is guaranteed against conventional bunker buster bombs.
Here it is necessary to emphasize the criticality of the operation of such missile-tunnel systems. Since their sole purpose is to launch the entire arsenal of stored ballistic missiles, for an opponent who has aviation as the only platform for delivering bunker buster bombs, a dilemma arises: in order to deliver a bunker buster, it is necessary to suppress the enemy's integrated air defense system and ensure that it is degraded to a sufficient extent to enable successful delivery of the weapon to the target.
The range of Iran's ballistic missiles allows for the placement of missile cities deep in the central regions of Iran, which is a huge country.
The distance that aviation must survive, flying through enemy airspace without a single damage or destruction, is hundreds of kilometers. Evasive maneuvering with such a heavy payload is often equated to mission failure.
The time-critical nature of ballistic missile warfare does not allow for a sustained SEAD/DEAD campaign to disable an enemy’s integrated air defenses.
Iran’s integrated air defenses and their capabilities have reached a technological level that can effectively counter low observable techniques that are primarily used by Western air forces against high-value targets.
Iran's objective would be to defend a point target (missile city) which is much easier to defend than a random area target. Subsonic cruise missile delivered warheads would suffer most in such a scenario against a point/node defense system.
Countering Missile Cities
The solution to the problem posed by such a missile city would be nuclear warheads delivered by precision ballistic missiles. In the future, this could be hypersonic bunker busting conventional missiles or low yield ground penetrating ballistic missiles.
Granite rock formations can withstand a 300 kt contact blast delivered by thermonuclear ballistic missile warheads (~100 m) if the depth/overburden is ~
300 m if anchor bolts and mesh lined tunnels are used. This is typical for very deep missile storage areas and low risk transit tunnel sections that can withstand damage.
100m using high grade concrete lining. This is typical for critical areas with sensitive equipment and personnel.
30-50m using high strength concrete structures for entry areas. Such transit sections can withstand damage and spalling/debris and simply need to remain passable.
Polymer splinter protected work area.
Entry areas, which almost always have less granite overburden than the 30-50m mentioned, can be heavily damaged due to the risk of total tunnel collapse. It takes a significant amount of time to free and clear such entry sections for continued launch operations. Multiple hits over a long period of time can completely disable a missile city for the duration of the war. Thus, although the missile arsenal cannot be destroyed by enemy nuclear weapons systems, effective actions against such missile tunnel complexes are possible in the event of a conflict.
Nuclear-resistant missile cities
Missile cities that can withstand nuclear strikes and continue launch operations are of the cave silo type.
This concept does not require an entry zone or opening large enough for the launchers to operate, and instead launches missiles from inside a mountain through a vertical shaft that can be several tens of meters long.
As long as the shaft remains clear, launch operations can continue, and the nature of this concept allows it to survive multiple hits from precision (e.g. Trident II) nuclear weapons and remain operational.
Qiam ballistic missile cavern launch
Since Iran lacks a nuclear triad and expensive delivery platforms like SSBNs, it can focus its resources on developing a complex and expensive basing method like cavern basing.
During the basing study for the US MX Peacekeeper ICBM, cavern basing was rated as the most successful basing concept in terms of robustness, but also one of the most expensive.
Only Iran and possibly North Korea are known to use the cavern launch concept.
However, the rock formations of such Iranian systems are likely not suitable for multiple nuclear hits due to the relatively shallow barrel depth.
The examples of such systems shown so far have been firing one missile at a time, which does not meet the timing parameter that is most important in a high-intensity missile war.
A detailed graph showing how the new concept likely works
In early November 2020, Iran unveiled a new concept for launching and loading ballistic missiles. A high mobility electric railcar carrying 5 ready-to-launch liquid-fueled missiles loaded into a semi-automated erector system. It is best described as a multi-launch carousel magazine loading and launch system that allows for continuous parallel loading operations.
The IRGC Aerospace Force has not revealed how or where the missiles are launched.
The launch method could be a combination of the previously disclosed cavern launch concept, potentially a vertical shaft more than 100 meters deep.
However, it appears Iran has opted for a more down-to-earth, far less complex and resource-intensive concept that maintains the nuclear resilience requirements of the facility.
The concept is based on the following features:
The cavern is deep enough to be unaffected by the force of the blast, overpressure, and radiant heat.
Small enough to pose a very low risk of a direct hit from a nuclear bomb into the cavern .
Deep enough to require a steep-angle-of-attack weapon trajectory to hit the critical lower portion of the cavern where the rails and tunnel door are located.
Situated deep in a valley to complicate the weapon's trajectory and use natural barriers to deflect the blast.
The launch silo is bored into solid granite rock, reinforced and lined with high-performance concrete structures. Such relatively small structures can be well protected from nuclear weapons, just as ICBM silos are designed to remain intact from a close-in thermonuclear warhead (~300 m).
Unlike a standard ICBM silo, the Iranian silo does not contain sensitive equipment and serves no function other than to facilitate the delivery of a missile through a special door and subsequent launch. Consequently, it is not only more resistant to damage, but can also be repaired by improvised engineering means if necessary.
The purpose of this type of silo is to contain the erosion caused by a nuclear blast to a level low enough to leave the door and launch pad intact. The surface explosion, the primary mechanism for destroying hardened nuclear weapons, must remain within the limits of the yield to prevent the last 10–30 m of the missile transit tunnel from being irreparably damaged. Vibration levels in this section of the tunnel can be neglected, since a simple door collapse and malfunction must be avoided.
Multi-megaton nuclear warheads have a more adverse effect but are not used for counter strikes, mainly because they are either fewer in number or heavier. Earth-penetrating nuclear bunker busters are primarily used for air delivery, as a ballistic missile strike is considered less effective.
Newly opened complex
Loading chamber of the new launch concept,
In addition to this new basing and launch concept, the tunnel complex also has conventional silos as a secondary launch option. The huge complex has deep missile storage bays with anchor bolts and mesh lining, polymer-lined compartments where sensitive equipment is protected and ground impacts can cause only minor damage. Warhead mating and missile loading areas, where warheads pose a concentrated risk of catastrophic cascade effects, must be separated from the rest of the complex.
Transit tunnel sections where damage and spalling are acceptable, and anchor bolts and mesh are used.
Critical areas and low cover entry areas where high quality lining is used.
Missile launcher in transit tunnel section
In addition to these details, to estimate the overall firepower it would be necessary to know how many loading bays, how many carrier cars, and how many launch silos there are.
If it is a large complex, as is assumed, hundreds of different ballistic missiles could be stored, which would be done in the deepest bays. These inexpensive anchor and mesh lined sections have a granite cap of 300-600 m and are therefore considered impervious to nuclear attack.
Liquid fuel missile types that are likely present and compatible with minor modifications include:
SRBM Qiam with a range of 800 km with precision strike, MaRV, and warheads with submunitions. Primarily for use against air bases of neighboring countries to destroy specific sites or to ensure the impossibility of operations due to accidental interval strikes with submunitions of warheads that require removal due to the risk of unexploded ordnance and accidental placement.
SRBM Emad with a range of 1,700 km with a precision warhead MaRV for key military and high-value sites of a regional adversary.
Heavy SRBM Khorramshahr with additional ammunition and MaRV warheads With a payload that is approximately 3 times higher than the Emad and Ghadr-H missiles, this new ballistic missile with a heavy warhead(s) will be available in greater numbers. In terms of cost and benefits, one Khorramshahr with a 1.8-ton submunition warhead causes the same damage as three Gadr-H, which is a significant advantage. The range is up to 2,000 km.
In terms of firepower generation, depending on how many parallel loading sites are available in the complex to load the unmanned automatic wagon magazine, the value can vary greatly. Since the location of this static system is known and modern missiles do not require a turntable for azimuth alignment, loading is relatively fast.
Compared to Iran's tactical solid-fuel missiles, the liquid-fueled missile arsenal is launched at predetermined targets, so if the conflict is very intense, these missiles will be launched as quickly as possible.
Conclusion
In the past, Iran sought protection from nuclear explosions with its concept of basing liquid-fueled missiles in a vertical silo in a cavern.
The new concept of launching and loading five missiles can also be applied to this concept, but it is expensive and requires a very mature missile system with the highest reliability.
It is expected that in combination with the concept of a separate silo launch pad, a sufficient degree of protection against a nuclear explosion will be achieved.
This allows the existing missile cities to be retrofitted with this capability at an affordable cost and within a reasonable time frame.
This and other various cladding methods show that the IRGC Aerospace Force is very confident that this is necessary to achieve a specific goal with high cost effectiveness.
Operating area and docking of the warhead
The dynamics of the development of this basing method are very different from those of other countries:
Iran is not a nuclear power; it requires a huge amount of precision firepower to make a difference in a conflict and ultimately deter an adversary from a first nuclear strike. In this case, silos with single missiles do not make sense, since hundreds to thousands of ballistic missiles are required in each theater. The absence of nuclear weapons, as well as various basing concepts for them, with the highest potential and most expensive option - SSBNs - allows resources to be concentrated on conventional missile forces.
Iran has the necessary sparsely populated areas, as well as high mountain topology and suitable rock formations to use such a basing method. This concept brings Iran closer to achieving a capability that no other country has: deterring nuclear powers from a preemptive preventive conventional nuclear strike. Iran is limited to a missile range of about 2,000 km. Previously, this range was the maximum that could be achieved with a relatively cost-effective single-stage missile.
As Iran's missile program rapidly improves in technology, a liquid-fueled, two-stage ICBM with direct deterrence and continental US strike capability may become a reality at some point, and the missile basing method shown is probably already quite good in its current state.
https://patarames.blogspot.com/2020/11/ ... ility.html - zinc
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9908420.html
Iran: Between War of Attrition and Defeat
June 20, 9:05
Iran: Between War of Attrition and Defeat
In fact, Iran's ability to wage a long war depends not on whether the US manages to bomb Fordow and still penetrate the Natanz facility, but on the ability to continue launching missiles at Israel and US facilities in the region over a long distance.
In fact, we do not know how many missiles Iran actually has (almost all missile cities are now functional) and whether Iran has the ability to produce missiles in underground structures.
It is simpler with drones, because, as the example of Ukraine shows, hidden production can be quite easily dispersed throughout the country.
As it seems to me, the main risks for Iran in this kind of war are the under-suppressed internal agents of Israel, the integrity of the command and the stability of society in the medium term when socio-economic security facilities are damaged.
You cannot win a war with airstrikes alone. To plant a puppet regime in Tehran, either direct intervention is needed, which is unlikely. Or destruction from within (a coup, a military mutiny, mass protests of the dissatisfied). If Iran can control the negative factors for itself, it will be able to exist quite confidently in the conditions of a long campaign against Israel and those who stand behind it. If not, at some point everything may break down. As it was with Yugoslavia, which went to the Dayton Accords and signed its own death warrant. Actually, this is what the US and Israel are counting on. So Iran may indeed lose.
But if it maintains control, the struggle may lead to completely unpredictable results for the entire region.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9909368.html
Defeat of Microsoft regional office in Beer Sheva. 06/20/2025
June 20, 11:09
A single Iranian ballistic missile successfully hit a Microsoft regional office in the Beersheba High-Tech Park, which opened in 2017.
Netanyahu called the park a "strategic breakthrough for Israel" that would expand Israel's cyber defense capabilities. Netanyahu wanted to make Beersheba the "cyber capital of the Eastern Hemisphere." The building was used by the IDF.
(More images at link.)
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9909629.html
Google Translator
******
Pakistan breaks ranks, backs Iran in war with Israel
Pakistan reveals that Israeli drone operators attempted to sabotage Pakistan's nuclear facilities during the India-Pakistan crisis in May. This is a major reason why Islamabad is throwing its full weight behind Tehran in the Israel-Iran war.
F.M. Shakil
JUN 19, 2025
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Despite Islamabad’s official denials of providing military or material support to Iran in its confrontation with Israel, recent developments suggest a dramatic shift in regional alignments. Today, Pakistan and China appear to be coordinating closely with Tehran, offering tangible strategic advantages as Tel Aviv escalates its hostilities.
As war clouds gathered, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held urgent discussions with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on 14 June. That same day, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who expressed Islamabad's “resolute solidarity” with Iran. He also added that the country “stands firmly with the Iranian people in this critical hour.”
China and Pakistan's role
In the immediate aftermath, reports emerged of Pakistani military delegations arriving in Tehran amid the hostilities. Although swiftly denied by Islamabad, the timing and context fuel speculation of deeper collaboration. Similarly, Beijing reportedly greenlit the transfer of its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) technology to Iran, formalized in a new bilateral MoU – an upgrade that dramatically enhanced the precision of Iranian missile strikes.
Though Pakistan continues to reject claims of missile transfers to Iran, its stance in recent days paints a different picture. On 16 June, members of the Iranian parliament chanted “Thank you, thank you Pakistan” following remarks by Pezeshkian, who praised Pakistan for standing by Iran. These developments fly in the face of Pakistan's non-alignment rhetoric and indicate an ideological and strategic realignment by Islamabad.
It was only early last year that Iran launched missile and drone strikes into Pakistan’s Balochistan region on 16 January, targeting extremist militant group Jaish al-Adl positions. Pakistan retaliated two days later on 18 January, conducting air and missile strikes into Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province in an operation dubbed Marg Bar Sarmachar. The tit-for-tat was remarkably friendly in the final analysis, and appears to have settled some critical border cooperation issues between the two states.
The fact that these former adversaries – who had just engaged in direct military exchanges – have now adopted “resolute solidarity” is nothing short of breathtaking.
Beijing’s embrace of Iran is grounded in energy security and strategic depth instead. Its ambitious, multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aimed at linking the Eurasian landmass hinges on the stability of Tehran and Islamabad, with the Gwadar and Chahbahar ports forming key arteries in China's westward expansion.
China also supplies J-10 fighter jets and HQ‑9 air‑defense systems to Pakistan, which played key roles in the extraordinary May 2025 skirmish between India and Pakistan – marking major testing ground for Chinese weapons. A parallel circumstance is present in Iran. China must acknowledge Iran because it is a crucial supporter of China's energy needs and trade operations.
“The enemy of my friend is my enemy” may well define the new tripartite logic binding Iran, Pakistan, and China in resistance to Israeli and western designs.
Colonial ambitions and nuclear red lines
Tel Aviv’s recent strikes on Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure mark a new phase in a decades-long western strategy aimed at dismantling Muslim powers resistant to colonial domination. Iraq, Syria, Libya – all were destabilized under similar pretexts. The 2001 plot, conceived by the US, its European allies, and Israel, has entered its second phase, targeting Iran initially and Pakistan subsequently.
In a 2011 interview with Channel 2, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid bare the logic: Iran and Pakistan are the primary targets of this containment strategy, he stated blankly. “These radical regimes ... pose a significant threat,” he said, stressing the need to prevent them from acquiring nuclear capability.
But recent Israeli provocations have instead triggered multipolar resistance to those plans. Speaking to The Cradle, Abdullah Khan of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) reveals that Israeli drone operators had recently attempted to sabotage Pakistan's nuclear facilities during the India–Pakistan crisis:
“Israeli drone operators were stationed in Indian operation rooms during the recent Pakistan–India conflict, trying to target Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. However, prompt action from Pakistan thwarted their efforts, preventing them from causing any damage to the nuclear assets of Pakistan.”
Defensive posturing or new axis?
A source in Pakistan's Foreign Ministry reveals to The Cradle that Islamabad has quietly warned Washington of a potential nuclear escalation should Israel attack Iran with such weapons.
“If such a situation arises, it will spill beyond Iran. The region will enter a new, unpredictable security phase,” the source states.
Meanwhile, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif caused a stir with an incendiary post targeting exiled Iranian royal Reza Pahlavi, the son of the ousted shah of Iran. In response to Pahlavi's BBC interview, Asif wrote on X:
“If Iranian people are energized and motivated, according to you, show some balls and go back and lead them and remove the regime. Put your money where your arse is, bloody parasitical imperial whore.”
Bilal Khan, a Toronto-based defense/security analyst and the co-founder of independent think tank Quwa Defence News & Analysis Group, tells The Cradle that Islamabad perceives itself as under coordinated pressure from the US, India, and Israel.
“The Pakistani security elite perceive that the US and its counter-proliferation regime are imposing penalties on Pakistan, although it was India that brought the nuclear issue to South Asia. “There exists a structural perception in Rawalpindi that the US, along with its allies India and Israel, is targeting Pakistan's nuclear program. Nonetheless, it remains uncertain how Pakistan will handle the situation. Certainly, increased investment in air defense systems, enhanced domestic intelligence capabilities, and strengthening the air force with next-generation J-35 stealth fighters are all essential to take on any possible Israeli actions."
From denial to celebration
While Islamabad has offered no formal commitment of military aid to Tehran, Iranian media and parliament are now rallying around Pakistan with chants of “Pakistan Zindabad.”
Diplomatically, Islamabad has backed Tehran’s call for a UN Security Council session on Israeli aggression and explicitly defended Iran’s right to self-defense. Alongside Algeria, China, and Russia, Pakistan played a key role in amplifying Iran’s initiative, marking a coordinated diplomatic front that signals a deeper convergence within the Eurasian bloc. This is no small gesture from a country once considered a possible target of Israel’s preemptive doctrine.
In a move that exposes Washington’s alarm, Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, was quietly summoned to the US Central Command headquarters in Florida. His absence from a key national parade in Islamabad has raised questions at home. While the Pakistani embassy remains tight-lipped, Dawn cited sources anticipating “uncomfortable conversations” in Washington.
Whether Munir's US visit results in a recalibration or further consolidation of Islamabad's alignment with Tehran and Beijing remains uncertain. But one thing is clear: Pakistan is no longer sitting on the fence.
https://thecradle.co/articles/pakistan- ... ith-israel
Talk is cheap but that's tellin' him.
Roger Boyd
Jun 19, 2025
The first thing that the likes of the ignorant Senator Ted Cruz should understand is that Iran is Persian not Arab, and represents an independent civilization going back to the times of ancient Greece. And that Islam is a religion not an ethnicity, as is Judaism. He also needs to go re-read his Bible, specifically Genesis 12:1-3 which says:
Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
This is Abram, the father of the three great Abrahamic religions; Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Israel is never mentioned, and it also very specifically states that “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you”. To misquote the Bible, explicitly misrepresenting the stated words of the Christian God, is to be a heretic. Ted Cruz should be reminded that he was elected to serve Americans, not to serve a foreign power. Here, displaying his utter ignorance and mendacity in his service of a foreign power:
The Scofield Bible, a heretical reinterpretation of the King James Bible by Scofield, is a core text of the Dispensationalist movement that believes in an End Times in the present (rather than the End Times being seen as the fall of Rome as accepted in mainstream Christianity). I have written about the highly questionable origins and mainstreaming of the Scofield Bible, together with the related mainstreaming of the capitalist-friendly Prosperity Gospel. All of which was a political project, not a religious one.
After Scofield died the Oxford University Press issued a 1967 (the year of the Six Day War) update entitled The New Scofield Bible which included specific additions that greatly increased the support for the state of Israel and its rights to take the Palestinian lands; “close to an endorsement of US foreign policy on the state of Israel” (Donald Akenson, The Americanization Of The Apocalypse, p. 435). The Scofield Bible teaches the notion that Gentiles are “blessed in association with Israel”, and that God supports the stealing of the Palestinian lands to create Israel and the demolition of the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in the Muslim world, to rebuild The Temple (a core belief of the most extremist Zionists); also the return of Jewish religious sacrifices.
This very political project of spreading a gospel that thoroughly supported capitalism and Western civilizational supremacy in a US that at the end of WW2 was not particularly religious (and where the religious slanted toward the social gospel that was supportive of the New Deal) is detailed by Kevin M. Kruse, in One Nation Under God. An extremely successful political project that mirrored the Othering of the Soviet Union and China as “godless communists”, and later the Othering of “Muslim terrorists”.
The deranged neoliberal armageddon cultist Mike Huckabee, the US Ambassador to Israel, is but one of the more severe examples of the success of this Christian Zionism and Prosperity Gospel project, in producing a significant religious fundamentalist section of the US population that perfectly serves US imperial objectives. A classic case of Gramsci’s cultural hegemony used to cognitively corral a major part of the population into supporting the US oligarchy against its own political-economic interests, the creation of a false consciousness.
In the same piece, I covered how the US Jewish community turned to the political right during the attack upon their community during the McCarthy era of the 1950s. Embracing the US Empire and capitalism and clinging close to the centres of US power as a defensive mechanism; a project methodically carried out over seven decades. It is a strategy also carried out by the government of Israel, making itself indispensable to the West while also seeking power within the Western polity aided by significant parts of the Jewish diaspora. This greatly suited a West that was happy to have its own neo-colonial servant in such an important region, one that would carry out the Western dirty work not just in the Middle East but across the world with plausible deniability for the West. As Joe Biden stated, if an Israel had not existed the US would have had to invent one.
Theodor Herzl, the grandfather of Zionism, was an atheist. Just as an atheist cannot be a Christian or a Moslem, they cannot be a Jew if we accept that Judaism is a religion and not an ethnicity (with the latter disproven by basic genetics). Herzl was open to different locations for his Jewish state, as a political and secular project. Netanyahu was raised in a secular family, and from his statements and actions can be seen also as an atheist. He was the personal secretary to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the atheist founder of Revisionist Zionism, a man who with Netanyahu’s atheist father had an overwhelming influence on his political philosophy.
But time is running out for both the US and Israel with respect to these political projects. From 2007 to 2021 Evangelical (the core of religious Zionism in the US) worship fell from 30% to 24% of the population, and more recently that number is 23%; with only 14% of those 18 to 29 against 30% of those 30 and older. Evangelical worship is slowly but surely dying out and by 2025 that 14% may very well be all under the age of 39, while those currently 50 and above enter the years of accelerating death rates. The majority of US Jews under the age of 50 are already not Zionist, with the core of US Zionism funded by a small group of the ageing Jewish Zionist rich. At the same time the secular project of Israel is being rent asunder by the civil war between the secular (mostly Ashkenazi) liberal European Jews and the ultra-orthodox predominantly European Haredi Jews and the non-European Mizrahi Jews who have been historically racially discriminated against within Israel. All are happy to slaughter Arabs and steal their land, but the latter two want to establish a truly Jewish fundamentalist state which would reject the whole liberal project of the Ashkenazi.
In extremis, Israel would become the Jewish version of the ISIS Caliphate. A state and political project that disingenuously and aggressively thrusts its “Jewishness” forwards to claim the victimhood of the Holocaust is now ironically threatened by the imposition of an actual Jewish religious state; underlining the fact that Zionism is not a religious project and is a separate thing to Judaism. All the while, the US and Western global power that peaked in the 1990s is in a secular decline and with it the ability of Israel’s “big brother” to sustain and protect it.
The antagonism of the West to Iran has always been about energy and geopolitics, not about religion or “human rights” or any other such disingenuous blather. As with Russia and China, Iran resisted outright colonization, although there was a great amount of UK internal interference and influence in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. It possessed both vast amounts of fossil fuels and a strategic geographic location in the Middle East, while maintaining its own culture and civilization. In the post-WW2 years its politics took a more democratic turn and in the early 1950s a nationalist leader, Mosaddegh came to power and moved to take control of the vast fossil fuel resources for the benefit of Iranians. This could not be allowed by the West and an MI6/CIA coup took place in 1953, installing Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (of the previously obedient vassal Pahlavi dynasty) as the dictator Shah of Iran. He set about destroying the socialist opposition through extensive arrests, torture and disappearances carried out by the brutal Savak secret police. The propagandistic use of pictures from this era showing a “prosperous” and “Western” Iran show how the elites lived, not the majority. It also shows how disingenuous so many of the Western “critical” scholars are, who push “critical” and “feminist” tropes in the service of empire while utterly ignoring political-economic, imperial and neocolonial realities. After 26 years of the Shah the only real opposition that was left was the religious establishment and that is why they dominated the revolution of 1979 that overthrew the Shah.
With the revolution there was no purging of the capitalist elite and other oppositional forces, as with the Soviet Union and China; while a significant portion fled the majority stayed to represent a liberal and Western leaning minority that is open to Western dominance and treason against the state. The West calls these the “progressives” when in fact they are hardline neoliberals who would be happy to turn their nation into a Western vassal that facilitates their own internal domination and kleptocracy; just as under the Shah. A newly independent Iran was not acceptable to the West and it pushed Iraq to invade Iran to crush the new regime, resulting in the Iran-Iraq War that stretched from September 1980 to August 1988. Iran was not defeated, but massive amounts of resources that should have gone toward building a new Iran were consumed by a war that included the widespread use of poisoned gas by the Iraqis (made from ingredients knowingly and happily supplied by the West). This can be seen somewhat as a parallel for the Western invasions of the Soviet Union in support of the White Russian forces, together with the Polish invasion, following the Russian Revolution of 1917; an attempt to snuff out the new regime before it could truly establish itself. Both failed, but at great cost to the new regimes. And yes, as late as 1988 Iraq was doing the US Empire’s dirty work, the massive cost of which drove Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait (after being given the nod by the US) to gain new revenues.
In the 1990s, and 2000s, the US became bogged down in its wars in the Middle East; failing at the first Iraqi hurdle of its “seven nations in five years” project or Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan; while also becoming bogged down in Afghanistan. With the focus of the US Empire elsewhere, Iran gained some room for manoeuvre and prospered on a relative basis. Using purchasing power parity, Iran’s GDP per capita increased from US$7,260 in 1990 to US$18,490 in 2010. Then came the oil price collapse of the mid 2010s on top of the sanctions against Iran’s legal nuclear enrichment activities. These included the actions of the US vassal EU to disconnect Iran from the SWIFT international payments system. At no time has there been any call for sanctions against an Israel which is in open violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; the issue with Iran has nothing to do with its civilian nuclear program. If Iran actually had nuclear weapons it would more be in the stronger position that a nuclear-armed North Korea enjoys. The US failed occupation of Iraq from 2003 onwards actually lead to significant Iranian influence in an Iraq that had previously been its enemy, possibly a reason for the US to escalate sanctions against Iran; especially with Iran’s role in combating the Western destabilization of Syria and the Western security services created ISIS project.
In 2015 Iran agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (China, US, Russia, France, UK) plus Germany and the EU to limit its uranium enrichment activities in return for sanctions relief and other provisions; taking effect in January 2016. In May 2018, the Trump administration pulled out of the JCPOA on utterly spurious grounds even though the IAEA confirmed that Iran was following the terms of the agreement, as Iran did until July 2019 when it became obvious that the US vassals would not continue with sanctions relief given the US position. The previous sanctions, plus increased sanctions were imposed from May 2018 onwards. The Biden administration disingenuously took part in new negotiations, but escalated the conditions upon Iran significantly above those in the JCPOA.
Iran successfully pivoted away from the West, signing a 25-year cooperation program with China in 2020 which promised long term investment and trade. China has been the predominant purchaser of Iranian oil (Iran’s gas reserves are used for domestic energy consumption needs) in the past years. Then, with the mass sanctioning of Russia after the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Iran was able to develop much closer relations with a Russia that had nothing to lose in working with a fellow sanctioned nation. In January 2025, Iran and Russia signed a Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership that aims to boost bilateral economic and trade ties. Russia is building a number of nuclear reactors in Iran to aid it with its electricity supply shortfalls. In 2024 Iran also became a full member of BRICS, and in late May 2025 the first train ran on the Urumqi (China) to Tehran (Iran) railway, providing a direct rail freight link between the two nations; developing Iran as a transport hub with links to both China and Russia.
Iran has already nearly regained the peak PPP GDP per capita level of 2011, with GDP growth of 5% in 2023 and 3% in 2024 and is now threatening to become a development success that is totally independent of the West. On top of this, it has established peaceful diplomatic relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council states and the US had been ignominiously thrown out of Afghanistan. All the while, US global power is declining and its soft power significantly undermined by its support of the Zionist genocide; with Israel increasingly becoming a pariah even among the populations (but not the oligarchies) of the West. Syria has been subjugated under the rule of an ex-ISIS leader remade as a politician by the Western intelligence agencies, and significantly occupied by both Israel and Turkey, but this also signifies a new challenge to Israeli regional dominance in Turkey. At the same time, the Israeli economy and society are being worn down by the ongoing genocide, low intensity war with Hezbollah and Ansar Allah, and the internal civil war. Israel is in danger of falling while Iran rises as an integrated and important part of BRINCISTAN (now with only one S with the subjugation of Syria) of Belarus, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, Iraq and the “Stans”.
While Russia refuses to accept any US terms with respect to the Ukrainian War that would represent a “defeat at the negotiating table”, and is gaining in strength rather than having been destroyed by Western sanctions and proxy military aggression. And while the Trump administration did a TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) on its trade war with China once the latter displayed its relative economic and financial power, the fiasco of the Trump birthday military procession took place and the administration was unable to bully the rest of the world into trade surrender. Then to add to this was the utter inability of the vaunted US military to quell the Ansar Allah movement in Yemen, with Ansar Allah still acting to control traffic in the Red Sea and to bombard Israel. With the increasing civil resistance against the new authoritarianism at home, which has nothing to do with an illegal immigration which could be rapidly dealt with by arresting a few of the illegal immigrant-hiring CEOs, and also the increasing psychological dishevelment of 79-year-old Trump himself. The Trump of today is not the Trump of his first term and not even the Trump of 2024 that already looked like a shadow of his former self. He may not have declined to the level of Biden who was 81 in the final year of his administration, but is most certainly in the age of decline; not helped by his historical lack of exercise, obesity and diet. We should not underestimate the readiness of his administration to cover up this decline, given the great lengths that the previous administration went to to cover up and deny Biden’s decline into dementia. The parallels with the end of the Soviet Union with one sick and ageing leader after another are redolent.
The US is becoming increasingly strife-torn and internationally derided and resisted. In such a situation, regime change in Iran would be a “Hail Mary” pass that delivered both Iraq and Iran to Western domination, while greatly undermining the positions of Russia and China, and displaying that the US “still has it”.
That was the real reason for the attack upon Iran, nothing to do with its nuclear program that was confirmed by Tulsi Gabbard, the US Director of National Intelligence, only recently as not being military in nature; echoing the findings of the IAEA. Even Jon Stewart called out the utter BS of the “urgent” need for an attack on Iran (as well as the fiasco of Trump’s birthday military parade and the parallels between US imperial discourse and the new domestic authoritarian discourse).
It has nothing to do with Iran “supporting terrorists” which is just Western code for Iran supporting groups that resist the West’s imperial agenda. It has nothing to do with religion, especially when Iran is the home to a Jewish community that has never been persecuted. It is about geopolitics, and the maintenance of US/Western global power for as long as possible. And also about the survival of a Netanyahu that knows that he will be off to jail for both his corruption and the genocide once he loses power, a man who needed his own “Hail Mary” pass.
But this was based on the usual Western fantasies that greatly underestimate the enemy and greatly overestimate their own capabilities. Iran was not a Syria that had been undermined for a decade and a half of Western (including the Gulf states) aggression and a sanctions blockade, ruled by an incompetent and corrupt Assad regime sitting between the Western dominated Israel, Jordan and Iraq, and an avaricious Turkey and a destroyed and infiltrated Lebanon. Iran is a strong nation of 93 million, equipped with its own independent industrial and military sectors with a colossal mountainous geography situated between fellow Moslem nations to the east, north and west. Together with the ability to destroy the oil and gas infrastructure which is critical to world energy supplies.
That the US, and other Western nations, were very fully involved in the “Israeli” surprise attack upon Iran on June 13th is blindingly obvious to those that look closely, and listen to the statements of Western politicians. The US President was actively involved through disingenuous negotiations with Iran, and his statements saying that he was against any Israeli attack until after the next round of negotiations which would have taken place after the Israeli attack started. This attack was planned for at least eight months, if not longer, and was designed through the use of Iranian traitorous elements to decapitate the Iranian leadership and destabilize the nation to the point that it could be divided and subjugated.
But none of this happened. The murdered Iranian leaders were rapidly replaced with newer (and most probably more hard line) cadres, the Iranian air defence system was brought back online quickly rather than being down much longer as envisaged by the attackers, much of the traitorous network was quickly rolled up by the Iranian security forces, and Iran’s military capabilities were not seriously undermined as many hits seemed to be on fake mockups and only affected above ground installations. In addition, Iran did not unleash thousands of missiles upon an Israel that could then once again sell itself as a victim requiring Western rescue from the consequences of its crimes, but rather went for the slow economic, financial and social bleed of relatively small numbers of rockets each day. Both using up the capabilities of the vaunted “Iron Sieve” and utterly destabilizing an Israel that has no strategic depth and is utterly dependent upon imports and the willingness of the productive liberal Ashkenazi to remain in the country.
Netanyahu’s move to stop Israeli’s from leaving their country is a sign of the success of the Iranian campaign after only a matter of days. The liberal Ashkenazi want Brooklyn-on-the-Mediterranean with the genocide carried out of sight “over there”, and certainly not to feel even some of the fear that the Palestinians feel every day, and definitely not within a fundamentalist religious state. They did not move to the occupied lands of Palestine to experience this:
They are more than ready to flee to their ancestral homes abroad if their Brooklyn-on-the-Mediterranean liberal project is seen as ended. As many already have; they have no stomach for the punishments that they so easily and enthusiastically dish out to others.
With the “shock and awe” attempt and utter failure, and Iran now slowly bleeding out Israel, Netanyahu’s only option is to embroil the West fully in the conflict. Something that the West did not want, instead wanting to have its “deniability” fig leaf while fully taking part in the subjugation of a destabilized Iran a la Libya and Syria under the cover of “humanitarian intervention” and the puppet Pahlavi regime kept in reserve in the West. So now it must either retreat and order Israel to stop its attacks, which may very well require the taking out of Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders and cause consternation among the US Zionist donor class, or roll up its sleeves and descend into another Middle Eastern quagmire which will sap its strength. It is the latter prospect that is currently holding back the Trump administration from directly attacking Iran, together with up to date - most probably much more accurate and less sanguine than the misleading and self-serving Israeli intelligence - US intelligence reports on Iran’s capabilities and regime stability.
Trump also stands on the edge of a precipice, having to decide between the Zionist donor class that brought him to power and has financially rescued him a number of times and the MAGA coalition that elected him to focus on making America great again by focusing on domestic issues and ending, and especially not starting, foreign wars. With more Republican voters than Democrat voters against direct US involvement in a war with Iran, the mid-terms could return Democratic and RINO (Republican In Name Only) House and Senate majorities that would be more than happy to once again bring impeachment proceedings against him. Any financial and economic crisis stemming from direct US involvement would also destroy his economic agenda. He would truly become a lame duck president, hated by both Democrats and Republicans. This is the dilemma that faces a Trump that is so obviously in decline under the pressures of the presidency at the age of 79.
Both Putin and Xi are a much younger and seemingly healthier 72, both with extremely high levels of domestic and international legitimacy and with the former able to stand for reelection in 2030 and the latter not bothered with such liberal democratic trappings. To them Trump is a passing phenomenon to be dealt with during the secular decline of the West. They win if Trump decides to intervene directly (with the West sucked into a Middle Eastern quagmire and possibly engulfed in an economic and financial maelstrom while further losing support in the rest of the world) and win if he doesn’t (with Iran and BRINCISTAN growing stronger while Israel is thrown into domestic crisis and with the Trump administration in conflict with the Zionist donor class); they will not become directly involved in the conflict. Trump and the West have walked themselves into a trap with no positive outcome available.
Fundamentally, the US and its Western vassals are faced with a defeat or a defeat; a conundrum. Made worse by the very real possible issue of a financial collapse given the probable closure of the Straits of Hormuz and the prospect of yet more massive debt-fuelled US government war spending. Will the losing struggle of the West to maintain its dominance take on an even greater military aggression, to add to the Ukraine proxy war and the Zionist genocide? Or will it maintain its somewhat peaceful progress? For Israel there is an existential threat as a continued campaign without direct Western intervention is simply not tenable, especially given the Iranian intelligent slow-bleed strategy, while an ending of its attacks upon Iran may very well bring the fall of the government and a more intense stage of internal conflict. Its only positive option is US and Western direct intervention, and that is why the US Zionist donor network is being utilized to the hilt as the foreign interference operation (along with AIPAC etc.) that it is.
The YouTube channel “The Mizrahi Perspective” provides excellent insights into the internal political workings of Israel, its colossal internal and external propaganda machines and its colossal state of denial. A denial cracked by October 7th, cracked again by the Iranian missile attacks, and a denial which will finally break under the force of geopolitical realities; its time is limited. Also, the wider impacts of Israel’s genocidal and aggressor stance. Here, he talks about the dilemma that Netanyahu and Trump now face:
Today, Trump seems to have taken a step back by saying that he will give diplomacy another couple of weeks. But who can trust a Trump that lied so deliberately to mislead the Iranians prior to the attack? One can assume that Iran’s slow bleed of Israel will continue, one so devastating that Israel has now made the filming and reporting of Iranian missile strikes a gaolable offence and banned Al Jazeera from reporting from within Israel.
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/why-ir ... nsequences
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Interpretation of Iran's missile doctrine coincides with reality
June 19, 17:00
Scheme of an underground missile facility for the mass launch of ballistic missiles at a range of up to 2000 km.
As we can see, this material from 5 years ago has almost completely come true. Iran's strikes on Israel are now fully consistent with its missile doctrine, which took into account, among other things, the disorganization of the country's top leadership. Despite the damage suffered from attacks and sabotage, Iran retains the ability to inflict costly targeted damage, as it planned 5 years before the war. Today's strikes on the center of Tel Aviv have become quite indicative.
Interpretation of Iran's missile doctrine
Non-nuclear weapon states may have the highest conventional military capabilities, but this is always considered insufficient when it comes to nuclear war.
This intuitive view is based on two main ideas:
There is no reliable defense against nuclear weapons
Conventional weapons cannot provide a significant counter-response to the use of nuclear weapons.
Iran’s 21st century missile warfare doctrine relies on three main capabilities:
Ballistic missiles precise enough to deliver pinpoint strikes (~50 m) against key enemy assets. These could be critical targets such as power plants and other critical infrastructure, or military targets such as missile silos or missile defense early warning radars.
The launch and deployment options for ballistic missiles are designed to survive the decapitation of the military-political leadership by an adversary's nuclear attack and to accomplish the mission of inflicting serious damage on the adversary.
The damage to the adversary is inflicted at a high enough rate that any counter-campaign aimed at neutralizing Iran's missile forces will be ineffective. Once this capability can be neutralized, it has already exhausted its ballistic missile arsenal and can no longer participate in the conflict.
Once this capability is achieved, the adversary's nuclear option is neutralized by two facts:
A nuclear preemptive strike will not deprive Iran of the ability to counterattack, and what survives is sufficient to inflict damage on a scale that the adversary cannot afford.
The scale of damage, due to the ability to strike critical and high-value targets at a pinpoint level, reaches a level high enough to be comparable to what was previously possible only with nuclear weapons or, at least, with complete air superiority.
The basis of survivability.
In August 2020, Iran revealed a new method of basing solid-fuel ballistic missiles in underground launchers. This concept is based on the ambiguity of true and false sites, as well as the large spaces that can be exploited at so-called “missile farms.”
For a nuclear preemptive strike to neutralize these weakly defended sites, it would be necessary to strike large areas, which would increase the number of nuclear weapons needed.
Other solid-fuel ballistic missiles in Iran’s arsenal include:
Autonomous vehicles that can launch a missile quickly upon receiving an order (e.g., Sejil).
Or off-road launcher-transporters that can hide in the terrain (e.g., Dezful).
Iran’s mountainous terrain is particularly well suited to the latter of the two launch methods. Deep valleys eliminate line-of-sight for the standoff reconnaissance assets that would need it, and also provide some protection against conventional and nuclear weapons.
Another means Iran uses to improve the survivability of its missile systems is to design them small enough to disguise them as civilian trucks, for example by using plastic containers.
Liquid-fueled missiles are a more complex matter.
Iran prefers to retain and even expand its liquid-fueled ballistic missiles despite the availability of solid-fueled missiles for three main reasons:
The superior performance of liquid-fueled intermediate-range ballistic missiles allows for heavier payloads and longer ranges in the same size.
They can be safely stored without the risk of explosion or catastrophic cascade, making them attractive for deep tunnel construction. This is primarily due to the physical separation of the fuel and oxidizer tanks and the warheads.
When stored dry and without fuel, their service life without significant maintenance is enormous. Thus, the investment in the arsenal is designed to last for several generations, and the life cycle costs make such conventional liquid-fueled ballistic missiles attractive.
However, the problems that liquid-fueled missiles pose are also significant: A well-trained crew is needed to fuel and handle the missile.
Iran’s new generation of missiles use fuel and oxidizer combinations that cannot be used at the high temperatures typical of Iran.
So while the solid-fueled Sejil-2 can travel hundreds of kilometers disguised as a civilian truck and hide anywhere, a similar liquid-fueled missile cannot operate very far from its base.
Missile Cities
The concept of storing a valuable arsenal of ballistic missiles in deep tunnel complexes is not new, with China, North Korea and Iran being the countries that have made the most extensive use of this basing concept. Iran calls such complexes “missile cities” due to their scale.
These bases are often buried so deeply in the mountains that their arsenal is protected from nuclear strikes. However, nuclear strikes on the entrances to such bases could potentially disable them for the remainder of a high-intensity conflict or reduce their value because they cannot operate their missiles until the damage is repaired.
A typical missile tunnel.
In conventional attacks on such missile tunnel complexes, excavators and other construction equipment either reopen the entrance within a short period of time or create alternative emergency exits if necessary.
High-quality tunnel linings made of high-performance composite concrete are also used at the entrance sites.
The damage caused by conventional bunker buster bombs to such entrance structures is less than often intuitively assumed. This is true for both bunker buster bombs that can be delivered by manned aircraft and for special means such as the GBU-57.
Thus, while tens of meters of soft rock can be penetrated by such weapons, including several concrete slabs, penetration values drop sharply to a few meters or less when dealing with hard granite rock formations and/or high-performance composite concrete.
The impact of such conventional weapons on critical targets inside the tunnel complexes is virtually non-existent due to the overlying rock thickness, typically 50-100 m for the least fortified of them.
Therefore, reliable capability for rapid repair and continuous operation is guaranteed against conventional bunker buster bombs.
Here it is necessary to emphasize the criticality of the operation of such missile-tunnel systems. Since their sole purpose is to launch the entire arsenal of stored ballistic missiles, for an opponent who has aviation as the only platform for delivering bunker buster bombs, a dilemma arises: in order to deliver a bunker buster, it is necessary to suppress the enemy's integrated air defense system and ensure that it is degraded to a sufficient extent to enable successful delivery of the weapon to the target.
The range of Iran's ballistic missiles allows for the placement of missile cities deep in the central regions of Iran, which is a huge country.
The distance that aviation must survive, flying through enemy airspace without a single damage or destruction, is hundreds of kilometers. Evasive maneuvering with such a heavy payload is often equated to mission failure.
The time-critical nature of ballistic missile warfare does not allow for a sustained SEAD/DEAD campaign to disable an enemy’s integrated air defenses.
Iran’s integrated air defenses and their capabilities have reached a technological level that can effectively counter low observable techniques that are primarily used by Western air forces against high-value targets.
Iran's objective would be to defend a point target (missile city) which is much easier to defend than a random area target. Subsonic cruise missile delivered warheads would suffer most in such a scenario against a point/node defense system.
Countering Missile Cities
The solution to the problem posed by such a missile city would be nuclear warheads delivered by precision ballistic missiles. In the future, this could be hypersonic bunker busting conventional missiles or low yield ground penetrating ballistic missiles.
Granite rock formations can withstand a 300 kt contact blast delivered by thermonuclear ballistic missile warheads (~100 m) if the depth/overburden is ~
300 m if anchor bolts and mesh lined tunnels are used. This is typical for very deep missile storage areas and low risk transit tunnel sections that can withstand damage.
100m using high grade concrete lining. This is typical for critical areas with sensitive equipment and personnel.
30-50m using high strength concrete structures for entry areas. Such transit sections can withstand damage and spalling/debris and simply need to remain passable.
Polymer splinter protected work area.
Entry areas, which almost always have less granite overburden than the 30-50m mentioned, can be heavily damaged due to the risk of total tunnel collapse. It takes a significant amount of time to free and clear such entry sections for continued launch operations. Multiple hits over a long period of time can completely disable a missile city for the duration of the war. Thus, although the missile arsenal cannot be destroyed by enemy nuclear weapons systems, effective actions against such missile tunnel complexes are possible in the event of a conflict.
Nuclear-resistant missile cities
Missile cities that can withstand nuclear strikes and continue launch operations are of the cave silo type.
This concept does not require an entry zone or opening large enough for the launchers to operate, and instead launches missiles from inside a mountain through a vertical shaft that can be several tens of meters long.
As long as the shaft remains clear, launch operations can continue, and the nature of this concept allows it to survive multiple hits from precision (e.g. Trident II) nuclear weapons and remain operational.
Qiam ballistic missile cavern launch
Since Iran lacks a nuclear triad and expensive delivery platforms like SSBNs, it can focus its resources on developing a complex and expensive basing method like cavern basing.
During the basing study for the US MX Peacekeeper ICBM, cavern basing was rated as the most successful basing concept in terms of robustness, but also one of the most expensive.
Only Iran and possibly North Korea are known to use the cavern launch concept.
However, the rock formations of such Iranian systems are likely not suitable for multiple nuclear hits due to the relatively shallow barrel depth.
The examples of such systems shown so far have been firing one missile at a time, which does not meet the timing parameter that is most important in a high-intensity missile war.
A detailed graph showing how the new concept likely works
In early November 2020, Iran unveiled a new concept for launching and loading ballistic missiles. A high mobility electric railcar carrying 5 ready-to-launch liquid-fueled missiles loaded into a semi-automated erector system. It is best described as a multi-launch carousel magazine loading and launch system that allows for continuous parallel loading operations.
The IRGC Aerospace Force has not revealed how or where the missiles are launched.
The launch method could be a combination of the previously disclosed cavern launch concept, potentially a vertical shaft more than 100 meters deep.
However, it appears Iran has opted for a more down-to-earth, far less complex and resource-intensive concept that maintains the nuclear resilience requirements of the facility.
The concept is based on the following features:
The cavern is deep enough to be unaffected by the force of the blast, overpressure, and radiant heat.
Small enough to pose a very low risk of a direct hit from a nuclear bomb into the cavern .
Deep enough to require a steep-angle-of-attack weapon trajectory to hit the critical lower portion of the cavern where the rails and tunnel door are located.
Situated deep in a valley to complicate the weapon's trajectory and use natural barriers to deflect the blast.
The launch silo is bored into solid granite rock, reinforced and lined with high-performance concrete structures. Such relatively small structures can be well protected from nuclear weapons, just as ICBM silos are designed to remain intact from a close-in thermonuclear warhead (~300 m).
Unlike a standard ICBM silo, the Iranian silo does not contain sensitive equipment and serves no function other than to facilitate the delivery of a missile through a special door and subsequent launch. Consequently, it is not only more resistant to damage, but can also be repaired by improvised engineering means if necessary.
The purpose of this type of silo is to contain the erosion caused by a nuclear blast to a level low enough to leave the door and launch pad intact. The surface explosion, the primary mechanism for destroying hardened nuclear weapons, must remain within the limits of the yield to prevent the last 10–30 m of the missile transit tunnel from being irreparably damaged. Vibration levels in this section of the tunnel can be neglected, since a simple door collapse and malfunction must be avoided.
Multi-megaton nuclear warheads have a more adverse effect but are not used for counter strikes, mainly because they are either fewer in number or heavier. Earth-penetrating nuclear bunker busters are primarily used for air delivery, as a ballistic missile strike is considered less effective.
Newly opened complex
Loading chamber of the new launch concept,
In addition to this new basing and launch concept, the tunnel complex also has conventional silos as a secondary launch option. The huge complex has deep missile storage bays with anchor bolts and mesh lining, polymer-lined compartments where sensitive equipment is protected and ground impacts can cause only minor damage. Warhead mating and missile loading areas, where warheads pose a concentrated risk of catastrophic cascade effects, must be separated from the rest of the complex.
Transit tunnel sections where damage and spalling are acceptable, and anchor bolts and mesh are used.
Critical areas and low cover entry areas where high quality lining is used.
Missile launcher in transit tunnel section
In addition to these details, to estimate the overall firepower it would be necessary to know how many loading bays, how many carrier cars, and how many launch silos there are.
If it is a large complex, as is assumed, hundreds of different ballistic missiles could be stored, which would be done in the deepest bays. These inexpensive anchor and mesh lined sections have a granite cap of 300-600 m and are therefore considered impervious to nuclear attack.
Liquid fuel missile types that are likely present and compatible with minor modifications include:
SRBM Qiam with a range of 800 km with precision strike, MaRV, and warheads with submunitions. Primarily for use against air bases of neighboring countries to destroy specific sites or to ensure the impossibility of operations due to accidental interval strikes with submunitions of warheads that require removal due to the risk of unexploded ordnance and accidental placement.
SRBM Emad with a range of 1,700 km with a precision warhead MaRV for key military and high-value sites of a regional adversary.
Heavy SRBM Khorramshahr with additional ammunition and MaRV warheads With a payload that is approximately 3 times higher than the Emad and Ghadr-H missiles, this new ballistic missile with a heavy warhead(s) will be available in greater numbers. In terms of cost and benefits, one Khorramshahr with a 1.8-ton submunition warhead causes the same damage as three Gadr-H, which is a significant advantage. The range is up to 2,000 km.
In terms of firepower generation, depending on how many parallel loading sites are available in the complex to load the unmanned automatic wagon magazine, the value can vary greatly. Since the location of this static system is known and modern missiles do not require a turntable for azimuth alignment, loading is relatively fast.
Compared to Iran's tactical solid-fuel missiles, the liquid-fueled missile arsenal is launched at predetermined targets, so if the conflict is very intense, these missiles will be launched as quickly as possible.
Conclusion
In the past, Iran sought protection from nuclear explosions with its concept of basing liquid-fueled missiles in a vertical silo in a cavern.
The new concept of launching and loading five missiles can also be applied to this concept, but it is expensive and requires a very mature missile system with the highest reliability.
It is expected that in combination with the concept of a separate silo launch pad, a sufficient degree of protection against a nuclear explosion will be achieved.
This allows the existing missile cities to be retrofitted with this capability at an affordable cost and within a reasonable time frame.
This and other various cladding methods show that the IRGC Aerospace Force is very confident that this is necessary to achieve a specific goal with high cost effectiveness.
Operating area and docking of the warhead
The dynamics of the development of this basing method are very different from those of other countries:
Iran is not a nuclear power; it requires a huge amount of precision firepower to make a difference in a conflict and ultimately deter an adversary from a first nuclear strike. In this case, silos with single missiles do not make sense, since hundreds to thousands of ballistic missiles are required in each theater. The absence of nuclear weapons, as well as various basing concepts for them, with the highest potential and most expensive option - SSBNs - allows resources to be concentrated on conventional missile forces.
Iran has the necessary sparsely populated areas, as well as high mountain topology and suitable rock formations to use such a basing method. This concept brings Iran closer to achieving a capability that no other country has: deterring nuclear powers from a preemptive preventive conventional nuclear strike. Iran is limited to a missile range of about 2,000 km. Previously, this range was the maximum that could be achieved with a relatively cost-effective single-stage missile.
As Iran's missile program rapidly improves in technology, a liquid-fueled, two-stage ICBM with direct deterrence and continental US strike capability may become a reality at some point, and the missile basing method shown is probably already quite good in its current state.
https://patarames.blogspot.com/2020/11/ ... ility.html - zinc
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9908420.html
Iran: Between War of Attrition and Defeat
June 20, 9:05
Iran: Between War of Attrition and Defeat
In fact, Iran's ability to wage a long war depends not on whether the US manages to bomb Fordow and still penetrate the Natanz facility, but on the ability to continue launching missiles at Israel and US facilities in the region over a long distance.
In fact, we do not know how many missiles Iran actually has (almost all missile cities are now functional) and whether Iran has the ability to produce missiles in underground structures.
It is simpler with drones, because, as the example of Ukraine shows, hidden production can be quite easily dispersed throughout the country.
As it seems to me, the main risks for Iran in this kind of war are the under-suppressed internal agents of Israel, the integrity of the command and the stability of society in the medium term when socio-economic security facilities are damaged.
You cannot win a war with airstrikes alone. To plant a puppet regime in Tehran, either direct intervention is needed, which is unlikely. Or destruction from within (a coup, a military mutiny, mass protests of the dissatisfied). If Iran can control the negative factors for itself, it will be able to exist quite confidently in the conditions of a long campaign against Israel and those who stand behind it. If not, at some point everything may break down. As it was with Yugoslavia, which went to the Dayton Accords and signed its own death warrant. Actually, this is what the US and Israel are counting on. So Iran may indeed lose.
But if it maintains control, the struggle may lead to completely unpredictable results for the entire region.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9909368.html
Defeat of Microsoft regional office in Beer Sheva. 06/20/2025
June 20, 11:09
A single Iranian ballistic missile successfully hit a Microsoft regional office in the Beersheba High-Tech Park, which opened in 2017.
Netanyahu called the park a "strategic breakthrough for Israel" that would expand Israel's cyber defense capabilities. Netanyahu wanted to make Beersheba the "cyber capital of the Eastern Hemisphere." The building was used by the IDF.
(More images at link.)
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9909629.html
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Pakistan breaks ranks, backs Iran in war with Israel
Pakistan reveals that Israeli drone operators attempted to sabotage Pakistan's nuclear facilities during the India-Pakistan crisis in May. This is a major reason why Islamabad is throwing its full weight behind Tehran in the Israel-Iran war.
F.M. Shakil
JUN 19, 2025
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Despite Islamabad’s official denials of providing military or material support to Iran in its confrontation with Israel, recent developments suggest a dramatic shift in regional alignments. Today, Pakistan and China appear to be coordinating closely with Tehran, offering tangible strategic advantages as Tel Aviv escalates its hostilities.
As war clouds gathered, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held urgent discussions with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on 14 June. That same day, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who expressed Islamabad's “resolute solidarity” with Iran. He also added that the country “stands firmly with the Iranian people in this critical hour.”
China and Pakistan's role
In the immediate aftermath, reports emerged of Pakistani military delegations arriving in Tehran amid the hostilities. Although swiftly denied by Islamabad, the timing and context fuel speculation of deeper collaboration. Similarly, Beijing reportedly greenlit the transfer of its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) technology to Iran, formalized in a new bilateral MoU – an upgrade that dramatically enhanced the precision of Iranian missile strikes.
Though Pakistan continues to reject claims of missile transfers to Iran, its stance in recent days paints a different picture. On 16 June, members of the Iranian parliament chanted “Thank you, thank you Pakistan” following remarks by Pezeshkian, who praised Pakistan for standing by Iran. These developments fly in the face of Pakistan's non-alignment rhetoric and indicate an ideological and strategic realignment by Islamabad.
It was only early last year that Iran launched missile and drone strikes into Pakistan’s Balochistan region on 16 January, targeting extremist militant group Jaish al-Adl positions. Pakistan retaliated two days later on 18 January, conducting air and missile strikes into Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province in an operation dubbed Marg Bar Sarmachar. The tit-for-tat was remarkably friendly in the final analysis, and appears to have settled some critical border cooperation issues between the two states.
The fact that these former adversaries – who had just engaged in direct military exchanges – have now adopted “resolute solidarity” is nothing short of breathtaking.
Beijing’s embrace of Iran is grounded in energy security and strategic depth instead. Its ambitious, multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aimed at linking the Eurasian landmass hinges on the stability of Tehran and Islamabad, with the Gwadar and Chahbahar ports forming key arteries in China's westward expansion.
China also supplies J-10 fighter jets and HQ‑9 air‑defense systems to Pakistan, which played key roles in the extraordinary May 2025 skirmish between India and Pakistan – marking major testing ground for Chinese weapons. A parallel circumstance is present in Iran. China must acknowledge Iran because it is a crucial supporter of China's energy needs and trade operations.
“The enemy of my friend is my enemy” may well define the new tripartite logic binding Iran, Pakistan, and China in resistance to Israeli and western designs.
Colonial ambitions and nuclear red lines
Tel Aviv’s recent strikes on Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure mark a new phase in a decades-long western strategy aimed at dismantling Muslim powers resistant to colonial domination. Iraq, Syria, Libya – all were destabilized under similar pretexts. The 2001 plot, conceived by the US, its European allies, and Israel, has entered its second phase, targeting Iran initially and Pakistan subsequently.
In a 2011 interview with Channel 2, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid bare the logic: Iran and Pakistan are the primary targets of this containment strategy, he stated blankly. “These radical regimes ... pose a significant threat,” he said, stressing the need to prevent them from acquiring nuclear capability.
But recent Israeli provocations have instead triggered multipolar resistance to those plans. Speaking to The Cradle, Abdullah Khan of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) reveals that Israeli drone operators had recently attempted to sabotage Pakistan's nuclear facilities during the India–Pakistan crisis:
“Israeli drone operators were stationed in Indian operation rooms during the recent Pakistan–India conflict, trying to target Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. However, prompt action from Pakistan thwarted their efforts, preventing them from causing any damage to the nuclear assets of Pakistan.”
Defensive posturing or new axis?
A source in Pakistan's Foreign Ministry reveals to The Cradle that Islamabad has quietly warned Washington of a potential nuclear escalation should Israel attack Iran with such weapons.
“If such a situation arises, it will spill beyond Iran. The region will enter a new, unpredictable security phase,” the source states.
Meanwhile, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif caused a stir with an incendiary post targeting exiled Iranian royal Reza Pahlavi, the son of the ousted shah of Iran. In response to Pahlavi's BBC interview, Asif wrote on X:
“If Iranian people are energized and motivated, according to you, show some balls and go back and lead them and remove the regime. Put your money where your arse is, bloody parasitical imperial whore.”
Bilal Khan, a Toronto-based defense/security analyst and the co-founder of independent think tank Quwa Defence News & Analysis Group, tells The Cradle that Islamabad perceives itself as under coordinated pressure from the US, India, and Israel.
“The Pakistani security elite perceive that the US and its counter-proliferation regime are imposing penalties on Pakistan, although it was India that brought the nuclear issue to South Asia. “There exists a structural perception in Rawalpindi that the US, along with its allies India and Israel, is targeting Pakistan's nuclear program. Nonetheless, it remains uncertain how Pakistan will handle the situation. Certainly, increased investment in air defense systems, enhanced domestic intelligence capabilities, and strengthening the air force with next-generation J-35 stealth fighters are all essential to take on any possible Israeli actions."
From denial to celebration
While Islamabad has offered no formal commitment of military aid to Tehran, Iranian media and parliament are now rallying around Pakistan with chants of “Pakistan Zindabad.”
Diplomatically, Islamabad has backed Tehran’s call for a UN Security Council session on Israeli aggression and explicitly defended Iran’s right to self-defense. Alongside Algeria, China, and Russia, Pakistan played a key role in amplifying Iran’s initiative, marking a coordinated diplomatic front that signals a deeper convergence within the Eurasian bloc. This is no small gesture from a country once considered a possible target of Israel’s preemptive doctrine.
In a move that exposes Washington’s alarm, Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, was quietly summoned to the US Central Command headquarters in Florida. His absence from a key national parade in Islamabad has raised questions at home. While the Pakistani embassy remains tight-lipped, Dawn cited sources anticipating “uncomfortable conversations” in Washington.
Whether Munir's US visit results in a recalibration or further consolidation of Islamabad's alignment with Tehran and Beijing remains uncertain. But one thing is clear: Pakistan is no longer sitting on the fence.
https://thecradle.co/articles/pakistan- ... ith-israel
Talk is cheap but that's tellin' him.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."