Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Israel may of started its attack on Iran.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
I had hoped this wouldn't happen. Looks like it's happened within the last hour.
Israel Launches Airstrikes On Tehran: Stock Futures Plunge; Oil And Gold Soar
Update 8:35pm: AP cites an Israeli official who says that the targets are Iran Nuclear and Military sites; Meanwhile Iran has suspended all flights into its international airport, while Israel has closed all airspace.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Not sure if this is true.
Quote:
It appears the entire Iranian General Staff and multiple top nuclear scientists have been eliminated in Israel’s strikes on Iran
https://x.com/DrEliDavid/status/
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Israel just attacked Iran. It's beginning to look like WWIII has begun.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Here's Scott Ritter's take:
“Lion’s Courage” versus “True Promise 3”
Israel attacked Iran, using disarmament of Iran’s nuclear program as an excuse. But this attack isn’t about enrichment. It’s about regime change. And there can only be one winner.
Scott Ritter
Jun 13, 2025
Substack link
Tehran under Israeli attack, June 13, 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced the commencement of Operation “Lion’s Courage”, the goal of which is to eliminate Iran’s nuclear enrichment and weaponization infrastructure. Netanyahu and his senior military commanders have indicated that this operation will take weeks to complete.
A key part of the strike appeared to be aimed at decapitating senior Iranian leadership in both the military and military industry who were linked to Iran’s nuclear program. Israel claimed that it had in its possession new intelligence which indicated Iran was preparing to bring to fruition a nuclear weapons capability. This intelligence, Israel claims, was behind the decision to strike now, even as the United States was engaged in ongoing negotiations with Iran about how to reduce concerns about the nuclear weapons potential of Iran while enabling uranium enrichment operations to continue.
More details about what exactly Israel struck in this initial wave of attacks will undoubtedly be forthcoming. Initial reports suggest that, in addition to the decapitation strikes, Israel struck air defense and communications facilities, nuclear enrichment facilities at Natanz and Firdos, ballistic missile production facilities at Parchin, a ballistic missile operations base at Piranshahr, and other facilities of a similar nature.
Iran is its own worst enemy
For the past few months, Iran has been posturing itself as a nuclear threshold state. While Iran has every right, as a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT), to possess the ability to enrich uranium as part of a peaceful nuclear program monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it does not have any legal right to pursue a nuclear weapons capability so long as it remains a signatory to the NPT. Iran’s accumulation of uranium enriched to 60%, for which there was no legitimate purpose linked to Iran’s declared nuclear activities, was a deliberate act by Iran to position itself to be within one enrichment cycle of possessing uranium enriched to around 92%, which would be usable in a fission weapon.
Iranian IR-6 centrifuges
Iran likewise has been installing advanced IR-6 centrifuge cascades, which are orders of magnitude more efficient when it comes to the enrichment of uranium, at its underground enrichment facility at Firdos. These cascades would be able to convert Iran’s 60% enriched uranium to weapons grade uranium within a matter of days, providing Iran with fissile material sufficient for 3-5 nuclear weapons.
Iranian military industry has, over the course of the past decade, mastered all the technologies necessary to produce a warhead possessing advanced electronics and other heat-sensitive properties that can withstand the heat of hypersonic re-entry. These warhead design characteristics are an essential part of any viable nuclear weapons delivery capability—simply producing a fission device is not enough; one must be able to deliver it to the intended target.
The one thing which held Iran back was the official decision taken by the Iranian leadership that nuclear weapons were forbidden under existing Islamic jurisprudence, namely a fatwa, or edict, issued by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, which deemed nuclear weapons incompatible with the principles of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But Iran has made this principled stance meaningless in recent months as statements from senior Iraqi officials, advisors, and politicians have made it clear that this fatwa prohibiting nuclear weapons could be reversed if the Islamic Republic were to be faced with an existential threat from a nuclear-armed Israel.
In short, Iran has positioned itself to be a nuclear weapons threshold state.
And this would never be allowed to stand, a reality Israel’s ongoing strikes have emphatically punctuated.
What next?
The escalation genie, unfortunately, is out of the bottle.
Iran is now in a “use it or lose it” reality, where the nuclear weapons threshold capacity it has acquired will either need to be rapidly converted into a viable nuclear weapons capability, or else it will be diminished and/or eliminated through the ongoing attrition of Israeli strikes.
Having promised that it would withdraw from the NPT if its nuclear facilities were attacked, Iran has no choice but to now follow through on this threat.
Failure to do so would be seen as an act of surrender by the Iranian regime, something which could serve as the predicate for regime change.
The question then is whether Israel’s attacks have achieved the requisite level of destruction necessary to prevent Iran from rapidly acquiring nuclear weapons. The key for Israel at this juncture is to provoke Iran into withdrawing from the NPT and beginning the process of acquiring weapons capability. This act by Iran will trigger the United States, which has distanced itself from Israel’s initial airstrikes, and Europe, whose major nations (Great Britain, France, and Germany) have articulated that Iran will never be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, to become involved in the military strikes against Iran.
To do this, Israel must delay the Iranian move toward building a bomb. This is done not by destroying the deeply buried enrichment facilities—a task beyond the conventional capabilities of both Israel and the United States—but rather by killing senior leadership and management in Iran’s military and military industry upper ranks, and destroying critical infrastructure used by Iran to manufacture the various components essential to the manufacture of a nuclear weapon and its ballistic missile delivery systems.
The Natanz enrichment facility
The combination of such attacks would logically be designed to sow chaos and uncertainty in an Iranian nuclear weapons program that had, because of the political atmosphere that existed prior to the Israeli attacks, not yet come together as a viable, formal entity. Had Israel waited another week, the Iranians would likely have been able to pull the disparate parts of their threshold nuclear weapons program together into a formal structure possessing resilience, redundance, and reliability.
It seems that Israel has targeted and killed many of the senior Iranian officials who would have been at the center of the coalescing effort needed to bring a nuclear weapons program to manifestation. Iran will need to regroup from a technical standpoint, even as its leadership creates the political foundation for the existence of a nuclear weapons program to be formally instituted.
If Israel achieved the desired results from its strike on Iran, this regrouping will take time, and time is not on Iran’s side.
Iran has promised a massive retaliation against Israel and any nation which supported an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Iranian missile launches, True Promise 2, October 2, 2024
If Iran fails to launch such an attack, for whatever reason (lack of capacity, lack of political will, or both), then it creates a window of opportunity for diplomacy to rear its ugly head and impose a ceasefire which locks in Israeli gains while opening Iran up to international inspections of both its nuclear enrichment and ballistic missile production infrastructure—in short, a huge Israeli victory and devastating Iranian defeat.
If Iran does seek to finalize a nuclear weapons program, then it invites participation by both the United States and Europe.
And this may have been the Israeli objective all along.
Moreover, while President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have tried to distance themselves from this act of Israeli military aggression, there are elements within the Trump administration and the US Congress (Senator Lyndsey Graham for one) that are openly supportive of the Israeli actions against Iran.
The fact of the matter is that the United States has provided Israel with tacit permission to strike Iran, both in terms of helping shape the geopolitical reality necessary to deem the Israeli action reasonable (uniting the Gulf Arab nations in the face of perceived Iranian aggression, and getting the IAEA Board of Governors to pass a resolution accusing Iran of violating its safeguard obligations under the NPT), and buying Israel time to perfect its target deck by engaging Iran in nuclear negotiations. These negotiations were presented as legitimate, but were little more than a effort on the part of the United States to provoke Iranian behavior that would be monitored by US and EU/NATO intelligence assets to generate targets to be struck by Israel.
Regime change, not disarmament
Current reporting suggests Iran may declare war on Israel.
Such a declaration would transform this conflict into an existential struggle between a nation, Israel, which has been sold to the American public as a staunch ally of the United States, and another, Iran, which has from the very inception of the Islamic Republic been viewed as a mortal enemy.
There is no doubt as to which side the US will take.
This means that eventually—sooner rather than later—the United States will throw its military might in with Israel to achieve the strategic defeat of Iran.
“Strategic defeat” is a euphemism for regime change.
Iran had one opportunity to prevent this inevitable, and predictable, outcome—to negotiate a new nuclear deal with the United States that verifiably eliminated Iran’s status as a nuclear weapons threshold state.
Rather than locking the US into a deal, however, Iran allowed the process to be dragged out, thereby allowing itself to be trapped by a process that was never intended to produce a finalized deal, but always to buy time for Israel to be able to deliver its knockout blow.
Today Iran has only one chance at survival.
It must be understood that Iran will never be permitted to possess a nuclear weapon.
Should it now seek to do so, Iran will be physically destroyed.
The solution to Iran’s nuclear program, however, cannot be allowed to be provided through military intervention by Israel and/or the United States.
Instead, Iran must deliver extremely harsh blows against the state of Israel, strikes so utterly devastating that Israel has no choice but to plead for the United States to step in a broker a peace deal.
And the foundation of this peace deal must be the normalization of Iran’s nuclear program within the framework of the NPT.
Is such an outcome possible?
Yes.
But it will require the near destruction of Israel by Iran.
True Promise 3, the long awaited Iranian ballistic missile assault against Israel, has been threatened by Iran for many months now.
Iran must now execute this operation with perfection and decisiveness if it wants to survive.
Anything less will spell the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
The ever brilliant Caitlin Johnstone. It will indeed be fascinating to see what kind of sycophantic drivel will emanate from one of the CIA's and Mossad's (many) daily pamphlets:
Future New York Times headlines:
- Iranian strikes rock Israel in unprovoked attack
- Israeli families take shelter amid antisemitic terror bombing
- Israeli defense minister: U.S. campus protesters somehow knew about Iranian strikes in advance, indicating Tehran coordination.
- Trump privately voices frustration with Netanyahu over Iran conflict the U.S. is just passively, innocently witnessing
- American Jews feeling anxious, unsupported amid spiraling wars in the Middle East
- Opinion: I feared for my life during airstrikes on Tel Aviv. Nobody in the world can possibly understand what this is like.
- Opinion: Is the U.S. at risk of being drawn into another Middle Eastern war?
- Opinion: Is the U.S. stumbling into another Middle Eastern war?
- Opinion: Is the U.S. accidentally oopsie poopsie bungling into another Middle Eastern war?
- Opinion: Is the U.S. being dragged kicking and screaming into a war in the Middle East, something it historically tries to avoid at all cost?
- US launches strikes on Iran in preemptive attack
- Opinion: Is the U.S. being sucked into a third world war?
- Opinion: Is the U.S. tumbling headlong into a nuclear exchange with Russia and China?
- Opinion: The sky is darkening as nuclear radiation creeps across our land, so we must all come together and condemn Hamas
Opinion: The earth is a barren wasteland. Nothing remains. Check on your Jewish friends.
3:19 AM · Jun 13, 2025
·
76.7K
Views
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Full article linked here:
"Israel has launched an extensive series of airstrikes on Iran.
The western media are of course unquestioningly regurgitating the Israeli government’s evidence-free claim that these strikes were “preemptive”.
The Trump regime is attempting to spin this as a completely unilateral Israeli attack which had nothing to do with the United States — a claim you could be forgiven for believing if you were born yesterday."
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Trump just posted this.
Personally I think this just confirms to Iran that the US is 100% complicate in this attack.
We all already knew this of course but he didn't really need to confirm it, especially after Marco Rubio came out before this post and said Israel did this unilaterally.
Quote:
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to “just do it,” but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done. I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told, that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come - And they know how to use it. Certain Iranian hardliner’s spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse! There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire. No more death, no more destruction, JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. God Bless You All!
Jun 13, 2025, 5:56 AM
https://x.com/SecRubio/status/
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Quote:
Posted by
Kryztian
Israel just attacked Iran. It's beginning to look like WWIII has begun.
~~~
Alexander Mercouris on this morning's Duran livestream makes the strong point that Israel's goal is regime change in Iran. He states that each day that passes with Iran's government holding strong and together, Israel's plan will slip towards failure.
Mercouris explains that for Iran, this is far more important than an Iranian counter-attack. But if Iran strikes back at Israel (which is very possible), the US would likely be drawn into it all. Then what ensues (my view, not that of Mercouris) would be:- Global financial chaos.
- The eventual destruction of Israel.
Edit to add:
The discussion is worth listening to, now embedded below. What Mercouris does predict is:- The Iranian regime probably will not fall. (The next few says and weeks will tell.)
- Iran (of course!) will now work hard and fast towards achieving nuclear weapons capability.
- The US may well get drawn into this, in response to the above.
- This will be Trump's downfall, and JD Vance will very probably start to distance himself from him.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZAUzcivEx2U
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
I am convinced by Brian Berletic of The New Atlas, that the Isr strikes against Iran must be and were done with approval and assistance of US. The US denials are lying, as usual. This in accordance with detailed strategy documents published by the Brookings Institution.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Quote:
Posted by
Bill Ryan
What Mercouris
does predict is:
- The Iranian regime probably will not fall. (The next few says and weeks will tell.)
- Iran (of course!) will now work hard and fast towards achieving nuclear weapons capability.
- The US may well get drawn into this, in response to the above.
- This will be Trump's downfall, and JD Vance will very probably start to distance himself from him.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZAUzcivEx2U
I'm thinking more in this direction: (Just speculating, how this actually plays out is anyone's guess)
I just don't think Trump will allow Netanyahu to turn Tehran and other Iranian cities into rubble like what we see in Gaza. I think Trumps already told Netanyahu that once they are sure the Nuke threat is gone the carnage must stop.
It looks like Israel is not destroying the Iranian oil fields, this could be an some kind of arrangement with Putin to keep Russia out of this.
Trump is to proud, narcissistic, and has to big of an ego to let this Israeli/Iranian development destroy his presidency and legacy in my opinion.
Trump can take a victory lap if he stops Israel from bombing Iran and then claim the ability for Iran to make a nuclear bomb is no longer possible.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Iran is striking Israel right now with numerous missiles.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Quote:
Posted by
Bruce G Charlton
I am convinced by Brian Berletic* of The New Atlas, that the Isr strikes against Iran must be and were done with approval and assistance of US. The US denials are lying, as usual.
Yes, alas. America's 'anti-war' president, lauded and applauded (and sincerely believed!) by RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard last summer, has proved to be anything but.
Not one of the informed commentators on the subject (even Alexander Mercouris, who was initially very cautious to criticize Trump too early) is supporting Trump now. (Alex Jones is still trying to hold out, but even he is having some trouble.)* A confession: I didn't quite believe, or want to believe. Brian Berletic's consistent arguments over the last couple of months. But now I see he's been right all along.
A consensus is growing, among those who were so relieved and delighted last November, that Trump's geopolitical duplicity over the last several weeks (and I use the word advisedly) will be his undoing. The worst case is that he may become a lame duck after all — with the US-hegemonic Deep State driving imperialistic, pro-Israeli US foreign policy as it has done for decades.
The US will still crash and burn, which now seems inevitable. But it'll be far more prolonged and messy.
:flower:
Edit to add:
When I wrote the above, I wasn't even aware of this new Garland Nxon video, streaming live as I write this. The video title is: The "Peace President" Double Crosses MAGA & goes Full Neocon.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Quote:
Posted by
Bill Ryan
Quote:
Posted by
Bruce G Charlton
I am convinced by Brian Berletic* of The New Atlas, that the Isr strikes against Iran must be and were done with approval and assistance of US. The US denials are lying, as usual.
Yes, alas. America's 'anti-war' president, lauded and applauded (and sincerely believed!) by RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard last summer, has proved to be anything but.
Not one of the informed commentators on the subject (even Alexander Mercouris, who was initially very cautious to criticize Trump too early) is supporting Trump now. (Alex Jones is still trying to hold out, but even he is having some trouble.)
* A confession: I didn't quite believe, or want to believe. Brian Berletic's consistent arguments over the last couple of months. But now I see he's been right all along.
A consensus is growing, among those who were so relieved and delighted last November, that Trump's geopolitical duplicity over the last several weeks (and I use the word advisedly) will be his undoing. The worst case is that he may become a lame duck after all — with the US-hegemonic Deep State driving imperialistic, pro-Israeli US foreign policy as it has done for decades.
The US will still crash and burn, which now seems inevitable. But it'll be far more prolonged and messy.
:flower:
Edit to add:
When I wrote the above, I wasn't even aware of
this new Garland Nxon video, streaming live as I write this. The video title is:
The "Peace President" Double Crosses MAGA & goes Full Neocon.
I would love to hear what Tulsi is saying to Trump right now, she must be sitting right next to him.
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
A video from up-close shows the moment an Iranian ballistic missile struck a residential building in Tel Aviv an hour ago
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1933604864518729910
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1933591673730171066
https://x.com/i/status/1933592071991955491
Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
Quote:
Posted by
Bill Ryan
Not one of the informed commentators on the subject (even Alexander Mercouris, who was initially very cautious to criticize Trump too early) is supporting Trump now.
Redacted, which usually just hosts their news analysis updates on Monday—Thursday, is hosting an emergency livestream just now, featuring Col. Douglas Macgregor. (I don't yet know what he says, but I cam imagine.)
Natali Morris, who is a professional former mainstream newscaster, at one point choked back tears and shared that she felt like she "wants to quit".
:heart:
