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Friday, June 20, 2025

06/20 Links Pt1: Under Fire, Israelis Back Total Victory in Iran, With or Without US Support; Why do so many educated idiots make excuses for Iran?

From Ian:

Niall Ferguson and Yoav Gallant: Israel Has Done Most of the Job. Only Trump Can Finish It.
One of us devoted considerable time and effort to considering ways that Israel could achieve the same result with the F-15Es it possesses and the 2,000- and 5,000-pound bombs they can carry, or with a World War II–style commando raid behind enemy lines. Neither option is realistic. Only America can do this. Only President Trump can order it.

Primo Levi’s novel If Not Now, When? is about a group of Jewish resistance fighters who desperately defy the might of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in World War II. The Holocaust has been much on the minds of Israelis since October 7, 2023, an Iran-sponsored atrocity that was consciously intended as a trailer for a second Shoah. But the question “If not now, when?” is also an ancient Jewish one, posed by Hillel the Elder more than two millennia ago. It is the question we would now ask President Trump. And we would add another question: If B-2s and MOPs were not designed for precisely this purpose, then what use are they?

A nuclear-armed Iran would pose more than a threat to the Israeli people and their state. Its missiles could reach Gulf capitals and Europe. Those missiles could allow Iran to sponsor terror and wage conventional war with impunity. The result would be a nuclear arms race in the Gulf. By destroying Fordow, President Trump would create a new equilibrium in the Middle East and reestablish American leadership. The strike would focus solely on eliminating Iran’s nuclear arms program, but it should be accompanied by a clear message: If Iran attempts to target the United States or its Gulf allies, it will risk the elimination of its regime.

There is an economic consideration, too. The longer the current conflict continues, the greater the risk to energy markets and global economic stability. Running out of missiles and launchers, its military command structure disabled by assassinations, Iran must now be contemplating desperate measures such as attacks on its Arab neighbors or mining the Strait of Hormuz, in the hope that these might deter U.S. intervention. Decisive action now can prevent an oil-price shock.

Israel has moved and continues to move with determination and dispatch. The support of allies, first and foremost the United States, has been crucial. Now, with a single exertion of its unmatched military strength, the United States can shorten the war, prevent wider escalation, and end the principal threat to Middle Eastern stability. It can also send a signal to those other authoritarian powers who have been Iran’s enablers that American deterrence is back.

This is a rare moment when strategic alignment and operational momentum converge. It must not be missed.
Douglas Murray: Douglas Murray: President Trump can end the nuclear threat from Iran with one call
A number of the most crucial nuclear sites in Iran, like the facility at Fordow, can only be destroyed by a bunker-buster bomb that only the US has.

Successive US administrations have refused to sell this weapon to the Israelis.

Now, almost a week into the war, Israel has been unable to stop Iran’s nuclear program entirely.

If the Israelis destroy only 70%, or 80% or even 90% of the Iranian nuclear project, then there is still the possibility that Iran can restart its nuclear race.

Meaning that the world will always have this gun to its head.

For many years, President Trump has made it plain that he will never allow this.

But the mullahs may be happy to wait until some other Sleepy Joe-like figure is in the White House.

Trump knows he cannot let that happen.

But this is the one chance in our lifetimes to once and for all stop the world’s worst regime getting their hands on the world’s worst weapon.

As a poll published in yesterday’s Post showed, President Trump’s MAGA base is keen for him to follow through on his promise.

A whopping 65% of MAGA Republicans support US strikes to finish off Iran’s nuclear project.

Just 19% oppose it.

Which shows that the president’s noisy online critics are just as kooky and irrelevant as he senses them to be.

Who’s in control?
“But what will happen next,” some of his critics say.

There is an easy answer to that.

President Trump’s campaign promise is that he will never allow Iran to have nukes.

In the coming hours and days he has the opportunity to make good on that promise.

But what about “regime change?”

In truth those words do not need to be anywhere near his lips or his agenda.

If the Iranian people want to rise up and overthrow the death-cult regime that has held their country in terror for 46 years, then they should.

Many of us will wish them well.

But that is their affair.

The president’s only need is to make good on his promise to the American electorate.

If he does that, then he will send a sharp but necessary message to a regime that has too long threatened his own life, the life of Israel and indeed the world.
John Spencer: Why dismantling Iranian threat won't create another Libya or Iraq
The Iraq comparison is just as flawed. Iraq was a full-scale invasion. It was based on faulty intelligence and executed with no coherent postwar plan. It involved hundreds of thousands of American troops, a toppling of the entire government structure, and years of bloody counterinsurgency and sectarian violence. That war left deep scars on US foreign policy and strategic credibility.

What is happening now with Iran looks nothing like Iraq. There are no American boots on the ground. There is no occupation. There is no attempt to transform Iran into a Western-style democracy. This is a limited military campaign targeting a specific threat: the infrastructure, personnel, and technology behind Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons effort.

Israel dealt irreparable damage to Iran's nuclear, military targets
Israel has already delivered devastating blows to Iran’s nuclear program. Enrichment facilities at Natanz and Isfahan have been struck. The heavy water plutonium reactor at Arak has been rendered unusable. Multiple weaponization labs have been destroyed.

According to reports, 14 of the 15 nuclear scientists on Israel’s high-value target list have been eliminated. That is not symbolic. That is a strategic victory. The only parallel would be eliminating Oppenheimer and every member of the Manhattan Project before they ever arrived at the Los Alamos Laboratory.

President Trump is not rushing in because there is no need to. Israel is achieving the mission step by step. Trump is using the time to mitigate risks, prepare for contingencies, and hold the cards. American assets are moving into the region not to invade, but to finish the job if needed, or to deter escalation.

The choice now lies with the regime in Tehran. As Trump might say, we have the cards, Israel has the cards, and Iran can take the diplomatic offramps offered by the United States and Europe, or it can continue on a path that ends with its program being destroyed.

This is not the beginning of a new war. This is the long-overdue end of a decades-long campaign by Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, destabilize the region, and threaten the world. It is a campaign being carried out with intelligence, airpower, cyber capabilities, and precision. There is no appetite for occupation. There is no plan for regime change. There is only a clear, achievable military objective rooted in international law and shared security interests.

If the Iranian regime collapses under the weight of military defeat, economic pressure, and domestic unrest, that will be the result of its own failures. But that is not the goal. The goal is to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. Nothing more, and nothing less.



This is not Libya. This is not Iraq. This is strategic clarity in action. And it is working.
I’m Iranian – Israel’s attacks give me hope
While Israel has taken concrete action, the US under Trump is acting timidly and still calling the Mullahs to the negotiating table. Trump has shown again and again that he will only pick a fight with defenseless immigrants and the most vulnerable, as only a cowardly bully would. However, maybe for once, Trump can choose to pick a fight with a real enemy.

There are some indications that Israel may be considering a policy of regime change in Iran. I would argue that regime change is the only policy that would make this war worthwhile. We have seen what half a century of Mullahs’ rule has done to Iran and the region, we don’t have to hazard a guess as to what another half a century would do. If the Mullahs survive these attacks, their victory will only serve to embolden them and make them feel invincible. Terrorism will continue to be the hallmark of the region unless the Iranian regime is dismantled and elections free of terrorist candidates are held.

In the Middle East, we all have our fights with religious fanatics as they are a persistent fixture of our histories, but I genuinely hope that we will overcome Iran’s murderous fanatics with the help of Israel’s targeted operations in Iran and an unequivocal support for regime change.

So, to anyone who cares to ask this Iranian, I say that I’m hopeful. I hope that both Israel and the US see the benefit of regime change in Iran and do not let the Islamic Republic linger for another 50 years. Appeasement with terrorism begets terrorism. It’s time to have peace.


Under Fire, Israelis Back Total Victory in Iran, With or Without US Support
Israelis overwhelmingly back their country’s military campaign against Iran, even as they duck daily missile barrages and hope for decisive intervention by the United States, according to a new survey of wartime public opinion.

The poll, conducted by researchers at Agam Labs and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, found that 83 percent of Israeli Jews and 70 percent of the overall public support the campaign to take out Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities, which Israel launched by surprise overnight on Friday. One percent of Jews and 16 percent of all Israelis would have preferred continued nuclear diplomacy with Iran.


Airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities are even more popular, with more than 90 percent of the public in support, according to the poll. Almost half of the public, including 54 percent of Jews, says Israel should continue bombing the sites even if the United States and other allies stop helping to intercept Iranian barrages. But two-thirds of Israelis describe the Israel-United States alliance as "critical" to national security and only 30 percent would want Israel to defy a demand by President Donald Trump to end the war in favor of a deal.

The results of the poll, which surveyed 1,057 Israelis on Sunday and Monday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percent, suggest Israelis are ready to go at it alone to confront what they see as an existential threat from Iran—at least up to a point.

"There is a very broad consensus that we had to attack Iran and that we must continue," said Nimrod Nir, the CEO of Agam Labs. "It says a lot that half the public would keep going without U.S. backing even though many of those people are not sure we can finish the job alone."

Public sentiment mirrors Israel’s official position on the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has projected confidence that Israel can achieve its goals alone if necessary. At the same time, current and former Israeli officials have conceded that only U.S. bunker-buster bombs can completely destroy the Iranian nuclear program from the air—and have called on Trump to deliver a decisive blow to Iran.

The campaign has taken a toll on Israelis, already beleaguered by more than 20 months of war with Iran and its regional axis of terrorist groups. Iranian ballistic missile and drone strikes on Israeli cities over the past week have killed two dozen people, injured hundreds, and displaced thousands, while forcing schools and businesses to close and throwing daily life for millions into chaos.

But pride and hope have prevailed over fear and despair, with nearly twice as many Israelis citing the former as their dominant feelings in the latest phase of the war, according to the poll. The public has "very high" trust in the air force and the Mossad foreign intelligence agency, which have been on the frontlines in Iran, and "high" trust in the military and emergency services.
Mossad’s total penetration of Iran even surpasses its demolition of Hezbollah
Three days before Israel launched the war against Iran – with the knowledge and backing of US President Donald Trump – dozens of Mossad operatives from its elite commando unit infiltrated several areas of the Islamic Republic.

They reached pre-prepared meeting points, where dozens of local helpers were already waiting. These collaborators had prepared the rendezvous points, vehicles, safe houses, communication equipment, and had opened the pre-stocked warehouses. Drone components were smuggled into Iran.

The Mossad operatives were divided into small action teams. They had three main missions.

First, to assemble and launch drones from the warehouses to disable Iran’s air defence systems, especially those that were not hit in attacks over the previous year. This was to paralyse the Islamic Republic's ability to act against the Israeli Air Force.

Second, to assist in assassinating Iranian scientists.

Third, to continue gathering intelligence in real time to help the Israeli Air Force assess the damage caused to Iran and leverage it for continued strikes.

All three missions were completed successfully and even exceeded expectations.

The Mossad commandos, operating in small teams, launched drones that successfully targeted Iran’s air defence systems. By doing so, they “paved the way” – creating a "free air corridor” leading all the way from Israel through Jordan, Syria, and Iraq to western Iran. This allowed the Israeli Air Force to strike forcefully and cause significant damage during the Friday pre-dawn assault at 3am on Iran’s nuclear facilities – foremost among them, the underground plant at Natanz, where nearly 20,000 centrifuges were installed for uranium enrichment.

The second mission, arguably even more important — though it has not received the deserved attention — was to assassinate or help the air force to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. So far, 14 have been reported. These were not just ordinary physicists, chemists, or engineers.

They were the core of Iran’s nuclear knowledge base, forming the spearhead that could enable Iran to assemble a nuclear weapon if it chose to do so. These scientists belonged to the so-called “weapon group”, the third stage in building a bomb.

The first two stages are the production of fissile material and the assembly of the bomb’s “cores” (the segments into which the fissile material, optical-electrical systems and explosive chain are inserted).

The story of Dr Ferodian Abbasi Dwani is a good illustration of Mossad successes in this area. In 2010 assassins on a motorcycle attached a bomb to his car in the posh northern Tehran neighbourhood where he lived. Miraculously he survived and was appointed as the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI). A few years ago he left his office and was selected as the president of an Iranian prestigious university, yet he continued clandestinely to be involved in his country efforts to become a threshold nuclear state. Mossad agents never forgot him and kept following him. Last Friday 13th, he was killed in a joint Mossad-air force strike.

In an unprecedented move – an act of psychological warfare aiming to sow fear among the Iranian leadership – Mossad even released footage of the agents in action. Contrary to the impression created by the media, the Mossad operational achievements were the result of many years of work.
Seth Frantzman: Iran ‘Sleepwalked’ Into a War with Israel It Can’t Win
This outlay is the source of the Iranian regime’s extreme hubris. It believed it could attack the US Navy, kill Americans in Iraq, and use proxies against Saudi Arabia and Israel, and face no consequences.

By 2019, the regime felt it was ready to confront Saudi Arabia directly. It used drones and cruise missiles to attack Abqaiq, a giant energy facility. Five years later, in January 2024, Iran was ready to show off its latest ballistic missiles. It launched the new Kheiber Shekan ballistic missile at a target in Syria.

Many widely interpreted this action to be a show of force whereby Iran was showing it could precision target sites in Israel. Iran also carried out a missile attack on Pakistan. In April and October, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel. This volley was the peak of Iran’s sense that it could do anything it wanted in the region.

Why did Iran overestimate its capabilities and not see that Israel’s threats to strike its nuclear program might come true? Iran misread the regional chessboard as things changed in 2024. In November 2024, the Lebanese government and Israel agreed to a US-backed ceasefire. This accord clipped the wings of Hezbollah. Hezbollah had entered the conflict with Israel with some 150,000 missiles.

By the time of the ceasefire, Hezbollah’s commanders had been killed, and its missile arsenal was destroyed or depleted. Less than two weeks after the ceasefire, the Assad regime fell to Syrian opposition fighters.

By 2025, Iran had lost key parts of its regional alliance. Rather than Israel facing a multi-front war ringed by Iranian proxies, the situation had changed. Iran was now the weaker player. Iran doesn’t have a modern conventional army. It also doesn’t have a strong navy or air force. Iran has relied on its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to bolster its military capabilities. The IRGC has invested in drones and ballistic missiles.

However, drones and missiles don’t win wars. Russia has used drones and missiles against Ukraine since 2022, but Kyiv has not been beaten. Russia is much stronger than Iran, and Ukraine lacks the F-35s and modern military that Israel possesses. Iran didn’t learn from this. Instead, Iran’s regime continued its zombie-like sleepwalking into a war with Israel.

Iran spent the first months of 2025 expecting that it could browbeat the Trump administration into a new nuclear deal. It purposely slow-played the talks in Oman, demanding indirect talks. If Iran had read the chessboard correctly, it would know it should have run for the chance for a deal.

Instead, it failed to seize the day. On June 13, when Israel attacked, Iran’s military commanders were out in the open with no sense that they might be targeted. Men who had fought in the 1980s against Iraq had become complacent and arrogant. They didn’t realize the situation had changed.
Iran’s Ceasefire Request: Sign of Weakness or Deceptive Tactic?
Four days into the war, and Tehran, according to The Wall Street Journal, is sending messages through Arab mediators to end the confrontation. The Iranians signaled that they are ready to return to the negotiating table, provided the United States does not join the attack. Reuters also reported from sources in Tehran: “We have requested an immediate ceasefire – in exchange for flexibility in nuclear negotiations.”

There is no doubt that Israel has created an entirely new reality. For the first time in history, Israeli aircraft are flying from north to south across Iran without resistance. Senior Iranian regime officials are hiding in bunkers and know their lives depend on Israeli decisions.

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. As long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes – a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.

The Dangerous Illusion: The Agreement as a Solution
The fundamental question is: Can an agreement with Iran truly prevent the nuclear threat? Iran’s nuclear strategy has historically been characterized by obfuscation and procrastination, prolonging discussions without substantial progress and buying time while advancing toward nuclear enrichment.

Like a chess master, Iran always arrives with extreme demands and expertise in negotiations that feed the process – causing delays, time-wasting, creating opening conditions that make bridging difficult and necessitate additional talks. This was also the case in the round that took place before the war when it was led by the Iranian Foreign Minister with negotiation experience. He was responsible for the previous talks in 2015, starting with extreme demands to maintain significant quantities of highly enriched uranium, continuing the operation of the most sensitive enrichment facilities, complete and immediate removal of sanctions, and non-interference in regional proxy activities.

Evidence from the Past: Iran’s Record of Compliance with Agreements
Iran has proven that it does not honor its commitments even when it is a signatory to international agreements. During the three years when the P5+1 and Iran were parties to the JCPOA (2015-2018), Iran violated the agreement on several occasions and routinely exceeded the limits on the number of advanced centrifuges and the amount of heavy water it was allowed to keep.

Simultaneously, while the agreement was in effect, Iran continued secret efforts and made attempts to acquire prohibited materials. This is the tactic of delay and deception at its finest.
Why Americans Support Israel
The recent coverage of the Iran-Israel war, and the possibility that the U.S. might intervene to destroy Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, has raised the broader question of why the American alliance with Israel is so important—and even the question, sometimes raised in good faith as well as bad, of why the tiny Jewish state generates so much attention. Jonah Goldberg considers many good reasons Americans should care about Israel, among them:

a really basic argument of good versus evil. The stated view of many of Israel’s most implacable enemies is that Jews just need to be destroyed (the Houthi motto is “God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse Be Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam!”). A lot of Americans just don’t like that.

But, Goldberg argues, there is a more fundamental reason still why people should be concerned about Israel’s fate:

In foreign policy, attention follows action or the threat of action. . . . Israel is an ally that has been under threat for a very long time, basically since its founding. In other words, the reason it seems like Israel’s friends are “obsessed with defending Israel” has more to do with the fact that Israel’s enemies are obsessed with destroying it.

It’s a bit like the argument one often hears about how concern for Israel is so misplaced because it’s the most militarily powerful nation in the region. This, too, gets the causality backward. It’s the most militarily powerful nation in the region because, historically, much of the region has sought to destroy it. . . . The effort to destroy Israel has been such a constant fixture of geopolitics for nearly 80 years that it’s considered normal. And what is normal often becomes invisible.

Ultimately, this boils down to a question of will. Are we willing to stand by friends with shared values and shared interests, even when it is hard? Are we willing, as a question of national honor and national interest, to stand by our commitments? My answer is yes. Not necessarily at any cost, but certainly when the costs are worth the benefits.

But my real desire is for this to no longer be a controversial question. I want to get to a place where asking “Should we support Israel?” sounds as weird as saying “Should we support Switzerland or Belgium?” And that can only happen when Israel is no longer in danger of no longer existing.
Seth Mandel: Artificial Intelligence
Iran spends most of its time and energy threatening Israel’s existence and building the contraption that would fulfill this threat. Israel has no option except to interfere with Iran’s ability to fulfill its threat.

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. media isn’t convinced. The media routinely compares the American president to Hitler and says you can’t wait for him to start building the death camps in order to organize against him, yet that same media believe a Hitlerite ayatollah whose express intention is to finish what Hitler started must be given the benefit of the doubt until he kills millions of Jews.

The New York Times puts it this way:
“Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, in 2003 that has prevented the country from developing nuclear weapons. That is ‘right now holding,’ a senior intelligence official said, adding that the Israeli assessment that Iran was 15 days away was alarmist.”

Once you resume reading the article after you’ve laughed yourself out of your chair and then recovered, you read the following: “Still, American officials acknowledge that the large stockpile poses a threat.”

Oh, you think?

What exactly is happening here? Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been excluded from recent inner-circle discussions about whether the U.S. should finish off Iran’s nuclear program. The reason for this is that she has been publicly undermining the president’s policy preferences. In response, her staff appears to be leaking information selectively contextualized to publicly undermine the president’s aims.

But do they actually undermine the president? CNN’s Aaron Blake thinks they do. Trump’s recent assertion that Iran is weeks away from nuclear breakout is “very difficult to square with the March testimony of Trump’s own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard,” who told Congress that “her own intelligence community ‘continues to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.’”

Yet those two points are obviously noncontradictory. Iran could be weeks away for as long as it wants before deciding to build the bomb. The point is that once the regime gets close enough to a bomb there wouldn’t be enough time to stop it from doing so.

Which raises another point worth emphasizing: Israel’s strikes on Iran’s program and its air defenses have widened Iran’s breakout window. Thus Israel has given the West time it wouldn’t have had otherwise. Whether the U.S. decides it should get involved in the air campaign is separate from whether Israel’s airstrikes were beneficial to the cause of nuclear nonproliferation: There is simply no question at all that they are not only beneficial to that cause but arguably essential.

Israel is not going to wait for some U.S. intel analyst to decide that Khamenei woke up on the wrong side of the bed. As soon as he does, it’ll almost surely be too late. And too late is not an option for Israel.


Europe’s Impotent Powers Are Hiding Behind Little Israel
Think for a moment about what Merz is saying here. It might sound like good news, that Germany’s leader had finally come out on the right side. But if Israel is doing “the dirty work for all of us”? That must mean that Europe’s top powers have been secretly hiding behind little Israel’s skirts, expecting a fighting nation of just 9.5 million souls to protect the interests of half a billion Europeans and the entire Western world.

In expressing from afar his admiration that “the Israeli army and the Israeli government had the courage to do this,” Merz was also exposing the lack of moral courage in Europe’s top capitals. They want to see the “complete destruction” of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme—but without getting any bloody handprints on the European diplomats’ suits.

This talk of Israel “doing the dirty work” for the West came, let us remember, from a new German chancellor who is now Brussels’ poster boy. What kind of EU leadership is that supposed to be?

It re-raises the killer question posed by U.S. vice-president JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year. Amid all the talk of big new defence budgets, Vance asked: what exactly is it that Europe’s leaders want to defend in the world, when they are betraying the European principles of democracy and free speech?

In the same spirit, we might now ask how they can claim to be defending democracy when they will not openly stand with Israel, on the global frontline of the war for that precious principle? What exactly do they stand for, if they refuse to take on Islamism in the battle between civilisation and barbarism?

The Israelis remain a living, fighting example of what Europe should support: a sovereign, democratic nation defending its borders and its people. They have achieved remarkable results already whilst fighting alone, often with one hand tied behind their backs, without the reliable support of even their staunchest historical allies.

Any European leader worth their salt should now stand foursquare with the Israelis. If not, we will surely know they can’t be trusted to defend democracy on the home front, either. And nobody is going to do the dirty work of saving their skins.
Why Are Gulf Countries Not Speaking Out Against Their Rival Iran?
Since 1979, Iran has been a problem for Arab Gulf capitals. Tehran has exported its radical Islamism and terrorism across the region, built loyalist militias, agitated popular opinion against Gulf governments, and pursued a nuclear weapon.

Yet, when Israel sent its fighter jets to finally confront the troublemaking Iranian regime, all six nations of the Gulf Countries Council (GCC) behaved in a mind-boggling way: They denounced “the Israeli aggression” and worked the phones, including with President Trump, to “de-escalate” the situation. There is an explanation for the Gulf’s behavior.

Abdul-Rahman al-Rashed, one of the sharpest Saudi intellectuals, explained the Saudi thinking. In an interview last September, Rashed said that Riyadh lost confidence in America’s commitment to Saudi security.

In 2019, Iran struck Saudi oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais. After saying that America was “locked and loaded” to punish Iran in response, President Trump called off the American strike.

Rashed argues that Riyadh was not seeking the US military to fight on behalf of the Saudis, but that the kingdom believed it was protected by American deterrence against its enemies — and Washington let them down.

The Saudi intellectual also said that war with Iran would be much costlier to the Saudis than to the Iranians. The kingdom is among the top 20 economies in the world, and has six or more thriving economic centers. Iran’s puny economy, however, means that Tehran has little to lose in case of war.

Because American unpredictability eroded Saudi confidence, the kingdom decided to seek an alternative. In 2023, Riyadh restored relations with Tehran. The agreement was signed in Beijing, in the hope that China — the senior partner in its alliance with Iran — could guarantee Iranian non-belligerence toward the kingdom.
Iran Says No Nuclear Talks Under Fire, UN Urges Restraint
Iran said on Friday it would not discuss the future of its nuclear program while under attack by Israel, as Europe tried to coax Tehran back into negotiations and the United States considers whether to get involved in the conflict.

A week into its campaign, Israel said it had struck dozens of military targets overnight, including missile production sites, a research body it said was involved in nuclear weapons development in Tehran, and military facilities in western and central Iran.

The Israel Defense Forces later said they had also struck surface-to-air missile batteries in southwestern Iran as part of efforts to achieve air superiority over the country.

At least five people were injured when Israel hit a five-story building in Tehran housing a bakery and a hairdresser’s, Fars news agency reported.

Iran fired missiles at Beersheba in southern Israel early on Friday and Israeli media said initial reports pointed to missile impacts in Tel Aviv, the Negev, and Haifa after further attacks hours later.

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog warned against attacks on nuclear facilities and called for maximum restraint.

“Armed attack on nuclear facilities … could result in radioactive releases with great consequences within and beyond the boundaries of the state which has been attacked,” Rafael Grossi, director of the International Agency for Atomic Energy, told the UN Security Council on Friday.

He spoke a day after an Israeli military official said it had been “a mistake” for a military spokesperson to have said Israel had struck Bushehr, Iran’s only nuclear power plant. He said he could neither confirm nor deny that Russian-built Bushehr, located on the Gulf coast, had been hit.


Don’t cry for Iran’s theocrats
Little has changed for women since Amini’s death and the protests that ensued. In April 2024, another 22-year-old woman, Aida Shakarami, was detained by the morality police in Tehran for the crime of ‘not adhering to compulsory hijab’. Aida’s younger sister, Nika, took part in the 2022 protests. A video of Nika, just 16-years-old, shows her standing on top of a rubbish bin and setting fire to headscarves. Her family found her body 10 days later in a morgue. The security forces claimed she had fallen from a building, but her family believes she was abducted, sexually assaulted and killed by the security forces. In October 2024, six months after the arrest of her older daughter, Aida and Nika’s mother, Nasrin, was also arrested. She was sentenced to one year in prison to be followed by numerous punitive restrictions on her movements and activities.

It’s not just women who suffer under the tyranny of Iran’s theocratic rulers. Homosexuality is illegal and can be punished with death. Since Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, issued a fatwa allowing gender-reassignment surgery in the 1980s, gay people have been under pressure to live as the opposite sex in order to appear to be heterosexual. Iran now carries out more ‘sex change’ operations than any country in the world besides Thailand – a fact that, in 2007, allowed then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to boast that there were no homosexuals in Iran.

A regime that treats its own citizens in this way has no mercy for its enemies. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, opposition to Israel has been fundamental to the Iranian state’s ruling ideology. Iran not only refuses to recognise Israel’s right to exist, it actively seeks its eradication, too. Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called Israel a ‘cancerous tumour’ that ‘will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed’. In the hands of such an anti-Semitic regime, nuclear weapons pose a real threat to the world’s only Jewish nation.

Western protesters waving the Iranian flag cannot claim to be simply anti-war, peace-loving pacifists. They are actively siding with a regime that seeks the extermination not just of its Jewish neighbours but also of many of its own citizens. To wave the Iranian flag is to lend support to the Islamist theocrats who will stop at nothing to eradicate Jews, homosexuality, women who show their hair in public and critics of this oppressive dictatorship. People such as Mahsa Amini, Mojahed Kourkouri, Nika, Aida and Nasrin Shakarami have demonstrated immense bravery in standing up to the Iranian state. Tragically, many have paid with their lives. Westerners waving the Iranian flag insult their memory.

The fall of the Iranian regime would mean an end to the horrific oppression of Iran’s citizens and greater security for the people of Israel. It is only protesters in the West who are so consumed by Israelophobia that they prefer to show solidarity with Islamist autocrats rather than women, gays and Jews.
Jake Wallis Simons: Why do so many educated idiots make excuses for Iran?
It is no exaggeration to say that there is no evil so extreme that it cannot be supported, so long as it is locked in a fight with the Jews. Entirely predictably, now that Israel is bombing Iran, the regime that tortures and murders its own people and funds terrorism around the world is finding plentiful defenders in the West.

Setting aside the cretinous activists who take to the streets of London with posters of the Ayatollah – let’s not even bother with them – there is a coterie of elite commentators who insist that Iran posed no threat to Israel, even though a clock in central Tehran literally counts down the minutes to its destruction.

On BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze this week, the guest before me, a certain Sir Richard Dalton, former British ambassador to Iran, was adamant that in order to justify a pre-emptive strike, Israel would need to demonstrate that the Iranians had “both the intent and the capabilities” to attack. They had neither, he said.

How did the man keep a straight face? When it came to my turn, Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Inter-religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, quizzed me on the judgment that an Iranian nuclear bomb was “imminent”.

The fact that Israeli, American and other intelligence services, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency, had assessed that the regime was “very close” to nuclear weapons, seemed to make little difference. Israel, I was informed, had “broken international law” and thus should presumably have allowed itself to be nuked.


Top Gun over Tehran: An IAF fighter pilot shares his journey on the way to Iran
Captain D., 25, an F-16 pilot, completed flight school two and a half years ago. Against all odds, he participated in the first wave of airstrikes that shocked all of Iran, in a coordinated mission using hundreds of aircraft of various types.

D.: “In the first strike, we hit all sorts of targets. Different types - I can’t go into detail.”

Did you target air defense systems, command centers, senior figures, weapons systems? What did you hit?

D.: “I didn’t hit any individuals…”

Was this the longest flight you’ve ever done?

D.: “Yes.”

What do you do during the long flight — 1,500 km from Israel?

D.: “Mainly focus. I re-brief myself, speak with the navigator, analyze scenarios and responses, think through how the strike will look at the end point, run simulations in my head.”

And on the way back?

D.: “Focus on landing safely (laughs…)”

What do you say to each other in the cockpit after the strikes, on the way home?

D.: “There’s a little joke between us in the cockpit - there’s a moment to talk about the crazy thing we just did. We’re up there over enemy territory, above their heads, flying through their airspace, hitting them, influencing things in their area - not over our home.”


Iranian missiles hit across Israel, wounding at least 23
A barrage of Iranian missiles struck multiple locations across Israel on Friday afternoon, causing several direct hits and wounding at least 23 people, three of whom are seriously injured, in Haifa, according to Magen David Adom.

Iran launched some two dozen projectiles at the country, the Israel Defense Forces stated. Medical officials said that one of those seriously injured in Haifa is a teenager. They added that 20 were lightly injured in the attacks.

Fragments from interceptor missiles reportedly feel across central and southern Israel, including in Tel Aviv and Beersheva. The extent of the damage in both cities remained unclear, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.

In a separate barrage early on Friday, an Iranian ballistic missile struck in Beersheva, lightly wounding five.

The missile impacted just outside a cluster of apartment buildings, causing significant damage to nearby homes.

On Thursday afternoon, Iran fired 15 ballistic missiles at Israel’s north, with no reports of direct hits or direct casualties from projectiles. Air-raid sirens sounded across northern cities, including in Haifa, sending some 300,000 residents running for bomb shelters.


Iran launched cluster bomb on Beersheba, second use in war, IDF confirms
Multiple IDF sources have confirmed that Iran used a cluster bomb warhead in the missile strike on Beersheba on Friday afternoon.

There are no reports of injuries in Beersheba despite the attack.

What are cluster bombs?
A cluster bomb is a containered warhead that, upon reaching its target area, opens in mid-air and scatters dozens or hundreds of smaller explosives, known as "bomblets," over a wide zone.

Those bomblets are unguided and designed to increase the chance of hitting troops, vehicles, or soft targets across an area roughly the size of several football fields.

The smaller bombs carry around two kilograms of explosives, according to a previous Jerusalem Post report.

Cluster bombs have been outlawed in 112 countries; however, neither Israel nor Iran is party to the treaties outlawing them.


Iranian ballistic missile damages oldest, second oldest mosques in Haifa
An Iranian missile strike, which hit Haifa on Friday afternoon, damaged the city's oldest and second-oldest mosques as it struck Haifa's downtown.

The strike damaged the Masjid Al-Saghir, built in 1761 by Zahir al-Umar, and the Al Jarina Grand Mosque of Haifa, built in 1775 but enlarged by the Ottoman Empire in 1901.

President Isaac Herzog took to X to condemn the "outrageous attack" on "a city that stands as a symbol of coexistence between Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Circassians, and Bahรก’รญs."

"They try to kill Israelis of all faiths—Muslims included. We will defend all Israelis. All faiths included," he said.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar accused the Iranian regime of targeting the historic mosques and the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood. He informed the public that the attack had injured the Muslim clerics who were in Al Jarina Mosque at the time.

"The Iranian regime is targeting Muslim, Christian, and Jewish civilians, as well as civilian sites. These are war crimes," Sa'ar said.

The two mosques represent some of the oldest buildings in Haifa and date back to the founding of the modern city by the Ottoman governor of the Galilee, Zahir al-Umar, who is responsible for the rebuilding and fortifying multiple modern cities across the Galilee, including Haifa, Acre, Nazareth, Tiberias, and numerous smaller villages in the region.
Iran Strikes Haifa Mosque With Missile, Injures Muslim Clerics While ‘Firing Indiscriminately at Civilians’
A mosque in the Israeli city of Haifa was hit by a ballistic missile launched by Iran on Friday morning, and Muslim clerics were among those injured in the attack.

Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said Iran’s barrage of missiles targeting Haifa struck the Al-Jarina Mosque in the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood and clerics inside the mosque sustained injuries. Haifa is a port city in the north that has a mixed Arab and Israeli population.

“The Iranian regime is targeting Muslim, Christian, and Jewish civilians, as well as civilian sites. These are war crimes,” said Sa’ar in a post on X. He also shared a video of the mosque that was hit in the missile attack.

Sa’ar later arrived at the scene of the strike and gave a statement to the press.

“We see here once again the results of the Iranian strategy. The Iranian regime is deliberately targeting civilian population centers. Therefore, you can see that a pure civilian area was hit here. Specifically, in that case, a mosque,” he said.

“It’s a war crime. This is clear, because according to international law, you cannot target civilian population centers,” the top Israeli diplomat continued. “But it is also a mistake because the root of it is a lack of understanding of the Israeli society. The Israeli society is strong. It strongly supports our operation in Iran. They all want to remove the double existential threat – the nuclear threat and the missile threat. Therefore, we will continue our operation and will not stop for even one minute before we will achieve our goals.”

Photos shared on social media show the mosque’s broken windows and other damage to the religious site, all as a result of the Iranian strike.


ILTV Security Brief | Israel At War With Iran
On today's Security Brief: Lt. Col. (Res.) Jonathan Conricus, former IDF Spokesperson for International Media, assesses the progress of Israel's war against Iran's nuclear and missile programs, discusses whether President Trump will decide to have the U.S. join the military operation, examines how effective Israel's air defense systems have been against Iran's attacks, and weighs in on whether Israel should target Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.


‘Element of surprise’: Israel’s attacks on Iran are based on ‘operational capability’
IDF Intelligence Corps former head of research Yossi Kuperwasser claims Israel has the “operational capability” and the “intelligence support” to react to unprecedented attacks by Iran.

“It has been an operation that was based on the extremely good intelligence that was gathered for many years, and we have established many advanced methods of collecting information about what’s going on in Iran,” Mr Kuperwasser told Sky News host Steve Price.

Mr Kuperwasser claims Israel’s military capabilities are enabling Israelis to “get closer to achieving our goals”, or eradicating Iran’s nuclear program.




UChicago Prof, the Brother of a Convicted Iranian Spy, Says the 'Only Hope for Peace Is the Power and Durability of Iranian Missiles'
A University of Chicago professor whose brother was convicted of helping the Iranian regime spy on dissidents in the United States is cheering on Iran's missile attacks against Israel.

Alireza Doostdar, an associate professor of Islamic Studies and a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, wrote in a Tuesday X post, "At this point the best and only hope for peace is the power and durability of Iranian missiles." His statement was in response to a video alleging that an "Iranian hypersonic missile attack" had destroyed an Israeli missile defense system in Tel Aviv.

On the University of Chicago campus, Doostdar is an active member of the Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapter and has supported unauthorized anti-Israel encampments. He was arrested during a "sit-in" protest in November 2023.

Doostdar's brother Ahmadreza, however, has a more extensive record of run-ins with law enforcement. A federal judge sentenced him to 38 months in prison in 2020 for spying on Iranian dissidents in California and Chicago and for monitoring a number of Jewish centers, including a Hillel Center and a Rohr Chabad Center. Doostdar's brother is also a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen.

Reached for comment, Doostdar told the Washington Free Beacon, "Sorry I refuse to speak to fascists. You can put that as my response."

Doostdar’s defense of Iranian attacks comes as anti-Israel student groups on U.S. college campuses rally around the regime.

Last Friday, as Israel launched its military campaign against Iran and its nuclear program, Columbia University Apartheid Divest—the student group that drove violent campus protests last spring—posted on X that it "affirm[s] Iran’s right to self-defense, sovereignty, and self-determination." Three days later, the group wrote, "From our position in the belly of the beast, this moment demands unconditional support from the brave people of Iran as they fight against the evils of Western imperialism. Anything less is insufficient."

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Chicago, a "unified front of Chicagoland SJPs" that includes the University of Chicago, also joined a "Hands off Iran" protest the day after Israel launched its campaign. The coalition plans to participate in a similar demonstration on Saturday.

Doostdar’s public support for the Iranian regime dates back to last May, when he dismissed accusations that foreign entities, including Iran’s government, were fueling protests on U.S. college campuses, the Free Beacon reported. He also claimed to have "never heard anti-Semitic chants" at the University of Chicago, where Jewish students have been targeted with graffiti reading, "Zionist freakshow off our campus" and "Zionist IDF terrorists off our campus."


‘Hypocrisy, double-standards’ in effort to axe Wikipedia page on Iranian policy to destroy Israel
Iranian regime leaders have long said “death to Israel” publicly, and Gideon Sa’ar, the Israeli foreign minister, told the United Nations Security Council this week that the Islamic Republic’s avowed goal is to “annihilate the State of Israel.” Iranian terror proxies, including Hamas, call for Israel’s destruction in their charters.

But that isn’t enough for some editors at Wikipedia, the sixth most visited site globally in May, who are attempting to delete an article titled “Destruction of Israel in Iranian policy.”

The article, which was created on June 4 and has garnered about 42,000 views in the past 30 days, states that Iran’s “foreign policy doctrine includes calling for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state” and that “the rejection of Israel’s legitimacy has remained consistent across both hardline and moderate Iranian leaderships.”

Max Abrahms, an associate professor of political science at Northeastern University who studies terrorism and the Middle East, told JNS that “Wikipedia is waging a disinformation campaign against Israel.”

If the page is deleted, or if it is merged into a larger article, “Israel will be less popular, the Islamic Republic will be more popular and readers will be stupider,” he said.

A Jewish Wikipedia editor, who has worked on many Israel-related pages on the site, told JNS that it is “interesting” that some editors are trying to delete the article, given that the subject is in the news.

That’s something that editors are supposed to avoid, the source told JNS. “We’re supposed to be somewhat insulated from the news,” added the editor, who declined to be named.




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