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Thursday, June 26, 2025

06/26 Links Pt1: Trump and Netanyahu's 2-state vision: Gaza war's end, Abraham Accords expansion; The Trump Doctrine on Nuclear Nonproliferation Is Born

From Ian:

The Trump Doctrine on Nuclear Nonproliferation Is Born
The main lessons from this week are that countries that build the bomb risk getting bombed themselves.

Pursuing nuclear arms is not a path to security, but to insecurity.

By striking Iran's nuclear facilities on Saturday night, President Trump did not just deal a blow to Iran's nuclear ambitions. He also established an important new precedent.

By demonstrating that the U.S. is willing to use military force to stop the spread of the bomb, he made it much less likely that any other country will follow Iran's path and build an illegal nuclear program.

Until last week, the U.S. had never launched military strikes on the nuclear facilities of a country with which it was not at war. By bombing Iran, the U.S. has reset expectations.

If the U.S. had simply stood by and watched Iran cross the nuclear threshold, future American threats would have been perceived as a mere bluff that can safely be ignored.

Iran spent four decades and an estimated $500 billion on its nuclear program, only to have its nuclear facilities reduced to rubble. What other leader in their right mind will want to sign up for that deal?

This new reality will strengthen global nonproliferation efforts and make the world a safer place.
Richard Kemp: Arab nations should be grateful to Israel for destroying the Iranian hydra
Only those who don’t understand Middle East politics will take seriously reports that some Arab leaders and diplomats are concerned about Israel’s recent pre-emptive action against Iran. This mostly amounts to posturing for the benefit of their own populations. Many of their people are vehemently against Israel, for religious reasons but also to a large extent due to their governments’ own anti-Israel indoctrination from previous times.

It is a similar position to the one Western European governments find themselves in. Keir Starmer’s false criticisms and actions against Israel, such as arms suspension and sanctions, are surely due not to genuine concerns about Israel but the need to bolster support among Labour’s electorate, much of which is vehemently anti-Israel.

Arab leaders are well aware of the dangers they face from Iran. The ayatollahs are most vocal against Israel but they hate the Sunni Arab states just as much, if not more. This is more than mere rhetoric. Iran’s proxies have attacked the UAE and Saudi Arabia in recent years and Iran itself attacked US bases in Iraq and a few days ago in Qatar. Meanwhile Iran has for years been working to subvert Jordan and use it as a base of attack against Israel.

An Iranian nuclear capability threatened Arab countries as well as Israel. For years Israel has been understood to possess a nuclear capability. The Arabs knew that presented no threat to them. Only as the Iranian nuclear programme gained momentum did several countries in the region, especially Saudi Arabia, begin to seriously investigate acquiring their own nuclear capability.

With the exception of Iran itself and Syria, Israel has not attacked any country in the region and the Arabs know it will not. All of its offensive operations, in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, have been only against Iranian proxies that have attacked Israel.
Tony Badran: Iran’s Flying Monkeys
So what changed? As the past few weeks have demonstrated, the key variable—the difference between a U.S.-protected nuclear Iran that dominates the region, and the geopolitical picture we have today, with Iran cut down to size—is leadership. Any misalignment on either side, in the United States or Israel, could well have prevented the current outcome.

Had the Obama team’s campaign to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded at any point between 2021 and 2024, it seems unlikely that Netanyahu’s American-approved replacement would have been able to successfully navigate the post-Oct. 7 landscape and destroy Iran’s regional project. Likewise, had Trump lost the 2024 election or, worse still, had he not turned his head at that precise moment in Butler, Pennsylvania, the likelihood of American support for the destruction of Iran’s nuclear weapons program drops to zero. Remove the great men of history, and everything defaults back to the Obama structural settings on the Democratic and also some of the Republican side of the aisle.

Even now, you can see it in some of the comms environment in Washington, after the U.S. strikes on Iran, where we’re hearing things from both Democrats and Republicans about the need for a “long-term settlement” with Iran, to be accompanied, no doubt, by endless new rounds of negotiations. Over what, exactly? A new and improved JCPOA, after having destroyed all their centrifuges and facilities? Why? Who cares?

President Trump put it best. When asked if he’s interested in restarting negotiations with Iran, the president was dismissive: “I’m not. … The way I look at it, they fought. The war is done. I could get a statement that they’re not going to go nuclear … but they’re not going to be doing it anyway. … I’ve asked [Secretary of State] Marco [Rubio], ‘You want to draw up a little agreement for them to sign?’ … I don’t think it’s necessary.”

The president is being praised for using military force while eschewing long-term commitments and entanglements. The corollary of that policy is, properly, for America to walk away after the strikes yet threaten to bomb again should the need arise. Everything else, whether it’s a new “deal” or the hope of “integration” for a “moderate” Iran, is static from the Obama signal.

Why the D.C. establishment, left and right, feels such an intense attachment to Iran defies any rational cost-benefit analysis related to the national interest. It therefore can only be explained by extrinsic factors that are probably best explained by a shrink who specializes in subjects like “white guilt” or “the burdens of empire”—which means I am obliged to take a pass. I can only observe that this attachment is a powerful one that must therefore signify something important to those who continue to feel its attraction, even when the United States and Iran are at war.

Fundamentally, D.C. is a pro-Iran town, where factions on the left and right have shown a core investment in ensuring that Iran has the means and the opportunity to go nuclear as part of their political programs at home. Why? Again, I can only speculate, as it so clearly defies basic calculations of the national interest. Perhaps they see Iran, as Obama did, as a useful tool in factional wars against domestic political rivals.

Luckily for the rest of us, the behavior of D.C. sewer dwellers matters far less now, thanks to President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The illusion that the D.C. establishment has maintained, hand in hand with Iran, for decades, has been shattered. The proxy armies that formed Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” are no more. We can even pinpoint the moment when Israel pulled the curtain aside: Sept. 27, 2024, the day it killed Nasrallah, whose Iranian masters turned out to be part of the same illusion that he was.

Now that the Ayatollah’s monkeys have scattered, whatever remains or does not remain of Iran’s nuclear program doesn’t much matter, even while anonymous sources in Washington do their best to put cards back into the regime’s hand by claiming that Fordow wasn’t “fully” destroyed and other such irrelevancies. The spell is broken, and the regime’s regional alignment, which was at the heart of both its threat to its neighbors and its strategy of deterrence, has been shattered beyond any hope of easy repair. Now it’s time for Washington and regional leaders alike to deal with reality.


Seth Mandel: Yes, It’s a New Middle East
Membership in the Abraham Accords could, if trends continue, become a sought-after status marker because it is arguably becoming a sort of security umbrella.

That is easier to see if you’re not instinctively anti-Israel, by the way. Those who view Israel as a colonialist enterprise have a great deal of trouble understanding the Arab regimes in the region as well. The reality is that Iran was the colonialist power, the occupier, the expansionist hegemon with an appetite for power and blood and conquest.

Mahmoud Abbas knows that, too. The Palestinian Authority president is no democrat and no peacemaker, but what is his goal for the Palestinian territories? To rid the PA-controlled areas of the West Bank of their Iranian militias and to convince Hamas to surrender in Gaza. Abbas wouldn’t dare say such things if he thought Hamas’s defeat in Gaza would simply mean Israel would annex the coastal enclave. He knows that Israel isn’t the destabilizing threat in Gaza. He also knows that Israel isn’t the destabilizing threat in the West Bank: His security forces and Israeli security forces coordinate attempts to flush out Iranian militias to increase Abbas’s area of control.

This is yet another boon of President Trump’s decision to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. He has followed through on his promises in the Middle East, giving him credibility and a certain amount of leverage in the region. He has won the favor of Riyadh and, for the moment, knocked Tehran out of the ring. So there is no way around the U.S. (and therefore Israel) if you’re looking for alliances in the Middle East. And wouldn’t you know it, Abbas has now reached out to Trump so he doesn’t get left behind.

The Abraham Accords may have begun as a limited diplomatic framework. But in the years that have followed, they have continually defied those limits. They might one day soon become simply the status quo.
Israel working ‘vigorously’ on expanding Abraham Accords after Iran war, Netanyahu reveals
Israel’s victory over the Islamic Republic of Iran opened opportunities for a “dramatic expansion” of Jerusalem’s regional peace agreements, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Thursday night.

Israel’s military “fought with strength against Iran and achieved a great victory,” Netanyahu said in remarks posted to X. “That victory opens an opportunity for a dramatic expansion of the peace agreements.”

The Israeli government, headed by Netanyahu, is “working vigorously” on expanding the circle of peace, according to the leader of the Jewish state.

“Along with the release of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas, there is a window of opportunity here that must not be wasted,” Netanyahu emphasized. “We must not waste even a single day.”

“Our Scripture says: ‘The Lord shall grant strength to His people; the Lord shall bless His people with peace,'” he said, citing Psalms 29:11.

Earlier on Thursday, the Israel Hayom daily reported that Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump had agreed in recent discussions to end the Gaza war against Hamas and expand the Abraham Accords.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, told CNBC on Wednesday that more countries will join the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized ties between Israel and several Muslim countries.

“We think we will have some pretty big announcements on countries that are coming into the Abraham Accords,” Witkoff declared, adding that one of the Trump administration’s “key objectives is that the Abraham Accords be expanded and more countries come into it.”

“We are hoping for normalization across an array of countries, maybe that people would never have contemplated coming in before,” he said.


Trump and Netanyahu's 2-state vision: Gaza war's end, Abraham Accords expansion
A four-way telephone conversation between United States President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer occurred directly after the American assault on Iran's nuclear installations. According to a source familiar with the discussion's substance, Israel Hayom learned that all participants expressed extreme enthusiasm regarding the B-2 bomber mission results and were experiencing what the source characterized as "euphoria."

Yet the tremendous satisfaction among the four leaders derived not merely from operational achievements but also from their future strategic planning. President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu aim to swiftly pursue fresh peace arrangements with Arab states as part of Abraham Accords expansion.

They reached consensus on these fundamental principles in general terms. They plan rapid implementation, beginning with Gaza warfare termination.
1. Gaza hostilities will conclude within two weeks, ending conditions will encompass four Arab nations (including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) to administer the Gaza Strip, replacing the murderous Hamas terrorist organization. The remaining Hamas leadership will face exile to other countries, while the hostages gain freedom. 2. Multiple nations globally will accept numerous Gaza inhabitants seeking emigration. 3. Abraham Accords expansion will bring Syria, Saudi Arabia, and additional Arab and Muslim countries to recognize Israel and establish official relationships. 4. Israel will declare its willingness for future Palestinian conflict resolution under the "two states" concept, contingent upon the Palestinian Authority reforms. 5. The United States will acknowledge limited Israeli sovereignty implementation in Judea and Samaria.

Concurrently, two diplomatic sources informed Israel Hayom about substantial American presidential pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu to conclude the Strip operations. Such pressure commenced prior to Operation Rising Lion and recommenced immediately following its completion. Nevertheless, an additional source indicated no awareness of such pressure.
Gil Troy: A Justified War Can Potentially Create a More Just World
Many Americans refused to see how deranged, dangerous, and dishonest the Iranian Mullahs and Revolutionary Guards have been for decades. Their worldviews often rely too much on diplomacy and underestimate the evil of some enemies.

Most Israelis don't take this war - or any military action - lightly. We know what it's like to see wonderful young people die just because we want to live in the Jewish homeland. In the last week alone, we've seen apartment towers collapse, hospitals bombed, research labs destroyed, hundreds injured, and Arabs, Jews, and Ukrainians seeking cancer treatment murdered. So Israelis know what war is like, yet don't avoid it when it's justified.

Since my children enlisted, many American Jews ask me, "How much longer do your kids have to serve," as if their sacred army service is a prison sentence. Most Israelis ask, "Where are your kids serving and is it meaningful?" My American Jewish friends say, "Boy, I hope this war ends quickly." Most Israelis say, "I hope this war ends successfully."

Speak to friends in the Persian community if you believed diplomacy was working or ever would work with Iran's Islamist theocrats. Speak to friends in the Israeli community if you want to better understand how a justified war can potentially create a more just world.


JPost Editorial: Iran is not finished but Israel has bought itself crucial time
Of course, Iran is not finished. Hidden centrifuges remain. Enriched uranium stockpiles still exist. The regime’s ambitions are not erased. But the window has been decisively narrowed. Israel has bought itself crucial time – time to prepare, to deter, to reengage the world from a position of strength rather than desperation.

This operation marks a watershed in Israeli doctrine. It signals a shift toward proactive, integrated, and multi-domain deterrence. It also reminds the world that Israel will not wait for international consensus when its very existence is at stake. It will act swiftly, decisively, and alone if necessary.

The Middle East, as ever, remains on a knife’s edge. But the balance has shifted. Iran’s nuclear project lies in disarray. The regime faces not only material losses, but a crisis of confidence. Meanwhile, Israel has reasserted itself – not only as a regional military power, but as a sovereign actor willing to bear the burden of its own survival.

Will Iran rebuild? Probably. But it will do so under scrutiny, constraint, and constant risk. And in that interval, there lies an opening for Israel, the US, and the world to reshape the arc of this long-burning conflict.

For a nation worn thin by war, “total victory” does not have to mean total destruction of the enemy. It can mean something simpler: We survived. We outlasted the threat. We saw what was coming, and we did what had to be done.

The world may not appreciate it publicly, or even comprehend the potential Armageddon that was averted. But let others debate, delay, and equivocate. Israel acted. And in that clear-eyved courage lies the essence of victory.
Arsen Ostrovsky: Israel won the war, Iran lost it: Here's why the world is much safer for it
Iran’s retaliation was feeble and weak. A disorganized salvo of drones and missiles, most of which were shot down. A few tragically made it through, killing over two dozen civilians. But not a single military target was hit. The Islamic Republic showed the world what it is without its nuclear program. Loud, but weak.

And more revealing than what happened is what didn’t. Hezbollah stayed silent. The Houthis stayed in place. Shia militias did nothing. Hamas didn’t fire a single rocket. Iran’s so-called axis of resistance collapsed under pressure. These groups, bankrolled and armed by Tehran for decades, abandoned their sponsor when it counted. That is strategic betrayal.

In the skies above Iran, Israel had complete dominance. Wave after wave of Israeli jets came and went. No IRGC jet took off. No surface-to-air system succeeded. Iran’s multi-billion dollar air defenses were exposed as a hollow show.

Meanwhile, the world saw the truth. This was not just Israel defending itself. It was a joint stand with the United States against a regime that openly calls for genocide and actively works toward nuclear breakout. For once, the international community didn’t hide behind moral ambiguity. The G7 stood with Israel. Leaders across the West understood that allowing Iran to go nuclear is not containment. It is surrender.

Iran was isolated. Iran was humiliated. And Iran was exposed.

This wasn’t just a tactical win. It was a strategic shift. A reset.

Israel reminded the world and its enemies that it will never allow a genocidal regime to get the bomb. It will act alone if it must. It prefers not to. But when the mission is this clear, hesitation is not an option. And this time, it did not act alone. The United States did not just express support. It delivered it. In the form of B-52s, bunker busters, and battle plans.

So, let’s end the nonsense.

Iran lost its nuclear program.

Iran lost key military leadership.

Iran lost credibility with its terror proxies.

Iran lost air sovereignty.

Iran lost the illusion that it was untouchable.

And Israel? Israel proved once again that resolve backed by capability is unbeatable. It came out stronger. More united. And more respected. Israel didn’t just defend its citizens. It made the entire world safer.

Iran lost. Israel won. The mission was clear. The execution was surgical. The outcome could not be more decisive.
Israeli-U.S. Attacks Significantly Disrupted Iran's Nuclear Program
Most commentators in the Arab world acknowledge that Israel has secured unprecedented achievements in the war with Iran. According to them, Israel succeeded - thanks to the American strikes on Iran's nuclear sites - in achieving a strategic gain that the IDF could not have attained on its own.

The Israeli-U.S. attacks significantly disrupted Iran's nuclear program. Senior security sources claim that Iran's main nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan were destroyed, and 17 top Iranian nuclear scientists were killed.

Yet, Iran still has 80 nuclear scientists who survived the war and who constitute a significant reservoir of knowledge regarding the nuclear project. Defense assessments also suggest that Iran retains 1,000 ballistic missiles and 150 launchers.

Israel possesses some of the most advanced military and intelligence capabilities in the world, and it has now sent a clear message to every capital in the region: its long arm can reach anywhere. Israel has successfully restored its deterrence power to an unprecedented level. Israel delayed Iran's nuclear program by at least several years.

Iran is still capable of beginning to rebuild its nuclear program. Iran does not intend to give up its nuclear project - even if the current regime were to fall. This aspiration is deeply rooted in Iran's national vision and predates the Islamic Revolution. Security officials warn that it is indeed possible Iran transferred some of its enriched material and advanced centrifuges to other underground facilities capable of continuing uranium enrichment.

Senior political officials assess that Iran will return to the negotiating table in pursuit of a new nuclear agreement. However, there is no indication that it is willing to relinquish its core principle of enriching uranium on Iranian soil. It is highly likely that Khamenei will now covertly attempt to accelerate nuclear bomb production and resume ballistic missile development.
Seth Mandel: The Trump-NATO Lovefest
Where did these good vibes come from? In part, America’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites. Our European allies (to say nothing of the Turks, who are also in NATO) tend to disagree with Trump’s support for Israeli self-defense when it comes to the Palestinians. But the Iran nuclear program is much more of a consensus issue. While many in the Democratic opposition here at home have a partisan attachment to Barack Obama’s failed nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, in the real world most people just want the Iranian program ended. Diplomacy failed in this regard. But one way or another, this threat had to be neutralized, and a few big bombs with no casualties is, to any rational observer, a successful mission.

But there’s another aspect of the bombing of Iran that gets lost in the highly politicized debate in the US: Iran has played a key role in Russia’s war on Ukraine, and disarming Iran is a major boost to the security of NATO member states. The Israeli and American operations against Iran roiled the China-Russia-Iran axis and weakened the forces waging war on Ukraine.

Which is to say: It had been a good week for NATO thanks in large part to Donald Trump. That is a sentence one rarely has reason to write, but there it is.

Yet there are reasons for members of the alliance to curb their enthusiasm. For one, Trump can be fickle and we don’t know whether his newfound finger-pointing at Putin will stick.
No, Neocons Aren’t Mad at Trump—They’re Thrilled By Abe Greenwald
Via Commentary Newsletter sign up here. Where’s the “heat”? There was none to be found yesterday either, when my former colleague Noah Rothman appeared on Fox News’ Will Cain Show in a strange segment about Trump supposedly coming under fire from neocons and isolationists. Cain declared, “There are those that have suggested regime change is the only option in Iran and acted and asked for more action from the United States of America.” Funnily enough, Cain never cited any of them. Then Newsweek’s Batya Unger-Sargon added that the president “has been taking fire” from the “neoconservative pro-regime-change side” because the neocons “didn’t get what they want this week.” Again, offered without reference to one seething neocon. Finally, Noah chimed in quite brilliantly, “I keep hearing about how I’m supposed to be very angry about this…. I’m not angry about this. It’s been a spectacular success.”

If you want genuine barking and snarling, there’s the anti-Israel leftist crank Cenk Uygur, who posted on X that yesterday’s shady intelligence leak about the U.S.’s alleged failure to destroy Iran’s nuclear program “means Israel is not done with this war” because “99% of the time those types of leaks are either fake intelligence from Israel or a neocon leaking speculative evidence to say we should go back into war.” Sadly, Megyn Kelly agreed.

You may not know this, but I happen to be tight with a few neocons myself. And as far as I can tell, every last one of them—yes, including me—is thrilled with Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and call it a day. Indeed, before he made that decision, I argued that he was the best imaginable commander in chief to order a strike on Iran because he’s opposed to nation-building.

You know who is angry that the U.S. didn’t get bogged down in regime change in Iran? The left and the isolationist right. Not because they care about Iran or Iranians, but because they are obsessed with neocons and desperately wanted a catastrophe to blame on them. They’re now peddling the “neocons are angry” line because, in fact, neocons got precisely what they’ve wanted for 20 years—the bombing of Iran’s nuclear program—and it was glorious. As Eli Lake said on yesterday’s podcast, we’re “walking on sunshine.”
Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Charles Hamilton: Why the U.S. Strike on Iran Was Perfectly Timed
For more than two decades, the U.S. has employed every tool short of direct military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Sanctions, sabotage, cyberattacks, and diplomatic negotiations all aimed to slow Tehran's march toward becoming a nuclear power. Four administrations - including Trump's own in 2019 - have contemplated striking Iran's nuclear facilities but ultimately pulled back due to the enormous risks.

The bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites represents the culmination of the most rehearsed and studied war plan of the last twenty years. President Trump's swift shift from diplomacy to direct action appears to reflect a unique convergence of favorable conditions. The first is Israel's systematic and sequential degradation of Iran's network of proxy groups since Hamas's October 2023 attack.

Israel's assault on Iran degraded its air defense network and penetrated and disrupted Iran's military communications. These effects enabled the U.S. strikes with unprecedentedly low risk to American forces and reduced the threat of effective retaliation.

The U.S. military's "bunker-buster" bombs that pulverized Iran's Fordo facility were designed by the U.S. Air Force beginning in 2004 for exactly this mission. This marked their first combat use. If the attack is eventually found to have destroyed Fordo, it would validate two decades of military planning and technological development.

The president was presented with this same strike plan in 2019 and deferred. It appears he waited until Israel set the theater this time around.
Should Iran Be Contained, or Defeated?
Martin Kramer recently resurfaced a 2009 talk on the tendency of Western analysts to compare Islamist Iran to Soviet Russia. Of course, when these comparisons were first offered in 1979, those making them didn’t expect the Berlin Wall to fall in ten years, or the USSR to collapse two years afterwards. But the claim, made even by the great Bernard Lewis, that the Iranian Revolution should be compared to the French and Russian ones was, Kramer argues, shaky from the get-go:

This categorization of Iran’s revolution among the “greats,” so close to its occurrence, seems hasty in retrospect. Compare France, Russia, and even China with Iran 30 years after their [respective] “great revolutions.” They became military or economic superpowers; Iran clearly hasn’t. It’s more reminiscent of Gamal Abdul Nasser’s revolutionary Egypt in its ability to mobilize and project power. But first impressions matter, and from a very early stage, Iran’s revolution was deemed analogous to Russia’s.

Once analysts decided that the Islamic Revolution was a replay of the Bolshevik, they then concluded that Iran must be contained:

But there’s a problem with the cold-war analogy. It hides Iran’s weakness. It presumes Iran has the kind of superpower clout that the Soviet Union had—even though Iran can’t invade countries, sell top-of-the-line weapons systems, or rattle a nuclear saber. In doing so, it tilts the U.S. approach to Iran away from prevention and preemption, and toward containment and deterrence. It thus works, paradoxically, as a self-fulfilling analogy. Thanks to its hold on our imaginations, the United States is already in the process of resigning itself to the continued growth of Iranian power, until it does more closely resemble a major power in its capabilities.

If this is so, why do we demoralize ourselves and feed Iran’s ambitions with flattering and misleading analogies?

Last week Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu finally shook off this attitude, and proved Kramer right.
US demands Iran surrenders enriched uranium
The US intends to present Iran with three baseline demands for reentering negotiations: a total ban on uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, the removal of all highly enriched uranium Iran has stockpiled, and limitations on future missile production. According to reports on Wednesday, another round of talks between the parties is scheduled for next week – the first since the military campaign in Iran began.

These conditions indicate that not all of Iran's enriched uranium was eliminated during joint US-Israeli strikes. On the eve of the campaign, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed Iran had amassed 408.6 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% – enough for more than 10 nuclear bombs if further enriched to weapons-grade 90%.

Washington and Jerusalem are concerned that if Iran still retains a significant portion of this material, it might secretly accelerate its nuclear ambitions or develop a radiological weapon. Intelligence agencies are now prioritizing close surveillance to ensure Tehran remains far from nuclear capability. The next target? Iran's nuclear facility (Archive). Photo: AP

The US demand carries an implicit warning: if Iran refuses to surrender its enriched uranium, it risks facing another military strike. That threat is underscored by the dual strategic success of the recent campaign – severe damage inflicted by Israel on Iran's nuclear program, with potential repercussions for regime stability, and the US attack that signaled a firm commitment to preventing Iran's return to the nuclear path.

These preconditions were also put forward during prior negotiations that preceded the campaign launched on June 13. At the time, Iran rejected them, insisting on its right to continue uranium enrichment. But Tehran's position has since weakened dramatically, following assessments by intelligence officials and nuclear experts that the strikes significantly set back its nuclear development.

On Wednesday, Israel's Atomic Energy Commission stated that "the American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other components of Iran's military nuclear program, have pushed back Iran's nuclear weapon capability by many years."
Iran denies any meeting with US next week, foreign minister says
Iran currently has no plan to meet with the United States, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday in an interview on state TV, contradicting US President Donald Trump's statement that Washington planned to have talks with Iran next week.

The Iranian foreign minister said Tehran was assessing whether talks with the US were in its interest, following five previous rounds of negotiations that were cut short by Israel and the US attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The US and Israel said the strikes were meant to curb Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons, while Iran says its nuclear program is solely geared toward civilian use.

Aragchi said the damages to nuclear sites “were not little” and that relevant authorities were figuring out the new realities of Iran’s nuclear program, which he said would inform Iran’s future diplomatic stance.
The Creative Critics of U.S.-Israeli Victory By Abe Greenwald
Via Commentary Newsletter sign up here. Yesterday, Ian Bremer spun a different haunting fairytale. “If you’re sitting in Tehran, the lesson from this war is simple,” he wrote, “being a nuclear-threshold power is not enough—the only way to avoid being bombed is to become un-bombable.” And that, he says, “makes the US-Israeli tactical victory potentially counterproductive.”

As if a broken country whose entire defense apparatus is buried in rubble or penetrated by enemy spies is going to just dust itself off and become magically “un-bombable.” Oh, and while Iran works to achieve Bremer’s fictional state of impregnability, the U.S. and Israel will presumably stand by and watch.

These pieces dovetail with the contention of Barack Obama’s former National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes’s that the strikes ruined any chance of a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear aspirations. But when there’s no chance to begin with, there’s no chance ruin. If anything, the strikes establish the credible threat of U.S. force should we ever decide to go back to the negotiating table.

In today’s Wall Street Journal there are two reported articles each framing a different problem supposedly created by the U.S.-Israel victory. One claims that “with Iran now on the back foot, there is less incentive for Saudi Arabia to set aside other concerns to move forward” on normalizing relations with Israel.

There are roadblocks to normalization, but Israel’s proven military and intelligence capabilities are inducements for Saudi Arabia to deepen ties. Israel just demonstrated to the Saudis that it can cripple their common enemy in less than two weeks. That’s a country you want to have good relations with. And while there were indications of a lukewarm Saudi-Iran understanding taking shape in recent years, the now weak, helpless, and hapless Iran offers the Saudis almost nothing in the way of cooperation.

The other piece in the Journal argues that the airstrikes will make North Korea’s Kim Jong Un more committed to his country’s own nuclear-weapons program.

How could he be more committed than he is? The only thing we know for sure that Kim cares about is his nukes. They are his pride and joy. For years, he’s been building and testing weapons while his people starve. According to the Journal, “the U.S. attack on Iran could complicate any future denuclearization talks with Washington—talks that the Kim regime has for years rebuffed.” If Kim has rebuffed talks for years, what’s the complication? His intractability was and is the status quo, and the point of taking out Iran’s program was to ensure that Tehran never became similarly undeterable.

We’re going to get more and more of this kind of thing—fishy leaks, pretzel-shaped arguments, and overall bad faith from those who cannot bear the thought that America and Israel accomplished something good for humanity. They can’t, as Joe Biden put it, “take the win.”


REVEALED! Israeli Fighter Pilot Breaks Silence on Iran Airstrikes | Straight Up
Israel’s offensive on Iran shocked the world. But was it also a turning point in Jewish destiny?

In this episode of “Straight Up” with Danny Seaman, former Prime Minister’s Office official Danny Seaman sits down with Israeli Air Force veteran Shai Kalach to unpack the operational brilliance behind Israel’s historic strike on Iran and the deeper spiritual awakening it has ignited across Israeli society.

Shai Kalach, a former F-16 pilot turned Torah scholar and grassroots leader, offers a rare firsthand account of Israel’s long-range air campaign, including the logistics, coordination and years of preparation that culminated in a mission likened to the Six-Day War. Kalach reveals never-before-heard details on midair refueling, aerial dominance and the critical role of elite IDF units on the ground. He also reflects on the presence of female combat pilots in the strike and how the assault was a demonstration of both military and moral strength.

But this episode goes far beyond strategy. Kalach speaks candidly about his personal transformation from secular fighter pilot to religious activist and how Israel today is undergoing its own national metamorphosis. Together, he and Danny explore the post-war societal shifts underway, from a renewed sense of Jewish identity to the rise of a new grassroots Zionism driven by purpose, faith and national pride.

Topics covered include:
Inside look at the Iran airstrike operation
Coordination between Mossad, IDF and Air Force
The emergence of a national-religious revival in Israeli society
The future of Israeli leadership after Netanyahu
Why Zionism is evolving from survival to destiny

Chapters
00:00 The Operation's Historical Context
02:54 Insights from an Air Force Veteran
05:57 The Complexity of Long-Distance Missions
09:06 The Role of Women in the Air Force
12:03 Israel's Changing Identity
14:50 Future Challenges and Opportunities for Israel
17:43 The New Purpose of Zionism
21:02 The Rising Jewish Identity
23:58 A Vision for the Future


‘Absolutely crushed it’: Dan Caine examines Operation Midnight Hammer
Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine has examined the success of Operation Midnight Hammer with US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.




Katz says Israel sought to kill Khamenei, but didn’t find an opportunity
Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a circuit of interviews aired Thursday evening that Israel sought to eliminate Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during its 12-day conflict with Iran, but the opportunity never presented itself.

“If he had been in our sights, we would have taken him out,” Katz told Channel 13, adding that Israel “searched a lot” for Khamenei but that the operational opportunity did not arise.

The minister made similar comments in interviews with Kan and Channel 12, in which he also said that Israel had an “enforcement policy” that involved maintaining aerial superiority over Iran and ensuring, via airstrikes if necessary, that the country does not restart its nuclear or long-range missile programs.

He also conveyed that Israel didn’t know the location of all of Iran’s enriched uranium, and that it did not go into the war knowing the US would join the attack.

Katz said in the interviews that the Iranian leader had been marked for death, but that Israel was unable to locate him once he hid in a bunker: “Khamenei understood this, went very deep underground, broke off contact with the commanders… so in the end it wasn’t realistic,” Katz told Kan.
Khamenei hails ‘victory’ over Israel, threatens US
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Thursday delivered his first public statement since the ceasefire that ended 12 days of war with Israel. In his address, he offered congratulations for what he claimed was a victory over the “fallacious Zionist regime.”

The clerical ruler declared in a video address—excerpts of which were published on his official Telegram and X accounts—that “with all that commotion and all those claims, the Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic.”

Khamenei also claimed victory over the “U.S. regime,” asserting that Washington had directly entered the conflict to save Israel from complete destruction. “It entered the war in an effort to save that regime but achieved nothing,” he said.

“The Islamic Republic delivered a heavy slap to the U.S.’s face. It attacked and inflicted damage on the Al-Udeid Air Base [in Qatar], which is one of the key U.S. bases in the region,” the supreme leader claimed.

He continued, “The fact that the Islamic Republic has access to key U.S. centers in the region and can take action whenever it deems necessary is a significant matter. Such an action can be repeated in the future, too. Should any aggression occur, the enemy will definitely pay a heavy price.”


Commentary PodCast: The Iran Raid Was Awesome
Dan Senor joins us today as we take apart the ridiculous stories pooh-poohing the success of the raid on Iran's nuclear sites and explain how, any way you look at it, it's a world-changing event for the better.
It Doesn’t Matter if Iran Can Build a Bomb. It Matters if America Has the Guts To Bomb Them, Again
Leaked defense intelligence documents obtained by CNN allege that last Saturday night’s strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure only set the country’s nuclear program back a few months.

However, the CIA reported this week that it would take “years” for Iran to rebuild its nuclear capabilities.

Bottom line: It doesn’t matter how long it takes Iran to rebuild its nuclear weapon’s program. What matters is will the next presidential administration have the courage to take the Iranian threat serious and bomb them, again, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words:”

00:00 Introduction and Initial Reactions
00:32 Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Strike
01:00 Public and Political Reactions
02:25 Rebuilding Challenges for Iran
04:17 Strategic Implications and Future Concerns
05:57 Conclusion and Final Thoughts


Media’s FALSE CLAIMS (Iran reactor untouched?), Mamdani wins NYC | Israel Undiplomatic
Is Iran’s nuclear program truly finished—or are we being lulled into a false sense of victory?

Ruthie Blum, senior contributing editor at JNS and former adviser at Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office, joins Mark Regev, former Israeli ambassador to the UK and fellow Prime Minister’s Office veteran, to break down the ceasefire, U.S. involvement and what it all really means for Israel and the West.

The episode explores whether Iran was ever as strong as it appeared, or if it was a "paper tiger" all along. Regev and Blum analyze the strategic brilliance behind Israel and America’s joint military deception tactics, including the unprecedented surprise strikes that devastated Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. They also discuss Iran’s weakened state and the possibility of the regime resorting to terrorism abroad, underscoring the need for continued vigilance across the West. In parallel, the two reflect on how Iran’s proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah, and others—may recalibrate after the blow and what it means for ongoing hostage negotiations in Gaza.

They also assess the broader impact on regional deterrence, the shifting dynamics in Israeli-American relations and the increasing alignment between radical Islamist ideologies and progressive Western politics. Blum highlights the shocking victory of anti-Israel candidate Zoran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic primary as a warning sign of rising antisemitism in mainstream institutions. Finally, the hosts explore how Iran’s economic ruin and growing domestic unrest could signal the beginning of the end for the regime and why the West must reclaim moral clarity before it’s too late.

Chapters
00:00 The Iranian Nuclear Program: Is It Really Over?
00:53 Ceasefire and Its Implications for Israel and Iran
05:40 Strategic Victories Against Iran's Nuclear and Missile Programs
09:36 The Impact of U.S. Involvement and Trump's Role
11:07 Iran's Internal Struggles and Potential for Change
14:24 The Threat of Iranian Terrorism Post-Conflict
15:42 Gaza: Hostage Situations and Negotiation Dynamics
20:40 Political Landscape in New York: Anti-Semitism and Elections




‘So far, so good’: Israel-Iran ceasefire sees no ‘major violations’
Israeli journalist Emily Schrader comments on the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran, brokered by President Donald Trump.

US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire has opened a window for Australians to leave the Middle East.

“So far, so good; in terms of the ceasefire, we haven’t seen any major violations,” Ms Schrader told Sky News host Steve Price.


‘I put pyjamas on for the first time’: Israel has a sense of ‘normalcy’ following ceasefire
Israeli resident David Erlich discusses the reality of life in Israel at the moment, in which he says there is a “certain normalcy which is returning”.

Mr Erlich lives about 10 kilometres east of Tel Aviv and has been under direct fire ever since Iran launched their retaliatory strikes on Israel.

“Going to sleep at night is still a challenge,” Mr Erlich told Sky News host Peta Credlin.

“I put pyjamas on last night for the first time.”




REUTERS’ ANONYMOUS SOURCES, TAINTED SOURCE & ‘CONCILIATORY’ HASSAN KHOMEINI
Update June 24, 3:30 PM ET: Times of Israel Improves Its Coverage

Times of Israel, which published an adapted version of the Reuters article, improved its coverage of Hassan Khomeini in response to communication from CAMERA concerning the problematic depiction of him as a "moderate."

The Times of Israel's subheadline had originally stated: "Mojtaba Khamenei, hardline son of supreme leader, said to be a frontrunner, alongside Hassan Khomeini, his predecessor's grandson, who is considered a relative moderate." Times of Israel editors deleted the latter part of the sentence describing Khomeini as "considered a relative moderate."

In addition, editors amended the passage stating that Khomeini "could represent a more conciliatory choice," to qualify that the succession candidate "could represent an ostensibly more conciliatory choice."
AFTER US BOMBING, FINANCIAL TIMES & GUARDIAN PUSH “TAIL WAGGING THE DOG” TROPE
On June 22, 2025, President Donald Trump ordered the US Air Force to deploy a group of B-2 bombers to drop multiple bunker-busting bombs on three nuclear facilities in Iran, the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant, the Natanz Nuclear Facility and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center.

The US attack, which is almost certainly a one-off, occurred nine days into the war between Israel and the Islamic Republic which saw Israel’s Air Force (IAF) achieve air supremacy, allowing the military to strike hundreds of military targets, including IRGC leaders, nuclear facilities and nuclear scientists throughout Iran – over 1,000 sorties in which the IAF hasn’t yet lost a single plane.

However, that one American attack began to immediately be framed by some British outlets as an example of the ‘Israeli tail wagging the US dog’, suggesting that the US president was coerced into making the decision by Israel’s prime minister. This framing, evoking antisemitic tropes about alleged Jewish and/or Israeli power and undue influence over the US, has a long and toxic history. In recent decades, it’s been associated with the progressive left, but has also been embraced by some within the MAGA right – and some who don’t fall within either of these political camps.

Enter Edward Luce, the Financial Times’ US Editor, and arguably the most openly anti-Israel contributor at the outlet. Luce, while not justifying the Oct. 7 massacre, suggested, in an opinion piece three days after worst antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust, that the attacks in southern Israel were understandable,

Luce’s foray into the Jewish power calumny began even before Trump made the decision to attack Iran.

On June 20, two days before the US strike, and amidst the debate about what Trump would do, Luce published a piece titled “Maga’s battle with Israel for Trump’s mind“. The headline ignores the debate within the administration between isolationists like Vice President JD Vance, and interventionists like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, instead casting Jerusalem as the lone party attempting to “control” Trump’s “mind”.
WHEN JOURNALISTIC RESPONSIBILITY IS ABANDONED IN FAVOR OF ANTISEMITIC TROPES
In the UK, both the Financial Times and the Guardian presented the US strike with the same trope. According to Financial Times’ US Editor Edward Luce, it was the Israeli leader and not the American one, who has been “dictating the agenda” and “dictating events.” The editorial board concurred, with the contention that the American leader was being “drag[ged] into a war” by the Israeli leader who “has wanted it for a decade.” Meanwhile, the Guardian claimed that the Israeli prime minister had “manoeuvred” the US president into the strike, suggesting the latter fell “into Netanyahu’s trap.”

These media outlets relied on the reflexive reaction of their journalists to inform the reporting and analysis – a reaction based on the ancient antisemitic trope of nefarious Jewish manipulation, rather than on journalistic investigation.

Israel had, in fact, done the heavy lifting, paving the way for the US to enter Iranian airspace under stealth and use their “bunker busters” to destroy Iran’s subterranean nuclear site that was used to secretly produce of weapons-grade nuclear materials. According to Axios, “the Israeli Air Force took out multiple Iranian air defense systems in the 48 hours leading up the U.S. strike” and this was done “at the request of the Trump administration” which “provided Israel with a list of air defense systems it wanted eliminated ahead of the strike.”

That is why the U.S. President publicly thanked Israel “for the wonderful job they’ve done,” and noted that the U.S. and Israel worked as a team to eliminate the nuclear threat posed by Iran.

Nor was the strike carried out merely for the benefit of a U.S. ally facing an imminent existential threat from Iran. The US too was endangered by Iran’s race to build a nuclear weapon. “Death to America, Death to Israel” has been the refrain at rallies organized by Iran’s regime which labels the U.S. the “Great Satan” and Israel the “Little Satan.” From the regime’s start in 1979, it occupied the US Embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage and holding 52 of them for 444 days. Iranian military action, through its terrorist proxies, has killed more than a thousand American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 15 years. And there was more than one attempt by Iran to assassinate the US president.

Still, Israel did not push the U.S. into launching the attack. The U.S. had given Iranian leader Ali Khamenei ample chance to negotiate a peaceful solution to the nuclear threat, offering even back channel negotiations in Turkey. When Khamenei did not respond, the US president convened his national security team to discuss whether or not to carry out the strike. Following the strike, the president indicated that this was a one-off event and that “now is the time for peace.”

The age-old canard of Jews dragging and manipulating unwilling Gentiles into undesirable actions has been used for centuries to fuel further Jew hatred. It is alarming in an age of rising antisemitism and especially ominous when used by journalists purporting to be reporting on breaking events.
GUARDIAN DEFENDS IRAN FROM ‘ACCUSATIONS’ IT HAS ATTACKED AMERICANS
A Guardian op-ed by Rajan Menon, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, is largely based on a social media comment by President Trump suggesting he was seeking regime change in Iran. Despite the fact that the White House later clarified that, following the US attack on three Iranian nuclear facilities, Washington was not seeking “regime change”, the op-ed (“Why dreams of regime change in Iran will end in a rude awakening” June 24), provides reasons why such a policy is unjustified.

Menon, using an argument popular both on the progressive left and new right, writes that Trump bombed the nuclear enrichment installations of a “country that hadn’t attacked the US, wasn’t preparing to and didn’t even threaten war.” Guardian cartoonist ‘First Dog On The Moon‘ went even further in defending the regime in Tehran, suggesting, in a June 23 cartoon replete with images and captions mirroring ‘Axis of Resistance’ propaganda about the war in Gaza, that Iran was the innocent victim of US and Israeli aggression.

However, in addition to Tehran’s ubiquitous “Death to America” threats, which Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made clear is a policy, not just a slogan, the regime and its proxies have committed scores of deadly attacks against Americans, and engaged in attempted assassinations of US leaders, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
REUTERS’ DREAMY COVERAGE OF NETANYAHU’S SUPPOSED WARMONGERING
Furthermore, this particular 2024 article makes abundantly clear that President Trump has a very tough record on Iran, belying Balmer’s faulty and tendentious argumentation — one that happens to echo antisemitic tropes — that Netanyahu the warmonger pushed Trump the peacemaker into attacking Iran.

Thus, Balmer’s assertions don’t match up with Reuters’ news coverage. They do, however, hew awfully close to one 2015 item on Reuters’ site: an opinion piece by Shibley Telhami.

CAMERA contacted Reuters to urge a thorough revamping of this article including the removal of snarky editorializing, the elimination of false argumentation not backed by the historical record or Reteurs’ own archives, and the cherry-picked caricature of Netanyahu’s relationship with U.S. presidents. Alternatively, we urged Reuters to recategorize the opinion piece as an opinion piece.

Netanyahu repeatedly urged for a better deal, not war. CAMERA urges better, more reliable and less biased Reuters coverage of U.S.-Israeli interactions around the Iranian nuclear issue.
BBC PROMOTES IRANIAN DISINFORMATION AND THEN LOSES INTEREST
A BBC News website report by Lyse Doucet and Lucy Clarke-Billings – which was published hours after the BBC Verify team already knew that the map was fake and that the Soroka hospital building had taken “a direct hit rather than the effect of an adjacent blast” – nevertheless tells BBC audiences that:
“The US joining Israeli strikes would cause “hell for the whole region”, Iran’s deputy foreign minister has told the BBC. […]

His comments came after the Soroka hospital in southern Israel was hit during an Iranian missile attack. Iranian state media reported that the strike targeted a military site next to the hospital, and not the facility itself.”

As we see, the BBC was very quick off the mark in promoting the Iranian regime’s disinformation but when its false claims and maps were debunked, the corporation suddenly lost interest, failing to provide its audiences with a prominent and transparent explanation of why those claims were false and failing to amend reports that amplified them.

Another notable entry on the same BBC News website live page came early on the morning of June 20th with the publication of an item written by BBC Persian reporter Parizad Nobakht, who also promoted it on social media.
US BOMBS IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES, MSNBC WIELDS ANTISEMITIC TROPES
In reality, President Trump said dozens of times during his campaign, during his transition, and during the first months of this presidency that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. From June 24, 2023 when he said, “You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You cannot let it happen because bad things will happen if that happens,” to June 11, 2025 when he said, “They can’t have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. We’re not going to allow that,” President Trump’s message has been consistent.

The idea that the Prime Minister of Israel could manipulate or “dog-walk” any President of the US is based on nothing more than antisemitic tropes about Jewish power.

The widely-accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism specifies “manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” The examples of contemporary antisemitism include “making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

Mohyeldin’s commentary that the Israeli Prime Minister may be “dog-walking” the American President fits squarely within this.
NEW YORK TIMES FALLS SUDDENLY SILENT ON IRGC AMBULANCE ABUSE
Not only did The Times go suddenly mum on Iranian regime ambulance abuse; the paper also published a page-one photograph of a bombed out vehicle which it identified as an ambulance damaged by an Israeli strike in Tehran while failing to note the IRCG’s well-documented history of hiding out in ambulances. The incomplete June 24 caption stated: “A burned ambulance on Monday after Israeli attacks. Iranian leaders were struggling to project normalcy.”

CAMERA researchers were unable to determine definitively whether or not the burned vehicle is an ambulance. It very well may be. Regardless, there’s nothing normal about a country’s security forces usurping ambulances to oppress its own people or prosecute a war against another country which it aims to wipe off the earth. The caption’s failure to note IRGC’s routine exploitation of ambulances is journalistic malpractice.




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