In a surprise attack in the pre-dawn hours of Friday, June 13, Israel delivered a stunning pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile infrastructures. Israel also destroyed most of what was left of Iran’s already compromised air defense capabilities, targeted Tehran’s weapons-development and production hubs, ballistic missile launchers, and storage sites. The first strike also decapitated the top echelon of Iran’s military command structure.
In addition to the bomb and guided missile attacks on targets across Iran by 200 planes which took off from air bases inside Israel, more than 1,000 miles away, Israel’s vaunted foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, conducted a series of sophisticated covert sabotage operations deep inside Iran that targeted its strategic missile infrastructure and air defense systems. The Mossad’s tactics were reminiscent of those used by Ukraine’s intelligence service in Operation Spiderweb, over 18 months, to smuggle 117 small drones into Russia. The AI-equipped self-piloted drones were then used on June 1 to attack and destroy a significant portion of Russia’s fleet of strategic long-range bombers as they sat unprotected on airfields across Russia.
For Israel’s first strike against Iran, according to an illuminating Wall Street Journal report, the Mossad spent years smuggling the components of small, quadricopter explosive-carrying drones into Iran in suitcases, trucks, and tankers, and also used commercial delivery services. The drones were then assembled by Israeli-trained agents on the ground inside Iran and positioned within short striking distance of Iranian anti-aircraft installations and known ballistic missile launching sites.
ISRAELI AGENTS LUNCH DRONE ATTACKS FROM INSIDE IRAN
As the Israeli Air Force launched its first attack on Iran, teams of Israeli agents inside Iran launched some of the drones to attack and destroy Iran’s remaining air-defense systems, which had not yet recovered from a devastating Israeli counter-attack in response to an Iranian missile attack last October. Meanwhile, other Israeli agents inside Iran used the rest of the drones to attack the known missile launching sites, as well as dozens of the specialized trucks Iran uses to transport its mobile missiles from their protected storage facilities to their launching sites.
Israel’s creative and highly effective use of today’s advanced, off-the-shelf drone technology is not surprising. The Israeli military has long been one of the world’s leaders in developing drone technology for military applications, such as surveillance and launching precision attacks. Back in 2022, Israel used explosive-laden quadcopters to attack an Iranian drone-production site in the city of Kermanshah, and in 2023, it used them to attack an ammunition factory in Isfahan.
Historically, in warfare, military progress is often limited by the availability of a single crucial weapon or component. In World War II, for example, Allied military plans to mount a campaign of amphibious attacks on Japanese occupied islands across the Western Pacific and Asian waters, and Nazi-occupied Europe, particularly including the D-Day June 6, 1944 invasion of Normandy, depended upon the limited availability of a sufficient number of plywood troop-carrying landing craft called Higgins boats.
On the other side, by 1942, the Nazis had developed the first successful jet-powered fighter, the Messerschmitt 262 (Me-262) which was far superior to any Allied aircraft of the era. But because of bureaucratic delays, the Germans were unable to put the Me-262 into combat until January 1945, too late to affect the outcome of the war. Many military historians believe that if the Germans had been able to introduce enough of the planes into combat before D-Day, they would have gained air superiority over the Allies, likely dooming the Normandy invasion.
ISRAEL ATTACKS IRAN’S WEAKEST MISSILE LINK
In the current case, Israel used its explosive-carrying drones to target the most vulnerable element of Iran’s powerful ballistic missile program, its missile transporting trucks, because Iran had only one truck for every four of its ballistic missiles, and without them, the missiles could not be moved into firing position.
The Mossad’s drone attacks on anti-aircraft units enabled Israeli planes to reach their targets in Iran without encountering any significant opposition. They also destroyed many of Iran’s ballistic missiles in transit on those trucks from their storage depots before they could reach their launch positions. As a result, Iran was unable to organize and launch its first counterattack, consisting of a total of about 200 ballistic missiles, fired in four salvos, until about 18 hours after the initial Israeli attack.
Israel claims that its coordinated attacks on Iran, which have concentrated primarily on critical military targets, such as Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, as well as its energy infrastructure and the elimination of top Iranian military leaders, taken together, have significantly reduced the ability of Iran to strike back effectively with large salvos of missiles.
But while Israel’s first strikes were directed at legitimate military targets and mostly avoided inflicting civilian casualties, which has long been a unique hallmark of the IDF’s warmaking strategy, Iran has aimed most of its missiles at Israel’s civilian population centers. This is in sharp contrast to Iran’s previous mass missile attack last October, which was primarily aimed at Israel’s largest air bases, but did little damage.
ISRAEL’S MISSILE DEFENSES WERE OVERWHELMED
This time, Iran’s concentrated missile salvos have also been able to temporarily overwhelm Israel’s missile defenses, enabling a small percentage of the missiles to reach their targets. When they have landed intact, in cities such as Bat Yam, Petach Tikvah, Bnei Brak, Rechovot, Haifa and the Israeli-Arab town of Tamra, their powerful explosive warheads have inflicted a significant number of casualties, mostly to those caught outside of shelters and designated safe rooms, and major damage to large residential buildings, rendering scores of their residents homeless in one stroke.
On the second day of Iranian missile strikes, Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that “Tehran will burn” if Iran continues aiming at the Israeli “homefront.” The next night, an Israeli airstrike attacked one of Iran’s largest oil refineries. Another set fire to a major fuel storage area in Tehran, and a third attacked the offshore South Pars field, which produces two-thirds of Iran’s natural gas.
IDF STILL TRYING HARD TO AVOID CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
But there was no indication of any deliberate Israeli attempt to target Iran’s civilian population centers. On the contrary, as it has often done during the war in Gaza, the Israeli military issued warnings to civilians living in certain sections of Tehran to leave their homes to avoid becoming collateral damage from Israeli attacks on nearby military targets.
There have also been no reports of deliberate Israeli attacks on Iran’s civilian political leadership, or even an Israeli effort to target Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, who has reportedly been moved to a secret location for his safety.
Tehran’s residents have responded to Israel’s devastating opening attacks by hoarding food, waiting on long lines to fill the tanks of their vehicles with gasoline, and moving away from obvious targets for Israeli attacks, while the Iranian military has been attempting to make emergency repairs to its facilities damaged by the ongoing Israeli air strikes.
Meanwhile, Israeli home defense officials and military planners say that they had been expecting far more than the roughly two dozen people killed and several hundred more who were injured by the first waves of Iranian missile attacks, and attribute that, in large part, to the effectiveness of Israel’s first strikes.
As Israeli air strikes continue to eliminate Iranian missiles before they can be fired, and Iran’s remaining stockpiles of missiles and drones are reduced by their heavy usage, the volume and frequency of the Iranian attacks on Israel are expected to decline, as they have from the remnants of Hamas in Gaza. That will make Israel’s missile defenses more effective, as long as they have an adequate supply of interceptor rockets, reducing Israeli civilian casualties and property damage.
ISRAEL’S FIRST STRIKE DECAPITATED IRAN’S MILITARY LEADERSHIP
Iran’s first retaliatory strikes were also delayed and inhibited by the necessity for Iran’s leaders to replace so many of their top military commanders who had been targeted and eliminated during Israel’s initial strike. During those first hours, Iran lost the chief of staff of its regular armed forces, the commander of the elite, semi-independent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the head of the emergency command, and the IRGC’s air force commander.
Israeli military officials say that their attack plans for Iran also benefited greatly from the lessons learned from IDF operations in Gaza and Lebanon since the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, as well as a number of very recent, unspecified technological breakthroughs.
The Israeli air force’s attack plans against Iranian targets also benefited greatly from the collapse of Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime in December, followed by Israel’s subsequent campaign that has systematically reduced Syria’s once-formidable Russian-supplied anti-aircraft capabilities.
As a result, Israeli attack aircraft have been able to take a much more direct route through Syrian airspace to their targets in Iran, enabling them to carry more weapons and penetrate more deeply into Iranian airspace to carry out their attacks. According to Israeli military spokesman Effie Defrin, during one attack over the weekend, 70 Israeli fighter planes, which were refueled in flight, were able to linger for more than two hours in the airspace over Tehran, seeking out and attacking their long lists of assigned targets, before having to return to their bases in Israel.
ISRAEL KILLED 9 LEADING IRANIAN NUCLEAR SCIENTISTS
Another main goal that the Israeli first strike accomplished was killing nine of Iran’s top nuclear scientists who, according to Israeli Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu, were leading a crash effort to weaponize Iran’s stockpile of 60% highly enriched uranium and turn it into as many as nine nuclear weapons.
According to a report from Israeli Army Radio, shortly after Hamas’ October 7 attack, Iran had organized all of its leading nuclear scientists into several groups to work in secret on the process of turning its highly enriched fissionable material into a practical nuclear explosive device. Nine of those nuclear scientists were assassinated in the Israeli first strike, because they had achieved a technological breakthrough which could have reduced the time it would take Iran to complete the nuclear weaponization process to a matter of a few weeks.
Israeli intelligence had become aware of the secret nuclear weaponization project and the breakthrough. It then carefully tracked the movements of the nine targeted scientists over the past year to enable the IDF to eliminate them all in the initial attack.
At the same time, Israeli intelligence learned that Iran was also stepping up the production of the long-range ballistic missiles. They had always been intended to serve as the delivery vehicles for Iran’s nuclear weapons. Ideally, they were to be launched in salvos large enough to overwhelm Israel’s effective, but not yet 100% reliable, missile defense systems.
A senior Israeli intelligence official exclusively told Fox News on Saturday, “We have more surprises coming up” for Iran following the initial wave of strikes during “Operation Rising Lion.”
A senior Israeli intelligence officer told Fox News Foreign Correspondent Trey Yingst that Iran was preparing to produce an arsenal of 8,000 ballistic missiles over the next two years, about four times the size of its current inventory of about 2,000 missiles.
ISRAEL HAS MORE MILITARY SURPRISES FOR IRAN
The official explained that “We [Israel] cannot end this operation knowing that we will be in the same spot two years from now.” The official also declared that. “Everything [about Israel’s current attacks on Iran] is going as planned. Actually, better than planned.”
The official added: “We have lots of surprises [prepared for Iran]. Not just the ones we already did. We have more surprises coming up.”
Israel’s leaders realized that they were fast running out of time to launch the long-planned pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which would be their last opportunity to prevent Iran from finally crossing the nuclear weapons threshold. They had no doubt that Iran’s ayatollahs were fully capable of using those nuclear-armed missiles to carry out their oft-repeated threats to destroy Israel, and, in the process, take the lives, chas v’shalom, of its 7.2 million Jewish citizens who make up the largest Jewish community in the world.
IRAEL DELAYED ITS ATTACK ON IRAN FOR 60 DAYS AT TRUMP’S REQUEST
Netanyahu had originally wanted to launch the pre-emptive attack on Iran in April, but he agreed to a request from President Donald Trump for a 60-day delay during which the U.S. launched a last ditch diplomatic effort to reach a negotiated agreement under which Iran would turn over its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium and, most crucially, meet Trump’s demand that it give up forever its ability to enrich uranium, which is the prime ingredient for building a nuclear weapon.
Israeli officials accurately predicted that in the new negotiations, Iran would employ the same stalling tactics it used so effectively to drag out the negotiations that led to the deeply flawed 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran’s stalling eventually wore down the initial resolve of the Obama administration to end Iran’s nuclear threat. Instead, Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, gave in to Iran’s demands that it be permitted to keep its nuclear infrastructure intact and allowed to resume its drive to build nuclear weapons when the deal’s restrictions on its nuclear program would begin to expire in about 10 years, and this is now happening.
Israel’s friends and leaders had initially feared that the Trump administration would also give in to the same Iranian stalling negotiating tactics. Those concerns spiked on Monday, April 14, when Trump’s well-meaning but relatively inexperienced chief negotiator, Steve Witkoff, who successfully negotiated the January ceasefire in Gaza, told Fox News that, “Iran must not possess nuclear weapons, and it should not enrich uranium beyond 3.67%,” suggesting that the U.S. might agree to permit Iran to continue the production of low-enriched uranium suitable for use as civilian nuclear reaction fuel. That was one of the main flaws of the 2015 nuclear deal. Because Iran was allowed to keep enriching uranium to 3.67% purity, there was nothing to stop it from using the same equipment and procedures to continue the enrichment to weapons-grade (90% pure) U-235 uranium, which is what it has been doing.
TRUMP STRENGTHENED HIS DEMAND THAT IRAN END URANIUM ENRICHMENT
Fortunately, President Trump heeded Israel’s concerns in this regard and subsequently made it clear in repeated public statements that not only would the U.S. prohibit Iran from developing nuclear weapons, it would also prohibit Iran from engaging in any uranium enrichment activities, just like all of the other countries in the world who have pledged to forego nuclear weapons as signatories bound by the Treat on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
Witkoff also specifically repudiated his prior statement suggesting that Iran might be permitted to continue its uranium enrichment efforts. “We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability,” Witkoff also said during a televised interview with ABC News on Sunday, May 18, that everything begins “with a deal that does not include enrichment. We cannot have that. Because enrichment enables weaponization.”
Ever since the latest round of U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations began in April with a surprise announcement by President Trump, he has emphasized in public statements that they represented Iran’s last chance to avoid much more painful Israeli-American military measures to shut down its nuclear weapons development program once and for all.
When this round of negotiations was first announced, on April 12, Trump indicated that he was giving Iran 60 days to agree to a mutually satisfactory deal to peacefully end its progress toward a nuclear weapon. In subsequent announcements on the progress of the talks, Trump was consistently optimistic about the progress towards an agreement, but he also repeatedly warned that there was a time limit on the negotiating process and that if an agreement was not reached by then, the consequences for Iran would be very painful.
BY THE FIFTH MEETING, IRAN WASN’T NEGOTIATING IN GOOD FAITH
It also had become apparent by the end of the fifth round of Oman-mediated negotiations held between the U.S. and Iran on May 23 in Rome that Iran’s leaders were in no hurry to reach an agreement. They flatly rejected the U.S. demand that they halt all uranium enrichment efforts, and apparently felt confident that their delaying tactics were still working.
Before that meeting, there were other disturbing developments. Iran reportedly placed a major order with China for components and raw materials that would enable Iran to vastly expand its ballistic missile program. In addition, there was growing friction between Trump and Netanyahu. Netanyahu wanted to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran immediately, based upon alarming Israeli intelligence reports of vastly accelerated efforts by Iran to develop both a working nuclear weapon and the ballistic missiles necessary to deliver it, while Trump wanted Israel to wait delay it at least until his initial 60-day deadline to reach a negotiated agreement had been reached.
More bad news was to follow the May 23 meeting. On May 26, Austria’s intelligence service publicly reported and confirmed the alarming findings of Israeli intelligence, that Iran had launched a crash program to complete the development of its nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads to targets in Israel, across Europe and as far away as the East Coast of the United States.
On June 4, Ayatollah Khamenei pushed back at the American demands that Iran halt its efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, asking derisively: “Who are you to tell us whether we should have a nuclear program or not?”
IRAN REJECTED THE LATEST AMERICAN OFFER
On June 9, Iran formally rejected the latest American proposal delivered by Steve Witkoff, which suggested that Iran could join a regionwide nuclear consortium giving it access to low-enriched uranium reactor fuel, but not the right to continue enriching it, at any level, on their own. Iran called the offer unacceptable and declared its right to continue uranium enrichment and stockpiling 60% uranium. It also demanded the immediate end of all U.S. sanctions and a guarantee of major new investments in Iran’s economy.
On June 10, President Trump said in a Fox News interview that Iran was becoming “much more aggressive” in the nuclear negotiations. That prompted Iran’s defense minister the next day to issue a public threat of an attack by Iran and/or its proxies targeting all U.S. bases and military personnel stationed “within reach” in the Middle East if the nuclear negotiations were to collapse, followed by a conflict erupting between Israel and Iran.
IAEA CONDEMNS IRAN FOR VIOLATING THE NUCLEAR ARMS TREATY
Finally on June 12, the 60-day deadline Trump had originally set for reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran, the U.N.’s nuclear weapons monitor, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a finding declaring that, for the first time in 20 years, Iran’s nuclear program, and its stockpile of near-weapons grade uranium was in violation of its responsibilities as a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).
The statement provided a firm basis for punitive action to be taken against Iran under international law. Iran reacted to the finding with defiance and announced plans to build a new uranium enrichment site equipped with the most advanced centrifuges for concentrating uranium to weapons-grade.
In the days before the Israeli first strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, President Trump downplayed the likelihood that it would involve the U.S. in a regionwide war with Iran and its allies. But at the same time, Trump and the State Department advised Americans in the region to leave, citing the rising risk of a conflict.
Later that day, Trump reacted to the IAEA finding by speculating on the chances that it could lead to war in the region. He said, “Well, I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen.
TRUMP OFFERED TO HELP IRAN IF IT ABANDONED NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT
“Look, it’s very simple, not complicated,” Trump explained. “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Other than that, I want them to be successful. I want them to be tremendous. We will help them be successful. We will trade with them. We will do whatever is necessary. I want to have an agreement with Iran. We’re fairly close to an agreement. As long as I think there is a [chance for an] agreement, I don’t want them [Israel] going in [with an attack], because I think that would blow it.
“Might help it, actually, but it also could blow it. There’s a chance of massive conflict.”
Commenting on a State Department order for all non-essential American diplomatic personnel to leave the region, Trump said, “We have a lot of American people in this area. And I said, we’ve got to tell them to get out because something could happen soon.”
TRUMP BLAMES IRAN FOR WAITING TOO LONG TO MAKE A NUCLEAR DEAL
Trump did not mention at that time that he had been in frequent contact with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and was well aware of his intention, and with Trump’s permission, to launch an attack on Iran the very next day. But shortly after news of the Israeli attack broke, Trump posted a message on his Truth Social account putting the blame for the attack squarely on Iran. It said, “Two months ago, I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to ‘make a deal.’ They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!”
Trump wrote, “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done,” He also observed that Iran’s leaders “didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!”
TRUMP GAVE NETANYAHU A GREEN LIGHT TO ATTACK
Despite Trump’s initial public claims to the contrary, mainly for diplomatic reasons, his full knowledge of Netanyahu’s intentions to attack Iran, and the green light that Trump eventually gave him to do it, was perhaps the worst-kept secret in Washington, D.C.
In an interview with Reuters, the day after Israel’s first strike, President Trump admitted to Reuters in an interview that, “We knew everything [about the attack], and I tried to save Iran humiliation and death. I tried to save them very hard because I would have loved to have seen a deal worked out.”
Trump also called the Israeli strikes “excellent” and “very successful” in a series of media interviews that same day.
He once again urged Iran to come back to the negotiating table “before there is nothing left,” and warned that the next Israeli attacks on Iran will be “even more brutal” than its opening airstrikes.
Asked if the U.S. would support Israel against Iranian missile counterattacks, Trump signaled his continued willingness to stand by Israel and said he was not concerned that doing so might violate his pledge to the voters to avoid embroiling the United States militarily in another “forever” Middle East war, such as the ones the U.S. has fought in recent years in Afghanistan and Iraq.
TRUMP CALLS AMERICA ISRAEL’S NUMBER ONE ALLY
Instead, Trump told Reuters, “We’ve been very close to Israel. We’re their number one ally by far,” and then added, “We’ll see what happens.”
Trump also admitted to reporters that he had spoken with Netanyahu several times during the hours before the Israeli first strike, as well as the next day, suggesting that he was much more aware and possibly involved in the details of the Israeli action than he has publicly admitted.
It is also apparent that Trump, at the very least, cooperated in an Israeli effort to lull Iranian military leaders into a false sense of security by having agreed to schedule a sixth negotiating meeting in Oman between U.S. and Iranian officials on Sunday, June 15. According to a New York Times report, that led those senior Iranian officials to believe that Israel would not dare to attack Iran before then, for fear of Trump’s angry reaction to their spoiling of his peacemaking efforts.
IRAN’S MILITARY LEADERS FALSELY BELIEVED THEY WERE SAFE AT HOME
That was why, on the day after Trump’s 60-day negotiating deadline for Iran to agree had passed, they did not attempt to sleep in safe rooms for fear of Israeli attempts to assassinate them, like the Mossad has done in recent years to so many Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. As a result, Iran’s top military leaders were assassinated on the night of the Israeli first strike while sleeping in their beds by precision-guided Israeli munitions. They came through their bedroom windows, often without damaging other apartments in the same building, based on the detailed information on their personal habits that had been gathered by the Mossad from their spies and from technical means of surveillance in Iran.
In addition, according to the New York Times, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC’s aerospace unit, and his entire senior staff ignored an Iranian security directive warning them against meeting in one location. Instead, they met at a military base in Tehran, and were all killed when the Israeli first strike targeted the base. The first waves of Israeli airstrikes also damaged or destroyed key military targets at 15 different locations across Iran, as well as severely damaging the aboveground part of Iran’s primary uranium enrichment operation at Natanz.
The same New York Times story reported widespread consternation among Iranian officials over the total failure of the country’s air defenses, and the military’s inability to protect its top commanders and nuclear scientists from nearly simultaneous Israeli assassination attempts, and Israel’s stunning success at thoroughly infiltrating Iran’s most important security and military operations.
U.S. MILITARY AGAIN HELPED TO DEFEND ISRAEL AGAINST IRAN’S MISSILES
Later that day, U.S. officials told reporters that U.S. military personnel and U.S. Navy warships in the region had participated, once again, in a coordinated effort to help shoot down any Iranian ballistic missiles and drones fired in retaliation at Israel.
However, the Trump administration’s tacit support for Israel’s pre-emptive attack, in self-defense, against Iran’s missile and nuclear programs and U.S. military efforts to safeguard Israel against Iranian counterattacks, was met with disapproval from progressive Democrats and even some voices on the political right.
SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS AGAIN LEADS PROGRESSIVE CRITICISM OF ISRAEL
Vermont’s socialist senator, Bernie Sanders, the unofficial leader of the liberal progressive movement, declared that, “The world is more dangerous and unstable as a result of the extremist Netanyahu’s government’s ongoing defiance of international law. First, he uses the starvation of children in Gaza as a tool of war, a barbaric violation of the Geneva Conventions. Now, his illegal unilateral attack on Iran risks a full-blown regional war.
“Talks were planned for Sunday, but Netanyahu chose instead to launch an attack. The U.S. must make it clear that we will not be dragged into another Netanyahu war,” Sanders declared. “Along with the international community, we should do everything possible to prevent an escalation of this conflict and bring the warring parties to the negotiating table.”
Democrat Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, the former head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wrote on X, “Israel’s reckless, escalatory strikes on Iran risk igniting a larger regional war, and undermine planned negotiations for a potential new nuclear deal.
“Netanyahu must not be allowed to pull America into another forever war. Instead, we must immediately push for negotiated de-escalation,” she wrote, totally ignoring Iran’s dangerous push to obtain nuclear weapons.
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that “Israel’s alarming decision to launch airstrikes on Iran is a reckless escalation that risks igniting regional violence.
“These strikes threaten not only the lives of innocent civilians but the stability of the entire Middle East and the safety of American citizens and forces,” Reed added. “While tensions between Israel and Iran are real and complex, military aggression of this scale is never the answer.”
Connecticut’s Democrat Senator, Chris Murphy, who serves on the Senate’s Foreign Relations committee, said that “Israel’s attack on Iran, clearly intended to scuttle the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran, risks a regional war that will likely be catastrophic for America and is further evidence of how little respect world powers — including our allies — have for President Trump.
“This is a disaster of Trump and Netanyahu’s own making, and now the region risks spiraling toward a new, deadly conflict” that Murphy said “may be good for Netanyahu’s domestic politics, but it will likely be disastrous for both the security of Israel, the United States and the rest of the region.”
CALIFORNIA DEMOCRAT SHERMAN PRAISES THE IDF’S HIGH MORAL STANDARD
On the other hand, Democrat Congressman Brad Sherman from California condemned Iran’s response to Israel’s first strike on legitimate military targets as “unsurprising cowardice from a regime that has spent decades brutalizing its own people.” He also expressed his approval of the fact that “Israel’s strike on Iran was targeted precisely at senior Iranian military commanders and military sites that posed an existential threat to Israel.”
Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Jewish senator from New York, reasserted his longtime support for Israel’s “right to defend itself and [declared] that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” in the wake of its pre-emptive strike. “Ensuring they never obtain one must remain a top [American] national security priority,” Schumer said, but then added, “Every effort must be made to move toward the [preferred] path of a diplomatic solution.”
Most congressional Republicans were supportive of Israel’s pre-emptive strike, and shared the thankful view of Congressman Brian Mast, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who said, “What Israel’s preemptive strike ensured is that Iran’s next attack will not be with a nuclear weapon.”
John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader, offered a full-throated defense of Israel’s pre-emptive strike. “For too long, the mullahs in Iran have publicly aspired to wipe the only democracy in the Middle East off the face of the map via any means possible: funding and arming terror groups on Israel’s borders, choking off international sea lanes, and multiple barrages of missiles and drones,” Thune said.
“Iran must never gain access to a nuclear weapon. Today, Israel has determined that it must take decisive action to defend the Israeli people,” he added.
House GOP Speaker Mike Johnson also echoed Thune’s strong statement in support of Israel.
TUCKER CARLSON’S DISAPPOINTING CRITICISM
However, many friends of Israel were disappointed by the reaction of former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, who strongly criticized President Trump for being “complicit in the act of war” by supporting Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
“What happens next will define Donald Trump’s presidency,” Carlson wrote in his morning newsletter, which presents his isolationist right-wing view of American foreign policy, which is shared by some of Trump’s MAGA supporters.
In a post on his “X” social media account, Carlson called other popular conservative commentators on Fox News, such as Sean Hannity and Mark Levin, “warmongers” for pushing Trump towards direct U.S. military involvement in support of Israel against Iran.
Trump’s response to Carlson’s criticism was dismissive. The president said, “I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen,” in a reference to Carlson’s 2023 ouster by Fox News from his prime-time daily news and commentary program.
Shortly after news of the Israeli first strike was reported, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also quick to issue a statement declaring flatly that the U.S. military did not play any direct role in the Israeli attack on Iranian soil, “Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,” his statement began. “Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense. President Trump and the administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners.
“Let me be clear,” Rubio’s statement continued, “Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.” Left unsaid in Rubio’s statement was concern in the United States for the safety of the more than 150,000 American citizens now living in Israel. In addition, there is the concern of the parents of many additional thousands of American young men and women attending yeshivos and seminaries in Israel. They are currently stranded and potentially “in harm’s way” from Iranian missiles due to the closure of Ben Gurion airport to all flights, including those by Israeli-based airlines, which usually keep flying even during wartime.
The Israeli first strike initially seemed to put an end to Trump’s efforts to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran. Among those killed in the initial Israeli attack was Ayatollah Khamenei’s political advisor, Ali Shamkhani, who had been overseeing the negotiations for a new nuclear deal between the United States and Iran. An Iranian government spokesman announced the cancellation of the sixth scheduled negotiating meeting on June 15, and made it clear that Iran would not agree to negotiate while it is still under attack from Israel.
IRAN REVERSED ITS POSITION AND ASKED TRUMP FOR NEW TALKS
But as the Israeli air attacks on targets across Iran intensified, Tehran quietly backed down. On Monday, Trump confirmed that Iran had reached out to him through intermediaries to signal its willingness to return to the negotiation table, but only if Israel suspends its attacks, to which Netanyahu will not agree as long as Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs remain functional.
President Trump also has said he wants a deal to end the war between Iran and Israel, but not necessarily on Iran’s terms. “They’d like to talk, but they should have done that before,” Trump said Monday at a G-7 economic policy conference in Canada. But he also said that he was leaving the meeting to return to the White House a day earlier than scheduled to deal with the new war in the Middle East.
Trump told reporters at the G-7 meeting, “As I’ve been saying, I think a deal [to end the fighting] will be signed, or something will happen, but a deal will be signed, and I think Iran is foolish not to sign.”
TRUMP WARNS IRANIANS TO EVACUATE TEHRAN BEFORE ISRAEL DESTROYS IT
Trump also sparked panic in Iran on Monday by posting a call on his Truth Social account for the immediate evacuation of Tehran’s 10 million residents in expectation of a further escalation of Israeli airstrikes due to Iran’s rejection of a deal to curb its nuclear weapons development.
Trump said that “Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again!”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Monday that 24 Israelis had been killed and nearly 3,000 others had been evacuated from their homes as a result of the damage caused by Iranian missile strikes.
The New York Times reported that Trump had told Vice President JD Vance and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to reach out to Iranian officials such as Foreign Minister Aragchi for a meeting later this week to discuss how to end the escalating fighting between Tehran and Jerusalem.
Reuters reported that Tehran had asked Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to urge Trump to pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu to agree to an immediate ceasefire. In return, Iran reportedly promised to show more flexibility in nuclear negotiations.
Ali Vaez, the Iran project director of the International Crisis Group, told The New York Times that “Khamanei faces no good options. If he escalates, he risks inviting a more devastating Israeli attack that the U.S. could join. If he doesn’t, he risks hollowing out his regime or losing power.”
IRANIAN LEADERS CAN’T BEAR TO MEET AMERICA’S TERMS
Vaez told the Wall Street Journal that, “For the Iranian leadership, the only thing that is more dangerous from their perspective than suffering from Israel’s bombing is surrendering to America’s terms.”
The Wall Street Journal also reported that since Israel’s first strike, the ayatollah’s “regime has appeared increasingly vulnerable. The roads out of Tehran have been clogged with people fleeing the city. On Monday, the blasts could be heard live on Iranian state TV as Israel expanded its targets to include buildings in Tehran belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.”
ISRAEL’S REAL GOAL IN IRAN MAY BE REGIME CHANGE
On the other hand, several Middle East analysts believe that the ultimate goal of the powerful Israeli first strike was to inspire Iran’s people to rise up and demand regime change, overthrowing the despotic rule of the ayatollahs. That is because of the very difficult military problem facing Israel, the fact that some key Iranian nuclear facilities, such as the installation at Fordow, are too deeply buried underground to be destroyed by the conventional weapons of Israel’s air force.
After inspecting the results of Israel’s first strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, IAEA director Rafael Grossi told the BBC that the Natanz enrichment plant sustained extensive damage, likely destroying 15,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges, while Iran’s deep underground Fordow plant remained largely intact.
Only the U.S. can provide Israel with the weapon it needs, the GBU-57A/B MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) blockbuster bomb, and a heavy strategic bomber, such as a B-52, that can deliver it. Each GBU 57A weighs 30,000 pounds, making them far too heavy for any normal Israeli military plane to carry.
TRUMP WANTS TO AVOID PRESIDENT G.W. BUSH’S NATION-BUILDING MISTAKES
But having the U.S. get so heavily involved in directly attacking Iran’s most strategic installation was something that President Trump had not wanted to do. In particular, Trump did not want to repeat the same mistakes in Iran that were made by President George W. Bush by overthrowing the governments of first the Taliban in Afghanistan and then Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That then made the U.S. responsible for rebuilding both countries, neither of which had any experience with or respect for American-style democratic government and concepts of human rights.
However, there does appear to be a strong sense of national unity across the political spectrum in Israel today behind Netanyahu’s decision to attack Iran, in a desperate, last-minute attempt to prevent Iran from at last acquiring a usable nuclear weapon. Israel’s military task was also made much easier by its prior successes in decisively defeating Hamas in Gaza and then Hezbollah in Lebanon, eliminating the threat on Israel’s northern and southern borders from two of the most dangerous members of Iran’s Axis of Resistance. Iran also lost a key ally last year with the sudden and unexpected fall of Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime, leaving it to face almost alone the superior firepower and cunning of the Israeli military.
ISRAEL’S ENEMIES DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT TERRITORY
As Prime Minister Netanyahu has long argued, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the problem that Iran’s radical Islamic leaders have with Israel, are not, at their core, normal nation-to-nation territorial disputes over the outcome of the 1967 Six Day War, including who has the right to claim the land in the West Bank, or political sovereignty over Yerushalayim and its disputed holy sites.
It is a far more existential dispute over Israel’s victory in 1948 and its right to continue to exist as a majority Jewish state, and offer sanctuary and a protective homeland to persecuted Jews anywhere around the world in the mostly Muslim-populated Middle East region.
Israel is fighting for its survival and the survival of its Jewish citizens. Netanyahu’s political enemies may be right in accusing him of being an unscrupulous leader determined to maintain his political power at all costs. As Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, he has repeatedly found ways to frustrate Israel’s enemies as well as his own, with his survival instincts.
While some may believe that his decision to lead Israel into a war against Iran also serve his own political interests, nobody can seriously doubt that Iran’s threat to Israel’s survival is real and that its 7.2 million Jewish citizens deserve, with the Eibeshter’s help, the strongest possible support from America and its president.
