Extinguishing Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
"I suspect this is much less about Netanyahu's influence than Trump's own view of the Iranian nuclear program, his memory of the assassination plot against him in 2024 by Iranian agents and the success of the initial Israeli operations.""They are not asking for anything other than the bombing of Fordo. Nobody is talking about an invasion or anything like that.""Many if not most Americans understand that a nuclear Iran is particularly dangerous, and that the regime is deeply hostile to the United States."Eliot A. Cohen, former U.S. State Department adviser, international relations expert, Johns Hopkins University, Washington"[Netanyahu had been clever in his relationship with Trump, appealing to his] vanity [with charm as well as] using his weaknesses.""He knew Trump's personality and knew that Trump might come on board if there was a chance of claiming glory in some way or claiming some sort of credit."Yossi Mekelberg, Middle East expert, Chatham House think-tank, London
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| Iranian flags fly as fire and smoke from an Israeli attack on Sharan Oil depot rise, following Israeli strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, June 15, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS |
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a brilliant tactician and a student of human nature, and both are priceless attributes in a leader of any nation, but an ultimate requirement in the leader of Israel, the Jewish state that has since its 1948 reimagining as the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, declaring itself a state following the UN's Partition declaration, required time and again to defend itself against the reaction of the surrounding theocracies, oil kingdoms and sheikdoms of the Middle East, where a Judaic presence on 'land consecrated to Islam' would not be countenanced.
From the very moment that the government of Israel launched a massive aerial storm against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which had declared time and again that its mission was to annihilate Israel, and whose efforts to acquire nuclear weaponry warned the Jewish state that it had only so much time and not more to defend itself against another Holocaust, Benjamin Netanyahu used all the wiles at his disposal to court the American president who has been more sympathetic to the threat of Jewish existentialism than any of his predecessors.
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| People watch from a bridge as flames from an Israeli attack rise from Sharan Oil depot, following Israeli strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, June 15, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS |
Never has it been an inconvenient time to have friends in high places, but seldom has the time been as ripe to call upon the friendly empathy and fierce military power in the possession of such a friend than at the present time. In the space of less than two years, Israel has faced a pogrom of an extent never imagined outside the Holocaust when October 7 was perpetrated on southern Israel by Hamas in Gaza, followed by
rocket assaults from Hezbollah in Lebanon, augmented by Yemen's Houthi missile attacks and lastly an aerial attack by the very source of the proxy threats, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
As Israel mounted its defense, then its offensive, deftly using technological enterprise to surprise and disable its enemies one by one, leaving each a fragment of their former arms-bristling threats, it was time to turn its attention to the puppet-master itself. And in a brilliant display of aerial acrobatics and technological inspiration, the Islamic Republic was introduced to its own existential agony when its leading military, political, scientific and police agencies and their authorities were reduced to rubble.
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Missiles fired from Iran in the night sky over Jerusalem on June 14, 2025 as Israel and Iran exchanged fire a day after Israel unleashed an unprecedented aerial bombing campaign that Iran said hit its nuclear facilities, killed top commanders and dozens of civilians. Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images |
The flaw in the reckoning was the impenetrability of the Fordo nuclear site built deep into the side of a mountain. The New York Times reported that reaching out to President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu had asked for the use of American bunker-busting bombs able to reach the depths of Iran's underground nuclear facilities. But was refused. Trump, after all, had campaigned on a promise not to recommit the U.S. to any unpopular wars in the Middle East.
"I may do it, I may not do it", he informed reporters at the White House asking whether he had decided to commit the U.S. on airstrikes in Iran. His final decision, he responded, would come "within the next two weeks". Openly praising the success of the boldly successful Israeli air campaign targeting key military personnel, destruction of Iran's air defences and repeated strikes on nuclear sites, it was clear that the president was awaiting his own opportunity.
Last weekend a poll by survey group YouGov for The Economist magazine found fifty percent of American respondents view Iran as an "enemy", while another quarter claimed it to be "unfriendly". Only16 percent felt the U.S. military "should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran". Majorities of Democrats, Independents and Republicans to various degrees opposed military intervention.
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| Reuters |
That was then. This is now, when the decision to relieve the tension was made. Israel, after all, had paved the way, cleared the skies over Iran, taken out the missile launchers, subdued the Islamic Republican Guard Corps, bombed their military bases, destroyed their air force, hit their naval assets, sent their leaders into hiding and if not now, then when?
President Donald Trump on Saturday announced to the world that the United States had carried out a "very successful attack" on three Iranian nuclear sites, including the difficult-to-strike Fordo. "This
is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE
WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR", he posted on Truth Social.
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Labels: Islamic Republic of Iran, Israeli Aerial Bombardment, Nuclear Aspirations, Nuclear Plants, PM Benjarmin Netanyahu, State of Israel, Threatening Israeli Annihilation, U.S. Bunker-Busters, U.S. President Donald Trump
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, June 22, 2025
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