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Refresher On The Rules For Discussing Israeli Wars

Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 13, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/refresher-on-the-rules-for-discussing?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=165865670&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Okay it’s been a few months since the last war Israel started, so now that Iran’s on the chopping block let’s go over the rules once again.

Rule 1: Israel is never the aggressor. If Israel attacks someone it’s either a response to an aggression that happened in the past, or a preemptive attack to thwart an imminent aggression in the future.

Rule 2: History automatically restarts at the date of the last act of aggression against Israel. If someone attacks Israel it was completely unprovoked, because nothing happened before the attack on Israel.

Rule 3: Anything bad that Israel does is justified by Rule 2. This is true even if it does things that would be considered completely unjustifiable if it were done by a nation like Russia or China.

Rule 4: Israel has a right to defend itself, but nobody else does.

Rule 5: Israel never bombs civilians, it bombs Bad Guys. If shocking numbers of civilians die it’s because they were actually Bad Guys, or because Bad Guys killed them, or because a Bad Guy stood too close to them. If none of those reasons apply then it’s for some other mysterious reason we are still waiting for the IDF to investigate.

Rule 6: Criticizing anything Israel does means you hate Jewish people. There is no other possible reason for anyone to oppose acts of mass military slaughter besides a seething, obsessive hatred for a small Abrahamic faith.

Rule 7: Nothing Israel does is ever as bad as the hateful criticisms described in Rule 6. Criticisms of Israel’s actions are always worse than Israel’s actions themselves, because those critics hate Jews and wish to commit another Holocaust. Preventing this must consume 100 percent of our political energy and attention.

Rule 8: Israelis are only ever the victims and never the victimizers. If Israelis kill Iranians, it’s because the Iranians hate Jews. If Iranians kill Israelis, it’s because the Iranians hate Jews. Israel is an innocent little lamb that just wants to mind its own business in peace.

Rule 9: The fact that Israel is literally always in a state of war with its neighbors and with displaced indigenous populations must be interpreted as proof that Rule 8 is true instead of proof that Rule 8 is ridiculous nonsense.

Rule 10: The lives of people in Muslim nations are much, much less important to us than western lives or Israeli lives. Nobody is allowed to think too hard about why this might be.

Rule 11: The media always tell the truth about Israel and its various conflicts. If you doubt this then you are likely in violation of Rule 6.

Rule 12: Unsubstantiated claims which portray Israel’s enemies in a negative light may be reported as factual news stories without any fact checking or qualifications, while extensively evidenced records of Israeli criminality must be reported on with extreme skepticism and doubtful qualifiers like “Iran claims”, “Hezbollah says” or “according to the Hamas-run health ministry”. This is important to do because otherwise you might get accused of being a propagandist.

Rule 13: Israel must continue to exist in its current iteration no matter what it costs or how many people need to die. There is no need to present any logically or morally grounded reasons why this is the case. If you dispute this then you are likely in violation of Rule 6.


Rule 14: The US government has never lied about anything ever, and is always on the right side of every conflict.

Rule 15: Israel is the last bastion of freedom and democracy in the middle east and therefore must be defended, no matter how many journalists it has to assassinate, no matter how many press institutions it needs to shut down, no matter how many protests its supporters need to dismantle, no matter how much free speech it needs to eliminate, no matter how many civil rights its western backers need to erase, and no matter how many elections its lobbyists need to buy.

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

Why can’t Iran have nuclear weapons?

8 Apr 25,  https://theaimn.net/why-cant-iran-have-nuclear-weapons/

Yes. Shock horror! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw

We can’t have Muslims getting The Bomb, can we?

Although, if you look at their philosophy – they might be safer with it than some others are –

Ayatollah Khamenei said the Islamic Republic considers the pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons “a grave sin” from every logical, religious and theoretical standpoint.

Christian countries see nuclear weapons as tools for maintaining peace through deterrence, to be used as a last resort – (blah blah). Exception – The Catholic church regards nuclear weapons as inherently immoral.

 The Jewish state of Israel views nuclear weapons as necessary to prevent the recurrence of the Holocaust.

The history of the development of nuclear weapons begins with the Nazi period in Germany, but moves quickly to the UK and USA. Jewish scientists promoted The Bomb, including Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein, (who both later fought against the bomb project,) believing that the USA would never actually use the bomb.

Despite the fact that Hitler’s onslaught on Europe was defeated by Russian troops, the international politics of the Allies after World War 2 was dominated by Russophobia. That was well understood by the Russians – so the inevitable next step was The Russian Bomb. An uneasy situation developed -peace through stalemate? -with the doctrine of MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction. And onward – as those two nations escalated their nuclear weapons – Fear of other nations led to this quasi-religious belief in Deterrence. International fears spread, and consequently other nations acquired The Bomb .

Deterrence clearly doesn’t work, to prevent war in one sense, as attacks and wars continue.

But you could ponder that Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan might have been safe from USA attack, had they possessed nuclear weapons. However odious the North Korean regime may be, it is certainly safer from USA attack because they have nuclear weapons.

Israel has at least 90 nuclear weapons:

“Above all else, our submarine fleet acts as a deterrent to our enemies who want to destroy us. – They need to know that Israel can attack, with great might, anyone who tries to harm it.” – Benjamin Netanyahu.

Zionist Jews consider the Samson option –  the D-Day strategy to annihilate the whole region by employing nuclear weapons in case Israel as a state is on the verge of collapse.  Unlike MAD, Israel’s Samson Option specifically threatens its non-nuclear opponents.

Is it any wonder, with Israel’s paranoid fear of Iran, that now, some Iranian ministers are arguing for Iran to get nuclear weapons? And of course, the Western world is in an anxious dither about this, and Donald Trump is threatening Iran with bombing, “if a deal is not reached”. All this is despite the fact that the Iranian Supreme Leader maintains the fatwa, and US intelligence agencies reaffirmed that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.

Given the stupidity of the species, it is a miracle that nuclear weapons have not yet been used, since 1945. There really is a good argument for Iran to have nuclear weapons, seeing that Iran has for a long time been lined up by Christian American patriots for “regime change”, and by Israeli extremists for existing at all.

However, still the Iranian leadership is sticking to their religious belief against having nuclear weapons. And – oh dear – it mightn’t matter, because even if Iran did have “the deterrent”, it might not deter Israel, if the Samson option were to be put into action.

The military atom was never envisaged as a classic form of deterrence, but as an assurance that Israel would not hesitate to commit suicide to kill its enemies rather than be defeated. This is the Masada complex . This way of thinking is in line with the “Hannibal Directive”, according to which the IDF must kill its own soldiers rather than let them become prisoners of the enemy . – Is the possibility of a World War real?

So, we’d better hope there will soon be a new Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement between Iran, the United States, and five other global powers, even if Donald Trump is urging for this, in his customary bullying way.

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Fox News Just Helped Netanyahu Spread The Lie That Iran Tried To Assassinate Trump

Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 16, 2025

Benjamin Netanyahu was given a platform to spout lies and war propaganda on Fox News in an interview with a groveling Bret Baier, who not only allowed the Israeli prime minister’s lies to cruise by unchecked but actually invited him to expand upon them.

Netanyahu promoted countless incendiary falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims throughout the interview, including the assertion that Iran was working on producing nuclear weapons and intended to give them to Yemen’s Houthis to facilitate global terrorism, and that Iran was working on intercontinental ballistic missiles to nuke the east coast of the United States as well.

Perhaps the most ridiculous and brazenly propagandistic claim advanced by Netanyahu was that Iran had twice attempted to assassinate the president of the United States.

“These are people who chant ‘Death to America.’ They’ve tried to assassinate President Trump twice,” said the prime minister.

Rather than push back on this claim or point out that there’s been no reported evidence that any such thing has occurred, Baier instead offered Netanyahu the opportunity to drive the narrative home further with claims of secret intelligence about these alleged assassination plots.

“You just said Iran tried to assassinate President Trump twice,” Baier said. “Do you have intel that the assassination attempts on President Trump were directly from Iran?”

“Through proxies, yes, through their intel, yes, they want to kill him,” Netanyahu asserted.

Netanyahu had previously made this claim on his own platform in a statement on Friday wishing President Trump a happy birthday, and now he’s carrying it into the mainstream news media of the United States.

Netanyahu’s claim has already been repeated in outlets like The New York Post, Washington Examiner, Breitbart, and The Independent. So it’s in the blood stream now. The information ecosystem of US politics has already been infected with the virus.

It says so much about how comfortable Israel is with lying and how eager the western media are to help promote those lies that Netanyahu could go on Fox News and just casually assert that Iran “tried to assassinate President Trump twice,” only to have the Murdoch muppet host invite him to expound upon this assertion rather than challenging the Israeli prime minister’s evidence-free claim.

Netanyahu was fully aware that he was lying, and Baier was fully aware that Netanyahu was lying. They collaborated to push this lie before Fox News’ aging audience without the faintest whisper of journalistic ethics anywhere to be heard, knowing that this one baseless assertion would help turn their Trump-sympathizing viewers toward supporting a US attack on Iran.

If you weren’t around for the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, this is what it was like. Brazen lies with a fully complicit media, with the most frenetic war propaganda circulated by the Murdoch press.

Rupert Murdoch is intimately intertwined with Israel’s political elite and has a financial stake in Israeli energy which depends on Israel’s ongoing military occupation of the Golan Heights. Murdoch largely has the assistance of the US government to thank for his mass media empire. He personally funded the political career of Benjamin Netanyahu, who in 2002 told the US Congress that “There is no question whatsoever that Saddam [Hussein] is seeking, is working, is advancing towards to the development of nuclear weapons,” and that “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

The US does not have a free press, and neither do any of its allies in the western world. Under the western power alliance the mass media operate as the propaganda services of the US-centralized empire, and the public is fed whatever narratives serve the information interests of that empire.

The lies about Iran are just getting started. There will be more. Don’t buy into any part of this scam. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/fox-news-just-helped-netanyahu-spread?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=166039398&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, media | Leave a comment

Pacific Rim countries say no to U.S.-China war

The question that the people of the Pacific and Pacific Rim countries are asking is: Why do we have to respond to this demand by the U.S.? We are not threatened by China. Where is the dire urgency that demands such a huge distortion of our public spending on the military?

The indications are that the United States is preparing for war against China, but cannot wage such a war from the West Coast of the USA. It needs military bases, port facilities and airfields in the countries on the west side of the Pacific Rim; for example, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, Micronesia and Australia. Without these bases, without the backing of the military forces and munitions and manufacturing capabilities of the Pacific Rim countries, the United States cannot launch and sustain a war against China.

By Bevan Ramsden | 16 June 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/pacific-rim-countries-say-no-to-us-china-war,19837

As the U.S. pushes Pacific Rim allies to ramp up military spending for a possible war with China, a new campaign asks: at what cost and for whose benefit? Bevan Ramsden writes.

THE PACIFIC and Pacific Rim countries have a geographical commonality. They are encircled by, or have a border with, the vast, blue, peaceful Pacific Ocean. They also share a political commonality. The people and countries of this region are under pressure to lift their military spending at the expense of addressing their social needs.

The pressure comes from the United States, whose Defence Secretary, Peter Hegseth, at the recent Singapore Defence Summit, declared that the U.S. expects its allies in this region to increase their defence spending to 5% of their GDP. His justification was a “possibly imminent threat” posed by China. He emphasised how the U.S. is “reorienting towards deterring aggression by China” and made it clear that the Donald Trump Administration’s defence strategy revolves around stifling the rise of China.

Responding to this expectation would involve the doubling of South Korean expenditure on military defence, from 2.6% of its GDP to 5%.

It would mean Japan’s military defence spending would have to triple from 1.8 % of its GDP to 5%.

In Australia, such an increase would represent a two-and-a-half times increase from 2% to 5% of its GDP.

These examples show that the 5% target represents a massive increase in military spending, which can only be made by reducing funding for urgent infrastructure, social needs such as health and education and loss of resources to address the real threat to their living environments, the climate crisis. 

The question that the people of the Pacific and Pacific Rim countries are asking is: Why do we have to respond to this demand by the U.S.? We are not threatened by China. Where is the dire urgency that demands such a huge distortion of our public spending on the military?

Another commonality among the countries of the Pacific Rim, particularly those on the western and southern rim of the Pacific, is U.S. troops and U.S. military installations stationed on their territory. In the case of South Korea, these are substantial, close to 30,000 and put that country’s military virtually under the control of the U.S.

Japan has 57,000 U.S. troops, including 20,000 on Okinawa, where the U.S. Kadena Air Base is its largest outside of the USA. Clearly, this level of foreign military occupation exerts substantial pressure on Japan’s foreign policy.

The Philippines has four U.S. bases with troops rotating through its territory and training with its defence forces, and is setting up logistic centres for equipment and munitions.

The people of Guam, a territory under direct U.S. control, are subject to 7,000 U.S. troops, with almost a third of the land controlled by the U.S. military. The Joint Region Marianas is a U.S. military command combining the Andersen Air Force Base and the Naval Base Guam.

Andersen Air Force Base hosts B-52 bombers and fighter jets. Naval Base Guam is the home port for four nuclear-powered fast attack submarines and two submarine tenders. American military commanders have referred to the island as their “permanent aircraft carrier”.

 Australian governments, in their subservience to the U.S., have signed the Force Posture Agreement, giving the U.S. military unimpeded access to Australia’s ports and airfields and enabling the establishment of a Northern Territory base for its B-52 bombers, some of which are nuclear-capable. The Agreement is giving the U.S. fuel and munitions storage areas to support war operations and an $8 billion port facility for servicing their nuclear submarines and storage of their nuclear waste.

The people of Pacific Rim countries, including Australia, need to ask: Why does the U.S. have these extensive military facilities in our countries and why are they demanding such huge military expenditures from us?

The answer, unfortunately, is not for the benefit of the people of this region but for its own foreign policy objectives, which include maintaining its dominance in the region by “containing” China and preventing the rise of its influence.

The indications are that the United States is preparing for war against China, but cannot wage such a war from the West Coast of the USA. It needs military bases, port facilities and airfields in the countries on the west side of the Pacific Rim; for example, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, Micronesia and Australia. Without these bases, without the backing of the military forces and munitions and manufacturing capabilities of the Pacific Rim countries, the United States cannot launch and sustain a war against China.

So the United States needs us but we don’t need such a war.

It would only bring devastation to our lives and our economies, and if it turned nuclear, who would survive?

The Pacific Peace Network, with representatives from the Pacific Rim countries and together with World Beyond War, has produced a solidary campaign which is being launched on 21 June 2025.

This is a campaign in which the people of each country on the Pacific Rim, including Australia, can say no to such a war and no to an increase in military spending for it, through a common petition which is a call on their governments.

The common petition can be accessed here at the World Beyond War website.

This call on governments reads:

For sustainable peace and the survival of our peoples and environment, we ask you:

  • refuse to join military preparations for a U.S.-China war;
  • declare you will not fight in a U.S.-China war;
  • declare neutrality should such a war break out; and
  • do not allow your territory or waters to be used in such a war, including the collection and relay of military intelligence, sales of weapons and hosting combatant troops and facilities.

Later this year, the petitions will be presented to their respective governments by peace activists in each country.

June 16, 2025 Posted by | ASIA, AUSTRALIA, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel’s Netanyahu banks on TACO Trump as he Launches War on Iran to disrupt Negotiations.

Juan Cole, 06/13/2025 https://www.juancole.com/2025/06/netanyahu-launches-negotiations.html

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The government led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday launched a war on Iran, bombing sites related to the latter’s civilian nuclear refinement program at Natanz and Fordow but also targeting Tehran apartment buildings where senior regime military figures were present.

If Israeli fighter jets struck unenriched uranium stockpiles, they will have thrown radioactive dust into the air, which may cause lung cancer in the affected population. If they struck enriched uranium, that would be like a dirty bomb. Israel itself has several hundred atomic bombs and is the reason for the nuclear arms race in the Middle East, but Tel Aviv and Washington ignore this stockpile of warheads when they denounce Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program (and now try to destroy it), even though Iran does not have a bomb and no major Western intelligence agency thinks they have militarized their program.

Among those killed were the Chief of Staff of Iran’s conventional armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Baqeri. This would be like a hostile foreign nation bombing an apartment building in Washington, D.C., to kill (God forbid) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine. Then the Israeli bombers killed the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Maj. Gen. Hossain Salami. We don’t have an exact equivalent of the IRGC in the US, but maybe it would be like a foreign country bombing Steve Nordhaus, the head of the National Guard Bureau. Another high ranking IRGC officer, Maj. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, was also killed. The Israelis rubbed out Fereydoun Abbasi, the chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the counterpart of Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy.

Iran launched 100 drones at Israel in retaliation.

Netanyahu announced that it was only the beginning of a days-long campaign.

Iran is not assessed by US intelligence to have a military nuclear weapons program, only a civilian uranium enrichment program. The country is allowed in international law to make fuel for its Bushehr reactor, built by Russia, with more planned. Thus, the Israeli attack violates international humanitarian law.

Israel is now waging war on people in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Iran, in what appears to be an attempt to establish itself as a regional hegemon and to quash any regional opposition to its plans to ethnically cleanse the over 5 million Palestinians it militarily occupies.

Netanyahu launched the strikes to thwart the peace negotiations being conducted with Iran by President Donald J. Trump’s administration via Oman, striking a day before the next talks were scheduled to take place. Trump had signaled repeatedly that he did not want the Israelis to attack, but Netanyahu appears to hold to the TACO (Trump always chickens out) theory of the president’s behavior. He pointedly thanked Trump in his address to the nation, clearly hoping that Iran might take some action against America in response and so draw Trump into a war he clearly does not want.

Ironically, Trump himself paved the way to this war by trashing the 2015 nuclear deal concluded by the UN Security Council with Iran, which effectively blocked Iran from ever militarizing its program. Iran faithfully adhered to its prescriptions until 2019, a year after Trump tore up the treaty and placed “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran. Had the 2015 deal remained in place, it is difficult to imagine the Security Council putting up with Netanyahu’s military adventurism, which might have attracted serious sanctions.

Netanyahu was likely to some extent wagging the dog with this attack, since his governmental coalition is in danger of falling apart over the issue of the conscription of Ultra-Orthodox Jews, most of whom support Netanyahu. The latter, however, has been led to argue for conscription. The Ultra-Orthodox Jews are some 14% of the population now, but were only 2% when Israel was founded and the government of David Ben-Gurion pledged to allow them to study the Torah rather than serving in the military or getting a real job. Now this community is the ultimate welfare queens, and non-Orthodox Israelis deeply resent their refusal to serve in the military. Many Ultra-Orthodox are not Zionists and do not believe than an Israel can be established before the Messiah appears.

A war with Iran is therefore Netanyahu’s double attempt to thwart the outbreak of peace between Iran and the U.S. and to thwart attempts to bring his government down domestically through a vote of no confidence.

Netanyahu clearly assesses that Iran is a paper tiger, and cannot actually inflict much harm on Israel, since Tel Aviv and Washington can intercept most Iranian drones and missiles, and Iran does not have much of an air force. Israel has already reduced the power of Iran’s regional allies such as the Hezbollah of Lebanon. Although some Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia branded the attack illegal, nobody in Riyadh will shed any tears about Iran being taken down a notch.

It is, however, unlikely that Israeli attacks can do more than set back Iran’s uranium enrichment program, since the country has a big establishment by now of nuclear scientists and it has its own uranium, and the know-how it has built up cannot likely be extinguished. Netanyahu does not have a long-term vision for his relations with the Middle East, instead following the fascist prescriptions of the de facto founder of his Likud Party, Vladimir Jabotinsky, who urged that the Jewish settler-colonists in Palestine (he used such terminology) lash out hard at any opposition and crush it. This philosophy set in train the decades of whack-a-mole that the Israeli military plays with regional countries and peoples. It hasn’t made Israel secure, though it has made Netanyahu rich and powerful.

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Israel’s Own Actions Invalidate All Pro-Israel Arguments

Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 14, 2025

I didn’t make Israel be this way. It’s not my fault that this is what the Zionist project looks like. You can call me an antisemitic monster all day for criticizing Israel’s genocidal atrocities and insane warmongering, but I didn’t force this on Israel. This is what Israel chose to be. This is what a state full of Zionists looks like when you let the Zionists do everything they want to do.

You can talk all you want about the historic persecution of the Jewish people. You can try to argue that Jews for some reason need a state that’s all their own in the geographic location where Jewish people used to live back in ancient history. But what we see before us today is what it looks like when that occurs. This is it. This is the result. This is the only result on offer. And it isn’t my fault that that’s the case.

All arguments made in defense of Israel ultimately rest on the unquestioned assumption that the Jewish people must definitely have a homeland where Jewish people are in control, and that this homeland must definitely be in the location that Israel is in right now. Once you accept this premise, then all the other arguments for the necessity of Israel’s actions make sense and can be defended.

But we’ve seen the results of what that premise entails. It necessarily means nonstop violence, tyranny, war and abuse. It necessarily means genocide. It necessarily means ethnic cleansing. How do we know it necessarily means that? Because here we are.

So the premise upon which all pro-Israel arguments rest is invalid.

Which means all the arguments are baseless.

Which means there’s really no good reason to keep maintaining the status quo of modern Israel.

Which means there’s no good reason western government’s should keep supporting that status quo.

Which means there’s no good reason not to end the apartheid state, give equal rights to all, grant Palestinians the right of return, right the wrongs of the past, and have Israel and its western backers pay so many reparations to their victims that future generations will not feel the effects of their abuses.

That is the only logical position here. Israel’s own actions have made that clear. Israel’s critics didn’t force Israel to choose those actions. Those actions are just the product of everything Israel is.

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

  The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), destroyed by President Trump, would have prevented the current  attacks between Israel and Iran

Sir Simon Gass, Former British ambassador to Iran and former head of the UK
team negotiating the JCPoA; It is worth remembering that in 2015 a group of
six countries, including the UK, negotiated with Iran the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) — an agreement that, if it were in
force today, would restrict Iran to a mere 300kg of uranium enriched to no
more than 3.67 per cent, far from the quantity or purity needed for a
nuclear weapon. The agreement included an inspection regime of
unprecedented intrusiveness to ensure Iran was not cheating. In return,
Iran was promised relief from international economic sanctions. Israel
lobbied ferociously against this deal: Netanyahu described it as
“capitulation”. That lobbying helped to persuade Republican legislators
to oppose the deal and contributed to President Trump’s decision to
collapse it in 2017. The US never met the obligations that I heard being
solemnly given to Iranian negotiators. Iran has plenty to answer for. But
Israel would not be in its present position if the JCPoA was still in
force.

Times 16th June 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/comment/letters-to-editor/article/times-letters-israels-strikes-against-iranian-nuclear-sites-kvtkkqtst

June 16, 2025 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Satellite imagery reveals damage to key Iran nuclear sites

Satellite imagery shared with BBC Verify has provided a clearer picture of
damage inflicted on two of Iran’s key nuclear sites as well as other
military targets. Imagery from two different providers shows damage to the
Natanz nuclear facility as well as a missile site south of the city of
Tabriz – hit in the first round of strikes against Iran on Friday.

Other images show damage to other known missile bases. Israel is continuing to
target numerous sites across Iran, which has prompted retaliatory strikes.
Newly released optical satellite imagery from Maxar shows the clearest
picture yet of what happened at key Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and
Isfahan. At Natanz, we can see damage to the pilot fuel enrichment plant
and an electrical substation, according to analysis by the Institute for
Space and International Security (ISIS).

BBC 15th June 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7808xvv737o

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Iran, weapons and war | Leave a comment

World entering new era as nuclear powers build up arsenals, SIPRI think tank says

By Johan Ahlander, June 16, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/world-entering-new-era-nuclear-powers-build-up-arsenals-sipri-think-tank-says-2025-06-15/

  • Summary
  • Nuclear states are modernizing arsenal
  • Russia and U.S. hold 90% of nuclear warheads
  • China’s nuclear arsenal growing the fastest

STOCKHOLM, June 16 (Reuters) – The world’s nuclear-armed states are beefing up their atomic arsenals and walking out of arms control pacts, creating a new era of threat that has brought an end to decades of reductions in stockpiles since the Cold War, a think tank said on Monday.

Of the total global inventory of an estimated 12,241 warheads in January 2025, about 9,614 were in military stockpiles for potential use, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in its yearbook, an annual inventory of the world’s most dangerous weapons.

Around 2,100 of the deployed warheads were kept in a state of high operational alert on ballistic missiles, nearly all belonging to either the U.S. or Russia.

SIPRI said global tensions had seen the nine nuclear states – the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel – plan to increase their stockpiles.

“The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the Cold War, is coming to an end,” SIPRI said. “Instead, we see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements.”

SIPRI said Russia and the U.S., which together possess around 90% of all nuclear weapons, had kept the sizes of their respective useable warheads relatively stable in 2024. But both were implementing extensive modernization programmes that could increase the size of their arsenals in the future.

The fastest-growing arsenal is China’s, with Beijing adding about 100 new warheads per year since 2023. China could potentially have at least as many intercontinental ballistic missiles as either Russia or the U.S. by the turn of the decade.

According to the estimates, Russia and the U.S. held around 5,459 and 5,177 nuclear warheads respectively, while China had around 600.

June 16, 2025 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

The whole planet is being kept hostage by a death cult

And were we about to enter this particular dangerous territory, Iran can play the ultimate card: shut down the Strait of Hormuz and collapse the global economy.

Pepe Escobar, June 13, 2025, https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/06/13/the-whole-planet-is-being-kept-hostage-by-a-death-cult/

It’s no wonder Washington is all in. This is now the Circus Ringmaster War.

Let’s cut to the chase. The devastating attack on Iran by the psychopathological genocidal “chosen” ethno-supremacist set up in Tel Aviv – a de facto declaration of war – was coordinated in detail with the President of the United States, Circus Ringmaster Donald Trump.

This infantilism-afflicted Narcissus Drowned in the Pool of his Own Image gave away the game, himself, in a rambling post. Selected highlights:

“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal”. No “deal”; actually his unilateral demands. After all, he torpedoed the original deal, the JCPOA, because it was not his “deal”.

“I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told.” The decision to strike had already been made.

“Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but (…) they are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!” Gloating comes with the territory.

“The next already planned attacks being even more brutal.” Total alignment with the trademark Israeli “decapitation” strategy.

“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire”. It was Persian (italics mine) Empire – but after all this is a man who doesn’t read, or study. Notice the Art of Diplomacy: Take my deal, or drop dead.

This – incandescent – decade was launched by an assassination, of Gen. Soleimani in Baghdad, as I emphasized in my 2021 book Raging Twenties. He was on a diplomatic mission. The green light personally came from then President of the United States, Donald Trump.

The mid-Raging Twenties is now hurled to the brink of a devastating war in West Asia, with global repercussions, by the serial assassination of the IRGC leadership, in Tehran, by the psycho-genocidal Zionist entity. After an elaborate kabuki of deception, the green light to Tel Aviv – go ahead and do it – also came from the President of the United States, Trump 2.0 (who claimed he was “aware’’ of the attacks).

A pre-emptive war against the BRICS

The psycho-pathological genocidal masterplan is to force Tehran to capitulate – without even putting up a fight. The preamble kabuki was masterfully executed. The indirect nuclear negotiations in Oman were taken seriously in Tehran, lulling the Iranian leadership, civilian and military, to sleep. They fell into the trap and were caught, literally, in their sleep.

Ayatollah Khamenei – who himself is in physical danger, as Israel is applying the same decapitation model it unleashed on Hezbollah – has a very tough decision to make: capitulation or total war. It will be total war – and with the U.S. as a direct participant.

The Iranian leadership – actually more the Pezeshkian presidency, crammed with proponents of an “accommodation” with the West – was induced into a false sense of security, forgetting that serial killers don’t do diplomacy.

So the price to pay now, for Iran, will be even more unbearable. Tehran will respond – assuming capabilities are still in place. In this case its oil industry runs the risk of being destroyed. It’s an open question whether two other top BRICS members alongside Iran – Russia and China -, for different reasons, will allow that to happen.

And were we about to enter this particular dangerous territory, Iran can play the ultimate card: shut down the Strait of Hormuz and collapse the global economy.

The attack on Iran, fully endorsed by the Empire of Chaos, is above all a pre-emptive attack on the BRICS energy core. It’s part and parcel of the imperial war against BRICS, especially Russia-China. Moscow and Beijing must be drawing the necessary conclusions in real time.

Iran, China and Russia are linked by interlocked strategic partnerships. Last month, I was in Iran tracking the progress of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), which links Russia, Iran and India. This is only one among a series of key strategic infrastructure projects that will solidify even more Eurasian economic connectivity. A devastating war in West Asia, and a collapsing Iran, will represent a killer blow to increased Eurasia integration.

That’s exactly what suits the Empire’s designs.

So it’s no wonder Washington is all in. This is now the Circus Ringmaster War.

A devastating response; a nuclear weapon; or capitulation

Tehran’s message is, “We did not start the war, but Iran will determine how it ends.”

The burning question is whether they still retain a significant deterrent – and offensive – capacity.

The genocidals are hitting ballistic missile storage systems at will in Iran’s northwest and even civilian Mehrabad airport in Tehran. Air defenses are nowhere to be seen. It’s immensely painful to watch.

IDF spin – nothing verified so far – claims that some missile silos and mobile complexes were destroyed even before they were placed on combat alert. Yet the fact is that the overwhelming majority of Iran’s vast arsenal of ballistic missiles is stored in deep, deep underground silos and tunnels, capable of withstanding massive air strikes and overloaded air defenses.

For the moment, Tehran is eerily silent. That makes sense, because they need, in record time, to re-establish a unified chain of command which was smashed by the attacks; make sure that missile launchers can be deployed and not be neutralized by Israeli air supremacy; reorganize the True Promise 3 operation, which was ready to go, as some of us learned in Tehran last month, but now adapted to the new situation (losses included); and plan how to deliver painful blows to Israel’s economic infrastructure.

There is no evidence that the attacks destroyed Iran’s nuclear infrastructure – which is buried deep underground. As it stands, the leadership in Tehran is learning the hard way that diplomacy – committees, letters to the UN, statements to the IAEA, ministerial meetings – all that is eviscerated when it comes to the law of the jungle.

Iranians were naïve enough to let the IAEA visit their strategic sites, when proverbial spies collected all the info they needed to facilitate Israeli strikes. The DPRK would have never fall into such a trap.

The elimination of a top figure such as Ali Shamkhani, Khamenei’s key advisor, Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator, with decades of influence across the IRGC and intelligence apparatus, is a serious blow.

Systematically erasing Iran’s military and diplomatic leadership in a matter of hours fits the rationale of smashing Khamenei’s close circle. That has started long ago with the Trump-ordered killing of Soleimani and certainly includes the mysterious death of former President Raisi and FM Abdollahian in that dodgy helicopter “accident”. It’s all about creating the conditions for regime change.

On a rare auspicious note, the IRGC let it be known, before the attacks, that they have been developing a secret technology to intensify the impact of its missiles on Israel.

We are all riders on the storm now. Once again, there’s no way out: either a devastating blow to the psycho genocidals, or Iran assembles a nuclear weapon in no time. The third option is capitulation, emasculation, and regime change.

Meanwhile, the whole planet is hostage to a lethal threat. Andrea Zhok is professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Milan, and apart from his brilliant analyses, he wrote the preface of the Italian edition of my book Raging Twenties, published last year.

Prof. Zhok has succinctly pointed out how no political construction in modern history has amassed a toxic combination of messianic ethnic supremacism; supreme disregard for human life (everyone else, not “chosen”, is “amalek” anyway); supreme disregard for international law; and unlimited access to lethal firepower.

So what is to be done with such a voracious, out of control death cult?

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Launches ‘Operation Rising Lion’ To Strike Iran’s Nuclear Program, Netanyahu Vows To Eliminate Threat

Dozens of Israeli Air Force (IAF) jets executed the first stage of the operation, striking multiple military and nuclear sites across various regions of Iran, stated IDF on Friday. Israel Defence Minister Israel Katz has declared an emergency situation across the country due to Israel’s action in Iran.

By : news24desk, Edited By : Vaidika Thapa Jun 13, 2025 https://news24online.com/world/israel-launches-operation-rising-lion-to-strike-irans-nuclear-program-netanyahu-vows-to-eliminate-threat/584738/

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have launched a preemptive and precise combined offensive targeting Iran’s nuclear program. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, confirmed the launch of ‘Operation Rising Lion’, a targeted military offensive to roll back the Iranian threat. PM Netanyahu stated that operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.

In a video statement, Netanyahu said, “Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival. This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.”

Dozens of Israeli Air Force (IAF) jets executed the first stage of the operation, striking multiple military and nuclear sites across various regions of Iran, stated IDF on Friday. Israel Defence Minister Israel Katz has declared an emergency situation across the country due to Israel’s action in Iran.

“Following the State of Israel’s preemptive strike against Iran, a missile and drone attack against the State of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future,” stated Kataz as reported by The Times of Israel.

In its statement, the IDF emphasised the existential threat posed by Iran’s progress towards acquiring nuclear weapons. “Today, Iran is closer than ever to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the Iranian regime threaten the State of Israel and the wider world,” the statement read.

The Israeli government asserted it has no choice but to defend its citizens and will continue to take necessary actions whenever required. “The State of Israel remains committed to fulfilling its obligation to protect its people, just as it has done in the past,” the statement further read.

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hidden Costs: Nuclear Weapons Spending in 2024.

The report profiles the companies heavily involved in the nuclear weapons industry and shows how in 2024, they earned more than $42 billion for their nuclear weapons activities. Many of these companies also invested in lobbying, and the report shows they spent $128 million on those efforts in the US and France, the two countries for which data is available.

More than $100 billion was spent by the nine nuclear-armed countries on their nuclear arsenals last year, as ICAN shows in “Hidden Costs: Nuclear Weapons Spending in 2024” released today.

The United States once again topped the charts as the biggest spender, at almost $57 billion dollars alone. China spent $12 billion, and the UK spent $10 billion last year. Every country with nuclear weapons is increasing how much they spend on their arsenals, and the report shows 11% growth across the board.

For the first time, ICAN also examined the hidden costs required to host nuclear weapons for other countries. With the US deploying nuclear weapons to Belgium, Germany, Italy, Türkiye and the Netherlands and the nuclear sharing agreement between Russia and Belarus- the financial cost to the citizens in those countries is largely kept hidden from citizens and legislators, avoiding democratic scrutiny.

Nuclear-armed Israel’s attack today on Iran’s nuclear facilities underlines the urgency of eliminating nuclear weapons and the need for all nuclear-armed states to disarm. The resources devoted to nuclear weapons must be redirected to funding activities that improve real human security and promote peace and sustainability.

The report profiles the companies heavily involved in the nuclear weapons industry and shows how in 2024, they earned more than $42 billion for their nuclear weapons activities. Many of these companies also invested in lobbying, and the report shows they spent $128 million on those efforts in the US and France, the two countries for which data is available.

Over the past five years, global spending on nuclear weapons has gone from $68 billion to $100 billion. Money that could have been used to fund measures to address the threats posed to our security by climate change and the loss of animal and plant species, or to provide funding for improving essential public goods, such as healthcare, housing and education. If these countries really cared about a secure future, they could have paid for almost 28 years of the UN budget for what they spent on nuclear weapons in 2024 alone.

Information is power. Countries that have nuclear weapons use those weapons to justify keeping secrets – from the public, from parliaments, from the world. Less information means less democratic oversight. Nuclear weapons take away democracy, but they cannot take away our power.

June 16, 2025 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

European Commission assesses nuclear investment needs of around €241 billion by 2050

Delivering Member States’ plans regarding nuclear energy will require significant investments, of around €241 billion until 2050, both for lifetime extensions of existing reactors and the construction of new large-scale reactors. Additional investments are needed for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) and microreactors and in fusion for the longer-term future, the Commission has assessed in its eighth nuclear illustrative programme (‘PINC’).

June 16, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, weapons and war | Leave a comment