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‘We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran’: Trump


June 17, 2025, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250617-we-now-have-complete-and-total-control-of-the-skies-over-iran-trump/

US President Donald Trump claimed to have “complete and total control” of Iranian airspace Tuesday after five days of Israel’s bombing that targeted military and nuclear sites, Anadolu reports.

“We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” Trump said in a social media post. “Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff.’ Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”

The comments come one day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that the US deployed additional military assets to the Middle East, a move he and other senior Trump administration officials have maintained is “defensive” in nature amid speculation that American forces could join Israel’s military campaign.

A defense official told Anadolu on Monday that Hegseth directed the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group to the CENTCOM area of responsibility to sustain “our defensive posture and safeguard American personnel.”

Regional tensions have escalated since Friday when Israel launched airstrikes on multiple sites across Iran, including military and nuclear facilities, prompting Tehran to launch retaliatory strikes.

Israeli authorities said at least 24 people have been killed and hundreds injured since then in Iranian missile attacks. Iran said at least 224 people have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded in the Israeli assault.​​​​​​​

June 20, 2025 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

President Trump fires a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

June 16, 2025, Geoff Brumfiel

 President Trump has fired one of the five members of the independent
commission that oversees the nation’s nuclear reactors. Nuclear Regulatory
Commissioner Christopher T. Hanson was terminated on Friday, according to a
brief email seen by NPR from Trent Morse, the White House Deputy Director
of Presidential Personnel. The e-mail said only that Hanson’s “position as
Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is terminated
effective immediately.”

“All organizations are more effective when leaders
are rowing in the same direction,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna
Kelly told NPR via e-mail. “President Trump reserves the right to remove
employees within his own Executive Branch who exert his executive
authority.” In a statement shared with NPR, Hanson said that he was fired
“without cause,” and that he had devoted his term to “preserving the
independence, integrity and bipartisan nature of the world’s gold standard
nuclear safety institution. … I continue to have full trust and
confidence in their commitment to serve the American people by protecting
public health safety and the environment.”

Hanson was appointed to the NRC
by President Joseph Biden in 2020 and then reappointed in 2024. His current
term was set to expire in 2029, according to a bio on the NRC’s website
that has since been removed. Some observers of the nuclear industry were
sharply critical of the decision. “I think that this coupled with the other
attacks by the administration on the independence of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission could have serious implications for nuclear safety,” says Edwin
Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned
Scientists, an environmental watchdog group. “It’s critical that the NRC
make its judgements about protecting health and safety without regard for
the financial health of the nuclear industry.”

 NPR 16th June 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/06/16/nx-s1-5435285/trump-fires-nuclear-regulatory-commission-member-nrc

June 20, 2025 Posted by | employment, USA | Leave a comment

The World’s Most Dangerous Man and His Enabler

And so we come to the case of Donald J. Trump. I do not consider the American president to be as dangerous as Benjamin Netanyahu. He, Trump, may be stupider than Bibi, but he is not as unhinged. I count Trump Netanyahu’s enabler, and this is the role he just played.

now we have a nuclear-armed nation of many-times-demonstrated dangerous judgments threatening “a State without nuclear weapons,” as the IAEA refers to Iran.

 June 16, 2025 By Patrick Lawrence / Original to ScheerPost

It is some years since I described Benjamin Netanyahu as the most dangerous man in West Asia. That was back when we heard all about the menace of the Assad regime in Damascus, the Beelzebub otherwise known as Iran’s supreme leader, and other such unthinkably malign figures.

The Israeli prime minister just graduated. By any serious reckoning he is the world’s most dangerous man as of the shockingly reckless, altogether nihilist attacks he launched against the Islamic Republic in the early hours of Friday, June 13. I will get to Donald Trump’s place in the ratings in a sec.

In his initial announcement of Operation Rising Lion, Netanyahu asserted that Iran presents “an existential threat” to Israel and that he had no choice but to order an attack. This is nonsense, but we had better pay attention to the nonsense. With this loaded phrase, Bibi has effectively licensed the Zionist state to launch a nuclear weapon if these attacks fail to destroy all of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programs, as seems likely. This is my read.

There is indeed an existential threat abroad as of last Friday. But it extends well beyond Iran and, indeed, West Asia. As the self-defined Jewish state’s long, dreadful record makes plain, it appears to recognize no limits to the violence it will inflict on others, its breaches of international law and the norms of the human cause, and the risks it will inflict on the world in the name of what amounts to a biblically authorized project of subjugation and domination.

To finish this point, the obsessed leader of a nuclear-armed nation never subjected to the terms of the Non–Proliferation Treaty has just attacked a non-nuclear nation it calls a mortal danger to Israel’s survival because of the nuclear weapons it does not possess. You do the math, as the expression goes. 

“Operation Rising Lion,” for the record, is a reference to the Prophecy of Balaam, an infidel with a very mixed record but who impressed the ancient Israelites with his exceptional powers of divination. In the Revised Standard Version of Numbers, 23:24, we find him saying, “Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.” So does Bibi, who has the Palestinians down as evil Amalekites straight out of the Old Testament’s mythologies, once again state his purpose.

Israel and Iran are now at war, as one Tehrani told The New York Times after she listened to explosions and watched the flicker fires out her window last Friday evening. All is changed now. Netanyahu has craved this war for decades, always justifying his lust — a clinically psychotic lust, it is right to say — by way of endless lies and an apparently bottomless paranoia. These lies and this paranoia just put the world in danger of a global confrontation. We are all Iranians now: I am perfectly willing to say this.

As to President Trump and the American role in this, there is no need any longer for any of us to deceive ourselves. I continue to insist, against many who think otherwise, that the Zionist state is to be understood as a recklessly over-indulged client and not the Übermeister of U.S. policy. It is a complex dynamic, I mean to say, but the Zionist state just got done what the imperium wants in its broader ambition to “reshape the Middle East,” as the neoconservative cliques who direct U.S. policy have long put it. As I have noted previously in this space, borrowing from spookspeak, Israel does Washington’s wet work in West Asia.

■

As many commentators have remarked in many places, the Israelis have a well-established practice of lying in matters to do with events, policies, the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces, and so on. All governments lie, as I.F. Stone famously contended on many occasions, but the Israelis are in a class of their own among the officially mendacious, it is fair to say.

The thing about the Israelis is that they continue to lie even after a given lie is exposed. Netanyahu, a ready-to-hand case in point, still goes on about how the Hamas militias who attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, raped men and women, beheaded some babies and baked others in ovens, and so on. All of this has been exposed as false, the product of Israel’s hasbara apparatus, the constantly-in-motion machine that produces propaganda for the consumption of international audiences. But Bibi nonetheless continues to retail these smears.

And this is the case with Netanyahu’s claims that, as of last week, Iran was on the very brink of producing nuclear weapons, and it was therefore urgent to stop it.

When he announced Operation Rising Lion, Netanyahu asserted, “It could be in a year, it could be within a few months — it could be less than a year.” Read this carefully. It is sheer fear mongering, not a stated fact in it. There is no more substance to these assertions than there has been since Netanyahu first started carrying on in this fashion in the early 1990s. Anyone aware of the record knows this is merely another in the long line of statements Netanyahu has made of this kind. Bibi knows all his “coulds” and predictions are groundless — Israeli intel and the Central Intelligence Agency have told him so — and he cannot but know those paying attention know he knows this. Now this transparent lie proves enough to start a war with two sides and risk a war with many.

On June 11, two days before the Israelis launched their attacks on Iran, a social media account going by The United States of Israel posted on “X” a timeline of Netanyahu’s claims that the Islamic Republic was about to cross the threshold and become a nuclear-capable danger. There are 20 entries, beginning in 1992 and ending earlier this year. In 1996 Iran was some months to one year away from building a bomb. In 2010 it was a year away, in 2021 months to a year, and so on.

I am not familiar with The United States of Israel and cannot vouch for every entry, but of those I know, they are all accurate. I think first of 2013, when Netanyahu addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Oct.1 with that infamously ridiculous graphic that readers may recall — the bomb shaped like a bowling ball with a fuse out of the top. The forecast then, a dozen years ago, was a year to nuclear capability.

………………………………….. commentators and others now place much weight on a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency charging that Iran has been in violation of its obligations under the Nuclear Non–Proliferation Treaty.

Some facts: The agency is an organ of the United Nations and has 35 members. It convened to vote on a resolution that was advanced by the United States, Britain, France and Germany. This resolution was presented Thursday, June 12, a day before Israel began attacking Iran. It passed with a vote of 19 board members in favor, three against (Russia, China, Burkina Faso) and 11 abstentions; two board members did not vote.

These facts merit scrutiny. Why did four Western powers, which unanimously support Israel and oppose Iran, introduce this resolution when, by last Thursday, United States and European officials were already warning of an imminent Israeli attack? Why did 16 other nations — many of them non–Western, some of them (Canada, the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan) U.S. allies — decline to back the resolution? On the day of the vote, you may recall, the State Department withdrew its diplomatic staff from its embassy in Baghdad and encouraged the families of military personnel in the region to evacuate on a voluntary basis.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, immediately interpreted the IAEA’s censure as politically motivated, a preface to the Israelis’ operation the next day. Let us take care here: This view of events cannot be verified as so, but it most certainly cannot be dismissed.  

The IAEA censure is contained in the four-page June 12 report. This is a highly technical document having to do with the agency’s access to nuclear-related sites in Iran and the Iranians’ official accounts of their nuclear programs in their regular contacts with the IAEA. The points of contention between the agency and the Iranians go back five years; the most recent of these dates to November 2024. Nothing happened last week or last month or the month before that to prompt the agency’s censure.

Here is a key passage in the document:

Noting with concern the Director General’s conclusion, most recently in GOV/2025/25, that these issues stem from Iran’s obligations under its NPT Safeguards Agreement and unless and until Iran assists the Agency is [sic] resolving the outstanding issues, the Agency will not be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful …

Does this read to you like a declaration that Iran is on the brink of nuclear-capability and must urgently be stopped? Or does this read as another in a long line of interim reports, the basis for further interaction of the kind that has gone on routinely for decades? Does this, or any other passage if you care to read the technical prose, support Bibi Netanyahu’s latest predictions as earlier quoted? Does it support the commentaries of David French and Bret Stephens? Put this report next to the assertions of these people and you have an across-the-board case of gross distortion.

Iran, in response to the IAEA censure, now threatens to withdraw altogether from the Non–Proliferation Treaty and pursue its nuclear capabilities in earnest. You can read this as a potential horror show or you can think about the principle of deterrence. I have been of the latter persuasion for many years in the Iranian case. Deterrence was held very high as a strategic concept during the Cold War decades. I regretted the circumstances that made deterrence necessary but saw the necessity of it. And now we have a nuclear-armed nation of many-times-demonstrated dangerous judgments threatening “a State without nuclear weapons,” as the IAEA refers to Iran. I come to the same conclusion.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s now-perturbed foreign minister, was due to travel to Oman Sunday, June 15, for further talks with the United States on a nuclear accord that would replace the agreement Netanyahu railed against even before it was signed and Trump abandoned. This is now off, for obvious reasons.

And so we come to the case of Donald J. Trump. I do not consider the American president to be as dangerous as Benjamin Netanyahu. He, Trump, may be stupider than Bibi, but he is not as unhinged. I count Trump Netanyahu’s enabler, and this is the role he just played.

Trump is as deep in the pockets of the Israel lobbies and various wealthy American supporters of the Zionist state as any other American pol, allowing for very few exceptions. But in his support of so dangerous an operation as Rising Lion, Trump may have outdone them all, it seems to me. It is one thing, condemnable enough, to back a genocide by way of limitless supplies of weapons, political support and diplomatic cover. Isn’t another to approve of aggression that carries the risk of global conflagration? The degree of cynicism strikes me as yet greater than Joe Biden’s, and I admit that is going some.  

There was a day or so just before Netanyahu’s lion began to rise when Trump put Marco Rubio, his hapless secretary of state, out in front of the microphones and cameras to tell the world no, the U.S. had no prior knowledge of Israel’s plans and there were no “American airplanes” involved. It transpires that Rubio meant no jets with the “USAF” insignia painted on their fuselages. Newsweek reported the day the Israelis attacked that Israel has deployed a variety of American-made fighter jets in the Israeli inventory — F–35s, F–16s and F–15s — against the Iranians. You might ask whether this amounts to tacit consent, but don’t bother. The Israelis, ever eager to boast of America’s approval of all their malevolence, have clarified the matter.

Antiwar.com, the libertarian news site, reported June 13 that a senior Israeli official disclosed to The Jerusalem Post that the Netanyahu and Trump regimes colluded “to convince Tehran that diplomacy was still possible after Israel was ready to attack Iran.” As the Jerusalem Post reported, “The round of U.S.–Iranian nuclear negotiations scheduled for Sunday was part of a coordinated U.S.–Israeli deception aimed at lowering Iran’s guard ahead of Friday’s attack.”

Here is the able Dave DeCamp’s report in Antiwar.com and here is the Jerusalem Post’s. And here, for good measure, is how The New York Times played this story under the headline, “A Miscalculation by Iran Led to Israeli Strikes’ Extensive Toll, Officials Say.” Those foolish Iranians: They took the Americans at their word.

All this while, to complete the picture, Trump was on his Truth Social messaging platform with this kind of thing:

We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue! My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran. They could be a Great Country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

I like the flipped-off flattery, the upper-case nouns, and the exclamation points. Very Donald. So is what we read about in the above-cited publications.   

I do not want to go on about how cravenly the U.S. so often conducts itself in matters of state. This has been noted often enough. But what the United States just did to Iran with the assist of its client seems to me the ne plus ultra of diplomatic betrayals. I can think of only one other case that offers a useful comparison.

That was when Vladimir Putin personally negotiated a settlement of the Ukraine crisis in its early stages. The Russian president invested heavily in the two Minsk Protocols, signed in September 2014 and February 2015, as a promising solution to the divisions evident in Ukraine after the U.S.–cultivated coup in Kiev in February 2014. He subsequently discovered neither Ukraine nor the Western powers that served as guarantors of these accords, France and Germany, ever had any intention of implementing them.

Essentially at issue in these two cases is trust and breaches thereof.  A measure of trust is foundational in international relations. Without it there can be no constructive diplomacy, either between adversaries or, for that matter, among allies. Nations are that much closer to a default of hostility and potential chaos. The Europeans broke trust with the Russians when they abandoned the Minsk accords as soon as they signed them. Trump just broke trust with the Iranians. This is devastation of a kind — scorched-earth statecraft, we may as well call it.  

To finish this point, do you think others do not notice this? The Chinese, to name the most critical case?

Trump and Netanyahu just executed the cheapest sort of good-cop, bad-cop routine with Tehran. It is a variant of Biden’s duplicity as he armed Israel with all it needed to proceed with its genocide in Gaza while claiming to fight “night and day” for a ceasefire. Biden betrayed the Palestinians, Trump the Iranians. They have both betrayed all of us. These are acts of desperation, in my final read. Let us not forget why this is, and in which direction history’s wheel turns. https://scheerpost.com/2025/06/16/patrick-lawrence-the-worlds-most-dangerous-man-and-his-enabler/

June 20, 2025 Posted by | Israel, PERSONAL STORIES, USA | Leave a comment

NewsReal: Israel Attacks Iran, Seeks Regime Change. Will Trump Take US Into War?

Sott.net, 16 Jun 2025 

Israel’s brazen attack against Iran on June 13th could result in the culmination of the NeoCons’ plan for the ‘New American Century’: the toppling of the last regime resisting them in the Middle East. The US and Israel would thus fully control the world’s primary ‘energy spigot’ and cement their joint role as global hegemon(s) for decades to come.

Israel intends for this ‘short war’ to last a couple of weeks, after which Iran will be ruled by a new government with a new ideology, having submitted to US-raeli domination.

Wishful thinking?

Well, it depends on what capabilities Iran has to withstand Israel’s onslaught, whether its population is psychologically committed to resisting, and whether the US will have to directly intervene to fully realize Netanyahu’s dream of deposing the Ayatollah and defeating Iran’s military.

If the latter comes about, Trump will have shot MAGA – and his devoted followers, who are extremely hostile about the US engaging in another major Middle East war – through the heart. He isn’t so psychopathic and stupid, is he? https://www.sott.net/article/500130-NewsReal-Israel-Attacks-Iran-Seeks-Regime-Change-Will-Trump-Take-US-Into-War

June 20, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

WHAT I HAVE BEEN TOLD IS COMING IN IRAN

The initial battle plan for a new war

Seymour Hersh, Jun 20, 2025, Seymour Hersh Substack

This is a report on what is most likely to happen in Iran, as early as this weekend, according to Israeli insiders and American officials I’ve relied upon for decades. It will entail heavy American bombing. I have vetted this report with a longtime US official in Washington, who told me that all will be “under control” if Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “departs.” Just how that might happen, short of his assassination, is not known. There has been a great deal of talk about American firepower and targets inside Iran, but little practical thinking, as far I can tell, about how to remove a revered religious leader with an enormous following.

I have reported from afar on the nuclear and foreign policy of Israel for decades. My 1991 book The Samson Option told the story of the making of the Israeli nuclear bomb and America’s willingness to keep the project secret. The most important unanswered question about the current situation will be the response of the world, including that of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who has been an ally of Iran’s leaders.

The United States remains Israel’s most important ally, although many here and around the world abhor Israel’s continuing murderous war in Gaza. The Trump administration is in full support of Israel’s current plan to rid Iran of any trace of a nuclear weapons program while hoping the ayatollah-led government in Tehran will be overthrown………………………………. ………….(Subscribers only) https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/what-i-have-been-told-is-coming-in?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1377040&post_id=166335210&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

June 20, 2025 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

After Iraq There’s No Excuse For Buying The War Lies About Iran

Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 17, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/after-iraq-theres-no-excuse-for-buying?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=166146740&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

There is absolutely no excuse for buying into the war propaganda about Iran after what we all saw with Iraq.

“OMG nuclear weapons!” Shut up, idiot. If you’re a grown adult with internet access still swallowing this load of bull spunk in the year 2025 you’re either stupid or evil.

President Donald Trump is now saying he has no intention of seeking or facilitating a ceasefire with Iran, telling reporters that he’s after a “complete give-up” from Iran instead.

“I’m not too much in a mood to negotiate,” Trump said.

Asked by the press if he’s worried about US troops being targeted by Iran in the coming days, the president said “We’ll come down so hard if they do anything to our people. We’ll come down so hard. The gloves are off. I think they know not to touch our troops.”

This is a stupid, crazy lie. Iran has explicitly said it will strike US bases in the region if the US attacks Iranian territory. If you punch someone, you expect to be punched back.

If Trump orders US forces to bomb Iran, it will be because he wants to start a war and knowingly chose to do so.

One of the dumbest narratives we’re currently being fed about Iran is the claim that Israel is precision-striking high-level targets in Iran while Iran is just bombing civilians all over the place in Israel.

A casual glance at the death tolls shows this is clearly false. As of this writing the current official death count sits at 24 Israelis killed by Iran and 224 Iranians killed by Israel — most of whom are reportedly civilians. On Friday they bombed a residential building and killed 60 people, including 20 kids.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz thumped his chest on Twitter about an IDF strike on an Iranian television station on Monday, saying “The Iranian regime’s propaganda and incitement broadcasting authority was attacked by the IDF after a widespread evacuation of residents in the area.”

I wonder how the western press who are currently deceiving the public to promote Israel’s information interests feel about this new rule that it’s okay to bomb media outlets if someone decides they’re propaganda?

People shouldn’t be so hard on Trump about all this. You’d probably start a war with Iran too if someone was threatening to leak your child molestation video.

The war on Iran isn’t really about nuclear weapons — if it was they would’ve kept the nuclear deal in place, which was working as intended. The Gaza holocaust isn’t really about Hamas or hostages — if it was they would’ve just targeted Hamas or negotiated a hostage deal.

It’s all lies. The war on Iran is about regional hegemony and the genocide in Gaza is about Israel’s longstanding desire to remove all Palestinians from a Palestinian territory. It’s not about self-defense, it’s about land and power, and it always has been.

This is one of the reasons antiwar people have been focusing so hard on Gaza, by the way. It wasn’t just because it’s a horrific genocide happening right in front of us, it was because it always risked blowing up into a regional war involving Israel’s western allies. We’ve been watching it expand into the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and into Iran for a bit last year, and now it’s blown up into all-out war between Israel and Iran with the US poised to join in.

For 20 months I’ve been getting people asking me why I’ve been so laser-focused on Gaza while paying less attention to this or that conflict or foreign policy issue. This is why. It’s a waking nightmare in and of itself, but it’s also always been a powderkeg that could explode into something much, much worse.

June 19, 2025 Posted by | Iran, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

US assisted Israeli war on Iran just another US regime change operation

16 June 2025 AIMN Editorial, By Walt Zlotow  https://theaimn.net/us-assisted-israeli-war-on-iran-just-another-us-regime-change-operation/

In the 80 years since WWII, the US has engaged in roughly 80 regime change operations, an average of one per year. Some utilized outright war. Some used proxies. Some consisted of crippling economic sanctions designed to hurt the people so severely they would overthrow the targeted ruler.

Some succeeded immediately. Some took years to achieve regime change. Many failed.

The 1960 regime change operation in Cuba initially used sanctions. When that failed the US used Cuban dissident proxies in an invasion ending in catastrophe. Cuba brought in Russian missiles to prevent further regime change shenanigans. That nearly blew up the whole world simply to change out the Cuban communist regime in a tiny land 1/90th America’s size with a population just 3% of the American behemoth. After 65 years US embargo still makes life horrible for Cubans but does nothing to achieve regime change.

Then there is the current US regime change operation targeting Iran. The US has been itching to change out the Islamic theocracy ruling Iran since their 1979 revolution kicked out the US puppet we installed after our 1953 regime change operation deposed the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

But the current Iran regime change operation is truly unique. It’s being conducted by our best buddies in the Middle East, Israel, who launched a ferocious attack against Iran wholly supported, indeed cheered on by the US. Israel is ecstatic the US enabled their war since they’re even more committed to Iran regime change than America.

In possibly the most despicable, duplicitous act of diplomatic treachery in US history, the US lulled Iran from being on alert for attack by scheduling a sixth negotiating session on Iran’s nuclear program while knowing the bombs were about to fall. An Israeli official admitted to the Jerusalem Post; “The round of US-Iranian nuclear negotiations scheduled for Sunday was part of a coordinated US-Israeli deception aimed at lowering Iran’s guard ahead of Friday’s attack.”

Besides keeping Iran’s defenses from preparing for attack, the deception was designed to keep military, political and nuclear scientists from moving to safety. Some were killed in their imagined safe homes.

Israel claims their attacks were defensive to keep Iran from building a nuclear bomb. Poppycock. That argument was simply a MacGuffin, a Hitchcock style directorial plot device to keep the narrative moving. And that narrative is regime change of the theocracy ruling Iran and inflicting massive devastation so Iran will no longer be a hegemonic rival to Israel for Middle East supremacy.

The US is delighted that it may finally achieve its first Iran regime change since deposing Moseddgegh 72 years ago. And it will do so without dropping a single bomb or losing a single soldier or civilian. Firing the bombs and burying their dead will fall to its proxy Israel which, in their lust to topple Iran, is only too happy to fill that proxy role.

On December 6-7, 1941, two Japanese diplomats were still negotiating with US officials in DC when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The US charged Japan with dastardly deception to enable their attack. But history later attributed the two events as unrelated due to the slow, poor communication methods of 84 years ago. Not so with America’s grotesque use of diplomacy to achieve, as Sen. Lindsay Graham gloated “Game on” for regime change in Iran.

Next time the US wants to negotiate a sensitive issue of war and peace, the opposition will not say; ‘Remember Pearl Harbor.’ They’ll proclaim; ‘Remember Iran.’

June 19, 2025 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump Threatens to Bomb Iran to Smithereens for “Playing By the Rules”

there is no provision in international law or under the UN Charter that allows one country to attack another country based on its own subjective perception of what ‘may or may not’ constitute a threat.

Did we mention that the Trump campaign was given over $100 million by wealthy Zionist donors whose driving ambition is to topple the government in Tehran and absorb territorial Iran into Greater Israel?

Mike Whitney • June 9, 2025, https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/trump-threatens-to-bomb-iran-to-smithereens-for-playing-by-the-rules/

President Donald Trump is threatening to launch air strikes on Iran for activities that are approved under the terms of Iran’s treaty obligations. This is not a matter on which there should be any debate. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) explicitly grants all parties, including Iran, the “inalienable right” to develop, research, produce, and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. This “inalienable right” includes the enriching of uranium.

Trump either doesn’t understand what a “treaty” is or thinks its terms should not apply to Iran. For the sake of clarity, a treaty is a formal, legally binding agreement between sovereign states that is governed by international law. It establishes mutual obligations, rights, or rules on matters such as trade, security, nuclear non-proliferation, or environmental protection. A treaty is not optional and cannot be repealed by executive fiat. States that ratify treaties are legally obligated to comply with their terms in good faith. Political leaders, as representatives of the state, are expected to uphold these obligations.

This is all very straightforward which is why we find so it hard to understand why Trump is threatening a country that is clearly “in compliance” with its obligations under the NPT. Here’s what Trump said on Friday on Air Force One:

“They won’t be enriching. If they enrich, then we’re going to have to do it the other way… (air strikes) And I don’t really want to do it the other way but we’re going to have no choice. There’s not going to be enrichment.”

Trump has no legal authority to determine whether Iran can enrich uranium or not. It’s simply not his decision to make. Even Grok — with its obvious pro-Israel bias — understands this. Check it out:

Donald Trump, whether as a private citizen or as U.S. president, has no legal authority under international law to demand that Iran stop enriching uranium. Iran, as a sovereign state and signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), has the right under Article IV to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, including uranium enrichment, provided it complies with its safeguards obligations under Article III and its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). No individual state, including the United States, has the unilateral legal authority under international law to prohibit Iran from exercising this right. Any demand from Trump would be a political or diplomatic action, not a legally binding directive, unless backed by a UN Security Council resolution, which would require agreement from other permanent members (e.g., Russia, China). Grok

Trita Parsi explains how Trump has adopted John Bolton’s Iran policy.[0n original]

Also, there is no provision in international law or under the UN Charter that allows one country to attack another country based on its own subjective perception of what ‘may or may not’ constitute a threat. That’s insanity, and it flies in the face of the UN’s efforts to ensure peace and security through collective action and multilateralism. Besides, there is no credible legal case against Iran, because Iran is not violating the rules. What the MSM stubbornly refuses to tell the public is that Iran has no nuclear weapons and no nuclear weapons program. And—according to the IAEA—Iran has been “in compliance” since 2003 and has never diverted nuclear material to a weapons program. In other words, there’s no legal case against Iran at all. Zilch.

So, what is the point of Trump’s fulminations? Why is he threatening a peaceful country that is clearly “playing by the rules”?

Did we mention that the Trump campaign was given over $100 million by wealthy Zionist donors whose driving ambition is to topple the government in Tehran and absorb territorial Iran into Greater Israel?

Could that be a factor? Could that explain why Trump convened 5 separate meetings with Iranian negotiators without once mentioning the issue of “nuclear enrichment”, but then—Surprise, Surprise—did a swift 180 after which he made “zero enrichment” the foundational demand for which he has declared unflinching support?

Could that be a factor? Could that explain why Trump convened 5 separate meetings with Iranian negotiators without once mentioning the issue of “nuclear enrichment”, but then—Surprise, Surprise—did a swift 180 after which he made “zero enrichment” the foundational demand for which he has declared unflinching support?

How do you explain that sudden about-face? Is Trump pursuing an Israeli agenda or putting “America First”?

And why would Trump stake-out such a flimsy, untenable position when he knows that enrichment is the one provision in the NPT on which Iran will never budge?

The obvious answer is that Trump doesn’t want an agreement; he does not want to resolve the issue peacefully. That’s why he focused on the one issue on which there is no flexibility, figuring (quite rightly) that enrichment can be used as a pretext for war. And that’s the goal, war with Iran.

(Readers who have been following developments with Iran closely may recall that Trump’s original demand was that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon”. (Iran has agreed to that demand.) But now, he has sneakily changed the wording to “no enrichment” as if the two things are the same. Naturally, the pro-Israel media has not drawn attention to the president’s sleight-of-hand fearing that it would reveal the deceptive game he is playing. But, the fact remains, Trump used the negotiations to look like he genuinely wanted peace, and then quickly moved the goalposts as the “talks” progressed. Bottom line: A peaceful settlement was never Trump’s objective.

This is from an article at The Times of Israel (June 8, 2025)

This is how desperate the Trump team (and their Israeli allies) are to cast suspicion on Iran’s perfectly legal activities. They’ve actually dug up the details of research that was conducted in 2003. (a period during which Iran has admitted to “aspects of a nuclear weapons program.”) Notice that the IAEA report does not suggest that anything illegal is going on today, or that there is any indication that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, or even that they are diverting nuclear material to some other location. No. What they’re referring to happened more than two decades ago. It’s a joke.

And the same rule applies to the uranium that has been enriched to 60% which the Iranians have admitted to many times in the past. They’re not hiding anything; they’re looking for sanction’s relief, that’s all. Turns out, they don’t like economic strangulation. Are you surprised?

By the way, under the terms of the NPT, Iran is allowed to enrich uranium to 60% as the treaty does not explicitly set a maximum enrichment level for non-nuclear-weapon states. This is a fact, but it is a fact that is omitted in 100% of the MSM coverage of the issue. Why would that be?:-

Iran Needs Nuclear Energy

Many people believe that a country with vast oil resources like Iran has no need for nuclear energy, but that’s simply not true. Much of Iran’s electricity generation takes place at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran’s primary nuclear power facility, that uses low-enriched uranium to generate significant electrical power and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

Iran also uses nuclear technology to produce radioisotopes for medical diagnostics and treatment,… widely used in cancer diagnosis and imaging. Iran claims its nuclear program supports healthcare by providing isotopes for over 1 million patients annually.

Iran also uses nuclear energy in industrial applications, agriculture, water resource management, scientific research, cancer treatment, technology and radioisotope production. The fact is, no country would join the NPT if they were denied the “peaceful use” of nuclear power. Why would they?

Finally….

Americans should realize that nothing one reads about Iran in the western media can be trusted; it is all poisoned with the same, vile anti-Iran hatred and bias. Since the 1979 Revolution to today, US policy towards Iran has been an unbroken chain of relentless hectoring, belligerence and demonization. Washington has never treated Iran with the respect it deserves nor will it in the future. That’s because—on a fundamental level—the entire US political class despises Iran for asserting sovereign control over their-own vast resources and for failing to kowtow to their mucky-muck overlords in Washington. That’s the real issue; Iran has refused to cave in to Uncle Sam’s diktats which is why it must be punished with economic strangulation, “maximum pressure” and, inevitably, war. That is how America treats the peasants in the provinces, with an iron fist.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi summed up Iran’s approach at a recent ceremony for the late Ayatollah Khomeini. He said:

“The main foundation of Iran’s foreign policy is based on the principle of renouncing foreign domination. Trump’s ban on enrichment is itself domination, and this is unacceptable to the Iranian people.”

To its credit, Iran has never ‘given an inch’ to Washington’s endless badgering and saber-rattling. They have stuck by their principles and defended their right as a free country to choose their own development model, their own political system and their own collective future without bullying or coercion.

Iran should be applauded for shrugging off Washington’s threats and intimidation, and for its unflinching commitment to the principle of sovereign independence. They have preserved their dignity through 45 years of nonstop hostility and antagonism.

Bravo, Iran.

June 18, 2025 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump Praises ‘Excellent’ Israeli Strikes on Iran.

A source said Washington provided Tel Aviv with “exquisite” intel for the assault

by Kyle Anzalone | Jun 13, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/06/13/trump-praises-excellent-israeli-strikes-on-iran/

President Donald Trump endorsed the massive Israeli strike on Iran early on Friday morning, calling the attack “excellent.” A source explained that the US provided Israel with intelligence for the operation. 

Speaking with ABC News on the phone following the Israeli strikes across the Islamic Republic, Trump said, “I think it’s been excellent.” He continued, “We gave them a chance and they didn’t take it. They got hit hard, very hard. They got hit about as hard as you’re going to get hit. And there’s more to come. A lot more.”

Trump refused to provide details about the US role in the attack, saying, “I don’t want to comment on that.”

However, elements of Washington’s support for Tel Aviv are becoming public. Israeli officials told the Jerusalem Post and Axios that the White House helped to create the illusion that the US was still seeking a diplomatic settlement with Iran.

Just hours before the attack, President Trump declared that he was committed to a “Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue!” But it appears he had already greenlit the Jewish state’s attack on the Islamic Republic.

A source provided further details of the US support, telling ABC News that Washington provided Tel Aviv with “exquisite” intelligence. Additionally, the source said the US will help Israel defend against any Iranian response.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it holds the US responsible for the attack. “The Zionist regime’s aggressive actions against Iran cannot have been carried out without the coordination and authorization of the United States. Accordingly, the United States government, as the main supporter of this regime, will also be responsible for the dangerous effects and consequences of the Zionist regime’s adventure,” the ministry said.

Since starting the assault early Friday morning, Israeli forces have delivered multiple rounds of strikes targeting Iranian military sites, nuclear facilities, and residential buildings. Top Iranian nuclear scientists and generals have been confirmed killed.

Tel Aviv said the operation, dubbed “Nation of Lions,” will last several days.

Israel is seeking more support from the US. The Jerusalem Post reports that Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz will hold a call with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth later on Friday to lobby Washington for more military assistance. Additionally, Trump is expected to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone.

Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute. He hosts The Kyle Anzalone Show and is co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Connor Freeman.

June 18, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ghoulish US Congresspersons applaud dastardly Israeli attack on Iran

17 June 2025 By Walt Zlotow  ,https://theaimn.net/ghoulish-us-congresspersons-applaud-dastardly-israeli-attack-on-iran/

No surprise upon hearing the news, supreme US warmonger Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) immediately chortled “Game on. Pray for Israel.” That would be like a US Senator saying “Game on, pray for Germany” after their September 1, 1939 attack on Poland. Just like Germany, Israel cited ‘self-defense’ for their criminal, senseless bombardment that could provoke a regional if not nuclear war.

Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (R-FL) was a tad less ecstatic but bloodthirsty nonetheless charging: “The threat from Iran will only stop when the regime is destroyed. Anything less is just a temporary respite from the existential threat Iran poses to our allies and the free world.”

Even relatively moderate Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins offered up this huge whopper before hoping for an Israeli victory. “Our country too is at risk as Iran continues its development not only of fissile material but also of ballistic missiles.” The only risk this conflict has to America is destroying every decent, peaceful, humane value our country should be embracing.

The majority of congresspersons commenting, fully support the Israeli regime change attack on Iran just as they’ve been supporting the Israeli genocide in Gaza for the past 20 months. Most are Republicans but one Democratic Senator, John Fetterman, offered this bit of heartless cruelty to the bombarded Iranians: “Our commitment to Israel must be absolute and I fully support this attack. Keep wiping out Iranian leadership and the nuclear personnel We must provide whatever is necessary – military, intelligence, weaponry – to fully back Israel in striking Iran.”

We can only surmise why these unhinged congresspersons support the most heinous conduct any governmental leader can inflict on a people posing no threat to America. But in so doing they disgrace their office, they disgrace America, they disgrace themselves.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL

June 18, 2025 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s Nuclear Plan Faces Major Hurdles

By Felicity Bradstock – Jun 14, 2025

  • Trump aims to boost U.S. nuclear energy capacity from 100GW to 400GW by 2050, mandating quicker licensing and new reactor construction.
  • Nearly all U.S. uranium is imported—especially from Russia—posing a major obstacle given recent bans and tariffs.
  • With minimal enrichment capacity and mining, companies like Centrus stress the need for urgent public-private investment to meet demand.

 The U.S. President recently announced plans to quadruple the U.S. nuclear
capacity by 2050. However, several challenges must be overcome to meet this
target. Firstly, building a new nuclear plant can take a decade or more,
meaning that operators would have to apply for permits for new projects now
to get them up and running in the coming decades.

In addition, the U.S.
continues to rely heavily on Russia for its Uranium, despite having
introduced heavy sanctions on the country’s energy sector in response to
its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. would need to seek an alternative
supply of enriched uranium, or significantly increase its domestic
production, to fuel its power plants.

 Oil Price 14th June 2025, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Trumps-Nuclear-Plan-Faces-Major-Hurdles.html

 

June 18, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Sources: US Will Enter Israel’s War With Iran

 By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com, June 16, 2025, https://scheerpost.com/2025/06/16/sources-us-will-enter-israels-war-with-iran/

Sources familiar with the matter have told Antiwar.com Editorial Director Scott Horton that the Trump administration is poised to enter Israel’s aggressive war against Iran directly. US airstrikes on Iran could begin as soon as Monday.

Please contact the White House by sending an email or calling the comment line starting at 10 am EST on Monday  (202‑456‑1111). Tell them that you do not want the US to enter this disastrous war, which could lead to heavy American casualties at US bases across the Middle East.

The US has supported the war by reportedly providing Israel with intelligence and helping intercept Iranian missiles and drones, but so far, there have been no direct US attacks on Iran. Iranian officials have warned that Tehran would hit US bases in the region in response to any US strikes.

Axios reported on Saturday that Israel is urging the US to join the war since Israel lacks the bunker-busting bombs necessary to do serious damage to Iran’s Fordow plant, which is buried deep underground. An Israeli official told Axios that President Trump had previously suggested the US could strike Fordow.

Trump himself said on Sunday that it was “possible” that the US would get directly involved in the war, which Israel launched early Friday morning with airstrikes across Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started the war under the pretext of preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon. But it was the consensus of the US intelligence community that there was no evidence Iran was working toward a nuclear weapon, and Tehran made clear they were ready to make a deal with the US that would significantly lower uranium enrichment levels and increase oversight of its nuclear program in exchange for US sanctions relief.

Ali Larijani, an aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has previously said that the one thing that would make Tehran reconsider its prohibition on the development of nuclear weapons would be a US or Israeli attack.

“We are not moving towards (nuclear) weapons, but if you do something wrong in the Iranian nuclear issue, you will force Iran to move towards that because it has to defend itself,” Larijani said on April 1.

“Iran does not want to do this, but … (it) will have no choice,” he added. “If at some point you (the US) move towards bombing by yourself or through Israel, you will force Iran to make a different decision.”

June 17, 2025 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA participated in Israeli air defense using Patriot and THAAD systems

Patriot and THAAD missile defense batteries, operated by U.S. military personnel and originally deployed under the Biden administration, participated in Israeli air defense Friday evening, according to U.S. defense officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject. That represented a more limited participation in Israel’s defense than last year, when American air and sea assets helped shoot down incoming Iranian missiles during two retaliatory Iranian attacks. – from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/12/israel-attacks-iran-tehran-explosions/#link-45PWIAZSNNE57OYKVRHWOA6Z3I

June 17, 2025 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | 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

Staring Down The Barrel Of War With Iran Once Again

Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 12, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/staring-down-the-barrel-of-war-with?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=165756570&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Well it looks like the US is on the precipice of war with Iran again.

US officials are telling the press that they anticipate a potential impending Israeli attack on Iran while the family members of US military personnel are being assisted with evacuation from bases in the region.

This comes as Tehran issues a warning that it will strike all US military bases within range of its missiles if it comes under attack. There are reportedly some 50,000 US troops in 10 bases which could come under fire should this occur.

The US is also evacuating its embassy in Iraq, and has authorized the departure of non-essential personnel from its embassies in Kuwait and Bahrain.

Asked by the press about the evacuations, President Trump said, “They are being moved out because it could be a dangerous place, and we’ll see what happens. We’ve given notice to move out.”

Trump is openly declaring a willingness to strike Iran if nuclear negotiations fall through, while saying he is now “much less confident” that any deal will be made.

“If they don’t make a deal, they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon; if they do make a deal they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon too,” the president said in an interview published on Wednesday, adding that “it would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying.”

If the US backs an Israeli attack on Iran and then Iran retaliates by killing a bunch of US military personnel, we could be looking at a full-scale direct war between the US and Iran.

As I’ve said in this space many times before, this would be the absolute worst-case nightmare scenario for the middle east, unleashing horrors that dwarf all the other terrible abuses currently happening in the region. As Trump’s now-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in 2019 (back when she publicly opposed Trump’s warmongering), “What is important that the American people know is a war with Iran would make the war in Iraq look like a cakewalk.”

It’s so stupid that this keeps happening. This could all be avoided by the US simply ceasing to support the genocidal apartheid state of Israel no matter what it does. The fact that Washington has continued to pour weapons into Israel despite all its warmongering and genocide since 2023 means the US supports everything that Israel has been doing.

If a war with Iran does occur, you will doubtless hear western pundits and politicians trying to spin this as America getting “drawn into” another war in the middle east, or Trump being tricked or manipulated into war. But make no mistake: the US could have turned away from this path at any time, and still can.

If this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be because the US empire knowingly chose to open it.

June 15, 2025 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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