From Iran to Everywhere, We Live in Terror of the “Peaceful Atom Apocalypse”
No big city in the US, Europe or Asia is immune to annihilation from the fallout that could be imposed by a single drone, seismic shock or tsunami hitting a single atomic reactor. Millions of downwind humans will die, trillions in economic and ecological damage will threaten the ability of our species to survive on this planet.
Renewables could save a global economy and ecology now death threatened by both atomic warheads and nuclear reactors.
by Harvey “Sluggo” Wasserman, June 22, 2025, https://freepress.org/article/iran-everywhere-we-live-terror-%E2%80%9Cpeaceful-atom-apocalypse%E2%80%9D
Donald Trump has opened the military door to an atomic apocalypse.
But it’s likeliest to come through the “Peaceful Atom Window.”
The 400+ atomic power reactors (94 in the US) now operating worldwide are all sitting ducks for low-tech attack.
Iran or any other nation or terror group, with or without a nuclear warhead, can blow apart any commercial reactor with a single drone.
The resulting apocalypse can be spreading as you read this.
Commercial atomic power makes nuclear warheads ridiculously obsolete. The Trump/Netanyahu attacks on Iran’s alleged bomb factories ae marginal at most to today’s atomic reality.
Once blown apart by a drone, earthquake, tsunami, human error, equipment failure or simple sabotage, any atomic reactor can irradiate a continent, an ocean… the planet as a whole.
All commercial reactors operating in the world today are without comprehensive private insurance.
They are sitting naked ducks…absurdly vulnerable to a simple low-level attack from a single combatant with a drone, mortar, instrument of sabotage.
Fallout from Chernobyl, in 1986, irradiated most of Europe, much of Asia, and was detected all the way across the continental US. Twice.
It killed at least a million humans and cost at least a trillion dollars, probably far more – https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2974725
Billions of gallons of lethal radioactive liquid still pour into the Pacific Ocean from the 2011 disaster at Fukushima, with no end in sight, and no credible way to gauge the permanent damage to our global ecosystems. But radioactive tuna did turn up within weeks off the coast of California.
Fukushima spewed more than 100X more radioactive cesium into the air than the combined Bombings at Hiroshima & Nagasaki – https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/ocean-human-lives/pollution/radiation/fukushima-radiation/faqs-radiation-from-fukushima/#:~:text=Cesium%2D137%20and%20%2D134%20were,direct%20threat%20to%20marine%20life.
If Iran or any other nation, however small, with or without actual atomic weaponry, were serious about inflicting unlimited radioactive damage on a perceived enemy or the planet as a whole, it does not need a warhead or a missile….just a single drone to take down an atomic reactor.
Thus the Trump/Netanyahu attack on Iran’s warhead production is of zero military meaning. It offers the world no respite from the threat of atomic annihilation.
Russia’s Putin has already served many warnings. On February 14, 2025, he crashed a drone into the sarcophagus that covers the still-steaming exploded core at Chernobyl, inflicting millions in damage and threatening the world with another apocalyptic release.
Putin’s mortar shells continue to fly around and about the dozen commercial reactors perched like eggshells in the Ukrainian war zone.
None are protected with multi-billion-dollar shields like the one at Chernobyl. After seventy years in development, no US reactor can get private insurance against a catastrophic disaster.
The two reactors at Diablo Canyon, California, are more than 40 years old. They’re internally embrittled, hopelessly fragile, surrounded by seismic faults, violating state and federal environmental laws, gouging California with the continental US’s highest electric bills. An apocalyptic cloud will inevitably pour down the coast into Los Angeles when the “Big One” turns those reactors into radioactive rubble.
The global insurance industry has de facto pronounced these reactors “UNSAFE!” by refusing to cover liability for a major disaster.
No big city in the US, Europe or Asia is immune to annihilation from the fallout that could be imposed by a single drone, seismic shock or tsunami hitting a single atomic reactor. Millions of downwind humans will die, trillions in economic and ecological damage will threaten the ability of our species to survive on this planet.
Thus the Trump/Netanyahu attack on Iran’s atomic weaponry has in no way made our species safer. On a planet filled with atomic reactors, atomic warheads are an afterthought.
Thankfully, ALL these reactors can be rapidly replaced with solar, wind, geothermal, battery storage, efficiency and other Solartopian technologies that are safer, cheaper, cleaner, more reliable, more job producing and faster to build than anything fossil/nuclear.
They could save a global economy and ecology now death threatened by both atomic warheads and nuclear reactors.
Without eliminating BOTH, our species has no future.
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Harvey “Sluggo” Wasserman wrote SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, & co-wrote KILLING OUR OWN: THE DISASTER OF AMERICA’S EXPERIENCE WITH ATOMIC RADIATION. Most Mondays he co-convenes the Green Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Coalition Zooms (www.grassrootsep.org)
‘Completely & Totally Obliterated’
“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” Trump declared Saturday evening.
It is certainly unclear how “the Jewish state” will take it if Iran’s nuclear program has been damaged but remains extant.
The Iraq invasion and the bombing of Iran are acts of desperation — the conduct of a wounded, uncertain nation that went on the defensive when the Twin Towers went down and history arrived on its shores.
By Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News, 23 June 25, https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/23/patrick-lawrence-completely-totally-obliterated/
I have heard many unhinged speeches by American presidents over the years, but — no risk of exaggeration here — Donald Trump’s as he declared “a spectacular military success” after seven B–2 bombers attacked three nuclear sites in Iran Saturday night is the barmiest of my lifetime.
“The nuclear threat posed by the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terror?” “The bully of the Middle East?” There was this by way of a plunge into the crowded precincts of American paranoia:
“They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs. That was their specialty. We lost over a thousand people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate.”
And for the good people out in Peoria, a decisive majority of whom, the polls say, oppose American aggression against the Islamic Republic: “I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military.”
Let me remind readers, as rhetoric this base makes it easy to forget: The speaker of these words is the 47th president of the United States. Yes, the commander-in-chief.
It is difficult to take Trump’s four minutes in front of the microphone late Saturday evening the slightest bit seriously. But we must, precisely because what Trump had to say to his nation was so utterly unserious.
Donald Trump, to put this point another way, turns out to be worse than Donald Trump.
It is natural, for those with some sense of history to compare Trump’s my-God-and-my-military talk with the more craven moments of the McCarthyist 1950s, or with the John Birchers. I say it is more useful to think of that famous remark Karl Rove made during an interview conducted by Ron Suskind a year and seven months after the Bush II regime invaded Iraq.
“Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush” was published in The New York Times Sunday Magazine in October 2004. Suskind identifies Rove, then an adviser to the Bush White House, as “the aide,” but it was soon enough known it was he Suskind had interviewed.
The memorable passage in the Suskind piece is this:
“Guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ … ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
America had by then given Iraqis and the rest of the world a bitter display of what results when a nation purports to conjure realities to its liking. Trump now takes on the same preposterous project, as the ungrounded language cited above indicates.
Bush II failed extravagantly in Iraq, and Trump’s new adventure cannot but come to the same fate.
Creating reality, as if the irreducible foundations of cognition and logic are mere irritants to be set aside, may look like the very zenith of hubristic power. It is not.
The Iraq invasion and the bombing of Iran are to be read as acts of desperation — the conduct of a wounded, uncertain nation that assumed the defensive crouch when the Twin Towers went down in 2001 and history arrived on its shores — history, that process America all along thought was the burden of others.
We must bear this always in mind. Desperation is the mulch wherein recklessness germinates.
“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” Trump declared Saturday evening. Does this remind you of anything?
Maybe Bush II’s ridiculous appearance, in a bomber jacket no less after landing on board, to declare on an aircraft carrier off San Diego a few days after the Iraq invasion began, “Mission accomplished?” An infamous bit of staging,
We are already well down from “completely and totally.” By Sunday morning the Pentagon was trading in “severe damage,” catch-all vocabulary such that there is no telling what it means.
Casting further doubt on the state of matters, a digital publication called Amwaj.media reported Sunday afternoon that Washington had advised Tehran in advance of its intent to bomb and indicated the limits of its targeting. Citing “a high-ranking Iranian political source,” Amwaj said this source “also confirmed that the targeted sites were evacuated, with ‘most’ of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium kept in secure locations.”
Amwaj.media has its head office in Britain and publishes news and comment on West Asia in Arabic, Farsi and English. I cannot verify this report, but I am not at all inclined to discount it. It conforms, certainly, with the Trump regime’s vigorous efforts to stress that it does not seek a full-out war with the Islamic Republic.
“We have no idea where this war will go,” The New York Times declared in the headline atop an opinion piece published in its Sunday editions. “It may appear like a tactical victory less than four hours after the bombs began to fall,” W.J. Hennigan writes, “but projecting any sense of finality about this ordeal is wildly premature.”
This is so by way of facts on the ground, as the expression goes. It is certainly unclear how “the Jewish state” will take it if Iran’s nuclear program has been damaged but remains extant. The Zionist fanatics who started all this seem willing to settle for nothing short of Trump’s “completely and totally.”
But I see finality aplenty when I turn the weekend’s events 180° and consider them from this perspective. Whatever the destruction at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz by way of the “bunker busters” those B–2s dropped, the damage the Trump regime has done to itself and the nation it pretends to govern is nearly too extravagant to reckon.
Remember “Nous sommes tous Américains,” that celebrated headline atop an editorial Le Monde published shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks? I did not then think the United States had enjoyed the world’s approval so unreservedly for decades.
The slide began two years later, with Bush II’s wanton, unquestionably illegal invasion of Iraq. The policy cliques could not since have squandered the residual good will of the postwar decades more efficiently had they tried.
It was not a question of trying, of course. It has been a question since 2001 of those planning and executing U.S. policy simply not giving a damn what the rest of the world thinks — or wanting even to know what the rest of the world thinks.
Trump just decisively clarified the point, in my judgment. Nothing other than power matters to the Americans now. If this has been true since 2001, Trump makes clear there is no turning back from this: Power is all the United States has left to give the world — or impose upon it.
“There’s no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight, not even close,” Trump declared triumphantly Saturday night. “There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago.”
What a thing to boast of. So hopelessly out of sync with the 21st century. No, no other military could have done what the American did at the weekend, and no other military would ever be sent on such a mission.
I cannot imagine what some metric of global good will toward America would register now that Trump has led the United States into what looks like another war. If “completely and totally obliterated” were on the dial, the needle would be close.
As widely reported, Trump colluded with the Israelis to deceive Tehran with the suggestion that talks toward a diplomatic settlement of the nuclear question would proceed in Oman two Sundays ago. And as the Iranians prepared for another round of negotiations, Israel launched its attacks the preceding Friday.
Sucker-punching. This now seems part of America’s diplomatic repertoire.
It is hard to believe any American administration would be this craven, but Trump did the same thing again when he stated last week he would take two weeks to give diplomacy a last chance. It was a matter of a few days before the B–2s flew.
When Seymour Hersh predicted this in “What I have been told is coming in Iran,” published in his Substack newsletter last Friday, I confess I thought Sy’s neck was out a touch too far this time. I leave readers to finish the thought.
The Washington policy cliques have been more or less indifferent to statecraft for decades. Diplomacy is for the weak nations, the powerful having no need of it, former U.N. chief Boutros Boutros Ghali wrote insightfully in his memoirs. Trump just burned the bridges diplomats are supposed to build — all of them.
Who — the Russians, the Chinese, the Africans, the Latin Americans, the Europeans, the East Asians, the Indians — who will engage the Americans diplomatically any longer but with deep suspicions, deep reservations, and a profound reluctance to trust? Not to mention a well of contempt.
This is grave far beyond the Iranians, in my view. Contrary to appearances these past 25 years, diplomacy is an essential 21st century technology. B–2s and bunker busters do not seem so to me. High-technology weaponry is deployed at an ever-rising cost.
Incessant breaches of international law, cavalier abuses of the sovereignty of other nations: This will go on for who knows how long. But Trump and his people and the neoconservatives who appear to control them just went some distance destroying all possibility that the U.S. might participate in the making of a new world order.
This matters nil in Washington now, but such an order materializes as we speak, and the day will come when this foreclosed prospect will be up for regret.
I read something else in Trump’s Saturday night speech. To me it was the culmination of weeks of irrationality, a frenzy of it that led — just as the Israelis hoped it would — to senseless attacks with no logical justification.
There seems to me another kind of finality to what Trump just did. He has destroyed — completely and totally, I fear to say — rational thought as the basis of action in the name of what historians of our time will record as a rear-guard defense of raw power.
A late-phase imperium cannot do what Trump just did and then return to sound deliberations, measured policy, sophisticated statecraft. I do not now see a path to any such return.
America has long been — since 2001, again — on the way into an era of unreality, as we may as well call it. Trump just gave the nation a final shove and slammed the door behind it, to put my point another way.
When the bunker busters fell Saturday night the Trump regime created a reality all right. Look at it. Take a hard look. This is essential if some new direction is to be discovered.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Journalists and Their Shadows, available from Clarity Press or via Amazon. Other books include Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been permanently censored.
Chris Hedges: War With Iran
By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2025/06/22/chris-hedges-war-with-iran/
War opens a Pandora’s box of evils that once unleashed are beyond anyone’s control. The warmongers who ordered the strikes by U.S. bombers on Iranian nuclear sites have no more of a plan for what comes next in Iran than they had in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria.
European allies, whom Israel and Trump have alienated with these air assaults, are in no mood to cooperate with Washington. The Pentagon, even if it wanted to, does not have the hundreds of thousands of troops it would need to attack and occupy Iran — the only way Iran might be subdued.
And the idea that the marginal and discredited Iranian resistance group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran and is viewed by most Iranians as composed of traitors, is a viable counter force to the Iranian government is ludicrous.
In all these equations the 90 million people in Iran are ignored just as the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria were ignored. They will not welcome the United States and certainly not Israel as liberators. They may hate the regime, but they will resist. They don’t want to be dominated by foreign powers.
A war with Iran will be interpreted throughout the region as a war against Shiism. Soon there will be retaliation. Lots of it. It will come at first with desultory missile strikes and then attacks carried out by elusive enemies on ships, military bases and installations. Steadily it will grow in volume and lethality.
The death toll, including among the some 40,000 soldiers and Marines stationed in the Middle East, will mount. Ships, including aircraft carriers, will be targeted. We will, as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, begin to lash out with a blind fury, fueling the conflagration we began.
Those who lured us into this war know little about the instrument of war and even less about the cultures or peoples they seek to dominate. Blinded by hubris, believing their own hallucinations, they have learned none of the lessons of the last two decades of warfare in the Middle East. A war with Iran will be a self-defeating and costly quagmire, one more nail in the rotting edifice of the empire.
Nuclear peril
by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/06/23/nuclear-peril/
US and Israeli bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities set the stage for disaster, writes Linda Pentz Gunter from London
There was widespread if not quite universal condemnation on Sunday after President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and an immediate call for protests in cities across the United States and other countries. The US attack was launched to support Israel’s determination not to let Iran develop nuclear weapons at its civil nuclear facilities, although presently there is little to no indication that Iran is planning to do so.
“Military action against Iran is not the way to resolve concerns over Tehran’s nuclear programme,” said Melissa Parke, executive director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. “Given that US intelligence agencies assess Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, this is a senseless and reckless act that could undermine international efforts to prevent the further proliferation of nuclear weapons.”
Overnight on Saturday and into the early hours of Sunday morning, Trump authorized more than 100 US war planes to bomb Iran and claimed to have “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. The Iranians admit damage but not full destruction.
“Operation Midnight Hammer” as it was known, included B-2 bombers that dropped more than a dozen bunker busters on the heavily fortified Fordow uranium enrichment site, believed to be 80 meters below ground. American planes also bombed the Natanz uranium enrichment complex, while Tomahawk missiles were reportedly used to strike the Isfahan uranium conversion facility.
Fordow is believed by western powers to be the location where Iran could be working on producing nuclear weapons. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency had reiterated as recently as a day before this latest attack that “we did not find in Iran elements to indicate that there is an active, systematic plan to build a nuclear weapon,” its general secretary, Rafael Mariano Grossi told Al Jazeera.
Concerns remain about Iran’s only operating civil reactor at Bushehr. Even before the American incursion, Russia, which built and operates Bushehr, had warned the Israelis of the grave risks of another Chornobyl-style disaster should they strike the reactor. Russia had already begun evacuating some of its personnel but threatened to remove more if they were in danger from Israeli bombs. Alexei Likhachev, the CEO of state nuclear company Rosatom said “We are prepared for any scenario, including the rapid evacuation of all our employees.”
But a reactor, even if shut down, cannot be left unattended, raising other grave concerns about its longterm safety during the current war.
A day after the American bombing raid, Israel launched more attacks on Iran, including in Bushehr province. This now means there are two countries actively under attack where civil nuclear power plants are located — Ukraine and Iran. The consequences of a successful bombing raid on a civil nuclear plant could include widespread release of highly harmful and persistent radiation, forcing mass and permanent evacuations and sickening and killing thousands or more in both the near- and long-term.
Even greater concerns have been mounting that US involvement could trigger a wider conflict in the region. As many have pointed out consistently, Israel is a nuclear-armed state, albeit absurdly an undeclared one even though the country likely possesses as many as 200 warheads. Israel refuses UN inspections and has never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran on the other hand is a signatory to the NPT and has long claimed it is exercising its “inalienable right” under that treaty to pursue a civil nuclear weapons program.
Those concerns were further heightened when Christian Zionist US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee urged Trump to consider using a nuclear bomb on Iran, advice Trump fortunately ignored for now. But Trump remains an unpredictable tinder box, illustrating once again the peril of countries continuing to possess nuclear weapons that an unhinged leader might launch on an impulse.
Protests erupted immediately in US cities and elsewhere across the world on the news of the US attack on Iran, which came hours after 350,000 people had marched through London in the latest monthly demonstration against Israel’s attack on Palestine, but this time also calling for halt to its bombing of Iran.
At that rally, there was skepticism that Israel’s attacks on Iran were really just about stopping Iran developing nuclear weapons. Somaye Bagher Zadeh, with Iranians For Palestine UK, said Israel’s actions were potentially about “getting rid of the Iranian regime, but to be frank, regime change by any foreign power is not in the interests of the Iranian people. And it’s entirely up to the Iranian people to decide who rules them.”
“Since they destroyed Iraq, we have known that it was inevitable that they would eventually come for us,” said prominent British-Iranian trade union leader, Maryam Eslamdoust. “We Iranians feel like we have been waiting our whole lives for the US or Israel to attack us.”
Saturday’s mass march in London to Whitehall was followed by an emergency protest called for Monday outside the US Embassy in London by Stop the War Coalition and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, alongside other rallies across the country. So far, the UK government has continued to politically support and materially aid and abet Israel’s attacks on Gaza as well as its starvation of the Palestinian population there. A rally was also called by American groups in front of the White House.
British activists are concerned that their government may be drawn back into another disastrous war, similar to the UK’s support of the US in the war in Iraq. That war cost countless lives on all sides and failed to stabilize the Middle East region, instead giving birth to further radicalization.
“Trump’s attack on Iran is brutal, illegal and unjustified,” said a statement from Stop the War Coalition on Sunday. The group said it condemned the US attack on Iran “unequivocally and urges every possible mobilization against British military or political support for the aggression.”
In the US, Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, was quick to criticize the bombing raids. “While we all agree that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon, Trump abandoned diplomatic efforts to achieve that goal and instead chose to unnecessarily endanger American lives, further threaten our armed forces in the region, and risk pulling America into another long conflict in the Middle East,” said Van Hollen, who has also spoken out consistently against Israel’s attacks on Gaza. “The U.S. intelligence community has repeatedly assessed that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. There was more time for diplomacy to work.”
The diplomacy Van Hollen referred to was a resumption of negotiations for a nuclear agreement with Iran that would either limit or eliminate its civil uranium enrichment program. Such an agreement — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, limiting enrichment and allowing for stringent inspections in exchange for a lifting of sanctions — had already been in place until Trump withdrew the US during his previous administration. New talks had been progressing poorly, with Israel chomping at the bit to use military force instead, which it did then initiate with US prior knowledge.
Independent Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders, said “We cannot allow ourselves to be dragged into another Middle East war based on lies,” reflecting on previous such ventures in Vietnam and Iraq based on similar falsehoods.
While most Republicans have lined up behind Trump’s warmongering, one Republican, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, called the attack “not Constitutional.” Earlier in the week, Massie and California Democrat Ro Khanna had introduced a resolution that would have blocked US participation in Israel’s attacks on Iran without Congressional approval.
“This is an extremely dangerous situation,” said a statement from the grassroots movement, Our Revolution, which promotes the campaigning of Sanders on a number of domestic and foreign issues, including Gaza and now Iran. “Trump has immediately threatened even more attacks, and U.S. service members are now directly in harm’s way,” the group said. “We are on the cusp of a catastrophic conflict that could cost countless American and Iranian lives.”
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. She is currently reporting from London, England.
Iran Fires Missiles at US Base in Qatar
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said the missiles were intercepted and that there were no casualties
by Dave DeCamp | Jun 23, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/06/23/iran-fires-missiles-at-us-base-in-qatar/
The Iranian military announced on Monday that it launched an attack on the US’s Al Udeid base in Qatar in response to the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The attack was first reported by Axios reporter Barak Ravid, who cited Israeli sources that said Iran fired at least 10 missiles at the US base. Initial reports said that another missile targeted a US base in Iraq, but US officials later said the attack targeted only a base in Qatar.
“This base is the headquarters of the Air Force and the largest strategic asset of the US terrorist army in the West Asia region,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said of the US base in Qatar.
The IRGC said Iran would not “leave any attack on its territorial integrity, sovereignty, and national security unanswered under any circumstances.”
The Qatari Foreign Ministry issued a statement that said Qatar’s air defenses “successfully thwarted the attack and intercepted the Iranian missiles” and that there were no injuries or deaths caused by the attack.
The reported missile launch comes after Fox News and other outlets said that an Iranian attack on US assets in the region was “imminent” and Qatar announced that it was closing its airspace, signaling the US has at least a few hours’ notice that the barrage was coming.
The New York Times reported that Iran had notified Qatar of its plans to attack in order to minimize casualties, signaling Tehran is seeking de-escalation with the US. In 2020, after the US assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran launched a similar attack on a US base in Iraq, which the US didn’t respond to.
A White House official told CNN that the US was expecting an Iranian response and claimed President Trump didn’t want more military engagement in the region. “We knew they’d retaliate. They had a similar response after Soleimani,” the official said.
US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites ‘marks perilous turn’: Diplomacy must prevail, says Guterres
United Nations, 22 June 25
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres told an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Sunday that massive overnight strikes by the United States on Iran’s nuclear facilities only increase the risk of a wider war and “serious damage to the international order.”
After ten days of airstrikes initiated by Israel aimed at crippling Iran’s nuclear programme which have led to deadly daily exchanges of missile fire between Tehran and Tel Aviv, the UN chief said that diplomacy must now prevail.
“We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation,” he said, responding to the US intervention overnight in support of Israel’s military campaign, which targeted three facilities involved in uranium enrichment.
Return to serious negotiations essential
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear programme,” Mr. Guterres added.
He told ambassadors the citizens of the wider Middle East region could not endure yet another cycle of destruction. Demanding a ceasefire, he also put Iran on notice that it must “fully respect” the Non-Proliferation Treaty on the development of nuclear weapons as a cornerstone of peace and security worldwide.
Iran has consistently denied the allegation from Israel and others that its ambitions are to become a nuclear armed State, versus developing atomic energy for purely peaceful purposes.
Israel, the US and Iran face a stark choice. “One path leads to a wider war,” the UN chief continued, “deeper human suffering and serious damage to the international order. The other leads to de-escalation, diplomacy and dialogue.”……………………
…………………………………………………………………………………https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164756
Why does the U.S. get to play nuclear cop?
24 June 2025 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/why-does-the-u-s-get-to-play-nuclear-cop/
I’ve always wondered why the U.S., with its massive nuclear arsenal, gets to dictate who can or cannot join the nuclear club. The airstrikes President Trump ordered on Iran’s nuclear facilities pushed me to dig into this question. Spoiler: it’s less about fairness… it’s more about power.
The Unequal Nuclear Order
The U.S. was the first to build the bomb and is one of five “recognised” nuclear powers under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), alongside Russia, China, France, and the UK. These nations, permanent UN Security Council members with veto power, hold sway over global security rules. The NPT allows them to keep their arsenals while promising eventual disarmament – a promise largely unkept. Non-nuclear signatories agree not to develop weapons in exchange for peaceful nuclear tech, but the deal feels rigged when the “haves” modernise their stockpiles.
The U.S., with roughly 3,708 warheads leads this unequal system. From 2013 to 2022, it spent $634 billion upgrading its nuclear arsenal, with plans to continue through to 2030. Yet it demands compliance from others, arguing that proliferation risks global instability. Fair? Hardly.
Iran and U.S. Strategic Interests
Iran’s nuclear program is a flashpoint because of its defiance, anti-Israel rhetoric, and support for groups like Hezbollah. The U.S. and allies – particularly Israel and Saudi Arabia – see a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to Middle East power dynamics. U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, framed as preventing NPT violations, aimed to delay Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. But Iran, an NPT signatory, claimed its program was for energy, a right the treaty technically grants. It is worth noting that the U.S.’s 2018 withdrawal (under Trump) from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal – ”an agreement to limit the Iranian nuclear program in return for sanctions relief” – undermined diplomacy, pushing Iran toward escalation.
Meanwhile, non-NPT states such as Israel, India, and Pakistan face less scrutiny. Israel’s nuclear arsenal and U.S. alliance shield it, while India’s strategic role against China earns it a pass. This double standard – punishing adversaries while sparing allies – would no doubt fuel resentment.
Sovereignty and Escalation Risks
Unilateral actions like bombing Iran’s facilities bypass international consensus, violate sovereignty and risk wider conflict. A hypothetical Washington Post poll (paywalled) from June 18, 2025, showed only 25% of Americans supporting such strikes, with 45% opposing and 70% fearing war with Iran. The White House argued preemption was necessary to stop a rogue state, but this ignores how U.S. policies, like JCPOA abandonment, escalate tensions.
As someone who fiercely opposes nuclear weapons entirely, I nonetheless find it hypocritical that a nuclear-armed U.S. polices others for seeking the same leverage. The NPT’s structure, enforced by powerful states, prioritises stability over equality. The U.S. claims to protect global security, but its actions often protect its own dominance.
A Path Forward
The nuclear order needs reform. Instead of airstrikes or sanctions, the U.S. should lead by example, pursuing multilateral disarmament and strengthening diplomatic frameworks such as the JCPOA. Until nuclear powers honour their NPT commitments, their enforcement will smack of hypocrisy, alienating nations and risking conflict. True security lies in a world free of nuclear weapons, not one where bullies set the rules.
The non-official nuclear news this week.
Note- I am sorry, victims of this overload. This is miles too long. In future I am going to have to cull. It has been a bit of a busy week.
TOP STORIES. Trump Has Bombed Iran: What Happens Next Is His Fault.Trump’s attack on Iran is ‘unconditional surrender’ to Israel.
Clearing up the confusion about Iran and uranium enrichment.
Jeffrey D. Sachs: Stop Netanyahu Before He Gets Us All Killed.
Trump says US intelligence ‘wrong’ about Iran not building nuclear bomb. Trump Threatens to Bomb Iran to Smithereens for “Playing By the Rules”.
UK Nuclear power is not a done deal.
Rosatom: A company at war.
Cross your fingers, Australia, and hope the AUKUS deal collapses
AUSTRALIA. Australia backs US strikes on Iran while urging return to diplomacy. Why Richard Marles Backs the U.S. War Machine.
Warmongering Marles commits Australia to US war against China amid Iran mayhem. Going to war with China will be an unequivocal disaster for Australia.
AUKUS collapse offers Australia the chance to navigate an innovative future.Why the AUKUS ‘dream’ was never realistic and is likely to die.
NUCLEAR ITEMS.
| ARTS and CULTURE. Weaponized Stupidity – How Nonsense Became a Strategy of Control. |
| CLIMATE. Climate misinformation turning crisis into catastrophe, report says. Nuclear power plant warning as heatwave hits France. Three years left to limit warming to 1.5C, leading scientists warn. Why 2024’s global temperatures were unprecedented, but not surprising.. |
| EMPLOYMENT, UK’s Bakers’ union rejects new nuclear reactors, calls for socialist Green New Deal- ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/?s=UK%27s+Bakers+Union |
| ENERGY. Why I can’t trust carbon capture or nuclear power to save us. |
| ENVIRONMENT. What are the nuclear contamination risks from Israel’s attacks on Iran?Anxiety grips Gulf Arab states over threat of nuclear contamination and reprisals from Iran. Sizewell C nuclear’s ecological cost may be far greater than the financial one. Labour’s nuclear dream has destroyed my home: inside the Sizewell C planning row- ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/06/19/1-b1-labours-nuclear-dream-has-destroyed-my-home-inside-the-sizewell-c-planning-row/ |
| ETHICS and RELIGION. Ghoulish US Congresspersons applaud dastardly Israeli attack on Iran. |
| EVENTS. 25 June – RAF Fairford Protest: Don’t Bomb Iran! PETITION: Launch a Parliamentary Inquiry into AUKUS. |
| HISTORY. Israel – Iran: The Confrontation. |
| LEGAL . Rogue States: The illegality of the U.S.-backed Israeli attacks on Iran.Supreme Court clears the way for temporary nuclear waste storage in Texas and New Mexico. |
| MEDIA. Working Hard to Justify Israel’s Unprovoked Attack on Iran. Why won’t the BBC report on Israel’s nuclear weapons? The real threat to Israel is Netanyahu. |
| OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . It’s good to talk: US-UK anti-nuclear alliance forged from film discussion. |
| PERSONAL STORIES. The prophecy – about Donald Trump.The World’s Most Dangerous Man and His Enabler. |
| POLITICS.House Progressives Back War Powers Resolution as Trump Ratchets Up Rhetoric Against Iran. Labour’s £14bn ‘fixation’ with new nuclear power ‘won’t cut bills or help climate’. Westinghouse lobbies for site in Wales as Starmer backs nuclear renaissance – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/06/20/2-b1-westinghouse-lobbies-for-site-in-wales-as-starmer-backs-nuclear-renaissance Sizewell C and Britain’s nuclear renaissance.Trump’s Nuclear Plan Faces Major Hurdles. Ford’s nuclear obsession is robbing Ontario of its true clean energy future. Niger to nationalise uranium project co-owned with France’s Orano. |
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Trump Suggests He Wants Regime Change in Iran. Trump speculates about ‘regime change’ in Iran as Tehran vows ‘decisive response’ to US attack. Trump Praises ‘Excellent’ Israeli Strikes on Iran. Israeli and U.S. intelligence differ on status of Iran’s nuclear program. Israel publicly confirms its military involvement in Ukraine. |
| SAFETY.Nuclear peril.Major radiation warning as Israel says it’s ‘on verge of destroying 10 nuclear sites’. Israeli strikes on Iran nuclear sites ‘risk radioactive releases’.Where is scrutiny of UK’s nuclear submarine plans?Improvements required following Barrow nuclear submarine site fire. |
| SECRETS and LIES. We Are, Of Course, Being Lied To About Iran. After Iraq There’s No Excuse For Buying The War Lies About Iran. Hidden History: How Israel Acquired Nukes. |
| SPINBUSTER. A golden nuclear age. The nuclear mirage: why small modular reactors won’t save nuclear power.Stop Sizewell C campaigner slams Labour lies over nuclear power. |
| TECHNOLOGY. Spending billions on unclean, risky energy? What a nuclear waste!. Small modular nuclear reactors are NOT a “cutting edge” technology. Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) are nothing but a Big Boondoggle. Scotland wants no part in further dangerous nuclear experiments. |
| URANIUM. How effective was the US attack on Iran’s nuclear sites? A visual guide. Officials Concede They Don’t Know the Fate of Iran’s Uranium Stockpile. |
| WASTES. Inside Britain’s top nuclear bunker – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/06/21/1-b1-inside-britains-top-nuclear-bunker/ |
| WAR and CONFLICT. Trump Announces ‘Successful’ Attack On Iranian Nuclear Sites. Chris Hedges: War With Iran. Trump Bombs Iran, Then Demands Iran Agree to End the War. Ted Cruz Suggests US Is Involved in Israeli Strikes on Iran, Despite US Denials. WHAT I HAVE BEEN TOLD IS COMING IN IRAN Report: Trump Privately Approved Plans To Attack Iran But Has Withheld Final Order. US Reportedly Assesses Only a Nuclear Bomb Could Destroy Iran Nuclear Facility. Trump Rejects Intel on Iran’s Nuclear Program, Raising War Fears. NewsReal: Israel Attacks Iran, Seeks Regime Change- Will Trump Take US Into War? US assisted Israeli war on Iran just another US regime change operation. Israel claims it damaged Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility “significantly.” But questions remain. Israeli missile defense at risk of collapse in coming days: WashPo. How Iran Turned Israel’s Iron Dome Against Itself Using Clever Jamming. ‘We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran’: Trump. The Guardian view on Israel, the US and Iran: you can’t bomb your way out of nuclear proliferation. Israel’s Bombing Won’t Stop Iran from Going Nuclear. |
| WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.Alternative Defence Review UK. USA participated in Israeli air defense using Patriot and THAAD systems .Iran and Israel at War. Was Iran months away from producing a nuclear bomb? Israel Buckles as Iran War Shifts to New Drag-Out Phase. Juan Cole: The Current Iran War Will Likely End Soon, But the Arms Race Will Heat Up. |
Trump claims ceasefire reached between Israel and Iran.
US president congratulates Iran and Israel on truce deal, but neither country has confirmed agreement to end war.
23 Jun 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/23/trump-claims-ceasefire-reached-between-israel-and-iran
United States President Donald Trump says that Iran and Israel have agreed to a “complete and total” ceasefire, which will come into effect in the coming hours.
Trump’s announcement on Monday came shortly after an Iranian missile attack on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which houses US troops.
“On the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will, I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, ‘THE 12 DAY WAR,’” Trump said in a social media post.
“This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn’t, and never will! God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America, and GOD BLESS THE WORLD!”
Neither Israel nor Iran has confirmed the agreement.
Trump’s statement suggested that Iran would stop firing at Israel hours before the Israeli military ends its operations.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi noted that there has not been an official confirmation of the deal more than an hour after Trump’s announcement.
“Just a few minutes ago, we heard the sounds of explosions related to an interception and the activation of the air defence system here across the capital,” Asadi said.
“So the reality on the ground is that we are witnessing the continuation of the Israeli strikes, and that’s paving the way for further retaliatory reactions by the Iranian side.”
Middle East analyst Omar Rahman told Al Jazeera that many details are missing from Trump’s announcement, including whether negotiations would follow the purported ceasefire.
Rahman accused Trump of previous “deception” on behalf of Israel. The US president had re-asserted the US commitment to diplomacy hours before Israel launched its initial attack on Iran.
Last week, Trump said he would decide within two weeks whether to join Israel in the war, only to strike Iran two days later.
Rahman said a major Israeli attack in the final hours, including the possible assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could blow up the deal.
“If that’s the last operation, would that suddenly end the war? No, of course, not. So, I don’t know what’s in the cards,” he said.
Israel launched a massive attack against Iran in the early hours of June 13, without direct provocation. Israeli officials claimed that the strikes, which killed hundreds of people, were “preemptive” and aimed at the country’s nuclear and missile programmes.
In the first wave of the attacks, Israel killed several Iranian generals.
Iran said the attacks were unprovoked aggression in violation of the United Nations Charter, and responded with hundreds of missiles that left widespread destruction inside Israel.
On Saturday, Trump authorised US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities.
Earlier on Monday, Iran launched an unprecedented missile attack at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in response to the US strikes. Trump dismissed the retaliation as “weak”, suggesting that the US would not respond.
Liqaa Maki, a scholar at Al Jazeera Media Institute, said the US may be able to withstand Iranian attacks on its bases without responding if they do not cause casualties.
“The US, after the important strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, needs to transform the military achievement into a political one enshrined by an agreement,” Maki told Al Jazeera Arabic after the Iranian attack.
He noted that Iran still has large quantities of highly enriched uranium as well as nuclear know-how.
“So in two to three years, Iran could resume its nuclear activity but without inspections. It could produce a bomb without the world noticing,” Maki said.
The damage that the Iranian nuclear programme has sustained remains unclear. Iran insists that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon, while Israel is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.
Trump Suggests He Wants Regime Change in Iran
The president previously threatened Iran’s leader, claiming the US knew his location
by Dave DeCamp | Jun 22, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/06/22/trump-suggests-he-wants-regime-change-in-iran/
President Trump suggested in a Truth Social post on Sunday that he seeks regime change in Iran, contradicting earlier statements from top US officials who denied that was the goal of the US military campaign against the country.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” the president wrote.
In the morning, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth insisted the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities and support for Israel’s attacks on the country have “not been about regime change.” But Trump’s post suggests that regime change is the goal and that the administration’s calls for diplomacy with Iran continue to be a smokescreen.
Last week, President Trump threatened Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggesting the US was aware of his location. “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it increasingly clear that his goal is regime change. He insisted last week that killing Khamenei would “end the conflict” with Iran.
Many observers have pointed to the fact that Netanyahu was a major proponent of the US invasion of Iraq and promised that taking out Saddam Hussein would have a positive impact on the region. “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” he told Congress in 2002.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has also threatened Khamenei, saying the Iranian leader “cannot continue to exist.”
AUKUS collapse offers Australia the chance to navigate an innovative future.
(Cartoon by Mark David / @MDavidCartoons)
By Alan Austin | 23 June 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/aukus-collapse-offers-australia-the-chance-to-navigate-an-innovative-future,19859
Donald Trump’s likely abandonment of the AUKUS contract offers the Albanese Government a welcome reprieve from a costly folly, as Alan Austin reports.
THE USA LOOKS LIKE it is abandoning the controversial AUKUS contract signed by the miserably inept Morrison Government in its dying days.
The corrupt and incompetent U.S. President Donald Trump wants out. He has proven to the world that the only projects he strongly supports are those that enrich himself and his companies directly. Australia, with other Westminster nations, refuses to pay direct bribes to individual national leaders — as it should.
Now showing advanced cognitive decline and a failing grip on reality, Trump has effectively signalled the contract’s demise by calling for a formal review by Defence Under Secretary Elbridge Colby. Colby has long been a vocal AUKUS critic and will probably recommend cancellation.
Sound reasons to abandon AUKUS
The first pillar of the deal between Australia, the UK and the USA is for the Americans to supply Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines for its defence, starting with three Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s.
The second pillar is collaboration between the three nations on new military technology. These include undersea capabilities, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and advanced cyber, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic capabilities.
Colby’s argument against the AUKUS deal is simply that the USA doesn’t have enough submarines for their own needs and can’t build them fast enough to have any to spare in the foreseeable future. That is true. The current U.S. Administration is the least competent in its history.
Other AUKUS critics have more compelling reasons for its abandonment. The most cogent of these, articulated by former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull and others, is that nuclear subs supplied by the USA will necessarily be operated by American personnel and automatically commandeered by the U.S. military in the event of hostilities between the USA and China, over Taiwan or any other conflict.
It would be disastrous for Australia’s relationship with China and other nations, Keating argues, to be dragged into such a war.
Resources lost forever
If AUKUS collapses, Australia has little chance of getting back the billions already invested.
Among the countless failures of the monumentally inept Morrison Coalition Government was leaving out of the contract any penalties for defaults.
In any event, the lifelong criminal grifter currently running the White House has never felt obliged to fulfil contracts, however legally or morally binding.
The losses to Australia as a result of the incompetence of the Coalition from 2014 to 2022 now amount to hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars, including the billions paid out for AUKUS so far.
These simply have to be accepted as penalties citizens must bear for the abject stupidity of those who elected such a hopeless rabble to try to run the country.
Visionary naval future
If AUKUS fails and Australians write off the losses, they can then grasp this as an opportunity to pursue advantageous alternatives.
The future of underwater naval warfare increasingly appears to be in unmanned underwater vessels (UUVs). Australia is well-placed to build these for its own purposes and then sell them to regional neighbours and beyond.
This may seem a quantum leap for shipbuilding in Australia, but it can be accomplished.
Australia proved to the world it could build the Collins-class submarines during the Hawke/Keating period and has successfully procured other military ordnance since then.
In its first term, the Albanese Government began its investment in small UUVs. Australian marine vessel manufacturer Anduril Australia, a subsidiary of the American Anduril Industries, is already building a modest UUV which it calls Ghost Shark.
Although technical information is restricted, military monitor The War Zone has revealed details of the partnership involving Anduril, the Royal Australian Navy (R.A.N.) and the Defence Science and Technology Group.
A Ghost Shark prototype, according to The War Zone, has a 3D-printed exterior, weighs 2.8 tons, is 5.6 metres long and can operate at a depth of 6,000 metres for ten days. Advanced AI technology enables autonomous operations.
The R.A.N. hopes to get three UUVs suitable for both military and non-military missions between 2025 and 2028.
Challenges for the future, beyond Ghost Shark, are for vessels capable of higher speeds, deeper dives, longer missions, greater stealth and more advanced assignments, including accurate delivery of lethal weapons.
If Australia’s current submarines can be replaced with technologically advanced UUVs, costs will be much lower and risks to personnel dramatically reduced. This may allow Australia to cut military spending overall.
Potential partnerships
Australia does not have the resources to build UUVs alone. Just as the Collins-class submarines were built collaboratively with Swedish shipbuilder Kockums, new ventures will require partners.
Possibilities, besides American firms like Anduril, are many. Current UUVs in service include Germany’s Greyshark, France’s XLUUV and vessels from Japan and South Korea.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s discussion topics with his Canadian counterpart, Prime Minister Mark Carney, at last week’s G7 meeting included Canada joining AUKUS. That’s another possible partner.
Grounds for optimism
Australia has shipyards in South Australia and the solid experience of designing, building and maintaining the Collins-class submarines from the 1980s to the present.
Australia enjoys the goodwill of all neighbouring nations, has no current engagement in any conflict and sees no threats on the horizon.
Australians have banished the destructive Coalition parties from any chance of forming government for the foreseeable future.
So, to borrow a line from Michael J Fox in The American President, let’s take this 94-seat majority out for a spin and see what it can do.
Out of pocket and stranded: What happens if Trump pulls out of AUKUS | Four Corners Documentary
War With Iran: Made in Britain?
By Kit Klarenberg / Substack, 23 June 25, https://scheerpost.com/2025/06/23/war-with-iran-made-in-britain/
On June 14th, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer bragged he was moving the country’s military assets and fighter jets to West Asia, to provide “contingency support in the region” in response to Iran’s counterattack on the Zionist entity. Asked by Sky News if he ruled out direct military involvement, he evasively responded, “I’m not getting into that.” He also refused to clarify whether Tel Aviv gave London any advance warning of its criminal, unprovoked strike on Tehran a day prior:
“These are obviously operational decisions and the situation is ongoing and developing…I’m not going to go into what information we had at the time or since. But we discuss these things intensely with our allies.”
On June 15th, Chancellor Rachel Reeves was less ambiguous, openly declaring British military assets could “potentially” be used to defend Israel, and the government was “not ruling anything out,” noting Britain had previously “supported Israel when there had been missiles coming in.” She explicitly framed London’s interest in the conflict as driven by the threat of rising oil prices, and trade route disruption, placing further pressure on the country’s already collapsing economy.
Yet, there have been ominous indications for some time Britain has sought to ignite a wider conflict across West Asia – and all-out war between Iran and Israel, and its Western puppetmasters, upon the precipice of which we now teeter, has been London’s objective all along. On October 8th 2023, just over 24 hours after Palestinian freedom fighters breached Gaza’s concentration camp walls, veteran client ‘journalist’ Robert Peston took to ‘X’ to publish explosive insight provided to him by nameless “government and intelligence sources”:
“Hamas’ attack on Israel has the potential to be as destabilising to global security as Putin’s attack on Ukraine…[Benjamin] Netanyahu is highly likely to retaliate. Biden and the US would try to limit the scope of any Israeli strike on Iran, but would neither want or be able to veto it. There is a risk of this crisis spreading well beyond the Middle East…We are in the early stages of a conflict with ramifications for much of the world.”
At this point, the shape and scale of Tel Aviv’s response to Operation AlAqsa Flood was far from certain. Zionist Occupation Forces did not even enter Gaza until five days hence. We therefore must ask ourselves how British intelligence could’ve correctly forecast with such alacrity that Israel’s impending genocide of the Palestinians would cause mass tumult not merely in West Asia, but globally, and potentially culminate with conflict with Iran.
‘Joint Activity’
London’s direct involvement in the Gaza genocide has been evident almost from the moment of its eruption. Media reports in late October 2023 hinted at SAS units being “on standby” at British military and intelligence bases in nearby Cyprus, purportedly preparing to conduct daring operations in Gaza. Subsequent articles suggested these squadrons were “training in Lebanon to rescue Britons” in West Asia, should they get caught up in the war in Gaza, or “be taken hostage” by Resistance groups.
These revelations prompted Britain’s Defense and Security Media Advisory Committee to issue D-notices to major news outlets, demanding they “prevent inadvertent disclosure of classified information about Special Forces and other units engaged in security, intelligence and counter-terrorist operations [in Gaza], including their methods, techniques and activities.” True to form, the Committee’s “advice” was universally heeded, and references to the SAS’ presence in West Asia vanished from mainstream media reporting on Zionist entity’s 21st century Holocaust.
The DSMA’s reference to “security, intelligence and counter-terrorist operations” pointed to a very different purpose to their purpose in the region than mere hostage rescue. Investigations by Declassified UK bolster this suspicion. The independent outlet has revealed how military transport flights traveling to Tel Aviv, from the same British bases in Cyprus where SAS operatives are stationed, have been a routine occurrence since October 2023. It may be relevant that in December 2020, London and Tel Aviv signed a military cooperation agreement.
The accord has been described by British Ministry of Defense officials as “important…defense diplomacy” that “strengthens” military ties between the two countries, while providing “a mechanism for planning our joint activity.” The contents of this agreement, however, remain hidden not only from British citizens, but also elected lawmakers. Speculation thus arises the agreement obligates Britain to defend Israel in the event of attack, in turn reinforcing the conclusion the SAS has been directly involved in the Zionist entity’s genocidal assault on Gaza since day one.
‘Emergency Missions’
In November 2023, The Cradle exposed a covert initiative by Britain to secure unfettered access to Lebanese territory for its armed forces. A leaked document on the proposals offered neither a rationale for London doing so, nor specified the specific mission British Army soldiers would be fulfilling in Beirut. The demands ultimately weren’t approved, but if greenlit, the terms of London’s mandate in Beirut would’ve been unprecedented.
The agreement granted “all [British] military personnel” unprecedented access to Lebanon’s ground, air and sea territory, bypassing the need for “prior diplomatic authorization” for “emergency missions.” The nature of those missions was not specified. Moreover, British soldiers would’ve been permitted to travel in uniform with their weapons visible anywhere in Lebanon, while enjoying immunity from arrest or prosecution for committing any crime.
These audacious stipulations draw unsettling parallels with the NATO-drafted Rambouillet Agreement, presented to Yugoslavia in 1999, where refusal became a pretext for a US-led military onslaught. At the time, a senior State Department official boastfully admitted to “deliberately [setting] the bar higher” than could possibly be accepted by Yugoslavia’s government, explicitly to trigger a 78-day-long NATO bombing campaign when Belgrade inevitably rejected the derisory non-deal.
However, London had good cause to believe Beirut would capitulate to its exorbitant demands. As exposed by this journalist, British intelligence has over many years conduct multiple clandestine operations to infiltrate Lebanese military, security and intelligence agencies at the highest levels, while inserting its operatives and allies into key state ministries. Each of these initiatives was supported by a dedicated memorandum of understanding between the two states, although their precise terms have never been publicly disclosed.
Britain has-long maintained a watchful eye on Hezbollah’s military wing from a GCHQ listening post on Cyprus’ Mount Olympus. October 2023 mainstream media reports justified this spying on the basis London was deeply concerned about the Resistance group attacking the Zionist entity. Did the British know Tel Aviv intended to launch an intensive air and ground campaign against Beirut, which came to pass a year later? Was the attempted occupation of Lebanon by British forces intended to prepare for that eventuality?
‘American Aegis’
With hindsight, there are unambiguous, deeply ominous insinuations that Britain has played a key role, both overtly and covertly, in shaping the theatre in West Asia for industrial scale upheaval ever since October 7th 2023. In addition to London’s opaque conniving in Lebanon pre-invasion, Bashar Assad’s government fell in Syria in December 2024. At the time, Benjamin Netanyahu took personal credit – but subsequent disclosures indicate MI6 were grooming Assad’s replacements, Al Qaeda and ISIS-offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, for power since at least 2023.
The obvious question is what Britain seeks to gain from unalloyed chaos endlessly reverberating throughout West Asia. To date, the “conflict with ramifications for much of the world” predicted with eerie foresight by Robert Peston’s intelligence sources on October 8th 2023 has redrawn borders, destabilised every state in the region, claimed countless lives, and wrought the possible onset of World War III. At the very least, one might think the damage inflicted to London’s domestic economy might be a deterrent to stirring up such trouble.
Yet, leaked documents indicate British military and intelligence planners are well-aware of the devastating financial impact their provocation and prolongation of overseas proxy wars has on average Britons, and remain unfazed. As exposed by The Grayzone, a secret Ministry of Defence cell dubbed Project Alchemy has resolved to “keep Ukraine fighting…at all costs” ever since the conflict erupted in February 2022, despite knowing anti-Russian sanctions would “hit British voters in the pocket” as long as they were in place.
Project Alchemy also masterminded Kiev’s war on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The concerted effort to destroy Moscow’s entire navy serves no military purpose from Ukraine’s perspective, as it has zero frontline implications whatsoever. It also, the cell acknowledged, has produced a “cost of living crisis” in Britain. But London has major geopolitical objectives in neutralising Russia’s regional presence and influence, in order to dominate the region under a wider intended “tilt” to the Indo-Pacific.
It must also not be forgotten that today’s standoff between Israel and Iran results from an August 1953 coup in Tehran. Orchestrated by MI6, it removed popular, democratically elected, anti-imperialist leader Mossad Mossadeq from power, and installed the brutal reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, which resultantly led to the 1979 Iranian Revolution and Islamic Republic’s creation. Due to Britain’s expulsion by Mossadeq, London had to rely on the CIA to do the bulk of the in-country work.
Initially, the Agency, along with the State Department and White House, was opposed to the plot. However, after falsely being led to believe by MI6 a well-developed plan with a certain chance of success had been drawn up, and the Eisenhower administration being offered a hefty chunk of BP’s profits once Mossadeq’s nationalisation of Iranian oil was reversed, the CIA acquiesced. Mossadeq’s removal was quite some victory. Towards the end of World War II, a Foreign Office official lamented how post-conflict Britain would “be expected to take her place as junior partner in an orbit of power predominantly under American aegis.”
Ever since, London’s political, military, intelligence and security apparatus has been overwhelmingly concerned with exploiting and manipulating that aegis for its own ends. The 1953 Iran coup showed MI6, and their controllers in London, precisely how to very effectively steer the bigger, richer, more powerful US Empire in directions of its own choosing. For the British, the past 60 years have been an unending battle to repeat that success.
Trump’s “Unleashing Atomic Power” is Unhinged
June 19, 2025, https://beyondnuclear.org/trumps-unleashing-atomic-power-unhinged/
Without explanation, on June 16, 2025, President Trump unceremoniously fired Democrat Commissioner Christopher Hanson from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as the first senior manager causality initiating a slash and burn attack on commercial nuclear power regulatory oversight. Hanson’s second term of office was to have expired in 2029. Hanson’s abrupt removal follows a barrage of White House Executive Orders by decree of the Trump Administration “to unleash nuclear power” from a federal regulator pilloried by industry and its bipartisan political allies as “risk-averse” and “safety zealots” preventing the rapid expansion of new reactor licensing and extending operating license renewals of deteriorating reactors to an extreme 80 years.
None of these industry lobbied accusations are true. For years, the NRC has in fact been shifting away from prescriptive regulation to “risk-informed” regulation that Beyond Nuclear and other public interest organizations have criticized as “gambling” at the expense of public safety margins to protect nuclear industry profit margins. After all, what is gambling but considering risk to gain monetary reward which in this case is for an inherently dangerous and aging technology.
Following the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct2005), Congress and President G.W. Bush provided billions of US taxpayer dollars to incentivize a so-called “nuclear renaissance” of new “advanced” reactor construction with federal loan guarantees, new reactor production tax credits, and streamlined new reactor licensing to grease the skid. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) published its 2007 report to Congress “Nuclear Power: Outlook for New Reactors” assessing EPAct2005’s impact to prop up the federal revival and cited the industry pledge to cash in on taxpayer money for 34+ units in new reactor projects. The NRC staff and Commissioners took full advantage of the politics. NRC speeded up its license review process that now combined construction and operating applications (COL) into one convenient licensing hearing while cutting back on the public’s due process. Of those pledges, only two projects for four units [V.C. Summer 2 & 3 (SC) and Vogtle 3 & 4 (GA)] managed to muster the financing and only then by using electricity rate hikes paid by utility customers in advance for construction work in progress.
Here’s the reality check: of those 34+ units, only two units awarded COLs by NRC, Vogtle 3 & 4, that were originally estimated at total completion costs of $14 billion, managed to finish construction seven years behind schedule in 2023 and 2024 at a total construction cost well exceeding $35 billion.
Of the remaining 32 units identified in the CRS report, an additional 12 units were provided COLs by NRC licensing boards to start construction. Only V.C. Summer 2 & 3 started construction that was abandoned mid-construction with $10 billion in sunk cost, again, largely at the expense of its captured ratepayers. The remainder were cancelled, withdrawn or terminated by construction cost-averse utilities. As of March 2025, the NRC reports that five US nuclear power companies still hold NRC-approved COL applications for 8 “advanced” reactor units that have not been acted upon because of the projected uncontrollable construction costs.
The NRC did its part to fast track reactor licensing. It was the utilities that by and large financially chickened out.
Still, to some Commissioners’ credit, it was NRC Democrat then Chairman Christopher Hanson and Democrat Commissioner Jeff Baran who on February 24, 2022 astutely heeded Beyond Nuclear’s and other intervenors appeals filed in response to the dismissal of their request for relicensing hearings on a contention illuminating a glaring “error of law” that was being ignored and ramrodded by the NRC. The NRC relicensing process was simply carrying over its environmental review completed for the “initial” or first 20 years of license renewal (40 to 60 years of operation) into the “subsequent” or second 20 year extension of operations (60 to 80 years) without adequately upgrading its environmental review analysis, more specifically for impacts of “climate change” projected into that future operating period. The piling up a regulatory train wreck of seriously flawed Subsequent License Renewal Applications and bungled regulatory decisions.
The agency and their licensees were repeatedly violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by NRC staff, the Office of General Counsel, numerous Atomic Safety Licensing Boards and the previous Commission to ramrod operating licensing renewals for a second 20 year extension (60 to 80 years) without updating the letter of the law to require environmental reviews to take a “hard look” at the projected extension period and do the analysis on the potential impacts of climate change (sea level rise, increasing intense hurricanes and storms, floods, etc.) on increased severe nuclear accident risk and frequency of nuclear accidents as a result.
In the 2 to 1 vote the seated Commission vote (Hanson and Baran vs. Republican Commissioner David Wright) issued NRC Orders to send the federal agency back to the drawing board to rewrite the Subsequent License Renewal Rule’s Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) to specifically make it relevant to the 60 to 80 year projected operating time frame. The NRC spent nearly two years in it rewrite of the license renewal rule to comply with NEPA only to remain a stubbornly captured federal agency by industry lobbyists funding and Congress. The rewrite of the GEIS came back without the agency addressing climate change and now claiming that climate change is “out of scope” of reactor operation environmental reviews. Beyond Nuclear and the Sierra Club are currently before the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in request of a judicial review of the NRC’s flagrant and continued violation of NEPA by ignoring climate change impacts on increasingly extreme relicensing periods.
Unfortunately for nuclear safety, Hanson and Baran’s attention to the letter of the law earned them both the enduring scorn and ultimately revenge of the nuclear industry and their devoted political champions.
The energy trade journal Nuclear Intelligence Weekly reported June 6, 2025 that, “[t]he White House campaign to erode the NRC’s independence comes alongside fresh fears that President Donald Trump might fire some or all of the five NRC commissioners.” Meanwhile, Trump’s scandalous Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is now plotting to make deep cuts in NRC staffing levels and divert more attention from public safety margins and environment protection to focus a leaner agency work force on expanding the industry production agenda and gold plated science. Shortly after Hanson’s abrupt dismissal, Trump renominated NRC Chairman David Wright, a Republican whose current term of office as NRC Chairman expires on June 30, 2025, and renewed his post for another 5-year term as one of the Commissioners.
Which raises the question, will President Trump fill the NRC Chair seat once empty with his handpicked Republican nominee to swing the Commission vote back to a 3-2 Republican advantage? The goal being to erase any notions of a “risk-averse” NRC, shutdown the agency’s public transparency and regulatory accountability and dangerously unhinging the national nuclear energy policy.
‘They Cooked Up Their Own Intelligence’ Chris Hedges on Israel’s war on Iran
Al Jazeera English – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8dzL3biesA 24 June 25
How effective was the US attack on Iran’s nuclear sites? A visual guide
At odds with Trump’s claim of “complete obliteration”, two Israeli officials who spoke to the New York Times described serious damage at Fordow but said the site had not been completely destroyed.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, added: “As for the assessment of the degree of damage underground, on this we cannot pronounce ourselves. It could be important; it could be significant, but no one … neither us nor anybody else could be able to tell you how much it has been damaged.”
Peter Beaumont, Guardian23 June 25 [EXCELLENT PICTURES ON ORIGINAL]
Trump claims the assault ‘totally obliterated’ the key facilities, but what do we know about its impact?
Donald Trump was quick to claim that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had “completely and totally obliterated” them. Still, it remains unclear how much physical damage has been done or what the longer-term impact might be on Iran’s nuclear programme.
What was the target?
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) confirmed that attacks took place on its Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz sites, but insisted its nuclear programme would not be stopped. Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog said there were no immediate signs of radioactive contamination around the three locations after the strikes.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported no deaths from the US strikes, appearing to confirm Iranian claims they had been largely evacuated in advance. The health ministry said those who were injured showed no evidence of nuclear contamination. In the immediate aftermath, US military officials said the three sites had suffered “severe damage” after an operation that had been planned for weeks, suggesting it was coordinated with Israel.
The Pentagon said a battle damage assessment was still being conducted.
What do we know about the strike on Fordow?
Long regarded as the most difficult military target among Iran’s nuclear sites, the uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow – the primary target of the operation – are buried beneath the Zagros mountains. Reports have suggested that the site was constructed beneath 45-90 metres of bedrock, largely limestone and dolomite.
Some experts have suggested the layering of the sedimentary rocks, including faults, would also make it more difficult to strike the centrifuge array, providing a kind of geological cushioning against a blast wave.
The attack – codenamed Operation Midnight Hammer – was carried out by seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers flying from the US, after a deception flight by other B-2s into the Pacific. Tomahawk missiles were fired from US ships in waters south of Iran.
The site was hit by a dozen 13,600kg massive ordnance penetrators – known as bunker busters – at approximately 2.10am Iranian time. It was the weapon’s first operational use. The number used suggests a lack of confidence that a smaller strike could penetrate through to the target.
The result to a large extent depends on the kind of concrete inside the facility. Estimates of the bunker busters’ penetration are based largely on reinforced concrete resistant to 5,000psi. Iran is believed to have used more resistant concrete.
While video from the site showed evidence of a fire in the immediate aftermath, satellite images published on Sunday were suggestive but far from conclusive.
The main support building at the site appeared to be undamaged, but the topography of a prominent area of ridge line appeared to have altered and been flattened out, with some evidence of rock scarring close to two clusters of bomb craters around the ridge.
Analysts had suggested that a strike could hit the main entrance tunnel to the site, but the main effort appears to have been in a different location.
At odds with Trump’s claim of “complete obliteration”, two Israeli officials who spoke to the New York Times described serious damage at Fordow but said the site had not been completely destroyed.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, added: “As for the assessment of the degree of damage underground, on this we cannot pronounce ourselves. It could be important; it could be significant, but no one … neither us nor anybody else could be able to tell you how much it has been damaged.”
What was the impact at Isfahan?………………………………………
………. facilities targeted at Isfahan either contained no nuclear material or small quantities of natural or low-enriched uranium.
What was hit at Natanz?………
……….It appears that Natanz’s underground enrichment hall was targeted. Enhancement of satellite images from the site on Sunday showed fresh damage to overground buildings and new cratering in the centre of the site…….
Was Iran’s nuclear programme obliterated?
…………………………..“The enriched uranium reserves had been transferred from the nuclear centres and there are no materials left there that, if targeted, would cause radiation and be harmful to our compatriots,”
Three days before the US attacks, 16 cargo trucks were seen near the Fordow entrance tunnel.
The head of the AEOI, Mohammad Eslami, claimed this month that Iran had another enrichment site “in a secure and invulnerable location” that could house centrifuges.
Analysts have long argued that while it is possible to disrupt the physical function of a nuclear facility and limit the scope of a programme through, for example, the killing of scientists, the breadth of technical knowledge acquired during the decades-long programme is impossible to destroy.
Ultimately, the question is whether the US-Israeli attacks are seen as sufficient for Iran to capitulate, or whether they instead encourage the regime to accelerate its efforts to produce a viable nuclear weapon. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/22/how-effective-was-the-us-attack-on-irans-nuclear-sites-a-visual-guide
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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