Israel-Iran war in 2025

Kind of can't believe i'm typing this. Tehran residents urged to evacuate.

Spoke to my mom minutes ago. They’re leaving Tehran. Everyone is trying to leave Tehran. Whether they will be able to is a different question. The roads are packed to the point of literal non-movement.

— kev joon (@never_oppressed) June 17, 2025

Just to recap

Israel is bombing Iranian nuclear sites, military targets and oil fields. Iran has responded with fairly weak missile attacks that are not very accurate. All of these overfly Iraq, Syria and Jordan.

Israel has been building to this for awhile, taking strategic positions in Syria.

There is no evidence that Iran has developed a nuclear weapon. In fact there is an edict against developing these weapons by Iran's religious leadership. Iran maintains it is trying to develop nuclear power for domestic energy generation. (The UK has recently announced a "golden age of nuclear" and £14b for a reactor at Sizewell C)

Israel does possess nuclear weapons, though it carries on a pretense that it doesn't. It does not allow IEAE inspectors into its sites, it has not signed the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty.

The US had prior warning of Israel's attacks and pulled diplomats from the region. Trump has been very publicly supportive. Most experts think to succeed, Israel needs active US support, particularly its specialised bombs which can penetrate Iran's deeper research bunkers.

Maybe also worth saying that during its razing of Gaza, Israel has kneecapped Iranian allies Hezbollah and Hamas who might have been expected to help Iran militarily via missiles, sabotage etc

I don't have any idea if Iran can withstand this, or what the prospects are of them landing any sort of damaging blow to Israel that might even the odds, nor what the story is with Syria, Iraq etc - how they will respond to being potentially in the crossfire.

In any case this all seems very bad and I would imagine that any other US administration would, even in the context of the war on Gaza, tell Israel that this is unacceptable, but that is not happening. It appears Israel is just going to go ahead and bomb whoever it wants, whenever it wants. We are living in a total breakdown of the famous "rules based international order" and a return to barbarism.

be careful Tracer, that’s antisemitic

I mean to be fair there never really was a rules based international order but that phrase was a useful figleaf to lock in US hegemony.. feels like the figleaf is gone now

table wtf

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/17/politics/israel-iran-nuclear-bomb-us-intelligence-years-away?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

so the question is whether trump will use some kind of cluster bomb to destroy the facility at fordow. (israel apparently doesn't have the capacity to destroy this).

i have a sinking feeling that he will authorize this action and not realize that it will draw us into a prolonged direct conflict.

the stupidest part of this situation is that --- whether or not iran was close to a bomb (and i happen to think they were at least trying to posture as a "threshold state") --- they *wouldn't* have been close if trump hadn't pulled out of the iran nuclear agreement negotiated by obama.

it's such deja vu to iraq.

if Trump vetoed the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei he might not want to supply very messy US bunker busters to fuck up Iranian infrastructure either. I mean at least that was some modicum of moderation against the IDF if true. He's got to honour to his peace president mandate at some point, grim lol.

I think Netanyahu is hitting everything in sight while he can, because who knows when is the next window of opportunity, because political survival, and because it deflects the attention from Gaza / West Bank.

Iran feels pretty isolated, and I don't have a clue who could possibly miss the regime - apparently they have to suppress Iranian tweets that support the targeting of officials; sounds unlikely to me, and like a weak justification, but I guess everyone is waiting to see.

As if razing the Gaza strip to the ground wasn't enough of a demonstration of power / impunity.

i think you are right that pat of this is about deflecting attention from gaza. a tipping point seems to have been reached in the past few weeks and even mainstream pro-israel voices in america have condemned the violence there.

table wtf

given that we can’t call a spade a spade without people on this board getting up in arms about it— Zionism is a fascist settler colonial ideology, plain and simple— i was simply warning Tracer that associating “Israel” with barbarism might not be taken well.

Cool in that case the israeli government is guilty of barbarism

I both reject and denounce it

Probably won't listen (bcz I can hardly ever listen to podcasts) but Seamus has always been good at covering this conflict.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/131640530

is Seamus Malekafzali a nom de twitter? It's always struck me like those "comedy" food trucks about 10 years ago named like "Confucius O'Reilly" and serving ill thought out fusion food.

Think his background is Lebanese - American

Russia ought to give Iran a single nuke just for the hell of it.

things i did not want to learn in june 2025: the difference between "air superiority" and "air dominance"

Think his background is Lebanese - American

he's irish-iranian-american (for real) but was living in beirut until israel started bombing it last year

table wtf
given that we can’t call a spade a spade without people on this board getting up in arms about it— Zionism is a fascist settler colonial ideology, plain and simple— i was simply warning Tracer that associating “Israel” with barbarism might not be taken well.

― czech hunter biden's laptop (the table is the table), Tuesday, June 17, 2025 9:33 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I really don't want to relitigate this conversation, and certainly not here shitting up a quasi-unrelated and important thread, but I do want to clarify that my objection to your comment was not to say that you can't criticize the State of Israel's unconscionable actions. Quite the opposite -- by making a sarcastic straw man comment that criticizing Israel will inevitably get you accused of antisemitism, you are adding fuel to the notion that calling out antisemitism is nothing more than a disingenuous weapon to defend Israel. It gets used that way all the time which is pretty damn painful enough as is for us Jews who are trying to call out and fight actual antisemitism which actually does exist. And nothing Tracer wrote in his opening posts was remotely antisemitic.

I do take some issue with your characterization of Zionism but definitely don't want to get into that here

Table is still wrestling with his shit, apparently.

I mean we can certainly characterize what the Israeli government is doing as barbaric, I hope we all agree?

yes.

fair enough, LS, i will keep that in mind.

all good, thanks!

Grimly amusing to read the likes of Keir Starmer insisting that Trump wants peace because he told him so at the G7, only for trump to post psychotic assassination threats on social media two minutes later

The mistake you made there was paying attention to something Keir Starmer said. Trump would never do that.

Breaking: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says "Israel is doing the dirty work for all of us" to ZDF network at G7 summit

— James Jackson (@derJamesJackson) June 17, 2025

Something happened yesterday, and Trump is now determined to take the country to a war of choice. He can change his mind at the last minute, as he did in 2019, but short of that, there will be war.

It is important to understand that capitulation is most likely not an option for Iran for a variety of reasons.

First, Trump's conduct in the past ten days has destroyed any confidence Tehran has in him and his desire for a peaceful outcome. For the Iranians to ever back down from their long-standing position to never give up enrichment, they must have confidence that backing down ends the conflict. They have no such confidence in Trump at this moment. They don't think he will stop there.

Second, Tehran has lost confidence in Trump's ability or willingness to say no to Israel (that confidence existed earlier to some extent). And Israel will not be content with even a complete dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program.

If the nuclear program is destroyed, Israel will turn to Iran's missile program. It will not accept Iran having missiles that can wreak havoc on Israel - as Iran has done in the last few days. Without missiles, an air force, and a nuclear deterrent, Iran will be completely exposed and defenseless. Once that is achieved, the Israelis will push for regime change or regime collapse. And after that, as the Israelis have done in Syria after Assad fell, they will push to destroy the rest of Iran's conventional military so that Iran won't be able to challenge Israel's emerging regional military hegemony for decades to come. Iran's territorial integrity will also be put at risk.

As a result, Tehran does not view capitulation - even if they desired it, which I don't think they do - as a stable outcome.

In their view, their only chance is to fight back. By making the war as costly as possible for the US - even if they will lose it - they think they can either deter Trump, or make him cut the war short. As he did in Yemen.

Thus, if new talks take place and Trump insists on capitulation, he will get war. Iran will pay an immeasurable price. As will the region. But the US will also pay a very heavy price. Scores of American soldiers may be killed. Oil prices will skyrocket, and gas prices in hot summer months in the US will soar. Inflation will go up. Trump's Iran war may destroy his presidency as Bush's Iraq invasion destroyed his.

Iran will lose. But so will the US. Israel is perhaps the only country that will benefit from this war of choice.

^ The tweet in full. We'll find out in a few days whether that will hold. The taboo not discussed here -- as I've seen in any analysis -- is the use of nukes..

Something happened yesterday, and Trump is now determined to take the country to a war of choice. He can change his mind at the last minute, as he did in 2019, but short of that, there will be war.

It is important to understand that capitulation is most likely not an option for…

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) June 17, 2025

Pakistan, China, North Korea, Russia...these countries have nukes.

Libya, Iraq, Syria...and Iran...do not.

under what scenario does a nuclear missile get fired

If the US wanted an end with no American casualties? I haven't seen any discussion or analysis of that possibility.

I don't know about Israel, but I suspect that Trump does not want to the first post-war president to employ nukes

especially on a nation that we've been in nuclear talks with

A nuclear capability is basically a defensive capability. Iran wants the bomb to ensure regime survival. Russia, China, Pakistan and North Korea all had a similar motivation for pursuing the bomb.

Really? I can totally see Trump being down with launching nukes. Why are we spending money on the things if we’re not using them?!? We’ve got the best nukes.

xp

well, Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize and that drives him bonkers.. so he's paying lip service to being a broker of peace so he can get one as well

"Truman in 1945"

Trump shared a message from his ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who told him he was “chosen by God” for this moment and compared him to Truman in 1945—just before the U.S. nuked Japan.

These are the same people calling Iran a theocratic threat. pic.twitter.com/dgl6vx4Ja6

— Mondoweiss (@Mondoweiss) June 17, 2025

It's hard for me to imagine Israel deploying a nuke against Iran, aren't they too close?

Yes, I am not sure that either Trump or his followers would view "first postwar president to use a nuke" as a bad thing. Totally hope to be wrong tho!

xposts

its just so hard to predict anything, this entire administration is full of inexperienced morons who do whatever FOX News tells them to

I mean isn’t it the thing about nukes in general that they have a much higher chance of being launched than any rational person would like to think, like the argument for why proliferation is fine is that nobody would be insane enough to actually use them which is not comforting because that is a fucking insane thing to argue

Major irony in the fact that Trump is busily committing impeachable offenses on a near-daily basis without consequence, but he is legally authorized and empowered by an act of Congress to fire off ICBMs without a declaration of war. Try not to think too hard about it and just work to bring Congress to its senses before the price of their cowardice becomes unthinkably high.

M.A.D. ceases to seem prudent once you're talking about death cults

It ceases to seem prudent once you’ve thought about it for eight seconds but yeah

Insiders said Trump constantly talked about using nukes in his first term. No reason to believe he isn’t still obsessed. It’s the ultimate last word!

Also to that tweet thread that claimed George W was in any way hurt by the Iraq war, he was reelected and is not currently in jail. I think he won!

i didn't even register the truman 1945 reference the first time i read that slavish text message from huckabee.

I didn't catch it either, was too distracted by Huckabee's obvious hard-on for bringing about the end times.

It's hard for me to imagine Israel deploying a nuke against Iran, aren't they too close?

Same re why Iran would use one on a tiny country surrounded by (former/current/would-be) allies of Iran

(that's still around 20% Arab)

An Iranian bomb would be a U-238 'atomic' bomb in the kiloton range, not the megaton range like a hydrogen bomb. The blast radius would be fairly modest. The radioactive fallout would also be concentrated in a limited area, but some would drift well past Israel's borders.

good to hear they make some kinder, more progressive nukes. At least if you accidently launch a mini-nuke you can apologise and say look I'm sorry, but listen, it's not the end of the world.

I'll repeat, the only reason Iran wants the bomb is for regime survival, not for aggression. If they somehow considered it necessary to atomic-bomb Israel, the effect on Lebanon, Jordan or Syria would not cause them to hesitate. But all this gets too far off into the weeds of improbable futurity.

Iran has openly expressed its strong interest in destroying Israel, although I have mostly doubted they meant it literally enough to nuke Israel, not least because it would likely kill hundreds of thousands or millions of muslims and irradiate one of the holiest sites in Islam, which would hardly serve its goal of regional inlfluence/dominance, and also because the response would be overwhelming. A nuke would probably shift the balance of power some in favor of Iran's ability to take other actions against Israel and in favor of its regional power, but I'm skeptical that they would nuke Israel.

Its academic whether Iran would use something they don't have.

The key here is that they do not.

'death to israel' is a common rhetorical device in that part of the world, not too far from 'sure is humid today'

re the decision Trump has to make regarding bombing Fordo, the NY Times take --

There is only one weapon for the job, experts contend. It is called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or the GBU-57, and it weighs so much — 30,000 pounds — that it can be lifted only by a B-2 bomber. Israel does not own either the weapon or the bomber needed to get it aloft and over target.

If Mr. Trump holds back, it could well mean that Israel’s main objective in the war is never completed.

“Fordo has always been the crux of this thing,” said Brett McGurk, who worked on Middle East issues for four successive American presidents, from George W. Bush to Joseph R. Biden Jr. “If this ends with Fordo still enriching, then it’s not a strategic gain.”

That has been true for a long time, and over the past two years the U.S. military has refined the operation, under close White House scrutiny. The exercises led to the conclusion that one bomb would not solve the problem; any attack on Fordo would have to come in waves, with B-2s releasing one bomb after another down the same hole. And the operation would have to be executed by an American pilot and crew.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/us/politics/trump-iran-diplomacy-conflict.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Pk8.Blhi.C75opCigghOd&smid=url-share

But NY Times also says--

There may be other alternatives to bombing it, though they are hardly a sure thing. If the power to Fordo gets cut, by saboteurs or bombing, it could damage or destroy the centrifuges that spin at supersonic speeds.

and It is not only about crippling the centrifuges of Fordo; it is also about MAGA’s view of what kinds of wars the United States should avoid at all costs.

and In the Pentagon, opinion is divided for other reasons. Elbridge A. Colby, the under secretary of defense for policy, the Pentagon’s No. 3 post, has long argued that every military asset devoted to the wars of the Middle East is one diverted from the Pacific and the containment of China. (Mr. Colby had to amend his views on Iran somewhat to get confirmed.)

“If We Did It” by the NY Times

If Mr. Trump holds back, it could well mean that Israel’s main objective in the war is never completed.

Oh no! Poor them!

Why are they bombing Tehran if the thing they are concerned about is Fordo?

they're trying to win hearts & minds for the planned regime change

Trump now using “we”

President Trump declared on Tuesday that “we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran” and called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” amid mounting evidence that the United States was considering joining Israel’s bombing campaign against the country.

and he said he's not a king

and they say protesting doesn’t work

I've been trying to understand what "unconditional surrender" even means here. But it's probably a fools errand to try to divine meaning when Trump just be saying stuff

Whoopsie! pic.twitter.com/crEKMeviOT

— Majority Report (@majorityfm) June 18, 2025

ooook

worst_guy_you_know.jpg

I can’t believe Ted actually has that voice. Who listens to his podcast?

I've been trying to understand what "unconditional surrender" even means here. But it's probably a fools errand to try to divine meaning when Trump just be saying stuff

I was thinking about that, what a bizarre thing to have an American president demanding unconditional surrender — via social media — from a country we're not even technically at war with. Just kind of unthinkable but here we are. And nobody in the world really knows how much he means anything, it's all just a big bizarre show.

I doubt Trump knows what he means by it either. It just sounds badass to him.

Someone just explained to him who Harry Truman was and what he did

Is Tucker doing an anti-war isolationist schtick these days?

Probably partly that and partly Russia and Hungary are friendly with Iran.

Yep. He irritated Trump with it yesterday and today made Cruz look bad. He probably said the opposite years ago. But he made Cruz look dumb. Cruz didn’t know Iran has 92 million people.

absolutely no idea whether this claim (that whatsapp is feeding israel its data) is true but . . . tbh i would trust the iranian government more than anything meta might say

https://apnews.com/article/iran-whatsapp-meta-israel-d9e6fe43280123c9963802e6f10ac8d1

Iran have been supplying Putin with shitloads of shahed drones and what do they get in return? And silent Putin will do well out of this with the price of oil being driven back up to help his overstressed war economy. All in all an absolutely dud country to have any kind of strategic alliance with unless you are the senior partner like China.

I legitimately think that large factions of the ruling class are supporting this because they want to break the taboo on colonialism and genocide from post-war global institutions and initiate a new era of imperialist plunder, forming new Israels around the world.

— donald parkinson 🇵🇸🇾🇪 (@donaldp1917) June 17, 2025

mahmoud ahmedinejad walks out on stage with an aged but recognisable tupac https://t.co/uz9dfdzlJu

— joolsd (@joolsd) June 17, 2025

More posting.

The US President threatens us. With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him.
They should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) June 18, 2025

So crazy.

UPDATE — Here are the *25* members of Congress who have now signed on to efforts against the Trump-Vance administration's moves towards war on Iran.

A new Economist/YouGov poll shows Americans strongly disapprove of US involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran: 16-60 pic.twitter.com/eaabUGpR4b

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) June 17, 2025

Okay my congressman and one of my two senators, that’s nice

Pretty stark how out of step Congress is with the public

Someone else said on another thread how even more out of step than usual the west’s political leaders and the mainstream media are with actual majority opinion

MAGA Republicans are crueler, stupider, and way more racist than the Republicans of 20 years ago, but they do at least seem less interested in foreign wars. not to say they aren't bloodthirsty lunatics but as Jon Stewart pointed out a couple days ago what they want is civil war, not more adventures in the Middle East. I can't imagine Trump's big dollar backers want this and I'm guessing it would be pretty bad for Trump's brand as well. who knows if any of that matters since the big baby always gets what he wants but they already have no way to pay for their increases in ICE funding and cuts to billionare's taxes, idk how they're gonna sell this to the public. maybe they don't have to.

Religious fanatics mostly want it ("Armageddon! I was there!"). Some on the right are only against it because they fear war triggers more migration their way. Some want it just for the loot (arms sales etc.). I guess there's a segment just tired of other countries/peoples welfare having to occupy any space at all in their heads via news/social media tho.

Those in the briefing heard that completely destroying Fordow, which Israeli intelligence estimates to go down as far as 300ft (90 metres), would require the US to soften the ground with conventional bombs and then ultimately drop a tactical nuclear bomb from a B2 bomber to wipe out the entire facility, a scenario Trump is not considering.

Let's not be too hasty here, the USA has its proud record of the only nation to use nuclear weapons to think of.

‼️ 🇮🇱 🎥 🚫 The Israeli parliament (Knesset) just voted laws to prohibit the filming of Missiles.

1. The law prohibits filming interceptions and landings.

2. The law prohibits uploading photos and videos to social networks.

3. The law will prohibit any foreign media that acts… pic.twitter.com/4XjFXBXHUq

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) June 19, 2025

Merz seems quite an idiot.

By contrast, Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, said: “We are dealing with a terrorist regime both internally and externally. It would be good if this regime came to an end.”

He admitted: “Regime changes have not always led to the outcomes we desired, but we have positive examples. In Syria, the Assad regime was overthrown and since then there has been a new government trying to bring peace to the country.”

IDF's Arabic spokesman would like to inform you all that the sign of a "defeated regime" is that it "responds to its failure by bombing hospitals", and "this is not strength. This is brutality."

Said spokesman announced the IDF's bombing of al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza 2 weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/MeRCGJpLIk

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) June 19, 2025

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/19/israel-iran-conflict-live-hospital-in-southern-israel-hit-in-iran-missile-strike-say-israeli-officials

Benjamin Netanyahu has just left Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva. He toured the site and gave a statement to the press.

According Ynet news, he said: “The entire people of Israel are paying a price. We are going through a blitz, and we are going through it in an astonishing way.”

“There are personal costs, people have been hurt, families have lost their loved ones. Each of us bears a personal cost, and my family has not been exempt – this is the second time that my son Avner has cancelled a wedding due to missile threats. It is a personal cost for his fiancee as well, and I must say that my dear wife is a hero, and she bears a personal cost.”

I'll give him this: that is a pretty astonishing way to respond to a hospital being attacked.

“Sorry about these patients, whoever they were. Anyway, about me.”

I think this is what happens when you attempt to marry hysterical apocalyptic language with a kind of shoulder-shrugging "they can't lay a finger on us" swagger.

Major hospital bombed, 3 weddings confirmed cancelled

Bibi's son's fiancée is the true victim in the horrible conflict

Can't Iran just claim that the IDF uses hospitals as human shields?

then it makes hospital bombings unfortunate but necessary, as we've seen all over Gaza

that is basically what they're saying (Al-Jazeera):

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has claimed a missile attack earlier today hit an Israeli military and intelligence centre located near Soroka hospital, causing only “superficial damage to a small section” of the health facility.

Araghchi also claimed that the facility was “largely evacuated” and has mainly been used “to treat Israeli soldiers” fighting in the Gaza war.

“Our powerful Armed Forces will continue to pummel the criminals who target our people until they cease and pay for their criminal aggression against our nation,” said Araghchi, urging Israeli civilians to avoid military sites.

I think we can expect a lot more of that.

Sadly taking notice of Hersh saying US will attack at the weekend.

Not sure how reliable Hersh is these days.

he's not very reliable in general these days and i'd certainly hope he's wrong here

He's a crank, but this is the direction of travel...the problem isn't even Trump. Dems and Republicans would vote for war, against the wishes of the public.

looking at pics of totalled tower blocks in Tel Aviv and someone (yeah fuck knows if it is good reportage) stating that damage is much worse than western media is reporting, like a 3rd of the city has been razed. It seems like Iron Dome is utter dogshit against hypersonic missiles.

I don't think that is good reportage tbh.

thing is if it was correct, you wouldn't get an admission from some lying piece of shit IDF spokesperson or the horrible genocide washing BBC reporting that their Iron Dome is not as good as it is cracked up to be. Apologies, but I listened to some geopolitics podcast yesterday, where they went into some detail about how Iron Dome is extremely vulnerable to hypersonic missiles and this has become my current hot-take on western military tech!

But no-one knows if Iran actually has hypersonic missiles.

apparently video evidence suggests that they do. They have been supplying shahed drones to Putin and I think Russia has some license to make their own imitation ones. So it wouldn't be a wild stretch that they got something in return.

With the Fattah, Iran has joined the ranks of countries that can produce operational hypersonic missiles—a list that previously included only Russia, China, and India. Unlike traditional missiles, hypersonic weapons combine speed with in-flight agility, enabling them to evade most modern air defence systems.

do catch up, Tom!

iran has been pretty open about how they have domestically-produced hypersonic missiles for a few years now and they are also very open about using them in this war

they are massively cheaper/faster/carry heavier payloads than fighter planes, so you can see the attraction for military planners.

Iran has certainly claimed to have hypersonic missiles, as have the Houthis. Whether they’re actually hypersonic is still a point of contention.

That's what I heard.

quite possibly Putin has a shitload of them, yet he's still stuck in a frozen meatgrinder war that has cost him 1m+ casualties. So I guess tactically speaking, they don't win wars.

Does nobody here have a few hypersonic missiles? I like to keep one under my pillow at night.

I count them when I can't sleep!

lol

I use one to brush my teeth

make sure you do the full seventy seconds

why is it that western militaries and weapons of death industries have not shown any serious interest in this tech? Is it arrogance or is it just a case of all so hollowed out by neoliberalism that there is no energy or money for any new fangled weapons of death investment. Or they just think its a load of shit. This question keeps me awake at night when I'm dreaming about hypersonic flower bombs that spray cold beer over populations on hot days.

The western MI complex is all in on AI rather than stuff that works

when they suffer a hard drive failure the west will be defeated by swarms of fibreglass drones and very fast missiles!

The US has had one in development for a while which, theoretically, might be deployed this year. U.K. and France are probably five or ten years behind.

Iron Dome isn't the system they use to intercept ballistic missiles, there's a separate system called David's Sling. As I understand it, it works pretty well but it has long been known that is possible to overwhelm it and get some missiles through, which is what has been happening.

1/3 of Tel Aviv has definitely not been razed. I think we would have heard from my wife's family if that were the case. There's real damage and real casualties and deaths, but nothing like that. xxxp

ah right, so it could be a case of using huge volume of missiles to overwhelm defence system rather than speed of missiles. That's pretty much Putin's tactic when attacking Kyiv.

I think the reporting veers between "Iran is a threat to Israel's existence" and "Iran has been exposed by Israel's air capabilities and carefully planned assassinations", whereas its definitely not the first given Israel has the West's backing. As for Iran, it has been fighting back since that first day of attacks and killing with quite a few hits of its own.

For German media, it often seems like any analogy with Nazism and the Holocaust is offensive... unless it's directed against geopolitical enemies of Germany, in which case it's fine. pic.twitter.com/xGe1RcD9dn

— David Broder (@broderly) June 21, 2025

Are they trying to make Khameini popular in Germany?

lol English language Wikipedia calls it “far left wing” (it’s a private commercial channel founded by Time Warner and now owned by RTL, that’s hardly left wing). I presume vandalism by someone who thinks anything less than the Völkischer Beobachter is left wing.

Well there's quotation marks between the modern Hitler tag so I went to check who actually said it - no surprise that it was the Israeli defense minister.

Indian news sources seem to be running with that particular quote quite enthusiastically.

From The Guardian:

US military moving B-2 bombers from mainland US to Guam - report
The US military is moving B-2 bombers from mainland US to the Pacific island of Guam, two US officials told Reuters on Saturday.

The New York Times further reports that the bombers, which have a range of over 6,000 nautical miles and a payload capacity of more than 40,000 pounds to carry various conventional and nuclear weapons, took off from Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri.

According to air traffic control communications, the bombers appear to be accompanied by refueling tankers.

The reported movement of the bombers come as Donald Trump deliberate on whether to militarily involve the US in the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel.

The White House has yet to confirm the movement of the bombers.

So its happening...with no debate in Congress, no anti-war protests, just nothing.

a week ago the US saw its largest protests ever, this has all happened since then

it's hard to organize anti-war protests on short notice when it's impossible to say what the war policy is or will be

that too

Lots of increased activity in the US military base at the Azores too, according to local activist groups.

it's hard to organize anti-war protests on short notice when it's impossible to say what the war policy is or will be

That's pretty much what xyzz was saying, I thought - our reference point being the Iraq war, where there was considerable time and space for debate and opposition (for all the good that did).

Tooze recently wrote about Arrow 3, and the fact that Israel is intercepting missiles that are technically in outer space:

https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-392-incoming-from-out-of

A fairly obvious, but crucial observation in the Tooze article:

According to American analysts, the most pressing question in coming weeks will be whether Iran or Israel runs out of rockets first.

Trump just announced the US bombed 3 Iranian nuclear sites.

what the everliving fuck

Idiot

They didn't surrender when he suggested it.

time to update the thread title :(

feel like if you have a dem senator we need to pressure them to unseat schumer as leader, as far as first protest goals are concerned

in favor of whom, though? gillenbrand endorsing cuomo for nyc mayor is completely disqualifying

possibly not relevant to this thread, sorry

John Bolton's long march to inciting this war has finally borne fruit.

he has crossed my mind more than once in the past 48 hours. satisfaction he must be feeling is adding insult to injury

protests for tomorrow being organized in the US now, via 50501

short history lesson

‪Gratia Léger‬
✧@gratiale✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 1h
CIA coup toppled Iranian government in 1953. How did that work out? Sure, by installing a corrupt dictator we made a lot of money. It also led to the 1978 Iranian revolution, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Beirut bombing, the Khobar Towers bombing, and nearly 50 years of hostility.

And now?

Spencer Ackerman’s longer, more detailed version of that

https://www.forever-wars.com/war-on-terror-nightmare-arrives-as-trump-bombs-iran/

From the Guardian:

No radiation increase detected at struck nuclear sites
The International Atomic Energy Agency says there is currently no increase in off-site radiation levels at the three nuclear sites hit by US strikes.

“IAEA will provide further assessments on situation in Iran as more information becomes available,” it said.

An Iranian American watching the news.

CNN is now speaking to people who’re making the case that attacking the nuclear sites is not good enough, because Iranians will recommit to continuing their nuclear armament ambitions, and therefore now we must do regime change. This is comical.

— kev joon (@never_oppressed) June 22, 2025

"now is the time for peace"

seriously, you fucking idiot.

all the neo-cons who have been publicly anti-Trump since 2016 are now jealous as fuck.

If this is right then its Trump trying to get off by being seen to carry out an action by looking strong.

But things don't work like that. What if there is a lone terrorist action on US soil tomorrow?

https://amwaj.media/en/media-monitor/exclusive-iran-given-advance-notice-as-us-insisted-attack-on-nuclear-sites-is-one

What if there is a lone terrorist action on US soil tomorrow?

Potential to use for enemy within rhetoric and corresponding actions, which yes could be done without the pretext but its a lot easier with one

Highly enriched uranium 'moved from Fordow', Iranian sources claim
Senior Iranian sources have told Reuters most of the highly enriched uranium at the Fordow site had been moved away before the US attack.

The news agency reported comments that the number of staff at the underground facility at Fordow had also been reduced to a minimum.

Fordow was the second enrichment site to be hit by the US, along with Natanz.

Now reading about the Pakistan nuclear Programme.

Iran should’ve built the way real states do, through shadows, smugglers, and sealed circuits passed hand to hand, not through paperwork handed to Geneva. Pakistan didn’t wait for Western approval. It built a covert lattice from Kuala Lumpur to Tripoli, ran parts through Dubai front companies, moved blueprints in briefcases and centrifuges in crates with no serial numbers. That’s why it was never invaded, and why the lectures stopped.

The West doesn’t fear countries that comply, it consumes them. Iraq complied, Libya disarmed, Syria opened its files, all 3 were torn apart. Pakistan built a black-market weapons program and got a seat at every table that mattered. The lesson was never subtle.

Iran played by the book, and the book was written to break it. The IAEA demands inspections while exchanging letters with the only nuclear state in the region. The so-called international system preaches law while shielding arsenals in Tel Aviv and sabotage teams in Vienna hotels. Every treaty signature becomes a targeting coordinate. Every act of transparency is used to tighten the noose.

There is no deal to be had, there is no honor in rules that exist only to enforce surrender. The only deterrent is denial, and the only sovereignty that survives is the one built in shadow. Iran doesn’t need permission, it needs nerve. What A.Q. Khan proved was simple: smuggling is diplomacy by other means.

My 13 y o son is weirdly excited by this. I believe he thinks a war would be fun, somehow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si7dl6BU78E

Hegseth: strikes on Iran were 'incredible and overwhelming success that devastated Iran's nuclear program'

Oh well then, job done, no need for Israel and the US to carry on bombing Iran. Hurrah!

At this point, we have to operate under the presumption that the US is a client state of Israel, given that US intelligence was totally ignored in favor of catering to Israel’s genocidal whimsy.

Been hearing a lot of “the world will be better off without an Iranian nuclear program”. This seems to be the preferred phraseology of war criminals who can’t even be bothered to come up with a casus belli. Nobody even bothers with a dossier any more, dodgy or not. The world will simply be better off.

We could all think of a number of things that would make the world better off before we even get to an “iranian nuclear program yn?” question. Very interesting!

all the fucking about with fake dossiers and UN resolutions to try and legitimise war-mongering that Blair/Campbell went through, that's the old ways!

https://imgur.com/gallery/buBVkGc#deqOb8X

Speak of the devil

https://i.imgur.com/deqOb8X.jpeg

Just the person for a moment like this

IRAN'S PARLIAMENT APPROVES CLOSING HORMUZ STRAIT, TOP SECURITY BODY REQUIRED TO FINALIZE DECISION ON THIS MEASURE - PRESS TV REPORTS

— Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) June 22, 2025

JD Dunce, "We’re not at war with Iran – we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear programme."

He also said: "I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents."

The "centre left"

Lol pic.twitter.com/AoDFLoRciW

— Boeckner (@d_boeckner) June 22, 2025

I like how they all enthuse over a lethal campaign of bombing and assassinations designed to decapitate the Iranian government, while soberly citing the imperative need for "stability in the region". Complete nonsense.

He also said: "I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents."

― jaymc, Sunday, June 22, 2025 8:38 AM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

thought this was a joke but he actually did say this

jfc

I realize I just violated my own policy of not reacting/responding to this stuff, but...

it sucked when the united states first got entangled in the middle east, 25 years ago

The worst person etc.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a US representative of Georgia and a staunch Donald Trump ally, condemned Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In a post on X, Greene said:

“Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war. There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first. Israel is a nuclear armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer.”

it sucked when the united states first got entangled in the middle east, 25 years ago

The most enraging thing about JD is that he’s a very dumb guy who has confident opinions where he exposes his ignorance

I realize I just violated my own policy of not reacting/responding to this stuff, but...

― cryptosicko, Sunday, 22 June 2025 bookmarkflaglink

it sucked when the united states first got entangled in the middle east, 25 years ago

― z_tbd, Sunday, 22 June 2025 bookmarkflaglink

Sad to say I got curious to watch.

It gets dumber. Vance also says "this is not going to be a long drawn out thing" and like five seconds later talks about permanently dismantling Iran's nuclear programme "over the coming years" xp

Nice touch by Trump to invoke God in his comments on this attack on theocratic lunatics, Iran.

At this point, we have to operate under the presumption that the US is a client state of Israel

ABORT

Working through my issues with formatting on the app soz…

At this point, we have to operate under the presumption that the US is a client state of Israel

…

John Bolton's long march to inciting this war has finally borne fruit.

…

all the neo-cons who have been publicly anti-Trump since 2016 are now jealous as fuck.

I’d always assumed that much of the supposed Trump-neocon beef was manufactured controversy. In this instance it certainly seems like their goals have dovetailed nicely.

Then I’ve also had non-Americans ask me recently completely in earnest whether Israel actually dictates US policy and again we see a nice alignment here.

But the whole Project For A New American Century blueprint clearly isn’t guiding Trump’s approach to Russia. So what gives? Is there any consistency at all? Is it just might makes right?

Is there any consistency at all?

lololol

Authoritarian with a strong Islamophobic prejudice?

stop looking for meaning in his actions, it's just pure unchecked id

I genuinely think "B2s look so cool" was a factor here

really glad that our free democratic media is not allowing this whole "Iran was definitely trying to make nukes" story to go unchecked

but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents + we said the weapons existed, this time we're admitting they don't exist but they could years I mean days from now.

p embarrassing that the Daily Show *in 2025* is sharper on this stuff: https://bsky.app/profile/thedailyshow.com/post/3lrt6aryokk2a

Fun to watch the hairline progression

You go to war with the president you have

Or so I hear. Also hmmm

Sadly taking notice of Hersh saying US will attack at the weekend.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, June 20, 2025 2:39 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not sure how reliable Hersh is these days.

― Zelda Zonk, Friday, June 20, 2025 3:08 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

More reliable than I thought!

Broken brain clock

i think chris broussard had the scoop before hersh

ugh sorry, what am i doing here

I think Hersh was right, but its not exactly an amazing bit of prediction. It was on the cards.

https://www.forever-wars.com/war-on-terror-nightmare-arrives-as-trump-bombs-iran/

Not for a day in Trump's political career has he been interested in peace. People with his politics are never interested in peace. Domination is what they are interested in, particularly after they sign onto wars of aggression in Iraq that turn into fiascoes. Cultivating humiliation and fueling revenge is what they are interested in, rather than the peacebuilding efforts found in addressing the imperial and material root causes that seeded the fiascoes. Paying attention to that distinction is a good way to determine who is actually interested in peace.

But the whole Project For A New American Century blueprint clearly isn’t guiding Trump’s approach to Russia. So what gives? Is there any consistency at all? Is it just might makes right?

― recovering internet addict/shitposter (viborg), Sunday, 22 June 2025 bookmarkflaglink

What's the approach to Russia meant to be?

Hersh reported that the White House had signed off on an all-out bombing campaign designed to bring about the overthrow of the government. The bit about not hitting Fordow until the weekend was correct. Unclear whether anything else was / is.

He publishes what he gets leaked by factions within the CIA - so it’s sometimes accurate, sometimes off and sometimes intended to influence what happens.

so Medveydev has posted on Telegram that Russia could supply some nuclear warheads to Iran. I don't know if it was some drunken shitposting or this is some serious doomsday shit.

The guy's a clown. If he was in the US he'd be Defence Secretary though.

We did that for Israel, so Putin has a precedent to cite.

Attacks in Qatar?

not sure how reliable: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2025/06/iran-retaliates-fires-missiles-us-bases-qatar

all pretty easily intercepted, hopefully just a token effort

Most likely they're saving their rockets for Israel and trying not to provoke the US into full scale bombing mode.

it was, from all descriptions, a symbolic retaliation to save face. however...

While consensus is clearly building that the nature of these Iranian strikes is to give everyone a chance to stand down, Trump still has a decision to make. He
threatened “far greater” attacks if Iran didn’t respond peacefully to the US bombing over the weekend, and it’s hard to argue this counts as peaceful.

If Iran didn’t respond peacefully to the US bombing over the weekend

WTF? 'thank you sir, may I have another?'

The mullahs need to give him a plane, or a superyacht

Trump has also said Iran gave advance warning and that he ‘hopes they got it out of their system’ or words to that effect. Doesn’t seem particularly bothered.

Nobel Peace Prize in the bag for the big man.

Ceasefire announced, Trump takes credit

it's great when you can just stop doing some unprovoked bombing of a country and then declare you have brokered a ceasefire! And it wouldn't even place him the top wrung of worst ever Nobel Prize recipients, lol.

Obama got it, why not Trump

... hold that Peace Prize, the ceasefire is off already.

The latest from Donnie.

“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”

Turns out diplomacy is tricky!

All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly “Plane Wave” to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect!

Thank goodness.

the jet pilots waaaave etc.

diplomacy by an ultra-vain shit-hearted super-greedy sundowning drug-addled moron is hard to watch, let alone pursue.

cue the inevitable AI-generated clip of a group of fighter jets in tight formation doing a "wave" (whatever that is) while Trump, Bibi and Supreme Leader (and a gaggle of Nobel representatives) salute from below and toast each other amongst the glitzy casinos ands fountains of a newly-developed Gaza Strip.

can we poll the albums on this guy's shelf?
https://bsky.app/profile/bluetapes.bsky.social/post/3lsc7po4yps2b

thank god we've prevented the rise of an aggressive, unpredictable nuclear power with a lust for genocide, a a politically repressive and unjust society, and violent animosity to its neighbors

Game recognize game.

can we poll the albums on this guy's shelf?
https://bsky.app/profile/bluetapes.bsky.social/post/3lsc7po4yps2b

― jaymc, Tuesday, 24 June 2025 13:16 (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

he probably posts here, let him do his own poll imo

I guess my question is, does he post the shit he posts so his cult knows he's a Big Man Taking Charge, or as a desperate cry into the darkness because Netanyahu won't take his calls?

yes

can we poll the albums on this guy's shelf?

previously on ilm

haha nice

on NPR: some anonymous dude from the Defense Dept now claims the U.S. strikes probably set their nuke program back a few months, but far from obliterated it as previously claimed

guess they have to bomb again

I think israel will hit pause so trump can take a little victory lap, then start bombing again

if fact I can almost guarantee it

and all it cost us was a quarter billion dollars

midnight hammer was just a stammer

Strike Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Only a Few Months, U.S. Report Says

Classified findings indicate that the attack sealed off the entrances to two facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings.

wait the operation was called Midnight Hammer? lol of course

strangely it was two US officials who urged Iran to start a nuclear program, during the Ford Administration... and their names are Rumsfeld & Cheney

wait the operation was called Midnight Hammer? lol of course

that's Hegseth's favorite part of the job, where he gets to show his cinematic leanings

Midnight Hammer is a pretty good porn name imo

Lol

that's Hegseth's favorite part of the job, where he gets to show his cinematic leanings

In Hegseth's case Hammered By Noon would be more accurate.

actually me as well ;-)