Is it 12 days and done? As of Wednesday evening, the “cease fire” proclaimed by Trump and enforced through exhortation and phone calls appears to be holding. Can we hope that this is at least the end of the killing, if not of national rivalry and anger?
Perhaps. In the news coming out of Washington, Israel, and Iran, very little is crystal clear. There are many uncertainties. What follows is an attempt to sketch what we know so far, and an effort to foresee where/how renewed war might threaten.
We still do not know the role of the USA re: the start of the war. In last week’s Substack post I listed the prevailing debate as a) Israel launched the war to prevent/disrupt the US-Iranian negotiations about the latter country’s nuclear program, fearing that Trump would make a deal too favorable to Iran; and b) Trump collaborated with Netanyahu, conducting negotiations in bad faith, intended to allow Israel to catch Iran off-guard when its planned, unprovoked attack took place. Both of these explanations remain in circulation. Both can’t be right.
In an interview with Trita Parsi last week, Peter Beinart elicited answers to several good questions about why Israel started this war, and why now. (Parsi is a scholar/historian of US-Iran nuclear negotiations over the last 30 years, and is head of the National Iranian American Council – NIAC). You can see this useful video here – 20 minutes.
Israel stated its goals for the military campaign as a) destroying Iran’s nuclear program such that enriching uranium was no longer possible and Iran’s supply of medium- and highly enriched uranium would be destroyed; b) destroying Iran’s missiles; and c) destroying the ability of the ruling regime in Iran to govern. Goals b) and c) were clearly not accomplished, and goal a) is now controversial.
On Tuesday evening the New York Times published a front-page article, “Strike Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Only a Few Months, U.S. Report Says” [Link]. The US has (I believe) 17 separate intelligence agencies, and the article is based on a 5-page “preliminary report” from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The Trump administration spokeswoman strongly denounced the “leak” of the report, calling it unpatriotic and untrue. The UN correspondent of Aljazeera stated his belief that the person(s) who leaked the report represented the “neo-conservative” wing of the military establishment who maintained that a single wave of bombing, even with 12 30,000 pound bombs, was not powerful enough to destroy the underground complex at Fordow.
One consequence of the New York Times article was the postponement of the Trump administration plans to “brief” the Senate and the House of Representatives on the military operation, briefings that are now scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Another consequence was a doubling down of Trump’s team on the claim that Iran’s nuclear program has been completely destroyed.
This was operationalized today at the NATO summit at The Hague, when Trump expressed no interest in “negotiating” with Iran about its nuclear program, because it no long existed. Nevertheless, Trump announced today that his traveling negotiator Steve Witcoff would meet with an Iranian delegation “next week.” I have heard nothing from/by the Iranians about their involvement in this plan.
This morning Aljazeera broadcast a probing interview with a spokesperson from Iran’s Foreign Ministry. Mr. Baghaei was adamant that the relevant questions now were not what was the status of Iran’s nuclear program, would Iran attempt to restart its nuclear program, and would Iran leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Rather, he repeatedly returned to the issue of Iran’s sovereign rights under the Treaty and the illegality of Israel’s and the USA’s unprovoked military attack on his country. It seemed clear to me that Iran was not signally a willingness to comply with Israel’s (and thus the USA’s) demand to end nuclear enrichment; just the opposite. Good luck Mr. Witcoff.
There seems to be a consensus that Iran managed to remove its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium from the 3 nuclear facilities bombed by Trump to some other place. So far there are not even rumors about where this might be. For those who believe that Iran has been, or will now be on the path of making a nuclear weapons, this is more than enough stuff to make several bombs.
Many commentators have expressed fears that the Israeli-USA attack on Iran, in the context of attempting to destroy Iran’s nuclear energy program, will increase interest by non-nuclear nations (including Iran) in building a nuclear weapon. The world sees that non-nuclear Libya and non-nuclear Iran were attacked by nuclear weapons states, while nuclear-armed North Korea has not been attacked. Rightly or wrongly, non-nuclear states may decide that common sense says “get a nuke.” For more on this, read “ Why the US Strikes on Iran Will Increase Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,” by Vijay Prashad, Counterpunch [June 25, 2025] [Link].
I’ll close out with 2 factoids. 1) The majority of people in the US disapprove of Trump’s decision to launch military action against against Iran. According to a CNN poll, “A 58% majority overall say the strikes will make Iran more of a threat to the US, with just 27% believing it will lessen the threat and the rest expecting it to do neither. Even among those who support the strikes, just 55% expect them to lessen the threat level. And few say the US made enough of an effort at diplomacy before using military force: 32% feel the US did enough, 39% that it did not and 29% are unsure.” [Read More] 2) I hope everyone knows that Israel is not a signer of the Non-Proliferation Treaty yet has more than 100 nuclear weapons, un-observed and un-reguated by the International Atomic Energy Agency, unlike Iran and dozens of other countries.
I hope these remarks and some of the reading/viewing linked below make the news chaos of the coming days more tolerable.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For Concerned Families of Westchester
RECENT VIDEOS FROM DEMOCRACY NOW!
(Video) F-Bombs and Real Bombs: Trita Parsi on Shaky Iran Ceasefire & Trump’s Anger at Netanyahu
From Democracy Now! [June 24, 2025]
---- U.S. President Donald Trump is touting a ceasefire deal between Israel and Iran, despite what he said were violations of the deal by both sides shortly after he announced it. Trump said he was especially angry with Israel and urged the country to stand down as he faces mounting criticism over the prospect of another U.S. war in the Middle East. “Part of the reason why Trump also was quite eager to get to a ceasefire, why he’s so frustrated with what the Israelis are doing right now, is precisely because he’s very much aware of the strain that all of this has caused within his own support base,” says political analyst Trita Parsi. Parsi says the breakdown of the global Non-Proliferation Treaty on nuclear weapons could lead to dangerous consequences, as countries like Iran see incentive to build their own nuclear deterrence. [See the Program]
(Video) Ex-Israeli Peace Negotiator Slams U.S. Bombing of Iran, Says Israel Seeks Chaos in Middle East
From Democracy Now! [June 23, 2025]
---- “Netanyahu’s purpose was to drag Trump in,” Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, says of the U.S. attack on Iran. Over the weekend, the U.S. directly joined the war between Israel and Iran when it bombed three nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, though it’s unclear how far the strikes have set back the Iranian nuclear program. Israel and the United States accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons, while Iran says its program is for civilian use. United Nations inspectors and U.S. intelligence assessments have said Iran is not building weapons. “The danger now is that, having brought the U.S. into this, Israel will seek to go further up the escalatory ladder,” says Levy. “It wants the chaos.” [See the Program]
(Video) Report from Tehran: Iranians View U.S. Strikes on Key Nuclear Sites as “Act of War”
From Democracy Now! [June 23, 2025]
---- Israel and Iran continue to exchange fire, just days after the United States entered the war by bombing three key nuclear sites in Iran on Saturday. President Trump ordered the attack on the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan facilities without seeking congressional approval, in a move that could spread further violence across the Middle East. We speak with two Iranian scholars who have taken part in the country’s previous nuclear negotiations. “Iranians see the United States as the aggressor, as helping the Israeli regime slaughter Iranians,” says University of Tehran professor Mohammad Marandi. “There’s anger across the board.” The U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran are an “obvious” and “clear violation of international law and regulations,” says Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a visiting researcher at Princeton University who served as spokesperson for Iran in its nuclear negotiations with the European Union from 2003 to 2005. [See the Program]
RECENT VIDEOS FROM ALJAZEERA
(Video) Making sense of the ’12-day war’ between Israel and Iran
From Aljazeera [June 25, 2025] – 23 minutes
---- So much has happened since Israel launched strikes on Iran on June 13 and there are so many questions about what could happen next. Al Jazeera’s Sandra Gathmann speaks with Mike Fitzpatrick, a former US diplomat and an expert on nuclear issues, to try to make sense of it all. [See the Program]
(Video) Will Israel and Iran stop fighting?
From Alljazeera (“Inside Story”) [June 24, 2025] – 27 minutes
---- For a region that's seen its fair share of instability, the conflict between Israel and Iran is threatening to create unprecedented chaos. US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, just hours after Iran launched missiles towards the US military base in Qatar. A ceasefire that is now at risk of falling apart. Trump urged Israel to "calm down" and demanded both sides, do more to stick to the truce. But will it hold? where does Iran go from here? And is there a new balance of power in the Middle East? [See the Program]
(Video) Israel forced into ceasefire by US pressure, depleted defences: Analysis
From Aljazeera [June 24, 2025] – 7 minutes
---- Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera that Israel’s ceasefire announcement was "ridiculous", dismissing claims of neutralising Iran’s nuclear threat as unverified. He argued the conflict served Netanyahu’s domestic political needs rather than addressing any imminent Iranian danger, with goals shifting from "regime change" to bombing symbolic Tehran targets. Goldberg revealed Israel agreed to the truce due to US pressure and depleted missile defences after Iranian strikes caused lethal damage. While cautiously optimistic the ceasefire would hold, he noted Iran emerges strengthened, having survived attacks without regime collapse. Goldberg stressed Israel lacks strategic objectives beyond destruction, leaving its nuclear concerns unresolved. Goldberg concluded Tehran’s coordinated leadership proved resilient, turning survival into a political victory. [See the Program]
ADDITIONAL ARTICLES/ESSAYS
A simple timeline of Iran’s nuclear program
By Matt Field, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [June 19, 2025]
---- Iran’s nuclear program has been a long-standing problem. Many US presidential administrations have struggled with it, as have many international organizations and foreign governments. To help makes sense of it all, below is a chronology of key highlights: [Read More]
The Invention of the Iranian Threat
By David Goessmann, Common Dreams [June 20, 2025]
---- The threat posed by Iran is largely an invention of the West. The world’s population, and especially those in the region, see the U.S. and Israel as the main sources of instability and a threat to world peace, not Iran. Militarily, the Iranian threat is virtually non-existent. Certainly, no one wants Iran to have nuclear weapons. But the pursuit of nuclear weapons would ultimately be a response to Western and Israeli threats and acts of aggression, against which Tehran wants to have a deterrent. A way to reduce the threat level would be for Israel to end its hostilities against other countries, which are contrary to international law; to renew the successful Iran deal; to create a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East (Israel would then have to give up its nuclear weapons); and to stop the genocidal Gaza War waged by the Netanyahu government, which is keeping Israel on a never-ending warpath. [Read More]
How the U.S. & Israel Used Rafael Grossi to Hijack the IAEA and Start a War on Iran
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, Code Pink [June 23, 2025]
---- Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), allowed the IAEA to be used by the United States and Israel—an undeclared nuclear weapons state in long-term violation of IAEA rules—to manufacture a pretext for war on Iran, despite his agency’s own conclusion that Iran had no nuclear weapons program. … Israeli officials said they saw the U.S. arm-twisting for the IAEA resolution as a significant signal of U.S. support for Israel’s war plans, revealing how much Israel valued the IAEA resolution as diplomatic cover for the war. The IAEA board meeting was timed for the final day of President Trump’s 60-day ultimatum to Iran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement. Even as the IAEA board voted, Israel was loading weapons, fuel and drop-tanks on its warplanes for the long flight to Iran and briefing its aircrews on their targets. The first Israeli air strikes hit Iran at 3 a.m. that night. [Read More]
