For several days now, President Trump has been declaring that the US war on Iran was coming to an end. In fact, he said that the first step in ending the war – a “Memorandum of Understanding” – would be signed on Sunday. As the sun begins to go down on Sunday, no signing is in sight. Should we have hope? Perhaps tomorrow, or the day after, or soon ….?
While (as far as I know) there are no direct negotiations between US and Iranian personnel, “intermediaries” from Pakistan, Qatar, and other countries have been passing messages between the US and Iran. Many reports, both from the intermediaries and the US & Iran, have said that “a deal was close.” Trump was obviously eager to get this disastrous war over with. All but a “few details” remained to be worked out. What could go wrong?
What went wrong, of course, was a bombing attack by Israel on Beirut. As Trita Parsi points out in an article linked below, the purpose of Israel’s attack was to prevent the war from ending. As many reports from Israel confirm, Netanyahu was under savage criticism, both from his own (Likud) party and from the opposition, for his failure to win the war against Iran, and for his alleged toadying to President Trump. As Netanyahu’s policies are to a great extent directed to his staying in power, and as he stands to lose the forthcoming elections in Israel – and thus end up in court and (likely) in prison – Netanyahu is highly motivated to keep the war going.
Since Day One, Iran has stated that any peace settlement with the United States and Israel has to include a ceasefire in Lebanon and an end to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Control of southern Lebanon – and even all of Lebanon – has been a goal of most Israeli governments for half a century. This makes the prospect of Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon especially painful to Netanyahu, and something that could bring down his government. But for Trump to end his disastrous war on Iran, he must coerce Israel to end its war on Lebanon. Can this be done? American presidents have generally been unwilling to take forceful action toward Israel. This was certainly the case with the Biden-Harris dealings with Israel re: the war on Gaza. Will Trump find a successful route to assert his interests over the contrary interests of Israel? Or will Israel’s interest in keeping the war going, and using the leverage of its invasion of Gaza to prevent Iran from closing a deal with the US, turn out to be the Achilles Heel of Trump’s disaster in the Middle East?
SOME ESSAYS ILLUMINATING THE WAR ON IRAN
With one strike, Netanyahu tries to kill two peace deals
By Trita Parsi, Substack [June 14, 2026]
---- It’s important to understand that, contrary to Donald Trump’s quip to Barak Ravid that Netanyahu has “no f***ing judgment,” the Israeli Prime Minister knows exactly what he is doing: With a set of strikes at the Dahiyeh neighborhood in Beirut, he is trying to kill both the pending US-Iran peace deal and the fragile peace between Israel and Lebanon that would come with it. … Today, just hours before President Trump was expecting Iran to sign a memorandum that would end the U.S.-Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Netanyahu crossed both Tehran’s and Trump’s red line: keeping Beirut out of the conflict. Netanyahu clearly timed this for maximum impact. With a single set of strikes, Netanyahu may have advanced two goals at once—torpedoing Trump’s peace deal and preventing the emergence of a new deterrence equation that would impose meaningful constraints on Israel’s military operations in Lebanon. [Read More]
The time has come for Trump to choose between U.S. and Israeli interests in the Iran war
By Mitchell Plitnick, Mondoweiss [June 12, 2026]
---- On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed, not for the first time, that an agreement with Iran had been reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, end the fighting, and begin talks on a permanent agreement between the two long-time enemies. … Netanyahu made sure to distance himself from Trump’s claim of reaching an agreement, a move clearly intended to give Israel the freedom to act in Lebanon, and potentially against Iran directly, if it chooses. Equally clearly, such Israeli action would imperil the MOU both before it is signed and after. It is yet another indication that, particularly regarding this war of choice, American and Israeli objectives, needs, and policies are diverging widely. It is also a reminder that, just as it has been from the beginning of this war, Israel will do all it can to prevent ending the conflict on anything but its own terms. If Trump wants to get out of this war, he will have to muster the political will he has not yet found to use the considerable leverage he, and every U.S. president, has to force Israel to leave Lebanon and end its attacks on Iran. [Read More]
Israel Attacks Lebanon 3,500 Times Since April Cease-fire, Lebanese PM Says
By Nawaf Salam, Ha’aretz [Israel] [June 8, 2026]
---- Israel has carried out 3,491 airstrikes and hundreds of controlled demolitions in Lebanon since the U.S.-brokered cease-fire took effect in April, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam revealed on Monday, as Israel and Iran once again engaged in open, direct conflict. The cease-fire in Lebanon came into force just after midnight on April 17, following an announcement by Washington two days earlier. According to Salam, Israeli forces remain positioned deep inside southern Lebanon despite the agreement. In comments published on X after a cabinet meeting, Salam said that between April 17 and June 7, Israel also carried out 407 controlled demolitions and six “razing” operations, which he said had left entire villages in southern Lebanon flattened. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the claims. [Read More]
NEWS NOTES
In an extended excerpt from a new book on the “Epstein files,” a pair of New York Times reporters recount the extended frenzy within the White House over how to protect The Leader. Read “Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files,” by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, here.
Today is the 25th anniversary of the end of US bombing exercises on the Puerto Rico island of Vieques (2001). As this informative article from the Zinn Education Project explains, “the end of the exercises came after decades of protests from Puerto Rican activists against the contamination caused by the bombings. For example, people living in Vieques were 27% more likely to contract cancer than other people living in Puerto Rico.” This link includes an interesting video of the testimony of Vieques residents in the campaign to end the military use of their island. NB one of the leaders of the Vieques protest movement was Bob (“Roberto”) Rabin, once a Umass-Boston student when I was a teacher there 50 years ago.
In 2017, the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons succeeded in bringing into being a UN Treaty “Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons.” The Treaty came into force in 2021; it is now part of international law, it is permanent, and it prohibits the use, possession, and/or storage of nuclear weapons in a majority of the world’s nations. ICAN won a Nobel Peace Prize for their work. The work of ICAN is ongoing. Recently they published their “2025 Nuclear Weapons spending report,” which shows that the world’s 9 nuclear-armed states spent $119 billion on nuclear weapons in 2025 (the US share was $69 billion).
CFOW NUTS & BOLTS
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather permitting we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) The Northwest Yonkers Neighbors for Black Lives Matter holds a Monday afternoon vigil at 5:30 pm at the corner of Warburton Ave and Odell. The CFOW newsletter can be read on Substack, and is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook group. Another Facebook group focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. If you would like to support our work by making a CONTRIBUTION, please make out your check to “Frank Brodhead,” write “CFOW” on the memo line, and send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks.
REWARDS!
Last week a New York Times article was headlined “Nina Simone Knew Just What the Trouble Was. (It’s Still the Trouble.)” The “Trouble,” of course, was US racism. [Link]. This prompted a few hours of listening to some Nina Simone classics, now shared here with stalwart newsletter readers. I think you will like “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”; “My Baby Just Cares fpr Me”; “Four Women”; and “Mississippi Goddam.” Enjoy!
CFOW WEEKLY READER
FEATURED ARTICLES & ESSAYS
War, What is it Good For? Absolutely Nothing
By Tom Engelhardt, Substack [June 9, 2026]
[FB – Tom Engelhardt has just ended his 25-year stint of writing/producing his wonderful “TomDispatch.” Somewhat like this newsletter, he began sending, and then soliciting and sharing, articles each week to his growing subscriber list. Dozens (more) of his articles have been reprinted in this newsletter. Now he has moved on to a new venture, with Substack offerings of personal, occasional writings. Here is the New Tom.]
---- Historically speaking, consider it strange beyond compare. There may, in fact, be nothing like it in the imperial history of this planet. The United States, the greatest power on Earth from the moment it defeated Nazi Germany and imperial Japan in World War II, has never again actually won a war of any significance (or even come close). And that’s true despite the fact that it’s distinctly been the numero uno power on this planet for the last century-plus, with by far the most powerful and wildly over-funded military that has fought any number of wars during these decades, always against seemingly far less powerful adversaries. [Read More]
(Video) Bodies of Evidence: Israel’s Darkest Weapon
From Aljazeera English [June 9, 2026] – one hour
---- Israel is the only state to have legalised torture through a ruling by its own Supreme Court. An expert who has documented these violations since 1983 says, “What the world knows today is less than 5% of what has actually occurred.” In Bodies of Evidence, an Al Jazeera original investigative documentary, we examine the use of sexual violence, torture, and degradation against Palestinian detainees, practices that rights groups and experts say have been systematically employed by Israeli military, intelligence, and prison authorities for decades. Contributors to the documentary include Francesca Albanese, Raji Sourani, Kifaya, Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Ben Marmarelli, Judge Cuno Tarfusser, and survivors whose identities are protected. [See the Program]
Americans Are Reaching a Financial Breaking Point
By Kali Holloway, The Nation [June 12, 2026]
---- Buying a tomato today will cost you 40 percent more than it did one year ago. There are many markers of the current unaffordability of American life, with gas prices—now at more than $4.50 a gallon thanks to Trump’s pointless war on Iran—cited most frequently. We are nickel and dimed by ever-increasing “streamflation,” so-called “convenience fees” and “shrinkflation,” whereby companies deceptively shrink product sizes while charging the same—or even more. Others examples are perhaps more consequential. Renting an apartment is 54 percent more expensive than it was in 2017, housing prices are up 60 percent since 2019, families will spend $120 more on electricity this year than they did in 2025, and credit card debt is up 63 percent since just 2021. But there’s something so startling and symbolic about a single red tomato costing 40 percent more than it did just 12 months ago. It’s as if even the simplest and most ordinary comforts of American life are quietly being put out of reach. [Read More]
Congress is pushing to integrate the Israeli and U.S. militaries on behalf of Netanyahu
By Michael Arria, Mondoweiss [June 11, 2026]
---- Last month, Responsible Statecraft’s Ben Freeman reported on a provision buried in the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that seeks to deepen connections between the United States and Israeli militaries. Section 224, the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative”, would synchronize efforts between the two countries “to expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation.” “The result could well be a U.S. political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the U.S. into military conflicts in the Middle East,” wrote Freeman. … The push to establish the military partnership is not occurring in a vacuum. It comes amid talks to between the Trump administration and the Israeli Ministry of Defense to establish a “new security cooperation framework,” as Israel memorandum of understanding (MOU) on military aid is set to expire in 2028. [Read More] ALSO OF INTEREST is “Senate wants to force US to share sensitive intel with Israel ,” by Paul R. Pillar, Responsible Statecraft [June 10, 2026] [Link].
THE WAR ON PALESTINE
Gaza and its people may not survive this phase of ceasefire
By Omar Shaban Ismail, Responsible Statecraft [June 8, 2026]
---- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late last month that he had ordered the Israeli military to seize 70% of the Gaza Strip. Under President Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan, Israeli forces were required to withdraw to a zone encompassing roughly 50% of Gaza’s territory, demarcated by the so-called Yellow Line, ahead of further withdrawals in the future. Instead of retreating, however, the Israeli army has steadily expanded its area of control, which now stands at roughly 60% of Gaza, while leveling the areas under its occupation to the ground. Indeed, despite a so-called ceasefire, Israel continues to carry out near daily attacks on Gaza — at least 932 people have been killed since the ceasefire was announced — while heavily restricting the entry of aid. So what does it mean to squeeze more than two million people into 30% of the already tiny Gaza Strip? It is a direct and deliberate policy of slow death, one that forces the population into an overcrowded and ever-shrinking open-air prison that lacks even the most basic conditions to sustain life. The plan Israel is implementing in Gaza is not the Trump Plan but a plan to make Gaza permanently uninhabitable. [Read More]
THE WAR ON CUBA
US indictment of Raúl Castro comes amid a long history of American aggression against Cuba
By Kevin A. Young, The Conversation [June 8, 2026]
---- The Trump administration on May 20, 2026, indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro for murder, based on the downing of two planes near the Cuban coastline in 1996 that killed four people. As a historian of Latin America and U.S. foreign policy, I believe the indictment may be the prelude to direct U.S. military action against Cuba. Before Castro, the last U.S. indictment of a Latin American leader occurred in January 2026, when a U.S. attorney appointed by President Donald Trump charged Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro with narco-terrorism. Those charges were promptly followed by U.S. military strikes on Venezuela and the abduction of Maduro. Since January, the U.S. has ended the flow of Venezuelan oil to Cuba and has used economic and military pressure to prevent other nations from trading with the island. And Trump recently threatened a “friendly takeover” of Cuba. I believe that what’s missing from most recent analysis of this situation is the history of U.S. aggression against Cuba. This is essential context for understanding the Trump administration’s recent escalations. [Read More]. ALSO OF INTEREST - “End U.S Aggression Against Cuba!” by Peter Bohmer, Znet [June 14, 2026] [Link].
WAR ON GREENLAND?
Ice and strategy: A timeline of the U.S. military in Greenland
By Elías Thorsson, Arctic Today [June 10, 2026]
---- When President Trump renewed his push to bring Greenland under American control, much of the commentary treated it as a sudden, eccentric ambition. But the United States military has been a permanent fixture on the world’s largest island for more than eighty years, through a wartime treaty signed in defiance of an occupied homeland, a secret summer of frantic base-building at the top of the world, a nuclear accident that scattered plutonium across the ice and a slow Cold War drawdown to a single remaining outpost. We have compiled a timeline of the U.S. military presence in Greenland, from its first foothold in 1941 to the negotiations now underway between Washington, Copenhagen and Nuuk. [Read More]
THE CLIMATE CRISIS
How Big Oil Wrecked Your Summer
By Aaron Regunberg, New Republic [June 5, 2026]
---- I love the summer. Growing up, it meant family vacations, beach days, block parties—really, what’s not to like? But for millions of Americans, the meaning of summer has been shifting. In many parts of the country, excitement for the upcoming season has turned into anxiety over the weather events—the extreme heat, hurricanes, drought, and wildfires—that have increasingly defined our summers in recent years. These weather extremes are not natural. They are climate disasters. And as a report published today by my organization, Public Citizen, outlines, they are exactly the kind of catastrophes that Big Oil companies predicted their fossil fuel products would cause—at the same time that they were orchestrating fraudulent campaigns of climate denial to block solutions that would have alleviated these harms. To put it bluntly, Big Oil is ruining summer. [Read More]
The Green New Deal is a Jobs Engine, Despite Trump
By Robert Pollin, Dollars & Sense [June 2, 2026]
---- One of President Donald Trump’s top-tier fixations is to heap ridicule on both climate science and all projects committed to combating the global climate crisis. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last September, Trump declared that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” For good measure, Trump regularly invokes “The Green New Scam” as a go-to epithet. Despite this, some of Trump’s most important priorities, especially his war of choice in Iran, are generating the unintended effect of bringing new levels of support for the very climate stabilization/green transition project he scorns. Thus, a Financial Times article from early May titled “Donald Trump’s Green New Deal” reports that the spike in oil prices caused by the Iran war has produced the strongest month of electric vehicle (EV) sales on record in Europe, a 20% jump in search traffic for EVs in the United States, and the highest level of solar panel installations in the United Kingdom since 2012. As such Green New Deal developments continue to gather momentum globally—now benefiting from Trump’s unintended assistance and despite his fully intended hostility—it is critical that the project maintains a first-order commitment not only to producing abundant clean energy, but, equally, to advancing the well-being of the U.S. working class. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES
House Rejects Bill To Renew Warrantless Spy Powers
By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com [June 11, 2026]
---- The House of Representatives on Thursday rejected a bill to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which gives the federal government the power to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans, and now the spying tool is expected to lapse as its last extension will expire on Friday night. The bill to renew Section 702 required a two-thirds majority but couldn’t even gain a simple majority as it failed in a vote of 198-218, with just seven Democrats voting in favor of the extension. Nineteen Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the bill. … Section 702, first enacted in 2008, authorizes warrantless surveillance targeting non-Americans overseas but also results in the collection of a vast amount of Americans’ communications. Those communications are retained in government databases and can be searched by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies without a warrant. [Read More]
They Weren’t Convicted of Terrorism, But These Palestine Activists Got Sentenced as Terrorists Anyway
By Natasha Lennard, The Intercept [June 13 2026]
---- Four UK-based Palestine solidarity activists were sentenced as terrorists on Friday for damaging military drones and other equipment at an Elbit Systems UK factory in 2024. Elbit, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, has provided the vast majority of drones used in the Israeli military’s genocidal bombardment of Gaza, among other horrors. The terrorism sentences, handed down by Justice Jeremy Johnson, set a frightening precedent. This is the first time in Britain that anyone has faced terrorism enhancements at sentencing without actually being convicted of terrorist offenses. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
The Contradictions of 1776
By Gerald Horne, The Nation [June 9, 2026]
[FB – This is a review of a new book by Joseph Ellis, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding. Gerald Horne is the author of many interesting books, including several about the role of slaves/African Americans in the American Revolution.]
---- Joseph J. Ellis is one of the most celebrated historians in the nation. His best-selling books on Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and other founders have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and have been instrumental in forging a remarkable consensus, from left to right, that sees July 4, 1776, as a sacred date and a great leap forward for all of humanity. But in his latest book, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding, Ellis reconsiders the essence of his oeuvre and this consensus, which is akin to the pope reconsidering Catholicism. Focusing “on two unquestionably horrific tragedies the founders oversaw”—the “failure to end slavery, and the failure to avoid Indian removal”—Ellis seeks to understand how and why they happened. “Next to the failure to end slavery,” he writes, the “inability to reach a just accommodation with the Native Americans was the greatest failure of the revolutionary generation.” Charting not only the history of the republic’s founders but also the history that preceded and followed them, he outlines what he terms the “Great Silence”: “For more than four centuries, the most important voices of Western civilization remained mute as a highly organized program of unspeakable barbarity with genocidal implications flourished throughout Europe. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Aquinas, Erasmus, Locke, and all the Catholic popes regarded slavery and the slave trade as acceptable features of European society.” [Read More]
