What Just Happened?
What Happens Next?
Different Reactions to the American Intervention
In the aftermath of the American bombing, on Saturday, of three Iranian nuclear development sites, the reaction from different factions in America and Israel was as varied as it was unsurprising. For those of us who support Israel, but are skeptical about the motives of the US President, the attack came as a pleasant surprise. The fierce criticism coming from the isolationist wing of the Republican party in the days before the US operation, raised doubts that the Trump Administration would come to Israel’s aid in attacking Iran.
The tone of some of the anti-war commentary in the days before the US attack on Iran, was frankly antisemitic. One commentator, Ana Kasparian, appearing on CNN on June 18, said that the US had been repeatedly dragged into war for the sake of Israel. She said that the US had invaded Afghanistan and Iraq for Israel. Although she was sitting with a panel that included five other people, moderated by CNN host Abby Phillip, only one person challenged the obvious lie that the US invaded Afghanistan for Israel. Ana Kasparian later crowed on her own channel about being able to say these things on a cable channel, without encountering much pushback, You can watch that here. WARNING: Listening to her patting herself on the back for spreading hatred for Israel takes a strong stomach.
Some friends, including some strong supporters of Israel seemed to panic at the fact that the US was getting involved. For some it is apparently impossible to imagine that Donald Trump could ever do something good. “Trump just started World War III,” was one such comment. Others could not believe that using force against Iran could lead to a good outcome. Like Kasparian, some insisted that the risk of a nuclear Iran is overstated.
By contrast, those who are generally supportive of Trump said they had known all along that he would step in. They were also quick to take Trump’s word for it that the Iranian nuclear site at Fordow has been “completely obliterated”, in spite of statements from the US military that battle damage assessment is still in progress. The whereabouts of a considerable quantity of highly enriched Uranium (enough to provide material for several bombs) heretofore stored at Fordow, was still unknown at the time of publication.
While the level of destruction at Fordow is not yet assessed, there seems considerable evidence that the US attack did penetrate the mountain and reach the underground complex that contained the enrichment facilities. Trucks which were thought to have removed the enriched uranium before the attack turned up a short distance away, suggesting that if nuclear material was removed, it is still in the immediate vicinity of the site. The Israelis bombed the roads in the area to reduce the chance that the highly enriched uranium could be moved further away.
Trump the Warmonger or Trump the Peacenik?
The celebration that Trump was standing with Israel became decidedly more muted a day after the attack, when Trump imposed a ceasefire on both sides on Monday night. While the world waited for an Iranian retaliatory strike on American interests and speculated on how intense the US response would be, the Iranians instead made a limited attack on a base in Qatar and warned the Qataris two hours in advance, which allowed the Americans to evacuate the base.
Rather than retaliating, Trump thanked the Iranians for warning them about the attack and then took both sides by surprise, by announcing a ceasefire would take effect within six hours. Iran used the intervening time to launch six waves of missiles at Israel, murdering four people in a building in Be’er Sheva. The sixth wave was launched after the deadline of 7AM Israel time and the Israelis prepared a punishing response, only to be denounced by Trump for this (In foul-mouthed tirade, Trump savages Israel for striking Iran, says it violated ceasefire | The Times of Israel).
Image: Three of the four murdered by Iranian Missile in Beer Sheva: Michal Zacks (L), Noa Boguslavsky (C) and Cpl. Eitan Zacks (R) — Source: IDF
Israel quickly scaled back its planned attack, limiting it to the bombing of a radar station. With the truce seemingly holding, Israel announced late Tuesday that Ben Gurion Airport would return to normal operations and that schools would reopen.
What Now?
The abrupt end to the Israeli campaign against Iran leaves many unanswered questions. How much damage was done at Fordow and what will become of the highly enriched uranium Iran has already produced?
Iran has vowed to rebuild its nuclear program, though it seems likely that this will take years. Some reports suggested that Pakistan or Russia would transfer a nuclear weapon to Iran, thwarting the purpose of the Israeli and American attacks. This seems like a far-fetched idea given the global response that such a move would likely provoke.
Another unanswered question which seems not to matter to the anti-war crowd in the United States is the fate of the downtrodden people of Iran. Israel has demonstrated astonishingly accurate intelligence during the course of the twelve days it was striking Iran. It seems inevitable that the sources of that intelligence will now be endangered. It also seems that if the regime survives and continues to be a menace to Israel, it will be harder for Israel to obtain such information in the future.
And what of the brave Iranians who have stood up against the regime and are languishing in prison, or those who have demonstrated in the past against its repressive policies toward women and homosexuals, against Jews and Bahais? Is there any plan to help them replace the mad mullahs who have led the country for the past 46 years? It is easy for people abroad to say “It’s up to the people of Iran”, to determine their future, but one of the things the regime is very good at, is ensuring the people of Iran have no real say on how they are governed.
What about Gaza?
It is inevitable that the eyes of the world and of the Americans will now return to Gaza. While the attention of the news media has been directed elsewhere, Israel has continued to uncover and destroy Hamas infrastructure in Gaza. They have also enabled a new initiative to feed the people through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The GHF project is an attempt by Israel to arrange the distribution of aid directly to people in need in Gaza, in order to prevent Hamas from stealing the aid, or from using it as leverage to sustain its authoritarian rule over the people of Gaza. The existing aid agencies in Gaza, which have worked for many years with Hamas, have been uniformly critical of the initiative, in spite of its success in delivering millions of meals to people in need of aid in the weeks since it has been in operation.
The news coverage of GHF has largely reflected the negative comments of the established aid groups. Every day Hamas claims that Israel has killed dozens of people who are trying to get access to the aid. Israel denies this and the GHF does not corroborate these reports, though it has reported at least one attack by Hamas on its workers.
In spite of the uncorroborated claims by Hamas, much of the global news coverage has treated reports of daily killings by Israel as factual, highlighting the alleged death toll and downplaying the large amount of aid successfully delivered. News reports on the war in Gaza in much of the Canadian media continues to be highly biased against Israel. Readers are encouraged to look at the daily exposes of inaccurate and misleading coverage issued by Honest Reporting Canada.
Today it was announced that the Trump administration would contribute 30 million dollars to the help fund GHF. Earlier reports had suggested they might contribute as much as 500 million.
The toll of IDF soldiers killed in the ongoing fighting in Gaza continues to rise. This evening the IDF announced the death of seven soldiers in whose armoured vehicle was targeted with a bomb yesterday in Khan Younis.
Image: From left to right: Lt. Matan Shai Yashinovski, Staff Sgt. Ronel Ben-Moshe, Sgt. Ronen Shapiro, Sgt. Maayan Baruch Pearlstein, Staff Sgt. Niv Radia and Sgt. Shahar Manoav. The IDF announced that the six were among seven soldiers killed amid fighting in the southern Gaza Strip on June 24, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces) Source: IDF
Israel has recovered eight bodies from Gaza in recent weeks, reducing the number of hostages not yet rescued or recovered to 50. Egypt announced an invitation to new hostage negotiations today in the wake of the end of direct hostilities between Israel and Iran.
The questions in Gaza remain the same. How can Israel recover the hostages while ensuring that Hamas will no longer govern Gaza? Will the US now intervene there to try to push the war to a quick conclusion? Will the US end up imposing a ceasefire that will allow Hamas to survive?
Looking at what has been Achieved
Israel has accomplished extraordinary things in Iran over the past 12 days. The destruction of the senior military leadership was a triumph of Israeli intelligence as well as a demonstration of Israeli military prowess.
In addition to the damage to the Iranian nuclear weapons program, Iran’s ability to launch missiles at Israel was greatly reduced on the first day, and continued to decline after inflicting death and destruction at a number of sites in the first couple of days. This did not prevent Iran from bringing normal life in Israel to a halt, and inflicting severe damage on mostly civilian targets, but the feared devastation to Israel from a direct war with Iran simply did not materialize.
While the US seems to have determined the timing of the war’s end, their direct participation in the attack on the most heavily fortified nuclear research facilities, was an unprecedented act of solidarity by the United States with Israel in wartime.
Perhaps many people in Iran will recognize the folly and failure of the regime’s enormous investment in nuclear enrichment and long range rockets. Many must surely be weary of the consequences of Iran’s aggressive foreign policy, after many years of sanctions and now twelve days of bombing, which Iran’s well funded armed forces were unable to prevent.
We look now to hopes that the Iranian people may organize to challenge the regime, the morality police, the local thugs who keep the people in line, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps which has poured the blood and treasure of Iran into a decades long project to spread chaos in neighbouring countries and pursue the destruction of Israel.
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The positive acts of the United States cannot be denied. (Not by the rational at least) but it is perfectly clear that Israel intended to spend a few more days finishing its mission in Iran and was prevented from doing do by Trump. His tirade against Israel was gross but by now we are used to his words being all over the place. What matters is Trump decided to end it when he wanted to and imposed his will. Netanyahu cannot afford to alienate Trump who seems to operate not by either a moral code or a geopolitical philosophy but by his personal feelings. That said I cant even imagine continuing to rely at all on a Democratic administration as the entire party is veering towards full anti-Zionism. The answer is that Israel must make and be able to resupply its own weapons. All of them. No more dependence on the United States.
So well said!