Iran

[mister_coffee]

I'm not much impressed with convoluted and incoherent straw man arguments.

Trump's actions are failing before our very eyes. And he probably won't be able to BS his way out of this one.

[Rideback]

Early intel report says
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics ... lear-sites


The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by four people briefed on it.

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.

The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.”

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.”

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

[Rideback]

Trump blew up this morning on his way out of town. Swearing profusely he acknowledged no ceasefire and that both Iran and Iraq are not paying the slightest attention to his demands.
https://deadline.com/2025/06/trump-isra ... 1236440986

Trump in the last 36 hours:
"No regime change"
"Yes, regime change!"
"Ceasefire"
"God bless Iran and Israel"
"I'm not happy with Israel or Iran"
"Israel and Iran don't know what the F*** they're doing!"

[Jingles]

Then using your reasoning let's compare it to the FIREWISE activities that seems to be sweeping the area.
Iran / Persia has been attacking the Western/ Christian/ Jewish way of life for millinia and declares death to all non believers, has supported terrorist activities worldwide and if left unchecked probably would do so in the future as their goal is to defeat and eliminate the Great Satan ( United States). Their chants are death to America Death to all Jews.

There have been wildfires in this area and probably will be in the future, but you don't know where or when, so do you just sit on your hands and wait for another fire that could consume your possessions or do you get off your butt's and eliminate as much threat as possible? Hence the Firewise activities, I believe that is called preemptive threat mitigation.

[mister_coffee]

... exercised his duty to use the military to reduce an imminent threat to the US.

How exactly was the threat imminent? How exactly was it more imminent on Thursday than it was on Friday? Or for that matter it isn't clear to me that it is any less "imminent" today.

The targets were manufacturing and enrichment facilities. If they had broken out and had a bomb or had highly enriched Uranium I would think they would have targeted that as well. They didn't which means either (1) they don't know where that is, or (2) they hadn't done those things. So by what they chose to target it seems that the threat wasn't imminent.

[Rideback]

Acting in defiance of our own Intel Community, the Intel Communities of our allies and doing so without following the Constitution is not a Presidential act, it is instead the least presidential act. First time I've ever agreed with Marjory Taylor Greene but she's right on target this time.

[just-jim]

.

The POTUS did not start a war, did NOT declare war…..

If dropping bombs on a Country - a member of the UN - for no other reason than you don’t like what they may possess - or how they MIGHT handle such theoretical item(s) - is NOT in fact THE definition of ‘declaring war’, then we have lost all meaning in the English language.

I’m not a fan of Iran having nuclear weapons, either, but this action is not warranted.
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[Jingles]

The POTUS did not start a war, did NOT declare war and as Commander in Chief exercised his duty to use the military to reduce an imminent threat to the US. And stop further terrorist attacks on the US AND US Ctizens. Being Iran sponsors and funds known terrorist organizations dating back at least decades if not centuries
NEITHER YOU nor I know what info he had as to how much weapons grade uranium Iran had or how close they were to being able to launch an intercontential nuclear missile.

[Rideback]

Trump is posting now that both Israel and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire.

Update: never mind. Iran is now saying they have not received nor approved any cease fire proposal.

[mister_coffee]

I think to me what makes this whole thing such a hideously bad idea is that we have no way of every knowing if the attacks were successful.

Part of that is because we haven't clearly defined "success" from the start. But more of it is because we don't have any way of knowing what real damage happened underground at Fordow and we have no way of knowing where exactly the enriched Uranium is, except that it probably wasn't at Fordow.

The smart thing for Iran to do at this point would be to announce that all three of the nuclear facilities attacked by the US (and Israel) are completely destroyed and that their nuclear program is also destroyed at this point. While they say that publicly they move heaven and earth behind the scenes to get working bombs with the enriched Uranium they have. So then they let things die down and go quiet (and perhaps delay any inspections for a few months) and then announce they have multiple nuclear weapons.

... and I can think of multiple clever ways they could deliver those weapons to Israel or the United States that we couldn't effectively stop. Especially if they shoot first and ask questions later.

[just-jim]

.

.

[Rideback]

Trump admn officials making the rounds on Sunday shows with Vance making probably the second best argument for why Congress should be read in when he said 'We trust our instincts over the Intel Community'

For highly sensitive issues there is purposefully the Gang of Eight within Congress.

[mister_coffee]

What is surprising? to me is the number of members of Congress that are bitching because Trump did not get Congressional approval before the Operation. Had he gone to Congress to get their "their" approval, Iran would of been informed of the Operation within 5 minutes of Congress even knowing about it.
While I do not support the US being involved in a Regime change I totally support eliminating the possibility of allowing Iran nuclear weapon capabilities. especially where they are the major suppliers of terrorist, can only hope that there aren't any sleeper cells in the US that become active.

There is this thing called the constitution that we are supposed to follow in this country. Even when it is inconvenient and might make things more difficult.

In this particular case, I think it was pretty damned obvious that we were going to attack those nuclear sites and I am confident that the Iranians could draw the same conclusions. It didn't help them much knowing that an attack was coming.

[Rideback]

Iran is striking back, hitting US military bases across the Middle East
https://aaronparnas.substack.com/p/brea ... dium=email

[Jingles]

What is surprising? to me is the number of members of Congress that are bitching because Trump did not get Congressional approval before the Operation. Had he gone to Congress to get their "their" approval, Iran would of been informed of the Operation within 5 minutes of Congress even knowing about it.
While I do not support the US being involved in a Regime change I totally support eliminating the possibility of allowing Iran nuclear weapon capabilities. especially where they are the major suppliers of terrorist, can only hope that there aren't any sleeper cells in the US that become active.

[Rideback]

The narrative is unraveling

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/their- ... irect=true

[Rideback]

"LET'S TALK ABOUT THOSE "PALLETS OF MONEY"
If you've got any MAGA friends on social media, you've probably noticed the phrase "pallets of money" suddenly appearing everywhere. If you saw that and wondered, "What the hell are they all yammering on about THIS time?" don't worry, THEY don't know what it means either.
HERE'S WHAT'S UP:
After the illegal bombing ordered by the convicted felon in the White House, Right-wing pundits began scrambling for a way to justify Dear Leader doing the One Thing he promised time and time again he ABSOLUTELY WOULDN'T DO: start a new war.
The best they could come up with was that Iran HAD to be bombed.
Because of...Obama.
See, in 2016, the Obama Administration sent $400 million in cash to Iran—which just so happened to coincide with the release of 5 American prisoners—and because nobody in the entire MAGA universe has the slightest inclination to ever get all the facts and context of a story, Fox decided to spin this as Obama breaking with America's tradition of "never negotiating with terrorists" and paying a $400 million ransom to get those 5 prisoners back.
The payment—IN CASH–was flown into Iran on literal pallets.
That $400 million—according to the Saturday-night MAGA logic—is what funded Iran's development of the [non-existent] nuclear weapons Trump had "no choice" but to step in and destroy.
See? "Pallets of money."
Obama's fault.
Obviously, Trumpland Diary readers are a bit savvier than the average bear, so ya'll probably already suspected there was more to the story than what the Fox clowns and MAGA sheep are bleating on about.
THE ACTUAL STORY
in 1979, Iran paid the U.S. $400 million in advance for military equipment. (This was under the Shah, before the Islamic Revolution). Following the revolution, the U.S. canceled the deal and froze all Iranian assets. In 1981, Iran sued the U.S. at the Iran–U.S. Claims Tribunal in the Hague, demanding the money back, plus interest.
The case dragged on for decades, and by the early 2010s, Iran had added massive interest plus claims for lost profits, costs, and damages from the undelivered equipment and breach of contract totaling $10 BILLION.
In January 2016, The Obama Administration decided to settle the case for $1.7 billion—the original $400 million plus $1.3 billion in interest accrued over 35 years—before the Tribunal issued a final ruling. The reasoning being that settling for $1.3 billion would be better on American taxpayers than LOSING the case and having to shell out the $10 billion Iran was seeking.
Because Iran was still largely cut off from the international banking system at the time, there was no legal or practical way to wire or transfer the funds. So, $400 million was transferred from the U.S. fund at the Federal Reserve to accounts in the Netherlands and Switzerland. From there, it was withdrawn in the form of euros, Swiss francs, and a few other currencies, and flown into Iran on a cargo plane.
The date of that flight HAPPENED to coincide with the prisoner release, though both events were negotiated independently and had nothing to do with each other. The world is a busy place. Sometimes two things happen on the same day. "
Since reporting that story just took up 5 WHOLE PARAGRAPHS, obviously no one in MAGAland was ever going to grasp any of it.
Why bother?
That would not only require READING...it would summarily disqualify them from the only thing they're actually qualified to do: blaming anyone but Trump for things nobody but Trump is responsible for.
Especially if it can be Obama."

[Rideback]

Marc Cooper tries to explain the inexplicable stupidity of Don the Con --
"Some bullet points on the bombing of Iran:
1. Iran agreed to halt forward movement on nuclear weapons development i negotiations with Obama more than a decade ago.
2. Iran agreed to limit uranium enrichment to 5%-- well below weaponization grade.
3. In 2018 and for no rational reason, Trump voided the agreement. Uranium enrichment immediately escalated to 60%.
4. Netanyahu has been using Iran as a political foil for 20 yrs and unsuccessfully tried to kill the original deal made with Obama.
5. Israel's unprovoked unilateral attack on Iran came while Iran was in the middle of restarted talks between Iran and the US. His goal has little to do with uranium enrichment. It had everything to do with sinking the current talks.
6. The last thing that Netanyahu wants is a contained non-nuclear Iran as it would rob him of his needed political enemy. He would risk losing power and going to jail for corruption.
7. Netanyahu needs a "nuclear Iran" the same way the Cuban regime needs the US embargo. Take them away the raison d'etre of both regimes collapses.
8. The Iranian leadership could easily anticipate an attack on Fodow and, most likely, they had already moved their stockpile elsewhere. And the stockpile is the key component to nuclear development.
9. Either way there is no way to know how much damage was wrought. Trump's declarations of complete obliteration is the translation of Mission Accomplished.
10. Statements by JD Vance that we are not at war with Iran but only with its nuclear program are taken from a late nite show monologue of stupid jokes.
11. Trump did NOT want a prolonged war with Iran. But he was played like a violin by Netanyahu. Not able to "finish" the job, they bet that Trump's ego and his stupidity to see an opportunity to be a hero at little cost and his delusional desire to get a Nobel Peace Prize would lure into him this quagmire.
12. The call for peace now is absurd. The Iranian have already responded with a successful missile attack last night on Israel creating a lot of damage. Next up: US military bases within short range of Iran's arsenal of short range ballistic missiles.
13. Iran is a sophisticated nation of 90 million people with a third of the population as militant Islamic supporters of the Mullahs. Any ground incursion into Iran will be a wholesale meat grinder.
14. If a lucky bomb hit or an Israeli or American commando team or popular chaos in Iran takes out the Supreme Leader and caused regime change, the likely successor will be the economically rich military led by the Revolutionary Guard and the regime will be more radical.
15. Nobody's home in the National Security apparatus of the US to offer any rational counsel. Trump and Hegseth are dumb and dumber and the other sycophants don't even register on any IQ scale.
16. The consequences of this supposedly one and done will kick off bloody and perilous consequences for many years to come with possibly catastrophic consequences. This is the beginning, not the end.
17. The bombing is one more giant step toward the death of democratic rule in the U.S. We are governed by a pathological authoritarian man-baby who unconstitutionally ignored congressional approval and will face no consequences except for some wet noodle press releases from some Democrats.
18. Israel is now a rogue state immune to international law and basic decency led by yet another unbalanced authoritarian. The U.S. is now following suit."

[mister_coffee]

...
The images of the secretive plant, which were collected on Thursday and Friday, depict truck and vehicle activity near to the entrance of the underground military complex.

Specifically there were two different things going on.

Heavy excavation equipment was being pre-positioned near the site. Which makes sense if you expect it to be attacked and might have to dig out the entrances.

A lot of trucks came. And left. Presumably some of the stuff at Fordow was hauled away to other locations before the attacks came.

What we don't yet know (but I suspect we will soon find out and won't like it very much when we do):

1. How much uranium was enriched.
2. Where that uranium is now.
3. What Iran intends to do with it.

I think it damned likely that if Iran wasn't hell-bent on producing a bomb before they are now. The only question is how much time it will take them to accomplish that.

[Rideback]

Per CNBC:
Satellite images show activity at Iran's Fordo nuclear facility before U.S. air strikes.
Maxar Technologies, a U.S. defense contractor, released satellite imagery on Sunday showing activity at Iran's Fordo nuclear facility prior to U.S. air strikes.
The images of the secretive plant, which were collected on Thursday and Friday, depict truck and vehicle activity near to the entrance of the underground military complex.

[mister_coffee]

Better satellite images:

Still not really conclusive on what has happened to the site. Really the smart thing for the Iranians to do would be to say the site was totally destroyed.

[Rideback]

James Greenberg:
"As U.S. missiles strike nuclear facilities deep inside Iran, the official narratives unfold with predictable cadence: targeted action, necessary defense, deterrence. But the more revealing question isn’t about strategy or even legality—it’s about profit, power, and survival. Who stands to gain from this war? And what does it offer Donald Trump?
This isn’t conjecture. It’s pattern recognition.
Trump doesn’t operate as a statesman. He operates as a dealmaker. But in his world, deals aren’t mutual agreements—they’re power plays. Leverage, dominance, and impunity guide his calculus. Every crisis becomes an opportunity. And war—especially one cast as existential, moral, or redemptive—is the biggest transaction of all.
The U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites is not simply a military escalation. It’s the staging ground for something larger: a political theater in which Trump can cloak his vulnerabilities in the symbols of strength. This is not grand strategy. It’s survival by spectacle.
Crisis as Cover and Catalyst
Trump understands spectacle not merely as distraction, but as narrative control. War grants him the role of wartime president—commander, protector, strongman. Legal scrutiny recedes. Indictments look like interference. The opposition becomes “disloyal,” the media “unpatriotic.” Dissent is cast as danger.
But this isn’t just about optics. It’s ritual. The bombing of Iran becomes a performance of power: mythic, masculine, morally unambiguous. The appearance of command replaces the messiness of policy. Trump doesn’t need to win the war. He needs to inhabit its theater—to generate a politics of destiny while the machinery of accountability stalls.
The War Economy and the Patronage State
Trump’s base of power is not ideological but transactional. Less party than patronage network, it rewards loyalty with access—access to contracts, deregulation, immunity. War fuels that machine.
Within hours of the bombing, markets shifted. Defense stocks surged. Oil futures spiked. Political insiders placed bets before the public knew the stage was set. This isn’t collateral economic activity—it’s the business model. Crisis creates volatility. Volatility creates margins. The system profits from instability.
Trump doesn’t hide this convergence of state power and private gain. He institutionalizes it. Those who bankroll his machine understand that conflict accelerates return on investment. War becomes not a policy failure but a profit strategy.
From Cultural Backlash to Civilizational War
Trump’s war isn’t only fought abroad. It’s narrated at home—as a continuation of the domestic culture war by other means. Iran, already demonized as a theocratic, defiant, and alien adversary, now becomes the perfect enemy: religiously distinct, non-Western, and “irrational.” It satisfies both geopolitical and symbolic functions.
This is not just political maneuvering. It taps into a deeper moral economy—one where war redeems status lost in globalization, immigration, and demographic change. It promises not safety but vindication. The world, seen as upside down, must be set right. Punishment becomes the path to restoration.
And this logic spills inward. Foreign enemies are mirrored by domestic ones. Muslims abroad, migrants at the border, political opponents at home—all folded into a singular, civilization-defining narrative. The line between foreign and domestic threat collapses.
Crisis as a Mode of Rule
Trump doesn’t just exploit crises—he governs through them. War becomes justification for emergency powers: expanded surveillance, media suppression, repressive policing. Legal norms aren’t abolished outright; they’re suspended, selectively enforced, or theatrically bypassed.
The bombing of Iran may mark the start of another war, but it also inaugurates a phase of exception—a space where the rule of law becomes conditional and civic life is subordinated to the demands of “national security.” Elections can be delayed. Protest can be criminalized. The extraordinary becomes normalized.
The genius of this mode of rule lies in its circularity: the emergency justifies repression, and repression manufactures the conditions for further emergency. Governance becomes an endless loop of threats, real and invented.
The Afterlife of Empire
Behind the bombs lies the old imperial story: the Middle East as a frontier of chaos, backwardness, and danger. A place that must be disciplined, reshaped, and dominated for the greater good. But under Trump, this narrative is stripped of subtlety and diplomacy.
Iran is not just framed as a strategic rival—it is cast as the embodiment of disorder itself. Its destruction becomes a moral imperative, a test of will, a rite of purification. Aligning fully with Israel’s maximalist posture, Trump reactivates a civilizational myth: that American power is not coercive but redemptive, not violent but virtuous.
This isn’t just about Iran. It’s about who defines order, and who must submit. About whose lives count, and whose deaths are just the price of power reasserted.
Not War by Necessity—War by Design
So while analysts debate troop movements, airspace violations, and diplomatic consequences, the deeper truth is this: Trump doesn’t stumble into war. He uses it.
The bombing of Iran is not merely policy—it is leverage. It is an instrument of personal gain, a tool of consolidation, a way to reset the board before the game escapes his control.
War suspends judgment. It amplifies fear. It rewards loyalty. It drowns dissent. And above all, it reframes chaos as leadership.
Trump doesn’t need peace. He needs conflict. Because in conflict, he thrives—in spectacle, he survives. And in the ruins, his allies profit."

[pasayten]

https://share.newsbreak.com/dp2mumhe?s=i16

[Rideback]

The Atlantic: Tom Nichols
"President Donald Trump has done what he swore he would not do: involve the United States in a war in the Middle East. His supporters will tie themselves in knots (as Vice President J. D. Vance did last week) trying to jam the square peg of Trump’s promises into the round hole of his actions. And many of them may avoid calling this “war” at all, even though that’s what Trump himself called it tonight. They will want to see it as a quick win against an obstinate regime that will eventually declare bygones and come to the table. But whether bombing Iran was a good idea or a bad idea—and it could turn out to be either, or both—it is war by any definition of the term, and something Trump had vowed he would avoid.

So what’s next? Before considering the range of possibilities, it’s important to recognize how much we cannot know at this moment. The president’s statement tonight was a farrago of contradictions: He said, for example, that the main Iranian nuclear sites were “completely and totally obliterated”—but it will take time to assess the damage, and he has no way of knowing this. He claimed that the Iranian program has been destroyed—but added that there are still “many targets” left. He said that Iran could suffer even more in the coming days—but the White House has reportedly assured Iran through back channels that these strikes were, basically, a one-and-done, and that no further U.S. action is forthcoming.

(In a strange moment, Trump added: “I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military.” Presidents regularly ask God to bless the American nation and its military forces—as Trump did in his next utterance—but it was a bit unnerving to see a commander in chief order a major military action and then declare how much “we” love the Creator.)

Only one outcome is certain: Hypocrisy in the region and around the world will reach galactic levels as nations wring their hands and silently pray that the B-2s carrying the bunker-buster bombs did their job.


Beyond that, the most optimistic view is that the introduction of American muscle into this war will produce a humiliating end to Iran’s long-standing nuclear ambitions, enable more political disorder in Iran, and finally create the conditions for the fall of the mullahs. This may have been the Israeli plan from the start: Despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warnings about the imminence of an Iranian nuclear-weapons capability and the need to engage in preemption, this was a preventive war. The Israelis could not destroy sites such as Fordow without the Americans. Israeli military actions suggest that Netanyahu was trying to increase the chances of regime change in Tehran while making a side bet on dragging Trump into the fray and outsourcing the tougher nuclear targets to the United States.

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The very worst outcome is the polar opposite of the optimistic case. In this bleak alternative, the Air Force either didn’t find, or couldn’t destroy, all of the key parts of the Iranian program; the Iranians then try to sprint across the finish line to a bomb. In the meantime, Tehran lashes out against U.S. targets in the region and closes the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian opposition fades in importance as angry Iranian citizens take their government’s part.

One dangerous possibility in this pessimistic scenario is that the Iranians do real damage to American assets or kill a number of U.S. servicepeople, and Trump, confused and enraged, tries to widen his war against a country more than twice the size of Iraq.

Perhaps the most likely outcome, however, is more mixed. The Iranian program may not be completely destroyed, but if the intelligence was accurate and the bombers hit their targets, Tehran’s nuclear clock has likely been set back years. (This in itself is a good thing; whether it is worth the risks Trump has taken is another question.) The Iranian people will likely rally around the flag and the regime, but the real question is whether that effect will last.

The Iranian regime will be wounded but will likely survive; the nuclear program will be delayed but will likely continue; the region will become more unstable but is unlikely to erupt into a full-blown war involving the United States.

But plenty of wild cards are in the deck.

First, as strategists and military planners always warn, the “enemy gets a vote.” The Iranians may respond in ways the U.S. does not expect. The classic war-gaming mistake is to assume that your opponent will respond in ways that fit nicely with your own plans and capabilities. But the Iranians have had a long time to think about this eventuality; they may have schemes ready that the U.S. has not foreseen. (Why not spread around radiological debris, for example, and then blame the Americans for a near-disaster?) Trump has issued a warning to Iran not to react, but what might count as “reacting”?

Second, we cannot know the subsequent effects of an American attack. For now, other Middle Eastern regimes may be relieved to see Iran’s nuclear clock turned back. But if the Iranian regime survives and continues even a limited nuclear program, those same nations may sour on what they will see as an unsuccessful plan hatched in Jerusalem and carried out by Washington.

Diplomacy elsewhere will likely suffer. The Russians have been pounding Ukraine with even greater viciousness than usual all week and now may wave away the last of Trump’s feckless attempts to end the war. Other nations might see American planes flying over Iran and think that the North Koreans had the right idea all along: assemble a few crude nuclear weapons as fast as you can to deter further attempts to end your regime.

Finally, the chances for misperception and accidents are now higher than they were yesterday. In 1965, the United States widened the war in Southeast Asia after two purported attacks from North Vietnam; the Americans were not sure at the time whether both of these attacks had actually happened, and as it turns out, one of them probably had not. The Middle East, moreover, is full of opportunities for screwups and mistakes: If Trump continues action against Iran, he will need excellent intelligence and tight organization at the Pentagon.

And this is where the American strikes were really a gamble: They were undertaken by a White House national-security team staffed by unqualified appointees, some of whom—including the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense himself—Trump has reportedly frozen out of his inner circle. (Given that those positions are held by Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth, respectively, it is both terrifying and a relief to know that they may have little real influence.) The American defense and intelligence communities are excellent, but they can function for only so long without competent leadership.

Trump has had preternatural luck as president: He has survived scandals, major policy failures, and even impeachment, events that would have ended other administrations.The American planes dropped their payloads and returned home safely. So he might skate past this war, even if it will be hard to explain to the MAGA faithful who believed him, as they always do, when he told them that he was the peace candidate. But perhaps the biggest and most unpredictable gamble Trump took in bombing Iran was sending American forces into harm’s way in the Middle East with a team that was never supposed to be in charge of an actual war."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... rGPF23h7I0

[just-jim]

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20%+ of the worlds oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz.
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