RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/after-30-years-of-hesitation-netanyahu-pulled-the-trigger/ar-AA1GFxwS

(Bloomberg) — Benjamin Netanyahu has said for three decades that the central threat to Israel’s existence is Iran’s nuclear program. At least twice over that period, he came within inches of carrying out an attack on it.

Now, at age 75, the Israeli premier has launched the biggest strike on Iran in his country’s history. It’s an operation of enormous risk and promise that will define the legacy of Israel’s longest-serving leader — and upend the Mideast.

In a speech to the nation Friday evening, Netanyahu said he ordered preparations for the assault back in November. But the audacious attack was the result of a confluence of factors dating back years.

Hamas’ deadly 2023 attack forced a rethinking of how Israel defends itself and allowed its military to decimate threats from Iranian proxies like Hezbollah. After years of efforts, Israeli intelligence had penetrated Iran so deeply it could strike its protected nuclear program from inside the country. A supportive US president and a hawkish circle in the Israeli leadership made it possible for Netanyahu, his own popularity tarnished, to make the move he’d avoided for so long.

A day after the first wave of attacks — hundreds of warplanes hit hundreds of sites 1700 km (1000 miles) away — it’s far too early to assess how this new war will develop and whether it will expand beyond Iran and Israel.

But initial reports have led Israeli commentators to argue that the operation is so far a success: a dozen top Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists killed, a major nuclear site badly damaged and Iran’s capacity to retaliate curbed. Late Friday, Israel said it had hit another nuclear installation, this time in Isfahan.

Shortly afterward, Iran launched missiles at Israel and residents were ordered to shelters. Authorities reported several people were injured by the attacks in the central part of the country. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed to “act forcefully” and avenge the Israeli strikes. That retaliation is expected both directly and indirectly, and Israel’s assault is due to last days or weeks. 

Since thousands of Iran-backed Hamas operatives broke into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1200 people and abducting 250, Israel has taken a much more aggressive approach to its borders, stationing its troops inside Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, and relying less on opponents’ intent and focusing on their capabilities. 

Attacked on all sides as Iranian proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen joined in, Israelis felt they were in a battle for their survival — even if from afar many saw a powerful, nuclear-armed nation against small militias that couldn’t challenge it. 

Since then, Israel has carried out a brutal war in Gaza, destroying vast areas and killing some 55,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. It has taken out the missile arsenals of Hamas and Hezbollah and helped trigger the collapse of the Syrian regime. 

https://www.steynonline.com/15383/more-war

Is this a new war? Lindsey Graham, member of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, seems to think so and is panting like Jeffrey Toobin on a Zoom call:

Game on.

Washington has also revealed that it shared its heads-up from Israel with one of its Arab allies – presumably the Saudis.

So far, for Israel, it’s going well: they have destroyed the Republican Guard headquarters and killed its commander, General Salami. In other targeted assassinations, the head of the Iranian army is dead, as are more than ten nuclear scientists, and various other bigshots, including at least one potential successor to Ayatollah Khamenei, who for the moment appears to be alive. It’s the biggest military action on the soil of the Islamic Republic since the Iran/Iraq War forty years ago.

~To get the obvious out of the way, what should America do?

That’s probably correct as far as the politics of it is concerned. But the other reason for not getting America involved is, of course, that the Pentagon is totally crap at war. So, if the US is on your side, you’ll lose. See, most recently, Afghanistan and Ukraine – the former an international humiliation, and the latter having been micro-managed from Washington until January 20th with equally disastrous results, at least for the dwindling number of Ukrainians living in Ukraine. US military effectiveness is fading from living memory: for three-quarters of a century now, Washington has been utterly unable to use war to achieve any strategic national objective – despite accounting for forty per cent of the entire planet’s military expenditures. There is nothing to suggest Iran is likely to be an exception to the rule.

~That presents Israel with certain challenges. If you want to end the Iranian nuclear programme – or at least set it back twenty years – you have to have state-of-the-art bunker-busters that can penetrate all the way down at the Fordow enrichment facility just south of Qom. I’m not sure Israel has such weapons, and I doubt Netanyahu will know until they try it and it works. I note that Freddie Forsyth, who died a few days ago, has a scene in one of his novels in which the Fordow plant is taken out by a precocious computer hacker, which would probably be the best way to do it. Alas, in the real world, the mullahs are more sophisticated than all the “Death to America!” street-dancing would suggest.

~That said, as always with Israel, the creativity and innovation is impressive:

~Will the new war remain finely focused – alternating barrages raining down on Tehran and Tel Aviv – or will it spread beyond? For three years, setting aside occasional provocations such as the Nordstream pipeline, the war in Europe has been contained within Ukraine. In the Middle East Iran has proxies throughout the region – Hamas, Hizb’allah, Houthis… It would seem unreasonable to expect the mullahs to show the same forbearance as Putin.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/06/israel-was-left-with-only-one-choice-on-iran/

On early Friday morning Middle East time, Israel launched an extensive strike on Iran’s nuclear program. Airstrikes hit Iran’s ballistic-missile facilities and its nuclear-enrichment site Natanz along with other targets, while further precision operations (reportedly involving the Mossad) took out top Iranian military brass along with nuclear scientists. The operation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, would continue “for as many days as it takes” to neutralize any threat from Iran’s nuclear program.

While the prospect of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear capacity has long been discussed, several factors made it more urgent, and more possible. Iran had significantly ramped up its enrichment capacity, with even the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (not exactly friendly to Israeli militarism) having determined that Iran had been enriching uranium well beyond the level of civilian use, and closer to military grade. With just some more refinement, Iran would be in the position to produce ten nuclear bombs.

A nuclear Iran dedicated to Israel’s destruction is an existential threat. An overwhelming majority of Israel’s population lives either in Jerusalem or in a small strip of coastal land that includes Tel Aviv — and all of those targets are well within range of Iran’s missiles. Even if Iran never pulled the trigger on a nuclear weapon, their mere possession of one would allow the radical Islamist regime that vows “Death to America” to operate with impunity as it financed terrorist attacks, targeted U.S. assets and service personnel, and engaged in other malign behavior that destabilizes the region.

Several developments since the October 7 massacres have also made the current attack more feasible. Last fall, Israel managed to cripple Iranian air defenses in a retaliatory attack without losing a single pilot, which both demonstrated Israel’s ability to strike inside Iran and made the nuclear sites more vulnerable. During the strikes overnight, there was no evidence of any response from Iran’s air defense. Additionally, on two occasions (April and October of last year), Iran launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel but was not able to do much damage thanks to a joint Israeli and American defensive effort. So far in response to the current Israeli strikes, Iran has fired 100 drones at Israel, to no avail.

Another crucial factor behind the timing of these strikes is having an ally in the White House. Over the past several months, the administration was in a tug-of-war between those seeking to prevent an Israeli strike and the Iran hawks that played out via leaks and public debates. This likely reflected Trump’s own internal debate. Several months ago, he urged Israel to back off attacking Iran and had his envoy Steve Witkoff conduct multiple rounds of nuclear talks, which created concerns from hawks that he may sign onto a bad deal. Even hours before the attacks, Trump announced he was still dedicated to pursuing a negotiated solution. Whether or not he was actively participating in a ruse to keep Iran from thinking an attack was imminent, this was clearly helpful in adding an element of surprise to an operation that involved very obvious tells, including the recent removal of U.S. embassy staff and other military assets within striking distance of Iran.