Media Report 2025.06.21
Free Palestine Melbourne Media Report Saturday June 21 2025
Israel is targeting Iran’s nuclear uranium enrichment plants. Here are the contamination risks
By Hanan Dervisevic with wires
Israel has been targeting Iran from the air since last Friday in what it has described as an effort to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), five nuclear facilities have been struck, sparking fears the air strikes could raise health risks across the region.
Here’s what damage has been caused so far, and what the safety risks are of attacking nuclear sites.
Iran-Israel conflict live updates: Trump to decide ‘within the next two weeks’ whether US will attack Iran
What has Israel been targeting?
Several military and nuclear sites in Iran.
Israel says the attacks are to block Iran from developing atomic weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operations were to “strike the head of Iran’s nuclear weaponization program”.
Iran denies ever having pursued a plan to build nuclear weapons and is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
It says the nuclear sites it does have are for peaceful purposes.
If Israel continues attacking Iran in an effort to eliminate the country’s nuclear capability, destroying the Fordow enrichment plant will be central to its plan.
While another important facility, Natanz, has been hit, the Fordow site would be much harder to target.
Google Earth images show Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant.
That’s because it’s located inside a mountain, 90 metres underground, and can only be reached by American “bunker-buster” bombs, which Israel does not possess.
Why are they being targeted?
Israel believes Iran is enriching uranium to levels that could allow it to build a nuclear weapon, despite the Islamic Republic’s claims its nuclear work is for “peaceful purposes”.
Enriched uranium, specifically uranium-235, is an essential component in many nuclear weapons.
“When you dig uranium out of the ground, 99.3 per cent of it is uranium-238, and 0.7 per cent of it is uranium-235,” Kaitlin Cook, a nuclear physicist at the Australian National University, said.
“The numbers 238 and 235 relate to its weight — uranium-235 is slightly lighter than uranium-238.”
Missile strikes and fires have torn through Iran’s nuclear and military facilities. These satellite images show the damage that has been inflicted by Israel’s attacks.
To enrich uranium means increasing the proportion of uranium-235 while removing the uranium-238.
This is typically done with a centrifuge, a kind of “scientific salad spinner” that rotates uranium thousands of times a minute, separating the lighter uranium-235 from the base uranium.
For civilian nuclear power, Dr Cook says uranium-235 is usually enriched to about 3 to 5 per cent.
But once uranium is enriched to 90 per cent, it is deemed weapons-grade.
According to the IAEA, Iran’s uranium has reached about 60 per cent enrichment, well on its way to being concentrated enough for a nuclear weapon.
Dr Cook says the process for enriching uranium from 60 per cent to weapons-grade is significantly easier than enriching it to 60 per cent in the first place. That’s because there’s less uranium-238 to get rid of.
According to the US Institute for Science and International Security, “Iran can convert its current stock of 60 per cent enriched uranium into 233kg of weapon-grade uranium in three weeks at the Fordow plant”, which it said would be enough for nine nuclear weapons.
In the hours after Israel attacked Iran last Friday, Netanyahu said Iran was just days away from being able to build nuclear weapons.
In a White House briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Iran has all it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon.
“It would take a couple of weeks to complete the production of that weapon, which would, of course, pose an existential threat not just to Israel, but to the United States and to the entire world.”
But there has been some back and forth between US authorities on whether Iran was really that close to producing nuclear weapons.
In March, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told members of Congress that Iran was not moving towards building nuclear weapons.
“The IC [intelligence community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003,” she said.
On Air Force One on Monday night, after hastily leaving the G7 summit, President Donald Trump offered a direct contradiction to Ms Gabbard’s claims.
“I don’t care what she said,” Mr Trump said.
“I think they were very close to having it.”
What has Israel hit so far?
The IAEA said Israel had directly hit the underground enrichment halls at the Natanz facility, leaving them “severely damaged, if not destroyed altogether”.
According to the IAEA, the Natanz site was one of the facilities at which Iran was producing uranium enriched up to 60 per cent U-235.
After the attack, the IAEA found radioactive contamination at the site, but it said the levels of radioactivity outside remained unchanged and at normal levels.
Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Effie Defrin said: “We’ve struck deep, hitting Iran’s nuclear, ballistic and command capabilities.”
A nuclear complex at Isfahan and centrifuge production facilities in Karaj and Tehran were also damaged.
Israel said on Wednesday it had targeted Arak, also known as Khondab, the location of a partially built heavy-water research reactor.
The IAEA said it had information that the heavy-water reactor had been hit, but that it was not operating and reported no radiological effects.
What are the risks of striking a nuclear site?
Experts say attacks on enrichment facilities are mainly a “chemical problem”, not radiological.
Darya Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at London think tank RUSI, says the main concern from destroying an enrichment plant is releasing the harmful uranium hexafluoride gas — highly corrosive and toxic — that’s contained in centrifuges.
“When UF6 interacts with water vapour in the air, it produces harmful chemicals,” Ms Dolzikova said.
The extent to which any material is dispersed would depend on factors including weather conditions, she added.
“In low winds, much of the material can be expected to settle in the vicinity of the facility; in high winds, the material will travel farther, but is also likely to disperse more widely.”
Peter Bryant, a professor at the University of Liverpool who specialises in radiation protection science and nuclear energy policy, says nuclear facilities are designed to prevent the release of radioactive materials into the environment.
“Uranium is only dangerous if it gets physically inhaled or ingested or gets into the body at low enrichments,” Professor Bryant said.
While there so far have been no major radiological incidents as a result of the attacks, IAEA director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi stressed the possible nuclear safety and security risks.
“There is a lot of nuclear material in Iran in different places, which means that the potential for a radiological accident with the dispersion in the atmosphere of radioactive materials and particles does exist,” he said.
In a post on X, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also voiced his concern about the potential “immediate and long-term impacts on the environment and health of people in Iran and across the region”.
What about nuclear reactors?
Well, that’s a different story.
A strike on Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr could cause an “absolute radiological catastrophe”, says James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
While most reactor vessels are protected by steel and concrete containment structures, Dr Cook says the surrounding infrastructure, like spent fuel pools and cooling equipment, would “definitely be a concern” if targeted.
For Gulf states, the impact of any strike on Bushehr would be worsened by the potential contamination of Gulf waters, jeopardising a critical source of desalinated potable water.
In the UAE, desalinated water accounts for more than 80 per cent of drinking water.
While Bahrain and Qatar are fully reliant on desalinated water.
“If a natural disaster, oil spill, or even a targeted attack were to disrupt a desalination plant, hundreds of thousands could lose access to freshwater almost instantly,” said Nidal Hilal, professor of engineering and director of New York University Abu Dhabi’s Water Research Center.
“Coastal desalination plants are especially vulnerable to regional hazards like oil spills and potential nuclear contamination,” he said.
On Thursday, an Israeli military spokesperson said the military had struck the Bushehr nuclear site in Iran.
However, an Israeli military official later said that comment “was a mistake”.
The official would only confirm that Israel had hit the Natanz, Isfahan, and Arak nuclear sites in Iran.
Pressed further on Bushehr, the official said he could neither confirm nor deny that Israel had struck the location.
Bushehr is Iran’s only operating nuclear power plant, which sits on the Gulf coast and uses Russian fuel that Russia then takes back when it is spent to reduce proliferation risk.
What is heavy water?
Heavy water is H20 made up of hydrogen-2 instead of hydrogen-1.
Dr Cook says it’s a little heavier than normal water.
“When you use heavy water, you can run your reactor on non-enriched uranium, avoiding the expense of enriching it in the first place, though the water does cost more.
“But the problem is that heavy-water reactors can also be used to produce plutonium, which can be used in nuclear weapons.”
Iran’s impotent ‘Axis of Resistance’
Photo shows The orange glow of fire highlights dark clouds of smoke rising behind blocks of flats and other multistorey buildings.The orange glow of fire highlights dark clouds of smoke rising behind blocks of flats and other multistorey buildings.
Iran has built a network of allies around the Middle East. But none of those proxies nor its most powerful backers, China and Russia, have intervened since Israel began bombing Tehran.
Israel’s military said its fighter jets targeted the Arak facility and its reactor core seal to stop it from being used to produce plutonium.
“The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development.
India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed states, have heavy-water reactors.
So does Israel, but it has never acknowledged having atomic weapons but is widely believed to have them.
ABC with wires
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Who are Iran’s key allies in the Middle East and globally?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-20/key-alliances-in-the-iran-israel-conflict-explained/105434908
By Audrey Courty
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is largely alone in his showdown with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (ABC News: Brianna Morris-Grant)
Iran has spent decades propping up militant groups and political regimes across the Middle East, forming its so-called “Axis of Resistance”, while pursuing close relationships with other global powers.
Yet after Israel attacked multiple sites in Iran last weekend, sparking a fierce exchange of missiles, those allies were largely silent.
Israel’s powerful ally the US has openly discussed attacking, yet only one Iran-backed militant group has stepped in to defend it.
Here’s a closer look at the key alliances in the Iran-Israel conflict and how these allies are responding.
Iran’s so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’
Since the 1970s, Iran has projected its power across the Middle East using a network of close allies that share its aim of countering US and Israeli influence across the region.
This so-called “Axis of Resistance” threatened that any strikes against Iran or its affiliates would trigger a formidable response.
The network grew to include Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, some armed groups in Iraq and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank.
But over the past two years, the “axis” has been dealt some severe blows, with many of Iran’s allies in the region either weakened or ousted from power.
Andreas Krieg, a security expert and associate professor at King’s College London, says Iran’s ties have unravelled.
“It is not really an ‘axis’ anymore as [much as] a loose network where everyone largely is occupied with its own survival,” he says.
According to Ian Parmeter, a Middle East scholar at the Australian National University (ANU) and a former Australian ambassador to Lebanon, that leaves Iran in its “weakest state” in more than 40 years.
“None of its allies are able to support it in a way that they could previously,” he says.
“That’s why the Israel Defense Forces have been able to launch these attacks on Iran now.”
Mr Parmeter says Israel has destroyed Hamas’ fighting ability over the past two years of war with the Palestinian militant group.
Meanwhile, in Syria, Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed less than two weeks after Israel’s two-month war with Hezbollah in Lebanon ended, severing another critical Iranian link.
Hezbollah has long been considered Iran’s first line of defence in case of a war with Israel, but the Lebanese militant group has stayed out of the latest conflict.
At one point, Hezbollah was believed to have around 150,000 rockets and missiles, and its former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, once claimed to have 100,000 fighters.
The group was drawn into a full-scale war with Israel last September after it tried to help its ally, Hamas, fight off Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which was sparked by the Palestinian militants’ October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
Israel’s daring attack, which involved remotely detonating pagers and walkie-talkies armed with explosives that had been distributed to Hezbollah members, killed key members of the armed group as well as some civilians.
While a US-brokered ceasefire halted the Israel-Hezbollah conflict last November, Israel continues to occupy parts of southern Lebanon and carries out near-daily air strikes.
Hezbollah’s current leader, Naim Qassem, has condemned Israel’s attacks on Iran and offered condolences for the senior Iranian officers who were killed.
But Qassem did not suggest Hezbollah would take part in any retaliation against Israel.
ANU’s Mr Parmeter says it is because Hezbollah is still reeling from its losses, with Israel having killed most of its top leaders and destroying much of its arsenal.
“Hezbollah has been very badly degraded, and Iran hasn’t been able to resupply it with rockets and missiles,” Mr Parmeter says.
“So Hezbollah is not able to create a diversionary attack on Iran’s behalf.”
Still, Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah, told the Associated Press a role for the militant group in the Israel-Iran conflict should not be ruled out.
“This depends on political and field developments,” he said. “Anything is possible.”
Unlike Hezbollah, whose military wing has operated as a non-state actor in Lebanon, the main Iraqi militias are members of a coalition that is officially part of the state defence forces.
For their part in Iran’s “axis”, the Iraqi militias have occasionally struck bases housing US troops in Iraq and Syria.
One of these militias, Kataib Hezbollah, said it was “deeply regrettable” that Israel allegedly fired at Iran from Iraqi airspace in the last week.
The armed group called on the Iraqi government to “urgently expel hostile forces from the country,” which is a reference to US troops in Iraq, but it made no threat of force.
Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at the British think tank Chatham House, told the Associated Press that Iraq’s militias did not want to pull their country into a major conflict.
“Things in Iraq are good for them right now, they’re connected to the state — they’re benefiting politically, economically,” Dr Mansour said.
“They’ve seen what’s happened to Iran, to Hezbollah, and they’re concerned that Israel will turn on them as well.”
The Houthis remain the only Iran-backed group still firing missiles at Israel as part of a campaign that began with the Gaza war in solidarity with Palestinians.
“Triumphing for the oppressed Palestinian and Iranian peoples … This operation was coordinated with the operations carried out by the Iranian army,” a military spokesperson said after targeting central Israel’s Jaffa.
The Houthis are mountain fighters who have been battling Saudi-led forces for control of Yemen, in what is widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
They have been the de facto government in north Yemen since a 2022 ceasefire.
The group has a large arsenal of armed drones and ballistic missiles largely supplied by Iran, which it has previously used to fire at ships in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route.
But the ANU’s Mr Parmeter says the Houthis are too geographically removed to strategically harm Israel beyond the rebels’ sporadic missile attacks.
“Yemen is certainly supported by Iran, but it’s too far away to be able to do much damage to Israel,” he says.
The US has thwarted most of the previous attacks and carried out retaliatory strikes with Israel on Houthi bases.
Could Iran’s global allies step in?
Iran is also part of an informal network of “CRINK” countries, which is an acronym for China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
So far, China has condemned Israel’s attacks on Iran but it has limited its response to supporting a diplomatic solution.
North Korea has also condemned the attacks as a “crime against humanity” without offering Iran further support.
It’s Russia, however, that has stepped in by offering to mediate the conflict.
President Vladimir Putin has denounced the attacks on Iran and has reportedly warned that any US intervention would be a “terrible spiral of escalation”.
“Russia is certainly very close to Iran at the moment and it’s playing a very important role in supplying drones to Russia for the war in Ukraine,” Mr Parmeter says.
“So Russia owes Iran for its drones, but, at the same time, Putin and Netanyahu get on very well personally.”
According to Mr Parmeter, Russia’s offer to mediate is unlikely to “go anywhere” and “it’s just a good way for Putin to present as an international statesman”.
Mr Parmeter says it is also unlikely that other Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan or the United Arab Emirates would support Iran because they are not close and would not want further escalation.
Israel and US ‘extraordinarily close’
As for Israel, it has the militarily and politically powerful United States as a close ally.
“Netanyahu won’t do anything without first clearing it with Trump, he has an extraordinarily close relationship with him,” Mr Parmeter says.
US President Donald Trump has called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and raised the idea that its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, would be an “easy target” if he were to be assassinated.
But the US says it is maintaining a “defensive” position in the Iran–Israel conflict for now, meaning it is only focused on deterring or intercepting attacks on Israel.
Still, Mr Trump has teased that the US “may or may not” strike Iran and would make a decision “within two weeks”.
How Iran’s nuclear site under a mountain could draw US involvement
It is thought bunker-buster bombs — the kind only possessed by the United States — are required to significantly damage Iran’s key Fordow nuclear fuel enrichment plant.
a flat triangle shaped black plane flies high over an airbase
The US currently holds a significant military presence in more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries and on ships throughout the region’s waters, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr Parmeter says Israel would want the US to get involved because it needs the American “bunker-buster” bombs to finish destroying Iran’s nuclear sites.
These bombs are designed to penetrate deep below the surface before exploding, making them ideal for attacking hardened bunkers and tunnels.
In this case, Mr Parmeter says Israel needs them to significantly damage Iran’s Fordow nuclear fuel enrichment plant, built deeply into a mountain.
“The big risk is the United States will get involved in some way, but I don’t see it getting involved with boots on the ground or much more than using their bunker-buster bombs,” he says.
That’s because Mr Trump is facing domestic pressure from within his own Republican base, which is “divided” on whether to get involved in another war, Mr Parmeter says.
Meanwhile, the G7 countries have also expressed their support for the security of Israel, but have urged for “a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza”.
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Inside Iran’s Fordow nuclear bunker experts say only US weapons can destroy
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-21/inside-irans-fordow-nuclear-bunker/105441722
By Jonathan Hair, Alex Palmer and Mark Doman / ABC NEWS Verify and Digital Story Innovations
Deep below a mountain in Iran sits a once-secret uranium enrichment facility which now threatens to drag the United States into the Israel-Iran conflict.
There is one bomb – a so-called “bunker-buster” – which may be able to reach and destroy the facility.
But there is only one country in the world which could drop it.
Aerial imagery shows the facility nestled in a mountain.
It is accessed via tunnels, evidenced by entrances visible from the surface.
The bulk of the nuclear facility is located under an estimated 90 metres of rock.
At its heart is a large hall which houses centrifuges, used to enrich uranium to certain percentages.
As if a mountain was not defence enough against air strikes – there are thought to be blast or debris traps near its entrances.
A low percentage of enrichment – about 3 to 5 per cent – is required for the uranium to be used in civilian settings, like a nuclear power plant.
A high level – generally about 90 per cent – is needed for use in modern atomic weapons.
Fordow’s location means conventional bombs, like those in Israel’s possession, would have little to no effect on the parts of the facility buried deep.
A secret base revealed
In 2009, then-US president Barack Obama stood alongside the leaders of France and the UK, and revealed Iran had been building a “covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years”.
He said a week earlier, Tehran had written to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), mentioning “a new enrichment facility, years after they had started its construction”.
IAEA inspectors were allowed into the facility in late 2009, where they were shown two halls, according to a 2019 report by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).
The think-tank is led by David Albright, a leading American physicist and nuclear weapons expert, who is also a former weapons inspector.
The report said one hall contained what one might expect for the enrichment of uranium for use in nuclear reactors, but the other hall was being stripped and modified at the time.
“These observations contributed to several inspectors, including ones who were experts in gas centrifuges, becoming suspicious that this hall was for the onward enrichment of uranium up to weapon-grade,” the report, authored by Mr Albright and two others, read.
“Of course, Iran denied any such work,” it said.
Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), colloquially known as the Iran deal, Fordow was allowed to operate as a nuclear physics and technology centre, but was banned from uranium enrichment and storing nuclear material at the site for 15 years.
“The US and allied negotiators were not able to convince Iran to shut down this site, even though it has no credible civilian nuclear justification,” the ISIS report said.
In 2018, during his first term, US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Iran deal, reportedly just days after a briefing from the Israeli prime minister on a daring raid in Tehran by Israel’s foreign intelligence service, Mossad.
A raid in the night
The raid on Iran’s “Atomic Archive”, as it was labelled by Israel, has been extensively documented by the New York Times and Washington Post.
The publications describe a clandestine night raid in early 2018 on a nondescript warehouse in Tehran by agents of Mossad.
The agents torched their way into some of the 32 safes contained in the warehouse, after a two-year surveillance operation, stealing and smuggling out of the country tens of thousands of documents, and compact discs — containing memos, videos, and plans, relating to Iran’s past nuclear research.
Source: Institute for the Study of War
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the heist in April 2018 – presenting some of the documents in a televised address, arguing against the Iran deal.
Later, select media outlets were given access to some of the haul by Israeli officials, who decided what they could and couldn’t see.
At the time, Iran said the documents were fraudulent.
“Iran has always been clear that creating indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction is against what we stand for as a country and the notion that Iran would abandon any kind of sensitive information in some random warehouse in Tehran is laughably absurd,” a statement from its UN mission in New York read.
But among the haul, was a picture showing support facilities for the Fordow nuclear facility, then named the Al Ghadir project site.
It also contained designs and diagrams for the underground portion of the project, according to the Institute for Science and International Security.
The ABC’s 3D map of the facility, featured above, is based on these blueprints — which are understood to be the only publicly available layouts of the facility.
The IAEA says Iran stopped implementing all of the commitments it made as part of the Iran deal in February 2021 – including allowing daily access to Fordow, on request, for monitoring.
The watchdog has still been able to verify what’s happening at Fordow at less-regular intervals.
Its latest report, released more than a week ago, said the facility is enriching uranium to 60 per cent — adding changes in its enrichment process had “significantly” increased the rate of production.
“It’s actually easier to go from an enrichment of 60 per cent to 90 per cent, than it is to get to that initial 60 per cent,” said nuclear physicist Kaitlin Cook in The Conversation.
“It’s a fairly trivial last step to go 90 per cent, which is why people were alarmed,” said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in nuclear non-proliferation from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
“Fordow is not the largest enrichment facility, but it is the enrichment facility that we expected Iran to build as part of its nuclear weapons program.
“If your goal is to eliminate the nuclear program, you have to eliminate Fordow,” he said.
Dan Shapiro, who was the US ambassador to Israel under Barack Obama until 2017, told ABC TV’s 7.30, he believes Fordow needs to be destroyed.
“If it survives and continues to be a facility where they can enrich at 60 per cent and when they choose, to sprint to 90 per cent, this campaign will not have achieved its objective,” he said.
“They [Iran] will remain capable and maybe even more motivated to produce a nuclear weapon at any time of their choosing.”
Iran has long denied having a nuclear weapons program.
“Iran declared … quite a few times that … it does not have any nuclear, you know, just program in terms of military aspects,” the Iranian Ambassador to Australia, Ahmad Sadeghi, told the ABC’s David Speers, on Wednesday.
The massive ordnance penetrator
According to experts from the Royal United Services Institute, there is only one conventional weapon thought to be big enough to reach and destroy Fordow.
The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is a behemoth.
It weighs more than 13 tonnes, stands six metres tall, and is specifically designed to “defeat hard and deeply buried targets”, like bunkers and tunnels, according to a fact sheet from a US Department of Defense agency.
It is said to be able reach depths of up to 60 metres, before exploding.
“Multiple GBU-57/B impacts would almost certainly be required to reach the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, with the second bomb impacting inside the hole made by the first,” said Justin Bronk, an airpower specialist at RUSI.
The United States is the only country known to have this kind of bomb – and the only one with the aircraft approved to deliver it, the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.
“While each B-2 can carry two GBU-57/Bs, such an attack would require redundancy since the weapons would have to function and be delivered perfectly to get down into the facility, and explode at the right depth to cause critical damage,” Professor Bronk told ABC NEWS Verify.
Another bombing aircraft, the B-52, has dropped the bombs during testing.
B-2 bombers operate out of a US Air Force base in Missouri.
But the uniquely shaped aircraft have, as recently as April, been seen at an air base on the island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean.
That same month, US media reported the B-2s were being stationed there in a display of power to countries like Iran.
Whether they take off from the US, or the Indian Ocean, the stealth bombers’ range limitations mean they might need to refuel while in the air on any mission to Iran.
According to Reuters, AirNav systems, a flight tracking website, said more than 31 US Air Force refuelling aircraft – primarily KC-135s and KC-46s – left the United States on Sunday.
It said the flights had landed in Europe.
The decision to bomb, or not, will ultimately be decided by the US commander in chief, Donald Trump.
“I may do it. I may not do it,” he said on Wednesday.
The White House said on Friday that Trump would decide on whether to intervene in the conflict, or not, within two weeks.
If a bombing raid is given the green light by the US president – there is no guarantee it will work.
But in a 2024 podcast, David Albright said he believed Fordow was “more vulnerable” than people think.
“We have the building designs, it’s in the nuclear archive,” he told Arms Control Poseur
“Israel has even more of those designs, they know exactly how the tunnels go, where they start, how they zig and zag, where the ventilation system is, the power supplies.
“You don’t have to bring down the roof of the enrichment hall to put that facility out of operation for a long time,” he said.
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Donald Trump has delayed making a decision on attacking Iran. What’s his strategy?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-20/donald-trump-iran-israel-decision-explainer/105440968
By Greg Jennett
Everyone will take their pick trying to determine why Donald Trump has bought himself time to make the most consequential decision a US president can make — whether to plunge his forces into another foreign conflict of unknown risk and uncertain duration.
As ever with Trump pronouncements, there’s a little something in this for everyone.
Iran-Israel conflict live updates: Trump to decide ‘within the next two weeks’ whether US will attack Iran
“Within the next two weeks” is a timeline vague enough to simultaneously exasperate the Netanyahu government, confound the Iranian leadership, delight nervous allies and bewilder financial markets.
On the domestic front, it could prolong the civil skirmish among Republican MAGA (Make America Great Again) forces over whether armed conflict passes as a form of American “greatness” or not these days.
Why the US president settled on a timeline of an ill-defined decision-making period of anywhere between one and 14 days is anyone’s guess.
Make no mistake, leaders and officials in almost every government, not to mention military and foreign policy analysts the world over, are feverishly making their best guesses right now.
So here are a few entries to guide this global guessing game.
Does a decision mean a declaration?
Trump is taking strategic and tactical ambiguity to a new level and has been for days.
Iran’s impotent ‘Axis of Resistance’
Photo shows The orange glow of fire highlights dark clouds of smoke rising behind blocks of flats and other multistorey buildings.The orange glow of fire highlights dark clouds of smoke rising behind blocks of flats and other multistorey buildings.
Iran has built a network of allies around the Middle East. But none of those proxies nor its most powerful backers, China and Russia, have intervened since Israel began bombing Tehran.
Earlier this week on the South Lawn of the White House, we probably got the most revealing insight into his mindset when asked by reporters about direct US military involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict.
“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,”
the president cryptically replied.
In any event, he scoffed at publicly telegraphing any decision he may make on bombing missions in Iran so that the world’s media could “be there and watch”.
The obvious conclusion is that advance notice would not be given.
This, at least, would be consistent with the approach taken by most commanders in chief — think George W. Bush in Iraq, Obama on killing Osama bin Laden, or more recently, Biden’s authorised strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Barack Obama announces the death of Osama bin Laden.
Barack Obama only announced news of the successful operation to find Osama bin Laden many hours after the militant was killed. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
Taking the current president at his word, we’re not likely to know until after US forces have fired any shots.
If they never do, we may be left to deduce ourselves whether this was the result of an active decision Trump took, or a passive one that passed with the moment into the mists of time.
Why two weeks?
The White House has offered very limited reasoning on the significance of the time allocated for extra presidential musing.
The clearest explanation for settling on it was offered was by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who’s suggested two weeks is the difference between an latent nuclear weapon program and an active one.
Donald Trump says he will decide on US action in the Iran-Israel conflict within two weeks.
“Iran has all that it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon. All they need is a decision from the supreme leader to do that,” she said.
“And it would take a couple of weeks to complete the production of that weapon, which would of course pose an existential threat, not just to Israel, but to the United States, and to the entire world.”
What to do with time bought?
A US deferral carries with it no apparent obligations on Israel or Iran to cease their missile assaults on one other.
It does allow time for diplomacy to do its work.
According to the Reuters news agency, that work’s been quietly going on in the background throughout the week since Israel launched Operation Rising Lion with its attacks on Iran.
Quoting diplomatic sources, Reuters has reported that Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi”have spoken several times by phone” during the week.
Separately, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hitting the phones to counterparts from Canberra to Paris, trying to build consensus around a campaign of maximum pressure on the Iranians.
Through another channel, the so-called “E3” group of European foreign ministers from Germany, France and the UK are holding their own in-person talks with Araghchi in Geneva to explore a possible nuclear deal.
Crucially, any extra time available also allows the Pentagon to ready its plans, forces, weapons, ships, planes and intelligence for potential strikes.
Despite his ambiguity, those strikes deliberately and firmly remain as options underpinning the US president’s prolonged timeline.
More time brings more uncertainty
Israel’s Operation Rising Lion, together with Tehran’s ferocious missile response, has already proved costly in lives, injuries and damage inflicted in both countries, but ripples into the broader global economy have so far been minimised.
Oil prices are marginally up by about 3 per cent and shipments are still getting through the Strait of Hormuz, regardless of Iranian threats to blockade it if necessary.
Map showing shipping corridor in Strait of Hormuz
As they’ve proven before, ongoing uncertainty about military escalation doesn’t mean financial markets will remain calm or act rationally in an extended “holding pattern”.
The White House seems to be alert to the brittleness of oil pricing, with Leavitt giving an assurance that Trump is “paying attention and monitoring that”.
It’s prudent to consider oil price sensitivities because it’s via the fuel tank and the family budget that many Americans will decide on the merit or folly of another foreign military venture.
What are MAGA folk saying?
The possibility of direct US miliary involvement is tearing at the seams of the MAGA movement which has twice propelled Trump to office on a foreign policy of war avoidance.
Tucker Carlson (right) confronts Ted Cruz about Iran and Israel during a heated interview.
“America First” is the guiding principle behind MAGA’s approach to all things defence and security related.
The idea that after only five months in the White House their president might see greatness in the deployment of a “bunker-busting” bomb half a world away in the interests of what they call “neo-con warmongers” is staggeringly incomprehensible to keepers of the flame, like commentator Tucker Carlson and Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
They’re pitched against more hawkish pro-Israeli Republican figures including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Texas senator Ted Cruz.
Perhaps unintentionally, Cruz exposed the size of the rift within the MAGA clan in a combative on-camera interview with Carlson, revealing that for all his swagger, the Texan knew dangerously little about the foe he would have bombed into nuclear submission — unable to place any figure on simple facts including Iran’s population.
The internal MAGA fight might cause Trump some political discomfort at home, but he’s just guaranteed the combatants can slug it out for a couple more weeks, or longer, until he makes a final decision.
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Pro-Palestinian activists damage planes at UK military base
The activists broke into the military base during the night. (Reuters)
In short:
Pro-Palestinian activists have damaged two Royal Air Force planes after breaking into Brize Norton Base in Oxfordshire.
The British government said two planes were being checked for damage and that the vandalism had not stopped any planned aircraft movements or operations.
What’s next?
The UK defence minister has ordered an investigation and a review of wider security at the country’s military bases.
Pro-Palestinian activists broke into a Royal Air Force base in central England, damaging and spraying red paint over two planes used for refuelling and transport.
Palestine Action said two members had entered the Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire on Friday, local time, putting paint into the engines of the Voyager aircraft and further damaging them with crowbars.
Aerial footage showed red paint marks on the aircraft and police officers nearby.
“Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US/Israeli fighter jets,” the group said in a statement, posting a video of the incident on X.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence confirmed the incident, and said it “strongly condemns this vandalism of Royal Air Force assets”.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the vandalism “disgraceful” in a post on X.
The group’s action was in protest of British military assistance to Israel. (Reuters: Palestine Action/Handout)
The government said two planes were being checked for damage and that the vandalism had not stopped any planned aircraft movements or operations.
“A full security review is underway at Brize Norton,” Mr Starmer’s office said.
“We are reviewing security across the whole defence estate.”
British defence minister John Healey ordered an investigation and a review of wider security at the country’s military bases.
“The vandalism of RAF planes is totally unacceptable,” Mr Healey said on X.
“I am really disturbed that this happened and have ordered an investigation and a review of wider security at our bases.”
Palestine Action is among groups that have regularly targeted defence firms and other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza.
The group said it had also sprayed paint on the runway and left a Palestine flag there.
The Gaza war was triggered when Hamas-led Palestinian militants attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli allies.
Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, displaced almost all of the territory’s residents and caused a severe hunger crisis.
The assault has led to accusations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies.
Reuters
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How the innocuous pager set in motion a potentially catastrophic war
A Mossad plot is just one of a series of events that have weakened Iran’s proxies, leaving it dangerously exposed.
By Nick O’Malley
June 21, 2025
Future historians might one day marvel at how a device as innocuous as a pager came to play such a significant role in the destabilisation of the Middle East, and the threat of a potentially catastrophic war radiating across the region.
On September 17, Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, issued an electronic instruction to thousands of pagers it had fed into the hands of unwitting members of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia that had embedded itself in Lebanon, posing a constant threat to Israel from its northern border.
Two waves of explosions followed, as tiny and powerful charges in the devices detonated.
Alongside the civilians killed and injured, the attack removed 1500 Hezbollah fighters from combat, many of them maimed or blinded, Reuters later reported, citing a Hezbollah source. But more significantly than that, its terrible success emboldened Israel.
Israeli war planners had for years been concerned that an all-out confrontation with the powerful militia could provoke a devastating barrage of missiles. Hezbollah was known to have stockpiled thousands of the weapons, supplied by Iran. But with the militia in disarray, its communications obliterated, the threat was diminished.
The scene for the current crisis was set.
Days after what became known as Operation Grim Beeper, Israeli warplanes dropped bunker-buster bombs on what it described as Hezbollah’s headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut during a leadership meeting, killing 195 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Among them was Hassan Nasrallah, the Shiite cleric who had led the group since 1992.
This signalled the grim dynamics of the region’s geopolitics had shifted.
For decades, Iran has advocated for the destruction of Israel, and for decades it propped up proxies to prosecute its conflict, channelling funds not only to Hezbollah in Lebanon, but to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza. Israel and Iran fought by proxy in Yemen, where Iran supported the Houthis, and in the Syrian civil war, where Iran backed the Assad regime.
But in recent years, Iran’s network of proxies has been battered, leaving it temptingly vulnerable. Israel has largely annihilated Hamas in the vicious war in Gaza unleashed by the group’s October 7 terrorist attacks in 2023. The Assad regime in Syria fell a year later. The Houthis have been diminished by an international bombing campaign against them, led by the US in response to that group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. All the while Israel has been building its ties with Arab states opposed to Iran’s regional ambitions under the so-called Abraham Accords.
The nuclear deal
In July 2015, after two years of negotiations, Iran and the five permanent members of the UN security council, plus Germany and the EU, signed what was formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and informally as the Iran nuclear deal.
Under the deal, Iran would agree to restrictions on its development of nuclear technologies and uranium enrichment program – and to international inspections of its nuclear facilities – in return for relief from crippling sanctions. Then-US president Barack Obama considered the deal to be a crowning achievement of his administration, but it was bitterly opposed Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the powerful Israel lobby in the US, which had become increasingly aligned with the US political right.
“It blocks every possible pathway Iran could use to build a nuclear bomb while ensuring – through a comprehensive, intrusive and unprecedented verification and transparency regime – that Iran’s nuclear program remains exclusively peaceful moving forward,” the Obama White House said at the time.
In his campaign against the deal, Netanyahu visited the US Capitol without a formal invitation from Obama, telling Congress that the deal would “not prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, it would all but guarantee Iran gets nuclear weapons – lots of them”.
The deal’s opponents believed that it facilitated the Iranian pretence that its nuclear program was civilian in intent, and noted that its sunset clauses would allow Iran to resume various parts of its nuclear program within 10 to 16 years.
Either way, when Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017, he set about unravelling the Obama legacy. The Iran deal was one of his key targets. He dumped it 2018, describing it as a “horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made”.
It was at this point, says Amin Saikal, emeritus professor of Middle Eastern studies at the Australian National University, that the current crisis became inevitable. The deal contained a “snap back” clause, nullifying the deal should one side break its terms.
At the time, the UN’s watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was no evidence that Iran was in contravention of the deal.
But with the US out, Iran again ramped up its nuclear program. Israel, having diminished Iran’s proxies around the region, prepared for strikes on Iran, which had always been Netanyahu’s key target.
In October last year, Iran lobbed a volley of missiles into Israel, which responded with a wave of airstrikes later that month. More than 100 Israeli aircraft attacked, targeting military sites including missile production facilities, a drone factory, and most notably, destroying much of Iran’s Russian-supplied air defence system. All Israeli aircraft returned safely to their bases.
Earlier this month, on June 11, the US pulled personnel out of the Middle East, which Trump said, “could be a dangerous place”. The following day, the IAEA board declared Iran was in breach of its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. On June 13, the Israel Defence Forces issued a statement saying it had intelligence that Iran was nearing “the point of no return” in its race towards a nuclear weapon. “The regime is producing thousands of kilograms of enriched uranium, alongside decentralised and fortified enrichment compounds, in underground, fortified sites. This program has accelerated significantly in recent months, bringing the regime significantly closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“The Iranian regime has been working for decades to obtain a nuclear weapon. The world has attempted every possible diplomatic path to stop it, but the regime has refused to stop. The State of Israel has been left with no choice.”
First strikes
Israel’s first strikes hit Iran’s top military leadership and nuclear facilities on June 12, with Iranian media confirming the attacks killed Iranian Armed Forces General Staff Chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Major General Hossein Salami, Khatam-al-Anbiya Central Headquarters Commander Gholam Ali Rashid, nuclear scientist and former head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran Fereydoon Abbasi, and physicist and president of the Islamic Azad University Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a non-partisan US think tank.
Since then, Israel has continued its attacks, targeting key personnel as well as dozens of military and nuclear sites. Iran has responded with missile and drone attacks on Israel. Though hundreds of its missiles have been intercepted and destroyed, many have penetrated the nation’s Iron Dome air defence system. Israeli air attacks have killed 639 people in Iran, said the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Israel has said at least 24 Israeli civilians have died in Iranian missile attacks. Reuters could not independently verify the death toll from either side.
A key site Israel has been unable to destroy is the Fordow uranium enrichment facility buried deep beneath a mountain 30 kilometres north of the city of Quom, and this brings us back to the role of the US.
So heavily hardened is Fordow that Israel lacks the capacity to destroy it, and most analyses of the facility suggest that only the US has the technology to do so. Multiple strikes on the facility by US B2 bombers carrying so-called bunker-buster bombs – 13.6 tonne “Massive Ordnance Penetrators” – would be required, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
The madman theory
To the extent that Donald Trump has a foreign policy doctrine, he might best be described as an adherent to the madman theory advanced by president Richard Nixon, who believed that if he fostered a reputation for being irrational and volatile, threats that might otherwise be viewed as untenable might carry more weight.
Trump is leaning in to Nixon’s lessons. When asked by The Wall Street Journal last year if he would use military force to respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, Trump said he wouldn’t have to because Chinese leader Xi Jinping “respects me and he knows I’m f—ing crazy”.
Trump’s response to the current conflict has been, at best, unpredictable. In April, he recommenced negotiations with Iran, demanding it agree to end all uranium enrichment and destroy its stockpile of 400 kilograms of enriched uranium at a 60 per cent purity level. Iran refused, while Israel opposed the talks being held at all. According to Saikal of the ANU, the talks failed because the US kept raising the bar.
In keeping with the isolationist views of his MAGA movement, Trump spent the early months of his second term seeking to restrain Netanyahu, reversing course after his abrupt departure from the G7 talks earlier this week.
Discussing engaging in strikes on Iran, he told reporters at the White House on Wednesday, “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do”.
On social media that day, he declared, “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now … Our patience is wearing thin.”
Three minutes later, he posted, “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
On Thursday, Trump announced he would give himself two weeks to decide.
“That could be cover for a decision to strike, immediately,” James G. Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and the former supreme US commander in Europe, said on CNN. “Maybe this is a very clever ruse to lull the Iranians into a sense of complacency.”
Saikal believes Trump is likely to deploy a US bomber to hit Fordow, though he bases this on his years of analysis of the region rather than any specific information. He fears the implications.
Even with its weakened network of proxies, Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a quarter of the world’s oil and gas supply travels. He notes that even in its weakened state, Iran maintains close ties with China and Russia.
And while Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remains an unpopular autocrat, leading a nation weakened by years of sanctions, the antibody response of an outside attack could firm his base, Saikal believes.
So far, analysts have been surprised by how quickly Israel was able to dominate Iranian skies, suggesting that not only did earlier strikes weaken Iran’s defence, but that the regime has been white-anted by corruption and patronage.
As sanctions crippled civilian life in Iran over recent years, members of the Revolutionary Guard (which was founded after the revolution to defend the Islamic Republic from internal and external threats) profited from blackmarket oil sales and the development of monopolies over consumer goods, says Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert. The Australian specialist in Middle Eastern political science, now at Macquarie University, was imprisoned by the regime in an act of hostage diplomacy in 2018.
“I was arrested by the intelligence branch of the IRGC, and I spent a lot of time, unfortunately, talking to them and getting to know them over several years. And clearly, many of them are incompetent. They’re in their roles because of ideological affinity, and who their family members are, not because of competence or expertise.”
It may well be that the US hopes to eradicate Iran’s nuclear program while allowing the regime to survive, but Netanyahu appears to determined to see it fall. Asked on Friday morning if he considered Khamenei a “dead man”, Netanyahu ducked the question.
It’s been one week since Israel first struck Iran. Here’s what we know
“Every option remains open, though I would rather not discuss such matters publicly and allow our actions to communicate our intentions,” he said.
Moore-Gilbert believes the Revolutionary Guard, rather than some unnamed progressive movement, is the likely successor should the regime be toppled. No alternative exists.
Should that happen, Israel might not like what emerges. “It is a hardline fundamentalist Islamist organisation with a kind of worldview that believes in exporting the ideology of the Iranian Revolution, particularly to other parts of the Shia Islamic world, but more broadly as well.
“It’s virulently antisemitic and anti-American, anti-Western. It is conspiratorial and paranoid.”
Saikal believes that whatever form of Iranian leadership emerges from the current crisis will be even more determined to secure nuclear weapons. It will, after all, have seen what happens without them.
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A US attack on Iran would show the limits of China’s power
By David Pierson, Keith Bradsher and Berry Wang
June 21, 2025 — 7.40am
Hong Kong/Beijing: When China helped negotiate a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023, it hailed the breakthrough as a victory for Chinese diplomacy and a sign that the United States’ chief geopolitical rival had emerged as a major power broker in the Middle East.
But as US President Donald Trump openly ponders deploying US forces to join Israel in attacking Iran, the limits of China’s clout in the region are coming into focus.
China has much to lose from a runaway conflict. Half of the country’s oil imports move in tankers through the Strait of Hormuz on Iran’s southern coast. And Beijing has long counted on Tehran, its closest partner in the region, to push back against American influence.
As Donald Trump openly ponders deploying US forces to join Israel in attacking Iran, the limits of Xi Jinping’s clout in the region are coming into focus.
As Donald Trump openly ponders deploying US forces to join Israel in attacking Iran, the limits of Xi Jinping’s clout in the region are coming into focus.Credit:
But despite those strategic interests, China, which has little sway over the Trump administration, is unlikely to come to Iran’s defence militarily, especially if the United States gets involved.
“The reality is they don’t actually have the capability to insert Chinese forces to defend Iran’s installations,” said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “What they would prefer to do is very quietly provide some material support, some rhetorical support and maybe some humanitarian aid.”
Israel-Iran conflict LIVE updates: Speculation continues to grow over US involvement; Iranian Foreign Minister says US ‘partner to Israeli crime’
Though China favours stability in the Middle East, it could also gain if the United States gets roped into a prolonged war there, which might divert US troops, ships and other military resources away from Asia.
Whether Trump decides to strike Iran will offer lessons for Beijing that could shape its own geopolitical strategy. China will be trying to understand Trump’s approach to foreign policy and his willingness to use force. The outcome could influence Beijing’s assessment of whether the United States would come to the defence of Taiwan, the self-governed island that Beijing claims, should China decide to invade it.
Despite China’s close relationship with Iran, its rhetoric about the current conflict has been strikingly measured at the highest levels. After its top leader, Xi Jinping, called for a ceasefire during a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, a summary of the call released by the Chinese government did not overtly criticise Israel for violating Iran’s sovereignty.
Xi also refrained from directly urging the United States not to attack Iran, saying only that the “international community, especially major powers that have a special influence on the parties to the conflict, should make efforts to promote the cooling of the situation, rather than the opposite”.
When China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, called his counterpart in Israel, he expressed Beijing’s opposition to Israel’s attacks, according to the Chinese summary of the call. But he stopped short of saying that China “condemns” them, as he had in a call with Iran.
Trump weighing up US involvement in Middle East
US President Donald Trump is weighing up US military involvement in the Middle East, calling for Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’, and warning his patience is wearing thin.
In another call, with the foreign minister of Oman, Wang said that “we cannot sit idly by and watch the regional situation slide into an unknown abyss”, according to a Chinese government statement. But it is unclear what, if any, specific efforts China has made to find a diplomatic solution. In any case, Israel would likely be sceptical of China’s neutrality as a mediator because of its alignment with Iran and engagement with Hamas, the Palestinian ally of Iran that attacked Israel in October 2023.
China’s efforts, at least in public, have been focused on evacuating more than 1000 of its citizens from Israel and Iran.
“Beijing is scrambling to keep up with the rapid pace of events and is prioritising looking after Chinese citizens and assets in the region rather than any sort of broader diplomatic initiative,” said Julian Gewirtz, who was a senior China policy official at the White House and the State Department during the Biden administration.
Discussions of the conflict on China’s heavily censored online forums have largely centred on the poor performance of Iran’s military and security apparatus, though some participants have noted the limits of China’s support for Iran.
Zhu Zhaoyi, a Middle East expert at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said in a post that China could not provide Iran with “unconditional protection” and confront the United States and Israel militarily. He said Beijing could only exert pressure through the United Nations Security Council, of which China is a permanent member.
“The turmoil in the Middle East is both a challenge and a test for China,” Zhu wrote.
China’s tempered response resembles that of its like-minded partner, Russia, which has done little more than issue statements of support for Iran, despite having received badly needed military aid from Tehran for its war in Ukraine. Both Beijing and Moscow were also seen as bystanders last year when their shared partner, the Assad regime, was overthrown in Syria.
Their relative absence raises questions about the cohesiveness of what some in Washington have called the “Axis of Upheaval” – the quartet of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which have drawn closer diplomatically and militarily around a common opposition to the US-dominated world order.
Of the four nations, only China is deeply embedded in the global economy, which means it has much to lose from turmoil in the Middle East. It buys virtually all of Iran’s exported oil, at a discount, using clandestine tanker fleets to evade US sanctions. And its ships depend on safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz to transport additional oil from Gulf states.
Higher energy prices would present another major headache for Beijing, which is trying to turn its sluggish economy around.
Besides energy, Iran provides China with a crucial foothold in the Middle East for advancing its interests and countering the United States, which has tens of thousands of troops across the region. Beijing has cultivated closer ties with Gulf states for the same reasons.
Chinese analysts often argue that Beijing is an attractive mediator in the Middle East because it will not lecture other countries about issues such as human rights. “It’s the only major power trusted by rival factions in the region, capable of achieving breakthroughs where the US cannot,” said Wen Jing, a Middle East expert at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
But some Western analysts say China played only a small role in the detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, towards the end of those negotiations. Washington has also been frustrated by Beijing’s reluctance to put pressure on Iran to stop Houthi rebels from attacking ships off the coast of Yemen, except in cases involving Chinese vessels.
That unwillingness to apply pressure on its partners undercuts China’s standing in the Middle East, said Barbara Leaf, a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department who is now a senior adviser at Arnold and Porter, a Washington-based law firm.
“Nobody is saying, ‘We better call up Beijing and see what they can do here’, because Beijing has played a purely commercial and economic role,” Leaf said, describing the attitudes of Middle Eastern officials with whom she has spoken over the years.
“They just sort of take it as a given that China is going to look out for China,” she said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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Letters SMH
West turning a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear arms
Amin Saikal makes a compelling case of hypocrisy by Israel (“Hypocrisy of Israel’s nuclear arsenal”, June 20). Israel’s actions, of course, are its own; but can someone please explain to me why its possession of a nuclear arsenal is accepted without demur by other Western powers, yet any suggestion that Iran do likewise is met with doomsday outrage? And if just the possibility of Iran having a nuclear capability can provoke the pre-emptive attack and the sabre-rattling that’s going on at the moment by Israel and the US, why didn’t the same shrill response come from them and the rest of the big boys’ club when North Korea, India and Pakistan similarly armed themselves? There’s far more hypocrisy going around than just Israel’s.
Adrian Connelly, Springwood
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Amin Saikal, there is much to discuss about the Middle East
Surely there is a PhD in explaining why lies and liars prosper so well in Western politics. And yes, liars are elsewhere, but we always claim to be better. We went to war in Iraq with no evidence of weapons of mass destruction and there were none. Now we are told that Iran was about to produce atomic weapons and yet the UN advisers say it’s not true. Israel has 91 nuclear weapons, according to most experts, which it is not supposed to have. The nose of the man in the White House continues to grow by the minute.
Philip Dowle, Wickham
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Iran hasn’t invaded a country in 250 years, but we’re told it’s so aggressive and irrational that it “can’t have a nuclear weapon” and offensive military action is necessary to stop this.
Norman Broomhall, Port Macquarie
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I am so afraid, I don’t want to even watch the current news bulletins. What a terrifyingly parlous state the world is in, with its leaders pathetically sitting on their hands, waiting for a megalomaniac to make his mind up on whether to bomb the Iranian nuclear facility in Fordow. Worse, this huge decision he promises will be last minute, with no clear indication it will achieve the desired successful outcome. It’s more likely to be the harbinger for a third world war. Yet he says he is more loved than ever by his adoring followers.
Elizabeth Kroon, Randwick
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Israel is one of the few Middle Eastern countries where gay, lesbian, trans, and other queer people are safe, from imprisonment, torture, and/or beheading.
Howard Hutchins, Wantirna (Vic)
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While the world has been focused on Iran, Israel continues its killing of Palestinians in Gaza. Over 400 have been killed since aid deliveries returned at the end of May (“Gaza carnage goes on as missiles fly”, June 20). Many deaths have occurred while people have been queuing for aid. Deaths will continue to mount if more aid is not forthcoming. Desperate, starving people will risk death through the interception of aid trucks. More aid is required through reputable aid organisations, not the US and Israel-backed GHF. How can we continue to deny that genocide is taking place in Gaza, when it is clear that Israel is focused on destroying Palestinians either via bombs and gunfire or through starvation? Wake up, world.
Robyn Thomas, Wahroonga
~~~
While Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel refused to discuss proof of Iran’s nuclear weapon capability on ABC TV on Thursday night, far more shocking was her denial that any starvation problem exists in Gaza. The Israeli government clearly lives on another planet.
Alynn Pratt, Grenfell
~~~
In an interview on the ABC, the Israeli deputy foreign minister said, while rolling her eyes, there was no starvation or famine in Gaza. How can this government be trusted when it comes to the truth? Talk about alternative facts.
Kerrie Wehbe, Blacktown
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Letters The Age
For all its faults, Israel has been a scapegoat
Patrick Kingsley’s article, (“Israel has shifted Middle East dial”, 20/6), is refreshingly incisive in that it effectively challenges the narrative that Israel has been an imperialistic tormentor of Arab nations.
As he points out, over a period of 20 years the region’s only democratic state has, relative to its potent military strength, acted with restraint, its containment policy having allowed Hamas in 2006 to control the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah to operate in southern Lebanon and Iran’s dreadful mullah-led regime in concert with the malign Revolutionary Corps to exist relatively unhindered.
Meanwhile, Arab nations characterised by a mix of quasi-feudal, oil-rich and misogynist potentates have been viewed as lacking in agency; when, in reality, they have oppressed their populations terribly.
In the case of Iran, a nation with a proud Persian history, the Western world has largely ignored the terrible consequences of its Islamist rulers’ brutal oppression of a sophisticated populace since the late 1970s. Trump’s dithering over whether to act decisively against a regime that has through its proxies been the scourge of the Middle East for too long says it all.
Israel, for all of its faults, has for too long been a convenient scapegoat.
Jon McMillan, Mt Eliza
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Trump has his finger on the trigger
Samuel Colt, the American who made the mass production of guns viable, had a famous quote: ″God made man, Colt makes them equal″. US President Donald Trump with his statements appears to be channelling this notion with his threats of aggression towards Iran.
History indicates that negotiating with a gun held to your head is a pointless exercise, while popular wisdom indicates that you should never point a gun at someone unless you are prepared to shoot.
Therefore, the person with the gun to their head should always assume the gun isn’t loaded. The gun holder has only two options – either pull the trigger or capitulate. Is Trump willing to pull the trigger and plunge America and the Middle East into chaos? The rest of the world should hope not.
Peter Roche, Carlton
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Australian troops must be kept out of any conflict
The late Tom Uren was a mentor to our current prime minister. Uren was a pacifist who decried the call to arms to pointless conflicts. I sincerely hope that his influence on Anthony Albanese lingers in his thinking to prevent the possibility of sending our young people to the Middle East at the behest of the US.
Peter Taylor, Midway Point, Tas
~~~
Does Iran have weapons or not?
Benjamin Netanyahu has been saying – since 2012 – that Iran is only weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon.
I’m not sure which timetable he’s checking but surely they would have had several by now? And have possibly used them? Doesn’t this bring one to the conclusion that maybe they don’t?
David Jeffery, East Geelong
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Ask Australian-Iranians
Amin Saikal has written that there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear bomb (Opinion, ″Few believe Iran has nuclear weapons. We can’t afford to repeat the Iraq War lie″, 19/6).
However, there is plenty of evidence that it has enriched uranium well above the level required for peaceful purposes. Also, it has given many millions of dollars of weapons to its proxy militias in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. These militias could then use it to make ″dirty″ radioactive bombs.
Saikal seems to be taking the line that this is like the war in Iraq, for those non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
This could actually be read as a call for the left in the West to support Iran, a totalitarian regime that has not even bothered to provide its citizens with bomb shelters. Iran has been calling for ″Death to America!″ and ″Death to Israel!″ from its inception.
There are plenty of Iranians now in Australia who have good reasons to fear this regime. Ask them what they think.
Pia Brous, Armadale
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Lack of moral authority
In his opinion piece condemning Israel’s strikes on Iran’s weapons-making capabilities, Amin Saikal (20/6) – as a counterpoint to US support for Israel – cites “Russia and China [who] have condemned Israel for starting the war (with Iran)“, as supposedly credible moral authorities. Is he serious?
These are two brutal regimes: One actively waging an unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine, the other engaged in the systemic oppression of Uyghurs and Tibetans. Invoking them to moralise on Israel’s actions against Iran – a regime that funds and arms terrorist proxies across the Middle East, and openly professes its ambitions to annihilate Israel – is astonishing.
That Saikal relies on the support of such regimessays more about the weakness of his argument than it does about Israel’s right to defend itself against a brutal dictatorship hell-bent on its destruction.
Jonathan Bradley Slade, Toorak
~~~
Deal making
How about this deal? Trump tells Israel to stop bombing and Iran to stop retaliating for two weeks so Iran can come to the table whilst not under attack. If Israel doesn’t stop, then the US doesn’t help Israel and it is on its own. If Iran doesn’t stop or doesn’t come to the table then the US will join in the war.
Surely, this gives both parties something to think about and is not so one-sided?
Aren’t good deals about negotiation, give and take with a win/win for both parties, not win/lose.
Mira Antonioum, Brighton
~~~
Mother of all hypocrites
Russian dictator and indicted war criminal Putin claims that Israel’s pre-emptive strike on Iran is “illegal” and a breach of international law. What about his illegal and criminal invasion of Ukraine? His soldiers in Ukraine committed atrocities and war crimes as well. He has even stated that Ukraine has no right to exist as a nation, which is just parrotting the nonsense by Iran against the existence of Israel, and so this apparently gives him the right to invade Ukraine.
Ukrainians have resisted him for over three years. In the last couple of days he also threatened Israel if it attacks and damages the nuclear facilities in Iran claiming that this may also lead to a “nuclear catastrophe”. He’s obviously worried because those nuclear materials, provided and installed in Iran, have probably been provided by Russia.
Putin has threatened many times to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine and against European countries who have been helping Ukraine defend itself. Like his UN Ambassador, they are the “mother of all” hypocrites.
Coke Tomyn, Camberwell
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Israel-Iran war reveals rising age of unconventional conflict
David Kilcullen
As Israel and Iran slide deeper into war, Russia-Ukraine negotiations appear stalled, and the outlines of a broader US-Iran-Russia-China confrontation take shape, it’s worth pausing to consider a remarkable series of recent operations we might tentatively call “unconventional strategic strikes”.
Most recently – with many details still emerging – last week Israeli special operators and intelligence teams conducted a deep-penetration strike against Iran, just hours (or in some cases minutes) before Israeli conventional air attacks struck the country.
The preliminary strikes for Operation Rising Lion seem to have been months or years in the preparation. Israel’s foreign intelligence service, Mossad, allegedly established a covert drone base within Iran, smuggling short-range precision missiles, weapon-carrying vehicles and drones into the country and infiltrating a team of special operators close to Tehran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed a military operation against Iran called ‘Rising Lion’ had begun and could…
The goal of the operation, launched in the early hours of June 13, was to disable Iran’s air defences and disrupt command-and-control by targeting military and political decision-makers, headquarters and command facilities using shoulder-fired missiles and drones. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was a particular target, along with Iran’s military forces. Iranian government sources blamed Israel for several ground assaults and five car bombings across Tehran, which Israel has denied. Mossad allegedly also carried out several covert sabotage operations deep inside Iran against air defence systems and long-range missiles.
As soon as the special operations strikes were completed, Israeli Air Force aircraft began launching conventional airstrikes on targets across Iran, including nuclear facilities, headquarters, oil and gas centres, and government buildings. Several very senior Iranian officers – including the head of the IRGC’s Quds Force, Hossein Salami; the army’s chief of staff, Mohammad Bagheri; senior intelligence and operations chiefs; the head of the IRGC’s intelligence branch, Mohammad Kazemi, and his deputy Hassan Mohaqeq; and, allegedly, the entire senior leadership of the IRGC Aerospace Force – have been killed. Nuclear, military and civilian facilities have been damaged in the airstrikes that followed the unconventional strike, and several Iranian nuclear weapons scientists have been killed.
It is obviously too early to tell the ultimate effect of the overall operation, which is ongoing. But in terms of immediate tactical effect, Mossad’s infiltration of special operators, precision weapons and drones into Iran appears to have taken down Iran’s air defences around key targets minutes or seconds before the first Israeli F-35 aircraft arrived overhead, implying tight operational co-ordination. Israel’s ability to operate with relative impunity over Iranian airspace, including over Tehran in daylight, with Iran claiming to have shot down only three Israeli F-35s, suggests the special operation was successful in achieving its goal.
Operation Rising Lion was just one of three major special operations across the past nine months that we could consider examples of the emerging technique of unconventional strategic strike. The other two were Israel’s September 2024 electronic device attack on Hezbollah, and Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web at the start of June, when drones disabled bombers thousands of kilometres inside Russia.
Each strike was different, but they shared several common features. Each had a strategic (that is, national level rather than solely battlefield) purpose, employed unconventional means and methods, was directed at the highest level, incurred significant political risk, involved long-term clandestine and covert operations, was conducted by a mix of intelligence and special operations personnel, and successfully set conditions for follow-on action.
September 2024, Lebanon, electronic device attacks
Across two days in mid-September 2024, thousands of Hezbollah pagers and hundreds of handheld radios in Lebanon simultaneously exploded. The explosions killed 42 people, allegedly wounded 4000 civilians and put at least 1500 Hezbollah operatives out of action due to injuries. The attack took place in two waves, the first targeting pagers while the second, the next day, hit handheld radios.
It later emerged that Mossad had placed tiny 3g charges of the powerful explosive PETN into the devices’ rechargeable battery packs and infiltrated them into Hezbollah’s procurement system, selling up to 15,000 pagers to the group while using at least three front companies to obscure its involvement. Mossad spent seven months pre-positioning (or “staging”) the explosive-laced devices across Lebanon. Israel allegedly had been planting such explosive-laced communication devices across Lebanon since at least 2015 but used them only to monitor Hezbollah rather than for lethal attacks.
Barrister and UKLFI Charitable Trust Legal Director Natasha Hausdorff says exploding pager devices had targeted Hezbollah…
However, after the Gaza war began in October 2023, a series of Israeli missile strikes convinced Hezbollah leaders it was no longer safe to use smartphones and Hassan Nasrallah, the organisation’s chief, ordered the switch to pagers.
Israeli intelligence, through commercial front companies created for the purpose, offered explosive-laced pagers and walkie-talkies for sale at an attractive price, designing them to meet Hezbollah’s stated requirement for pagers with long-endurance rechargeable batteries. Mossad made fake marketing videos to help close the sale.
Allegedly manufactured by Mossad in its own workshops, the pagers mimicked an advanced Taiwanese design, were sold through a trading company based in Budapest and were imported into Lebanon via Turkey. The amount of explosive was small enough and sufficiently integrated into the devices’ battery packs to be undetectable on airport security scanners.
Then, in September, the doctored electronic devices simultaneously exploded. After emitting a beeping sound and showing an error message, they detonated when the user pressed a button to clear the error, ensuring many hand and eye injuries (including the blinding of Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon) because users were holding and looking at the devices when they exploded.
The operation disrupted Hezbollah command-and-control. Israel, which initially denied any role in the attacks, immediately followed them with 10 days of conventional airstrikes across Lebanon, killing Nasrallah along with many members of Hezbollah’s senior leadership team and almost all their IRGC advisers.
With Hezbollah decapitated and airstrikes continuing, Israeli troops launched a ground offensive into southern Lebanon, seizing key terrain and forcing a ceasefire with Hezbollah by late November. Hezbollah’s military power and political influence in Lebanon was severely damaged. Israel eventually, in mid-November, acknowledged its role in the attacks.
In essence, this was a multi-phase covert operation involving a conventional setup (the strikes that convinced Hezbollah to switch to pagers) followed by a long-range unconventional strategic strike, facilitated by clandestine infiltration of Hezbollah’s supply chain, then 10 days of conventional airstrikes to decapitate Hezbollah’s leadership while its command-and-control system was disrupted, and finally a six-week conventional ground invasion that neutralised Hezbollah as a regional actor.
Days after Hezbollah adopted its ceasefire with Israel, Syrian rebels exploited Hezbollah’s disarray, Iran’s distraction after its October 2024 missile exchanges with Israel, and Russia’s focus on its autumn offensive in Ukraine, to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. Hezbollah – one of Assad’s three key allies, alongside Russia and Iran – certainly would have moved to support Syria’s regime if not for the chaos and casualties it had just suffered.
Ukraine/Russia, June 2025, Operation Spider’s Web
On June 1, 2025, the security service of Ukraine, the SBU, carried out a covert long-range strike against air bases across Russia. Drones hidden in shipping containers and cargo trucks, positioned close to their targets, emerged and struck long-range aircraft including the Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers Russia uses to launch its highly destructive glide bombs into Ukraine and to carry its strategic nuclear deterrent, which forms the airborne leg of Moscow’s nuclear “triad”.
The SBU claimed 40 aircraft hit and 20 destroyed, while US and independent analysts were able to confirm that at least 20 aircraft were struck, more than half of which were damaged or destroyed. Ukraine also claimed a successful strike on one of Russia’s few A-50 “Mainstay” airborne early warning and control aircraft, a critical national asset.
The drones struck aircraft in the open at five Russian air bases, several of which were thousands of kilometres from Ukraine. These included Olenya air base near Murmansk, well above the Arctic Circle, and Belaya air base in eastern Siberia, fully 4300km from Ukraine. For ambition and geographical reach, spanning five time zones, the operation was unprecedented.
Like Israel’s pager attacks or last week’s strikes in Iran, Operation Spider’s Web involved long-term planning and careful staging. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it had been in preparation for more than 18 months. Also, like both the Israeli attacks, the operation was conducted by an integrated team of civilian intelligence personnel and military special operators and directed at the highest level: it was supervised by Zelensky himself, according to Ukraine, and controlled personally by Vasyl Malyuk, chief of the SBU.
The drones used were Ukrainian-made Wasp first-person-view quadcopters, each of which carried a payload of about 3kg. About 120 were used. Manufactured in Ukraine, these were smuggled into Russia in parts, where SBU infiltration teams assembled and checked them, embedded them into truck and container roofs, then inserted them into Russia’s supply-chain system.
Ukraine’s special operators seem to have established their own freight-handling company for the purpose in Chelyabinsk, near Russia’s southern border with Kazakhstan, as one hub for the operation. Kyiv claims it safely evacuated all its infiltration teams from Russia before the operation began, a claim that cannot be independently verified. The drone-carrying trucks and containers were driven by unwitting Russian contract drivers to cargo handling areas, petrol stations, truck stops or other drop-off points close to the targeted air bases. Drivers received messages by mobile phone telling them where to drop off their containers.
Shortly after arriving, or in at least one case while still on the move, the roof of each container opened and drones began launching, catching drivers and bystanders by surprise. SBU operators in Ukraine flew the drones the short distance to their targets using open-source UAV piloting software that allows for dead-reckoning navigation, avoiding the need for GPS, which might have been jammed. SIM cards were allegedly embedded in each drone, letting them access local mobile phone networks and thus be controlled by cellphone; AI was used to resolve the millisecond time-delay inherent in such long-range control via phone. The AI was trained, using Soviet-era aircraft in Ukraine, to recognise specific aircraft types and vulnerable points, often fuel tanks, allowing operators to set large aircraft on fire despite small warheads.
Unlike Israel’s attacks on Lebanon or Iran, Operation Spider’s Web was not immediately followed by conventional attacks. Instead, in the lead-up to the latest round of Russo-Ukrainian peace talks, it seems to have had the strategic political goal of convincing President Vladimir Putin (and perhaps President Donald Trump) that Ukraine retains leverage and can inflict damage deep inside Russia. For the same reason, unlike Israel, which initially denied its involvement in the Lebanon attacks, Ukraine immediately acknowledged its role and released key details. The operation seems to have caught the US by surprise, although other allies may have known or assisted in it.
More immediately, the Russian air force was compelled to disperse its remaining strategic bombers even farther east and north across the country to avoid potential follow-on attacks. At the operational level, this means the bombers Russia uses for glide-bomb attacks on Ukrainian cities and soldiers must now fly farther, expend more fuel, stay in the air longer and be more easily detected, reducing their impact. It also forces Russia to commit more resources to guarding bases thousands of kilometres from the front lines, in a classic diversionary use of special warfare.
Implications
These three attacks point to the emergence – through a combination of advanced technologies, inventive tactics and innovative organisational structures – of unconventional strategic strike. We might define an “unconventional strategic strike” as a strike against a target of strategic importance, using a combination of non-military and unconventional military means, to achieve or enable a national-level objective.
Each operation was conducted by a combined team of civilian intelligence personnel and military special operators, over an extended period, at high operational and political risk, under close supervision from senior political and military leaders, by small teams that conducted long-duration infiltration and penetration of enemy supply chains, businesses and territory. Each seems to have comprised a small insertion team operating deep in enemy territory, with a larger “virtual overwatch” group, located at a secure base area, giving over-the-shoulder support.
It is unclear whether local indigenous networks, proxy forces or local partners participated in the operations, but there is some circumstantial evidence for this in two out of the three cases.
In Australian special operations parlance, we might term this a form of special warfare, with a combined civil-military special warfare team establishing an area complex through long-duration deep penetration, thereby enabling a strategic strike asset using non-conventional means to achieve a political outcome or ensure the success of follow-on military operations. In effect, it’s a kind of operation we already know how to do, but with the conventional strike asset (ships, missiles, warplanes, submarines) replaced by a non-conventional one.
From a defensive standpoint, the implications are stark. How secure are our procurement and supply-chain systems? Can we validate the contents of shipping containers, cargo trucks and railway systems close to airfields or critical infrastructure? Can we recognise an adversary’s front companies, in Australia or in the region, when we see them being set up? Are we confident that we could detect, in container handling facilities or airport security systems, the infiltration of small-scale explosive components as in Lebanon or drone parts as in Russia? Can we reliably jam and defeat small FPV drones that might swarm a military target or attack a political leader? What “staging” actions might adversaries already be conducting in cyberspace? Could agricultural, energy or mining infrastructure be at risk in a future conflict? Are adversary infiltration teams already present? Have adversaries purchased real estate close to critical infrastructure that may facilitate this kind of attack? All these questions are almost certainly being pondered in detail, in Australia as in every other country.
At the same time, from a purely professional military point of view, the opportunities are equally noteworthy. In each case, a middle power with a relatively modest defence budget – Israel’s official defence budget is about $37bn, compared with about $56bn for Australia and $144bn for Ukraine – used large numbers of small, smart, stealthy systems, operated by small specialist teams dispersed over a wide area, to achieve a combined strategic strike on a distant, larger adversary, at a cost literally billions of dollars cheaper than would have been required for conventional assets such as submarines, surface ships, fighter aircraft or conventional land forces.
Though all these operations were delicate, requiring willingness to accept risk by political and military leaders, they enabled conventional forces to operate with far greater chance of success and at significantly lower cost than would otherwise have been the case. From a cost-benefit standpoint, the advantages seem clear.
For Israel’s most recent strikes on Iran, it is far too early to draw conclusions or make firm judgments on this approach. The legal and ethical aspects of all three operations are also highly contested and in need of further study. But what we can say tonight, as bombs and missiles continue to drop on Tel Aviv, Tehran and Kyiv, is that we may be seeing the emergence of a new technique for unconventional strategic strike – something to which anyone concerned about national resilience or defence should be paying close attention.
David Kilcullen served in the Australian Army from 1985 to 2007. He was a senior counter-insurgency adviser to General David Petraeus in Iraq in 2007-08, followed by special adviser for counter-insurgency to secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. He is the author of six books, including most recently The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West and The Ledger: Accounting for Failure in Afghanistan.
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Albanese’s retreat from moral and strategic reality
Chris Kenny
The Albanese government has wantonly let down Israel and washed its hands of a defining moment in Middle East diplomacy.
Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have devalued Australia as an alliance partner to the US in a pattern of behaviour that also has diminished our standing as a nation prepared to stand up strongly for the values of freedom and democracy.
It was easy for Donald Trump to dismiss a meeting with an Australian Prime Minister who would have brought little to the table except miserly defence spending and special pleading on tariffs.
The US relationship is unlikely to be undermined for the long term – it is deep enough, and our shared interests clear enough, to transcend the comings and goings of governments and leaders – but for now Albanese and Wong have made us less useful, less important and therefore less relevant. That is the real lesson of the Prime Minister’s Canadian snub, which no doubt will be rectified with a cordial catch-up at some stage.
Albanese and Wong have shrunken Australia’s international posture, turned a significant player in global diplomacy into a curled-up nation looking to throw its lot in with the likes of Canada and New Zealand to blend in with the crowd at the UN. When the world is finally confronting the strategic threat of Iran, after it has been hanging over Israel, the Middle East and European democracies for decades, Australia could be a formidable diplomatic voice – but we are not.
After Israel’s long-speculated attack on Iran, and the Islamic Republic’s retaliation with drones and missiles targeting urban areas in Israel, and the US supporting Israel’s action and mulling intervention itself, Australia had four-fifths of bugger all to say for five days. “We urge de-escalation, we urge restraint, we urge dialogue and diplomacy,” Wong told the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has spoken about the conflict between Israel and Iran, urging Iran to “come to the table” to hold…
Wong said this was the position put by many countries, “not only to the Iranians but also to the Israelis”. This reeked of false equivalence and represented an appalling retreat from strategic and moral reality.
It was not for a full six days, and after criticism of her stand, that Wong offered limp admonishment of Iran. On Wednesday she told Sky News: “The fastest way out of the danger that the world sees … is for Iran to come to the table and to stop any nuclear weapons program.”
Albanese has been even weaker, and there is nothing either of them has said that could be interpreted as overt support for Israel or even as support for the US in assisting Israel.
Perish the thought we should support liberal democracies protecting the world from a rogue theocracy intent on the nuclear annihilation of a sovereign state.
This weak and amoral response renders Australia irrelevant. Australia’s longest serving foreign minister, Alexander Downer, told me this week on Sky News that Wong and Albanese were “humiliating our country with these sorts of words … It is worse than embarrassing, I find it humiliating.”
Labor ‘humiliating’ Australia with response to Iran-Israel war
While not a major player in the Middle East, Australia is uniquely positioned as an alliance partner with the US and ally with Israel that retains diplomatic relations with Iran through an embassy in Tehran.
Given the hostile, anti-Israeli nature of much global debate, our voice in support of Israel and the US would have been valued in Jerusalem and Washington.
This would have been a bonus for doing the right thing. Considering all strategic and moral dimensions, support for Israel against the terrorist proxies of Iran, its direct attacks on Israel and its pursuit of nuclear weapons is a no-brainer. The alternative does not bear thinking about.
Yet after more than 20 months of demonising Israel (making unfounded claims against its Gazan war effort, demanding Israel end its war against Hamas, rejecting visas for a former minister and respected Israeli commentators, sanctioning two government ministers, voting against Israel at the UN and not even condemning the outrageous warrants from the International Criminal Court against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant), the Albanese government could not refocus and deal in the strategic and moral reality. So now it watches on from the sidelines as nay-sayers while events unfold that could deliver the most significant improvement in global peace and security in decades.
Our diplomacy has been like a shiver looking for a spine to run up. And Albanese wonders why the US President did not have time for a quick meeting or phone call.
Iran’s sponsoring of terrorism has troubled the Middle East and Western interests for almost 50 years since the Islamic Revolution. And across the past two decades the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons aspirations have been a constant and escalating concern, despite efforts by the UN, Europeans and Americans to rein them in with agreements, sanctions and threats.
This was already a strong and concerning undercurrent when I worked for Downer two decades ago, visiting the region regularly, including Tehran. Experiencing the sophistication of Iranian society along with the draconian social measures and palpable intimidation of the population, while meeting their dour, extremist leadership, was an extraordinary experience.
In those days Iran had been assigned by George W. Bush to the “axis of evil” along with Iraq and North Korea. We visited them all.
To see what North Korea could be with freedom you only have to look south across the 38th parallel; Iraq’s potential post-Saddam Hussein is obvious, held back by terrorism and the Sunni-Shia divide; while Iran’s Persian endowment and modern incarnation are still there, suppressed under a medieval theocratic dictatorship.
Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Arab Gulf states have long been almost as exercised about Iran as Israel has been.
If the regime in Tehran is incapacitated or toppled, it will not only be Israel that can embrace a less ominous future. Lebanon and Syria would be able to rebuild governing structures with less manipulation from the Iranian catspaw of Hezbollah. Gaza could be more easily resolved with funding, supplies and edicts from Iran to Hamas cut off; likewise with the Houthis in Yemen.
Barack Obama claimed to have solved the Iran nuclear problem a decade ago (just like he claimed to have cooled the planet) resulting in Iran gaining access to more than $US100bn in frozen assets. Tehran also took $US1.7bn in payments from the US in exchange for these undertakings and the return of US hostages.
And yet here we are, with conflict under way. Iran continued with its nuclear program regardless.
Yet Wong and Albanese still talk about dialogue, diplomacy and de-escalation. That Australia would not have strong views about the opportunity to eliminate this nuclear threat once and for all defies comprehension.
The moral dimension overlaps with the strategic. In just the past 20 months, Iran has funded and enabled the Hamas atrocities against Israel; funded and co-ordinated the Hezbollah attacks on Israel from the north; funded and directed the Houthi missile attacks on Israel from Yemen; and directly attacked Israel with missiles and drones.
Even in the current conflict Iran has responded to Israel’s highly targeted attacks on Iranian military and strategic targets with missile assaults on Israel’s urban centres to kill and maim civilians. This week it hit a hospital – yet there is less international outrage than Israel received when it was falsely accused of bombing a hospital in Gaza.
The Iranian regime uses “morality police” to arrest women for failing to wear veils, with 22-year-old Mahsa Amini infamously dying in police custody in 2022. Other young Iranians have been jailed for up to 10 years for daring to dance.
Human rights groups report that more than 340 Iranians have been executed in the first half of this year, many for drug offences but others for political crimes. Ethnic minorities are persecuted.
While all this has been going on, what have Albanese and Wong been doing? They have been demonising Israel.
For a politician who boasts about his love for “fighting Tories”, Albanese sure fails to take up the cudgels against murderous, intolerant and genocidal outfits and regimes. Maybe Albo would be more agitated if Hamas or Iran attacked collective bargaining.
Albanese, his cabinet members and his US ambassador, Kevin Rudd, have mocked and abused Trump through the years. And they have publicly scoffed at calls from his Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to increase their defence spending.
Yet for all this, a principled stand in the Middle East might have made them useful. Instead, they played to the anti-Israel protesters, Muslim voters in key electorates, the intolerant Greens and the anti-Israel, anti-US cohort at the UN.
The Albanese government has wantonly let down Israel and washed its hands of a defining moment in Middle East diplomacy. It also has let down the US just when we need to reinvest in that relationship. In doing so, it has let down Australia.
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Banned Israeli blogger defies Burke and delivers speech
Paul Garvey
This is the speech Immigration Minister Tony Burke didn’t want you to see.
Hillel Fuld, the Israeli tech blogger barred from entering Australia after the government concluded he could be a risk to “the health, safety or good order” of the community, this week went ahead with his address to packed audiences in Australia via a video link.
After a delegate from Mr Burke’s Department of Home Affairs cancelled Mr Fuld’s visa due to concerns he could make “inflammatory statements” that could “incite discord” and foster division, Mr Fuld used his speech to describe the “miracle” that Israel had survived and thrived and called on Jews to stop apologising for Israel’s existence and success.
In a speech delivered to the event organised by the Australian Friends of Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance and blood bank service, Mr Fuld said it was “miraculous” that more Israelis hadn’t been killed in the ongoing conflict.
“This war from beginning to end is one big miracle,” Mr Fuld said, arguing that it was fortunate that more people were not killed in Hamas’ surprise attack of October 7 2023.
“Take a step back and just do the maths – 5000 genocidal terrorists marching into a country smaller than New Jersey with one mission and one goal, and that is to kill as many Jews as possible,” Mr Fuld said.
“Eight hours of free hand – we don’t know why that is, that’s a topic for another time – and unlimited access to automatic weapons, spraying bullets in all directions
“Five thousand terrorists. How many people would you have expected them to murder that day? 20,000? 50,000? 150,000? Israel should’ve been wiped off the map.”
The ability of Israel’s three missile defences to intercept almost all rockets fired at it since Israel’s attack on Iran, he said, was another daily miracle that should be celebrated.
“Each one of these systems is a miracle, but here’s the thing. They were never meant to work together. They were not built to work together. And those two nights ago when Iran attacked Israel with hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones, they worked together in unison to perfection – 99 per cent precision,” he said.
But he lamented that Israel was being “obliterated” in the public relations war and lamented how quickly international support for Israel had waned in the aftermath of October 7.
“On October 7, I said to myself, if there’s any silver lining here, there is no scenario, there is no hypothetical scenario in which the world doesn’t stand with Israel. There is no way they livestream their atrocities. And as we all know, how long did that support last? A day? That makes no sense,” he said
“And we have some of the smartest people in the world just spreading open lies, not white lies, not bending the truth, lies made out of thin air, just spreading lies as if they’re not brilliant, moral people in every other area of their lives. It’s impossible to understand.”
He said while Israel’s opponents had a “very simple narrative” of “free Palestine”, Israel had no unified narrative. Instead, he said, Jews needed to be proud about their contributions to the international community.
“The Jewish people have been nothing but a source of light in this world. And it’s time we own that light,” he said.
“It’s time we stopped apologising and that should be our narrative or our light. Too many people, too many Jews, are still apologising. We need to own it, and that should be our narrative.”
Mr Fuld’s brother was murdered by a terrorist who stabbed him in the neck just outside Jerusalem seven years ago.
Australian Friends of Magen David Adom president Tony Ziegler said about 900 people had signed up to attend Mr Fuld’s speech after his visa to visit Australia was cancelled. The organisation would typically expect 300 to 400 attendees for such an event.
Mr Ziegler said Mr Fuld had been grateful for the fact that the visa cancellation meant he had been with his family in Israel during the recent missile attacks, rather than stuck in Australia with no way of reuniting with his family.
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Donald Trump weighs a devastating strike on Iran
Israel is not trying to reduce Iran to rubble. It’s destroying nuclear and missile programs and making them difficult to reconstruct. But there’s one target yet to be hit: Fordow. This is where Donald Trump comes in.
Greg Sheridan
We are waiting for Donald Trump to decide: will he join Israel and obliterate Iran’s uranium
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and America’s Donald Trump have completely transformed the Middle East. It may be they were working in much more intimate co-operation than was generally realised.
Now we wait for Trump to decide: will he join Israel and obliterate Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Fordow? It is Trump’s gravest and most consequential date with history. He has decided to allow Iran a fraction more time. He now says he will decide whether to strike Iran within two weeks, depending on whether Iran offers a deal in which it completely gives up uranium enrichment.
Israel, in a week of war, has degraded Iran’s nuclear programs. It has hit nuclear establishments at Natanz, Isfahan and the heavy-water research reactor at Arak. It has destroyed nuclear archives, and administrative and scientific research facilities. It has killed the entire top cadre of Iran’s military leadership, plus a dozen leading nuclear scientists. It has destroyed 30 to 40 per cent of Iran’s ballistic missiles, as well as hitting missile and drone manufacturing facilities and the infrastructure surrounding missiles – launch sites, even the trucks taking missiles from storage silos to launch pads.
Iran still has a lot of missiles and severely damaged a hospital in Beersheba on Thursday with ballistic missiles, perhaps 30 fired at once, Israel intercepting most but a handful getting through.
The Israeli Air Force, mainly using F-35s, which are also the backbone of the Australian air force, has hit a wide range of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps establishments, as well as police stations, state broadcast facilities, and gas and oil terminals. This is not designed to hurt global supply but to raise prices, and inconvenience, within Iran.
Israel has been careful in its choice of targets. Having suppressed Iran’s air defences, Israel hasn’t gone after most Iranian economic infrastructure. It’s not trying to reduce Iran to rubble. It’s destroying nuclear and missile programs and making them difficult to reconstruct.
But there’s one target yet to be hit: Fordow, Iran’s Mount Mordor. This is where Trump comes in, with the most important moment in his presidency. Fordow is buried in the side of a mountain, deep below limestone and concrete, built to survive Israeli bombardment. The nuclear facilities are 90m underground. No bomb that Israel has can reach that deep.
Trump does have such a bomb. This bomb, the world’s most famous, travels under various glamorous names: the bunker buster, the GBU-57, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. It has never been used in battle and was constructed precisely with Fordow in mind. It weighs a prodigious 13,600kg. Only the advanced American B-2, a stealth bomber, can carry it. It’s encased in tough metal skin and will burrow 60m into the earth before it explodes. Then its 2700kg warhead makes the biggest mess.
Fordow is where Iran primarily engages in enriching uranium to near weapons grade. It has 3000 centrifuges. Iran has 400kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent, far higher than any domestic energy purpose would require. Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90 per cent. To move from 60 to 90 per cent is a short, fast process.
Israel will not finish its operation until Fordow is degraded and if possible destroyed. This is almost infinitely more difficult for Israel than for Washington to accomplish. However, if Trump takes too long to decide or it looks like he won’t attack Fordow, Israel will attempt to destroy Fordow itself.
As Trump says, no one knows what he’ll do. The regional US military command, CENTCOM, has been working hand in glove with the Israeli Defence Forces. CENTCOM and the IDF both concluded the Iranians were making serious moves towards nuclear weapons.
Ehud Yaari, Israel’s pre-eminent strategic analyst, with a wealth of experience regarding Iran, tells Inquirer that Iran probably made the decision for nuclear weapons after Israel destroyed the military effectiveness of the Lebanese terror group and Tehran proxy Hezbollah and killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah: “After Nasrallah (was killed), the Iranians had to make a decision: do they try to re-create Hezbollah, Hamas etc, or do they not send good money after bad. Hezbollah had been their ultimate insurance policy, with their huge arsenal of missiles.”
With Hezbollah gone, Yaari suggests, Iran turned to accelerated nuclear weapons development. The Iranians weren’t yet physically building nuclear weapons. It’s not exactly clear where they were with each bit of the relevant technology.
But they increased their uranium enrichment tempo, took more aggressive efforts to hide what they were doing and were working actively on the stages necessary to make a weapon.
Yosi Kuperwasser, a former Israeli military intelligence leader, now head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, tells Inquirer that in recent months the Iranians dramatically increased production of highly enriched uranium: “Israel really had a reason to do something now.”
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, told a congressional hearing in March that Iran was not producing nuclear weapons. That may have been before the latest intelligence or it may have reflected her ideology.
Those parts of the Trump MAGA coalition most paranoid about “the deep state”, most committed to an isolationism harking back to the famous Know-Nothing Party of the 19th century, are determined the US should never intervene militarily anywhere unless the US itself is directly attacked.
They want America to retreat, to build a fortress behind its “big beautiful oceans”. In any event, Trump clearly now prefers the testimony and assessment of his military to that of Gabbard. She was not invited to a key security planning meeting at Camp David. When her congressional testimony was quoted to Trump, he replied: “I don’t care what she says.”
Trump may still decide, within his new two-week window, either way, to attack Fordow or not. If the Iranians were smarter they would offer to give up uranium enrichment and then, as talks dragged on, try to revive it secretly. The Iranians were working directly on weaponising their nuclear program until 2003 when George W. Bush invaded Iraq. They were scared of Bush, really scared of him. So for a time they suspended that program. It’s always good when America’s enemies are scared of the president.
Some critics of Israel argue that Jerusalem has been warning of Iranian nuclear weapons for 20 years, but still no Iranian nuke has emerged. Therefore the Israelis must have been mistaken. In fact the Israelis and the Americans have taken extensive, highly interventionist and effective measures to
President Trump sees a “substantial chance of negotiations” and will decide within two weeks whether the U.S. gets involved in…
One such was the Stuxnet computer virus, which for a time destroyed Iran’s centrifuges that enrich uranium. Israeli intelligence and special forces periodically sabotaged Iran’s program.
Israel’s military performance in this campaign has been dazzling. Even more so its intelligence performance. Yaari draws the contrast with Israel’s failure over the October 7 terror attacks: “They (Israeli authorities) were so confident that Hamas was deterred, they did not even have a plan in the bottom drawer for how to take over Gaza if they had to. But Iran, like Hezbollah, they’ve been working on for 40 years. For 40 years Mossad has been building its network inside Iran, for 40 years polishing and refining.”
Trump certainly looks like he means business. However, a cynical interpretation might hold that this has been typical Trump bluster. The more publicly he threatens, often the less likely he is to take action. Nonetheless, it’s very unlikely Iran can meaningfully commit to ending uranium enrichment. Trump had told senior administration and military figures he had approved a plan of attack but not yet decided whether to put it into action. The US military has moved two huge aircraft carrier battle groups to the Arabian Sea and three big destroyers. It has deployed squadrons of F-35s and the air superiority fighter, the F-22. The Pentagon has moved in-air refuelling tankers to the region, which means they could fly the mission to Fordow and back, as well as extensive counter-drone capabilities. This is more than the US needs for Fordow. Yaari thinks its main purpose is to deter Iran’s IRGC from any aggressive action against its Arab neighbours in response to a US strike on Fordow.
The British are actively considering supporting an American action launched from the joint US-British base at Diego Garcia. It’s hard to imagine they’d refuse the Americans.
It’s difficult to see Iran agreeing to any deal that would satisfy Americans and Israelis. The Iranians have a long history of lying about their nuclear activities. They are the chief state sponsor of terrorism worldwide. They’ve sponsored an utterly murderous set of destabilising terrorist forces around the Middle East – the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Shi’ite militias in Iraq – and until recently were in close alliance with the genocidal Assad government in Syria that collapsed in December 2024.
Iran has been responsible for the torture, kidnap and murder of many Americans. As soon as it came to power, the ayatollahs’ regime took US embassy personnel in Tehran hostage. In 1983 a terrorist bombing in Beirut killed 241 US service men and women. It was carried out at Iran’s behest by a terror group linked to Hezbollah. Iran was also implicated in a failed assassination attempt on Trump himself during the presidential election campaign.
Tehran follows an extreme Islamist ideology. Although Shi’ite, the ayatollahs’ government was profoundly influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood and the writings of its chief ideologist, Sayyid Qutb, who had a passionate hatred of America and the West generally. Iran labels the US the “Great Satan” and Israel the “little Satan”.
Washington and Jerusalem will want more than bland assurances from Tehran. Kuperwasser outlines some of what he sees as essential for a deal to be acceptable: an end to uranium enrichment; nuclear inspections must be any time and any place; there must be American as well as International Atomic Energy Association inspectors; stockpiles of enriched uranium given up; no time limit on restrictions on the Iranian program; no more centrifuges built; the converter facility that changes uranium into nuclear weapons grade material given up; missiles big enough to carry nuclear warheads given up.
It is, as I say, extremely difficult to imagine Tehran agreeing to that. Anything much less will not do the job. That brings us back to Trump’s decision. The idea of striking Fordow has uniquely divided Trump’s base. Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon are particularly opposed. Carlson and Republican senator Ted Cruz, who supports action against Iran, especially Fordow, had an unholy screaming match. They looked two deeply uncivil men. Trump posted on his Truth Social: “Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”
Bannon claimed it was disillusionment over the Iraq war under Bush, and then the 2008 financial crisis, that led to the populism that drove Trump to the White House. Bannon, like Carlson though a bit more historically literate, seems seldom to meet a conspiracy theory he doesn’t smile at.
He’s over-intellectualising the ideology of populism. It’s certainly true, though, that Trump campaigned against the idea of the US spending blood and treasure to provide for other countries’ security. At the end of the week Bannon had lunch with Trump. Make of that what you will. But Trump has been remarkably consistent on Iran. It’s like tariffs, one of very few issues he has had a serious fixed view on for many years. He has always been determined Iran mustn’t be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.
Trump almost never defies his base, which may be why he is hesitating over Iran. Yaari thinks it likely Trump is concerned that Iran could retaliate against Saudi oil infrastructure. Trump is infinitely more influential with his base than Carlson, Bannon, Gabbard or any of the hangers-on. If US military action is swift and successful, Trump will have no trouble keeping his base. The Americans need only do the Fordow operation. The Israelis have done, or can do, everything else. Even with the bunker buster, the Fordow operation is not a piece of cake, not assured of success. The B-2s would probably need to make several runs over Fordow and drop a series of bunker busters, one after another, on the same spot.
Neither Trump nor anyone in his orbit is suggesting a sustained US military campaign. No one envisages deploying US ground troops under any circumstances. If the raids on Fordow go well, they could be completed in one night. Far from creating an endless war, this would be the most effective action in shortening the war, which probably has another 10 to 14 days to run. For if the US doesn’t do Fordow, then Israel, with far less effective weapons, will do it anyhow. Indeed, Israel probably cannot wait two weeks. Netanyahu has now said Israel will attack all Iran’s nuclear facilities.
It might do this with many repetitions of the big bombs it has itself. Though much smaller than bunker busters, if repeatedly dropped on Fordow they could destabilise the mountain. Israel could attack the electricity, water and air supply to the nuclear facility. Riskiest of all, it could insert commandos to bomb the facility from close range.
One of Trump’s most influential supporters, strategist and historian Victor Davis Hanson, thinks Trump’s decision on Fordow immensely important to the entire world. He says: “Never have we been closer to complete normalcy in the Middle East, and never have we been closer to seeing the entire region blow up.
“If the war ends with the (Iran) regime intact and a recoverable nuclear program, it won’t be back to square one, it’ll be a disaster.”
If Trump takes out Fordow, the Iranian regime will be discredited with its people, with its proxies, regionally and internationally.
If it survives with a nuclear program it can put back together quickly, it may instead look indestructible, having defied Israel and Washington.
As always in the Middle East, there is of course a doomsday scenario. Iran survives, reconstructs its nuclear program, leaves the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, receives technical assistance from China or North Korea, keeps its new weapons program underground and entirely secret and emerges, North Korea-like, with nuclear weapons in a few years.
That’s pretty unlikely, not least because the Israelis, with their brilliant intelligence penetrations, will hit Iran again if they have to, although that would depend on having a supportive president in the White House.
Liberal senator Dave Sharma, for several years Australia’s ambassador in Israel, answers without hesitation that Israel was justified in taking action against Iran. He sees substantial upside.
These days no nation other than Iran wants to destroy Israel. If Iran is weakened and can apply less pressure throughout the region, that benefits Middle East stability. The US and others have long opposed Iran’s nuclear program, missile program, material support and sponsorship of terrorism and imperialist interference in other nations. A weakened Iran that can do less of all that has to be good news. Sharma judges, surely accurately, that the Iranian regime probably carries on in much the same form as today but less able to ignore its public’s dissatisfaction, therefore needing to make big adjustments.
Yaari thinks the one possibly consequential institutional fissure in Iran is the alienation of the regular army from the IRCG. Neither Washington nor Jerusalem has designed a military campaign to force regime change.
Provided Fordow is destroyed, Sharma believes Israel will set back Iran’s nuclear program by five to 10 years. Israeli sources suggest seven to 10 years, with the caveat that Iran would find it hard to reconstruct elements of its program unless it receives assistance from China or North Korea.
No recent president except Trump would have allowed Israel to take this action. Notwithstanding Trump’s dislike of foreign military entanglements, probably no other president would undertake the Fordow operation.
Being against foreign entanglements is different from holding dogmatically that there are no circumstances, ever, under which Washington should intervene militarily. Trump and Netanyahu are shaping history. Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is enduring history. The next two weeks are critical, for Trump, for Israel, for the world.
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Israeli strikes kill 44 in Gaza, UN warns of drought
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8997479/israeli-strikes-kill-44-in-gaza-un-warns-of-drought/
Israeli fire has killed at least 44 Palestinians in Gaza, many of whom had been trying to get food, local officials said, while the United Nations’ children’s agency warned of a looming man-made drought in the enclave as its water systems collapse.
At least 25 people awaiting aid trucks were killed by Israeli fire south of Netzarim in central Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run local health authority said.
Asked by Reuters about the incident, the Israel Defense Force said its troops had fired warning shots at suspected militants who advanced in a crowd towards them.
An Israeli aircraft then “struck and eliminated the suspects”, it said in a statement, adding that it was aware of others being hurt in the incident and was conducting a review.
Separately, Gazan medics said at least 19 others were killed in other Israeli military strikes across the enclave, including 12 people in a house in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza Strip, taking Friday’s total death toll to at least 44.
In a statement on Friday, the Islamist Hamas group, which says Israel is using hunger as a weapon against the population of Gaza, accused Israel of systematically targeting Palestinians seeking food aid across the enclave. Israel denies this and accuses Hamas of stealing food aid, which the group denies.
eanwhile UNICEF, the UN’s children’s agency, warned in Geneva of drought conditions developing in Gaza.
“Children will begin to die of thirst … Just 40 per cent of drinking water production facilities remain functional,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters.
“We are way below emergency standards in terms of drinking water.”
UNICEF says the drought is worsening in Gaza, with drinking water well below emergency standards. (AP PHOTO)
UNICEF also reported a 50 per cent increase in children aged six months to five years admitted for treatment of malnutrition from April to May in Gaza, and half a million people going hungry.
Elder, who was recently in Gaza, said he had many testimonials of women and children injured while trying to receive food aid, including a young boy who was wounded by a tank shell and later died of his injuries.
A lack of public clarity on when the sites – some of which are in combat zones – are open is causing mass casualty events, he added.
The route near Netzarim has become dangerous since the start of a new US-backed aid distribution system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), witnesses told Reuters, with desperate Gazans heading to a designated area late at night to try and get something from aid supplies due to be handed out after dawn.
The route has also been used by aid trucks sent by the United Nations and aid groups, and people have also been heading there in the hope of grabbing bags off trucks.
UNICEF said GHF was “making a desperate situation worse.”
On Thursday at least 70 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and military strikes, including 12 people who tried to approach a site operated by the GHF in the central Gaza Strip.
In an email to Reuters, GHF accused Gazan health officials of regularly releasing inaccurate information. It said Palestinians do not access the nearby GHF site via the Netzarim corridor. The statement did not address a question about whether GHF was aware of Thursday’s incident.
The GHF said in a statement on Thursday it had so far distributed nearly three million meals across three of its aid sites without incident.
The Gaza war was triggered when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, while displacing almost the entire population of more than two million and causing a hunger crisis.
Australian Associated Press
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Gaza war pushes violence against children to new levels
By Edith M Lederer
Violence against children caught up in multiple and escalating conflicts reached “unprecedented levels” last year, with the highest number of violations in Gaza and the West Bank, Congo, Somalia, Nigeria and Haiti.
The United Nations annual report on Children in Armed Conflict detailed “a staggering 25 per cent surge in grave violations” against children under the age of 18 from 2023, when the number of such violations rose by 21 per cent.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “Children bore the brunt of relentless hostilities and indiscriminate attacks, and were affected by the disregard for ceasefires and peace agreements and by deepening humanitarian crises.”
He cited warfare strategies that included attacks on children, the deployment of increasingly destructive and explosive weapons in populated areas, and “the systematic exploitation of children for combat.”
Guterres said the United Nations verified 41,370 grave violations against children — 36,221 committed in 2024 and 5,149 committed earlier but verified last year. The violations include killing, maiming, recruiting and abducting children, sexual violence against them, attacking schools and hospitals and denying youngsters access to humanitarian aid.
The UN kept Israeli forces on its blacklist of countries that violate children’s rights for a second year, citing 7,188 verified grave violations by its military, including the killing of 1,259 Palestinian children and injury to 941 others in Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry has reported much higher figures, but the UN has strict criteria and said its process of verification is ongoing.
Guterres said he is “appalled by the intensity of grave violations against children in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel,” and “deeply alarmed” by the increase in violations, especially the high number of children killed by Israeli forces.
He reiterated his calls on Israel to abide by international law requiring special protections for children, protection for schools and hospitals, and compliance with the requirement that attacks distinguish between combatants and civilians and avoid excessive harm to civilians.
The UN also kept Hamas, whose October 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on the blacklist.
In Congo, the UN reported 4,043 verified grave violations last year and 2,568 violations in Somalia. In Nigeria, 2,436 grave violations were reported. And in Haiti, the UN reported 2,269 verified grave violations.
In the ongoing war following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the United Nations kept the Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups on its blacklist for a third year.
The secretary-general expressed deep concern at “the sharp increase in grave violations against children in Ukraine” — 1,914 against 673 children. He expressed alarm at the violations by Russian forces and their affiliates, singling out their verified killing of 94 Ukrainian children, injury to 577 others, and 559 attacks on schools and 303 on hospitals.
In Haiti, the UN put a gang, the Viv Ansanm coalition, on the blacklist for the first time.
Secretary-General Guterres expressed deep “alarm” at the surge in violations, especially incidents of gang recruitment and use, sexual violence, abduction and denial of humanitarian aid.
The report said sexual violence jumped by 35 per cent in 2024, including a dramatic increase in the number of gang rapes, but stressed that the numbers are vastly underreported. “Girls were abducted for the purpose of recruitment and use, and for sexual slavery,” the UN chief said.
In Congo, the UN reported 358 acts of sexual violence against girls — 311 by armed groups and 47 by Congo’s armed forces.
And in Somalia, 267 children were victims of sexual violence, 120 of them carried out by Al-Shabab extremists.
According to the report, armed groups were responsible for almost 50 per cent of the violations of children and government forces the main perpetrator of the killing and maiming of children, school attacks and denial of humanitarian access.
“The cries of 22,495 innocent children who should be learning to read or play ball — but instead have been forced to learn how to survive gunfire and bombings — should keep all of us awake at night,” said Virginia Gamba, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict.
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ADF personnel, warplanes deployed to Middle East as government looks at evac options
Australia is sending ADF personnel and warplanes to the Middle East as the conflict between Israel and Iran escalates.
Hannah Moore, Robert White and Joseph Olbrycht-Palmer
Australia is sending defence personnel and aircraft to the Middle East as the government works to evacuate citizens caught up in the conflict between Israel and Iran.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced the decision on Friday after speaking with her US counterpart Marco Rubio.
She said Mr Rubio had not requested Australian Defence Force personnel partake in any potential US intervention.
“In addition to the Foreign Affairs crisis response team being deployed to assist the government’s efforts and support Australians seeking to leave the region, ADF personnel and aircraft are being deployed to the Middle East as part of Operation Beech 2025,” Senator Wong a press conference in Adelaide.
“Again, I emphasise the airspace remains closed, and we are doing this as part of preparing contingency plans post the airspace becoming open.
“I also emphasise that we are sending defence assets to help Australians.
“They are not there for combat.”
Defence said the non-combat deployment, as part of Operation Beech, is a precautionary measure as part of whole-of-government support to Australian citizens and approved foreign nationals in the region.
Two aircraft have been sent, alongside ADF personnel.
“The ADF contingent includes two strategic air lift assets configured for passenger transport and an ADF personnel contingent from both the Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force which will provide the Australian government with additional capabilities to assist Australian citizens and approved foreign nationals if required,” an ADF statement said.
Of her chat with Mr Rubio, she described it as “a good discussion about the way through this conflict, and a good discussion about issues in the Australia-US relationship”.
“I emphasise this as there is an opportunity, given what President Trump has said, there is an opportunity over the next two weeks for de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy,” Senator Wong said.
“That is what we want to see, and that is what the world wants to see.
“Iran must come to the table, and it must stop any nuclear weapons program.”
Donald Trump overnight gave Iran a two-week deadline to abandon its uranium enrichment program, which the UN’s atomic watchdog has declared could not be considered “exclusively peaceful”.
A US State Department spokesperson said Mr Rubio and Senator Wong “agreed to continue to work together closely to commit to a path of peace and ensure that Iran never develops a nuclear weapon”.
Australia shutters Iran embassy
Senator Wong’s press conference came after Australia shut its embassy in the Iranian capital Tehran and directed all Australian officials and their dependants to leave due to the “deteriorating security environment”.
All Australians in the country have been urged to leave if it is safe or to shelter in place if it is not.
Senator Wong said Australia’s ambassador to Iran would remain in the region.
“The government has directed the departure of all Australian officials and dependants, and we have suspended our operations in Tehran,” she said.
“It is not a decision taken lightly. It is a decision based on the deteriorating security environment in Iran.
“It’s a decision I directed after consultation with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister.”
Senator Wong said consular staff would be relocated to neighbouring Azerbaijan, including to the border crossing to help Australians getting out of Iran.
“I say we urge Australians who are able to leave Iran to do so now if it is safe,” she said.
“Those who are unable to do so, or who do not wish to leave, are advised to shelter in place.
“We are continuing planning to support Australians seeking to depart Iran, and we may remain in close contact with partner countries.
“Unfortunately, at this stage, our ability to provide consular services is extremely limited due to the situation on the ground.”
Australians in Iran seeking consular assistance have been urged to call the Australian Government’s 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre on +61 2 6261 3305 outside Australia and 1300 555 135 (in Australia).
The latest response came as the conflict between Israel and Iran entered its seventh day.
On June 13 Israel launched a surprise attack targeting Iran’s nuclear program, saying in the last few months Iran had been accelerating toward building an atomic weapon.
Since then, the countries have traded deadly strikes.
Israel’s world-leading Iron Dome defence system has been struggling against Iran’s advanced ballistic missiles.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed Iran would “pay a heavy price” after a hospital in southern Israel was struck by a missile, injuring 40 people and causing heavy damage to the building.
But with many of Iran’s most senior military officials and nuclear scientists dead, its air defences on its knees and most of the country’s key uranium enrichment facilities severely damaged, it is unclear how much longer his regime can continue.
The US President has reportedly approved attack plans on Iran, but held off giving the order in the hope the regime would agree to surrender its nuclear program.
Mr Trump told reporters overnight he had “ideas on what to do but I haven’t made a final – I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due”.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who also serves as defence minister, on Thursday declined to directly comment on potential US involvement or Australia’s position, but reiterated the government response “is to seek de-escalation”.
An emergency UN Security Council meeting has been scheduled for Friday.
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Unicef warns children could die of thirst in Gaza amid collapse of water systems
Fears grow of drought as well as hunger as medics report more killings by Israeli forces of Palestinians seeking aid
The collapse of water systems in Gaza is threatening the territory with devastating drought as well as hunger, Unicef has warned, as medics reported that Israel had killed more desperate Palestinians seeking aid.
On Friday at least 24 people waiting for aid were killed by Israeli fire in central Gaza, according to local health authorities, in addition to other deaths by airstrikes.
Marwan Abu Nasser, the director of al-Awda hospital, in the town of Nuseirat, said his staff had dealt with 21 injured and 24 dead people.
“The injuries were extremely severe, most of them in the chest and head. There were women, children and young people among the injured because the people who went to receive the aid … came from all walks of life,” Abu Nasser said.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks while trying either to reach aid distribution points managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a secretive US- and Israel-backed organisation that recently started to hand out food in the territory or, more recently, to offload the limited number of UN and commercial vehicles carrying flour and some other basics.
Such reports are difficult to confirm independently but appear corroborated in many details by interviews conducted with witnesses by the Guardian.
Khaled al-Ajouri, 33, of the Jabaliya refugee camp, said he had travelled early in the morning in the hope of getting supplies from the aid trucks.
“I decided to stay a bit away to protect myself. I convinced myself that I was in a safe area. Suddenly … there were explosions and I was hit in my leg and chest,” Ajouri said.
There were also reports of other casualties on Friday in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, with at least 12 people killed in an airstrike on a house belonging to the Ayyash family in the central town of Deir al-Balah.
Mohammad al-Mughayyir, the director of medical supply at the civil defence agency in Gaza, told AFP: “Forty-three martyrs have fallen as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombardment on the Gaza Strip since dawn today, 26 of whom were waiting for humanitarian aid.”
Israeli military officials said on Friday that warplanes had attacked 300 “terror targets” in Gaza during the week, including individual militants, weapons caches and positions used to attack Israeli forces.
One of the strikes killed a senior militant in the territory who had helped bury the bodies of two hostages seized during the attack led by Hamas into southern Israel in October 2023 that triggered the conflict, they said.
Israeli military officials say troops have fired at “suspects” they claim pose a threat to them.
James Elder, a Unicef spokesperson, told reporters in Geneva that he had many testimonials of women and children being injured while trying to receive food aid, including a young boy who was wounded by a tank shell and later died of his injuries.
“There have been instances where information [was] shared that a [distribution] site is open, but then it’s communicated on social media that they’re closed, but that information was shared when Gaza’s internet was down and people had no access to it,” Elder said.
The GHF releases information about opening hours of sites primarily on Facebook, which many in Gaza cannot access.
Food has become extremely scarce in Gaza since a tight blockade on all supplies was imposed by Israel throughout March and April, threatening many of the 2.3 million people who live there with a “critical risk of famine”.
Since the blockade was partly lifted last month, the UN has tried to bring in aid but has faced major obstacles, including rubble-choked roads, Israeli military restrictions, continuing airstrikes and growing anarchy. Many shipments have been stopped by ordinary Palestinians in Gaza and offloaded.
There is also an acute shortage of fuel, which is needed for pumps on boreholes and Gaza’s sole remaining desalination plant. None has been allowed into Gaza since the collapse of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in March.
Elder added: “We are way below emergency standards in terms of drinking water for people in Gaza. Children will begin to die of thirst … Just 40% of drinking water production facilities remain functional.”
Fuel reserves built up during the pause in the 20-month war are now almost exhausted, aid officials said.
Most of Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants, sewage systems, reservoirs and pipes have been destroyed. In March, Israel cut off power supplies to the main desalination plants, a vital source of water for Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel hopes the GHF will replace the previous comprehensive system of aid distribution run by the UN, which Israeli officials claim allowed Hamas to steal and sell aid.
UN agencies and major aid groups, which have delivered humanitarian aid across Gaza since the start of the war, have rejected the new system, saying it is impractical, inadequate and unethical. They deny there is widespread theft of aid by Hamas.
On Wednesday, the GHF said it had provided more than 30m meals to the people of Gaza “safely and without incident” since it began operating last month.
Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostage during the 7 October 2023 attack, of whom they still hold 53.
The death toll in Gaza since the war broke out has reached more than 55,600, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry.
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EU cites ‘indications’ Israel is breaching human rights obligations over conduct in Gaza
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/jun/20/eu-israel-human-rights-obligations-gaza-document
Leaked document marks significant moment in relations with ally but stops short of calling for immediate sanctions
Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
Sat 21 Jun 2025 04.05 AEST
The EU has said “there are indications” that Israel is in breach of human rights obligations over its conduct in Gaza, but stopped short of calling for immediate sanctions.
“There are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations under article 2 of the EU-Israel association agreement,” states a leaked document from the EU’s foreign policy service, seen by the Guardian.
Couched in the typically cautious language of Brussels, the document nevertheless represents a significant moment in Europe’s relations towards a longstanding ally.
The closely guarded paper, which will be presented by the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, to European foreign ministers on Monday, cites assessments by the international court of justice, the office of the high commissioner for human rights, and numerous other UN bodies, while saying that it does not represent “a value judgment” by any EU official.
The finding has been seen as a foregone conclusion since a review of the EU-Israel agreement was put on the agenda last month by 17 EU member states, led by the Netherlands, a traditional ally of Israel.
EU officials were tasked to see whether Israel’s internal and international relations were based on “respect for human rights and democratic principles” against the backdrop of near-daily fatal shootings of Palestinian civilians seeking food.
The review was triggered by Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, amid widespread horror over the ongoing bombardment that has laid waste to the territory and killed more than 55,600 people – mostly civilians – since 7 October 2023, according to the Gaza health ministry.
What next after EU finds ‘indications’ that Israel is in breach of human rights obligations?
The EU discussion is complicated by Israel’s airstrikes on Iran, which may restrain some governments from putting pressure on Israel.
Soon after Israel began waging war against Iran, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, “reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself”. She has previously faced criticism for not speaking up over the humanitarian consequences for Palestinians from Israel’s onslaught.
The EU-Israel association agreement, signed in 1995, underpins a trade relationship worth €68bn (£58bn) between 27 European countries and the Middle Eastern country. The EU is Israel’s largest market and accounts for about one-third of its trade. Israel is also a member of the EU’s Horizon research funding programme, and has secured grants worth €831m since the current programme began in 2021.
The document emerged after more than 100 campaign groups urged the commission this week to suspend the association agreement.
“A weak or inconclusive review of Israel’s compliance with article 2, and/or failure by the commission and council to suspend at least part of the association agreement, would ultimately destroy what’s left of the EU’s credibility [and] further embolden Israel authorities to continue their atrocity crimes,” reads the statement, signed by 113 civil society groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Eve Geddie, the head of Amnesty International’s EU office, said the decision to launch a review had come “tragically, devastatingly late” and that while it was important, as time passed Israeli forces had become “more and more emboldened”.
Separately, eight EU member states have written to Kallas urging her to look into discontinuing trade of goods and services from the occupied Palestinian territories.
The letter, organised by Belgium, states the EU is obliged to respond to an opinion from the international court of justice last July ordering Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories as soon as possible. In a landmark – albeit non-binding – ruling, the court said other states were under an obligation not to recognise the occupation as lawful.
“We have not seen a proposal on how to effectively discontinue trade of goods and services with the illegal settlements,” states the letter, calling for the EU to set out a timeline for reaching “full compliance” with the advisory opinion around its first anniversary.
Protesters in The Hague
The Netherlands launched a call to review the EU-Israel association agreement after protests last month, which have continued (pictured: The Hague, 15 June 2025). Photograph: Paulo Amorim/VW Pics/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock
EU policy on Israel has been hobbled by difficulties finding unanimity among 27 member states with starkly different views, from countries that have recognised Palestine, including Spain and Ireland, to staunch allies of the Israeli president, Benjamin Netanyahu, such as Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The tide turned last month when the Netherlands, a strong ally of Israel, launched a call to review the EU-Israel association agreement, after the largest protests on Dutch streets over a foreign policy question in decades.
The Dutch foreign minister, Casper Veldkamp, a former ambassador to Israel, argued that Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip was a breach of international law and therefore the association agreement. An unexpectedly large number of countries agreed, although the question was not put to a vote.
The EU is far from united over what to do next. A full suspension of the agreement, which requires unanimity, is seen as impossible, given the certainty of a veto from Hungary, the Czech Republic or Germany.
The EU only needs a weighted majority to suspend favourable trade terms or Israel’s participation in Horizon, but even those outcomes are highly uncertain.
Hildegard Bentele, a German centre-right MEP who chairs the European parliament’s Israel delegation, criticised moves to question the agreement. “This will not have any influence on the Israeli government. I am very sure about it. This will put us in a less influential position,” she said in an interview earlier this month.
Kallas’s predecessor, Josep Borrell, however, has criticised Europe for shirking its moral responsibilities over Gaza. In a typically outspoken speech, he argued the EU should use the association agreement as a lever to demand that humanitarian law is respected.
In a further illustration of the EU’s foreign policy knots, Hungary is blocking EU sanctions against violent Israeli settlers.
Kallas earlier this week voiced frustration at critics that have accused the EU of silence and inaction, citing the need to find consensus. “Sanctions need unanimity. And again I’m representing 27 [countries].”
She argued that presenting sanctions that would inevitably fail was pointless: “I feel better myself that I’ve done something, but actually I know that this will not go through … and then it will just show that we don’t have a common position.”
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