Last weekend Trump ordered the US military to strike three nuclear facilities in Iran. Was this the opening salvo of WWIII? Or was it just a brief exchange in a 12-day war? What does this mean? Why did it happen? And where do we go from here?

Find out the details in this open source investigation of the ongoing conflict in Iran.

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Transcript

JAMES CORBETT: But it’s all part of a cyclical feedback loop. And even though the protesters are, of course, trying to make fun of John McCain using the clip, it really just serves to further reinforce the conditioning that we’re being fed right now, that Iran is going to be bombed. One way or another, someone’s going to get in power and someone’s going to pull the trigger, as it were. As I say, it’s part of a feedback loop, and it just continues to grow and grow. The talk will eventually increase and increase until such time as it seems inevitable that they will attack. And then they will attack. And when they do, it will seem like it was inevitable or it was just destined to happen.

SOURCE: Episode 002 — WWIII Starts in Iran

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much. A short time ago, the US military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime. Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.

SOURCE: WATCH LIVE: President Trump addresses the nation after U.S. bombs 3 Iranian nuclear sites

CORBETT: Welcome back, friends. Welcome back to another edition of The Corbett Report. I’m your host, James Corbett of corbettreport.com, coming to you from the sunny climes of Western Japan here in late June of 2025 with Episode 480 of The Corbett Report podcast, “Trump Bombs Iran.”

Now, I suppose everyone here already understands what has just taken place, but we’re going to go through it today in as fine detail as is possible, given that this is obviously a breaking news story and is still developing at the time that I am recording this. For the record, I am recording this Tuesday morning here in Japan, Tuesday, June 24th, at 8:37 AM Japanese Standard Time, for those keeping track at home.

So, as is always the case with any breaking news story, any breaking news that happens between the time that I record this and the time that you are listening to this, obviously, I do not know about.

In an effort to keep this information as up to date as is possible, I’m going to ask The Corbett Report members to participate in this open source investigation. This is going to be another one of The Corbett Report open source investigations, where Corbett Report members from around the world, hopefully drawing on different sources from around the world in different languages and [with] whatever resources you have at your fingertips, [will] please keep this information up to date with the latest developments.

And I would appreciate your providing links and analysis in the comments below. There is only one place to participate in this open source investigation: corbettreport.com/trumpbombsiran. Please go there directly and leave your feedback there. That is the one and only place where comments on this breaking news story will be taking place.

Having said that, I think we need to set the groundwork for what’s going on here and lay out the background of what’s happened and why it’s happening. But obviously, long story short, we all know that Trump just recently launched a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, completely and totally obliterating them, according to him.

This is the absolute latest breaking news at the time I’m recording this: “Trump Says Iran and Israel Have Agreed to a Ceasefire.”

Namely, it says:

President Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Monday that Israel and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire, ending what he called “The 12 Day War,” although so far there’s been no confirmation from Tel Aviv or Tehran.

You can go to the linked Truth Social post here:

CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE! It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!), for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered ENDED! Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE, and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE, and, upon the 24th Hour, an official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World.

Alright, this is what we are being told at the moment. Take it with the hefty grain of salt that you should take any such pronouncement. Hey, by the time you’re watching this, maybe we’ll know if the ceasefire is actually holding or not. But it is interesting that Iran will be starting, and Israel will be following up 12 hours later. I don’t know, that sounds like the kind of ceasefire few countries would agree to. But what do I know? I’m not an international wheeler-dealer diplomat.

Anyway, as I say, take that for what it’s worth, and maybe, hopefully, this is the end, and this is all over now, and we don’t have to worry about any further complications or implications from many of this.

But I remain skeptical, given some of the information that is coming out, even to this very hour.

Let’s start going through it. Once again, to lay the groundwork for what is happening for those who have been in a coma for the past week or two.

First, you would probably want to start with my “Israel Attacks Iran: An Open Source Investigation” article that I posted up on June 14, 2025, going over the events of the night of June 12/13, 2025, when “Israel launched a wave of attacks against Iran” [d]ubbed “Operation Rising Lion[.]”

[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu called it a “targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival” and vowed to continue the operation “for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.”

You can read about what happened in those attacks and the result of them. Of course, this was an open source investigation, so there are currently 154 comments from various Corbett Report members, with links to much more information that has taken place in the intervening days.

But then, of course, the real purpose of today’s episode: “US unleashes deadly arsenal: How the strike on Iran’s nuclear sites took place.”

Yes, for those who don’t know, just this past weekend:

The United States entered the conflict with Iran, [. . .] deploying its most powerful conventional weapons against the country’s nuclear facilities following eight days of unprecedented Israeli strikes.

Of course it targeted the sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Sorry—to put it in Trump’s words: Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.

[Corbett reads various snippets from the following article, adding his own transitions in places—not shown here.]

Six B-2 Spirit stealth bombers embarked on an extraordinary 37-hour flight from Missouri, delivering the payload. [. . .]

Capable of carrying up to 18 tons of ordnance and flying unrefueled for approximately 11,000 kilometers (6,800 miles) — a distance mirroring their recent mission — the B-2 was designed to penetrate deep into enemy territory undetected by radar. [. . .]

The main weapon deployed against the fortified Fordow site was the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). Weighing 13.6 tons, this bunker-buster was specifically developed by the U.S. Pentagon with one key objective: destroying Fordow.

Yes, when you develop a weapon that is literally for one specific site in the world, it’s highly likely that it’s going to be used against that site at some point, isn’t it?

Well, anyway, in case you are, like Brian Williams, distracted by the beauty of our weapons, or whatever that ridiculous phrase that he used was, you can read all about it. There’s lots of war porn in here about the details of the bunker-busters and how they work, etc.

That gives you the overview. The nuclear sites were attacked last Saturday. Behold, the handiwork of these bunker-busters! This is the satellite imagery from Fordow from June 19th as contrasted to June 22nd after the attacks—before and after. And wow, look, completely and totally obliterated? I guess? I don’t know. I’ll let you use your own eyesight and judgment on this.

Again, I am no weapons expert or technical nuclear facilities expert, so I wouldn’t deign to comment on what this actually means. It does not look like total and complete obliteration in the sense we would expect, but tunnel entrances seem to be blocked with dirt, and there are craters left following the strike. So something happened there, at any rate.

What happened exactly? Well, if you are somewhat skeptical about the extent of these attacks and what they accomplished, you’re not alone. Bloomberg had this report up just the other day: “Satellite Images Question Trump’s Claim Iran’s Atomic Sites Destroyed,” which notes that:

Trump said heavily fortified sites were “totally obliterated” late Saturday, but independent analysis has yet to verify that claim. Rather than yielding a quick win, the strikes have complicated the task of tracking uranium and ensuring Iran doesn’t build a weapon[.]

You can go and read through this report in much greater detail, but they go on to say that:

U.S. Air Force General Dan Cain told a news conference earlier on Sunday that an assessment of “final battle damage will take some time.” IAEA inspectors, meanwhile [that’s the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, for those keeping track at home], haven’t been able to verify the location of the Persian Gulf country’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium for more than a week.

It goes on to say that not only has this supposedly, potentially destroyed some of Iran’s enrichment capabilities, it’s also destroyed the IAEA’s ability to keep track of enriched uranium, which seems important because it turns out, well, as the Old Gray Lady, the presstitute of record, herself is reporting, “Officials Concede They Don’t Know the Fate of Iran’s Uranium Stockpile,” which notes that:

A day after President Trump declared that Iran’s nuclear program has been “completely and totally obliterated” by American bunker-busting bombs and a barrage of missiles, the actual state of the program seemed far more murky, with senior officials conceding they did not know the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.

“We’re going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel[,] and that’s one of the things that we’re going to have conversations with the Iranians about,” said Vance on ABC’s “This Week” in a seeming implication that the Iranians were tipped off, potentially, or at any rate had advance warning of the attack and proceeded to move some of their enriched uranium before the attack. And now “we don’t know where it is”—or at least that is what we’re being told. Take all of this with a grain of salt, of course, as always, but this is what is being reported.

Alright. So, what are some of the implications? What is going to happen as a result of this? Well, as I’m sure many people saw in the immediate wake of that strike, “Iran’s Parliament Votes To Close Strait of Hormuz in Response to US Attack.”

For people who do not know their geography, here is the Strait of Hormuz connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, which is the key outlet for a lot of oil shipment from the Persian Gulf out to the wider world. [It’s] estimated to be . . . I believe something in the range of one-fifth of oil shipments that are going by sea are through the Strait of Hormuz. So the shutting down of the Strait of Hormuz, which has never been totally and completely accomplished, would be quite a thing if it were to take place.

Is it taking place, despite claims of this ceasefire happening? Well, maybe. We have this up from Zero Hedge: “Widespread GPS Jamming Across Strait of Hormuz; Six Supertankers Perform Abrupt U-Turns,” which notes that:

Earlier reports confirmed that six supertankers abruptly reversed course in the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, new alerts indicate Iranian missiles have been spotted over Doha.

And there is “widespread ‘high-interference’ GPS jamming” taking place “across the critical maritime chokepoint.”

They show the GPS jamming indicator and go through what this means and some of the implications. We will go into that in more detail later on. I’m just trying to give you the overall sense of what is taking place—again, as I am recording this Tuesday morning Japanese time.

There is a lot happening here, and, as I say, many moving parts to this story that is developing. Once again, please, Corbett Report members, please do log in and leave latest links to analysis and development in the comment section at corbettreport.com.

Anyway, in case you’re wondering why it was so imperative for Trump to start dropping bombs on Iran now, it’s because . . . uh, let me check my notes . . . it’s because, uh, Oh, my God, the Iranians were just months away from developing nuclear bombs, and they’ve only been months away from developing a bomb since . . . uh, let me check my notes again . . . uh, 1996.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU IN OCTOBER 1996: The deadline for attaining this goal is getting extremely . . . is extremely close.

NETANYAHU IN SEPTEMBER 2002: And Iran, by the way, is also outpacing Iraq in the development of ballistic missile systems that they hope will reach the Eastern Seaboard of the United States within fifteen years.

NETANYAHU IN SEPTEMBER 2012: By next spring, at most by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.

NETANYAHU IN MARCH 2015: The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons.

NETANYAHU IN OCTBER 2015: That would place a militant Islamic terror regime weeks away from having the fissile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs.

NETANYAHU IN JUNE 13, 2025: If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year. It could be within a few months, less than a year.

SOURCE: CNN put together a collection of clips of Netanyahu warning Iran is close to a nuclear weapon going back to 1996

Actually, as The Daily Show pointed out in their own clip collage, the warnings and pronouncements from Bibi go back to at least 1995: Netanyahu warning about Iranian nukes in 1995

Or actually is that 1993, as Ynet News reported back several years ago? “Netanyahu in 1993: Iran will have a bomb by 1999.”

He was warning at that time: Netanyahu warning about Iranian nukes in 1993

Oh, wait, actually, maybe it goes back to 1992, when Netanyahu in particular made his first claims that “the bombs are only months away, I tell you. They’re just a few months away”: Netanyahu warning about Iranian nukes in 1992

Anyway, I used that particular CNN montage that we were watching because it was CNN, and I thought it was particularly important/humorous that even CNN is calling Netanyahu out for having blown the whistle on this imminent threat one too many times over the decades—literally 30-plus years that he’s been telling us, “They’re just months away, I tell you.”

So, the question then becomes, what actually changed in recent weeks to make this bombing absolutely essential now? Why right now? And the answer is: What changed? Absolutely nothing.

Yes, as we already knew, because this was even the official US national security assessment back just a few months ago, the Iranians were not just months away from developing a nuclear weapon.

In fact, we have this from The Cradle just a few days ago: “Tulsi Gabbard ‘sidelined’ by Trump for opposing Iran war: Report,” which noted that:

“Gabbard has been sidelined in internal administration discussions about the conflict between Israel and Iran” and “appears to have fallen out of favor” with the president.

“Gabbard did not attend a meeting of top officials on [June 8^th] at Camp David . . . to discuss tensions between Israel and Iran[.]”

“Gabbard has . . . been working behind the scenes to try to find a diplomatic solution[.]”

As it goes on to note:

The national intelligence director testified before Congress in March this year, highlighting that the US intelligence community did not believe Iran was working to build a nuclear bomb.

When asked about this assessment and what Gabbard’s been saying, Trump said, “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.”

Well, there you go. I guess [as] commander in chief, he gets to say whatever he’s going to say.

We have this other article just from a couple of days ago. Of course she bent the knee once the media started to feast upon those juicy headlines. We have this from antiwar.com: “Gabbard Falls in Line, Claims Iran Close to Nukes,” where she spins it as:

Oh, the dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news. America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months.

Blah, blah, blah. Which I think Dave Smith accurately summarizes in his own tweet:

Wow, Tulsi is now the Colin Powell of this administration. She knows better but has chosen to lie through her teeth to sell a war. She’s worse than the others because she spends her career pretending to be against regime change war in Iran. What an utter disgrace!

Well, there you go. At least history will correctly know what side of what line she ended up being on when the rubber actually met the road.

While we’re at it, we might as well do a New World Next Week update. Trump has also, in addition to attacking Gabbard, he’s also attacked, of course, Representative [Thomas] Massie [R-KY] for his views on opposing the illegal bombing of Iran. [See Trump Attacks Rep. Massie for Opposing His Illegal Bombing of Iran.]

As you will remember from the most recent edition of New World Next Week from last week, “MAGA Means War Against Iran!,” Massie and a Democrat co-sponsor had introduced a bill requiring a congressional war powers resolution in order for Trump to take America to war with Iran.

Obviously, that didn’t go anywhere and it didn’t mean anything, even though, of course, there shouldn’t need to be any legislation for it. It’s already technically, theoretically, the law of the land. But anyway, whatever. I mean, we know that the negotiations between the US-brokered negotiations about the Iranian nuclear program were ongoing, that there were talks that were scheduled for the very weekend that the bombs—Trump’s bombs—started falling.

But poof, that’s gone, obviously. And now Trump is on board with the neocon line—hook, line, and sinker.

I think it is important at this point just to have a little bit of background about the Iranian nuclear program—what it was and what it was not, what it is and what it is not, potentially—and some of the lies that have been told about it in the past. This is something that I covered quite thoroughly in my 2008 report on “The REAL Middle East Nuclear Threat.”

CORBETT: Hand-wringing over Iran’s nuclear program is nothing new. It became a mainstay of Western political discourse after an Iranian dissident revealed the Iranian government’s plans for a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in August 2002.

But the surprising fact for Americans and others around the world who get their information from the corporate mainstream media is that Iran’s pre-2003 nuclear weapons program has long been known and admitted.

Since 2003, when the program was scrapped, not a single piece of evidence has been presented, not even by Netanyahu or the Israeli government, that the Iranian government ever pursued anything other than what it said it was pursuing: a nuclear energy program.

Not that that fact has ever stopped Netanyahu from using any opportunity to use cartoon-level propaganda tactics to convince the world otherwise.

NETANYAHU: In the case of Iran’s nuclear plans to build a bomb, this bomb has to be filled with enough enriched uranium, and Iran has to go through three stages. The first stage, they have to enrich enough low-enriched uranium. The second stage, they have to enrich enough medium-enriched uranium. And the third stage and final stage, they have to enrich enough high-enriched uranium for the first bomb.

Where’s Iran? Iran’s completed the first stage. It took them many years, but they completed it, and they’re 70% of the way there. Now, they’re well into the second stage. And by next spring, at most by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.

Ladies and gentlemen, what I’ve told you now is not based on secret information. It’s not based on military intelligence. It’s based on the public reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Anybody can read them. They’re online. So if these are the facts—if these are the facts, and they are, where should a red line be drawn?

A red line should be drawn right here—before, before Iran completes the second stage of nuclear enrichment necessary to make a bomb, before Iran gets to a point where it’s a few months away or a few weeks away from amassing enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon. Now each day, that point is getting closer. And that’s why I speak today with such a sense of urgency.

CORBETT: Of course, Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons, and Netanyahu’s Wile E. Coyote bomb and redline warnings bore no greater semblance to reality than the cartoon propaganda surrounding Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.

Not only did the IAEA repeatedly confirm that Iran never diverted any nuclear material into any military program, but even the US intelligence community itself conceded that Iran was not trying to build a nuclear bomb. Most remarkable of all was Mossad’s own assessment that Iran was not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons. As I detailed earlier this year in “We Need To Talk About the Iran Protests,” fearmongering over Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons program was the basis for an extraordinary series of measures against the country in recent decades.

These measures include Nitro Zeus, a full-scale military cyberattack against Iran, the best-known element of which was Stuxnet, the military-grade cyberweapon co-developed by the United States and Israel that specifically targeted Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz.

Iran’s nonexistent nuclear program also provided the pretext for sanctions aimed at crippling the country’s economy, including the delisting of Iranian banks from the SWIFT network, connecting the world’s financial institutions. The fearmongers even went so far as to plant evidence of nuclear weapons involvement on Iran to further justify these attacks.

But the great irony is that there really is a nuclear-armed nation in the Middle East. It is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It does not allow inspections of its arsenal. It does not even officially acknowledge its stockpile of nuclear weapons. It has even resisted the push for an international treaty recognizing a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

And that country is Israel.

SOURCE: The REAL Middle East Nuclear Threat

If you have not seen that report before, I would highly suggest that you follow the link from the Show Notes in today’s episode, corbettreport.com/trumpbombsiran in order to watch that report in its entirety, where you can learn more about the actual “REAL Middle East Nuclear Threat”—not Iran . . .

. . . [but] of course, Israel, the only country in the region that actually possesses a nuclear stockpile, a nuclear stockpile that is not officially, that is not subject to any inspections by any international agency—Israel, the only country in the region that is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and, in fact, one of only five states on the entire planet that is not a signatory to the NPT, and has even resisted the push for an international treaty recognizing a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, obviously because they stole their nukes from the US back in the ’60s, with the help of Netanyahu and others, as I have documented before on The Corbett Report. They are certainly not going to give them up, and they’re not going to let anyone else have any—at least in that region.

There’s a lot more to be said about that and about the many, many lies that have been sold to the American public, the Israeli public, the public of the world, about Iran’s nuclear program over the years. And there’s a lot of hard evidence to back up the fact that those lies are propaganda. But that is background at this point.

Let’s move forward. The question is, of course, “What will happen from here?” Well, as I say, the new ceasefire has just been announced by Trump and the reports that are coming in as I am recording this are that apparently Iran has acknowledged this ceasefire.

Who knows what will eventuate from this. But let’s see if we can get an idea of that by, I don’t know, going to the horse’s mouth. So, let’s take the regime propaganda version of what happens next, and we’ll go to Vice President Thiel—I mean Vice President Vance for his assessment of the situation.

JD VANCE: I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern. But the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a President who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives.

So this is not going to be some long-drawn-out thing. We’ve got in. We’ve done the job of setting their nuclear program back. We’re going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years. And that is what the President has set out to do. Simple principle. Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. That has animated American policy over the past 130 days. It’s going to continue to be a driving force of our policy in the Middle East for the next three-and-a-half years.

SOURCE: JD Vance Says Don’t Worry About War With Iran Because President Trump Isn’t ‘Dumb’

It sure is a good thing we don’t have a dumb President at the moment, right, Mr. Vance? Alright.

Well, anyway, there’s that take. But why would we take the regime propaganda at face value . . . and believe in “the President is really running the country” fairy tale while we’re at it?

Let’s take a different take from a different side of the two-headed beast that is government. Why don’t we look at what Ben Rhodes, the former deputy national security advisor under Obama, has said with regards to all of the simulations of just such a strike that have been run by the national security establishment in the past and what they all eventuated into.

BEN RHODES: I can tell you, John, that as someone who’s been in simulations of what would happen in precisely this scenario . . .

JON STEWART: When you say “been in simulations,” what do you mean by that?

RHODES: It means essentially you war game out. What would happen if the Israelis bombed the Iranian nuclear facilities?

STEWART: So these are sort of AI-generated or computer simulated. Here’s where the casualties would be. Here’s what would occur.

RHODES: Or people run them, you know—people . . . who know a lot about this stuff. It always leads to Israel asking the United States to bomb this facility. And it almost always leads to regime change in Iran, ‘cuz it’s like, “Well, why would we stop now?” You know? People have been thinking about this for a long time, and we’re on the ride right now. And the question is “Can we get off it?”

STEWART: Right. And the facility you’re talking about is that one nuclear facility that is buried in a mountain that can only be reached by United States bunker-busting weaponry, yes? Fordew? I believe it’s called . . .

RHODES: Fordow. And for all the talk about how sophisticated Israeli operations been, if you don’t blow up Fordow, you’ve only set the Iranian nuclear program back a few months. And so obviously, they’re going to want us to get the underground facility that only we can hit. We are the only people that have a bunker-buster bomb that can get at that facility. The only people who have planes that can drop it. And frankly, we don’t even know that it would destroy it entirely. That’s how deep underground this is.

STEWART: Right.

SOURCE: Ben Rhodes to Jon Stewart: every simulation leads to regime change

Oh, I see. So the deep state have been running simulations of just such events for years now. And every single time they do, the simulated events start with an attack on Fordow and escalate up to regime change. Alright, cool. And where did they just strike again? Oh, that’s right, Fordow. Wonderful.

Well, okay, we’ve looked at Vance. We’ve looked at Rhodes. What does Trump himself have to say about this? We can take this from recent reports: “Trump floats Iran ‘regime change,’ even as the true impact of US strikes is far from clear,” noting a recent Truth Social post that he made, where he said, “Why wouldn’t there be a regime change???”

Indeed, why not? Might as well, huh?

Alright, so let’s find out where things stand right now. As I say, the ceasefire is just being reported as I am recording this. It obviously remains to be seen whether it will be honored at all, and if so, to what extent and what it means for the future of negotiations between Iran and Israel and the US.

But let’s take a look at some of the things that have eventuated in the past couple of days.

First of all, of course, in the immediate wake of the strikes, how did Iran react? “Tehran vows ‘everlasting consequences’ after US strikes Iranian nuclear facilities.”

As one would expect, “The IRGC said, ‘Now the war has begun’” and America has become a legitimate target for Iranian strikes.

Obviously we saw that followed up quite quickly, in short order, with “Iran hits largest US base in Persian Gulf with retaliatory missile attack,” noting that:

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced late on 23 June the launch of “Operation Glad Tidings of Victory,” targeting Al-Udeid US Airbase in Qatar in retaliation for Washington’s unprovoked attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

You can watch the footage of the interceptors intercepting the missiles here. And from all reports that we are getting right now from the Israeli-American side, no one was injured. There was no problem here. They intercepted these missiles and there was no actual damage done. At least that’s what we’re being told at the moment.

But there has been some attempt at some sort of retaliatory strike on a US airbase in the region. And also, of course, “Trump Thanks Iran for Early Notice on Retaliatory Attack on US Base in Qatar.” And he notes that the response was “weak.”

And he says, “There have been 14 missiles fired — 13 were knocked down, and 1 was ‘set free,’ because it was headed in a non-threatening direction.”

And he says, “I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured.”

So, from what he’s saying, I gather the Iranians actually did forewarn about the attack before it even happened, which seems actually pretty par for the course with everything we’ve seen with Iranian responses to various strikes over the preceding few years.

Iran always warns in advance and generally has seemingly not responded with the full retaliatory barrage to any strike yet. Starting to raise the question of whether they are able to actually launch any strikes with “everlasting consequences”—or whether that’s all just hot air.

Anyway, the US, for its part, is warning of a “‘heightened threat environment’ after strikes on Iran.” This report from The Hill notes that:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin on Sunday, alerting the public to the potential of cyberattacks carried out by those who support Iran or are affiliated with the Iranian government.

So, I guess, be prepared for the cyber punch to the Facebook—or something along those lines that James Evan Pilato and I have been warning about for years and years on New World Next Week: that the next spectacular, world-shaking false flag event will likely be in the cyber domain.

Could this be an excuse to launch such a strike? Who knows? At any rate, we are getting the notices at the moment. And, as I mentioned earlier in this exploration, of course, the ever-looming threat that Iran might try to close the Strait of Hormuz. We have this piece from Bloomberg analyzing what that would mean and what would or could happen and how: “What If Iran Tries to Close the Strait of Hormuz?”

It goes on to note, as several analysis pieces that I’ve read in recent days have noted: “You know, maybe the closing the Strait of Hormuz talk is a bit overblown,” because:

If [Iran’s] navy tried to bar entry to the strait, it would likely be met with a strong response from the US Fifth Fleet and other Western navies patrolling the area.

But it could cause severe disruption without a single Iranian warship leaving port. One option would be to harry shipping with small, fast patrol boats. Or it could launch drones and fire missiles towards ships from coastal or inland sites. That could make it too risky for commercial ships to venture through.

And it notes that that’s not just a theoretical idea:

Similar tactics have been employed successfully by the Houthi militia in Yemen to disrupt traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, leading into the Red Sea on the other side of the Arabian peninsula.

And it does go on to talk about the Strait of Hormuz and its importance. For example:

Saudi Arabia exports the most oil through the Strait of Hormuz, though it can divert shipments to Europe by using a 746-mile pipeline across the kingdom to a terminal on the Red Sea[.]

But it does talk about:

With its oil pipeline to the Mediterranean closed, all of Iraq’s oil exports are currently shipped by sea from the port of Basra, passing through the strait[.]

And there are others: Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, for example, that “have no option but to ship their oil through the waterway.”

So, again, closing the Strait of Hormuz, although technically perhaps difficult at any rate, would certainly be an event that would have widespread repercussions. And as we noted earlier, there are reports of “GPS Jamming” taking place in the Strait of Hormuz right now. Six supertankers have apparently performed abrupt U-turns in the Strait.

So, clearly something is happening. But what? And for how long? And will this ceasefire put an end to it? We shall see.

On the Israeli side, how are the Israelis reacting to this? Well, we have The Cradle reporting: “Israel hits Tehran with ‘unprecedented’ airstrikes,” noting that:

Israel continued to heavily bombard Iran on 23 June, carrying out massive strikes, including on a university in the capital, Tehran.

Again, what does this mean? Will Israel abide by some ceasefire that Iran apparently has to start while Israel is still bombing them, presumably? Well, we’ll see. We’ll see how that works. Maybe you’ll already know by the time you’re hearing this report.

We also have, of course, the question of Trump and what he is thinking about and plotting with regards to all of this. As Zero Hedge noted the other day, “Trump Has Already Pivoted To Mulling Regime Change In Iran With Latest Post.”

Now we have this report of a ceasefire, and everything’s hunky-dory again. So what could possibly, if there was an actual attempt at regime change here, what would the calculus be to get the public on board with that?

You’d need some sort of spectacular, horrific event to take place. Look at what those Iranians did. You saw it. Now we have to take them out. What could possibly . . .

Oh, that’s right. The “USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group Will Arrive In Mideast Waters This Weekend.”

Well, that was reported last weekend, so presumably it is already there. I haven’t seen the update yet. But as I was noting on New World Next Week with James Evan Pilato last week, yes, the Nimitz carrier strike group has been deployed to the region, meaning there are two aircraft carriers in the Middle East at the same time—almost certainly an indication of military activity. Well, we’ve already seen the beginnings of some military activity there.

This is particularly significant because the Nimitz is 50 years old. It’s into its last year before it will be decommissioned. Exactly like, for example, placing all of the aging part of the US Naval fleet at Pearl Harbor as sitting ducks—as FDR was warned in advance of that event.

This seems like, well, it could potentially be another USS Liberty. If you do not know the story of the USS Liberty, look it up. It’s a particularly instructive one as to how these types of false flag attacks can proceed. We shall see what eventuates from any of that.

As for the other players that would make this into a truly global World War III-type scenario, what’s Russia saying?

“Russia warns US against assassinating Khamenei, calls regime change attempts ‘unacceptable’“—which sounds like a pretty strong, bright red line in the sand.

However . . . we also get this: “Putin, Araghchi to meet in Moscow, ‘coordinate’ position following US strikes.”

A couple of days ago, we had this quote from the above-headlined article:

Despite Iran’s appeals for global support, Russia has signaled it will not provide military backing. [. . .] [It] clarified that its recently signed strategic treaty with Iran does not include a mutual defense clause.

Hey, guys, no, no, no, that’s just for you guys supplying us with drones and stuff. That’s not for us to actually help you.

Also, the BRICS—the rah-rah BRICS are the saviours—”The BRICS economic alliance, of which Iran and Russia are members, has not issued a statement in support of the Islamic Republic or condemned Israel’s attacks.”

Because . . . of course not. Because, well, I dunno. What do I know, right? All I know is that the [fist pump] rah-rah BRICS are the saviours, guys, who have been telling us that the BRICS are totally going to annihilate the West and who are also the self-same people who have been telling us that Ukraine—sorry, Russia is just weeks away from obliterating Ukraine for the past three years and have been wrong spectacularly time and time and time and time again about every single prediction they’ve made about, say, the Russia-Ukraine conflict are now telling us, don’t worry, this is a stand [more fist pumps] for the BRICS’ Global South against the evil West oppressors.

Well, I’m not sure I’m quite waiting for that. But having said that, it is clear that Russia isimplicated in the events that are taking place right now. I mean, you can go to the horse’s mouth at RT, where they have this up: “‘If Iran falls, we’re next’?: What Russian Experts and Politicians Are Saying about the US Strikes.”

And yes, there is some degree to which there is a potentially existential threat to Russia as these events continue to play out. Russia just lost one of its key strategic allies in the region, Syria. And now they are potentially at the brink of losing another, Iran. And that could be a potentially, truly game-changing scenario for Russia and its position in the Middle East, its position in the wider world generally, and also its vulnerability to subsequent NATO aggression.

Because, of course, if all of its pieces and domino pieces are falling all around the globe and its allies are falling one by one, well, Russia should be treating this as some form of existential threat. And, hey, remember back [to] my 2007 report, “WWIII Starts in Iran,” [where] I was noting Putin was saying to the Bush regime back at that time that, “Hey, Iran is off limits. That is the start of a wider war that you guys don’t want to do.”

So what is Putin saying now? Why wouldn’t he, at least potentially, be providing military backing for Iran right now?

Oh, well, [there’s] this interesting report from Ynet News: “Putin’s surprising reason for not providing war aid to Iran: ‘Israel is almost a Russian-speaking country.’”

It notes that “Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters that one of the reasons why Russia is no longer providing assistance to the Iranians in the war is that ‘Israel is almost a Russian-speaking country,’” which just goes to show Putin and his interesting relationship with Israel specifically and what that portends for the future of the Middle East, et cetera.

Make of that what you will, but it looks like Russia, at least at this point, is not going to step in and have anything militarily to do with this. We’ll see if this does eventuate into some sort of regime change operation, what that might mean.

The other, of course, major world player who at least we should be looking at what they are doing right now is, of course, China. So let’s look at what they are doing.

We had this report up from a few days ago: “Mystery flights from China to Iran raise questions amid Israel conflict,” which notes that:

Several Boeing 747s have been spotted on radar leaving China for Iran over the last week, according to reports, sparking concerns that the CCP is helping the Middle Eastern nation transport cargo or people out of the country as Israel continues to strike the country’s nuclear facilities.

Interesting. I have not seen the follow-up on this report— whether anything was determined as to what those 747s were doing. But you can read more about the flight path that they were taking, crossing into Kazakhstan south through Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and then falling off radar as they approached Iran.

What was that about? What were these Boeing 747s transporting into or potentially back out of the country? Good questions. We’ll see if there is follow-up reporting on that issue.

But for the time being, we can also obviously see the US a little bit concerned about what China may or may not do in response with regards to this.

We have this report up from Reuters: “US urges China to dissuade Iran from closing Strait of Hormuz.”

Come on, China. Come on. Can you just tell your Iranian allies to not overreact to all this? What’s a bit of love bombing between friends, huh?

For its part, we have this from Time: “‘If Middle East Is Unstable, World Will Not Be at Peace’: How China Views the Israel-Iran War,” which notes that “Chinese President Xi Jinping [Dictator For Life] said on June 19”:

If the Middle East is unstable the world will not be at peace[.] If the conflict escalates further, not only will the conflicting parties suffer greater losses, but regional countries will also suffer greatly[.]

. . . which almost sounds like some sort of important statement and maybe kind of implies, “Well, does that mean China’s going to step in if things escalate from here?”

Well, actually, it doesn’t say anything of that sort. This is a type of mealy-mouthed diplomatic blather that means precisely nothing other than “War is bad, okay?” essentially, in diplo-speak. So, it doesn’t amount to much, which has been noted by a number of outlets, including here, CNBC: “China’s support for Tehran grows more restrained as U.S. enters war between Israel and Iran.”

This is mostly analysis rather than taking it directly from any statements from China. But essentially, the idea is, just like Russia, not quite stepping up to the plate with any military action to help their supposed ally in the region, Iran. It seems China is not willing to step up to the plate at this point anyway. Which, hey, I mean, I guess avoiding World War III is good for the world.

But there really are some question marks about what the response of various players might mean going forward from here.

Alright, there’s a lot on the table. Obviously, all of these articles will be linked in the Show Notes, so you can go and read and get more information and follow this in more depth.

But if you want to get up to speed with all of this, once again, I will recommend “Israel Attacks Iran: An Open Source Investigation.”

I will recommend Interview 1957 from last week, New World Next Week #594 on “MAGA Means War Against Iran.”

And I will also invite you to type “Iran” into the search bar of The Corbett Report home page, where you will find, at this point, eighteen years’ worth of archives of various reports that I’ve done over the years on Iran, on its supposed nuclear program, on negotiations and deals (the JCPOA and others), on its relationship with Israel and on “The REAL Middle East Nuclear Threat.” There’s a lot in the archives about Iran that is definitely worth your attention, if you haven’t seen them yet.

Having said that, I think we can take a couple of key takeaways from this.

Number one, the best possible outcome from this point forward is that this ceasefire actually does hold and World War III does not start. I think we can all agree at the very least that would be the best, at least immediate, response and consequence of what’s happening here.

Let’s hope [that] cooler heads prevail—[and that] for some reason, Iran goes along with the idea of, okay, “Now that we’ve bombed you, now you should totally be peaceful with us.”

But even then, there is no possible way, no conceivable universe in which the actions of this past weekend and the past couple of weeks do not have some sort of longer implications and far-reaching consequences into the future that we can’t even possibly predict right now.

I note, for example, that there’s already questions of the next great migration crisis that may be sweeping onto the shores of EU as a result of the displacement that’s taken place over the past couple of weeks. That’s just one example of the many, many, many knock-on effects that can result from these types of things.

And if the illegal, aggressive war on Iraq taught us nothing else, it is that “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” banners do not tend to look that good in hindsight, given subsequent events.

Who knows what the longer, bigger, far-reaching consequences of this are. At any rate, whether hot, actual World War III does eventuate from this or not, at the very least, the long-simmering Cold War-like tensions that have amassed between the US-NATO-Israeli side and the Iran-China-Russia axis or whatever they’re being called in the media this week—the CRINK?—those tensions are coming to the surface once again.

And I will throw in a link to an interesting video report I watched recently that I think articulated and crystallized the idea of “What Is a World War?” What does that mean?

It is not simply a number of bilateral wars taking place between this country and that country, and that country and that country, and that country and that country, simultaneously.

No, it’s that all of those conflicts are interrelated. And what happens on one front affects what happens on another front, affects the calculus of another country somewhere else in the world deciding or not deciding to invade and try to take some land for their own sake or that type of thing.

There is an interconnected web that happens from individual acts like this. So, let’s imagine that, yes, the bombing of the nuclear sites—that was it. And Trump can—yay!—parade as the saviour. Wonderful. Everything’s been solved.

Well, even so, the calculus has now changed.

For example:

China taking Taiwan.

India trying to sort some of its border disputes out with Pakistan and/or China.

Russia and Ukraine—the calculus there.

Europe and its security calculus.

All of this now needs to be adjusted in the wake of these bombings.

So that’s definitely something.

Having said that, where does MAGA go from here? I mean, again, best case scenario, this was just one bombing over one weekend. See, guys, it wasn’t a big war. I’m okay. Having said that, it does show. I think we have seen some of the cards finally coming down on the table. And the fact that the American public, once again, as always, overwhelmingly against the idea of the US joining in Israel’s war on Iran.

Just from a few days ago: We had “only 16% of Americans” were in favor of the US joining Israel’s war on Iran.

In fact, not only does this recent poll indicate that only 16% of Americans think the US military should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran it also found that only 19% of people who voted for Trump in 2024 support American military involvement, which is particularly significant, because one can imagine these types of polls often split along partisan lines. Of course, the Democrats are opposed to this Republican war, but the Republicans rally around the Republican flag, right?

Not in this case, precisely because Trump was sold—and sold himself—as the peace president, the man who was going to bring peace to the world. Dropping bombs on Iran is not part of that deal. That was not what people were voting for—the people who genuinely believed America First, Make America Great Again, et cetera, et cetera.

Now, of course, Trump is trying to spin this as “This is what America First means. And now it’s about Make Iran Great Again, because we’re going to get rid of this nuclear program and hopefully the regime just spontaneously falls by itself and everything will be better and peaches and ice cream.”

Well, I’ve read a lot of different analysis from a lot of different people—Craig Murray and many, many others—on these events that are probably worth your time and attention.

But I’ll just throw in this particular link from Global Research: “Trump Flip-Flops on Iran Regime Change,” which starts by noting this very point:

In the beginning of his second term (2024), President Donald Trump predicted that he would be remembered as a “peacemaker and unifier,” suggesting on Inauguration Day that “Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable” and that Americans will know “success by wars that we end and the wars that we never get into.”

And:

Prior to the election, who can forget Trump promised to be a “peace president” who would promptly shut down the war in Ukraine.

I believe the actual phrase was, he would “get it solved on day one,” right? It would take him one day to end the war in Ukraine. Well, hmm. Still working on that one and now expanding into Iran and elsewhere.

I think there is a time of reckoning for those people who still, after all of these decades and decades and decades of being lied to and used and manipulated by politicians time and time and time again and still continue going back to that slave suggestion box and still thinking, “This time, this guy gets it. Don’t worry. This is our peace president. And this little vote that I have in my hand, this is going to be the deciding factor. I’m going to stop all of these wars in the Middle East and all this crap going on with my vote.”

Well, welcome to reality. I hate that it has to be this way. And unfortunately, I know that a lot of people—even a lot of people who are finally starting to question and think, “Hey, maybe we got suckered”—are going to get suckered again the next time a carnival barker barks them back into the circus and they buy their ticket with their vote next time. Because next time, “Don’t worry, this next candidate really gets it.”

And so the cycle continues. Hey, all I know is that apparently Pakistan has nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. [On the screen is a BBC article whose headline reads: “Pakistan to nominate Trump for Nobel Peace Prize.”]

And that about checks out. For people who remember my reporting on “The Ignoble War Prize” back in 2012—back when Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the sheer fact that he was not George W. Bush—yeah, this seems about right.

Anyway, if you want to know more about the history of “The Ignoble War Prize,” I would suggest you check out that edition of Corbett Report Radio [#242] from the archives. It’s worth your time and attention, as is all of the information that we have gone through today.

Again, dozens and dozens and dozens of links will be in the Show Notes at corbettreport.com/trumpbombsiran, which I will remind you is the one and only place for this open source investigation to take place.

Corbett Report members are invited and encouraged to log into the website and to leave your comments, your analysis, links to further reading on these events.

As I say, this is a moving target, and I am recording this at a certain point in time, namely the morning of June 24, 2025.

Things will have moved on by the time this gets posted. It is up to The Corbett Report community to keep this going with timely information. My thanks in advance for your support in that regard.

Well, I think that’s going to do it for today’s exploration.

Obviously, I will have more to say about these events as they do develop. I hope you will stay tuned for that.

But in the meantime, and in between time, I am James Corbett of corbettreport.com, thanking you for investing your time in today’s exploration and inviting you to join me again in the near future.

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