by WorldTribune Staff, June 16, 2025 Real World News
Having effectively dismantled Iran’s terror proxies Hizbullah and Hamas, and prompting the ouster of top ally Bashar Assad in Syria, Israel is now taking the fight directly to Iran.
After taking heavy damage and seeing most of its top military leaders eliminated, Iran reportedly has sent messages to both Israel and the United States that it wants to end the war and to negotiate with President Donald Trump on the possibility of giving up its nuclear enrichment program to save the regime of the ruling mullahs in Teheran.
In addressing the Iranian people on June 13, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: ‘I have no doubt that your day of liberation from tyranny is closer than ever.’ / Video ImageSpeaking Monday at the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, Trump confirmed that he had received Iran’s messages.
“They’d like to talk, but they should have done that before,” Trump said. “I had 60 days, and they had 60 days, and on the 61st day, I said, ‘We don’t have a deal.’ They have to make a deal. And it’s painful for both parties. But I’d say Iran is not winning this war. And they should talk, and they should talk immediately, before it’s too late.”
Whatever deal Iran ends up agreeing to, it is clear that Israel, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is reshaping the Middle East on its own terms and forcing the Trump Administration to play catch-up as Israeli leaders ramp up attacks against Iran,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
“Israel used the cover of American diplomatic efforts to mount a surprise assault that goes far beyond targeting Iran’s nuclear program, instead aiming to cripple the country’s theocratic regime.”
With Iran’s response to Israel’s attack has resulted in several deaths in Israel, the leaders and security establishment in the Jewish state are talking about the possibility of a victory that could reshape the existing order in the Middle East.
“I have no doubt that your day of liberation from tyranny is closer than ever,” Netanyahu said addressing the Iranian people on Friday. “And when that happens, Israelis and Iranians will renew the covenant between our two ancient nations. Together we’ll bring a future of prosperity, peace and hope.”
The immediate need for Israel “is to make more progress on the goal of destroying Iran’s nuclear program,” the Journal reported.
Analyst Gregory Copley noted: “Significantly, the fundamental question is not whether Iran’s nuclear weapons capability has been constrained — it certainly has — but whether the event is sufficient to bring civilian protestors onto the Iranian streets to overthrow the clerical government, without the fear of repression by security forces.
“The Iranian civilians are the force which will determine whether the Iranian nuclear capability is ended, and whether Iran would return to its traditional geopolitical role. The Israeli attacks should be seen as the trigger which may facilitate population response.”
Israel’s military has focused heavily on wiping out Iranian air defenses with airstrikes and covert operations, giving it the ability to attack virtually at will.
Success in the conflict with Iran, however, “will require taking out the hardened uranium enrichment facility at Fordow, which Israel has yet to attack in earnest, and destroying the stockpiles of enriched uranium stores that Iran may already have spread around the country,” the report said.
Failing to cripple the nuclear program could lead Iran to accelerate its work on a bomb.
“Both Israel’s and Iran’s future is tied to whether Iran has a nuclear program at the end of this conflict,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. intelligence officer who is now at the Atlantic Council. “If it does, Iran’s ability to rebuild and project influence across the region will be very much intact. If it doesn’t, it opens up a new day that we haven’t seen in over two decades.”
Related: Once dominant Hizbullah signals strategic weakness, appeals for Lebanon’s protection, June 10, 2025
Unlike the Biden-Harris Administration, Trump has imposed few constraints on Israel’s targeting of Iran. The president did ask Netanyahu repeatedly this year to hold off on military action to give nuclear talks headed by special envoy Steve Witkoff a chance to work.
But he relented last week, when Netanyahu reminded him that his own two-month deadline for Iran to come to a deal had expired, according to officials familiar with the call between the two leaders.
“The greatest mistake the United States and its Western allies can make is forcing a premature end to this war,” said Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.
There is an understanding that the conflict with Iran is the one that matters most, said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute. A survey by his institute in April found that more than half of Jewish Israelis supported an attack on Iran, even without American support, compared with about a third who opposed it.
Israel would be pleased to see Iran’s government fall, but it shouldn’t be the goal, Plesner said. Instead, Israel needs to focus on turning its military achievement into a diplomatic one, he said.
That worked in the fight with Hizbullah. Israel set the limited goal of weakening the terror organization and pushing it back from its border with Lebanon. After a two-month campaign, Hizbullah was forced to stop firing at Israel and pull back. So far, it has stayed out of Israel’s fight with Iran.
Israel has wiped out most of Hamas’s military leaders and thousands of fighters, but the group remains the dominant force in Gaza, reportedly with no end in sight.
Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran expert at the Tel Aviv based Institute for National Security Studies, said the enthusiasm in Israel over the early successes in Iran could turn as well if Iran manages to keep bombarding cities with missiles and force the country to keep its airspace shut.
“There’s a euphoria in Israel, but we have to be very cautious,” he said.
Give Israel this: It has been reshaping the Mideast since 2024 added by Editor Two on June 16, 2025
View all posts by Editor Two →
Source link