Iran and Israel: What Will America Do?
Iran seems to think a deal with the West can be had
Update: Since drafting this piece, this occurred:
Trump to leave G7 summit early to monitor tensions in the Middle East
President Donald Trump signaled Monday that the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran was intensifying rapidly, announcing he would return to Washington a day early from the Group of 7 summit in Canada to monitor developments after issuing an ominous warning to Iranians to “immediately evacuate” their capital city.
Also this:
I think my prediction below is correct. It was always going to happen.
First, two notes. I have been curating a Twitter list of Middle East sources, both of news and analysis. Accounts are moved on and off as I find them more or less helpful. If you’d like to follow the list, click here.
Also, I should have mentioned that I’m active on Twitter and BlueSky. A lot of what I’m thinking about appears there first. Subscribe at the links above.
News
And now, as of this writing…
Israel: No regime change for Iran (yet)
Head of Israel’s National Security Council: “We have not made regime change in Tehran an official goal — but we hope it will be the outcome.”
Link: https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1934502360547569828
The son of the ousted Shah, Reza Pahlavi, waits in the wings
Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah, spoke with the BBC. He sees opportunity.
Full interview here (cued to start with Pahlavi’s interview).
US carrier heads west from South China Sea amid Middle East tensions
US aircraft carrier USS Nimitz left the South China Sea on Monday morning [June 9] heading west, according to data from ship tracking website Marine Traffic, after a reception for its planned port call in central Vietnam was canceled. … One of the sources said the US Embassy in Hanoi had informed him about the cancellation, due to “an emergent operational requirement.”
June 9 is four days before the June 13 Israeli attack. The Nimitz and its strike group are currently sailing through the Strait of Malacca.
Marine Tracker: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:359203/mmsi:303981000/imo:0/vessel:USS_NIMITZ__CVN_68_
U.S. Forward Deploys Dozens of Aerial Tankers Amid Possible Entry Into Israel-Iran War
The U.S. Air Force has made an unprecedented mass deployment of KC-135 and KC-46 aerial tankers across the Atlantic from bases on the American mainland, fuelling considerable speculation that the aircraft may be intended to participate in the ongoing Israeli-Iranian War. The number of aircraft has continued to rise, and was reported in the late hours of June 15, West Coast time, to have exceeded 30 tankers.
Also:
Tankers from multiple Western countries have been reported to be participating in supporting Israeli Air Force aerial refuelling efforts to facilitate strikes on Iran, raising the possibility that these newly deployed tankers may be intended to similarly refuel Israeli assets.
And:
The U.S. is already an active participant in hostilities, and has deployed THAAD air defence systems and AEGIS destroyers to support efforts to shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles being fired at Israeli targets.
Link: https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/us-forward-deploys-dozens-aerial-tankers-iran
Archive: https://archive.is/ZzDc8
Iran: We still don’t want nukes. We’re still in talks with US.
JUST IN | Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his government has no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons, despite Western claims.
Speaking in parliament, he noted that Iran has been in talks with the United States over its nuclear program and that enrichment efforts are solely for peaceful energy use. “We are not seeking nuclear weapons,” he said, but Iran has every right to benefit from nuclear energy.
Link: https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1934502908273336412
On rumors Pakistan will back Iran with nukes: ‘No such commitment’
Tehran has claimed that Pakistan will retaliate on its behalf in case of a nuclear attack. However, Pakistan has denied this claim.
Speaking to state television, General Mohsen Rezaei, an IRGC commander and member of Iran’s National Security Council, stated that Pakistan has agreed to support Iran and launch a nuclear attack on Israel if Tel Aviv escalates the conflict.
"Pakistan has told us that if Israel uses a nuclear bomb on Iran, then Pakistan will also attack Israel with a nuclear bomb," the general told Iranian state television. …
However, Pakistan has denied this claim. Taking to X, Pakistani defence minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif has dismissed the claim and stated that Pakistan has made no such commitment.
In an X statement, Asif added that Pakistan is a signatory to all international nuclear disciplines.
Meanwhile in Gaza: Israeli forces kill starving aid seekers as they search for food
Gaza’s Civil Defence says Israeli troops shot dead at least 20 hungry Palestinians and wounded hundreds of others while they waited for food at a GHF distribution site.
There are many new hourly stories like this.
Analyses
Here are some questions people are asking, with admittedly contradictory answers.
Is it already over for Iran if the U.S. attacks?
A number of commentators or analysts have cautioned that since the U.S. was in on the initial attack all along despite pretending to negotiate, Iran should assume that the decision to attack has already been made — made months ago perhaps.
This writer is one of many with this point of view:
they are going to destroy the Iranian state, nation and people. Khamenei and others in the political leadership are going to be killed soon. Iran has failed to establish deterrence. The entire leadership is concentrated in the figure of the Supreme Leader, the symbol of the state. They have also made the fatal mistake of not having a successor prepared, with a public presence and stature and recognition being cultivated and established many years in advance. So when they kill Khamenei, the state goes into full crisis mode immediately, and the process of its total collapse will begin.
A factional war will erupt in the political leadership class to choose a successor, dividing them when unity is essential. The divisions will reverberate throughout the broader public, and will be and already exacerbated by the activation of CIA-Mossad-MI6 proxy forces. The process of breaking up the Iranian nation and people along ethnic lines, a project that has been worked on for decades, will go into overdrive. Kurds, Azeri, Balochi and others will suddenly have their ready-made "freedom fighters" who will begin their "liberation movements". Simultaneously old and new proxy groups masquerading as this or that ideological faction will announce themselves: ISIS, Al-Qaeda, new "true Shia" who will do what the IRGC and army was unable to, yet somehow only seem to attack state entities.
The writer, who goes by “Zei Squirrel,” has thought this through. I quote it at length for its specificity. There’s more at the link.
Others disagree:
This [the opinion above] is fantastical nonsense. The US/Israel tandem may aspire to this objective, but they do not have the material and logistical wherewithal to achieve it. Furthermore, almost everyone is grossly underestimating how strategically important Iran has become for China and Russia.
What about the Chinese?
Arnaud Bertrand thinks they’ll stand down.
A question I see asked all the time, lately in the case of Gaza or Iran, is: why doesn't China intervene? Or, if they don't directly get involved in the fighting, couldn't they had least [sic] stop trading with Israel, or maybe supply Iran with weapons to defend themselves? Honestly, I don't have the exact answers myself and I'd be lying if I pretended I did. …
What I do know however, and what everyone could know if they did a bit of research, is China's history, and what China has revealed publicly on its thinking around these questions. …
This is the subject of my new article: the key reasons, based on China's history, its principles and its strategic calculations, why China is extremely unlikely to intervene - even when many of its supporters are calling for exactly that.
Is this true? Is it a mistake? On both, time will tell.
Link to tweet: https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1934484584370241604
Link to extended paid article: https://arnaudbertrand.substack.com/p/the-audacity-of-restraint-why-china
Is Trump even in charge?
This is a strange question to ask, from an American democracy standpoint. Of course, the president’s in charge.
But many theories, from Epstein-style blackmail to the power of the entrenched Establishment, lead to the conclusion that when it comes to Ukraine and Iran, Trump is not in charge of U.S. foreign policy. The neocons and war hawks are.
After all, war with Iran has been a Beltway fever dream for a very long time.
Where does this leave us?
If I had to guess, I think whatever’s going to happen, the plan is already in place.
It’s possible that, as one analyst says, “the Pentagon hawks prevailed.” It’s also possible (though less likely in my opinion) that U.S. intervention is still undecided.
But President Trump’s admission that he “knew all along” about the June 13 attack, and helped with deceptive offers of negotiation, means that whatever the truth about his reported reluctance to greenlight Khamenei’s assassination or order Americans to the battle itself, one has to assume a) the plan is decided, and b) a joint US-EU-Israeli assault will take place.
Israelis can’t destroy the facility at Fordow without the U.S. Nor can they turn the country into Libya or Syria without other peoples’ armies to do it.
As to what Iran will do, it’s up to them. But they’re still playing the game slowly, carefully, as if they have time, as if the U.S. may not enter. If you doubt that characterization, consider how many targets the Israelis have to protect, targets that haven’t been destroyed, like desalinization plants and Ben Gurion Airport. Or, if Iran thought the West truly wanted their utter destruction, the Strait of Hormuz is right in their back yard. Iran could have closed it last week.
There’s also the question of nukes. The world is filled with people who cite the example of Gaddafi in Libya — he gave up his nukes and got killed — but the Ayatollah’s fatwa is in place, so no nukes for now.
Iran still seems hopeful of making a deal with the West, despite their recent experience. If that’s a mistake, they’ll find out soon enough. As will the West if Khamenei is assassinated.
Sell weapons.. Sell Death… Drink Fossil Capital.
End of Story. Enough of this bogus objectively useless geopolitical speculation.
Thank you very much for your trenchant analysis. This is the most dangerous moment for all life on Earth since the days prior to the asteroid hitting 55 million years ago. Thank you again, Thomas, for making the end at least as understandable as it could have been.