Iran FM Araghchi issues warning to Trump after U.S. strikes on nuclear sites
Published on Jun 22, 2025 07:16 PM IST
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi delivered a fiery address condemning the U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear sites, calling the strikes 'outrageous' and warning of 'everlasting consequences' for American actions. Araghchi accused the U.S. of violating international law and the UN Charter, asserting Iran's right to defend its sovereignty by all means necessary. The speech came after President Trump announced successful strikes on the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities. Watch for more
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39 minutes ago
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Iran-Israel War: US strikes against Iran not aimed at regime change: Pentagon chief
Iran-Israel War: US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that the country's military strikes on Iran's nuclear sites were not meant for regime change plans. The US has sent private messages to Tehran before the strikes, encouraging them to negotiate, Hegseth said. Hegseth also warned Iran against retaliation against the United States, and said US forces were postured to defend themselves, and take action if needed. "This mission was not and has not been about regime change," Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon. The president authorised a precision operation to neutralise the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program, he said. The United States military struck three sites in Iran on Sunday, marking its official entry into the Israel-Iran war that started about a week ago. President Donald Trump was the first to disclose the strikes. Speaking from the White House after the strikes, President Trump dubbed Iran "the bully of the Middle East" and warned that the Islamic Republic 'must now make peace.' In what has now been called Operation 'Midnight Hammer', the US strikes included 14 bunker-buster bombs, more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles and over 125 military aircraft. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff US General Dan Cane said at the briefing that initial battle damage assessments indicated that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction, but he declined to speculate whether any Iranian nuclear capabilities might still be intact. The operation pushes the Middle East to the brink of a major new conflagration in a region already aflame for more than 20 months with wars in Gaza and Lebanon and a toppled regime under President Bashar al-Asad in Syria. Soon after the US strikes, Tehran responded with a volley of missiles at Israel that wounded scores of people and destroyed buildings in its commercial hub Tel Aviv. Iran's Supreme National Security Council is weighing a decision to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global energy chokepoint, in response to US military strikes. The move, if approved, would escalate tensions in the region and risk disrupting nearly 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas shipments. The Strait of Hormuz is a strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world's most strategically important choke points. The Strait serves as the primary export route for Gulf producers such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and Kuwait. Caine said at the Pentagon briefing that the US military had increased protection of troops in the region, including in Iraq and Syria. This mission was not and has not been about regime change.
News18
39 minutes ago
- News18
Iranians Must Reverse Their History For Redemption
Iranians have never been themselves since they ceased to be Persians, but it's never too late to reverse history. Now is the time On June 18, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a stark warning to the United States, declaring, 'Iran will never surrender". He said any American intervention in the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict would result in 'irreparable damage". He further vowed that Israel would face punishment, marking the sixth day of an unprecedented aerial war that has claimed hundreds of lives and targeted critical infrastructure across Iran. Indeed, Iran is proving no mean force in the conflict, as Tel Aviv, ravaged by Iranian missiles, bears witness to. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), forged in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), may be weakened but not eradicated. The defiant Iranian stance comes amid escalating tensions in West Asia, fuelled by inflammatory remarks from US President Donald Trump and Israel's initiation of a relentless bombing campaign, including strikes on Tehran's nuclear and military facilities. As Israel targets a generation tied to the 1979 revolution, it needs to be seen whether resident Iranians would turn pro-US, as the Iranian diaspora has. Does Khamenei's tough talk echo a broader narrative about the resilience of his nation and its people? Nations are fundamentally defined by their natives, some of whom possess an indomitable spirit that defies defeat, even if they cannot always be ruled. Do Iranians have it in them? Certain peoples of certain lands cannot be defeated, only ruled with difficulty, as evident in Iran's current defiance amid extreme adversity. Russians, for example, fight like they play football — no great technique but brute force and sheer tenacity. The more they get killed, the more soldiers they send to the battlefield, as Stalingrad witnessed towards the end of WWII! Afghans and some Africans can be defeated but not ruled over. They will stay as anarchic as they have always been, whether under democracy, communism, monarchy or dictatorship. It's the essential culture that cannot be defeated in India. Even under some foreign influence, its basic Hindu nature cannot be obliterated. Is the Iranian mind similarly shaped? One is not sure. On the one hand, the Iranian diaspora is longing for assimilation with American society, their four-decade-old home. On the other, the world hardly gets to hear voices from resident Iranians, but have they been any better? IRANIANS HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN GULLIBLE Iran's history offers a complex backdrop to the question. Once the heart of the Persian Empire and a bastion of Zoroastrianism under the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), Iran underwent a profound transformation following the Arab Muslim invasion in 651 CE. The rise of Islam led to a steep decline in Zoroastrian followers, with their numbers dwindling to between 15,000 and 25,000 by 2012 in a population exceeding 82 million. The imposition of the jizyah tax and restrictive dhimmī laws under the Abbasids forced many Zoroastrians to convert or flee and seek refuge in India. This historical shift marked the beginning of Iran's transition from Persia to an Islamic identity, a change that was accelerated by foreign influences rather than an organic evolution. The 20th century brought further upheaval. The Pahlavi dynasty, particularly under Mohammad Reza Shah, sought to revive Iran's pre-Islamic heritage, valuing Zoroastrian contributions and enacting reforms to elevate minority status. However, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, led by Khomeini — backed by the CIA that went to the extent of hiring Saddam Hussein to assassinate the Shah, an attempt that failed — reversed these efforts, establishing a theocratic regime that suppressed secular and pre-Islamic traditions. This 'revolution' saw many Iranians — much like Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir valley since the reign of Sikandar Shah Miri (alias Butshikan) — flee abroad, diluting their cultural practices in diaspora. A contemporary dimension of this identity struggle must be highlighted: The role of US intervention. Recent protests, such as those sparked by Mahsa Amini's death in 2022 over the mandatory hijab law, were amplified by Western media and the Pentagon's propaganda machine as a ploy to undermine Iran's theocracy. While these protests symbolised resistance — women burning hijabs and cutting their hair in public — they subsided perhaps when the US deemed the ploy insufficient to topple the regime. Washington must be asked why it stopped echoing the voices of 'suppressed' Iranian women? Has the mission to free them been accomplished? Contrary to the media narrative, Iranian women are among the 'free-est" in the Islamic world, with minimal police action against hijab violations in rural areas, challenging the narrative pushed by some US-based Iranians who celebrate Israeli attacks. IRAN MUST TURN AROUND Drawing parallels with the tenacity of Russians, the anarchic resilience of Afghans and the enduring Hindu essence of Indian culture, a critical question must be raised about Iranians: Are they as resolute? Why did the people of Iran lose their pre-Islamic Persian identity, for example, not resisting the Abbasid invaders? If, today, some Iranian-Americans are praying for an end to the Islamic regime, have they forgotten that the country they are domiciled in now is the country that had orchestrated the fall of the Shah and replaced the secular leader with Ayatollah Khomeini in 1977-79? Are the Iranians destined to remain pawns in a geopolitical chess game forever? Will this pattern of foreign exploitation, where Iran's internal dissent is co-opted for geopolitical gain, reverse now, even after the dismantling of Iran's proxies, such as Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, which has left Tehran vulnerable? Will the historically non-existent resilience of Iranians prove a wildcard? Iran's future hinges on its people's ability to reconcile their Persian and Islamic identities. To whatever extent the Mahsa Amini protests were true, external manipulation notwithstanding, it reflected a genuine yearning for freedom, aligning with a broader rejection of theocratic rule. The caveat that must be issued here is that US-backed regime changes warn against external solutions. Look at the pattern of American interventions wherever they succeeded: The US 'lost' Vietnam which was, thus, spared the horror. One of the worst students of the respective sociologies of other nations, the Americans have always left a nation-state they interfered in worse off when they left. Iran's liberation, if it comes, must depend on an internal awakening, drawing on its Zoroastrian and Persian roots, much like India's enduring Hindu culture. Speaking from an Indian perspective, neither the continuation of the pro-Pakistan, Islamist Iran that conventionally voted against New Delhi in UN forums on the question of Kashmir, nor a US-backed government that would never let India into the Chabahar port to counterbalance the Sino-Pakistani Gwadar port, is good. A CALL FOR SELF-DETERMINATION top videos View all As the aerial war rages and Khamenei's words resonate, Iran stands at a crossroads. If its people find resilience that they never did in the past, the world may get back glorious Persia, the people of which were essentially farmers but whose king build roads and ports, the language of which was influenced by fellow Indo-European Sanskrit, the science of which made one wonder how it could turn into an Islamic fundamentalist regime, and the economy of which, supported by King Darius' standardised currency, traded goods with India, China and the Roman Empire. (The author is a senior journalist and writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views) tags : Israel Iran tension Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: June 22, 2025, 20:39 IST News opinion Opinion | Iranians Must Reverse Their History For Redemption
NDTV
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Despite Clashes With US Presidents, Netanyahu Usually Gets His Way
Jerusalem: A little over a month ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to have been shunted to the shadows by US President Donald Trump, who hopscotched the Middle East without visiting Israel, traditionally Washington's closest regional ally. Worse still, from Netanyahu's perspective, Trump lifted sanctions on neighbouring Syria - something Israel opposed - and talked up the prospects of securing a nuclear deal with Iran, something the prime minister has always cautioned against. Fast forward five weeks and the United States has bombed Iran's main nuclear installations, fulfilling a decades-old dream of Netanyahu to convince Washington to bring its full military might to thwart Tehran's atomic ambitions. The US attack underscores a broader truth that has defined Netanyahu's career: no matter how fraught his relationships with successive presidents, he normally ends up getting what he wants. For over three decades, Netanyahu has clashed - often spectacularly - with American leaders. He has lectured them, defied them, embarrassed them publicly and privately. And yet, across Democratic and Republican administrations, US military aid has flowed largely uninterrupted to Israel. Washington remains Israel's chief arms supplier and diplomatic shield. "He probably has concluded that he always gets away with it," said a senior United Nations official in Jerusalem who declined to be named. "It's hard to argue otherwise." Just one month ago, opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Netanyahu of destroying Israel's relations with the United States. This weekend's action represents the closest US-Israeli military alignment yet against a common adversary. Withstanding Pressure Netanyahu's belief in his ability to advance his agenda, and withstand American pressure when needed, has deep roots. Barely a month after becoming prime minister for the first time in 1996, he met President Bill Clinton in Washington and immediately rubbed him up the wrong way. "Who the f--- does he think he is? Who's the f---ing superpower here?" Clinton asked his aides afterwards, according to US diplomat Aaron David Miller, who was present. But vital US aid to Israel continued to flow - something that would remain a constant over the years. Netanyahu was voted out of office in a 1999 election and did not return to power until a decade later, by which time Barack Obama, a Democrat like Clinton, was in the White House. Relations between the two turned openly hostile, initially over Israeli settlement building in occupied territory that Palestinians claim for a future stake - a constant thorn in US-Israeli relations. Matters deteriorated further as Obama entered negotiations with Iran to curb its nuclear drive - a project that Israel said is aimed at creating atomic bombs and that Tehran has said is for purely civilian purposes. Netanyahu spoke to Congress in 2015 at the invitation of Republicans to denounce the prospective deal, without informing the White House. "(The accord) doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb; it paves Iran's path to the bomb," he said. Obama was widely reported to have been furious, but still, the following year Washington delivered the largest military aid package to Israel in US history - $38 billion over 10 years. Political analysts say Netanyahu takes US support as a given, confident that backing from evangelical Christians and the small Jewish-American community will guarantee that Israel remains well-armed, however much he antagonises the White House. Convincing Trump When Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel in October 2023, then-President Joe Biden flew to Israel to show his support, authorising a huge flow of weapons to help with the conflict unleashed in Gaza. But relations between Netanyahu, a right-winger, and Biden, a Democrat, deteriorated rapidly, as Washington grew alarmed by the spiralling number of civilian deaths and the burgeoning humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave. Biden held back on some heavy munitions deliveries and imposed sanctions on a number of violent Israeli settlers, so his defeat at the hands of Trump in last November's presidential election was celebrated by Netanyahu. Finally, he had a Republican in office at a crucial moment for Israel. However, things did not go smoothly, at least to start with. Like Biden before him, Trump was unhappy at the protracted conflict in Gaza and then he blindsided Netanyahu during a meeting on April 7, when he revealed that he was launching direct talks with Tehran aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to the protracted nuclear stand-off with Iran. But while Trump publicly positioned himself as a peacemaker, Netanyahu consistently pushed for military intervention. Although it is unclear if Netanyahu ever got him to say "yes" to Israel's war plans, it was at least not a "no", according to two senior US officials and a senior Israeli source. As soon as Israel launched its aerial war on Iran in the early hours of June 13, Israel pushed the United States to join in, urging Trump to be on the winning side of history, two Israeli officials said last week. "Mr President, Finish the job!" read large billboards that have popped up in Tel Aviv. The sense of relief when the US bombers struck Iran's most protected nuclear sites on Sunday was palpable. "Congratulations, President Trump. Your bold decision to target Iran's nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history," Netanyahu said in a brief video address. "May God bless our unshakeable alliance, our unbreakable faith," he concluded.
