Latest news with #USstrikes
Al Arabiya
2 days ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Diplomacy or defiance: Iran rulers face existential choice after US-Israeli strikes
Weakened by war and diplomatic deadlock, Iran 's clerical elite stands at a crossroads: defy pressure to halt its nuclear activity and risk further Israeli and US attacks, or concede and risk a leadership fracture. For now, the Islamic Republic establishment is focusing on immediate survival over longer-term political strategy. A fragile ceasefire ended a 12-day war in June that began with Israeli airstrikes, followed by US strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites. Both sides declared victory but the war exposed the military vulnerabilities and punctured the image of deterrence maintained by a major Middle East power and Israel's arch regional foe. Three Iranian insiders told Reuters the political establishment now views negotiations with the US – aimed at resolving a decades-long dispute over its nuclear ambitions – as the only way to avoid further escalation and existential peril. The strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets, which included killings of top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders and nuclear scientists, shocked Tehran, kicking off just a day before a planned sixth round of talks with Washington. While Tehran accused Washington of 'betraying diplomacy,' some hardline lawmakers and military commanders blamed officials who advocated diplomacy with Washington, arguing the dialogue proved a 'strategic trap' that distracted the armed forces. However, one political insider, who like others requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter, said the leadership now leaned towards talks as 'they've seen the cost of military confrontation.' President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Sunday that resuming talks with the United States 'does not mean we intend to surrender,' addressing hardliners opposing further nuclear diplomacy after the war. He added: 'You don't want to talk? What do you want to do? ... Do you want to go (back) to war?' His remarks were criticized by hardliners including IRGC commander Aziz Ghazanfari, who warned that foreign policy demands discretion and that careless statements could have serious consequences. Ultimately, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei holds the final say. Insiders said he and the clerical power structure had reached a consensus to resume nuclear negotiations, viewing them as vital to the Islamic Republic's survival. Iran's foreign ministry said no decision has been made on the resumption of nuclear talks. Dynamics and external pressure US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned they will not hesitate to hit Iran again if it resumes enrichment of uranium, a possible pathway to developing nuclear weapons. Last week, Trump warned that if Iran restarted enrichment despite the June strikes on its key production plants, 'we'll be back.' Tehran responded with a vow of forceful retaliation. Still, Tehran fears future strikes could cripple political and military coordination, and so has formed a defense council to ensure command continuity even if the 86-year-old Khamenei must relocate to a remote hideaway to avoid assassination. Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, said that if Iran seeks to rapidly rebuild its nuclear capacity without securing diplomatic or security guarantees, 'a US-Israeli strike won't just be possible – it will be all but inevitable.' 'Re-entering talks could buy Tehran valuable breathing room and economic relief, but without swift US reciprocity it risks a hardline backlash, deepening elite divisions, and fresh accusations of surrender,' Vatanka said. Tehran insists on its right to uranium enrichment as part of what it maintains is a peaceful nuclear energy program, while the Trump administration demands a total halt – a core sticking point in the diplomatic standoff. Renewed United Nations sanctions under the so-called 'snapback' mechanism, pushed by three European powers, loom as a further threat if Tehran refuses to return to negotiations or if no verifiable deal to curb its nuclear activity results. Tehran has threatened to quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But insiders say this is a pressure tactic, not a realistic plan – as exiting the NPT would telegraph an Iranian race for nuclear bombs and invite US and Israeli intervention. A senior Western diplomat said Iran's rulers were vulnerable as never before, and any defiance was a gamble liable to backfire at a time of rising domestic unrest, impaired deterrence power and Israel's disabling of Iran's militia proxies in wars around the Middle East since 2023. Among ordinary Iranians, weariness over war and international isolation runs deep, compounded by a growing sense of failed governance. The oil-based economy, already hobbled by sanctions and state mismanagement, is under worsening strain. Daily blackouts afflict cities around the country of 87 million people, forcing many businesses to cut back. Reservoirs have receded to record lows, prompting warnings from the government of a looming 'national water emergency.' Many Iranians – even those opposed to the Shia theocracy – rallied behind the country during the June war, but now face lost incomes and intensified repression. Alireza, 43, a furniture merchant in Tehran, said he is considering downsizing his business and relocating his family outside the capital amid fears of further air attack. 'This is the result of 40 years of failed policies,' he said, alluding to Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed monarchy. 'We are a resource-rich country and yet people don't have water and electricity. My customers have no money. My business is collapsing.' At least 20 people across Iran interviewed by phone echoed Alireza's sentiment – that while most Iranians do not want another war, they are also losing faith in the establishment's capacity to govern wisely. Despite broad discontent, large-scale protests have not broken out. Instead, authorities have tightened security, ramped up pressure on pro-democracy activists, accelerated executions and cracked down on alleged Israeli-linked spy networks – fueling fears of widening surveillance and repression. However, sidelined moderates have resurfaced in state media after years of exclusion. Some analysts see this as a move to ally public anxiety and signal the possibility of reform from within – without 'regime change' that would shift core policies.
Reuters
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
The ever-evolving 'Trump doctrine' and the fight for US strategy
WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - As some 20 Iranian ballistic missiles headed for the U.S. airbase at Al Udeid in Qatar last month following U.S. strikes against Iran, the only U.S. personnel at the almost entirely evacuated base were some 40 air defence personnel manning a Patriot missile battery flown in a few weeks earlier. According to a press briefing by U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Daniel Caine, a few days later, together with another Patriot detachment from the Qatari military also present at the base, the U.S. team fired more of the defence missiles than in any previous engagement since the system was first deployed in the first Gulf War in 1991. 'They crushed it,' he said, noting that damage to the base was minimal with no casualties. On the surface, officials from the Trump administration have painted last month's U.S. strikes against Iran as an unusually decisive use of U.S. power, talking of a new 'Trump doctrine' in which military force is used with much clearer aims than under previous presidents. They argue it has 'restored American deterrence', sending a clear signal to other potential foes including Moscow and Beijing. The administration had also presented its 52-day bombing campaign against Houthi militants in Yemen as being similarly successful in restoring freedom of navigation there – only for the Houthis to restart attacks on shipping in recent days. All of that comes amid growing divisions within the administration over the future use of U.S. military force, while still leaving open questions over how the U.S. might respond to potential future crises, particularly a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or Russia attack on eastern NATO states. On that front, recent events in the Gulf have already had consequences in Washington and beyond. According to reports this week, the U.S. has barely 25% of the Patriot missile stockpile the Pentagon believes it needs. Consumption of those missiles in the Middle East and Ukraine has made growing those stocks impossible despite heightened production. Last week, that prompted a Pentagon edict stopping shipment of several weapons types to Ukraine including Patriot, long-range HIMARS strike rockets and artillery shells, described at the time as a deliberate decision to help rebuild U.S. stocks. That decision, however, has since been reversed by President Donald Trump amid reports it had never received White House authorisation in the first place. 'We have to,' Trump told a press conference in Washington. 'They have to be able to defend themselves.' The U.S. president has become increasingly critical of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in recent days, accusing him of being uninterested in Trump's efforts to mediate a peace deal as Russian forces have launched the largest drone strikes of the war against Ukraine. That will likely worry the powerful group within the current administration known as 'the restrainers', keen to rein in the multi-decade U.S. tendency to make open-ended defence commitments and become entangled in long-running 'forever wars'. The result is several increasingly apparent divisions over policy, between them opening up huge uncertainties over future U.S. military posture. On one side are those including several top U.S. military commanders who argue Ukraine should be supported as its defeat would likely empower Moscow and Beijing to launch future attacks. On the other are individuals including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Pentagon number three civilian official Elbridge Colby who have argued publicly that sending too much support to Ukraine helps China by driving down already limited U.S. weapons stocks. Ironically, that group – including Vice President JD Vance, among the most publicly committed U.S. officials to reducing America's overseas military footprint – had been among the most supportive of Trump's actions on Iran, presenting it as an example of a new and much more limited approach to U.S. intervention. "What I call the Trump Doctrine is quite simple," Vance told an Ohio fundraising dinner last month. "Number one: you articulate a clear American interest ... in this case, that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. Number two, you try to aggressively diplomatically solve that problem. Number three, when you can't solve it diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it and then you get the hell out of there before it becomes a protracted conflict.' Attempting to classify Trump's presidential decisions within a defined doctrine, however, still brings several challenges. The first is the man himself, who as far back as the 1980s was describing his unpredictability and habit of making last-minute decisions on investments as a central tenet of his 'Art of the Deal'. More recently since taking office, attempts to lock him into one course of action can readily backfire and lead to him endorsing another. Another even more significant challenge is that the threats the United States now most needs to deter – a potential Chinese attack against Taiwan, or a Russian assault into Eastern Europe – are likely impossible to counter through a single U.S. strike. Instead, Trump or his successors would likely face a choice between either unleashing a massive open-ended U.S. conventional military campaign – at the very least an air, drone and missile offensive against advancing Russian or Chinese forces – or abandoning Taiwan and eastern European allies to their fate. In his first term in office and also early in last year's presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly questioned whether European NATO members deserved U.S. protection if they were not spending enough on their own defence. But audio recently released of a fundraising speech last year showed him claiming he had taken a much tougher line with both Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in private, warning he would launch U.S. military action if they attacked Taiwan or Ukraine, neither of which has a binding defence treaty with the United States. "If you go into Ukraine, I'm going to bomb the shit out of Moscow. I'm telling you I have no choice," Trump said he told Putin on an undisclosed date. "And then he goes, like, 'I don't believe you'," Trump continued. "But the truth is he believed me 10%." He said he also made a similar threat to Xi: 'He thought I was crazy,' Trump told his fellow diners, adding that he believed that even if they only believed him 'five or ten percent' the deterrent was effective. Since that audio was released, some have questioned whether the conversations Trump described ever took place – his former national security adviser John Bolton said he was aware of no such conversations before his own 2019 government departure. If they did take place, however – or even if they did not but reflect his broader conclusions over the necessity to sometimes threaten or use force – it would broadly reflect the experience of previous presidents as well as Trump's own record during his first administration. In the aftermath of World War Two, presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy all wrestled with the challenge of confronting both the Soviet Union and Communist China, particularly after the perception the U.S. would not come to the aid of South Korea was seen as having inadvertently led to the start of the Korean War in 1951. Their conclusion, often quite reluctantly, was that to avoid further bloodshed and perhaps escalation to catastrophic global war they must deepen commitments to threatened U.S. allies, including warning the U.S. would use conventional or atomic force to protect them if attacked. On several occasions in his first term, Trump authorised U.S. action on a scale that might have been rejected by the Obama or Biden administrations – but which those around the president believe were successful in at least partially deterring and restraining adversary behaviour.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US strikes 'seriously' damaged Fordow nuclear site, Iran's Araghchi admits
"No one exactly knows what has transpired in Fordow. That being said, what we know so far is that the facilities have been seriously and heavily damaged," Araghchi said The US bombing of Iran's keyFordow nuclear site has "seriously and heavily damaged" the facility, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview with CBS News. "No one exactly knows what has transpired in Fordow. That being said, what we know so far is that the facilities have been seriously and heavily damaged," Araghchi said in the interview broadcast on Tuesday. "The Atomic Energy Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran... is currently undertaking evaluation and assessment, the report of which will be submitted to the government." Intercepted Iranian communications downplayed the extent ofdamage caused by US strikes on Iran's nuclear program, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing four people familiar with classified intelligence circulating within the US government. US President Donald Trump has said the strikes "completely and totally obliterated" Iran's nuclear program, but US officials acknowledge it will take time to form a complete assessment of the damage caused by the US military strikes last weekend.
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
UN nuclear watchdog chief says Iran could again begin enriching uranium in ‘matter of months'
The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog says US strikes on Iran fell short of causing total damage to its nuclear program and that Tehran could restart enriching uranium 'in a matter of months,' contradicting President Donald Trump's claims the US set Tehran's ambitions back by decades. Rafael Grossi's comments appear to support an early assessment from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, first reported on by CNN, which suggests the United States' strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites last week did not destroy the core components of its nuclear program, and likely only set it back by months. While the final military and intelligence assessment has yet to come, Trump has repeatedly claimed to have 'completely and totally obliterated' Tehran's nuclear program. The 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran began earlier this month when Israel launched an unprecedented attack it said aimed at preventing Tehran developing a nuclear bomb. Iran has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. The US then struck three key Iranian nuclear sites before a ceasefire began. The extent of the damage to Tehran's nuclear program has been hotly debated ever since. US military officials have in recent days provided some new information about the planning of the strikes, but offered no new evidence of their effectiveness against Iran's nuclear program. Following classified briefings this week, Republican lawmakers acknowledged the US strikes may not have eliminated all of Iran's nuclear materials – but argued that this was never part of the military's mission. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported on Sunday the US had obtained intercepted messages in which senior Iranian officials discussing the attacks said they were not as destructive as they anticipated. Asked about the different assessments, Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told CBS's 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan': 'This hourglass approach in weapons of mass destruction is not a good idea.' 'The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that. But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there,' he told Brennan, according to a transcript released ahead of the broadcast. 'It is clear that there has been severe damage, but it's not total damage,' Grossi went on to say. 'Iran has the capacities there; industrial and technological capacities. So if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again.' Grossi also told CBS News that the IAEA has resisted pressure to say whether Iran has nuclear weapons or was close to having weapons before the strikes. 'We didn't see a program that was aiming in that direction (of nuclear weapons), but at the same time, they were not answering very, very important questions that were pending.' CNN has asked the White House for comment on Grossi's claims. Asked about Grossi's interview with CBS, one US official pointed to comments the IAEA chief had previously made that described 'a very serious level of damage.' 'As Rafael Grossi said just days ago, the difference between Iran's nuclear program before and after Operation Midnight Hammer is 'night and day,' and a 'very serious level of damage' was done,' the official said. 'Iran has no air defenses, so the idea that they can just start rebuilding a nuclear weapons program is nonsense. As the President (Donald Trump) has said, Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon,' added the official. In his interview with CBS, Grossi also stressed the need for the IAEA to be granted access to Iran, to assess nuclear activities. He said Iran had been disclosing information to the agency up until recent Israeli and US strikes, but that 'there were some things that they were not clarifying to us.' 'In this sensitive area of the number of centrifuges and the amount of material, we had perfect view,' he said. 'What I was concerned about is that there were other things that were not clear. For example, we had found traces of uranium in some places in Iran, which were not the normal declared facilities. And we were asking for years, why did we find these traces of enriched uranium in place x, y or z? And we were simply not getting credible answers.' The initial Pentagon assessment said Tehran may have moved some of the enriched uranium out of the sites before they were attacked but Trump has insisted nothing was moved. 'It's logical to presume that when they announce that they are going to be taking protective measures, this could be part of it (moving the material). But, as I said, we don't know where this material could be, or if part of it could have been, you know, under the attack during those 12 days,' Grossi told Brennan. Meanwhile, Tehran has made moves towards withdrawing from international oversight over its nuclear program. Iran's parliament passed a bill halting cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, while the Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, also said that the country could also rethink its membership of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which prohibits signatories from developing nuclear weapons. CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed reporting.
ABC News
29-06-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Iran could resume enriching uranium within months, UN nuclear watchdog boss says
Iran could resume producing enriched uranium in months, according to comments made by the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog that have raised more doubts about the efficacy of US strikes on Tehran's nuclear program. Officials in the United States have repeatedly stated that the strikes on Iran's Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities "obliterated" them, although President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would consider bombing the Middle Eastern nation again if it was enriching uranium to worrisome levels. Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told CBS News in an interview on Sunday that Iran's capabilities to resolve any damage to its nuclear program do not appear to have been wiped out. "The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that," he said. US officials also obtained an intercepted phone call between Iranian officials appearing to suggest the government in Tehran believes the US strikes were less devastating than expected, according to a report from The Washington Post. In an interview on Sunday local time, Mr Trump also suggested that his government would look to investigate and potentially prosecute individuals found responsible for leaking an internal, preliminary classified report that cast doubt on how successful the US strikes in Iran were. "They should be prosecuted. The people who leaked it," the president said on the Fox News US. "We can find out. If they wanted, they could find out easily. "You go up and tell the reporter: 'National security, who gave it?' You have to do that, and I'll suspect we'll be doing things like that." Mr Trump's interview with Fox aired as his "Big Beautiful Bill" cleared a procedural hurdle in the US Senate, before it entered a 10-hour debate process. The US strikes came after Israel said this month it wanted to remove any chance of Iran developing nuclear weapons, launching its own attacks on Tehran that ignited a 12-day war between the two countries. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Mr Grossi said the US strikes on the three Iranian sites had significantly set back Iran's ability to convert and enrich uranium. Western powers, however, have stressed that Iran's nuclear advances provide it with an irreversible knowledge gain, suggesting that while losing experts or facilities may slow progress, the advances were permanent. "Iran is a very sophisticated country in terms of nuclear technology," Mr Grossi said. "So, you cannot disinvent this. You cannot undo the knowledge that you have or the capacities that you have." Mr Grossi was also asked about reports of Iran moving its stock of highly enriched uranium in the run-up to the US strikes and said it was not clear where that material was. "Some could have been destroyed as part of the attack, but some could have been moved," he said. On Friday, Mr Trump scoffed at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's heated warning to the US not to launch future strikes on Iran, as well as the Iranian supreme leader's assertion that Tehran 'won the war" with Israel. Mr Trump said the ayatollah's comments defied reality after 12 days of Israeli strikes and the US bombardment, and the US president suggested the comments were unbecoming of Iran's most powerful political and religious figure. "Look, you're a man of great faith. A man who's highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth," Mr Trump said. "You got beat to hell." Mr Trump also told reporters at the White House that he expected Iran to open itself to international inspection to verify that it does not restart its nuclear program. Asked if he would demand during expected talks with Iran that the IAEA or some other organisation be authorised to conduct inspections, Mr Trump said Iran would have to cooperate with the group "or somebody that we respect, including ourselves". Wires
