Trump’s “Mission Accomplished” Moment: I obliterated Iran's Nuclear Program

Trump’s “Mission Accomplished” Moment: I obliterated Iran's Nuclear Program

    Monday, February 23, 2026   No comments

In the annals of modern geopolitical theater, few phrases carry as much ironic baggage as "mission accomplished." Eight months after the United States launched airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities under the codename "Operation Midnight Hammer," President Donald Trump finds himself in a rhetorical loop: simultaneously claiming to have "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program while threatening new military action to destroy that same program. This cognitive dissonance is not merely a gaffe—it is a revealing symptom of a deeper pattern. The nuclear file, long wielded as the primary justification for pressure on Tehran, is increasingly exposed as a flexible pretext for objectives that extend far beyond non-proliferation: regime change, regional containment, and the coercion of a sovereign state into compliance with Western strategic demands.

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Media Review: What will Hezbollah and Iran do and what might happen in the Middle East after Beirut Attacks?

Media Review: What will Hezbollah and Iran do and what might happen in the Middle East after Beirut Attacks?

    Sunday, September 29, 2024   No comments

In about a week, Israel turned electronic devices into weapons, assassinated military and political leaders, and launched arial bombings in Lebanon injuring thousands and killing hundreds, including the leader of the Lebanese group Hezbollah. Media reports about these unprecedented events vary. Governments’ reactions also vary. A review of how the global media and governments reacted will provide some context. The media review is prefaced by some thoughts about what might happen next, given the current events and given the expressed reactions as reported by media outlets. 

Israeli leaders claim that what they did will usher in a new Middle East. Israel has crossed so many red lines to achieve these stated goals: Destroy Hamas, Hezbollah, and all other affiliated groups. But they don't seem to have an answer for what their plan, long term, is for Palestinians. Instead they seem to focus on Iran. That is where it becomes clear that the current military success is just tactical success and it is not hard to achieve given the superior firepower and military technology the state of Israel enjoys, not to mention the unlimited supply of weapons the US government has provided thus far. However, strategically, this could be seen in the very near future as the moment when Israel forced the Iranian leaders to make a serious strategic shift. Here is why.

Iranian leaders have recently described Israeli leaders' actions as a form of "insanity", for crossing all legal, diplomatic, and ethical boundaries. Given that Israel is believed to have a stockpile of nuclear weapons, in the view of Iranian leaders, such "insane" leaders will not hesitate in using nuclear weapons against Iran. After all, some members of the Israeli government have publicly threatened to use nuclear weapons in Gaza.  If Iran did not take that threat seriously in the past, the recent actions must have changed their nuclear posture. 

Recalling that US assessed in June of this year that Iran was a week to a week and a half from breakout point in developing nuclear weapons capability, if Iran does not respond in the way it responded in the past, attacking with rockets and drones, the US and Israel should worry. Their non-response could mean a muted strategic response, whereby the religious authorities rescind earlier directives not to develop nuclear weapons and issue a new one that would speedup the development of nuclear weapons capabilities, at least for deterrence purposes. Such development would place the world on a path towards catastrophe, not just because of the potential for nuclear incident in the Middle East, but globally given that Russia's president just warned that Russia will change its nuclear posture if Western governments-supplied weapons to Ukraine are used to strike deep inside Russia.

Based on some Iranian media coverage, turning communication devices into discriminate weapons and killing religious figures is a form of nuclear strike without using a nuclear weapon. Some Iranians are now convinced that Israel will use nuclear weapons against their country. This is what will create a strategic shift in the region, not wining a war against non-state actors In Gaza and Lebanon without a plan for a political settlement with the Palestinians.

Media review: Understanding Blinken's assessment of when Iran will produce a nuclear bomb and Haniyeh's assassination

Media review: Understanding Blinken's assessment of when Iran will produce a nuclear bomb and Haniyeh's assassination

    Friday, August 16, 2024   No comments

What do media reports and political statements about state-sanctioned assassinations and the war in Gaza mean in the big picture?

 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced, Friday July 19th, that Iran is capable of producing fissile material for a nuclear bomb "within a week or two."

Blinken said during a forum in Colorado (west) that "the current situation is not good. Iran, because of the end of the nuclear agreement, instead of being at least a year away from being able to produce fissile material for a nuclear bomb, is now probably a week or two away from being able to do so."

He explained that Tehran "has not developed a weapon yet, but we are watching this matter closely, of course."

Blinken reiterated that "a week or two" is the estimated time for Iran to be able to produce this fissile material for the purpose of making a nuclear bomb.

He said, "What we have seen in recent weeks and months is that Iran is moving forward with this" nuclear program, reiterating the United States' goal of Tehran never having a nuclear weapon, and "preferring the diplomatic path" to achieve this.

CNN, which reported the same news explained breakout time as being "the amount of time needed to produce enough weapons grade material for a nuclear weapon – “is now probably one or two weeks” as Tehran has continued to develop its nuclear program."

The US government statement was made about a month ago, July 18. If that assessment is correct, not only did Iran has more than two weeks to reach that goal, but also was given more reasons to achieve that goal when Israel carried out an attack inside Iran on 31 July 2024, that killed Hamas leader, Ismael Haniyeh who was attending the inauguration of the new president. Blinken assessment is significant for many reasons, including these two important reasons.

If US assessment is true, and given the recent development, by Wednesday August 14th, Iran would have had two weeks since the assassination, above and beyond the two weeks between Blinken's statement and the assassination, which is more than the time it needs to reach the stage per US government.  This means that, now, Iran is past the breakout time, and would have enough "weapons grade material for a nuclear weapon". 

If Iran does not produce "weapons grade material" then US assessment is flawed about Iran's ability or wrong about its intention to do so. 

In both cases, this recent development is bad news for Western governments because their next news cycle will be to address Iran with the reality of it possessing the nuclear material or having it and choosing not to build a nuclear weapons. In both cases, the nuclear threat would have moved past it being a threat, since it will be either a reality or a non-threat.

In the light of the nuclear development matter, Iran's delayed retaliation against Israel for the assassination of a Palestinian political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, could be the most strategic response. Iran would have used the timeline floated by high-ranking US official about the breakout time to either make it irrelevant or to create more uncertainty about Iran's capabilities.

The delay froze any conversation about Iran's nuclear program and perhaps allowed the Iranian leaders to add the nuclear option just in case Israel decides to retaliate against Iran's retaliation. Iran does not have to announce that they have a nuclear weapon at this point; Iran could adopt Israel’s strategic ambiguity about its nuclear capability and that would produce the same deterring effects as announcing that it has a nuclear weapon.

Taken in a broader context, the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, in effect, was the best thing that could have happened for Iran for many reasons.

First, Iran now has the legal and moral ground to act on the principle of self-defense.

Second, by holding official religious prayers for the dead Sunni leader, Iran’s brand of Islam, Shia Islam, is no longer a fringe belief, as it has been portrayed by Saudi Salafists. The fact that Hamas leaders agreed to have two formal prayers, one in Tehran and one in Qatar, is remarkable in the view of experts on Sunni-Shia divide.

Third, Iran’s menu of retaliatory options has become more expansive. Iran could strike inside the 1948 border of Israel, since the attack on Haniyeh took place in Tehran. But Iran could hit targets and military concentrations in Gaza, which will highlight the above stated connections, and refocus attention on the primary objective that most governments around the world want to achieve: a ceasefire in Gaza War. Also, Iran could use a surgical strike against an Israeli leader or a military installation. Lastly, Iran’s leaders could forgo a military tactical strike in favor of a strategic decision to adopt a different nuclear posture and use the assassination as a justification for developing a last resort self-defense nuclear option, something it has been unable to do in the past.

When considered from these advantage points, it is clear that assassination is the least strategic statecraft tool, as it tends to diminish the standing and reputation of the state that rely on assassinations and bolster the strategic position of the state whose sovereignty has been violated--long-term. For these reasons, this event may end up being one of the most significant turning points of the century. 

  

Is NATO expansion a cause for the war in Ukraine?

Is NATO expansion a cause for the war in Ukraine?

    Monday, July 17, 2023   No comments

Prof. Robert G. Rabil and attorney Francois Alam wrote a provocative essay to underscore the danger of ignoring Russia's legitimate national security interests. They concluded that "gripped by a false sense of morality enveloped in hubris and Machiavellian calculations, Washington risks taking the world over the precipice of the abyss. This must be prevented." 

The writers see that after America pledged to the Soviet Union that NATO would not approach its borders in 1990, we see that in 1997 NATO called on Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to join the alliance at the Madrid summit. In a second round in 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia became members of NATO. Then came the US position on the Rose, Orange and Square revolutions in Georgia, in the years 2003, 2004 and 2014, to put Washington and Moscow in violent confrontation.

The authors also believe that, in order to clarify Moscow's position in the current war in Ukraine, it is useful to look at history. The Donbass region has been part of the formation of Russia since Moscow defeated the Mongols in the 15th century. Crimea and its vicinity also had a special place to highlight the power of the tsarist empire. As for Peter the Great, he was the first to establish a Russian naval base on the Sea of Azov. During the reign of Catherine the Great, Moscow established its strategic naval base in Sevastopol, which served as the main base for the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

The authors considered that America's insistence on ensuring the victory of Ukraine, and considering America's security and stability as part of the security and stability of Ukraine, as well as providing Kiev with the most dangerous conventional weapons, is nothing but an open invitation to World War III and the mutual destruction of the West and Eurasia, and ignoring the fact that NATO's expansion to the east means besieging Russia in its heartland. And ignoring the attempts of the Russian leadership to dissuade the West from its plan.

The authors conclude by saying that supporting Ukraine's victory in such a blatant way is a great incentive for World War III. They stress that the Americans must stop this madness, and the coalition must realize that the way to peace is not through weapons.

The article is linked here: Americans Must Stop the March to World War III over Ukraine

Personalities and ideologies that drive the conflict between NATO and Russia and their semi-proxy war in Ukraine

Personalities and ideologies that drive the conflict between NATO and Russia and their semi-proxy war in Ukraine

    Saturday, May 27, 2023   No comments

Yesterday, the New York Times revealed that the “Anti-Kremlin Group Involved in Border Raid Is Led by a Neo-Nazi”. The paper reported that the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps, one of the two insurgent groups responsible for an armed incursion into Russia this week, is a far-right extremist, German officials and humanitarian groups say.

Russia has stated since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 that neo-Nazis are behind the campaign to kill and displace ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine; Russian leaders have stated that denazification is a goal of its military operation in Ukraine.

On the same day, the German DER SPIEGEL reported that the “evidence confirms Ukraine's involvement in the Nord Stream bombing.” The newspaper confirmed, Friday, that there is new evidence in the investigation indicating Ukraine's involvement in sabotage operations targeting the "Nord Stream" gas pipelines.

And the newspaper reported that the metadata of e-mail messages, which were sent during the charter of the boat, indicate the involvement of Ukraine, pointing to the finding in the yacht of traces of the explosive “HMX” substance, which is very widespread in the west as in the previous block in the east.

"Der Spiegel" stated that all the evidence "consistent with the assessments of several intelligence services, according to which the perpetrators will be searched for in Ukraine."

And the German newspaper continued: "We now wonder whether what happened could have been carried out by unsupervised commandos, or the Ukrainian intelligence services, and to what extent certain elements of the Ukrainian government apparatus were aware of this."

This comes at a time when police investigations are focusing, in particular, on the "Andromeda" yacht, which is likely to be used to transport explosives, which led to the detonation of the pipelines in September 2022, in the Baltic Sea, according to what was reported by "Agence France Presse".

It is likely that the yacht set off from the port of Rostock, in northern Germany, on September 6, with 6 people on board, including divers and a doctor.

It turned out that one of the passengers on the boat holds a Romanian passport, and he is also a "Ukrainian citizen who previously served in an infantry unit."

And at the beginning of this week, other German media traced the file of the boat rental by a Polish company owned, in fact, by Ukrainians.

Investigators are looking into the evidence of "Ukrainian military services," according to Sudeutsche, RND and VDR TV.

Meanwhile, a German analyst suggested that the transferring the Ukrainian war to Russia is a strategic mistake for which the world will pay.

During the past few days, the Russian-Ukrainian war witnessed a remarkable development when Russia revealed that armed elements had entered its territory through the Ukrainian borders, which means that Ukraine may have begun to transfer the war into Russia.

 

And whether you do or plan to do so, the question posed by German writer and analyst Andreas Kluth in an analysis published by Bloomberg News is: Will this development be a good thing?

 

Russia said that "Ukrainian terrorists" and "fascists" attacked Russian territory. Of course, according to the German analyst, such statements and everything issued by the Russian government can be ignored. It has been said that the armed groups that claimed responsibility for the attacks inside Russian territory consist of Russians who defected from President Vladimir Putin's army and are fighting against him for Ukraine now.

 

One of these groups calls itself the "Russian Freedom Corps", and the other is called the "Russian Volunteer Corps", and includes elements of ultra-nationalists.

 

According to Cloth, there is limited information available about these anti-Putin paramilitary forces, especially as to whether they take orders from Ukraine or operate independently.

 

In the context of the conflict with Russia, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said - in a statement - that the Ukrainian army needs about 48 F-16 combat aircraft to liberate the territories occupied by Russia, according to the ministry's statement.

 

On the other hand, the ministry announced that Canada will complete in the coming weeks the delivery of thousands of small arms and live ammunition that it donated to Ukraine.

 

The Ukrainian National News Agency quoted the Ministry of Defense as saying that the delivery of small arms and ammunition had already begun last April, including machine guns and assault rifles.

 

The ministry stated that in the coming weeks, one million bullets and about 5,000 assault rifles will be delivered.

 

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the German Defense Ministry said that the ministry had received a request from Ukraine in the past few days to hand over Taurus cruise missiles. The spokeswoman did not give any other details about the letter, such as the number of missiles that Kiev is requesting.

All these developments suggest that if Ukraine accumulates enough weapons, it will be able to use them anyway it sees fit without any consideration of the limits demanded by the Western nations that donated the weapons. This would take things out of control and can result in catastrophic events unless the conflict is recalibrated. Sensing the urgency to act now before it is late, and the to build on the Chines, Brazilian, and African initiatives to settle the conflict, German leaders decided to reopen a direct line of communication with Russia. Schultz intends to reconnect with Putin at the appropriate time

German Chancellor Olaf Schultz announced today, Friday, that he is ready to return to contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin "at the appropriate time," in light of the interruption of talks between them since last December.

 

Schultz said in an interview published by the newspaper "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger" on Friday that his last phone call with Putin was a long time ago, but he intends to talk to him again at the appropriate time.

 

Regarding his vision for resolving the conflict, Schultz said that Russia "must understand that the war cannot end with some kind of cold peace that would turn the current front line into a new border between Russia and Ukraine, that would only serve to legitimize Putin's campaign."

 

On the contrary, he added, a just peace must be achieved through the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine.

 

But Schultz refused to say whether this withdrawal should also include Crimea, occupied since 2014, and the German chancellor believed that it was up to Ukraine to determine what it wanted.

Commenting on all these developments, and speaking on behalf of Putin, Dmitry Peskov said that “the degree of involvement of the West in the conflict in Ukraine is growing every day.”

 Peskov noted that the involvement of the West can stretch the conflict in time, but will not change the situation radically. "Russia will continue the special operation and one way or another will ensure its interests," the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation stated.

NATO nations’ support to Ukrainian armed forces reaches another level

NATO nations’ support to Ukrainian armed forces reaches another level

    Thursday, March 30, 2023   No comments

Ukrainian officials have shown off nee weapons systems received from NATO nations, which they said will allow them to launch offensive actions to take back territories now under Russian control.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, released images of new weapons and transport systems handed over by the US. The Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, was shown testing the new Strykers and Cougars handed over by USA.

Also, more than 300 powerful DJI Mavic 3T Thermal copters for Ukraine's Defense Forces were transferred to the frontlines, according to Ukrainian forces.

This unprecedented number of weapons transferred to a war zone is likely to push both sides to escalate.

Russian officials have used a strategy of inserting new weapons to the battle field incrementally and in reaction to NATO’s increased involvement, which can lead to a dangerous nuclear confrontation.

These developments bring to the forefront once again the consequences of illegal wars, invasions, and aggressions undertaken by Western states in the last 3 decades. Most recently, the US invasion of Iraq and how that event is unmasking the inequality that permeates the world today. If Iraq has had reliable and powerful allies with nuclear weapons, who decided to take the same actions taken by Western nations to support Ukraine resist an illegal war, what would the outcome have been? What if Russia and China, had used the same logic, and decided to openly provide weapons and military support to Iraq to defend itself? What would that have done to the world order then?

And did Russia exert a level of restraint, voicing their opposition to those illegal wars (Ira, Syria, Yemen, and Libya) without providing any lethal aid to these attacked nations to defend themselves, made them think that if they did the same, attack another nations in the future, the West will do the same (not provide military assistance)?

Since that assumption is proved wrong now, will Russia supply its friends who are under threat of attack from Western nations, like Iran, with all kinds of weapons and technology to pre-empt an attack, or strike military alliances that would allow them to intervene militarily in defense of their allies?

This is how complex the effects of the war in Ukraine and the West’s reaction to it is. With election cycles around the corner in key Westerm nations, it is only  matter of months, not years, to see how these decisions will shape the outcome of the war in Ukraine.