Tehran Ablaze: Is This the Spark of an Unthinkable War?

Right, so the Israeli state has launched yet another devastating wave of attacks against Iran, following on from Iran's devastating retaliation, which Israel were in no way prepared for, retaliation under what Iran have called Operation True Promise III and where the previous two True Promise operations were one and done retaliations for smaller Israeli attacks, this time its escalated into what is appearing more and more to be confirmation of a full blown war. Instead of de-escalating, Tel Aviv has has escalated its military operations, resuming its assault on Iran under the what they are calling Operation Lion’s Courage, which is as big a lie in and of itself as Israel have ever come out with, given yet again, women and children have been the main casualties of their latest strikes. Lion’s Courage is a despicable and baseless campaign that aims to destroy Iranian nuclear research infrastructure, assassinate nuclear scientists and key military leaders, provoking a regional war of immense proportions all to keep Netanyahu in power, the cheerleader as he has been for decades of claims that Iran have or are researching nuclear weapons, yet no evidence exists to prove this at all. This latest Israeli aggression is not an act of pre-emption when it is based on lies; what it is, is the culmination of decades of deliberate incitement by Israel against Iran now being enabled by a government mad enough to see it done, baseless propaganda, and the political obsession harboured by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the 1990s at a time when he’s so desperate to keep himself in power, that he literally thinks this will do that, endangering the lives of everyone in Gaza for his own self interest.
Right, so Israel have yesterday and last night continued to strike Iran, having started what is rapidly escalating into full on war for no better reason than the self preservation of Benjamin Netanyahu and his clinging onto power.
From fires engulfing refineries in Bushehr, to missile strikes on Mehrabad Airport, to the deaths of sixty civilians in Tehran, half of them children preparing for Eid al-Ghadir, the brutality of these attacks cannot be understated, but equally also come as no surprise coming as they do from Israel. Innocent casualties define Israeli atrocity. Yet Israel and its international backers continue to claim these actions are done in the name of "self-defence" and preventing a so-called Iranian nuclear threat — a threat that has consistently failed to materialise, despite Israeli claims regarding it going back decades, to at least the 1980’s.
Since the 1990s though, Benjamin Netanyahu has portrayed Iran as an existential threat to Israel, repeatedly asserting that Tehran is on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons. In 2012, he infamously held up a cartoonish bomb diagram at the UN General Assembly, claiming that Iran was 70% of the way to building a bomb — a moment that was widely ridiculed and symbolised the alarmism that for much of the last 3 decades certainly, Netanyahu has been sounding off about, largely on his own without support, even from Israel at that time. Netanyahu and his bogus warnings have never of course been substantiated. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has consistently found no evidence of an Iranian weapons program, neither have reports from anywhere else, not least the US, who are still going to side with Israel anyway.
Despite this, Netanyahu has pressed forward. In 2010, he attempted to launch strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities but was blocked by internal opposition from Israeli security chiefs, the likes of the then Mossad chief Meir Dagan and the Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. When diplomacy triumphed during Barack Obama’s presidency and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was agreed upon in 2015, Netanyahu responded with fury. He did everything possible to sabotage the deal, including lobbying US lawmakers and rallying neoconservative allies, but to no avail.
The election of Donald Trump gave Netanyahu his long-awaited opportunity. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, isolating the US and destabilizing the diplomatic progress achieved under Obama where it came to Iran. Assassinations of Iranian scientists, cyber-attacks on nuclear facilities, and sabotage campaigns soon followed. The 2020 killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh — one of Iran’s leading nuclear scientists — was a clear sign that Israel was once again obsessing over Iran having nuclear technology out of nothing more than Netanyahu’s own paranoia.
Now, in 2025, with Netanyahu leading a desperate far-right coalition and Trump back in power, Israel has launched this full-scale assault. The excuses are the same as they have been for decades, but the stakes are higher. Netanyahu, facing domestic discontent and potential legal consequences over corruption and under international law for genocide, and a wanted war criminal with an arrest warrant out for issued by the ICC, is wagering on yet more war as a means of his political survival.
The latest wave of Israeli strikes under Operation Lion’s Courage has been horrendous. Yesterday, missiles struck two gas refineries in Bushehr, setting them ablaze. The same night, attacks targeted Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, disrupting civil aviation and endangering civilians, though according to reports little damage has actually been done, speaking volumes for the capabilities of Iranian air defences, which had been subjected to a cyber attack ahead of Israel’s first assault, in large part responsible for the damage that strike did.
Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes also hit the Esfahan nuclear site, causing damage to four key structures according to IAEA inspectors. Iran’s air defences responded with increasing efficiency, managing to bring down a third F-35 fighter jet amid the chaos. An excerpt from Military Watch Magazine reads:
‘Iranian state media on June 14 reported the shootdown of a third Israeli F-35 fifth generation fighter in the country’s airspace, following two prior reported shootdowns and the capture of a female pilot. The aircraft was reportedly also shot down by ground-based air defence systems, with the pilot surviving and being apprehended. This has brought the total number of F-35 pilots captured to two.’
Despite these defensive successes by Iran though, the human toll has been staggering. Israeli strikes on residential areas in Shahid Chamran Township, Tehran, resulted in 60 deaths, half of them children preparing for Eid celebrations and a local wedding.
Instead of facing censure for such acts though, Israel’s aggression has been aided, abetted, and in some cases, openly supported. The psychotic satsuma that passes for the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has expressed full support for the Israeli strikes — a move he stupidly thought would give him better leverage in any nuclear program deal with Iran, but that has instead ended any hope of reviving nuclear negotiations after Iran have walked away, saying what is the point? And its hard to disagree given US support for Israel.
The US has amongst all the diplomatic cover and incessant arms deliveries, supplied Israel with hundreds of laser-guided Hellfire missiles, allegedly earmarked specifically for operations against Iran. Netanyahu has now openly called on Washington to provide bunker-busting munitions and to join the war effort outright, a demand with catastrophic implications – can you imagine one of these being dropped on a nuclear facility and the fallout from that?
Speaking of arms deliveries, it would be remiss of me to not bring Jordan up at this point. Jordan, always placating Israel to some degree, whilst claiming to be neutral, reportedly closed its airspace for several hours yesterday around one of its airports to facilitate US arms shipments to Israel, Israeli airspace evidently having become too dangerous for transfers and may have painted a target on themselves now for aiding and abetting Israel. Allegedly, Jordan has even taken part in shooting down Iranian drones — actions that have ignited domestic outrage, particularly among Jordanians of Palestinian descent, a large chunk of the Jordanian population, whose families were exiled during the Nakba.
In addition to widespread strikes, Israel has resumed its policy of assassination as well. Three more Iranian nuclear scientists have been reported killed in the latest Israeli attacks. These are all part of one of Operation Lion’s Courage’s main aims, which is to eliminate Iran’s nuclear scientific capacity and intimidate its academic community, but blow to the civilian cost of Israel’s indiscriminancy in their strikes. The moral depravity of targeting scientists and their families is par for the course for Israel and their most moral army.
Adding to the tension, Israel reportedly attempted to assassinate a senior Houthi military commander in Yemen during the strikes on Iran, in what appears to be a simultaneous front expansion, as the Houthis also fired on Tel Aviv overnight. The attempt failed, but it shows Israel under Netanyahu will continue fighting as much war on as many fronts as he possibly can to keep himself in power, driving a wider regional conflict.
Netanyahu is hardly the only madman driving this attrition right now though. In a chilling statement, Israel’s mad Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened to “burn Tehran” if Iranian attacks continue — a genocidal threat by any reasonable measure, but given the fallout in Israel, not one they can seemingly back up right now. This follows Israel’s formal declaration that Iran is now its primary war theatre, with Gaza now reduced to a “secondary front”. Not a great surprise when you consider Israel is largely bombing rubble these in Gaza, such is what it has been reduced to and well, what about those hostages now?
This pivot just confirms what many have long argued: that Israel’s war has never been about security. It is a political strategy, a regional power play, and for Netanyahu, a desperate bid for political survival, that he will go to any lengths, make as much was, cause as much atrocity and end as many lives as it takes to achieve that one aim. All of this, everything happening in the middle east is for one goal – Netanyahu keeping power.
What we are witnessing is not a defensive campaign. It is an offensive war of choice, built on lies, propelled by fear-mongering, and executed with impunity. Israel’s long obsession with Iran has culminated in a military campaign that not only endangers regional stability but threatens to engulf the world in a catastrophic confrontation.
Benjamin Netanyahu, once the lone voice warning about Iran’s phantom nukes, has finally found the means and moment to enact his fantasy. But it is not just he who bears responsibility. The complicity of Western powers, regional allies, and a global media unwilling to speak truth to power, have all enabled this horror.
Now, more than ever, the world must say no. No to war built on lies. No to assassinations of scientists. No to the bombing of children during holy festivals. No to the weapons transfers and diplomatic shields that allow this to happen.
The people of the world must demand that their leaders act with integrity and courage, and reject this endless cycle of militarism and bloodshed that leaders like Netanyahu and Trump perpetuate for their own goals and grandstanding and obsession with power and how to keep it.
Much of what you’ve heard here you won’t have heard in the media, it’s par for the course for them too, there is complicity in that as well, so for more on what they aren’t telling you, do check out this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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