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Israel Brings The War Rhetoric Towards Türkiye

After Being Defeated In Iran, Israel Targets Türkiye.

By Justin K.P. – The Dissident – June 22, 2026

The idea of Israel going to war with Türkiye- a NATO member- potentially triggering World War III seems insane.

And yet Israel is using their war rhetoric towards Türkiye.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry put out a post seemingly laying the groundwork for an Israeli war, claiming that “Hamas terrorists based in Turkey are directing attacks against Israelis, funding terrorism, and recruiting operatives. The network is exposed. The facts are clear.”

This is far from the first time Israel has used war rhetoric towards Türkiye.

Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli recently said that Israel “will be at war with Syria sooner or later” in part because he called Syria “a Turkish protectorate”.

He also fabricated a new “radical Sunni axis of evil” which supposedly includes Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar.

Middle East Eye reported:

“What we are witnessing before our eyes is the rise of a new axis,” Chikli told 103FM radio on Wednesday, referring to Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan. He described this so-called alliance as “a radical Sunni axis of evil, more dangerous than anything we have seen before”.

While Chikli mentioned both Qatar and Pakistan in his interviews, he mainly focused on Turkey, branding Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s vision “an extremely dangerous combination for us”.

Other members of the ruling Israeli Likud party have similarly been declaring Türkiye “an enemy state”.

Middle East Eye noted, “Last week, Israeli lawmaker Ariel Kellner, also of Likud, called Turkey an ‘enemy state’, while Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar said last month that Israel’“must begin to treat Turkey as an enemy state,’ suggesting that Turkey would suffer heavy blows in a possible conflict with Israel.”

It added that “In February, former prime minister Naftali Bennett indicated that he sees Turkey as an enemy, with the opposition figure stating: ‘Turkey is the new Iran.’”

Perhaps the most concerning development is the fact that the Foundation for The Defence of Democracies (FDD), an Israeli lobby cutout that played a large role in the U.S. war on Iran, has begun publishing articles using similar rhetoric towards Türkiye.

FDD put out an article titled , “Turkey the new Iran? Ankara’s growing challenge to Western interests”.

The article attempted to label Türkiye as the “new Iran”, writing:

As Iran and its proxies take a beating from American and Israeli forces, observers are questioning whether Turkey is waiting in the wings to emerge as the region’s next “bogeyman.” The answer is likely yes, albeit in its own form.

Turkey is not Iran, but depicting Turkey as a nuisance or simply “complicated” only emboldens a maturing adversarial regime with an established track record of undermining its Western allies.

The article attempted to ratchet up hostilities between Türkiye and the United States, writing, “The real question is whether Turkey is actively undermining US, NATO, and regional security interests. There is little doubt that Ankara is doing just that, and doing so more brazenly with the passage of time.”

It also lamented that Türkiye is too supportive of the Palestinian resistance, writing “Hamas, as an Iranian proxy, has served Ankara’s interests in undermining Israel’s security interests, something which Turkey would like to see intact after the end of the current war.”

FDD has similarly put out articles pushing for the U.S. to put sanctions on Türkiye, saying that “Washington should pursue Global Magnitsky sanctions against targets in Turkey” and that “the United States should utilize Global Magnitsky authorities to target Turkish individuals responsible for human rights violations”.

It also called for the U.S. to designate “government officials” in Türkiye as “terrorist organizations” and wrote that “The United States should protect the international financial sector by recommending added scrutiny and screening to transactions involving Turkish financial institutions” and that “Washington should coordinate with the G7 to return Turkey to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) ‘grey list’ until further improvements are seen in combating terrorism financing.”

The Carnegie Endowment for Peace documented that “FDD was the brainchild of a New York Times journalist-turned-Republican operative, Clifford May,” adding that “it arose out of an organization committed to burnishing Israel’s reputation in the United States. On April 24, 2001, three major pro-Israel donors incorporated an organization called EMET (Hebrew for ‘truth’). In an application to the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status, May explained that the group ‘was to provide education to enhance Israel’s image in North America and the public’s understanding of issues affecting Israeli-Arab relations.’ But in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, May broadened the group’s mission and changed its name to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. As he explained in a supplement to the IRS, the group’s board of directors decided to focus on ‘develop[ing] educational materials on the eradication of terrorism everywhere in the world.’”

It added that, “FDD’s chief funders have been drawn almost entirely from American Jews who have a long history of funding pro-Israel organizations. They include Bernard Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, whiskey heirs Samuel and Edgar Bronfman, gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson, heiress Lynn Schusterman, Wall Street speculators Michael Steinhardt and Paul Singer, and Leonard Abramson, founder of U.S. Healthcare.”

Sima Vaknin-Gil, a former Israeli military intelligence officer, in the Al Jazeera documentary The Lobby, admitted that “We have FDD” and that “the foundation is ‘working on’ projects for Israel, including ‘data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organizations, money trail. This is something that only a country, with its resources, can do the best”.

FDD played a huge role in shaping American policy towards Iran at the behest of Israel.

Now, as Israel calls Türkiye an “enemy state”- the FDD has begun pushing Washington to place sanctions on the country and designate government officials as terrorists, laying the groundwork for a new Israeli war.

June 22, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Israel Brings The War Rhetoric Towards Türkiye

The Swiss summit of imperial humiliation

By Junaid S. Ahmad | MEMO | June 22, 2026

In Switzerland, amid the alpine calm where empires go to perfume panic as diplomacy, Iran delivered another masterclass in the ancient art of refusing to kneel.

The Americans arrived with the usual imperial luggage: threats, ultimatums, sanctions theology, and that peculiar Washington habit of mistaking obedience for “peace.” Iran arrived with something far less fashionable and far more effective: leverage. Not the decorative leverage of think-tank seminars and cable-news generals, but the real kind — the kind that closes straits, terrifies markets, freezes war rooms, and forces the self-appointed masters of the universe to rediscover geography.

The spectacle would be hilarious if it were not so historically obscene.

For decades, Washington imagined Iran could be sanctioned into hunger, bombed into prudence, insulted into submission, and finally dragged into a room to sign its own humiliation.

Instead, the empire found itself bargaining with a country it had failed to break. The result was not Iranian capitulation. It was American improvisation — and improvisation by a declining empire always sounds the same: threats in public, panic in private, and a desperate attempt to rename retreat as strategy.

This is the deeper meaning of Switzerland. It is not merely a diplomatic episode. It is a theatre of reversal. The United States entered the crisis assuming Iran would negotiate like a wounded state. Iran is negotiating like a victorious one. It did not ask for mercy. It is demanding implementation. It did not plead for relief. It is presenting conditions. It did not enter the room as an accused party awaiting sentencing. It is entering as a power whose red lines have acquired consequences.

That is why the Strait of Hormuz matters. In the fantasy literature of American empire, waterways are lines on maps guarded by aircraft carriers and narrated by admirals. In reality, they are political arteries. When Iran demonstrated that it could interrupt the world’s most sensitive energy passage, it did more than create a shipping problem. It shattered a mythology. The empire discovered, rather late in its education, that the sea has neighbors — and that those neighbors have memories.

Washington’s response was pure imperial farce. Trump threatened, blustered, contradicted himself, and performed his usual routine: half Caesar, half casino promoter, with the emotional discipline of a man losing an argument to a mirror. One moment he wanted a deal; the next he wanted tribute.

One moment he spoke of peace; the next he threatened annihilation. This was not statecraft. It was strategic delirium dressed up as presidential resolve.

Yet beneath the orange thunder was the essential fact: America needed the strait open, the markets calm, the war contained, and the humiliation disguised. Iran understood this. More importantly, Iran acted on it.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, performed the role history has assigned him: arsonist in a fireman’s helmet. His political survival depends on permanent emergency. War is not merely his instrument; it is his oxygen. Defeat must be repackaged as deterrence, slaughter as security, occupation as necessity, and humiliation as a “strategic achievement.”

Israel’s problem is not that it miscalculates occasionally. Its problem is that it has built an entire political theology around impunity — and then acted shocked when impunity met resistance.

But this time the room for Israeli theatrics narrowed. Iran’s pressure, Hezbollah’s endurance, the strain on global markets, and Washington’s fear of economic catastrophe produced a rare collision between Israeli maximalism and American self-preservation. For once, unconditional support for Israel began to look expensive even to its underwriters. Let us not become sentimental: this was not morality awakening in Washington. It was arithmetic. But in imperial politics, arithmetic sometimes does what conscience is too cowardly to attempt.

Here lies the exquisite irony. The United States spent decades trying to teach Iran the meaning of pressure. Iran returned the lesson, corrected the grammar, and underlined the thesis. Pressure is not a press release. It is not a Lindsey Graham war fantasy delivered between television segments. It is not Netanyahu’s sweaty monologues about victory while the region watches his project rot from within. Pressure is the ability to alter the enemy’s choices. In Switzerland, Iran is proving it can do precisely that.

The Americans may still posture. Trump may still rage into the digital void. Netanyahu may still deliver speeches polished with self-pity and fraud. The professional warmongers may continue promising wars they will never fight, depressions they will never suffer, and corpses they will never count. But beneath the noise sits the brutal reality: Iran survived the siege, absorbed the blows, retained escalation dominance, defended its allies, protected its sovereignty, and forced the conversation onto terrain of its choosing.

That is the defeat Washington cannot confess and Israel cannot metabolize. Not merely that Iran endured, but that Iran emerged demanding compliance. Not merely that coercion failed, but that the coerced state exposed the coercer’s dependence. Not merely that the empire blinked, but that everyone saw it blink.

Switzerland, then, is not a peace summit in the ordinary sense. It is a mirror held up to American power. What stares back is not omnipotence, but exhaustion dressed as menace.

Iran’s message could not be clearer: no surrender, no submission, no confession of guilt to satisfy an empire addicted to obedience. If Washington wants de-escalation, it must pay in substance. If it wants open waterways, it must respect red lines. If it wants agreements, it must implement them. And if it insists on calling this diplomacy, it should begin with the only honest admission available: coercion failed, Iran stood, and the age of bullying Tehran into submission is over.

June 22, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on The Swiss summit of imperial humiliation

Trump’s Attempt to End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty

By Ron Paul | June 22, 2026

Against the odds, the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the US and Iran appears to be holding, after threats and counter-threats. It may collapse, but it has survived a first round of talks between the two sides in Switzerland over the weekend.

President Trump started a war on Iran against all sober guidance and in violation of the US Constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war. There must be a reckoning for our elected leaders who violate their oath of office, the Constitution, and simple common sense.

However, what is more telling is the reaction when President Trump finally took the correct move and attempted to end the war. The neocons who had hailed him as a great leader – Levin, Bolton, Pompeo, etc. – suddenly turned against him when he turned against further escalation of the war.

Even Trump’s top funder, Miriam Adelson, attacked Trump in her newspaper Israel Hayom. “You could have been the greatest president of all, but you failed,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial.

Not much gratitude from the Israel-first crowd, even if the war was started to benefit Israel.

And more telling even than this was the reaction of the “opposition” party in Congress, the Democrats. They attacked him harder for ending – or at least pausing – the war more than for starting the war in the first place! Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) called the MOU a “capitulation.” Sen Chris Murphy (D-CT) called the MOU an “embarrassing document.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar falsely claimed that President Trump was paying Iran $300 billion to re-open Hormuz.

This is more evidence – as if any is needed – that our foreign policy is run by the “uniparty.” When it comes to wars, there is no Republican Party nor is there a Democratic Party. There is only the “yes!” party.

Congress remains silent in the run-up to war. Congress remains silent when the President launches a war. Congress even remains silent when the war begins going badly. It is only on those rare occasions that a president takes steps to correct his mistake that Congress finds its voice.

Yes, there is plenty to criticize. After weekend talks, the US side, led by Vice President JD Vance, is celebrating as a “breakthrough” that the Strait of Hormuz is open again and that Iran has reportedly agreed to the return of UN inspectors. But the Strait was open before this war and UN inspectors were in Iran before President Trump unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA “Iran Deal” in his first term.

The only difference now is that we burned through likely several hundred billion dollars, we lost dozens of aircraft and other military equipment, and we likely lost more service members than the Pentagon is admitting.

It is a reminder of why the Founders intended to make sure that any war must be declared by the people’s Representatives before the first bullet is shot: it should be very hard to launch wars.

Nevertheless, those who are truly against the wars should, in my opinion, hold their fire for the time being in hope that a lasting resolution can be found. The President Is being attacked from all sides by the war party. Now may not be the best time for the peace party to join in.

June 22, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Trump’s Attempt to End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty

First round of Swiss-hosted Iran-US talks ends with 5 key agreements

Al Mayadeen | June 22, 2026

Following the conclusion of the first round of the Iran-US talks in Switzerland on Monday, the media committee of the Iranian negotiating delegation issued a statement outlining the main points and understandings reached during the talks.

The Bürgenstock talks outline a phased framework linking security arrangements, financial measures, and sanctions relief to conditional implementation steps.

Key developments include a Lebanon ceasefire monitoring mechanism, structured communication over the Strait of Hormuz, coordinated asset release arrangements, and temporary sanctions relief measures tied to energy exports.

Lebanon ceasefire monitoring mechanism

According to the statement, continued pressure from the Iranian negotiating delegation since Saturday afternoon contributed to maintaining a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon for the time being.

To support stabilization efforts, the parties agreed to establish a monitoring framework titled the “Conflict Control Unit.” Iran is expected to participate in this mechanism, which will oversee developments related to the ceasefire.

The statement further noted that this arrangement would formally integrate the Islamic Republic of Iran into Lebanon’s security-related discussions, despite US efforts in recent months to exclude Iran from Lebanese affairs. It also stated that “Israel” will have no role in this mechanism.

Strait of Hormuz communication channel

Regarding discussions on the Strait of Hormuz, the statement said an understanding was reached to establish a communication channel aimed at addressing potential implementation issues.

Through this channel, relevant parties would be able to directly contact Iran and present concerns related to maritime coordination and regional navigation.

It characterized this arrangement as part of broader discussions on the management and gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Conditional launch of nuclear and sanctions working groups

The agreement also includes the formation of three working groups focused on nuclear issues, sanctions, and monitoring mechanisms.

These groups are set to begin their work only after the implementation of Article 13 of the memorandum of understanding, which outlines several key steps, including:

Iran will not enter the final phase of negotiations before these conditions are fulfilled.

Iran–Qatar agreement on frozen assets

During the same round of talks, Iran and Qatar signed a memorandum of understanding concerning the release of Iranian frozen assets. The agreement is presented as part of ongoing financial and diplomatic coordination between the two sides regarding outstanding economic issues.

US OFAC 60-day sanctions suspension

The statement also referenced documents issued by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) during the negotiations.

According to the statement, these documents provide for a 60-day suspension of sanctions targeting oil, petrochemical, and related sectors. This arrangement would allow Iran to resume oil sales to its customers and receive payments through formal mechanisms managed by the Central Bank, the statement explained.

Bilateral and trilateral meetings at Bürgenstock resort

Al Mayadeen’s Geneva Bureau chief reported on Sunday that various bilateral and trilateral meetings have begun at the Bürgenstock resort ahead of the first official session of Iran-US talks. The opening session took place at 2:30 PM al-Quds time.

The first file discussed after the inaugural session was the implementation of the first clause, which relates to ending the war, particularly on Lebanon.

Al Mayadeen’s Geneva bureau chief later reported that the Iranian delegation held talks with the Qatari delegation in Geneva to discuss the ceasefire in Lebanon. He also reported that, following a meeting with the Iranian delegation, the Pakistani Prime Minister and Chief of Army Staff held talks with the US delegation, headed by Vice President JD Vance.

According to an Iranian official, speaking to CNN on Saturday, before departing for Switzerland, Vance said that one of the top concerns included in the talks would be to make progress towards a ceasefire in Lebanon. “I think we’re going to hopefully make progress on the nuclear issue, make progress on the Lebanon ceasefire issue. Those are the two big things that I think we’re going to be focused on,” the US vice president told reporters, noting that he expected to participate in the talks for only “a day or two”.

June 22, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on First round of Swiss-hosted Iran-US talks ends with 5 key agreements

IRAN WALKS OUT ON PEACE DEAL DUE TO TRUMP’S THREATS – w/ Prof. Seyed Mohammad Marandi

Mario Nawfal | June 21, 2026

June 21, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Comments Off on IRAN WALKS OUT ON PEACE DEAL DUE TO TRUMP’S THREATS – w/ Prof. Seyed Mohammad Marandi

Al-Jazeera demands punishment for Israeli officials following latest assassination of cameraman

The Cradle | June 21, 2026

Al-Jazeera Media Network condemned on 20 June Israel’s “deliberate killing” of one of its journalists in Gaza, Ahmad Washah, while calling on the international community to punish Israeli officials for this and other crimes against its media workers.

Ahmad Washah, a cameraman for Al-Jazeera Mubasher, was killed by an Israeli drone strike on a house in Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Saturday.

He is the 12th Al-Jazeera media worker to be killed in Gaza since Israel began its genocide of Palestinians in October 2023.

The network called on “the international community and legal institutions to take urgent, practical measures to hold the Israeli officials involved in these appalling crimes accountable,” the statement added.

Washah’s brother, Mohammad, was killed in an Israeli strike just two months earlier, in April, also while working as a correspondent for Al-Jazeera Mubasher. Before Mohammed’s death, the brothers worked together as a team, with Ahmad filming for Mohammad.

“Together, they formed a media duo that documented the suffering of the Palestinian people and the unfolding events of the war,” Al-Jazeera stated.

After Mohammad’s death, Ahmad also took care of his late brother’s children.

On Saturday, the network denounced “the continuation of the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces against its correspondents and staff in Gaza.”

Al-Jazeera said it was determined to take all legal measures to prosecute the killers of its journalists. The Qatar-based channel stressed it will continue to cover Israel’s crimes against Palestinians in Gaza despite the Israeli army’s attempts to silence the voices of its correspondents in the enclave.

Israel has killed at least 262 journalists and media workers since the start of Israel’s genocide, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

In ‌August ⁠2025, Israel killed Al-Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and four of his colleagues in an airstrike in Gaza. Before his killing, Sharif became one of the most recognizable media voices from the front lines of northern Gaza.

In December 2023, his 90-year-old father was killed when an Israeli airstrike struck their family home in Jabalia. Sharif said the killing of his father came after Israeli officials threatened him by phone to cease his coverage.
Since October 2023, the ongoing war in Gaza has claimed the lives of countless other Palestinian journalists, including Al Jazeera staff members such as correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul, cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa, and correspondent Hossam Shabat, who were killed while reporting on the ground.

In May 2022, Israeli occupation forces shot dead another Al-Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, a US-Palestinian citizen, while she was covering an Israeli military operation in the West ​Bank city of Jenin.

Israel claimed she was killed by unintentional fire by its forces. However, multiple independent probes concluded that an Israeli military sniper killed her.

Israel has detained another 50 journalists since October 2023, holding them in detention facilities and prisons where torture and rape is common. Another three Palestinian journalists remain missing.

More than 420 journalists have been injured covering the genocide, which has killed 73,000 Palestinians by the most conservative estimates. Independent estimates reach into the hundreds of thousands of dead, in large part due to the direct effects of war.

Some of the wounded journalists have suffered serious injuries, leading to amputations and permanent disabilities.

Israel is waging the war in a bid to destroy Gaza and forcibly expel its roughly 2 million Palestinians. Israeli political and religious leaders wish to annex the strip to build Jewish settlements on the ruins of Palestinian cities and villages.

June 21, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Comments Off on Al-Jazeera demands punishment for Israeli officials following latest assassination of cameraman

Iran opens hundreds of legal cases over US, Israeli aggression: Prosecutor general

Press TV – June 21, 2026

Iran’s Prosecutor General Mohammad Movahedi Azad says the judiciary has launched hundreds of criminal and civil cases related to acts of aggression by the United States and Israel against the Iranian nation.

Speaking during a televised interview on Saturday, Movahedi Azad said the judiciary began legal proceedings immediately after the 12-day war in June 2025.

Legal authorities, he said, have since filed criminal complaints against those responsible and opened multiple cases at the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office.

According to him, more than 200 criminal cases have been referred to special investigative branches and are currently under review.

Several rulings, including compensation judgments against Washington and countries allied with it, had already been issued, with some entering the enforcement stage, he added.

In parallel, special civil courts staffed by judges with relevant expertise have been established to handle compensation claims arising from the aggression against the Islamic Republic.

According to the prosecutor general, around 300 lawsuits have so far been registered, involving more than 32,000 plaintiffs from different segments of society.

The claimants include individuals who were directly affected, as well as those who suffered psychological and security-related harm.

Movahedi Azad said the judiciary is pursuing the cases around the clock, with Tehran’s prosecutor personally overseeing the process.

He also announced that more than 2,000 lawyers have volunteered to provide legal assistance to those affected, both in domestic proceedings and in international legal forums.

The prosecutor general vowed that the Iranian judiciary would continue pursuing legal action until the rights of those affected are fully restored and damages are compensated.

On June 13, 2025, Israel launched a war of aggression against Iran, assassinating several high-ranking Iranian figures, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians. More than a week later, the United States entered the war by bombing three Iranian nuclear facilities.

Less than nine months later, on February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a new joint military aggression against Iran by assassinating the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, along with several senior military commanders.

During the 40-day war, the two countries carried out attacks targeting Iran’s critical infrastructure, including oil depots, gas refineries and power plants.

The coalition also killed hundreds of Iranian civilians in airstrikes across the country. Among the victims were more than 168 schoolchildren who were killed when Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the southern city of Minab was bombed on the first day of the aggression.

June 21, 2026 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Iran opens hundreds of legal cases over US, Israeli aggression: Prosecutor general

Deep Dive Intel Briefing 6/20/2026 Lt Col Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive

BREAKING:TRUMP VOWS IRAN WILL NEVER CHARGE FEES for HORMUZ STRAIT

June 20, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Deep Dive Intel Briefing 6/20/2026 Lt Col Daniel Davis

Securing Peace with Iran Compels Trump to Divorce Israel

Israel’s goals of territorial expansion conflict with the goals of the US president

By Harrison Berger | The American Conservative | June 19, 2026

After President Donald Trump signed a preliminary Iran peace deal on Wednesday, Israel’s occupation and bombing of Lebanon presents the central obstacle to a final agreement and lasting peace. Securing and upholding the final peace deal will require the kind of confrontation with Israel that Trump has avoided for most of his presidency, given Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and global energy flows.

Iran has insisted that the ceasefire and now the framework peace deal cover the entire regional war and thus require that Israel end its occupation of southern Lebanon. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council declared Monday that under the framework deal, called a memorandum of understanding, “war and military operations on all fronts—including immediately ending the Lebanon front tonight and permanently—will conclude.”

That demand stems directly from the “long-term security guarantees” Tehran has invoked across its public statements since the beginning of the conflict. For those guarantees to mean anything, Tehran needs Trump to rein in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ensure that Israel does not launch another surprise attack against Iran. The only way Washington can demonstrate that commitment is to pressure Israel now, in Lebanon. As Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute has argued, binding Israel to a ceasefire is a “test of America’s willingness, and its ability, to restrain its closest regional ally.”

Iran is right to doubt that Washington will exert that kind of pressure over Israel. After Israel’s latest bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Ghalibaf wrote that the incursion into Dahiyeh “has once again shown that America either lacks the will to fulfill its commitments or the ability to do so.” Recognizing that Israel’s violent quest to grab territory in Lebanon could only be accomplished with U.S. approval, Iran’s leading negotiator declared that “the game of bad cop and good cop is outdated.”

Up until that point, the White House had seemed to use Axios and other friendly outlets to give Iran the impression that it was pressuring Israel, even as it kept giving its protectorate in the Middle East the green light to occupy its northern neighbor. Indeed, while American audiences heard from the Axios reporter Barak Ravid that Washington was “furious” over the Lebanon strikes, Israeli audiences heard the opposite.

Miriam Adelson’s Israel Hayom newspaper reported that the United States and Israel were in fact “fully coordinated, both on the strikes in Dahiyeh in Beirut and on the Israeli response to the missile fire from Iran,” and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio in particular played a “significant role” in getting Trump to back Israel’s retaliatory strikes. The Israeli operation, the paper said, was “fully coordinated with CENTCOM, even though the Americans did not strike themselves.” The munitions used by the Israelis in Lebanon are further proof of U.S. involvement, with Courtney Bonneau, the American-Dutch journalist reporting from southern Lebanon, recently telling The American Conservative that the waste left by Israel’s demolition and bombing campaign is recognizably U.S.-made.

Trump wants to have it both ways. The political costs of the war are piling up and he wants an exit, but an exit requires confronting Israel and the lobby over Lebanon, and that is a political conflict he has avoided fighting directly even as he has criticized Netanyahu in recent weeks.

Israel is betting he will continue to avoid it. Shortly after a deal was announced, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon would continue, and that it planned to stay “indefinitely” in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich likewise announced on Tuesday that “there will be no withdrawal from Lebanon, neither by Friday nor afterward. We will remain in south Lebanon and strengthen our presence there,” while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Monday that Israel is not bound by any agreement.

Though Israeli leaders insist they are carefully fighting “Hezbollah,” the death toll of at least 3,826 Lebanese civilians killed by Israeli attacks reveals that to be merely a pretext. Trump, though he has not skipped any payment when it comes to funding the conflict, admitted as much on Tuesday at the G7 Summit, telling reporters that Israel “does not have to knock down an apartment house every time [it’s] looking for somebody. There are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they’re not all Hezbollah.”

And though Israel invokes Hezbollah as its excuse for military action, there is little reason to believe the IDF’s occupation would end even if Hezbollah laid down its arms. In their public statements, Israeli officials have expressed interest in territorial expansion for its own sake and, increasingly, in the Judaification of Lebanese land through settlements—an idea Jewish Currents describes as “once fringe” but now backed by “an organized movement with broad governmental and public support.” Twenty members of Israel’s Knesset wrote to the cabinet in April urging “occupation and full control” of southern Lebanon alongside the “complete displacement” of its population, while a poll conducted by Direct Polls for i24NEWS found that 62 percent of Israelis favor occupying everything south of the Litani River.

Israeli occupation of Lebanon, like its ethnic cleansing campaigns in Gaza and the West Bank, works directly against American interests, in this case stopping a war that has wrecked the global economy. Washington has all the necessary tools to put a stop to this, yet has simply declined to use them. As Joe Kent, the administration’s former head of the National Counterterrorism Center and one of the most prominent America First critics of the war argued on X, “We can strengthen our chances of this deal holding by cutting all military/intel assistance to Israel,” who “took every opportunity to tank this deal & will likely do so again unless we take action,” adding that in order for a deal to hold, we must “take away every factor that we can control that could force us back into the war on Israel or Iran’s terms. Set all conditions that we can control in our favor.”

Though once unthinkable, Trump in recent days has shifted closer toward this America First position and away from the Israel First mindset that led to war with Iran. With Iran insisting any peace deal must cover “all fronts,” including Lebanon, and with the Israelis fully committed to the Greater Israel project, cutting off Israel is now the minimum price of the complete exit from the conflict that Trump says he wants.

Harrison Berger is a correspondent at The American Conservative. He has contributed to Drop Site News, The Nation, and Responsible Statecraft. Previously, he was a researcher and producer for System Update with Glenn Greenwald. His work focuses on civil liberties and U.S. foreign policy. He studied Political Science and Russian Studies at Union College (NY).

June 20, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Securing Peace with Iran Compels Trump to Divorce Israel

Old Iraq war architects rise up to wag finger at Trump’s Iran deal

Who asked for Doug Feith’s opinion anyway?

By Jim Lobe | Responsible Statecraft | June 18, 2026

Assume, for the sake of argument, that you think the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) just signed by President Donald Trump in Versailles is a disaster for both the United States and especially for Israel. Who would you want to be in the forefront of the campaign to persuade American public opinion that it should be abandoned or killed off altogether?

There are any number of candidates, but I, for one, would NOT choose anyone who bore major responsibility for the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, it was with great surprise that I found today that Douglas Feith, a key architect of both disasters ab initio, emerged from near-total obscurity at the hardline neoconservative Hudson Institute to publish an op-ed in the Washington Post assailing Vice President J.D. Vance (and indirectly Trump) for dangerous naivete in dealing with Iran.

I don’t want to get into his argument, which asserts that democracies can never trust “bad actors” like Iran to comply with their undertakings (an ironic point given the history of Iran’s compliance with and Washington’s unilateral abandonment of the 2015 JCPOA). You can read it yourself.

But to illustrate why I was so surprised that it was Feith, who hasn’t published an op-ed in the Post, the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal since 2016, taking a public role in what will be a major PR campaign to kill the deal I will do what we strongly discourage on RS : I’ll quote from AI.

I asked Microsoft’s Co-Pilot’s the following question:

“Why is Douglas Feith the last person opponents of Trump’s deal with Iran would want to publish an op-ed on the deal’s alleged weaknesses?”

The answer:

“Because Feith is widely associated with the flawed intelligence, strategic misjudgments, and disastrous outcomes of the Iraq War, his criticism of any Iran policy risks undermining the anti-deal position by linking it to the same neoconservative thinking that produced the Iraq debacle. His involvement makes opponents look less credible, not more.”

I couldn’t have put it better or more succinctly, and, while Co-Pilot offered to elaborate at length, I’ll cite my own abbreviated list of why Feith is such a terrible messenger.

Feith, who served as undersecretary of defense for policy, the third-ranking post in the Pentagon, during President George W. Bush’s first term, was a long-time protégé of Richard Perle, the “Dark Prince” and the dean and impresario of hardline, Washington-based neoconservatives dating back to the early 1970’s. Feith followed Perle from his first job after law school in Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson’s office, which served as the hatchery of Washington-based neoconservatives in the 1970s, through Perle’s service as a senior Pentagon official during the administration of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

In 1996, the two men worked with several others who would later serve in the Bush II administration in a “study group” that produced the notorious “Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” paper for incoming Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Among other things, the memo called for Netanyahu to take steps that would ensure Israeli control of the occupied Palestinian territories in part by working for regime change in Syria and “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”

But Feith is best known for his Pentagon service under George W. Bush, and, as Co-Pilot noted, his roles in the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Gen. Tommy Franks, the CENTCOM commander in both campaigns found working with Feith particularly frustrating, complaining at one point to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, “I have to deal with the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day.”

Part of that frustration was due to Feith’s clear determination to shape or search for or even possibly invent intelligence that would justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq and rally public opinion behind that enterprise. Indeed, Feith created offices in the Pentagon, most notoriously the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Unit, whose job was to collect and disseminate any information that might suggest a cooperative relationship between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Al-Qaeda despite the judgments by the U.S. intelligence community that such a relationship did not exist.

As part of his efforts to shape the intelligence, he and his team worked with Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress which provided “informants” who concocted evidence of alleged advances by Saddam’s alleged nuclear weapons program that also did not actually exist.

Even more damaging was the Office of Special Plans (OSP), which was charged with planning the occupation after the invasion, plans which included “de-Baathification,” a program long promoted by Chalabi, Perle, and other neoconservatives, that virtually overnight created the largely Sunni insurgency and that eventually resulted in a bloody sectarian civil war that not only devastated the country, but exhausted the occupation forces.

Besides his work with the OSP, Feith was also responsible for establishing the short-lived Office of Strategic Influence, which was closed down after creating a furor in Congress because of its purported aim of “providing news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of an effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers.”

But those examples are really just some of the most salient examples. “Undersecretary of Defense for Fiascos,” as Slate once described him, may have been a more appropriate title.

Six months into Bush’s second term, he was out, but, unlike his nominal boss, Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz, he didn’t get a consolation prize like the presidency of the World Bank. He retreated to write his 800+-page memoir in which he made what most critics described as a lame attempt at evading responsibility for the most disastrous “war of choice” in U.S. history.

It may be significant that the word “Iraq” did not appear once in Feith’s new attempt at a comeback.

Jim Lobe is a Contributing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He formerly served as chief of the Washington bureau of Inter Press Service from 1980 to 1985 and again from 1989 to 2015.

June 20, 2026 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Old Iraq war architects rise up to wag finger at Trump’s Iran deal

Strait of Hormuz closed over Israeli aggression on Lebanon

Al Mayadeen | June 20, 2026

The Strait of Hormuz is shut down in response to ongoing Israeli aggression on southern Lebanon, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters announced, deeming Israeli actions a violation of Iran’s agreement with the US.

In a statement carried by Iranian state television, the Khatam HQ accused the United States of breaching its obligations under a memorandum of understanding related to ending the war, and also cited continued Israeli military actions in southern Lebanon, including ceasefire violations, killings, forced displacement of civilians, and failure to withdraw from Lebanese territory. It added that the measure reflects a response to the deterioration of compliance by the opposing parties and the persistence of hostilities on the ground.

“In light of the United States’ blatant violation of its commitments and breach of the provisions of Article One of the memorandum of understanding to end the war and in response to the ongoing and continuous violation of the ceasefire by the Israeli entity in southern Lebanon, the continued brutal killing and forcible displacement of the Lebanese people, and its failure to withdraw from southern Lebanon, it is hereby announced that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to maritime navigation,” the statement read.

More steps to follow

The statement from Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters concluded by emphasizing that the measure was presented as an initial response to what it described as the enemy’s breach of commitments, warning that any continued escalation would prompt additional actions aimed at compelling compliance with its stated obligations.

“It is noted that this first step is a response to the enemy’s breach of promise, and if the aggression continues, further steps will be planned and taken to force the enemy to comply with its obligations,” it asserted.

37+ martyrs in continued Israeli attacks on southern, eastern Lebanon

Israeli occupation forces (IOF) carried out a fresh wave of attacks across southern Lebanon and western Bekaa on Saturday morning, killing at least 37 people and extending a pattern of aggression that has persisted despite an alleged ceasefire in place since April 17, 2026.

In the Nabatieh area alone, at least 25 people were martyred and another 35 were injured in an initial toll, as reported by the Civil Defense Operations Room of the Islamic Health Authority’s Jabal Amel II region. Rescue and ambulance teams are still clearing rubble and searching for missing people. Among those martyred in the Nabatieh area is a Lebanese Army soldier killed in an Israeli drone strike in Kfar Rumman.

Meanwhile, an Israeli attack on a residential building in the town of Qennarit in the Saida district killed 7 and injured 13 others, among them 5 children and 5 women, as per the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

In western Bekaa, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported that four people were killed in an Israeli attack on a house in the town of Sohmor, in addition to a person killed earlier in a separate drone attack that targeted a motorcycle in the same town, bringing the death toll in Sohmor to five. Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that a child remains under the rubble in Sohmor, with rescue teams working to save him.

Dozens of towns bombed

Local media reports that the IOF carried out at least 80 attacks on southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa since early morning on Saturday, comprising 65 airstrikes and 15 drone strikes, in addition to artillery shelling and sweeping fire.

The hardest hit areas are al-Nabatieh al-Fawqa (8 times) and al-Rihan heights (6 times).  Kfar Tebnit and its surroundings, Jabal al-Rafi’, Shoukin, and Nabatieh city were each bombed four times, while Kfaroumman, Aramta, the al-Aroush quarry, Harouf, and Habboush were each bombed three times.

Sojod, the area between Toul and Kfour, Kfar Joz, Zebdine and its surroundings, and Shhour were each attacked twice, while Nmairiyeh, Arabsalim, al-Mahmoudiyeh, Borj Qalaway, Qabrikha, Barish, al-Qatrani, and Qennarit were each bombed once.

Drone attacks, artillery shelling

Israeli drones, meanwhile, attacked Nabatieh city four times and Arabsalim twice, with single drone attacks hitting Deir al-Zahrani, Doueir, Deir Qanoun Ras al-Ain, Kawthariyet al-Riz, Sohmor, Harouf, Jibchit, and al-Nafakhiyeh.

Israeli artillery also shelled Majdal Zoun, Habboush, Harouf, and Ali al-Taher, while occupation forces carried out sweeping-fire operations in Buyout al-Sayyad.

Friday’s escalation

Saturday’s strikes followed a sharp escalation on Friday, when the IOF expanded its attacks to include several southern villages, the outskirts and northern entrance of Baalbek, and the Litani Riverbed near the town of Zellaya in the western Bekaa, attacks that resulted in massacres of civilians.

The bombardment continued even as Reuters reported that a ceasefire agreement between “Israel” and Hezbollah had taken effect at 4 pm that day. Within moments of the so-called ceasefire taking hold, Israeli occupation warplanes launched more than 16 attacks on areas across the South, according to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent.

The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health confirmed that the intensified aggression carried out from midnight through Friday afternoon martyred 47 people and injured 97 others, an updated toll showed. The Ministry put the cumulative toll of Israeli attacks between March 2 and June 19 at 3,980 martyred and 12,001 injured.

June 20, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Strait of Hormuz closed over Israeli aggression on Lebanon

IRAN WAR “ON PAUSE” – w/ Prof. Glenn Diesen

Mario Nawfal | June 19, 2026

June 19, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , , | Comments Off on IRAN WAR “ON PAUSE” – w/ Prof. Glenn Diesen

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