Appeals court backs Donald Trump on deployment of National Guard in LA

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A US appeals court has let Donald Trump retain control of California's National Guard while the state's Democratic governor proceeds with a lawsuit challenging the Republican president's use of the troops to quell protests in Los Angeles.
The US president's decision to send troops into LA prompted a national debate about the use of the military on US soil and inflamed political tension.

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Putin says Russia has told Israel there's no evidence Iran wants nuclear weapons

latest | Israeli military says it killed two Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders Alexander Cornwell and James Oliphant ©Reuters Russia has repeatedly told Israel that there is no evidence Iran is aiming to get nuclear weapons, Sky News Arabia on Saturday quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying in an interview. "Russia, as well as the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), has never had any evidence that Iran is preparing to obtain nuclear weapons, as we have repeatedly put the Israeli leadership on notice," Sky News Arabia quoted Putin as saying.

Irish Examiner

an hour ago

• Irish Examiner

Israel-Iran war stretches into a second week without diplomatic breakthrough

Hours of talks aimed at de-escalating fighting between Israel and Iran failed to produce a diplomatic breakthrough as the war entered its second week with a fresh round of strikes between the two adversaries. European ministers and Iran's top diplomat met for four hours on Friday in Geneva, as President Donald Trump continued to weigh US military involvement and worries rose over potential strikes on nuclear reactors. European officials expressed hope for future negotiations, and Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said he was open to further dialogue while emphasising that Tehran had no interest in negotiating with the US while Israel continued attacking. 'Iran is ready to consider diplomacy if aggression ceases and the aggressor is held accountable for its committed crimes,' he told reporters. Benjamin Netanyahu visits the site of the Weizmann Institute of Science, which was hit by missiles fired from Iran (Jack Guez/Pool Photo via AP) No date was set for the next round of talks. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel's military operation in Iran would continue 'for as long as it takes' to eliminate what he called the existential threat of Iran's nuclear programme and arsenal of ballistic missiles. Israel's top general echoed the warning, saying the Israeli military was ready 'for a prolonged campaign'. But Mr Netanyahu's goal could be out of reach without US help. Iran's underground Fordo uranium enrichment facility is considered to be out of reach to all but America's 'bunker-buster' bombs. Mr Trump said he would put off deciding whether to join Israel's air campaign against Iran for up to two weeks. The war between Israel and Iran erupted on June 13, with Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear and military sites, top generals and nuclear scientists. At least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,000 wounded, according to a Washington-based Iranian human rights group. Iran has retaliated by firing 450 missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel, according to Israeli army estimates. Most have been shot down by Israel's multi-tiered air defences, but at least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds wounded. Israel's defence minister said on Saturday it killed a commander in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who financed and armed Hamas in preparation for the October 7 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the 20-month long war in Gaza. Israel said Saeed Izadi was commander of the Palestine Corps for the Iranian Quds Force, an elite arm of the Guard that conducts military and intelligence operations outside Iran, and that he was killed in an apartment in the city of Qom.

Irish Times

4 hours ago

• Irish Times

If Netanyahu wants regime change in Iran, it is unlikely to end well

It is not yet certain whether Donald Trump will approve US involvement in Israel 's assault on Iran which began last week. While Israel has inflicted severe losses on Iran and appears to have disabled its air defences, there is a broad consensus that, without US intervention, the goal of disabling Iran's nuclear programme will be unachievable. To this end, a great deal of attention has been paid to the Fordow nuclear facility , close to the city of Qom, which is at the heart of the programme of uranium enrichment and much of which is located 80-90m underground. In 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that the facility held about 3,000 centrifuges which are central to the enrichment process. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal which Iran signed in 2015, uranium enrichment ceased at Fordow. But, when the US pulled out of that agreement under the first Trump administration, production restarted. Now the assumption is that only the so-called 'bunker buster' bombs possessed by the US are capable of destroying the facility at Fordow. However, the US president's announcement of a two-week deadline to decide if his country will join Israel's attack speaks to uncertainty regarding its likely success and divisions within his support base. Either way, the one-sided nature of the conflict so far – which has seen Israel inflict far more significant losses on Iran, both in terms of military leadership and civilian casualties, than it has sustained – raises the question of whether regime-change in Tehran is on the agenda. From the outset, Israeli leaders have expressly stated that this is not a key objective. However, they have made it equally clear that they would welcome the fall of the Islamic Republic should it happen. Indeed, Binyamin Netanyahu has called on Iranians to 'stand up for their freedom'. As for Trump, his rhetoric has shifted dramatically over the course of the past several weeks, from an initial position which saw him urge restraint on Netanyahu, and talk up the prospect of success in negotiations with Iran on its nuclear programme, to his more recent darker utterances regarding the prospect of direct US involvement to put an end to Iran's nuclear ambitions. All of this, in turn, suggests Trump has been bounced into supporting Israel's assault on Iran through Netanyahu's pre-emptive actions last Thursday. READ MORE Israel needs Trump's 'bunker buster' but will US enter the war? Listen | 31:22 Since Israel launched air strikes on Iran last Friday, the two states have traded missiles with mounting casualties on both military leaders have been killed as have some of its nuclear scientists but the country's citizens have borne the brunt of the air has said its rationale for the middle-of-the-night attack that sparked the war was its need to ensure, for its own protection, that Iran's nuclear programme is close Iran is to actually having a nuclear bomb is unclear but for Israel to obliterate entirely the nuclear threat it needs the US to join the war, to send its 'bunker buster' mega bomb to destroy the Fordo uranium enrichment facility buried deep in the by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon. While the likely course of US action on Iran remains unpredictable, it is clear that neither Israel nor the United States has a plan for – or indeed any coherent understanding of – what might follow from the fall of the regime in Tehran, beyond wilfully optimistic assumptions regarding its positive impact on the country and the region. However, history teaches us that such optimistic assumptions are rarely well placed. The reality is that when we have seen external involvement in the affairs of Iran and the Middle East more generally, the results have never been straightforward and rarely positive. [ Could Israel's attacks on Iran create a nuclear contamination risk? Opens in new window ] In Iran in 1953, the country's democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Mossadeq's government nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (which was a forerunner to BP), a move that was widely popular in the country but alarming to the UK and the US. As events unfolded, the Shah of Iran, fearing the worst, left the country. However, Mossadeq was removed from power in August 1953 and the Shah returned to preside over an increasingly repressive regime, until his removal during the revolution of 1979. As is so often the case with external interventions of this nature, Mossadeq's removal had unintended consequences. The events of 1953 dealt a severe blow to liberal and democratic politics in Iran while the Shah was seen as little more than an American puppet – factors contributing to the revolution which ended his rule in 1979 and inaugurated the Islamic Republic of Iran. More recently, the ill-conceived US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 brought years of violent conflict to the country, led to the sectarianisation of its politics and helped pave the way for the emergence of the so-called Islamic State , while strengthening the position of the Iranian regime in the region, along the way. Likewise, western intervention in Libya in 2011 did nothing to contribute to peace and stability in that country. This is not to say that Iranians cannot mobilise in the face of a repressive regime; Iran has a long history of such mobilisation. As far back as the early 20th century, the 'constitutional revolution' of the period from 1906 to 1911 saw mass demonstrations that forced the Shah to agree to a written constitution and the establishment of an elected parliament. That mobilisation was motivated by a number of grievances, including disillusionment with the ruling elite, as well as resentment at foreign influence and interference in the affairs of the country. While many of the gains of this period were subsequently reversed, the constitution remained in place until the revolution of 1979. Decades later, mass mobilisation led to the end of the Pahlavi dynasty, which had ruled Iran since 1925 with significant western support. However, the post-1979 period has also witnessed expressions of dissent from the governing orthodoxy in the country. In 2009, mass protests broke out when the hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed victory in the presidential election of June 12th that year, despite widespread electoral irregularities and claims by opposition candidates that the vote was rigged. After the announcement of the results, supporters of opposition candidates took to the streets in protest. By June 15th, as many as two million people were on the streets of Tehran. The protests were ultimately suppressed with the deaths of dozens of protesters and the arrests of thousands. Thirteen years later, unrest and protests broke out again on a mass scale following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, whose 'crime' was the violation of Iran's mandatory hijab law by wearing hers 'improperly'. The protest movement that followed adopted the slogan 'Women, Life, Freedom' but subsequently grew into open calls for the removal of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Once more the protests were violently suppressed, and 500 people lost their lives. Popular mobilisation in Iran for more than 100 years has been driven by domestic actors in pursuit of domestic agendas and never by external forces. It is unlikely that Netanyahu's call on the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow their government will alter that record. Dr Vincent Durac lectures in Middle East politics in the UCD school of politics and international relations