World awaits Iranian response after US hits nuclear sites
ISTANBUL/WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM: The world braced on Sunday (Jun 22) for Iran's response after the US attacked key Iranian nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
With the damage visible from space after 30,000-pound US bunker-buster bombs crashed into the mountain above Iran's Fordow nuclear site, Tehran vowed to defend itself at all costs.
It fired another volley of missiles at Israel that wounded scores of people and flattened buildings in Tel Aviv. The US State Department ordered employees' family members to leave Lebanon and advised citizens elsewhere in the region to keep a low profile or restrict travel.
An advisory from the US Department of Homeland Security warned of a "heightened threat environment in the United States." Law enforcement in major US cities stepped up patrols and deployed additional resources to religious, cultural and diplomatic sites.
Tehran has so far not followed through on its threats of retaliation against the United States, either by targeting US bases or trying to choke off global oil supplies, but that may not hold.
Speaking in Istanbul, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said his country would consider all possible responses. There would be no return to diplomacy until it had retaliated, he said.
"The US showed they have no respect for international law. They only understand the language of threat and force," he said.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on X that the initiative was "now with the side that plays smart, avoids blind strikes. Surprises will continue!"
US President Donald Trump, in a televised address, called the strikes "a spectacular military success" and boasted that Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities had been "completely and totally obliterated."
But his own officials gave more nuanced assessments and, with the exception of satellite photographs appearing to show craters on the mountain above Iran's subterranean plant at Fordow, there has been no public accounting of the damage.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said no increases in off-site radiation levels had been reported after the US strikes.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told CNN that it was not yet possible to assess the damage done underground. A senior Iranian source told Reuters that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere before the attack. Reuters could not immediately corroborate the claim.
Trump immediately called on Iran to forgo any retaliation, saying the government "must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier," he said.
US Vice President JD Vance said Washington was not at war with Iran but with its nuclear programme, adding this had been pushed back by a very long time due to the US intervention.
In a step towards what is widely seen as Iran's most effective threat to hurt the West, its parliament approved a move to close the Strait of Hormuz. Nearly a quarter of global oil shipments pass through the narrow waters that Iran shares with Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran's Press TV said closing the strait would require approval from the Supreme National Security Council, a body led by an appointee of Khamenei.
Attempting to choke off Gulf oil by closing the strait could send global oil prices skyrocketing, derail the world economy and invite almost certain conflict with the US Navy's massive Fifth Fleet, based in the Gulf and tasked with keeping the strait open.
Security experts have long warned a weakened Iran could also find other unconventional ways to strike back, such as bombings or cyberattacks.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an interview on "Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo," warned Iran against retaliation for the US strikes, saying such action would be "the worst mistake they've ever made."
Rubio separately told CBS's "Face the Nation" talk show that the US has "other targets we can hit, but we achieved our objective."
"There are no planned military operations right now against Iran," he later added, "unless they mess around."
The UN Security Council was due to meet later on Sunday, diplomats said, at the request of Iran, which urged the 15-member body "to address this blatant and unlawful act of (US) aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms."
DIVERGING WAR AIMS
Israeli officials, who began the hostilities with a surprise attack on Iran on Jun 13, have increasingly spoken of their ambition to topple the hardline Shi'ite Muslim clerical establishment that has ruled Iran since 1979.
US officials, many of whom witnessed Republican President George W Bush's popularity collapse following his disastrous intervention in Iraq in 2003, have stressed that they were not working to overthrow Iran's government.
"This mission was not and has not been about regime change," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon. "The president authorised a precision operation to neutralise the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear programme."
Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally, said on NBC's "Meet the Press with Kristen Welker" program that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told him his country would no longer endure being under missile attack.
"They're not going to live under threat from Iran anymore," Graham said. "Israel's made a decision. This regime is going to change in one of two ways: they're going to change their behavior, which I doubt, the regime itself, or the people are going to replace the regime.'
Iranians contacted by Reuters described their fear at the prospect of an enlarged war involving the United States.
"Our future is dark. We have nowhere to go - it's like living in a horror movie," Bita, 36, a teacher from the central city of Kashan, said before the phone line was cut.
Much of Tehran, a capital city of 10 million people, has emptied out, with residents fleeing to the countryside to escape Israeli bombardment.
Iranian authorities say more than 400 people have been killed since Israel's attacks began, mostly civilians. Israel's bombardment has scythed through much of Iran's military leadership with strikes targeted at bases and residential buildings where senior figures slept.
Iran has been launching missiles back at Israel, killing at least 24 people over the past nine days, the first time its projectiles have penetrated Israel's defences in large numbers. The elite Revolutionary Guards said they had fired 40 missiles at Israel in the latest volley overnight.
Air raid sirens sounded across most of Israel on Sunday, sending millions of people to safe rooms.
In Tel Aviv, Aviad Chernovsky, 40, emerged from a bomb shelter to find his house had been destroyed in a direct hit. "It's not easy to live now in Israel (right now), but we are very strong. We know that we will win,' he said.
Trump had veered between offering to end the war with diplomacy or to join it, at one point musing publicly about killing Iran's supreme leader. His decision ultimately to join the fight is the biggest foreign policy gamble of his career.
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Commentary: Iran has no good choices to respond to US strikes – only the best of bad options
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On the former, a successful mission is a preferable outcome: It increases the chances that calm will return sooner, rather than later – because Iran has no good choices. If, as threatened, it decides that the only way forward for it is to exit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and take its programme underground, this will likely invite more American, and Israeli, action as they seek to exploit a moment of extraordinary Iranian weakness and vulnerability. This is a trail that has been blazed by North Korea, which is now estimated to have about 60 nuclear weapons. Washington will have no doubt learned lessons from its failure to keep Pyongyang from breaking out. Then again, the kinetic options that were available to the US in Iran were never really on the table in the case of North Korea, despite threats from a succession of US presidents – Mr Trump himself warned of 'fire and fury like the world has never seen'. The risks of a dramatic escalation, geopolitical uncertainty and lack of solid intelligence were among the reasons the US did not draw a firm line in the sand, and allowed North Korea to call its bluff. When it comes to Iran, the line has been drawn, and the consequences for crossing it have been clearly spelled out. DOING NOTHING WOULD BE CAPITULATION As Mr Trump put it, there will either be peace or tragedy for Iran, and the choice is theirs. Beyond the missile salvo it launched on Israel hours after the US strikes, Iran could hit American bases and the 40,000 troops in the Middle East as retaliation. It could also lash out by attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz, crippling oil supplies and attack Gulf Arab states, as it has done in the past. It could also resort to cyberattacks, or terrorist actions against US and Israeli interests around the world. But that is inviting further trouble on itself. The US attacks on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, Mr Trump claimed, were the 'most difficult' for the military to carry out, and that future ones would be 'a lot easier'. For good measure, he added a footnote: 'Remember, there are many targets left.' In its current weakened and exposed state, any action Iran takes to widen the conflict will make its position even more precarious. That said, Iran cannot be expected to do nothing. Standing idly by would be tantamount to announcing its humiliating capitulation to the world. For the regime, much worse could follow: Doing nothing would validate an idea that many Iranians themselves believe – that their leaders have led them down a reckless path that has brought them economic misery, international opprobrium and isolation from the world. Iranians are a proud people and will rally around the flag in the face of severe attacks, setting aside political and ideological differences despite all their misgivings. 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an hour ago
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World awaits Iranian response after US hits nuclear sites, World News
ISTANBUL/WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM — The world braced on Sunday (June 22) for Iran's response after the US attacked key Iranian nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution. Iran vowed to defend itself a day after the US dropped 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs onto the mountain above Iran's Fordow nuclear site while American leaders urged Tehran to stand down and pockets of anti-war protesters emerged in US cities. In a post to the Truth Social platform on Sunday, US President Donald Trump raised the idea of regime change in Iran. "It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!" he wrote. Iran and Israel continued to trade volleys of missile attacks. An Israeli military spokesperson said Israeli fighter jets had struck military targets in western Iran. Earlier, Iran fired missiles that wounded scores of people and flattened buildings in Tel Aviv. The US Department of Homeland Security warned of a "heightened threat environment" in America, citing the possibility of cyber attacks or targeted violence. Law enforcement in major US cities stepped up patrols with a focus on religious, cultural and diplomatic sites. The US State Department issued a security alert for all US citizens abroad that warned of the potential for demonstrations against Americans and travel disruptions due to closed airspace across the Middle East, calling on them to "exercise increased caution." Tehran has so far not followed through on its threats of retaliation against the United States — either by targeting US bases or trying to choke off global oil supplies — but that may not hold. Speaking in Istanbul, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said his country would consider all possible responses. There would be no return to diplomacy until it had retaliated, he said. "The US showed they have no respect for international law. They only understand the language of threat and force," he said. Trump, in a televised address, called the strikes "a spectacular military success" and boasted that Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities had been "completely and totally obliterated." Commercial satellite imagery indicated the US attack on Iran's subterranean Fordow nuclear plant severely damaged or destroyed the deeply-buried site and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, but the status of the site remained unconfirmed, experts said. The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said no increases in off-site radiation levels had been reported after the US strikes. Rafael Grossi, the agency's director general, told CNN that it was not yet possible to assess the damage done underground. A senior Iranian source told Reuters that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere before the attack. Reuters could not immediately corroborate the claim. Satellite imagery from the US space technology company Maxar Technologies showed a long line of vehicles waiting outside an entrance of the facility on Thursday and Friday. Trump, who veered between offering to end the war with diplomacy or to join it before moving ahead with the biggest foreign policy gamble of his career, called on Iran to forgo any retaliation. He said the government "must now make peace" or "future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier." In a step towards what is widely seen as Iran's most effective threat to hurt the West, its parliament approved a move to close the Strait of Hormuz. Nearly a quarter of global oil shipments pass through the narrow waters that Iran shares with Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Iran's Press TV said closing the strait would require approval from the Supreme National Security Council, a body led by an appointee of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Attempting to choke off Gulf oil by closing the strait could send global oil prices skyrocketing, derail the world economy and invite conflict with the US Navy's massive Fifth Fleet, based in the Gulf and tasked with keeping the strait open. Brent crude and US crude futures rose to the highest levels since January on Sunday, with Brent crude increasing US$3.20 (S$4.13) to US$80.28 and US crude US$2.89 to US$76.73. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS's Face the Nation that there were no other planned military operations against Iran "unless they mess around." The UN Security Council met on Sunday to discuss the US strikes as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council the US bombings in Iran marked a perilous turn in the region and urged a halt to fighting and return to negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme. Diverging war aims Israeli officials, who began the hostilities with a surprise attack on Iran on June 13, have increasingly spoken of their ambition to topple the hardline Shi'ite Muslim clerical establishment that has ruled Iran since 1979. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli reporters that Israel was very close to meeting its goals of removing the threats of ballistic missiles and the nuclear programme in Iran. US officials, many of whom witnessed Republican President George W. Bush's popularity collapse following his disastrous intervention in Iraq in 2003, have stressed that they were not working to overthrow Iran's government. "This mission was not and has not been about regime change," Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon, calling the mission "a precision operation" targeting Iran's nuclear programme. Anti-war activists organised demonstrations on Sunday in New York, Washington and other US cities, with signs carrying messages such as "hands off Iran." Meanwhile, some Iranians said they feared the prospect of an enlarged conflict involving the US "Our future is dark. We have nowhere to go — it's like living in a horror movie," Bita, 36, a teacher from the central city of Kashan, said before the phone line was cut. Much of Tehran, a capital city of 10 million people, has emptied out, with residents fleeing to the countryside to escape Israeli bombardment. Iranian authorities say more than 400 people have been killed since Israel's attacks began, mostly civilians. Israel's bombardment has decimated much of Iran's military leadership with strikes targeted at bases and residential buildings where senior figures slept. Iran has been launching missiles back at Israel, killing at least 24 people over the past nine days. Air raid sirens sounded across most of Israel on Sunday, sending millions of people to safe rooms. In Tel Aviv, Aviad Chernovsky, 40, emerged from a bomb shelter to find his house had been destroyed in a direct hit. "It's not easy to live now in Israel (right now), but we are very strong," he said. "We know that we will win." [[nid:719352]]
