Source:
https://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index5000.htm

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June 18, 2025

Russia Warns Idiotic American Foreign Policy Is Pushing World Towards Nuclear Catastrophe

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A thought-provoking new Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today first noting the Foreign Ministry issued the grave warning: “The ongoing intensive attacks by the Israeli side on peaceful nuclear facilities in Iran are illegal from the point of view of international law, create unacceptable threats to international security and push the world towards a nuclear catastrophe”, says this grave warning was joined by Director Rafael Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency truthfully informing the world: “What we reported was that we did not have any proof of a systematic effort by Iran to move toward a nuclear weapon...The agency’s findings align with other independent sources on the issue”.

Among the other independent sources aligning with the International Atomic Energy Agency in assessing that Iran is not building nuclear weapons, this report notes, its top President Donald Trump war official Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who informed the United States Congress on 25 March: “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003”.

In response to Director of National Intelligence Gabbard truthfully assessing on behalf of the United States Intelligence Community that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, this report continues, President Trump proclaimed: “I don’t care what she said…I think they were very close to having one”—and it was revealed yesterday: “The White House said President Donald Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard are closely aligned on Iran”.

Among those noticing the impossibility of President Trump being closely aligned with Director of National Intelligence Gabbard, as she says Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and he says they are, this report details, was the leftist New York Times, that factually observed: “The contradictory comments have left a trail of confusion as Israelis, Iranians, and the broader Middle East try to understand whether the biggest conflict between Israel and Iran in history would escalate further and whether Mr. Trump, long opposed to foreign wars, would plunge the United States into one”—and was a factual observation swiftly followed by Vice President J.D. Vance posting the message to the American peoples:

Look, I'm seeing this from the inside, and am admittedly biased towards our president (and my friend), but there's a lot of crazy stuff on social media, so I wanted to address some things directly on the Iran issue:

First, POTUS has been amazingly consistent, over 10 years, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Over the last few months, he encouraged his foreign policy team to reach a deal with the Iranians to accomplish this goal. The president has made clear that Iran cannot have uranium enrichment. And he said repeatedly that this would happen one of two ways--the easy way or the "other" way.

Second, I've seen a lot of confusion over the issue of "civilian nuclear power" and "uranium enrichment." These are distinct issues. Iran could have civilian nuclear power without enrichment, but Iran rejected that. Meanwhile, they've enriched uranium far above the level necessary for any civilian purpose. They've been found in violation of their non-proliferation obligations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is hardly a rightwing organization.

It's one thing to want civilian nuclear energy. It's another thing to demand sophisticated enrichment capacity. And it's still another to cling to enrichment while simultaneously violating basic non-proliferation obligations and enriching right to the point of weapons-grade uranium.

I have yet to see a single good argument for why Iran needed to enrich uranium well above the threshold for civilian use. I've yet to see a single good argument for why Iran was justified in violating its non-proliferation obligations. I've yet to see a single good pushback against the IAEA's findings.

Meanwhile, the president has shown remarkable restraint in keeping our military's focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens.

He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president.

And of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.

But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue. And having seen this up close and personal, I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people's goals. Whatever he does, that is his focus.

Joining Vice President Vance admitting that the war isn’t about Iran building nuclear weapons, but is all about their processing levels of nuclear materials legally allowed and watched over daily by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, this report notes, was the news: “According to a new YouGov poll, conducted June 13 to June 16, a majority of Americans think the United States should not get involved in Israel’s war with Iran, signaling trouble for the midterms if President Trump decides to send troops into the conflict...The opposition to U.S. involvement includes 65% of Democrats, 61% of Independents, and 53% of Republicans”.

As President Trump prepares to embroil the United States in yet another forever war the vast majority of Americans oppose, this report continues, Iran announced today: “In the most intense phase of Operation True Promise III so far, Iranian long-range missiles tore through multiple layers of Israeli air defenses in the early hours of Wednesday, striking and destroying targets across Israel”—and an Israeli Telegram channel, while sharing a video of Iranian missiles hitting their targets, wrote: “Watch and count the number of interceptor missiles fired by the air defense system, and at the end of the video, you’ll see the Iranian missile bypass them and hit its targets”.

Among those suffering under the rain of Iranian missiles decimating Israel, this report concludes, is world-renowned Israeli intellectual Professor Bernard Avishai, who worryingly observed yesterday:

The war is five days old, and, like most Israelis, we are getting about as much sleep as the parents of a newborn, roused twice a night and running to our shelter. There, our condo neighbors gather, bantering through the newscasts, damp and in doubt.

On those newscasts, as on television nightly, panels of security pundits, themselves mostly former generals and Mossad agents, are good with numbers and not particularly so at hiding their pride.

For our part, us civilians are exhorted to Stoicism, “kor ruach,” “composure.” This, we are told, is what existential war feels like. “Jews know better than anyone,” an otherwise pokerfaced Channel Twelve correspondent declaims, “that when somebody says he means to kill you, you have to believe them — and relieve them of their means to do so.” As I write, I can hear squadrons of Israeli Air Force fighters in the skies, heading east in waves. Soon enough, new missiles will fly, and I’m preparing to be composed.

Indeed, those of us who’ve followed the diplomatic twists in the region since the 1960s feel mostly out of our depth. It has been our job to consider motivation on both sides: histories, ideologies, grievances.

For our security experts, in contrast, analysis may entail an assessment of, yes, an enemy’s motivation, but only in tandem with its military capability; and then, motivation boils down to military capability, because, “Jews know,” if enemies have the capability to hurt you, they will have the motivation to do so. The inference for action is preemption, deterrence, intimidation. Discussion of diplomatic alternatives to “kinetic action” is vaguely effete.

Perhaps this is my own failure of imagination, but I am not so sure that this is what existential war feels like. Anyway, I have questions — worse, I cannot see how, given our experts’ preemptive logic, this war ends.

Let us concede that, for Israel, an Iranian atomic bomb would be a disaster. Incidentally, Israel has a second strike capacity, 100 nuclear warheads of its own, many sitting on missiles in at least six submarines off the Mediterranean coast; so you have to concede, also, that the fine morning when the Supreme Leader decides to incinerate Tel Aviv (simultaneously irradiating most of Palestine) would be the same morning he decides to incinerate Tehran, Isfahan and Qom. But never mind.

Shame on me, but I always imagined that an attack to preempt Iran’s nuclear program would be a last resort after negotiations failed. That it would be more “surgically” focused on nuclear installations, and missiles that might be used to deliver an atomic bomb — not all missiles — and, anyway, undertaken with American military partnership and European diplomatic support. Then, one might hope to return to negotiations about the future.

What I did not imagine was that Israel would act alone, even assuming a “green light” from Washington. Isn’t Iran, even weakened, 10 times Israel’s population and 75 times the landmass; doesn’t it graduate five times the number of engineers a year? With the planet’s fourth largest reserves of oil, has it no staying power? This isn’t Hezbollah.

Nor did I imagine that the regime’s missile construction capacity itself, leadership, chain-of-command, scientists, oil facilities — all of these — would qualify as targeted infrastructure. Or, that in the course of a presumably preemptive war, Iranian missiles would themselves prove more seriously menacing than the atom bombs they would hypothetically (and almost certainly never) deliver. Now, given this inescapable conclusion, does not Israel have to “eliminate” Iranian leaders who control those missiles and whose hatred we have to “believe”?

What have we learned from the past four days, after all? Just from missiles, 24 people in Israel have died and 500 have been wounded. Israel’s cosmopolitan economy has been paralyzed; and all air travel and cargo to and from the country has been stopped. Every night, virtually the entire population, to bring things back to my shelter, lives in fear and disruption.

The big question, in other words, is whether Netanyahu has not set his sights on regime change. Whether his sights have not been blinkered by a new logic deriving from the manifest results of his own escalation — that Iran’s nuclear program and missile program are one; that given the danger to Israel merely from the missiles, leaving the Ayatollah’s regime in charge itself amounts to an existential threat.

Most vexing of all, why, under these circumstances, should the Iranian regime stop the war? It says it will be prepared to put enrichment back under international monitoring, as under the previous nuclear deal. But, for now, why capitulate?

Why not launch a dozen missiles every night, or every third night, keeping Israeli business depressed, our airspace closed, our sleep foiled — and watch us squirm? Why not tie up virtually the entire Israeli Air Force looking for missile development in a territory the size of Alaska and over four hours away? Why not deplete our reserves of anti-missile missiles that cost a couple of million dollars each?

Finally, will Bibi, of all people, the leader in charge of Gazan carnage, bring Iranians to overthrow their government? Israel has now killed over 200 Iranian citizens by going after human “nuclear infrastructure” in various residential complexes.

All of this, I suppose, does indeed toss the ball to Donald Trump. But has he ever played this position before — is he able to see more than one move ahead, and doesn’t that move have to enhance his personal popularity? This week, Bibi, and the Israeli military more generally, are the winners he wants to take credit for. But next week? What if the Iranian regime just hangs tough and keeps the war going? Does Israel, in the long run, have “the cards”? Does all of MAGA want this?

Israel, in short, may have taken a five-foot leap over a six-foot pit. The country has always been good at surprise attacks, one former Israeli general put it, but less so at sustained resistance. And counting on Trump to help — say, by bombing Fordow, or trying to extract a “better deal,” or new sanctions, or all three — assumes, first, that he’ll be able to see how Israel has fallen into a trap set by its own audacious strike, and, second, that he’ll see an advantage in committing American forces, and risking oil infrastructure in the Gulf states, to release Israel from that trap.

Trump may help, if that’s the word. He is warning Iranians to “evacuate Tehran.” He is sending the Nimitz strike group to the region.

I am no longer sure what to hope for, except for the madness to be, well, trumped by quick movement to the regional settlement that’s been dangled by the Saudis since the Gaza war began — a forlorn hope, perhaps.

In any case, questions, not just sirens, are enough to keep us up at night.

[Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]

Putin’s Chilling Nuclear Catastrophe Warning Over Iran-Israel War, Takes Jibe At U.S.-Led West
https://youtu.be/_T3dys5cAaE

Iran Fires FIRST Hypersonic Missile Of Op True Promise III; ‘Fattah-1 Jolts Tel Aviv’ | IDF Alarmed
https://youtu.be/c3S_c_z4mgk

BREAKING: Iran SHOOTS DOWN $10Mn Israeli Hermes 900 Drone | IDF Accepts BIG Air Battle Loss
https://youtu.be/aWN0tdZkgKs

Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz Clash on Iran
https://youtu.be/JSTqFuA1FeM

June 18, 2025 © EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com.
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