n the early morning of June 13, residents of Saadat Abad, an affluent neighbourhood in northwest Tehran, were jolted awake by the unmistakable roar of fighter jets overhead. Some rushed outside, uncertain whether the aircraft were Iranian or Israeli, but many instinctively sensed what was coming.
Within minutes, the sky erupted in flames, and nearby explosions could be felt for miles. According to an eyewitness on the ground, it was precisely 3:17 am local time when Tehran’s long-dreaded war scenario turned real.
Israel had launched a direct, highly coordinated airstrike deep inside Iranian territory, a bold escalation after years of shadow conflict. This was not covert sabotage or cyberwarfare. It was a massive airpower offensive against a sovereign nation, one Iran called a “declaration of war”, with consequences that will ripple far beyond Iran’s borders.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has warned Israel that it “must expect severe punishment”. Given the follow-on Israeli attacks in what is becoming a tit-for-tat series of attacks, should Iran retaliate with a major strike, targeting Tel Aviv, or worse, the Dimona nuclear facility, the consequences could be catastrophic.
Israel, widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, maintains a doctrine of overwhelming response to existential threats. A devastating Iranian attack could provoke a retaliatory strike of historic proportions. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Israel has already planned out 14 days of operations and, as we’ve seen in Gaza, the willingness of Israel to keep fighting long after any purpose remains.
Though the United States may not have participated alongside the Israelis or given the green light, it is clear this operation had American support. US military aid has long underpinned Israel’s strike capabilities — precision-guided munitions, satellite and signals intelligence and the advanced systems required for missions of this scale. In geopolitics, “enabling” an ally is not a neutral act. The weapons were American. The strategic confidence was built on decades of uncritical backing. If the United States didn’t light the match, it certainly handed over the gasoline.
The Trump administration has been very clear that it did not explicitly authorize the strike, although President Trump acknowledged that he was made aware of the operation beforehand.
While he had repeatedly urged Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu not to attack Iran, preferring to give diplomacy and economic sanctions a chance, in the wake of attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, the US President turned to his preferred platform Truth Social to write: “There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.”
As carefully curated videos are released by the Israeli government, there is a clear message that military targets and infrastructure are being precisely targeted and collateral damage is minimized. Yet, there are growing fears that many of the targets may be uranium enrichment facilities or storage locations. If true, the risk extends beyond conventional warfare.
A high-impact strike on a nuclear site could release radioactive material into the environment, with wind patterns potentially carrying radioactive fallout across borders, into Iraq, the Gulf states and beyond. This would transform a military strike into an environmental and humanitarian crisis.
The political fallout, too, is regional. In but one example, Iraq, still struggling from the effects of the 2003 invasion, was among the first to recognize that the consequences of these strikes could not be contained inside the borders of Israel and Iran. Baghdad, walking a tightrope between its allies in Iran and the United States, issued a carefully crafted condemnation of the attacks by Israel and called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting.
But expectations are low as the United States is almost certain to veto any resolution critical of Israel, as it has done many times before. The condemnation was also carefully written to placate the Iranian-backed militias which, although weaker than in past years, were likely the reason the United States evacuated a significant number of personnel from its Baghdad embassy.
By launching this preemptive strike without evidence of an impending weaponisation of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile and well before negotiations had irrevocably stalled, Israel once again demonstrated its willingness to act outside the bounds of global norms.
Its impunity is made possible by consistent and often unconditional support from Washington and the broader West. This is not the posture of a state lamentably and regrettably taking action when more peaceful options had failed. It is the conduct of a country that sees its national security beyond accountability.
As both sides assess the damage, deliberates its next move and climbs the escalatory ladder, the region teeters on the edge. What began in the skies above Saadat Abad could broaden into a conflict engulfing Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the Gulf. This is no longer a contained standoff. It is a widening war, unfolding in real time. But is does not need to spiral out of control. While the US may not have given the Israel the green light for starting the war, it is assuredly the only country that can give Israel the red light to stop – and has the responsibility to do so. President Trump proudly says he does not begin wars but ends them, and now is the time for him to live up to that rhetoric.
By: Tanya Goudsouzian
Source: The New Arab
