The Better Israel/Iran Explanation: Trump Got Played

On June 12, Axios reported, the US regime refused to support Israeli strikes on Iran… but US president Donald Trump said such strikes “might very well happen” even though he wouldn’t want Israel to “blow it” (“it” being a new nuclear deal to replace the one Trump began violating in 2018).

Hours later, Israeli aircraft attacked, apparently damaging Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military figures. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the action as “unilateral” and emphasized that “we are not involved.”

Within hours, however, Trump described the Israeli strikes as, effectively, an outsourcing of US policy. “We knew just about everything,” he said. “We knew enough that we gave Iran 60 days to make a deal and today is 61, right? So, you know, we knew everything.”

After which US forces put its air defense capabilities in the region to work helping Israel blunt the impact of Iranian counterstrikes.

One reasonable conclusion, drawn by any number of reasonable people, is that Trump and Rubio were lying to begin with and that the Israeli strikes enjoyed US approval and possibly even active, direct US support (such as the use of US aerial refueling for the Israeli aircraft).

That certainly seems possible, but I’d like to offer a different theory: Trump got played. The Israelis said they intended to strike. Trump said not to. The Israelis struck anyway, betting that Trump would circle back to claim prior knowledge and tacit approval, then throw in to defend Israel from the consequences of its actions.

I don’t know that either theory will ever be fully proven as correct, but the latter theory tracks with everything we know about Trump’s history and method.

As a “leader,” Trump is congenitally incapable of admitting either of two things: Error or weakness.

Prior to running for politics, he operated entirely on “brand,” not actual accomplishment.

Over decades as a real estate developer, casino operator, etc., he racked up multiple business bankruptcies and built a smaller fortune than he’d have earned from investing his inheritance in an S&P 500-indexed mutual fund and going on permanent vacation.

When sequential failures in real business moved him to go  full Hollywood with The Apprentice, the focus was on being a “boss”  dispensing sage advice to (or yelling “you’re fired” at) future business moguls (most of whom subsequently sank from view).

Having failed upward into the presidency, his strategy remains the same: Promote a Trump “brand” built on the pretense that he’s competent and in charge. When both prove false, just change the story to fit the image.

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Diplomacy On His Deathbed – From Peace-President To Warmonger

The US’s involvement in the attacks on Russia and Iran makes a negotiated solution to these conflicts unlikely. Trump, who promised his people peace, is bringing war…

Untrustworthy Trump

One day before the second round of negotiations in Istanbul, Ukraine attacked aircraft from Russia’s strategic bomber fleet with drones hidden in trucks that were smuggled into Russia. We reported on this in “Operation Spiderweb: Ukraine and NATO attack on Russia: a new Pearl Harbor? Full escalation? Are the fanatics back? Facts and analysis.” The military damage was minor; what remained was a propaganda victory for the West – nothing more. On June 11, the Financial Times went to great lengths to prove that these attacks were carried out with AI without Western help. The FT should probably confine itself to business news – pure propaganda without a shred of evidence. A feeble attempt to keep the Americans out of it, without whose help this attack would not have been possible.

This was followed shortly afterwards by a major attack by Israel on Iran. TheTimes of Israel boasted that the US, together with the Israelis, had carried out a multi-layered disinformation campaign to make the Iranians believe that an attack was not imminent. This report is credible, as Trump made no attempt to hide US complicity in the Israeli attack on Iran at the end of the week.

That’s not all, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied US involvement, saying:

“Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.”Marco Rubio – 13. Juni 2025

This proves that the Americans certainly had a hand in this deadly game and that the Trump administration cannot even manage to coordinate coherently within its own team. Not a sign of professionalism.

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America First – We Hardly Knew Ye

The Donald called Fed Chairman Powell a “numbskull” last week and deservedly so. But to paraphrase an old adage, when the cap fits said numbskulls tend to wear it themselves.

Surely, that’s where we are this morning upon Israel’s reprehensible attack on Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities and decapitation of its military and scientific leadership. Self-evidently, the attack was well known to Trump and tacitly greenlighted by him during the course of several conversations this past week with Netanyahu himself.

And that’s no armchair surmise. The Donald has been yapping like a banshee this morning telling one and all reporters that the attack fits like hand-in-glove to his “art of the deal” maneuvers. It may look like more war but its actually just part of the Donald’s brilliant pursuit of peace. Says he.

Thus, he told CNN’s Dana Bash that he had given Iran 60 days to capitulate to his demands regarding a new nuke treaty, and yesterday was day 61. The implication, of course, is that he gave them fair warning and therefore Tehran needed a 2X4 between the eyes for failing to satisfy the Great Dealmaker on the Potomac on a timely basis.

Likewise, ABC’s Trump-hating Jonathan Karl also got a heads up to the effect that –

I just spoke to President Trump and asked him about the Israeli attack on Iran. Here’s what he told me: “I think it’s been excellent.  We gave them a chance and they didn’t take it. They got hit hard, very hard. They got hit about as hard as you’re going to get hit. And there’s more to come. a lot more.”

Moreover, just in case the message through these ordinarily hostile reporters wasn’t clear, the Donald let loose on social media a fusillade of bombast, bravado and sheer juvenile depravity that has never before been issued from the Oval Office in such raw and unfiltered form.

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Professor Of War Warns Many European Countries Are In A ‘Pre-Civil-War’ State

One of the globe’s leading experts on war has warned that many European countries are on the verge of civil war and may already be past the point of no return.

David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World at King’s College London, says his research shows is a statistically significant chance of a civil war breaking out within five years in a major European country, with a distinct possibility that the conflict could spill over to neighbouring Nations.

Speaking to documentarian Andrew Gold, Betz further noted that it is likely too late to prevent things getting “very much worse” in Europe, and that governments may only be able to better prepare for the inevitable.

“I would probably avoid big cities. I would suggest you reduce your exposure to big cities if you are able,” Betz chillingly urged.

He added, “there isn’t anything they can do, it’s baked in. We’re already past the tipping point, is my estimation… we are past the point at which there is a political offramp. We are past the point at which normal politics is able to solve the problem.”

Betz emphasised that “almost every plausible way forward from here involves some kind of violence in my view.”

“Anything the government tries to do at this point… you can solve one kind of problem, but it will aggravate another kind of problem in doing so, and you get back to violence,” the professor continued.

“The question really is about mitigating the costs, to my mind, not about preventing the outcome, I’m sorry to say… I have not heard a credible political way forward and I don’t see a single political figure who is credible in the role of national saviour, or even inclined to do so,” he added.

“The bottom line is I don’t think there is now a political solution to this which takes the form of everything just working out OK after some period of difficulty,” Betz grimly concludes, noting “Things are bad now, but they are going to get very much worse.”

“Hopefully after they will get better, but you will have to go through the period of very much worse before you get there,” he predicted.

It’s a downward spiral, essentially.

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Israel Admits It Cannot Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Program

Israel has asked the Trump administration over the past 48 hours to join the war with Iran to eliminate its nuclear program, according to two Israeli officials. Israel has admitted that it cannot destroy Iran’s nuclear facility, and only the USA has the power to do that. Israel simply lacks the bunker buster bombs and large bomber aircraft needed to destroy Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment site. As shown here, it is built into a mountain and deep underground.

This is a reconstructed image purporting to show a central secret Iranian nuclear facility, based in part on information acquired by Israel’s Mossad in a famed 2018 operation. The website of the intelligence firm the Intel Lab has stated that the images of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant codenamed Al Ghadir were three-dimensional reconstructions put together with an analyst with the code name @Orion__int on Twitter. The firm said they are based on the Israeli-acquired and public documents, as well as photographs and video images. “This multi-disciplinary effort is based on Civil Engineering knowledge, Nuclear Fuel Enrichment Cycle basics, Intelligence Analysis, and advanced skills in realistic modeling and rendering,” the Intel Lab said.

The Trump administration has so far distanced itself from Israel’s operation and argued that it would be illegitimate for Iran to retaliate by striking U.S. targets. The problem here is that any direct UNPROVOKED attack on Iran will bring the US into conflict with both China and Russia. Directly attacking Iran, even if the U.S. involvement is limited to bombing a single site, would pull the U.S. directly into the war, and this could lead to WWIII.

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Russia tests new laser weapons 

Russia has successfully tested eight anti-aircraft laser systems, the government said on Friday. They were designed specifically to tackle drone threats, the statement added.

The trials were attended by senior Russian officials, including Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov. The tests were conducted at specialized proving grounds and organized by Russia’s Military-Industrial Commission and Ministry of Industry and Trade.

“During the tests, the accuracy of guidance, range of destruction, reaction speed of the systems to moving air targets, and resistance to various weather conditions were checked,” the Russian government said in its statement.

Eight new weapons, ranging from “compact mobile devices to stationary high-power systems,” were tested during the trials. The laser weapons faced assorted targets, including small-sized commercial drones and “more complex devices simulating reconnaissance and attack drones,” the Kremlin said.

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Shock Report: Iran Admits Israel Has Infiltrated the “Highest Offices” of Its Government – Even Counter-Espionage Units Are Filled with Israeli Agents

On Friday, Israel launched an aerial attack that decimated Iran’s military leadership and destroyed much of Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities.

This was a huge blow to Iran but not unexpected. The US had recalled several diplomats and officials across the MidEast earlier in the week in anticipation of an Israeli military strike on Iran.

In two days of aerial strikes Israel eliminated several of the top Iranian officials sleeping in their homes in Tehran.

Banafsheh Zand Bonazzi at Iran So Far Away posted a diagram of the top Iranian officials targeted and eliminated by the Israeli military.

The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), the Commander of the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces, the Commander of the IRGC’s airspace, the Commander of the Khatam Al-Anbia Construction Headquarters, and others have been eliminated so far.

Israel announced that it was not against taking out the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. This would immediately make the ayatollah a rallying cry for his devotees.

According to Iran Wire, the reason Israel is having such great success in their military strikes and strategy so far is because Iran’s “highest offices” have been infiltrated by Israeli agents.

Israel has had success infiltrating the Iranian regime thanks to the mass corruption of the officials.

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EU transfers €1 billion in aid to Ukraine — von der Leyen

The EU has transferred €1 billion of macro-financial aid to Ukraine, bringing its total spending on supporting Kiev since the beginning of the special military operation to €150 billion, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X.

“Today we disburse a new €1 billion to Ukraine, bringing our total support to almost 150 billion,” she wrote.

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Israel Opens The Door to Assassinating Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei

Israel is opening the door to assassinating Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

According to The Wall Street Journal, an Israeli official said that assasinating the theocratic leader was “not off limits.”

“The war would only end either with Iran voluntarily dismantling its nuclear program or Israel making it impossible for Tehran to reconstitute it,” the official was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, an official told Amit Segal of Israel’s N12 News channel that Israel would not rule out the possibility of an assassinaiton attempt.

“Israel is not ruling out the possibility of eliminating Ali Khamenei, but it depends on many things.”

The warning comes after Israel launched a series of missile strikes against Iranian targets on Thursday evening, with a particular focus on eliminating the country’s nuclear program.

This prompted Tehran to retaliate with a series of their own missile strikes, although so far they have been largely unsucessful.

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Putin’s general calls for massive mobilisation as he declares ‘WW3 has already started’

Vladimir Putin general claimed today that World War 3 has already started following Israel’s strikes on Iranian soil on Thursday night. Maj-Gen Apti Alaudinov, 51, urged the Kremlin to carry out mass mobilisation of up to one million fresh troops.

In a message published on the social media platform Telegram on Friday, the deputy chief of the Russian armed forces’ main military-political directorate wrote: “We need to declare mobilisation.” Alaudinov, who is a prominent propagandist and the commander of the Chechnya-based Akhmat special forces, added: “We need to prepare at least half a million people in advance. But realistically one million people. We need to call them up and start preparing them for the fact that the war has already begun, which we already know is happening – World War 3. But it has already taken on a new turn and a new momentum.

“And so that no one dares to play with us the way they played with all the other countries, and now with Iran.

“Believe me, we all need to unite, unite, unite at all levels.”

Alaudinov has been closely involved with Russia’s effort to win back territory controlled by Ukraine in Kursk, the region partially captured by Kyiv’s troops in a daring advance in August last year.

He is also seen as a probable successor to pro-Putin Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

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