- Israel’s strikes on Iran were a deliberate effort to derail diplomacy, carried out with full U.S. support.
- For decades, the U.S. and Israel have used diplomacy as cover for a strategy built on perpetual war.
When Israel launched unprecedented strikes against Iran on Friday, June 12, it didn’t just attack nuclear facilities—it bombed residential neighbourhoods and civilian areas, shattering any remaining hope for diplomatic resolution in the Middle East. The devastation is staggering: at least 406 people killed and 654 wounded, with over 90 percent of the casualties being civilians. Oil prices surged as the world watched civilian neighbourhoods burn and two nations hurtle toward all-out war.
The timing reveals everything about Israel’s true intentions. For months, the United States and Iran had been engaged in nuclear negotiations that began in April following a letter from President Trump to Iran’s Supreme Leader. Progress was slow but steady. Then, without warning, Israeli warplanes struck not just military targets but residential areas across Iran. The message was unmistakable: diplomacy be damned, civilian lives be damned.
As if it were not already clear, these strikes continue to expose Israel’s barbaric military doctrine in all its grotesque clarity. To assassinate five individuals—three commanders and two scientists—Israel deliberately obliterated entire city blocks, turning residential neighborhoods into killing fields. This wasn’t collateral damage; this was the strategy. Israel has perfected the art of mass civilian slaughter disguised as precision warfare, calculating that hundreds of innocent lives are a reasonable price for eliminating a handful of targets. It’s a doctrine of state terrorism dressed up in the language of self-defense.
No civilized military operates this way. No legitimate government treats civilian populations as acceptable casualties in pursuit of assassination. Yet Israel has made disproportionate mass killing its signature tactic, confident that Western allies will call it “measured response” while body bags pile up in Iranian morgues. And if you dare criticize this barbaric policy? You’re immediately branded an antisemite. Israel has weaponized accusations of antisemitism to deflect any moral criticism, manipulating historical trauma to shield contemporary war crimes from scrutiny. They expect unconditional support regardless of how many civilians they slaughter, as if the world owes them a blank check for mass killing. This moral blackmail has become as predictable as the killing itself.
Israel likely calculated that Iran would retaliate, providing justification for further escalation. They were right. Iran launched retaliatory strikes toward Israeli cities, causing casualties and significant damage. But here’s what makes this cycle particularly damaging: it was entirely predictable and entirely preventable. Israel could have continued allowing diplomacy to work. Instead, they chose bombs.
Trump’s response has been a masterclass in diplomatic duplicity. Just hours before Israel’s devastating attack, Trump posted on Truth Social: “We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue! My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran. They could be a Great Country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon.”
This public commitment to diplomacy becomes deeply sinister when viewed alongside Trump’s later admission that “he and his team had known the attacks were coming.” Trump revealed that he tried to “save Iran humiliation and death” because he “would have loved to have seen a deal worked out.” In other words, Trump knew Israel was about to bomb Iranian civilians and chose to post about diplomatic commitment as cover.
The timeline is damning. Trump publicly commits to negotiation while privately knowing bombs will fall within hours. He calls the strikes “a very successful attack” after the fact while claiming he tried to prevent them. The negotiations that had been progressing since April collapsed in June, yet Trump continues claiming there’s room for an accord. This isn’t diplomatic inconsistency—it’s complicity disguised as peacemaking.
This isn’t just policy inconsistency—it’s enabling destruction. The United States provides Israel with the weapons, intelligence, and diplomatic cover that make these strikes possible. When Israel acts recklessly, America cleans up the mess. When Iran retaliates to unprovoked attacks, America threatens overwhelming force.
Consider what actually happened here. Israel launched an overnight attack targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, missile sites, scientists and generals while the United States provided full knowledge and cover. The result was the biggest jump in crude oil prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global market panic, regional instability, and hundreds of civilian deaths. But this wasn’t sabotage of American diplomacy—this was the plan all along. The nuclear negotiations were never serious; they were theater designed to provide justification for eventual military action. Trump’s Truth Social posts about diplomatic commitment weren’t genuine peace efforts—they were calculated cover for an attack both countries wanted.
Israel hasn’t just stumbled into war with Iran—it has actively sought it for decades. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while addressing the U.S. Congress in 2024, cast Iran as part of the “axis of evil,” declaring: “When we fight Iran we are fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States … Our enemies are your enemies, our fight is your fight, our victories will be your victories.” That’s not rhetoric—it’s a battle cry. And it’s been repeated over and over. As recently as January 2024, Netanyahu said plainly, “Who says we aren’t attacking Iran? We are attacking Iran.” Later saying, “I am obligated … to do everything to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.”
And this isn’t new. More than two decades ago, in 2003, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned Iran—on live Israeli radio in Farsi—that Israel might take military action to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Mofaz declared, “If the need arose to destroy Iran’s capability, the necessary steps will be taken.” He was speaking to an Iranian audience, asserting that Iran was just “a year away” from developing a nuclear bomb. At the time, Israeli intelligence insisted Iran had been pursuing nuclear capabilities for 18 years and was on the verge of completion.
That was 22 years ago.
For over two decades, the world has been told Iran is “months away” from building a bomb. Every few years, a new red line is drawn. Every few years, that red line quietly moves. The “imminent threat” never actually arrives—but it never has to. The threat itself has become the tool. An endlessly renewable justification for preemptive strikes, sabotage, cyberattacks, and economic sanctions. And at the heart of this strategy is a coordinated manipulation of diplomacy—particularly by the U.S. and Israel.
Each time negotiations show promise, they’re undermined. Peace talks are staged, only to be blown up—literally or figuratively—when they begin to bear fruit. When Iran comes to the table, it’s painted as deceitful. When it walks away after being attacked, it’s labeled intransigent. The dance is always the same: the U.S. pretends to seek peace, Israel pretends to defend itself, and Iran is set up to fail.
This isn’t foreign policy. It’s entrapment disguised as diplomacy. And it’s designed to ensure one outcome: endless justification for war.
The pattern is unmistakable: create the appearance of diplomacy, then claim Iran’s “intransigence” or “nuclear ambitions” justify overwhelming force. It doesn’t matter what Iran agrees to or what concessions they make. The goal was always war, and the nuclear issue simply provides convenient moral cover. Both the US and Israel want Iran eliminated as a regional power, and they’re willing to use any pretext—nuclear programs, missile capabilities, support for proxies—to achieve that goal through violence.
Israel has learned it can act with complete impunity because America will always provide cover. Military aid flows regardless of Israeli actions. Diplomatic protection continues regardless of international law. Political support remains constant regardless of consequences. This unconditional backing doesn’t just enable Israeli aggression—it guarantees it.
What makes this moment particularly dangerous is how it exposes the bankruptcy of current American Middle East policy. You cannot simultaneously work for peace while enabling the very actions that make peace impossible. You cannot restrain Iran through diplomacy while your ally launches preemptive strikes on Iranian soil. You cannot claim to seek nuclear agreements while supporting attacks on nuclear facilities and the scientists who work there.
Trump framed this volatile moment as a possible “second chance” for Iran’s leadership, but the question is obvious: how can there be diplomatic chances when bombs are falling on civilian neighborhoods? How can there be trust when months of patient negotiation are destroyed in a single night of violence?
The human cost extends far beyond the immediate casualties. This escalation threatens the entire region and could drag the world into a conflict nobody wants. Yet Israel made this choice knowing the consequences, secure in the knowledge that America would support them regardless. Real peace requires accountability, not endless enabling. It requires honest assessment of who escalates and who responds.
The path we’re on doesn’t lead to peace—it leads to perpetual war, manufactured consent, and global instability. It’s a trajectory that has been sustained for decades, not by accident, but by design. Until that changes, there will be no negotiations worth having—only war disguised as strategy, and ruin mistaken for resolve. And if that reality continues to be accepted as policy, the consequences will only deepen. As long as Washington continues down this path, the Middle East has no future—only more rubble, more graves, and a carefully managed narrative to justify it all.
