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Posted (edited)
51 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

1) Fucking Israel just ruined our chances of making the plot of "Maverick" come true.  FUCKING BASTARDS.

2) ....

So your main concern is about a movie failing to come true and the words of the US president....

Yet, say nothing about the potential secondary market on F14s that could open up for the 1%ers should the Iranian regime fall.

I don't even know you anymore.

Edited by BurntEyes
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Posted
14 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

I doubt many were operational. No supply chain since the 1980s. Maybe make some stuff local, but not everything.

You kidding? Maverick was able to shoot down a 5th gen with one they had just sitting up on the blocks!

Posted
9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

One thing I've never bought in all of this, is the idea that Iran, as soon as they got nukes, was going to nuke Israel.  Because if they did, it then becomes an existential threat to Iran and the Shia religion, and the Iranian leadership, and they know this, and they know if they popped a nuke in Israel that they would probably get the Arab world involved against Iran as well. Fallout doesn't care about borders. At the least, Tehran ceases to completely exist, and the Sunni nations would be pleased to see the Shiites go down hard.

 

9 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

Of course they're not going to nuke Israel, it's literally instant suicide. And they already effectively have a nuclear deterrent in their ability to basically completely disrupt regional oil production. This would also (probably) effectively be suicide but them attempting this is not something I would rule out if the regime saw the writing on the wall.

 

 

 

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Posted

Well per Reuters Trump is leaving G7 early and Marcon hoping in one hand... 

Spoiler

"Much was accomplished, but because of what’s going on in the Middle East, President Trump will be leaving tonight after dinner with Heads of State," Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X

A U.S. official said Trump would not sign a draft statement calling for de-escalation of the Israel-Iran conflict.

Still, Macron said Trump's departure was positive, given the objective to get a ceasefire.

"There is indeed an offer to meet and exchange. An offer was made especially to get a ceasefire and to then kick-start broader discussions," Macron told reporters.

 

Posted (edited)

History is circles with different cycles.

And yes, I saw something earlier. Bunch of ships were jammed going into the straits. Caused some interesting havoc but did not see a specific incident.

 

Just now, InkaUtexas said:

History is circles with different cycles.

And yes, I saw something earlier. Bunch of ships were jammed going into the straits. Caused some interesting havoc but did not see a specific incident.

 

But I was wrong I guess.

 

 

Edited by InkaUtexas
Posted
Just now, Brian Fantana said:

No but it really makes it feel like time is a circle.

At least old comedy sketches from the mid-2000's are coming back into relevancy again! Cracks me up that they've just been re-uploading sketches as they become relevant again

 

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Posted (edited)

Trump leaving the G7 early and telling Tehran to evacuate means...  What?  

They wouldn't do the unthinkable, would they?  Everyone keeps saying they don't have the bunker buster bomb or the bomber to drop it.  But there is another way to destroy that facility, isn't there?

No fucking way Israel would do that, right?

I'm guessing it points to some kind of strictly conventional shock-and-awe level bombing of the entire city coming very soon.  Or else we're going to finish off that underground facility for Israel, come what may.  It can't be the other thing, right?  

Edited by TexArcher
Posted
5 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Trump leaving the G7 early and telling Tehran to evacuate means...  What?  

They wouldn't do the unthinkable, would they?  Everyone keeps saying they don't have the bunker buster bomb or the bomber to drop it.  But there is another way to destroy that facility, isn't there?

No fucking way Israel would do that, right?

I'm guessing it points to some kind of strictly conventional shock-and-awe level bombing of the entire city coming very soon.  Or else we're going to finish off that underground facility for Israel, come what may.  It can't be the other thing, right?  

 

 

Umm, if 3 ships were hit by Iran or its proxies, the US is going into Iran with MOABs. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, Bevo said:

 

 

Umm, if 3 ships were hit by Iran or its proxies, the US is going into Iran with MOABs. 

Or air cover for an IDF ground raid.

Plus their pilots will need to sleep at some time.

So anti-missle CAP over the Gulf and deep air cover especially if the SAM's are basically gone.

 

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Posted (edited)
38 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Trump leaving the G7 early and telling Tehran to evacuate means...  What?  

Is Israel going shock and awe on the entire city next?

Obviously pure speculation, but with the military aircraft, moves by US democrats and G7 attendees to keep US out/pull off a cease fire...  it may mean some big bombs are heading that way.

I don't think they're going IDF ground at all.

Edited by BurntEyes
Posted
3 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Or Plus air cover for an IDF ground raid.

Plus their pilots will need to sleep at some time.

So anti-missle CAP over the Gulf and deep air cover especially if the SAM's are basically gone plus bunker busters directed at nuclear site. 

 

FIFY - Why not all avenues of air support, protection, and direct attacks against hardened nuclear facilities? 

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Posted

Per Reuters:

UK maritime firm says it is aware of incident east of UAE's Khor Fakkan

Spoiler

June 17 (Reuters) - British maritime security firm Ambrey said early on Tuesday it was aware of an incident 22 nautical miles east of Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates, near the Strait of Hormuz, as Israel and Iran attack each other for a fifth straight day.

The strait lies between Oman and Iran and links the Gulf north of it with the Gulf of Oman to the south and the Arabian Sea beyond.

About a fifth of the world's total oil consumption passes through the strait. Between the start of 2022 and last month, roughly 17.8 million to 20.8 million barrels of crude, condensate and fuels flowed through the strait daily, according to data from Vortexa.

There was no immediate response to Reuters' request for comment from the Emirati foreign ministry or Khor Fakkan container terminal in the early hours of Tuesday.

Reuters paylink

Posted
43 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Tankers. Don't think the IAF would hit those. Iran has quite a few anti-ship missles near the entrance.

image.thumb.jpeg.61002cea5c892107c7b7e2808f895b4b.jpeg

 

 

Where is the ship?

Crude Oil Tanker ADALYNN is currently located in the Oman Gulf (reported 1 hour, 59 minutes ago)

What kind of ship is this?

ADALYNN (IMO: 9231767) is a Crude Oil Tanker and is sailing under the flag of Antigua Barbuda. Her length overall (LOA) is 274.18 meters and her width is 50 meters.

 

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:149391/mmsi:305091000/imo:9231767/vessel:ADALYNN

 

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Posted

Analyst post 7 min ago from Al Jazeera relevant imo:

Spoiler

What could prompt US involvement in Israel’s attacks on Iran?

We’ve been speaking to Benjamin Friedman, the policy director at the Defense Priorities Foundation, about possible US involvement in the Iran-Israel war.

 

He said that possibility at this point “is sort of a flip of a coin” but that the US should avoid it “at all costs”.

 

“I think it would be a disaster for US interests… One way the US could get involved is as a result of Iranian attacks on US personnel, or US bases in the region, or even potentially on oil infrastructure in the region. That wouldn’t necessitate US involvement, but it could bring it. I think the Iranians know that, and thus far been refraining from those sorts of attacks,” he said.

 

“But the US might also get involved more as a choice because of this president and some of his top people being enraptured with the Israelis, and being eager to serve them. I could see the US going along with a request from the Israelis to get involved,” he continued.

Link

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Posted
It was bad enough for the people to revolt and overthrow it. Probably not a great idea for the US and Israel to reimpose it at gunpoint. 

f5e1ff5718391d54add955083444c44c.jpg
I dug this book out this evening and may try to re read it. The downfall began geopolitically centuries ago and sped up after WWI. Interesting read if you have got free days over the next weeks.
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Posted
2 hours ago, Bevo said:

ADALYNN (IMO: 9231767) is a Crude Oil Tanker and is sailing under the flag of Antigua Barbuda. Her length overall (LOA) is 274.18 meters and her width is 50 meters.

Fucking Antigua Barbuda is going to get us in a shooting match.  It's like the South Dakota School For Mining and Deaf Teachers getting sanctioned by the NCAA over one ineligible player because Alabama is faking grades for all of their football players.

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Posted
2 hours ago

Chloe Cornish in Dubai

UAE launches rescue mission after collision in Gulf of Oman

Emergency workers in the United Arab Emirates said they had rescued 24 crew members of an oil tanker after two vessels crashed in the Gulf of Oman, 100 miles south of the Strait of Hormuz.

A third of the world’s supplies of seaborne crude oil pass through the strait, and oil traders have been concerned Iran could try to block them. But the incident did not appear to be security related.

The UAE’s National Guard said that the people were retrieved from the oil tanker Adalynn. The National Guard did not name the other ship involved in the collision, which it said took place 24 nautical miles offshore.

Asked for comment on the incident, the UAE’s foreign affairs ministry referred the FT to an article by Reuters, citing a British maritime firm’s assessment that the incident was not security related.

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Posted (edited)

Israel says it killed senior Iranian general

Israel’s military said it had killed a senior Iranian general “in the heart of Tehran” overnight.

The Israeli Air Force said it struck a command centre and killed Ali Shadmani, the commander of Iran’s main centre for designing, coordinating and overseeing military operations.

Israel said the killing “adds to a series of eliminations of Iran’s most senior military leadership and degrades the chain of command of the Iranian armed forces”. It said Shadmani was appointed following the killing of his predecessor at the start of Israel’s campaign on June 13.

Iran has not confirmed the Israeli claim. 

https://www.ft.com/content/03475842-014c-402b-8fd0-be77a89decc1

 

 

Trump says Macron wrong about his G7 summit exit

Donald Trump said his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron was wrong about the reason the US president left the G7 summit in Canada early, saying it was not to work on an Israel-Iran ceasefire.

“He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Much bigger than that.”

Earlier, Macron said Trump told G7 leaders that discussions were under way to obtain a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

Trump, who described Macron as “publicity seeking”, said: “Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!”

 

 

G7 backs Israel and calls Iran ‘principal source of terror’

The G7 leaders agreed a statement on the Middle East late on Monday backing Israel’s right to defend itself and saying Iran can “never have a nuclear weapon”.

The statement, backed by all members including the US, reiterated the group’s “commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East”.

They added: “In this context, we affirm that Israel has a right to defend itself. We reiterate our support for the security of Israel.”

The leaders described Iran as “the principal source of regional instability and terror”, adding: “We have been consistently clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”

The statement urged that the resolution of the Iranian crisis leads to a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, “including a ceasefire in Gaza”.

They said the G7 countries would “co-ordinate” to ensure stability in energy markets.

Edited by Bevo
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Posted

Trump sees peace between Iran and Israel soon, eyes Putin role

WASHINGTON, June 15 (Reuters) - Despite evidence that the conflict between Israel and Iran is escalating, U.S. President Donald Trump expressed optimism on Sunday that peace would come soon and cited the possibility that Russia's Vladimir Putin could help.

In a social media post, Trump said there were many unspecified meetings about the issue happening and encouraged the two countries to make a deal. And in an interview with ABC News, he said he was open to Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine and who has resisted Trump's attempts to broker a ceasefire with Kyiv, serving as a mediator.

Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on each other overnight into Sunday, killing scores.

"Iran and Israel should make a deal, and will make a deal," Trump wrote on his Truth Social site. "We will have PEACE, soon, between Israel and Iran! Many calls and meetings now taking place."

Trump did not offer any details about the meetings or evidence of progress toward peace. His assertion contradicted comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said on Saturday that Israel's campaign against Iran would intensify.

A White House spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how Trump and the White House were working to de-escalate the situation in the Middle East.

Trump told ABC News that Iran wanted to make a deal and indicated something like the Israel strikes would accelerate that. "Something like this had to happen because I think even from both sides, but something like this had to happen. They want to talk, and they will be talking," Trump said, according to ABC reporter Rachel Scott. "May have forced a deal to go quicker, actually."

The United States has engaged in talks with Iran about its nuclear program and Trump has told reporters previously that the talks were going well. But another round of discussions scheduled for Sunday in Oman was canceled after the Israeli and Iranian strikes.

Trump said he and Putin had discussed the situation in the Middle East on Saturday in a call that focused more on that conflict than the Russian war in Ukraine.

"He is ready. He called me about it," Trump said about Putin serving as a mediator, according to Scott. "We had a long talk about it. We talked about this more than his situation. This is something I believe is going to get resolved."

Trump, who portrays himself as a peacemaker and has drawn criticism from his political base for not being able to prevent the Israel-Iran conflict, cited other disputes that he took responsibility for solving, including between India and Pakistan, and lamented not receiving more praise for doing so.

"I do a lot, and never get credit for anything, but that’s OK, the PEOPLE understand. MAKE THE MIDDLE EAST GREAT AGAIN!" he wrote on Truth Social.

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Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Not seeing anything on mainstream about the ships in the Gulf being hit. Anyone else? 

Yes.. "electronic interference". Guessing it's to keep investing calm, but perhaps legit. I'm very suspicious of such coincidences. Link added. 

Here ya go:

Two oil tankers collide and catch fire near Strait of Hormuz 

DUBAI/COPENHAGEN - Two oil tankers collided and caught fire on Tuesday near the Strait of Hormuz, where electronic interference has surged during conflict between Iran and Israel, but there were no injuries to crew or spillage reported.

Spoiler

The United Arab Emirates coast guard said it had evacuated 24 people from one of the ships, Adalynn, to Khor Fakkan port after the crash 24 nautical miles off its eastern coast.

Personnel on the second tanker, the Front Eagle, were reported safe with no pollution seen after a fire on its deck, according to its owner, the Oslo-listed company Frontline (FRO.OL).

The Front Eagle was loaded with 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil and was en route to Zhoushan in China, according to monitoring service TankerTrackers.com.

The Adalynn, a Suezmax-class tanker owned by India-based Global Shipping Holding Ltd, had no cargo and was sailing towards the Suez Canal in Egypt, the monitoring service said.

TankerTrackers.com said on X that the Front Eagle was moving southbound at a speed of 13.1 knots when it "executed a starboard (right) turn, resulting in a collision with the port quarter (aft port side)" of the Adalynn, which was proceeding southeast at 4.8 knots.

The Strait of Hormuz links the Gulf to the northwest with the Gulf of Oman to the southeast and the Arabian Sea beyond.

...

Iran has not commented about Tuesday's collision or reports of electronic interference. There was no immediate response to a Reuters request for comment from the Emirati foreign ministry or Khor Fakkan container terminal early on Tuesday.

Reuters Link

 

Edited by BurntEyes
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Posted
Just now, BurntEyes said:

Yes.. claiming a "navigation error" or some such. Guessing it's to keep investing calm, but perhaps legit. Im very suspicious of such coincidences. Will find a link.

 

Yeah, saw that, but that does not show a fire. The first reports were not in the Gulf yet, and not Emirati water. So what got rescued where? 

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Posted (edited)

Ships collide in Hormuz Strait in shadow of Israel-Iran war

British security firm Ambrey says the incident involving an oil tanker was not security related.

Published On 17 Jun 2025


Two oil tankers have collided in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical oil checkpoint just off the coast of Iran.

British maritime security monitor Ambrey said that the collision on Tuesday of the Adalynn and the Front Eagle is “not security-related,” despite the proximity of the accident to the war raging between Israel and Iran and concerns over its impact on navigation.

Shipping company Frontline said a fire was extinguished on the Front Eagle tanker, 15 nautical miles (28km) off the UAE’s Gulf of Oman coast. It added that no pollution had been detected.

The United Arab Emirates coastguard said it had evacuated 24 people from the Adalynn oil tanker.

The Front Eagle was loaded with 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil and was en route to Zhoushan in China, according to monitoring service TankerTrackers.com.

The Adalynn, a Suezmax-class tanker owned by India-based Global Shipping Holding Ltd, had no cargo and was sailing towards the Suez Canal in Egypt, the monitoring service said.

Edited by PTINS
typo
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Posted (edited)
12 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Yeah, saw that, but that does not show a fire. The first reports were not in the Gulf yet, and not Emirati water. So what got rescued where? 

Added some detail but most came from the link below. All info is behind a paywall that I'm not interested enough to pay to see. 

https://tankertrackers.com/

From the Reuters link above:

The multinational, U.S.-led Combined Maritime Force's JMIC information centre said in an advisory this week that it had received reports of electronic interference stemming from the vicinity of Iran's Port of Bandar Abbas (in Iran) and other areas in the Gulf region.

Edited by BurntEyes
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Posted
4 hours ago, Bevo said:

Israel says it killed senior Iranian general

Israel’s military said it had killed a senior Iranian general “in the heart of Tehran” overnight.

The Israeli Air Force said it struck a command centre and killed Ali Shadmani, the commander of Iran’s main centre for designing, coordinating and overseeing military operations.

Israel said the killing “adds to a series of eliminations of Iran’s most senior military leadership and degrades the chain of command of the Iranian armed forces”. It said Shadmani was appointed following the killing of his predecessor at the start of Israel’s campaign on June 13.

Iran has not confirmed the Israeli claim. 

https://www.ft.com/content/03475842-014c-402b-8fd0-be77a89decc1

 

 

Trump says Macron wrong about his G7 summit exit

Donald Trump said his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron was wrong about the reason the US president left the G7 summit in Canada early, saying it was not to work on an Israel-Iran ceasefire.

“He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Much bigger than that.”

Earlier, Macron said Trump told G7 leaders that discussions were under way to obtain a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

Trump, who described Macron as “publicity seeking”, said: “Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!”

 

 

G7 backs Israel and calls Iran ‘principal source of terror’

The G7 leaders agreed a statement on the Middle East late on Monday backing Israel’s right to defend itself and saying Iran can “never have a nuclear weapon”.

The statement, backed by all members including the US, reiterated the group’s “commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East”.

They added: “In this context, we affirm that Israel has a right to defend itself. We reiterate our support for the security of Israel.”

The leaders described Iran as “the principal source of regional instability and terror”, adding: “We have been consistently clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”

The statement urged that the resolution of the Iranian crisis leads to a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, “including a ceasefire in Gaza”.

They said the G7 countries would “co-ordinate” to ensure stability in energy markets.

The Press Secretary literally said he was leaving because of Israel-Iran.

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Posted

Apologies if this has already been thoroughly covered by the talking heads teevee (I don't watch cable news), but I thought this covered the challenge of taking out the Fordo site pretty well.

Iran’s Best-Protected Nuclear Site Is Deep Underground
Only the U.S. military has the 30,000-pound bomb capable of reaching the facility and the bomber that can carry it.

image.thumb.png.ad06b5e8187239ac51837964b8e46adb.png
 

Quote

 

Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear site, Fordo, was built deep inside a mountain to protect it from an attack. Only the U.S. military has the 30,000-pound bomb capable of even reaching it.

The bomb is commonly known as a “bunker buster” because it is designed to destroy deep underground bunkers, or well-buried weapons in highly protected facilities. It is believed to be the only air-delivered weapon that would have a chance of destroying the site.

The bomb has a much thicker steel case and contains a smaller amount of explosives than similarly sized general-purpose bombs. The heavy casings allow the munition to stay intact as it punches through soil, rock or concrete before detonating.

Its size — 20 feet long and 30,000 pounds — means that only the American B-2 stealth bomber can carry it.

Conventional wisdom has been that Israel can’t destroy Fordo on its own. The United States has blocked Israel from getting the bunker buster, and while Israel has fighter jets, it has not developed heavy bombers capable of carrying the weapon.

But Israel can come close by hitting more accessible power generation and transmission plants that help run the facility, which contains Iran’s most advanced centrifuges, military officials said.

In conjunction with Israel’s aerial bombardment of Iran, going after the Fordo-adjacent plants could significantly slow down the ability of Iran’s most protected nuclear facility to keep enriching uranium.

The Israel Defense Forces and covert operatives could also look for other ways to disable the site, including destroying the entrance to it.

Attacking Fordo is central to any effort to destroy Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons.  In March 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that it had discovered uranium that had been enriched to 83.7 percent purity in Fordo — close to the enrichment level, 90 percent, necessary for nuclear weapons.

Iran, which is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The U.S. Air Force is moving refueling tankers, aircraft and additional warplanes  to support any additional American operations in the Middle East, U.S. officials said.

But President Trump has not, at the moment, moved to reverse years of American policy on providing Israel with the bunker buster bombs.

“We’ve had a policy for a long time of not providing those to the Israelis because we didn’t want them to use them,” said Gen. Joseph Votel, who was commander of U.S. Central Command during Mr. Trump’s first term. Instead, the United States viewed its bunker buster bomb largely as a deterrent, a national security asset possessed only by America, but not one that, if made available, might encourage Israel to start a war with Iran.

Iran built the centrifuge facility at Fordo knowing that it needed to bury it deep to prevent it from being attacked. In 1981, using F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, Israel bombed a nuclear facility near Baghdad as part of its effort to stop Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons. That facility was above ground.

“The Iranians fully understood that the Israelis would try to get inside their programs and they built Fordo inside of a mountain a long time ago to take care of the post-Iraq problem” presented by the 1981 strike, said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Over the years, the Israelis have cooked up a variety of plans to attack Fordo in the absence of U.S.-supplied bunker busters. Under one of those plans, which they presented to senior officials in the Obama administration, Israeli helicopters loaded with commandos would fly to the site. The commandos would then fight their way inside the facility, rig it with explosives and blow it up, former U.S. officials said.

Israel successfully mounted a similar operation in Syria last year when it destroyed a Hezbollah missile production facility.

But Fordo would be a much more dangerous endeavor, military officials said.

American officials say now that Israel has gained air supremacy over much of Iran, Israeli attack planes could circle over Fordo and render it inoperable, at least temporarily, but not destroy it.

“The Israelis have sprung a lot of clandestine operations lately, but the physics of the problem remain the same,” said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., who was in charge of the Iran war plans when he ran the Pentagon’s Central Command after General Votel. “It remains a very difficult target.”

David A. Deptula, a retired three-star Air Force general who planned the American air campaigns in Afghanistan in 2001 and in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, agreed that Israel has options that would not require American help.

For example, Israeli special forces “could insert/apply or otherwise use a variety of means to disable the facility,” he said.

Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, hinted at those options on Sunday on ABC News’s “This Week.”

“We have a number of contingencies, which will enable us to deal with Fordo,” he said. “Not everything is a matter of taking to the skies and bombing from afar.”

Even if Mr. Trump were to authorize American B-2 stealth bombers to drop the 30,000-pound bombs, General McKenzie said, there would be several technical, highly classified challenges in coordinating such a strike with Israel.

A decision to use the American bunker busters would also have huge international consequences, General Votel said. For one, there could be nuclear contamination from such a bombardment that could endanger civilians.

“I think there would also certainly be fallout internationally over the idea that the United States joined Israel in what would be viewed as an illegal attack on the sovereignty of Iran,” General Votel added.

And Iran could widen its retaliation to U.S. troops and other American targets in the region and beyond, military analysts say. The United States would be back on war footing in the region.

Mr. Trump has made clear that he has little interest in more military misadventures in the region, and he is seeking not to alienate a noninterventionist wing of supporters firmly opposed to more U.S. involvement in a Middle East war.

 

 

 

In a separate article discussing the political calculus on whether the US should enter the fray (which I am not posting here to avoid a CR discussion), there was additional detail about the use of MOAB on the site to take out the facility that I thought was interesting, bolded below:

There is only one weapon for the job, experts contend. It is called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or the GBU-57, and it weighs so much — 30,000 pounds — that it can be lifted only by a B-2 bomber. Israel does not own either the weapon or the bomber needed to get it aloft and over target.

If Mr. Trump holds back, it could well mean that Israel’s main objective in the war is never completed.

“Fordo has always been the crux of this thing,” said Brett McGurk, who worked on Middle East issues for four successive American presidents, from George W. Bush to Joseph R. Biden Jr. “If this ends with Fordo still enriching, then it’s not a strategic gain.”

That has been true for a long time, and over the past two years the U.S. military has refined the operation, under close White House scrutiny. The exercises led to the conclusion that one bomb would not solve the problem; any attack on Fordo would have to come in waves, with B-2s releasing one bomb after another down the same hole. And the operation would have to be executed by an American pilot and crew.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/us/politics/trump-iran-diplomacy-conflict.html

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Posted
4 hours ago, Bevo said:

Israel says it killed senior Iranian general

Israel’s military said it had killed a senior Iranian general “in the heart of Tehran” overnight.

The Israeli Air Force said it struck a command centre and killed Ali Shadmani, the commander of Iran’s main centre for designing, coordinating and overseeing military operations.

Israel said the killing “adds to a series of eliminations of Iran’s most senior military leadership and degrades the chain of command of the Iranian armed forces”. It said Shadmani was appointed following the killing of his predecessor at the start of Israel’s campaign on June 13.

Iran has not confirmed the Israeli claim. 

https://www.ft.com/content/03475842-014c-402b-8fd0-be77a89decc1

 

 

Trump says Macron wrong about his G7 summit exit

Donald Trump said his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron was wrong about the reason the US president left the G7 summit in Canada early, saying it was not to work on an Israel-Iran ceasefire.

“He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Much bigger than that.”

Earlier, Macron said Trump told G7 leaders that discussions were under way to obtain a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

Trump, who described Macron as “publicity seeking”, said: “Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!”

 

 

G7 backs Israel and calls Iran ‘principal source of terror’

The G7 leaders agreed a statement on the Middle East late on Monday backing Israel’s right to defend itself and saying Iran can “never have a nuclear weapon”.

The statement, backed by all members including the US, reiterated the group’s “commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East”.

They added: “In this context, we affirm that Israel has a right to defend itself. We reiterate our support for the security of Israel.”

The leaders described Iran as “the principal source of regional instability and terror”, adding: “We have been consistently clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”

The statement urged that the resolution of the Iranian crisis leads to a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, “including a ceasefire in Gaza”.

They said the G7 countries would “co-ordinate” to ensure stability in energy markets.

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