Amid all the military calculations and geopolitical theater, Ramzy Baroud says one truth stands out. When it mattered most, the Iranian people stood united.
The June 19 funeral for 2-month-old Rayan Ghasemian, who was killed by an Israeli attack on Behesht-e Zahra, a residential area of Tehran. (Mehr News Agency/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a truce between Israel and Iran following nearly two weeks of open warfare.
Israel began the war, launching a surprise offensive on June 13, with airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, missile installations, and senior military and scientific personnel, in addition to numerous civilian targets.
In response, Iran launched a wave of ballistic missiles and drones deep into Israeli territory, triggering air raid sirens across Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheba and numerous other locations, causing unprecedented destruction in the country.
What began as a bilateral escalation quickly spiraled into something far more consequential: a direct confrontation between the United States and Iran.
On June 22, the United States Air Force and Navy carried out a full-scale assault on three Iranian nuclear sites — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — in a coordinated strike dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer. Seven B-2 bombers of the 509th Bomb Wing allegedly flew nonstop from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to deliver the strikes.
The Pentagon’s timeline of its June 21 Operation Midnight Hammer. (Department of Defense/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
The following day, Iran retaliated by bombing the Al-Udeid U.S. military base in Qatar and firing a new wave of missiles at Israeli targets.
This marked a turning point. For the first time, Iran and the United States faced each other on the battlefield without intermediaries. And for the first time in recent history, Israel’s long-standing campaign to provoke a U.S.-led war against Iran had succeeded.
No Regime Change
A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit is prepared for operations ahead of an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities under Operation Midnight Hammer at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, on June 21. (U.S. Air Force – DVIDS, Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
Following 12 days of war, Israel achieved two of its goals. First, it pulled Washington directly into its conflict with Tehran, setting a dangerous precedent for future U.S. involvement in Israel’s regional wars. Second, it generated immediate political capital at home and abroad, portraying U.S. military backing as a “victory” for Israel.
However, beyond these short-term gains, the cracks in Israel’s strategy are already showing.
Netanyahu did not achieve regime change in Tehran — the real objective of his years-long campaign. Instead, he faced a resilient and unified Iran that struck back with precision and discipline. Worse still, he may have awakened something even more threatening to Israeli ambitions: a new regional consciousness.
Iran, for its part, emerges from this confrontation significantly stronger. Despite U.S. and Israeli efforts to cripple its nuclear program, Iran has demonstrated that its strategic capabilities remain intact and highly functional.
Tehran established a powerful new deterrence equation — proving that it can strike not only Israeli cities but U.S. bases across the region.
Even more consequentially, Iran waged this fight independently, without leaning on Hezbollah or Ansarallah, or even deploying Iraqi militias. This independence surprised many observers and forced a recalibration of Iran’s regional weight.
Iranian Unity
Perhaps the most significant development of all is one that cannot be measured in missiles or casualties: the surge in national unity within Iran and the widespread support it received across the Arab and Muslim world.
For years, Israel and its allies have sought to isolate Iran, to present it as a pariah even among Muslims. Yet in these past days, we have witnessed the opposite.
From Baghdad to Beirut, and even in politically cautious capitals like Amman and Cairo, support for Iran surged. This unity alone may prove to be Israel’s most formidable challenge yet.
Inside Iran, the war erased, at least for now, the deep divides between reformists and conservatives. Faced with an existential threat, the Iranian people coalesced, not around any one leader or party, but around the defense of their homeland.
The descendants of one of the world’s oldest civilizations reacted with a dignity and pride that no amount of foreign aggression could extinguish.
The Nuclear Question
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi meeting with IAEA representatives LI Song of China, HE Reza Najafi of Iran and Mikhail Ulyanov of Russia about Iran’s nuclear program at the agency’s Vienna headquarters on April 24, 2025. (Dean Calma / IAEA/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)
Despite the battlefield developments, the real outcome of this war may depend on what Iran does next with its nuclear program.
If Tehran decides to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — even temporarily — and signals that its program remains functional, Israel’s so-called achievements will be rendered meaningless.
However, if Iran fails to follow this military confrontation with a bold political repositioning, Netanyahu will be free to claim — falsely or not — that he has succeeded in halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The stakes are as high as they’ve ever been.
A Manufactured Farce
Some media outlets are now praising Trump for supposedly “ordering” Netanyahu to halt further strikes on Iran.
This narrative is as insulting as it is false. What we are witnessing is a staged political performance — a carefully orchestrated spat between two partners playing both sides of a dangerous game.
Trump’s Truth post, “Bring your pilots home,” was not a call for peace. It was a calculated move to reclaim credibility after fully surrendering to Netanyahu’s war. It allows Trump to pose as a moderate, distract from Israel’s battlefield losses, and create the illusion of a U.S. administration reining in Israeli aggression.
In truth, this was always a joint U.S.-Israeli war — one planned, executed, and justified under the pretext of defending Western interests while laying the groundwork for deeper intervention and potential invasion.
Return of the People
Amid all the military calculations and geopolitical theater, one truth stands out: the real winners are the Iranian people.
When it mattered most, they stood united. They understood that resisting foreign aggression was more important than internal disputes. They reminded the world — and themselves — that in moments of crisis, people are not peripheral actors in history; they are its authors.
The message from Tehran is unmistakable: We are here. We are proud. And we will not be broken.
That is the message Israel, and perhaps even Washington, did not anticipate. And it is the one that could reshape the region for years to come.
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out. His other books include My Father was a Freedom Fighter and The Last Earth. Baroud is a non-resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). Here is his website.
This article is from Z Network, is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Please Donate to the
Spring Fund Drive!
There is also the broader geopolitical impact of this war that has yet to unfold. Russia shares a border with Iran and does not want the instability that chaotic regime change might take.
If we go back to 1979 the CIA listening post in the US embassy in Tehran really was a nest of spies. And with today’s technology, Moscow is very wary of a return to those days.
Similarly China see Iran as a critical component of its Belt and Road Initiative. A Western Controlled government in Iran would mark an end to that initiative.
In the short run, both Russia and China have condemned Israel’s aggression. But as this article points out, this was always a joint US/Israeli plan. Russia had offered Iran a defense pact alliance but they refused. The Iranian’s felt this would compromise their independence. This war may cause them to reconsider.
We will have to wait and see. As a minimum, Russia and China may share arms and military technology with Iran. Just as we are testing our arms under real combat through Israel, Russia and China might begin to do the same, beyond what’s already occurring in Ukraine.
That could make any future aggressions more costly for Israel and the US, but also more dangerous of a possible escalation.
What the Iranians really want is an end to the US sanctions. They showed a willingness in the last round of negotiations to make even more concessions than the JCPOA did to each this goal.
The US responded by negotiating in “good faith’ while working with Israel to topple the government they were negotiating with.
The key for future directions might be Israel. As bellicose as Netanyahu has been toward Iran, he took a big risk and lost. Decapitation didn’t work, the Israeli economy is in shambles and they sustained significant security loses.
Some estimate that if the war continued for another week Israel would have exhausted their anti-missile inventory, leaving the entire country vulnerable to Iranian missile that were causing substantial damage.
It’s also clear that Iran survived this “limited” air war demonstrating that it will take much more direct efforts by the US to dislodge the Iranian government. The American people have no desire for another land war in the Middle East and the Israeli’s may have exhausted their air strike capabilities.
The neocons will likely argue that Trump fall back on Israel’s extensive spy network and special ops assets to continue a soft war against Iran. But Iran still has the nuclear card and the growing interests of Russia and China for Iran to remain a stable country.
All these pieces are in flux. But one thing is clear, the US/Israel plan for regime change has failed. What has also changed is Iran’s standing among its Arab neighbors. So far they and the beleaguered Palestinians are the only forces that have stood up to the US/Israeli plan for complete control the Middle East.
The leaders of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Egypt and Jordan have always hated the Iranian Islamic Republic and had similar distain for the secular, leftists PLO. But both have captured the Arab street in ways unlike anything since the days of Nasir’s Arab nationalist movement.
This may urge caution and refusals to join the Abraham Accords or simply generate more domestic crackdowns. But Gaza has been the world’s first live streamed genocide and no amount of censorship can cause Israel’s Arab neighbors to unsee this crime.
The table is set for a number of different possible scenarios. It’s too soon to tell which direction they will take. But my guess is Russia and China may now play a more active hand. Neither can afford for Iran to turn into another version of Iraq. But the US cannot rely on an invasion and occupation to carry out its plans as they did in 2003.
On our end, we need a real peace movement that clearly links these military misadventures to the growing domestic troubles at home. Funding Israel’s war has already cost over 22 billion and saving their economy will cost billions more. The leadership for a new international direction must come from the bottom up because neither political party seems inclined to break from the neocons.
“The message from Tehran is unmistakable: We are here. We are proud. And we will not be broken. That is the message Israel, and perhaps even Washington, did not anticipate”
And one hopes that both Israel and Washington will take seriously.
Please remember these words: WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER!
Excellent analysis, obvious to objective observers but unfortunately obfuscated in the United States and Europe.
Strange to me that in the Ukraine/Russia war, the disparity in population size (Russia 145 million, Ukraine 35 (?) million) is frequently mentioned as a major detriment for Ukraine. But seldom do western news media articles mention that Iran has 90 million people and Israel has 10 million. By inference, western media is telling me that, don’t worry about this disparity because Washington DC and it’s 335 million citizens under control more than balance things out.
Can this be serious, or is he pulling our leg?
I weep for this once-great Persian Empire if they have descended to such a level of self-delusion. Maybe, like the North Korean people, they have been under the boot so long they have a national Stockholm Syndrome.
I went to Iran about 7 years ago: a beautiful country but one defaced by its code dress for women. The women in OUR party were not allowed to remove their veils/scarves until they had reached, not their hotel, but their hotel room. I remember walking by a woman in the street and, although she must only have been in her 30s at most, she was wearing men’s heavy walking shoes and completely covered in black up to and including her GLOVES! Awful, dreadful – a way of one half of the population controlling the other – and it defaced the country. Our guide said, when we expressed our horror, that this sort of repression could not remain for more than a few more years – (but she was careful to get out of the hearing range of the driver). That was 2018….. What is “a few more years”?
It’s only a temporary victory. Israel and the United States will not give up. The Iranians have given their enemies time to regroup and plot new attacks. They are not limited to morality or international war rules. Do not give them a chance recover.