Latest news with #ForeverWars
Canada News.Net
23-06-2025
- Business
- Canada News.Net
"This is an escalation": Foreign Affairs Expert Robinder Sachdev after US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities
New Delhi [India], June 22 (ANI): Foreign Affairs Expert Robinder Sachdev on Sunday described the US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities as an escalation to the week old Israel-Iran conflict, warning that the situation is likely to deteriorate further. His comments come in the wake of recent US airstrikes targeting three key Iranian nuclear facilities, including Fordow, Iran's main enrichment location for uranium enrichment to 60 per cent. 'This is an escalation, and it seems there will be no end; the situation will worsen, go up and down. It seems that the region of the Middle East will now be plunged into Forever Wars... Iran will fight back with whatever resources it has. It will retaliate. However, it doesn't have much capacity, but it will still attempt to do its best,' he told ANI. Sachdev said that US President Donald Trump's claim of eliminating the entire nuclear programme of Iran is 'wrong'. 'Donald Trump is correct in saying that tonight's attack was a spectacular attack by the American Armed forces, but he is wrong in saying that this attack has eliminated the entire nuclear programme of Iran; it has not...... The Iranians have already trandffered Uranium though it is not weapon grade but whatever enriched uranium they had, it seems they have distributed and hidden in some other locations but yes, a major blow to Iran's nuclear programme has been delivered but it does not mean that the entire nuclear programme of Iran has been obliterated,' he added. He further said that Iran's attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz could lead India to suffer, as according to him, about 20 per cent of the world's crude oil and 25 per cent of the world's natural gas flow through one of the world's most important oil chokepoints located between Oman and Iran, connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. '...If Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, India will definitely suffer. About 20 per cent of the world's crude oil and 25 per cent of the world's natural gas flow through these. Qatar's gas, which we buy, almost all flows through this. 70 per cent of Saudi oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz,' Sachdev said. 'India will suffer because oil prices will go up, inflation will rise, and there is an estimate that for every ten-dollar increase in the price of crude oil, India's GDP will suffer by 0.5 per cent,' the Foreign affairs expert added. After Northrop Grumman-made B-2 Spirit bombers struck nuclear facilities in Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, Trump, in his first public remarks, warned that he could order further action if Tehran does not agree to a satisfactory peace agreement. In his address to the nation from the White House on Saturday (local time), Trump said, 'There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we've witnessed over the last eight days.' In a Truth Social post, Trump said, 'This cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be a tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill.' Trump also thanked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said, 'I want to thank Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.' (ANI)
India Gazette
22-06-2025
- Business
- India Gazette
"This is an escalation": Foreign Affairs Expert Robinder Sachdev after US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities
New Delhi [India], June 22 (ANI): Foreign Affairs Expert Robinder Sachdev on Sunday described the US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities as an escalation to the week old Israel-Iran conflict, warning that the situation is likely to deteriorate further. His comments come in the wake of recent US airstrikes targeting three key Iranian nuclear facilities, including Fordow, Iran's main enrichment location for uranium enrichment to 60 per cent. 'This is an escalation, and it seems there will be no end; the situation will worsen, go up and down. It seems that the region of the Middle East will now be plunged into Forever Wars... Iran will fight back with whatever resources it has. It will retaliate. However, it doesn't have much capacity, but it will still attempt to do its best,' he told ANI. Sachdev said that US President Donald Trump's claim of eliminating the entire nuclear programme of Iran is 'wrong'. 'Donald Trump is correct in saying that tonight's attack was a spectacular attack by the American Armed forces, but he is wrong in saying that this attack has eliminated the entire nuclear programme of Iran; it has not...... The Iranians have already trandffered Uranium though it is not weapon grade but whatever enriched uranium they had, it seems they have distributed and hidden in some other locations but yes, a major blow to Iran's nuclear programme has been delivered but it does not mean that the entire nuclear programme of Iran has been obliterated,' he added. He further said that Iran's attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz could lead India to suffer, as according to him, about 20 per cent of the world's crude oil and 25 per cent of the world's natural gas flow through one of the world's most important oil chokepoints located between Oman and Iran, connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. '...If Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, India will definitely suffer. About 20 per cent of the world's crude oil and 25 per cent of the world's natural gas flow through these. Qatar's gas, which we buy, almost all flows through this. 70 per cent of Saudi oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz,' Sachdev said. 'India will suffer because oil prices will go up, inflation will rise, and there is an estimate that for every ten-dollar increase in the price of crude oil, India's GDP will suffer by 0.5 per cent,' the Foreign affairs expert added. After Northrop Grumman-made B-2 Spirit bombers struck nuclear facilities in Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, Trump, in his first public remarks, warned that he could order further action if Tehran does not agree to a satisfactory peace agreement. In his address to the nation from the White House on Saturday (local time), Trump said, 'There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we've witnessed over the last eight days.' In a Truth Social post, Trump said, 'This cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be a tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill.' Trump also thanked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said, 'I want to thank Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.' (ANI)
The Intercept
22-06-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
Self-Proclaimed 'Peacemaker' Drags U.S. Into Another War
American warplanes bombed three nuclear sites in Iran on Saturday night, bringing the U.S. military directly into Israel's war with Iran. 'NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE,' President Donald Trump incongruously wrote in a social media post announcing the attacks. Trump campaigned on ending foreign wars during his 2024 presidential run and has cast himself as a 'peacemaker.' In his second inaugural address, he pledged to 'measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.' Trump also regularly claims to have opposed the Iraq War from its outset. (He actually supported it.) 'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,' Trump wrote on TruthSocial. 'All planes are now outside of Iran airspace. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.' The aim of the attacks, American and Israeli officials have said, is to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb. The U.S. intelligence community says that threat is not, however, real. 'We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that [Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so,' reads the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment published in March. The assessment serves as the intelligence community's official evaluation of threats to 'the Homeland,' U.S. citizens, and the country's interests. Trump dismissed those and more recent assessments to the same effect. 'Just a few days ago, literally no one was talking about an imminent Iran nuclear threat,' Defense experts who spoke with The Intercept warned the United States might be entering into a new round of the Forever Wars. 'Between enabling Israel in Gaza and all of its operations across the Middle East, and now these strikes in Iran, we are setting the foundation for the next generation's 'War on Terror,'' said Wes Bryant, who served until earlier this year as the senior analyst and adviser on precision warfare, targeting, and civilian harm mitigation at the Pentagon's Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. He questioned the Trump administration's abrupt shift from negotiating with Iran about its nuclear program to bombing it. The idea of an 'imminent Iran nuclear threat,' wasn't serious a few days ago, Bryant said. 'The fact that suddenly Trump was pulled into this reactive major strike against Iran under the auspices of nuclear deterrence is, I think, among the most disturbing red flags of this administration thus far.' 'Trump's decision to strike Iranian nuclear targets is a short-sighted one that will not achieve his stated objectives, brings significant risks to the United States, and could derail his foreign policy priorities,' said Jennifer Kavanagh, the director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a think tank that advocates for measured U.S. foreign policy. 'To strike Iran while diplomacy was ongoing undermines his push for peace elsewhere including with Putin. Why would Russia or any other country negotiate with Trump going forward?' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his military's objective was to 'strike all' of Iran's nuclear facilities. He had been pressing Trump to augment Israel's attacks with weaponry his country does not possess – namely the 30,000-pound GBU-57s, known as Massive Ordnance Penetrators or 'bunker buster' bombs, that Israel says can destroy Iran's underground nuclear enrichment facility in Fordow. Former defense officials speculated that these weapons — which are so heavy they can only be carried by U.S. B-2 bombers — were used on Israel's behalf during the Saturday attacks. If Iranian leaders respond to the U.S. strikes with a major counterattack, such as striking American military bases across the Middle East, it could set off an escalatory spiral and even more aggressive U.S. involvement. 'Trump is trying to signal that he wants to get back to diplomacy but the risk of a wider war is still very real and high. Iran's retaliation will determine whether the United States can extract itself so easily,' said Kavanagh, a former senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation who served as the director of its Army Strategy program. 'There is also very little chance Iran will negotiate now because Trump has no way to provide them credible assurances that if they come to the table, they will be spared future attacks,' Kavanagh said. 'Trump has sacrificed significant diplomatic leverage for narrow military gains of uncertain duration, and in doing so, has put the United States at risk of another costly Middle East war that will further U.S. global influence and American prosperity.' More than 40,000 U.S. active-duty military personnel and civilians working for the Pentagon are deployed across the Middle East. U.S. troops in the region have come under attack close to 400 times, at a minimum, since October 2023 in response to the U.S.-supported Israeli war on Gaza . Predominantly led by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian-allied Houthi government in Yemen, the strikes include a mix of one-way attack drones, rockets, mortars, and ballistic missiles fired at fixed bases and U.S. warships across the region. Trump struck a ceasefire deal with the Houthis in May. Prior to the U.S. attacks on Iran, the Houthis threatened to again target U.S. ships in the Red Sea if Washington joined Israel's attacks on Iran. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has expressed his desires for regime change in Iran and not ruled out targeting the country's supreme leader, saying 'no one in Iran should have immunity.' Israel's defense minister said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cannot 'continue to exist.' Trump joined in on the threats, pointing out that the U.S. knows Khamenei's location and dangled the possibility of assassinating him in the future. 'We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,' Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this week, before Saturday's strikes. 'Military force, by itself, is seldom effective in orchestrating regime change,' Joseph Votel, a retired four-star Army general who headed both Special Operations Command and Central Command, which oversees U.S. military efforts in the Middle East, told The Intercept before the U.S. began its attacks on Saturday. 'There will be ramifications against the U.S. and this should be discussed and addressed in detail,' Votel warned. 'There is no clean course we can take in this situation.' The U.S. had already poured billions into Israel's war machine, supplying it with advanced weaponry, from fighter aircraft and tank ammunition to tactical vehicles and air-to-air missiles. The U.S. is the primary supplier of all of Israel's combat aircraft and most of its bombs and missiles. These weapons are provided at little or no cost to Israel, with American taxpayers primarily picking up the tab. An analysis by Brown University's Costs of War Project tallied up around $18 billion in military aid to Israel in the year following the start of Israel's war on Gaza on October 7, 2023. This represented far more than any other year since the U.S began providing military aid to Israel in 1959. On Tuesday, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced a bipartisan War Powers Resolution, which would prohibit the 'United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran.' It currently has 43 co-sponsors, including Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-WA. 'Congress has the sole power to declare war – full stop,' she posted on X on Saturday before the attacks. 'The idea that the U.S. would potentially deploy a bunker buster bomb in Iran w/out Congressional approval not only flies in the face of our Constitution, it would also rope us into another forever war that Americans do not want.' Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., introduced similar legislation in the Senate earlier this week. After the U.S. bombed Iran on Saturday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries suggested that Trump had lied about being a peacemaker — and that Congress should have a say in whether the country goes to war. 'President Trump misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East,' Jeffries, D-NY, wrote on X. Online and in an address to the nation, Trump suggested that more attacks could be coming. 'ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT,' the president wrote on TruthSocial.
Bloomberg
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
The US Is Making the World a More Dangerous Place
A decade ago, in the middle of the so-called Forever Wars, I would dread coming into my office in the morning, fearing bad news from the International Security Force Afghanistan. As military commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I was in charge of more than 150,000 US and international troops in daily combat. We had nearly 2,000 young men and women killed in action during my four years there, and the cause — again and again – was improvised explosive devices. The term 'IED' continues to haunt my dreams. As I have watched the first months of President Donald Trump's administration interact with an often incredulous world — it was practically a cause for celebration that he left this week's G-7 meeting (early) without causing a major diplomatic incident — that deadly acronym has come back to me. The emerging Trump Doctrine can accurately be described by a very different version of the letters IED.
