24-06-2025
Iran Casts Cease-Fire as Proof That Its Military Has Prevailed
Fresh from striking an American air base and then agreeing to a cease-fire with Israel, Iran claimed victory on Tuesday morning, saying that its attacks had pressured Israel into accepting a truce.
'Defeat of the Zionist enemy,' ran the chyron on Iran's state TV network as it broadcast news of the agreement Tuesday morning. State news agencies published a statement by the Iranian national security council saying that Tehran was 'imposing a cease-fire' on Israel by striking a U.S. air base in Qatar and other targets.
The 12-day war began with a barrage of Israeli airstrikes on Iran that wiped out much of the Iranian military's top brass, and destroyed its air defenses and some of its nuclear and missile facilities. Subsequent Israeli attacks killed hundreds of Iranians, including children. And American airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites damaged, or may have destroyed, key parts of the country's nuclear program.
Still, Iranian officials were casting the outcome of the conflict as a resounding triumph for Iran and a decisive loss for Israel — a positive spin on what officials privately said was a face-saving effort to retaliate while avoiding an unwinnable all-out war with the United States.
In public, the tone was swaggering, emphasizing Iran's response: first, Iranian missile barrages into Israeli towns that sent Israelis ducking into bomb shelters, destroyed buildings and killed 28 people; then, the missile strike on Monday on the installation in Qatar, Al Udeid Air Base, which left no casualties.
A retired Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps naval commander, Gen. Hossein Alaei, told ISNA, a state news agency, that Iran had been able not only to withstand Israeli attacks but also to hit targets in Israel and then launch an attack of its own devastating enough to force the United States to retreat.
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