The Twelve Day War: The U.S.-Israeli “Victory” That Wasn’t.

1.

Several days after the end, hopefully (or maybe not) of what Donald Trump refers to as the Twelve Day War, what the joint U.S-Israeli Bobbsey-Twin military aggression against Iran accomplished, has come more clearly into focus. No doubt Iran suffered greatly from the two U.S. and Israeli missile attacks. All the same, this joint attack on Iran was not, as claimed from the rooftops, so much about limiting Iran’s nuclear enrichment policy or stopping its non-existent drive to develop nuclear weapons.

More to the point it was an attempt at overthrowing the Iranian government through a blitzkrieg that failed.

That Benjamin Netanyahu just declared victory in the 12-day war is over the top.

The U.S.-Israeli attack was not the “knockout blow” that both the Trump Administration and Israel proclaimed. Iran itself recovered from the blitzkrieg within hours. Reports like CNN’s claim that “the myth of Iran’s invincibility has been shattered, and the fallout could be far-reaching” gets the situation “ass backwards”.  Iran was able to inflict damage on Israel by its missile attacks but the main consequence the Zionist state suffered was to its invincibility.

The 2002-3 vilification of the Iraqi government was simply a pretext to overthrow Saddam Hussein. As is now well known, the US hysteria over non-existent weapons of mass destruction was a pretext for aggression. In the same vein, the so-called Iranian nuclear enrichment program is a red herring. Nor was the attack, as is also being peddled, a strategic defeat for Iran and a great military win for Israel. Instead, the myth of Israel’s invincibility was shattered.

As Max Blumenthal noted, “Iran penetrated Israel’s cultural psyche.” Iran absorbed the blow, regrouped and was able to return fire on Israel on a level the Zionist state has never experienced.  Every day since, as the Israeli censorship is lifted, the world learns how seriously Israel was also physically damaged.

If anything, despite the damage done, Iran is politically stronger today, the country more united behind its government, its nuclear energy program much more secure out of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association) control, its prestige throughout the Middle East is soaring (while Israel’s reputation is beyond salvation, its international bonds with Russia, China and the Global South as a whole strengthened.

Both the United States and the Israeli regime took political hits of their own.

While the U.S. media and government – well the Trump Administration and Trump in particular – along with Israel, claim to have achieved an overpowering military victory over Iran, nothing could be farther from the truth.  If Israel didn’t “lose” the military confrontation, it certainly did “win” either. Israel was hit militarily as never before in its history, its role as a regional hegemon deflated to a great degree. Trump’s Operation Midnight Hammer was not so much a great military attack so much as it was Trump rescuing Israel from Iranian missile attacks.

The so called intended “knockout blow” has already backfired.

Also the frustration is growing between the United States and Israel; this tension is well articulated by Trita Parsi’s interview on “X:

Whether the Iranian program was obliterated (Trump) or severely damaged (Tehran), the real story is that Trump is looking for an exit because he does not want to be trapped by Israel into an endless war. Israel wanted the US to destroy much more than just the nuclear program.

That the Straits of Hormuz was not closed down was Iran’s big “concession” to the United States. It could have done so easily with the global consequences most of us are aware of. An underappreciated close call for Washington. It’s hard to deny the legitimacy of  Danny Haiphong’s claim that the U.S. bombing of Iran was nothing other than another foreign policy blunder and a dangerous escalation by the Trump Administration.

Contrary to what Netanyahu claims, Israel has not achieved its two main goals.

In fact, it is that much more unlikely that it will be able to achieve them in the future. First, Israel – even with the help of the United States – has not ended Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, and attacking Iran makes Iran more likely, and not less likely, to obtain the nuclear weapon by Iran. Secondly, Despite an all out many sided blitzkrieg (to be discussed below) Israel was unable to overthrow the current government of Iran. Today the Iranian government has a stronger domestic base than prior to June 12, the day before the start of the Israeli bombing campaign.

Furthermore, Iranian missiles and drones have imposed a heavy punishment on Israel, which was short of air defense missiles and clearly lacked the determination to wage a war of wear, unlike Iranians.

2.

Much new information, insights about the U.S.-Israeli one-two missile punch against Iran over the past days since missile exchange ended, all interesting, all suggest a different way of viewing the recent military slugfest.

First point:

The White House knew, and knew prior to the attack, exactly when Israel would attack belies the Trump Administration lies (put forth by Secretary of State, Marco Rubio) was unaware that Israel would attack. Along with Trump Administration assurances that Iran would not be attacked so long as the negotiations continue Iran was lulled into lowering its guard. Israel’s surprise attack did catch Iran – and much of the rest of the world – off guard resulting in serious damage that Israel inflicted upon Iran in the attack’s early hours.

As Alastair Crooke pointed out Trump was presented with two contradictory sources of evidence regarding Iranian’s nuclear enrichment program. Trump chose to reject the analysis of his intelligence establishment and to base his subsequent order for U.S. bombers to attack Iran upon the Zionist influenced private software company, Palantir, that specializes in data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) platforms.

The first was the National Intelligence Estimate of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, presented by National Security Advisor, Tulsi Gabbard, which concluded that Iran is nowhere near building a nuclear weapon and that there is no Iranian program to build such weapons. Gabbard presented this conclusion to Congress and to President Trump in March of this year (2025).

However, Trump chose to reject the N.I.E. conclusions and instead relied on the Palantir take, that, to the contrary, Iran is intensifying its nuclear program and had to be stopped. Given both the Trump and Biden Administration’s long held plans to attack Iran, Trump’s explanation for the urgent need to attack is entirely fallacious and deceptive, a smoke screen for an entirely different reason for the attacks: regime change. No surprise here.

In line with the growing role of Palantier and other tech companies in defense, the U.S. military has just named four tech leaders to the rank of lieutenant colonel: Shayam Sankar, CTO of Palantir (Peter Thiel’s company), Andrew Bosworth, CTO of Meta (Mark Zuckerberg’s company), Kevin Weil, chief production officer at OpenAI, and Bob McGrew, former research director at OpenAI (the company by Sam Altman).

As Sami Ben Ghardaia, founder (and I think still publisher) of the Tunisian human rights bulletin Nawaat.org noted:

Looks like these men will be working on “targeted projects to help guide rapid, evolving technological solutions to complex problems.” A sentence that means absolutely nothing, because it’s clearly just a way to give these companies access to top secret information without having to go through stringent background checks.

These tech billionaires compile lists of the most sensitive information: tax, medical, bank accounts, social security numbers, immigration status, and more. This administration allows them to build the infrastructure of techno-feudalism. Authoritarianism in the form of data and surveillance.

Second Point: (To be continued)