ISLAMABAD: In the early hours of June 13, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a meticulously planned military strike on Iran’s top leaders and nuclear and military infrastructure.
And sources in Israeli and US security say that the surprise attacks were part of a well-coordinated and highly effective deception operation orchestrated by President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In May, it was reported that President Trump had waved off Israeli plans to pre-emptively strike Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program, opting for diplomacy instead. The president, however, repeatedly warned the Iranians – both in public and private – that if they didn’t agree to his terms, they’d be vulnerable to attack.
Trump also gave Tehran a 60-day deadline to agree to full dismantlement of their nuclear program and zero enrichment of any uranium. “I gave them 60 days and they didn’t meet it,” President Trump said Friday, following the Israeli attacks. “Today’s 61.”
Yet, as recently as Thursday, the White House was still giving the impression that the president was pursuing a diplomatic deal with Tehran with talks scheduled to resume on Sunday in Oman.
“I am pleased to confirm the 6th round of Iran US talks will be held in Muscat this Sunday the 15th,” the country’s foreign minister announced on social media just about two days ago.
Many – most notably, key figures in the Iranian regime – have been operating on the assumption that the Israelis wouldn’t strike before the Sunday talks in Oman or that they wouldn’t defy Trump and move against Iran at all. The result was that Iran’s senior leadership, military and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders and nuclear weapons scientists were all asleep in their beds, literally, and asleep on the job, figuratively, when Israel hit them.
The unprecedented attack took out dozens of top commanders and at least ten of 12 nuclear scientists who were at the top of the Israeli kill list. The IDF destroyed the above-ground nuclear facility at Natanz and did significant damage to other leadership, military and nuclear assets.
Indeed, the U.S. absolutely knew this strike was coming, even though some commentators are pointing to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement on Friday referring to the Israeli strikes as ‘unilateral.’
Technically, the secretary is right. There were no US pilots or military personnel involved in this action. But sources, both inside Israel and the US, say there was close coordination between the United States Central Command (Centcom) and the IDF and certainly cooperation between the prime minister and the president.
What happens next will truly determine the future of the Middle East and global security.
As Netanyahu warned, Israel has continued to strike inside Iran, hitting nuclear facilities northwest of Tehran on Friday. Israel has also said that they’ve created a corridor from west to east across the Islamic Republic that the Israel Air Force can traverse unimpeded after they systematically destroyed Iran’s anticraft defenses in the region.
This will limit Tehran’s ability to fight back but already Iran has shown its capability to retaliate by launching a barrage of at least 150 missiles at Israeli cities from its arsenal of more than 2,000 ballistic missiles as well as an inventory of thousands of cruise missiles and drones.
On Friday, several of these projectiles penetrated the Israel’s air defense systems striking targets throughput the country and inside Tel Aviv with a direct strike to IDF headquarters.
Iran may also activate sleeper cells in Israel and across the world to go after Israeli and Jewish targets. Vulnerable locations should be on even more heightened alert than before.
The Israelis are already threatening Iran’s economic assets — oil refineries, the electrical grid and transportation system — if the Iranian response escalates. If Israel does take out these national assets it would further destabilize an Iranian regime that is at its weakest point in decades – a fact not lost on Israel or the US.
Finally, Tehran’s nuclear weapons program has been badly damaged, but it has not been destroyed. The facility at Fordow, where Iran’s most advanced centrifuges are buried deep underground, remains. This site holds thousands of centrifuges and enriched material shielded from Israeli weapons. The regime’s remaining nuclear weapons scientists may be capable of taking this material, enriching it to weapons grade, and then using it to construct a crude nuclear device or a nuclear warhead affixed to a ballistic missile.
