1) At the FDD, Bridget Toomey and Andrea Stricker profile ‘The 9 Iranian Nuclear Scientists Israel Has Eliminated’.
“Tehran has long denied that it ever had a nuclear weapons program, but the evidence clearly shows otherwise. The effort was initially known as the Amad Plan, but amid fear of discovery in 2003, the clerical regime downsized and dispersed the program’s activities to preserve them while allowing the work to progress on a more limited scale. Many became part of the Organization for Defense Innovation and Research, known by its Persian acronym, SPND.
All nine of the scientists killed by Israel this week were involved in the Amad Plan, and some were currently working on weaponization efforts, according to Western government sources who shared information with FDD.”
2) Joe Truzman reports on some of the senior Iranian military officials eliminated.
“Since the beginning of Israel’s military campaign against Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure, the Israeli military has targeted and eliminated key figures belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) military apparatus.”
3) The ITIC reports on ‘Oil Exports, an Important Component of Iran’s Funding for Terrorism’.
“For over four decades Iran has been considered the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, with the regime in Tehran using the Qods Force of the Revolutionary Guards to directly support a range of proxy organizations operating against the United States, Israel and pro-Western Arab states across the Middle East. According to estimates, Iran provides hundreds of millions of dollars annually in financial assistance to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis in Yemen and the Shi’ite militias in Iraq.
The Iranian regime’s main source of revenue is its energy sector, which generates about half the country’s export income. Iran’s security bodies receive state allocations of oil which they are expected to sell themselves, and the profits from the sales are used to fund their own operations and those of affiliated terrorist organizations.”
4) At Tablet Magazine, Armin Rosen asks former IAEA inspector David Albright ‘Can Israel End Iran’s Nuclear Program?’.
“Since the early 1970s, the world has depended on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the U.N. Security Council to maintain a global system that regulates the spread and development of nuclear weapons technology, placing American adversaries like China and Russia at the apex of the arms control system and creating layers of bureaucracy and diplomacy that would-be proliferators have learned to exploit. Pakistan, India, and North Korea have all built nuclear arsenals in defiance of the NPT. Until this week, Iran was very close to joining them.”
5) At the Moshe Dayan Center, Amos Nadan discusses past attempts to use economic sanctions as a tool of coercion against Iran.
“The current war is a living demonstration of the failure of economic sanctions. In Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, Yemen, and Iran, sanctions have, most likely, proven counterproductive, resulting in wars and, in some cases, even more complex conflicts, because militias and armies had time to further militarize. A key question is whether these outcomes will be meaningfully integrated into the thinking and practices of policymakers, given that the theory of sanctions as an effective tool has proven misleading in practice.”
6) WINEP provides assessments of ‘Key Outside Actors in the Iran-Israel Showdown’.
“Tellingly, Hezbollah has not mobilized its military infrastructure (or what’s left of it) since Israel launched Operation Rising Lion against Iran on June 12. One of the group’s core missions is to defend its regime patrons in Tehran whenever they feel threatened, and it has usually responded with force during past crises. In the current showdown, however, Hezbollah leaders have limited themselves to one public statement of condemnation—quickly followed by media remarks reassuring listeners that they will not get involved. This does not mean they have distanced themselves from Iran or no longer want to attack Israel. Rather, they are constrained by two main factors.”
7) Geoffrey Corn and Orde F. Kittrie explain why ‘Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program is fully justified under international law’.
“Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, which began early Friday, June 13, are lawful, contrary to the expressed views of various commentators and politicians, including Senator Bernie Sanders.
Several of these commentators have based their contention that Israel’s attack is illegal on their opinion that Israel was not responding to an “imminent” nuclear attack by Iran. But this argument overlooks a critical legal principle: When two countries are already in a state of armed conflict—in colloquial terms a war—there is no requirement to wait for “the next attack” to be imminent.”
