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Why Israel Stopped When Trump Said Stop: Understanding the 12-hour Iran War

Nolan Judd — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 20:33:53 +0000

Israel waged the Six Day War in June 1967. The 12-Day War with Iran in June 2025. And now, in 2026, the 12-hour war. Again with Iran. Again in June.

To help make sense of what happened, what the country experienced, and what it means going forward, it is useful to look at other examples.

In a Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security Zoom briefing this week, former National Security Council head Yaakov Amidror and Eran Lerman, a former senior NSC official, turned to two seemingly unlikely examples: North Korea and Google.

No free lunch for Israel

First, Google.

The week’s events made it clear to everyone in Israel that there is no free lunch. US President Donald Trump’s support for Israel – the steps he has taken across the board over the years to assist the country – is not without a cost. And the cost is that he gets a say, a big say, in what Israel can and cannot do.

Never has Israel had a more supportive president in the White House. That’s the upside. The downside? Never has Israel been so dependent on a US president.

And this is where Google comes into play.

Amidror said that he has two friends with startups in which Google decided to invest. Both welcomed the partnership.

But after a year, both realized that when Google is your partner, Google has something to say about how the company is run. Amidror said one of his friends disliked the arrangement and decided to sever the partnership and continue on his own.

The other chose to stay with Google and figure out how to work with its input.

“If someone thinks that when Google is your partner, you can neglect Google, I think they are making a big mistake,” Amidror said.

“But you have to make a strategic decision. Do you want to continue with Google and have some flexibility here, or do you say, ‘Okay, I’ll continue alone without Google?’”

Amidror said that when he posed that question to other friends, they all gave the same answer.

“All my friends told me that if they had to make the decision, they would stay with Google. This is the situation of Israel today. We are with Google, and we have to take into consideration that Google is our partner.”

The US, to carry the metaphor, is Israel’s Google. As a result, it will have a say in how we run our startup.

At times, that smarts. At times, it is frustrating. At times, it limits your ability to make fully independent decisions.

But it also carries enormous benefits – benefits that should not be overlooked in a moment of frustration over interference by the larger partner.

Keeping the bigger picture in mind

IT IS ALSO important to keep the bigger picture in mind. And what is the bigger picture? Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu often boasts that he has been sounding the alarm about Iran’s nuclear program for more than 30 years. And he has. It has been his top priority.

When history is written a hundred years from now, one of the defining elements of Netanyahu’s legacy will be his efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

That remains his overriding priority. Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas – all of that is secondary. What is key, what is essential, is preventing Iran from getting the bomb.

Then along comes Trump and says, “I’m almost there. I’m just a step away from getting the Iranians to concede on the nuclear issue in negotiations. The military pressure, the economic pressure, it’s having an effect, and soon they will give it up in talks.”

Do you believe him – a president who has declared peace where there is no peace, victory where there is no victory, and the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities when they clearly still possess them? Maybe not.

But remember: he is Google, and Google has a say.

Why Netanyahu bends to Trump’s demands

This is why Netanyahu deferred this week to Trump’s wishes and did not carry out the type of attack Israel had reportedly planned for Iran on Monday after the Iranian regime fired 11 ballistic missiles at Israel. Trump said stop shooting, and Israel – and Iran – stopped shooting.

Why?

To give those negotiations a chance.

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“One of the best examples of bad diplomacy in modern history is the success of North Korea in becoming a nuclear power,” Amidror said.

One reason the US did not use force to stop North Korea, he argued, was South Korea’s adamant opposition.

And why was South Korea opposed?

Because of the fear that, in the event of a US attack, North Korea would unleash devastating force against Seoul, which sits only 60 km. from the Demilitarized Zone.

The North Koreans have thousands of artillery pieces and rocket launchers dug into the mountains along the border that, South Koreans feared, could be used in a massive retaliatory barrage on the capital. So they forcefully urged the US not to strike.

Iranians learned ‘hostage strategy’ from North Korea

The Iranians have learned more from the North Koreans than just how to build missiles. They have also learned the value of this “hostage strategy.”

IRAN IS effectively holding the Gulf states hostage in much the same way North Korea held Seoul hostage – not only deterring overwhelming American action but also helping persuade Washington to limit Israel’s attacks.

“The Iranians are slowly building this same dynamic in the Gulf,” Amidror said. “What they are saying clearly is, ‘If you do something to Iran, we will destroy the Gulf countries.’

“Under the table, these countries are saying to the Americans: ‘If you are going to take action, do it to the end. Finish this regime. Destroy its capabilities totally. But if you don’t finish the job, don’t put us – the Gulf countries – in a very dire situation. Because if you go halfway, at the end of the day we will pay the price.’”

The Iranians have succeeded in creating a “coercive situation” in the Gulf because the Americans are not ready to go the extra mile and totally destroy Iran’s capabilities, Amidror said.

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Read the original article in the Jerusalem Post.

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U.S., Iran Indicate Deal Is Emerging While Disputing Reported Terms

Nolan Judd — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 20:28:45 +0000

Despite initially conflicting claims emerging from the White House and Iranian state media about the contents and timing of a memorandum of understanding between the parties, there were indications on Friday that the gaps between the two sides could be closing.

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“It seems that after repeated signs of an imminent deal for weeks now, a deal will be clear once U.S. and Iranian officials actually publicly agree to the same agreement,” Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told Jewish Insider. “Until then, it’s not clear that they actually have a deal yet.”

Cicurel noted, however, that the latest reports of an accord appear different from previous iterations throughout the conflict. He said he has seen “reports of [U.S. Air Force] aircraft heading to Europe,” which “could be a sign this is further down the road than previous efforts might have been.”

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“The claims that Iran made, if they’re anywhere near true, would be a disastrous agreement that would be rewarding Iranian aggression, providing it funds to further enable its aggression and rebuild its arsenal,” Cicurel said similarly. “The same leadership, the same regime that has been in charge of the proxy agents and conducted aggression against the United States and its partners remains in power.”

However, Cicurel noted that he also holds major concerns regarding the framework being presented by the White House — most notably, that negotiators have failed to address Iran’s missile capabilities.

“My main concern with the White House agreement is that with this proposal, and over the last few weeks, the discussion of Iran’s missile capabilities has disappeared from the conversation, which was a major mistake of the JCPOA and a major mistake of previous agreements,” Cicurel said. “Any agreement that doesn’t include that would enable Iran to take the lessons it’s learned from the current war — that it doesn’t need a lot of missiles, it doesn’t need a lot of drones to exert aggression on the Gulf — and leave a potentially dangerous situation over the long term, in the future.”

Cicurel also took issue with the White House’s indication that the MOU would launch another 60-day ceasefire, warning that the time would allow Iran to delay a durable, long-term settlement and gain leverage. He also argued that the U.S. should not release Iranian assets.

“I don’t think the United States should be unfreezing assets rewarding Iran for for its aggression and allow Iran to leverage its power projection over the Strait of Hormuz to extract financial gains that would enable it to rebuild itself to reassert more of that power projection over the Strait of Hormuz and further attack targets throughout the Middle East,” he said.

Read the original article in Jewish Insider.

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GEN (ret.) Joseph Votel: “Demonstrate Pain” to Iranian Leadership

Nolan Judd — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 16:26:46 +0000

https://jinsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/20260611_me_retired_gen._joseph_votel_on_the_u.s._strikes_on_iran_and_tehran_s_capabilities.mp3

JINSA Generals & Admirals Program participant and Former CENTCOM Commander GEN (ret.) Joseph Votel joined NPR’s Morning Edition to assess whether the conflict has returned to full-scale war and what “negotiating with bombs” would actually require militarily.

GEN (ret.) Votel said the U.S. has not returned to full-scale operations but warned that the conflict “is becoming a little more unstable” as exchanges grow more routine and thus more dangerous. The ceasefire, he argued, “is no longer the stabilizing mechanism it was earlier in the conflict and is not really a brake on escalation,” with direct U.S.-Iranian strikes now becoming normalized in a way that “lowers the threshold and gives the opportunity for greater escalation.” On what a serious military pressure campaign would target, he pointed to coastal missile defense sites, command and control locations, ground control stations, and IRGC Navy capabilities used for mining and interdiction in the Strait, while noting that recent Tomahawk strikes impacting relatively close to Tehran are clearly focused on “sending a very clear message” to the regime’s leadership.

On Iran’s remaining capability, GEN (ret.) Votel said he is not particularly struck by Iranian claims of retaliatory capacity, noting the U.S. has done significant damage to known targets, but added that Iran “has had years and decades to prepare” and has much of its capability protected. What has genuinely surprised him, he said, is Iran’s willingness to “horizontally escalate” — spreading the conflict across the map to Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait to demonstrate to U.S. partners that there are real costs for supporting American operations. On whether “negotiating with bombs” can ultimately work, he was candid: “We will have to demonstrate pain to the leadership — they have to absorb what’s going on.”

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Trump Is Stuck and His Iran Leverage Is Spent

Nolan Judd — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:56:11 +0000

On Thursday morning, President Donald Trump threatened to hit Iran “VERY HARD,” seize its main oil export terminal at Kharg Island, and take “total control” of its energy industry. By the afternoon, he’d canceled it all on indications that Iran had approved “discussions and final points” toward a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and constrain its nuclear program. In the space of a few hours, the war’s depressing denouement was compressed into a single news cycle: Trump blusters, Trump retreats, Trump desperately seeks a face-saving exit ramp.

The fact is that Trump is stuck. Militarily, he fears that a return to all-out war would carry even more damaging military, economic, and political costs for his presidency than he’s already suffered, with no assurance of corresponding strategic gain.

Diplomatically, the “very good deal” that he’s promised for months — restoring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and ending Iran’s nuclear program — has failed to materialize, stymied by Iran’s insistence that Washington first enrich it to the tune of billions of dollars and Trump’s mortal fear of appearing weak after repeated assurances that Iran’s capitulation was at hand.

But no amount of spin will obscure the emerging truth. There will be no Iranian unconditional surrender, much less the installation of a pliant Delcy Rodriguez of Persia. With or without a deal, when the fighting ends, it will almost certainly reflect a harsh new reality that Trump’s ill-conceived war has exposed: The security commitments that stood at the heart of America’s deterrence in the Gulf for decades have been proven hollow.

Before the war, U.S. deterrence rested on a simple proposition: Any Iranian attempt to close the strait would be suicidal. The Islamic Republic’s rulers constantly had to worry that challenging freedom of navigation through the world’s most critical choke point would trigger not just a military campaign to reopen the waterway, but a devastating assault to end the regime itself. The fear of those consequences — an untested but credible Sword of Damocles hovering over Iran’s calculations — was the essence of Washington’s deterrent, constraining not just Iranian behavior in Hormuz but across multiple domains, including whether to cross the nuclear threshold.

That proposition now lies in ruins.

Forced into a fight for its existence by a U.S.-Israeli war that made regime collapse a central purpose, Iran’s new leadership, convinced it had nothing to lose, threw caution to the wind. It closed the strait and has successfully held the global economy hostage for three months.

Confronted with what had always been its worst nightmare — a full-scale war against the United States and Israel — the Iranian regime not only survived, it asserted control over one of the world’s economic lifelines while holding at risk the well-being of America’s Gulf partners. And contrary to all pre-war assumptions, Washington had no good military answers to either challenge. That’s the sound of deterrence crumbling.

Yes, Iran has paid a horrific price. Its conventional military power has been smashed, its nuclear timeline extended, a generation of leaders killed, its already-battered economy in freefall, and its industrial capacity to reconstitute its missile arsenal — the force intended to shield its eventual dash to the bomb — degraded by as much as 90%. The U.S. and Israel have bought important time against the Iranian threat — an extremely valuable commodity that should not be gainsaid, especially given the Islamic regime’s ongoing crisis of legitimacy with the Iranian people.

But nor can it be denied that the war has also cost the U.S. dearly, and in coin that may be far more strategically significant. Iran’s path to rebuilding the foundations of its broken military and economy may be long and difficult, but relatively straightforward. U.S. deterrence, on the other hand, once shattered in the crucible of a war that found the credibility of American threats wanting, could prove far harder to reestablish.

Trump attacked Iran with the intent of demonstrating America’s overwhelming power and ability to defeat its adversaries. Instead, his gambit ended up highlighting the limits of Washington’s capacity to impose its will on a much weaker enemy. You can bet the lesson will not be lost, either on America’s friends nor its foes.

The war will end eventually, but Iran’s proven ability to shut down Hormuz, threaten catastrophic harm against U.S. allies, and live to tell the tale will remain lodged in the world’s collective memory — an extraordinary shift in the balance of global leverage that the U.S. will be hard-pressed to reverse.

It’s a bell that, once rung, will be difficult to unring, and almost certainly not at a price that the American people seem prepared to pay.

John Hannah, the Randi & Charles Wax Senior Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, served as national security advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Originally published in the Washington Examiner.

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Depleted but Dangerous, Hamas is Holding Its Fire Against Israel. The Quiet May Not Last

Nolan Judd — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 21:57:45 +0000

The war that Hamas ignited on October 7, 2023, has since expanded far beyond Gaza, drawing in Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. But as Israel found itself under attack from multiple fronts in recent months, the group that started the conflict has been strikingly absent from the battlefield, largely holding fast to a ceasefire that halted fighting in October.

That absence, however, should not be mistaken for defeat, experts warn. Despite two years of sustained Israel Defense Forces operations and months of diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the war for good, Hamas remains armed and in control of most of Gaza’s territory east of the ceasefire line.

“On their side of the Yellow Line, [Hamas has] a monopoly on force,” Jonathan Ruhe, a military expert at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told The Times of Israel. “That feeds into their whole strategic concept, which, at this point, is to show that they won the war because they survived.”

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Read the original article in the Times of Israel.

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“A Completely Reciprocal Partnership”

Nolan Judd — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 21:52:33 +0000

The defense establishments of the United States and Israel initiated formal discussions in recent days aimed at transforming their longstanding relationship from a traditional military assistance model into a fully reciprocal, technology-driven mutual defense partnership.

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Gen. Charles Wald (U.S. Air Force, ret.), former deputy commander of U.S. European Command and now a distinguished fellow at the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told JNS in recent days, “I think the ideal situation in the Middle East would be the United States and Israel do have a defense pact.”

Israel, he noted, is likely more reluctant to sign on to such a pact because of concerns that it could be used to veto future Israeli action, but he doubted such a scenario would play out.

“I think a stronger defense pact would be a good idea,” Wald said.

He advocated for a multilateral mechanism that would eventually incorporate broader regional partners.

“My vision for the Middle East would be that … there’s a mutual defense pact with all the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries that are friendly with Israel and the United States,” Wald said.

He added that the immediate priority should be establishing a formalized, integrated air defense network involving Israel, the United States and the GCC that would be capable of protecting the region.

Regarding the decision to launch negotiations two years before the expiration of the current memorandum, he connected the timeline directly to domestic political considerations in Washington.

“I think there’s a concern that if the Democrats come into power, which wouldn’t be as likely. So I think they’re trying to do it now before a change of administration, if you will,” Wald said.

Wald also cited initiatives such as the U.S. Golden Dome collaboration, which requires cooperation with Israel, adding, “Israel has a really high capacity for advanced technology and the United States could benefit from that. And so I think the sharing of a technological approach would be a really good idea.”

He characterized this synergy as a powerful force multiplier that leverages shared intellectual and intelligence capital, allowing Israel to serve as a primary regional power center safeguarding American interests while U.S. attention shifts toward the Pacific.

“I think it’d be really in our benefit,” he said, adding that this would enable “a collaborative approach to the Middle East where it wouldn’t have to be the United States always coming over there because the Pacific region bears watching.”

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Read the original article in JNS.

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Stefanik Praises Shapiro, Fetterman as Exceptions on Antisemitism

Nolan Judd — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 21:40:30 +0000

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) praised Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) on Wednesday, arguing that both Democrats’ forceful condemnations of campus antisemitism after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks made them outliers in their party on the issue.

Speaking on a webinar with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America to discuss her book on campus antisemitism, Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America’s Elite Universities, Stefanik noted Shapiro was a rare Democrat to call for the resignation of Liz Magill, the former University of Pennsylvania president, after she struggled to answer Stefanik’s questions during a December 2023 committee hearing on whether calling for the genocide of Jews constituted bullying or harassment. (Magill resigned days after the hearing amid mounting criticism of her testimony.)

“There’s a huge challenge within the Democrat Party right now with this rise of antisemitism. I do highlight in the book that Fetterman was a really important voice that condemned without hesitation,” Stefanik said. “Josh Shapiro, he was governor of Pennsylvania when this happened. Penn was among the worst, and you had very weak leadership from Liz Magill. He called for her resignation immediately as well.”

“There are a few examples, but that’s outside of the norm of the Democratic Party and what we’re seeing play out both in the public polling, but also in some of these primary elections,” she continued, referencing the increase in anti-Israel candidates who have won recent Democratic primary contests.

Stefanik suggested that a number of Democratic candidates had won recent primaries despite leading campus encampments themselves, though she did not specify anyone by name and it was not clear who she was referring to.

“It was only the House Republicans who conducted these hearings. The Senate at the time was controlled by Democrats. They didn’t have a single hearing on the crisis in higher education and the skyrocketing antisemitism. That, in and of itself, I think shows the lack of prioritization,” Stefanik said. “Politically, look at what’s happening in these Democrat primaries. You now have the leaders of the pro-Hamas encampments running for Congress and getting elected in these Democrat primaries. So, I make the case in the book that what happens on these campuses has a direct line into what’s happening politically.”

Read the original article in Jewish Insider.

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We Need a Long-Term Strategy to Deal With Iran

Nolan Judd — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 13:15:34 +0000

No diplomatic agreement is going to end the war between Washington and Tehran. This conflict began decades ago, with the birth of a revolutionary Iranian movement whose teleology is defined by combating American influence, both real and perceived, at home and abroad. A formal deal may shift tensions temporarily from hot to cold, but this will only exacerbate and prolong a war that truly ends only once the Islamic Republic disappears.

Seeking to avoid this ultimate fate, Iran’s leaders are refusing any meaningful or binding concessions to the United States. After surviving the worst their mortal enemies could throw at them—and gaining a new feel for deterrence and leverage in the process—the country’s new leaders act even more emboldened and defiant than their predecessors.

The corresponding challenge for President Trump is to ignore his dealmaking instincts and buck the general trend in American statecraft that impulsively pursues grand, even transformative bargains with Tehran. He rightly excoriates the 2015 JCPOA nuclear accord but, in vowing something far better, misses an even bigger takeaway. Even if Iran’s recent shootdown of a U.S. military helicopter triggers punishing U.S. strikes, the odds are effectively zero of wrenching serious arms-control commitments out of the regime and, in the president’s words, forging “a more professional and productive” relationship going forward. At best, any scrap of paper inked by the two sides that proclaims peace for our time will merely delay this realization.

Indeed, a good agreement has been off the table ever since the JCPOA was clinched more than a decade ago. For Iran, this was the deal—full stop. In exchange for limited, brief, and reversible constraints on its atomic ambitions, it secured official blessing for its self-proclaimed “right” to unlimited nuclear infrastructure, the formal dismantling of sanctions, and an end to inquiries into its illegal bombmaking program. In so doing, it compelled the Obama team to abandon red lines that would permanently prohibit enrichment, shutter underground facilities, limit missile arsenals, and open secret sites to inspectors. Five subsequent rounds of talks with the Biden and Trump administrations, and two bouts of major conflict, have not persuaded Iran to put any of these gains up for renegotiation.

Recent talks underscore this continuity. Following the U.S. strikes on its nuclear facilities in June 2025 and the broader campaign that started in March, Tehran’s path to nuclear weapons capability is damaged but not destroyed. Thus, once again, it is angling for major sanctions relief in exchange for cosmetic concessions that do not prejudice its capacity to make nuclear fuel on its home soil. Even if the Trump administration gets everything it claims Iran has agreed to, including a long-term enrichment suspension and all known stocks of highly enriched uranium (HEU), the regime will emerge from an existential conflict with the presumptive ability to covertly produce every component of a bomb. Its covert enrichment-related facilities at “Pickaxe Mountain” and Isfahan are likely too deep for even the strongest U.S. bunker busters, and neutralizing them with ground troops was prohibitively risky for President Trump. Furthermore, international inspectors have warned for years they cannot account for all of Iran’s atomic enterprise.

Similar to the nuclear file, Tehran seems willing to fudge the official particulars of a transit regime for the Strait of Hormuz—referring to “navigational services” instead of tolls, for example—so long as a deal upholds its claim of a “right” to control access through the waterway. But the consequences of conceding this point would be more immediate than anything under discussion on the nuclear front. Iran’s pursuit of the bomb has always been a long-term play in its overarching goal to replace the United States as the dominant Middle East power. Therefore, it is something whose progress can be modulated in response to economic and military pressure. By contrast, Iran’s sudden attainment of de facto authority over a global shipping and energy chokepoint could fast-track its longstanding designs for reordering the region. With or without an agreement, Tehran currently believes that reopening the strait to normal traffic is ultimately its decision and, thus, so is any future decision to reclose it.

If it remains unchallenged, Tehran’s control over Hormuz gravely undermines the decades-old U.S.-led regional security order premised on freedom of navigation upheld by American naval supremacy. Serious as it was and could be once again, the threat to shipping from Iran’s Houthi proxies during the Israel-Hamas war was not nearly so dire. More global trade passes through Hormuz than either end of the Red Sea, and the world’s seaborne economy has alternative, if costlier, routes around the Cape of Good Hope beyond range of Houthi weapons. But Iran can cinch closed the cul-de-sac that is the Gulf and, as seen in the recent war, reliably strike pipelines bypassing the strait. Plus, a U.S.-led coalition actually fought for the Red Sea chokepoint, Bab el Mandeb.

Even with mixed results, this campaign against the Houthis still compares favorably to the decision to target Iran’s conventional navy, which was not responsible for the strait, while overlooking its “mosquito” navy and other antiship capabilities that successfully paralyzed Hormuz. In treating the destruction of Iran’s warships as an end in itself, as the administration did in making explicit parallels to World War II victories, rather than as part of a larger campaign to hold the sea, this time around the United States effectively ceded a core regional security interest to its enemy.

In a curious inversion of history, this means Tehran is now the one insisting that any agreement address regional issues. Prior to Epic Fury, Obama, Biden, and Trump (twice) each tried and failed to get Iran’s missiles and proxies on the trading block. Since the ceasefire, American officials seem to have dropped all mention of such requirements while Iran, with its new leverage over the strait, makes counterdemands that would entrench its wartime gains and alter its balance of power with the United States more fundamentally and permanently. Its official end state envisions U.S. troops leaving the region, and Israel ending operations in Lebanon as part of a blanke U.N.-endorsed guarantee of nonaggression against Iran and its Middle Eastern proxies.

Any version of this overall agreement will be far from the best option still available to the United States. Its nuclear provisions would not differ meaningfully from the 2015 JCPOA. And in handing Tehran the keys to lock up the region without a fight, Trump would become the first American president to sign away his country’s right to ply international waters freely. Throwing in the towel like this, and permitting Iran to hold Lebanon and the rest of the region hostage to its demands, would enable the regime to challenge U.S. forces, allies, and other interests at every turn.

Trump’s reluctance to be compared with President Obama has at times induced a salutary hesitance in his hunt for a deal. This stands in contrast to his eager spree of ceasefire proclamations in Gaza, South and Southeast Asia, the Caucasus, Central Africa, the Balkans—and between Israel and Iran last summer. He also should ponder the cautionary tales of Obama’s empty Syria red line and Biden’s pell-mell Afghanistan departure, both of which devalued U.S. credibility and encouraged our adversaries to launch major wars that will forever be etched into their legacies as commanders in chief.

For even greater perspective, it is helpful to ask what America’s place in the world would be, and how history would remember them, had FDR not fought to hold open the sea lanes to Britain and Australia in the dark and uncertain early days of World War II? If Truman did not launch the Berlin airlift to break Stalin’s blockade, uphold U.S. access rights to the city, and shore up the credibility of American commitments in the nascent Cold War? If he or Eisenhower signed an armistice with North Korea that evicted U.S. forces from all of East Asia?

Hopefully, the president is signaling that he has such history in mind and is not desperate for diplomacy when he downplays the war and its uncertain outcome as “not a big thing” and vows to “wipe everybody out” if Iran keeps refusing to play ball. But avoiding a bad deal and aimlessly threatening escalation are not substitutes for long-term strategy. The United States clearly needs an effective and sustainable plan to reopen Hormuz without Tehran’s sufferance, defend against aggression from a more militarized and risk-tolerant Iranian regime, and foster the conditions to collapse an Islamic Republic whose claims of recent victory do not negate its profound, enduring, and irreparable internal weaknesses.

By themselves, the U.S. blockade and other passive economic countermeasures will not achieve these goals. To be sure, the expected dangers of actively clearing the strait and its surrounding waters are not negligible. Yet this cold arithmetic also must weigh the current costs and future risks of Tehran maintaining its chokehold on vital outflows of raw materials, flouting the basic principle of free navigation, and cowing the rest of the region at its whim. The war’s revelations about U.S.-Israeli operational excellence and intelligence fusion, but also Iran’s precision strike complex, should accelerate efforts to build more resilient and integrated regional defenses under U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).

Countering Iran over the long term will entail new thinking on U.S. regional basing options, missile defense, arms procurement and production, and combined operations in ways that share burdens more evenly among partners and enable Washington to address other pressing challenges. Though they may seem exceedingly ambitious, each of these initiatives builds on recent progress that itself seemed unimaginable not long ago. Key examples include deploying U.S. combat and refueling aircraft in Israel, away from Iran’s short-range missiles and drones, and Israel sending air defenses to the beleaguered United Arab Emirates. The United States also should redouble its productive intelligence coordination with Israel and Europe to monitor Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities, and make clear that resuming work on a bomb will once again trigger swift and intensive military action. The harder part will be summoning steady U.S. leadership to get regional and global allies, and Congress and the American public, to buy into this bold but ultimately more sustainable approach.

These measures will amount to running in place, however, without a complementary plan to hasten the downfall of a regime whose visions for America’s role in the world, the Middle East’s future, and the Iranian people’s self-determination are innately antithetical to ours. Hands-on regime change a la Iraq, and hands-off regime management a la Venezuela, are equally unviable. A middle path has never been tried, even as unprecedentedly large protests earlier this year showed how the corrupt, incompetent, and brutal Iranian regime is profoundly unable and unwilling to address its citizens’ most basic grievances. This middle path should combine U.S.-led political, economic, and psychological warfare against the regime’s internal coercive apparatus with covert, but concerted, support for resistance networks inside the country. Disintegration within sclerotic and brutal authoritarian systems is usually gradual until it’s sudden, with telltale signs often surfacing in hindsight.

Fortunately, for all its external resolve, Iran’s regime already displays fatal internal weaknesses that, if properly exploited, can finally end its perpetual war against America.

Jonathan Ruhe is the Fellow for American Strategy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

Read the original article in the Dispatch.

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Social Media Deception Gives Iran A Weapon Against America

jinsa-shavdala — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 21:00:31 +0000

The U.S. is spending billions of dollars to degrade Iran’s military. Iran is spending a fraction of that to degrade America’s society using social media platforms as a force multiplier.

America must defend itself by ensuring proper transparency on the source and authenticity of social media accounts.

Social media promised a marketplace of ideas. In theory, open exchange would produce better discourse and greater transparency, but human psychology intervened. We are wired to respond to repetition, emotionally charged content and messages that affirm our prior beliefs.

Foreign malign actors understand this. They do not need to persuade Americans of a coherent ideology; they simply need to amplify the most divisive voices on all sides, push extremes further outward and erode trust in shared institutions.

Fake foreign-run bots posing as Americans and coordinated paid accounts flood the zone, artificially magnifying inflammatory content. The goal is not debate. It is destabilization.

A Clemson University study published in March documented such an operation in real time. At least 62 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated accounts posing as Americans in Texas and California flooded social media with a unified false message: that U.S. strikes on Iran were a betrayal of American voters, done at Israel’s behest.

The campaign resulted in nearly 60,000 posts, potentially reaching millions of users, and enabled the accounts to “gain meaningful influence” over time.

That same month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned of “gray-zone tactics” by state actors, including disinformation and other influence campaigns, amid an increasingly complex global security backdrop.

The platforms, whether intentionally or not, reward the strategy. Their revenue depends on engagement: clicks, shares, impressions and time on site. Content that enrages spreads faster than content that informs.

Algorithms do not distinguish between civic contributions and coordinated manipulation by U.S. adversaries. They optimize for attention. The result is a feedback loop that brings fringe narratives into the mainstream and, ultimately, sows national division.

The risks are not just to our national security. They are also commercial.

The issue is not what people are allowed to say; it is whether users and advertisers know who is speaking and how much of the apparent public reaction is real.

A substantial portion of social media revenue comes from advertisers. Advertisers believe they are paying to reach human beings, but those impressions, likes, shares and followers are being materially inflated by automated or foreign-controlled accounts.

Some initial reforms deserve acknowledgment. Efforts to label state-affiliated media accounts and introduce greater transparency around algorithms are steps in the right direction, but they are not nearly sufficient to address the scale of the threat.

The Federal Trade Commission should step in — not to regulate speech but to enforce transparency. This is squarely within the FTC’s Section 5 mandate against deceptive practices. If companies monetize artificial engagement without clear disclosure, then advertisers and consumers are being misled.

Platforms should be required to disclose what percentage of their accounts are verified human users. These platforms should also provide meaningful transparency regarding the geographic origin of political content.

Users should have a clear context when accounts operate from foreign jurisdictions.

Finally, economic incentives must change. As long as algorithms reward raw engagement above all else, outrage will outperform reason and manipulation will outperform authenticity. Platforms should prioritize verified human interaction and de-emphasize automated amplification.

When bots lose their leverage, foreign adversaries lose one of their cheapest and most effective tools.

None of these reforms silences Americans, nor does any of them outlaw extreme views. A solution must begin by reaffirming a core American principle: Freedom of speech is sacrosanct. The answer to manipulation is not censorship. The cure must not be worse than the disease.

However, defending free speech does not require tolerating deception.

Sander Gerber is a JINSA Distinguished Fellow, the founder and CEO of Hudson Bay Capital, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. All views expressed are his own.

Shawn Chenoweth is the director of Cognitive Advantage at the National Security Council. All views expressed are his own.

Originally published in The Washington Times.

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President Trump Vows To Respond To Downed Apache Helicopter: MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror on Fox News Radio

Nolan Judd — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:34:51 +0000

https://jinsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/FOXM8971338307.mp3

President Donald Trump says Iran shot down a U.S. Apache helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz, and vowed to respond in a post on Truth Social. Senior Pentagon officials have told FOX News Iran use a drone to attack the helicopter while it was patrolling the Strait. Meanwhile, Israel is pressing ahead with its campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

FOX’s Eben Brown speaks with JINSA Distinguished Fellow IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, former major general and National Security Advisor of Israel and was also the head of the Research Department of Israeli military intelligence, who says while President Trump wants Israel to stop military action against Hezbollah, they have little choice when facing daily missile barrages.

According to MG (ret.) Amidror, Israel understands “that the ceasefire includes the inability of Israel to continue to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon, and we have to show both the Americans and the Iranians that this is not acceptable.”

The post President Trump Vows To Respond To Downed Apache Helicopter: MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror on Fox News Radio appeared first on JINSA.