A bilateral ceasefire imposed by US President Donald Trump early Tuesday morning at present appears shaky at best.
Shortly after the ceasefire went into effect, Iran launched three ballistic missiles at Israel in two separate attacks, openly violating the truce.
Under heavy pressure from the White House and a blunt, public presidential order via social media to “turn the planes around”, Israel abandoned its own threatened “severe response” and instead simply destroyed a radar system outside Tehran.
“IRAN WILL NEVER REBUILD THEIR NUCLEAR FACILITIES!” Trump proclaimed in a post on his Truth Social media platform.
But Trump’s declaration that Iran would abandon its nuclear ambitions and its dream of destroying the State of Israel was premature at best: By Tuesday afternoon, top Iranian military officials were assuring local media that in fact, the nuclear program was still intact, as was the intention to wipe out the Jewish State.
General Ebrahim Jabbari, senior advisor to the IRGC commander-in-chief and former commander of Supreme Leader Khamenei’s security unit, told an interviewer Monday on Iran’s Channel 3 that the US may have joined the conflict because Iran was on the verge of annihilating Israel.
In a video clip translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Jabbari stated that Iranians must “chop off President Trump’s hand” and “slit Netanyahu’s throat.” He also claimed that American military bases and warships in the region could be eliminated “in the blink of an eye,” and that Israel itself must be annihilated.
Likewise, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) chief Mohammad Eslami was quoted Tuesday by the Tasnim News Agency (linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)) as saying “arrangements have been made to prevent any disruption to the country’s nuclear activities.”
Eslami condemned the Israeli and American military attacks on Iran’s “peaceful nuclear facilities,” but said his agency “has taken all necessary measures and is assessing damages in sites that have been attacked.”
Iran had made a series of arrangements in advance to restore the nuclear activities, Eslami emphasized, adding that “plans are in place to prevent any hiatus in the process of production and services in the nuclear industry.”
One has to wonder how long it will take before Iran does indeed reconstitute its nuclear development program and once more pose an existential threat to Israelis — and how the US will intervene the next time Israel is forced to defend itself from that threat.
