Four Days in June, June 12-15, 2025

These have been quite some four days. Much to digest and many open questions. Here are some highlights and reactions.

IAEA Board Iran Resolution On Thursday, June 13, the E3 (France, Germany, U.K.) pushed their resolution on Iran through the IAEA Board of Governors, finding Iran in noncompliance with its NPT safeguards agreement, which will lead to a report to the UN Security Council where further action can take place. That’s the way things looked on Thursday.

6th Round of U.S.-Iran Talks The 6th round of U.S. (Witkoff)-Iran talks was first announced for Thursday, then moved to Sunday, June 15, in Oman. There seemed to be a stalemate on enrichment in Iran. On Saturday, Oman announced that the talks had been cancelled., while President Trump publicly encouraged Iran to resume the talks to reach agreement that Iran would give up uranium enrichment. That is U.S. negotiation tactics in the Trump era.

Israel Netanyahu had threatened to attack Iran. It was reported that Trump told him to hold off to see what the 6th round would bring. Netanyahu went ahead with a massive attack on Iran, focusing on assassinations of Iranian leadership. Attacked initially were also nuclear sites and air defense systems. Iran responded with missiles on Israel. By Sunday, June 15, Israel was attacking Iranian oil and gas facilities and civilian targets, Iran was responding, and the war was spreading. Reports were 78 killed in Iran, 4-6 killed in Israel, and lots of wounded in both countries.

IAEA inspectors IAEA Director General Grossi, in a statement to the UN Security Council, reported that IAEA inspectors had been safely withdrawn. That seems to mean that IAEA inspection in Iran is paused.

Comments

‘New war with Israel at any moment’, ‘still digging through rubble’

The news about Iran has taken an ominous tone in the last couple days. Here is some reporting and commentary. Newsweek on August 18, 2025, reported that Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior military adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said ‘ We are not in a ceasefire; we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation, or agreement has been written between us and the U.S. or Israel. A new war with Israel could break out at any moment .’ Yonah Jeremy Bob commented in The Jerusalem Post on August 19, 2025, that ‘ Khamenei can either “drink from the poisoned chalice” of diplomatic concessions … or face more airstrikes, possibly next time some targeting him directly ’. Bob also noted that ‘ right now Iran is still digging through rubbl e’. The U.S. attacked Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan on June 22. Two months of digging. No surprise that there has been no public news about that.

Assessing possible outcomes of the snapback mechanism

The initiation by the E3 of the 30-day snapback mechanism in the UN Security Council makes everything more difficult and there is great uncertainty about the outcome. Will it be peaceful with a new nuclear deal with Iran, negotiated by the U.S., endorsed by the UNSC and verified by IAEA, or will Iran withdraw from NPT with further military action by Israel and the U.S.? To perhaps shed a little light on what the outcome will be, here is my analysis of how the players - Iran, U.S. and E3 - may be assessing the acceptability of the range of outcomes. Four levels of acceptability were used: 1 Fully acceptable; 2 Less acceptable; 3 Just acceptable; and 4 Not acceptable. Four near term 30-day outcomes are listed, and two optimistic outcomes with an interim U.S.-Iran agreement reached within a 6-month extension. For the 30-day near term, the best outcome would b...

More on MOABs

MOAB is a 30,000-pound steel-alloy, precision-guided bomb designed to destroy subterranean targets. Its proper name is GBU-57, also known as “bunker buster” or Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). MOP development dates to at least 2002. In 2007, the Air Force said it could penetrate up to 200 feet. The latest version, known as GBU-57E/B, has been in the operational inventory since 2016. In January 2018, the 4th upgrade was completed. Upgrades continue, especially improving the fuse. The number available for operational use is not public; the initial order to Boeing was for 20. In February 2018, more were ordered. Some have been used in tests. The small number of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers are the only aircraft that can deploy MOAB. There are no public reports of MOAB being used in combat. ( But it was reported that one was deployed in Afghanistan .) Much of the impetus for the MOP program was provided by Iran’s push to bury its nuclear enrichment infrastructure deep und...

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