Key take aways <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Explosions rocked Tehran early Friday morning, as Israel carried out a major attack on Iran intended to cripple the country\u2019s nuclear program, Israeli officials said. The strikes raised fears the long-simmering conflict between the two countries could escalate into a war involving the most powerful militaries in the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel appears to have entered a new phase in its attacks on Iran\u2019s critical personnel with these strikes. For years, Israel targeted In Iran\u2019s senior military leadership and many of its top nuclear scientists individually. Some were killed by sticky bombs attached to their car doors. The country\u2019s chief nuclear scientist was killed in a robot-assisted assassination. But some of the strikes tonight appeared to be part of an effort to kill such personnel en masse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
State television is broadcasting footage from the Mahalati complex where military commanders live and showing buildings still on fire and emergency crews still putting out the fire. The state television reports that two residential buildings have collapsed, causing fatalities and injuries, and that cars have burnt and windows have shattered in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shortly after the strike against Iran on Friday, Israel\u2019s defense minister said the country was bracing for a retaliatory missile and drone attack \u201cin the immediate time frame.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The defense minister, Israel Katz, said he had signed an order declaring a \u201cspecial emergency\u201d and called on the public to follow guidelines from the authorities, and to remain in protected areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A U.S. defense official said that air defense systems were being deployed to protect the more than 40,000 American troops scattered at more than a dozen military bases in the region, but declined to say what role the United States was taking in Israel\u2019s defense in the event of Iranian retaliation.Brig. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gen. Effie Defrin, the Israeli military\u2019s chief spokesman, said Israel could not \u201callow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon that would be a danger to Israel and the entire world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have no choice,\u201d he said in video shared with reporters. \u201cWe are operating against an imminent and existential threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201dNetanyahu said Israel had acted to stop Iran \u201cbuying for time\u201d amid ongoing talks with the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He praised President Trump for \u201cleadership\u201d without commenting on whether the United States had backed the strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, just issued his first remarks since the Israeli attack on Iran, in a video statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netanyahu said that Israel had attacked Iran\u2019s main nuclear \u201cenrichment facility in Natanz,\u201d as well as \u201cIran\u2019s leading nuclear scientists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He accused Iran of advancing its nuclear program, calling it \u201ca clear and present danger to Israel\u2019s very survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201dSecretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the United States was \u201cnot involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.\u201d He added that \u201cIsrael advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He ended his statement with a warning to Iran against any form of retaliation aimed at the U.S. forces in the region: \u201cLet me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Israeli military official briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity in line with army rules said that Israeli intelligence indicated that Iran had been advancing a secret program to assemble a nuclear weapon and said that the country now had enough material to rapidly assemble nuclear bombs. He added that the project was reaching a point of no return.The strikes on Iran have had an immediate impact on civilian flights in the region, especially over or near Tehran. \u201cSome flights are routing around the city or diverting, but there are many flights currently transiting Iranian airspace,\u201d the aviation tracker Flightradar24 said. The aviation tracker said flights had started to divert away from Iran as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netanyahu has made preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon his signature platform for decades. He spoke in historic terms early Friday, saying in an address in Hebrew that Israel was facing \u201cdifficult days, but great days\u201d ahead. \u201cTogether, with God\u2019s help, we will ensure Israel\u2019s eternity,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netanyahu said in a video statement that Israel\u2019s operation would continue \u201cfor as many days as it takes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crude oil prices have jumped sharply following the Israeli attack, with the Brent crude oil future price jumping 8 percent to $75 a barrel. Iran lies on the northern side of the Strait of Hormuz, at the exit of the Persian Gulf, positioning Iran to block much of the oil exports of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and smaller Persian Gulf states if it wishes to do so in retaliation for the Israeli strikeNetanyahu said Iran has \u201ctaken steps that it has never taken before \u2014 steps to weaponize this enriched uranium.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He did not provide specific evidence or additional detail about those steps, but added, \u201cif not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year. It could be within a few months.\u201dSecretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday ordered the State Department to form a new Middle East task force, drawing from many different offices in the agency, to handle needs arising from the crisis in the region, said a U.S. official with knowledge of the action. The purpose of the task force is to be in contact with U.S. citizens during hostilities, offer public messaging and conduct diplomacy.Mehdi Rahmati, a conservative political analyst in Tehran, said, \u201cThere is now a real chance of a regional war,\u201d he said. \u201cOur allies are still capable. Hezbollah has missile and drone capacities and the Houthis are very capable.\u201d He also numbered an Iraqi miltiia among Iran\u2019s alliesSenator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, criticized the Israeli strikes. \u201cIsrael\u2019s alarming decision to launch airstrikes on Iran is a reckless escalation that risks igniting regional violence,\u201d he said. \u201cThese strikes threaten not only the lives of innocent civilians, but the stability of the entire Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Key take aways Explosions rocked Tehran early Friday morning, as Israel carried out a major attack on Iran intended to cripple the country\u2019s nuclear program, Israeli officials said. The strikes raised fears the long-simmering conflict between the two countries could escalate into a war involving the most powerful militaries in the Middle East. Israel appears to have entered a new phase in its attacks on Iran\u2019s critical personnel with these strikes. For years, Israel targeted In Iran\u2019s senior military leadership and many of its top nuclear scientists individually. Some were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1875,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872\/revisions\/1875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}