Engulfing New York With A Socialist Tidal Wave

"I don't think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality."

"[New York is] the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and yet one in four New Yorkers are living in poverty." 

"Globalise the intifada [is] a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights." 

"I have already to start to get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I'm from, who I am, ultimately because he wants to distract from what I am fighting for." 

"Why is it that there are five or six fast food restaurants in a five-block radius, but I can’t find anywhere where I can actually afford to buy groceries?"

"What this [proposed] network of municipally-owned grocery stores would provide is a guarantee of cheaper groceries and a recognition that food is a non-negotiable for New Yorkers."

Zohran Mamdani, Democratic candidate for mayor of New York  

Mamdani made history last week as the first Muslim American to win a mayoral primary race in New York City   Bloomberg via Getty Images

"What you've built goes far beyond New York City." 

"You've captured the imagination of progressives everywhere with a blueprint for how we can win: with hope, with values, and with the belief that politics can be a force for good."

"We're watching -- and we're inspired."

Marit Stiles, Ontario NDP leader  

He is 33 years old, has held American citizenship for all of seven years. And he has won a primary to be the Democratic representative in a ballot for mayor of the wealthiest, most populous city in the United States, a huge proportion of which are Jewish New Yorkers. He is also held to be a rampant antisemite, although he denies it. He does champion the 'Palestinian cause' and faults Israel. He represents the most progressive of the democratic movement in the United States and he feels he is able to diagnose all the ills of American society and in the process change the culture to reflect what many call a communist ideal.

 

 

 

Openly socialist, he champions the very essence of far-left causes, beloved of radicals that cling to the socialist ideal. His sudden appearance as the successful nominee for the city's November mayoral election has been a shock to many and a celebratory event to many others. At the present time he appears favoured to win the city government mayoralty. This is not just any American city; it is the most vitally important financial and cultural centre anywhere on Earth. Seated as mayor this man has the potential to become the most influentially prominent of American politicians.

 

Andrew Cuomo, once lionized as New York's progressive mayor who impressed Americans during his  tenure with his leadership before falling into disfavour, appeared not to have stood a chance against this personality cult campaign he was unable to compete with, a vibrant personality prized by the young and disaffected, and those for whom life's expenses were a drain on their expectations of the future. 

 

His supporters celebrate his promises of free transit, public daycare and government services to New Yorkers, all paid for by draining the wealth of rich New Yorkers. Law and order, as far as he is concerned can look after itself, with a reduction in the number of NYPD police. And nor will prisons be needed under his administration, since solving poverty will also solve the commission of crime. The 'progressive prosecutors' and public disorder solutions will carry on as before. 

 

Skilled in non-English languages, Mamdani was able to reach out  to those for whom English is not their mother tongue, in a city and a country increasingly beset with illegal immigration and migrant penetration. His attention to foreign conflicts greatly appeals to many of that segment of the population in this sanctuary city that takes Emma Lazarus's 'New Colossus' more seriously than ever: "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free".

 

His winning political ways scrutinizing far-off conflicts makes him a critic of Israel, refusing to condemn the phrase "Globalize the Intifada", with all its glorious connotations of destroying Israel, and handing the territory vacated over to the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians in favour of inheriting by force the ancestral homeland of ancient Judea. Mamdani's supporters and admirers are also those who admire and support Hamas, big surprise.

 

In the best progressive manner conceivable, the prospective New York mayor supports the use of public funds to subsidize transgender health care, supports sexual minority rights, typifying modern left-wing populism with its aspiration to tax the wealthy under a government planning to seize power to manipulate the economy to its liking. And that liking extends to rent caps, subsidized public housing and free city government services. 

 

In the process the new city council under its new mayor will succeed in driving out capital with its hostility to private wealth management, along with its averse attitude to law enforcement. The smiling man that now basks in the adoration of New York's disaffected whose cost of living agony demands rescue, is prepared to introduce socialism on steroids to the most interesting, dynamic city in the world.  

 

New York mayoral candidate, State Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-NY) speaks to supporters during an election night gathering on June 24, 2025. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

 

 

 

Violent Extremist Organizations ... Cybersecurity

"Using a multi-faceted approach that targeted VEOs' technical infrastructure and online presence, CSE conducted active cyber operations to damage the credibility and influence of key group leaders, reducing their ability to inspire and lead."

"[The operations also aimed to] weaken trust and reduce cohesion between leaders and followers, undermining the unity and strength of these organizations."

Communications Security Establishment (CSE) Canada report

 

"It's difficult for me to get into details about the actual techniques that are being used, because if we share those techniques, then that impacts them and the effectiveness decreases."

"Violent extremism is a big one, because there is an immediate threat to Canada. So, what we've tried to do is highlight what the impact is [of CSE's cyber operations]."

"Our mandate in this sphere is foreign."

"Corrective actions included placing strict limits on information sharing and seeking assurances from CSE's trusted partners that the shared information was deleted."

"We absolutely do see that those two states [North Korea and Iran] pose a continued threat to Canada, just not highlighted in this report." 

Bridget Walshe, deputy Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security

This Dec. 5, 2017, photo shows flags of Canada and China prior to a meeting of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. A national security-and-intelligence watchdog says China and Russia are meddling in Canada's affairs. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Fred Dufour

 

While Canada's cyber-intelligence agency counters VEOs to neutralize violent extremist group leaders' computers and networks, it also extends its attention and actions to attack their reputation, credibility and trustworthiness with the distinct goal of undermining them, as revealed in the CSE's latest annual report, which outlines new information of what actions it  undertakes during the process of an "active cyber operation".

 

These are campaigns meant to disrupt, influence or interfere with online threats posed by hostile actors like foreign states, organized crime, or extremist groups, activities approved by Canada's defence ministry. These are actions transcending cliched images of tech impresarios in masks and hoodies hacking into the computers of threat actors, wreaking havoc on their information-technology systems that ordinarily take place. 

 

There were instances in the past year when CSE organized operations focusing on violent extremist organizations. Adversaries' online presence and reputation was targeted as an example, as well as their IT infrastructure. While in an interview, the associate head of the CSE said she was professionally unprepared to reveal particulars of online disparagement campaigns focused on leaders of violent extremist groups that were being addressed by her cyberagency group.

 

What she could reveal was that the agency was authorized to operate four active or defensive cyber operations in the fiscal year just passed, inclusive of an additional one that saw it target the ten largest ransomware groups affecting Canada.  The agency detected a ransomware group targeting Canadians working in a critical infrastructure sector; CSE identified and notified victims and disrupted activity by the criminal group through a cyber operation.

 

Legitimate businesses covertly supporting foreign governments' military, political and commercial activities for the purpose of undermining the Canadian Armed Forces were identified by the spy agency. CSE responded to 2,561 cybersecurity incidents affecting the Government of Canada or critical infrastructure providers over the past year; a 16 percent increase over the previous year.

 

Canada's critical infrastructure sectors such as energy, finance, food, water and manufacturing are increasingly being targeted by hostile actors. The People's Republic of China is identified by the CSE as by far the most prominent threat to Canada's national security; in activities ranging from espionage to intellectual property theft and transnational repression. Government, civil society, media, the defence industry and the R&D sector are all targets of China's actions in Canada.

 

And nor is Russia given a clean slate of behaviour against Canada as it continues to conduct espionage, spread disinformation and engage in influence operations against Canadians. Barely mentioned in the 2024-25 report, North Korea and Iran both pose cyberthreats, remaining problematic threat actors to Canada.  

"Nation states, in particular the PRC, are undertaking massive data collection campaigns, collecting billions of data points on democratic politicians, public figures, and citizens around the world."

"Advances in predictive AI allow human analysts to quickly query and analyze these data. We assess it likely that such states are gaining an improved understanding of democratic political environments as a result, [and are] almost certainly enhancing their capabilities to conduct targeted influence and espionage campaigns."

Communications Security Establishment Canada  

 

This is the (Iranian) Regime

"I've never heard anyone say, 'Why is Israel doing this. Everyone was saying, 'This is the regime, they are the root cause of this. They put us in this situation'."

"Every day for school, even in elementary school, there are flags of the U.S. and Israel on the floor -- [students] have to walk over the flags to start our morning."

"For the long-term situation, for the safety of the Jewish and Israeli people and the rest of the world, the only long-term and sustainable solution is regime change."

"Iranian civil society needs help from the world to do this."

Maral (identity withheld) 

 

"Economically, this is a country that, 40 years ago, was one of the fastest-developing countries in the world." 

"Since the revolution, it's become one of the most stagnant economies in the world -- thanks to corruption and mismanagement, but also the incredible international isolation as a result of the regime's foolish international policies, sponsorship of terrorism and pursuit of nuclear weapons." 

Kaveh Shahrooz, lawyer, activist, Macdonald-Laurier Institute fellow  

People step on the posters of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi as supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) take part in a protest, in Brussels, Belgium March 20, 2023.   (photo credit: REUTERS/Johanna Geron)

 

Most Iranians in spite of being exposed to years of institutionally enforced contempt and hatred against Israel and the United States, are not, in the wake of Israel's air attacks on the Islamic Republic, and the U.S.'s decision to bomb the country's three major nuclear installations blaming them for the situation they found themselves in. Identity concealed in fear of reprisals to herself and her family, 'Maral' spoke of the generalized view of ordinary life in Iran. Her sentiments in describing ordinary Iranians' view of the situation places matters in a  different perspective than that of the Islamist government that has been oppressing its people since 1979.

 

The Iranians whose views are that the country can only emerge from its isolation and dark reputation -- based on its record of promoting terrorism and its mission of becoming a nuclear nation while threatening its neighbours and the world at large -- through the difficult-to-achieve removal of the current theocratic government, to replace it with one that would focus on returning to its former governance of moderation and steady momentum toward political and social modernization.

 

Maral described how proscribed life has been from a young age to maturity in Iran, as the state engaged relentlessly in modelling its youth in the image of its ferocious detestation of Western democracy and its deadly hatred of Israel, never referred to other than as the "Zionist entity". Official regime slogans meant to reinforce among its population a loathing for the West and a country symbolizing a Western presence in the Middle East, popularized calls for 'death to America' and 'death to Israel' were as expected as the Nazi salute in 'Heil Hitler'.

 

Antiquated forms of punishment such as stoning, flogging and mutilation are still practiced in Iran and are in fact quite common. While some may argue that such punishments are necessary for preserving social order, the reality is that they are still used in modern-day Iran for the sole purpose of instilling fear, suppressing dissent, and discouraging opposition to the regime.

Women in Iran have also faced various forms of punishment for not adhering to the compulsory hijab laws, including arrest, imprisonment, fines, and even physical abuse. According to Dr. Shirin Ebadi, (Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Iranian Judge turned human rights activist), things were not always this way. Prior to 1979, women could choose not to wear the hijab and there was freedom of religion. By contrast, nowadays, atheists can be executed and Muslims who convert or change their religion can be punished and even put to death. Besides Islam, only Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism have been afforded some degree of recognition under the constitution. Other religions are not recognized at all, and adherents of these marginalized faiths have been persecuted and denied their citizenship rights. This includes the Baha’is, the Yarsanis and the Yazidis.  

Iranian university students have adopted a silent but telling pushback to the expectations that they follow the regime expectations of them, by exercising careful restraints to avoid treading on the outstretched flags in a growing move to resist the brutal theocracy. A large number of those students have dedicated themselves to supporting a growing desire to bring in regime change.

Ontario Bar Association 

 

Well over 200,000 expatriate Iranians are Canadian citizens, many arriving after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, others arriving more recently, from 2011 forward. Among them is an estimated several hundred who act as agents of the Iranian government on Canadian soil, promoting the Republic's malicious anti-U.S., anti-Israel narratives and supporting the Palestinian claim to the Jewish ancestral land that Israel sits upon, as their very own patrimony that Jews wrested illegally from the Arabs living there in the modern era.

 

The vast majority of Iranian-Canadians are outraged at the presence of Iranian agents of the Islamic Republic permitted by Canada's lax immigration division to remain in Canada along with the indifference of the Canadian government, despite proven links to the Regime. Living in Canada, Iranian agents threaten, harass and even plan assassinations of Iranian-Canadians judged by their regime handlers to constitute a risk to their plans of disarming their targets, deemed to present problematically to Iranian aspirations.

 

Among their targets, high-profile international human rights activist and former Parliamentarian and cabinet minister, Irwin Cotler. He was informed a year ago by the federal police, (RCMP), that he was the target of a plot to assassinate him. The community of ordinary Iranian-Canadians have been warning the Canadian government of the presence of high-placed Iranian officials in Canada, enjoying the country as a haven while operating to create divisions within communities in Canada. In so doing, to the present, speaking to deaf ears.

 

A police motorcycle burns during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic's "morality police", in Tehran, Iran September 19, 2022. iranintl.com

 

How It All Went Down at Iran's Fordow

"You do not build a multilayered underground bunker complex with centrifuges and other equipment in a mountain for any peaceful purpose."

"[The military does not] grade our own homework [this is left for the U.S intelligence community to produce damage assessments]."

"We know that the trailing jets saw the first weapons function and the pilots stated, quote: 'This was the brightest explosion that I've ever seen. It literally looked like daylight'."

"When the crews went to work on Friday, they kissed their loved ones goodbye, not knowing when or if they’d be home. Late on Saturday night, their families became aware of what was happening."

General Dan Caine, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks at a news conference with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine at the Pentagon on June 26.   Kevin Wolf/AP

 

General Caine revealed that the U.S. aerial Sunday raid on Iran -- Operation Midnight Hammer -- represented the culmination of a secret military project that originated in 2009, with the involvement of a small team comprised within the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The years from then to the present were spent studying Tehran's method in building its uranium enrichment underground lair. The end stage was to analyze the method whereby the U.S. military might dismantle the facility in the event that Iran attained the capacity to weaponize that uranium to produce atomic devices. 

 

Top officials in the Pentagon took the enlightened step of revealing details relating to the U.S. bombing of Iran's major nuclear facilities -- as well as details surrounding the anticipated and subsequent defence of a U.S. military base in Qatar from a retaliatory attack from Iran. Both events representing intricate operations holding little margin for error. During the briefing, no mention was made of Tehran's uranium stockpile's whereabouts. 

 

The drama that unfolded last weekend when six B-2 stealth bombers under cover of darkness, with each carrying two 30,000-pound bunker-busting rounds, dropped them on the Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, an event foreordained by the imminence of Tehran's successful exploitation of covertly enriching uranium to near-bomb-level and its stated intention to annihilate American ally Israel, when the IDF took the initiative to begin its preemptive bombing raids over Iran. That 15 years of work produced the armaments capable of penetrating the mountain fastness near Qom.

 

In that spectacular scenario, the initial bomb "forcibly removed" a concrete cap that had been emplaced by Iranian officials, meant to shield the complex from attack. The following eleven bombs fell precisely down and into mountaintop vents within, to maximize destruction. Each successive bomb penetrating deeper into the underground laboratories than the one preceding it. A seventh B-2 bomber carrying two additional bombs, it was explained, flew with the other six as a spare. It later released its two bombs on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility, upon which all seven planes returned home to Missouri.

 

Known formally as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator -- or Guided Bomb Unit 57 -- the bombs were designed and built specifically for that mission; they released according to plan,  hit the intended targets, and exploded as intended -- only when they reached the depth of penetration each succeeded to, explained the general.

 

As these details were being  revealed on Thursday, President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth were voicing anger at the disclosure of a classified early assessment of the bombing raid in the form of a document produced by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, suggesting the attack may have set the Iranian nuclear program back by months, and not years.

 

In opposition, both President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth claimed the strike to have "obliterated" Tehran's nuclear development capacity, as opposed to General Caine's more selective language, awaiting a complete analysis by the U.S. intelligence community. President Trump was moved to direct the Pentagon news conference to "Fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots". 

 

The truth of the matter is that the Islamic Republic of Iran suffered a long-due reckoning. One that was extremely costly to its aspirations of domination and conquest. Its technical nuclear installations have suffered grievous damage to its two-decade commitment to achieve nuclear status. As long as the current regime continues to control the Iranian government, state, military and populace with its iron grip, the strikes that laid waste to its plans while a severe blow, will only reinforce its determination to carry on.

 

The only solution to the presence of a terrorist-ridden theocracy that preys on its own people, stifling their lives and sacrificing their well-being to the government's drive to replace the Arab Sunni-Muslim majority dominance in the Middle East by its minority Persian Shi'ite-Muslim envisioned conquest, with the aid of its satellite terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Gaza, is to destroy the leadership of the Republic, its Islamist-jihad-dedicated Islamic Republican Guard Corps, its Basij militias, and its terrorist proxies, to free the people of Iran to resume life in a civilized nation, that will be a threat to no one.

 

 

Islamophobia Reigns!

"For decades, organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is also an adherent, have managed to embed themselves at all levels of Canadian Society."

"[The Muslim Brotherhood that has declared] jihad against the Jews [established a vast network of charities and fundraising across Canada]."

Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP)

 

"This report is a wake-up call for all Canadians."

"[The federal government should] designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and] immediately freeze public funding to suspect organizations."

"Our report exposes how federal agencies have become complicit in sustaining and legitimizing networks that promote antisemitic and anti-Israel ideologies under the guise of charity and social welfare."

"These entities are exploiting the very values of tolerance and pluralism that Canada holds dear, weaponizing public institutions against Jewish communities and undermining Canadian democracy itself."

ISGAP board adviser Dr. Charles Asher Small 

Haras Rafiq, left, a director at Secure Canada, is with the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy speaks at an event in Toronto. Photo by Rob Roberts/National Post

 

"We stand on Guard for Thee? The Growing Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on Politics, Academia, and Civil Society in America", published this week by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy on whose board of directors sits Canada's former justice minister Irwin Cotler. The report sounds a long-overdue warning of the prominent presence in Canada of an organization established in Egypt almost a century ago. The Muslim Brotherhood's primary focus is the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. Antisemitic conspiracies is an integral feature of their ideology.  

 

Tellingly, while the Muslim Brotherhood has experienced no measure of suspicion by the Western governments they have inveigled their way into, establishing themselves as a respected group speaking for Islam and the welfare of Muslims in the global umma, they are recognized as a terrorist group and outlawed in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. That enlightened view in recognition of what the Brotherhood represents is not shared by Western democracies, a puzzling lack of awareness.

 

Ignorance of the fact that Hamas is a Palestinian offshoot of the Brotherhood prevails. A Florida-based research group, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, identified a number of Canadian charities with extensive links to the Muslim Brotherhood, pointing out their exploitation of Canadian law to enable them to raise funds for Muslim Brotherhood factions in the Middle East. Samidoun, based in Vancouver is one of them, recently declared a terrorist group by the federal government, but permitted to continue their Islamist agitation within Canada, along with fundraising.

 

NGO Monitor presents information about Samidoun in the European Union Parliament (March 2023)

 

The Muslim Association of Canada which boasts of being the "largest Muslim grassroots Canadian charitable organization", has been concerning in their influence in Canada on government and its agencies. A 2021 Canada Revenue Agency audit found "the concept of the Muslim Brotherhood appeared" in the charity's "governing documents". According to the Muslim Association of Canada, a "systematic Islamophobia" bias is in play, appealing the CRA audit that found sufficient grounds to revoke its charitable status, though it remains a registered charity on the federal government's database.

  

"This report is nothing more than recycled Islamophobic tropes dressed up as 'research' when in reality it's a biased, unsubstantiated hit piece that relies solely on discredited allegations -- allegations that were questioned by the Ontario Superior Court for their apparent bias and ultimately abandoned by the CRA in concluding its audit and reaching a resolution with MAC". Muslim Association of Canada rebuttal.

 

As it happens, the federal investigation revealed "most prominent members, directors and officials" of MAC were involved with either International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN-Canada) "or a network of charities that appear to have been used to propagate and fundraise for Hamas in Canada". Designated a terror entity in 2014, IRFAN-Canada transferred almost $15 million to Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza. 

"I think all Western countries have come to an understanding that the Brotherhood is a problematic group and I think the findings of all other countries apply also to Canada."

"The Brotherhood has an ability to push within Muslim communities narratives that are highly divisive, that are polarizing. It promotes values that are antithetical to those of Western constitutions when it comes to democracy, while it comes to women's rights, when it comes to gay rights, when it comes to freedom of religion, when it comes to antisemitism."

"[While the Islamist group itself] might not be directly engaged in terrorist activities, it promotes a narrative -- it mainstreams a narrative -- that lays the groundwork for jihadist groups to recruit. It creates this narrative of victimization: the narrative that Muslims are constantly under attack by the West with widespread Islamophobia."

Lorenzo Vidino, terror finance researcher, George Washington University Program on Extremism 

The leading Canadian Muslim advocacy group, the ISGAP report points out, the National Council of Canadian Muslims, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, Originally known as the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN), it was an outgrowth of the U.S. CAIR group, "a self-described Muslim Brotherhood front organization".  

"This report does not serve Canadian interests. It amplifies foreign narratives designed to fuel Islamophobia and division within our society."

"Canadians should be concerned about foreign influence, particularly the foreign-funded industry of anti-Muslim hate that fuels reports like this."

"These authors should be ashamed of themselves for trafficking in Islamophobic tropes that endanger Canadian Muslims and undermine social cohesion."

Muslim Association of Canada 

Islamophobia is the trigger-word whose purpose is to invoke the non-Muslim conscience against bigotry against Muslims. It is the ultimate victimhood word, designed and designated to prick empathy for a beleaguered religious group. A group, in actual fact, that has made it a vital part of their purpose in life, faithful to the injunctions of the Koran, to vilify and reproach non-Muslims for their ungodly ways. To target Jews and kuffars as enemies of Islam.

 

It is the Muslim community following the example of the committed jihadists among them that have trafficked in antisemitism, harassing the Canadian Jewish population, excoriating and damning Israel, lauding the courage of Islamist terrorists as freedom fighters, suggesting that Jews deserved the rapine, torture, mass murder perpetrated on peaceful Israeli farming communities. And while vehemently and violently violating Canadian population cohesion by their divisive and unlawful actions, portraying themselves as victims. 

Protesters gather for the Sit-In for Gaza outside the Alberta Legislature on October 18, 2023 in Edmonton, Canada. (Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Interrupting Iran's Nuclear Program

"The fact that Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon State in the world that is producing and accumulating uranium enriched to 60 percent remains a matter of serious concern, which has drawn international attention given the potential proliferation implications."

"[The IAEA cannot] ignore the potential proliferation implications [and it is not in a] position to provide assurance that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively peaceful."

International Atomic Energy Agency 

 

"The Iranian regime is the most destabilizing force in the Middle East and the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world."

"A nuclear-armed Iran would pose a grave threat to global security and U.S. national security."

"Allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is an outcome that must never be allowed."

"This military escalation was ordered unilaterally, without Congressional authorization or meaningful consultation."

"There are important Constitutional implications that must be addressed going forward." 

New Jersey Democrat Senator Cory Booker

 

"Presidents of both [U.S. political parties] have deployed U.S. forces and ordered the use of military force, without congressional authorization, on numerous occasions."

"Over the last two decades, Congress has acquiesced more and more to uses of military force by presidents of both parties without congressional approval and with little congressional oversight."

Adjunct senior fellow for international and national security law, Council on Foreign Relations, John Bellinger

An Israeli Air Force fighter jets takes off for strikes in Iran, June 18, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

 

Three Iranian nuclear facilities, Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, were struck on Saturday in preemptive assaults by the United States, which decided to join Israel in its aerial bombardment of Iran's nuclear installations with a view to prevent the Islamic Republic from succeeding in the manufacture of atomic bombs to add to its ballistic missile arsenal in its aspirations to produce warheads. Short-range ballistic missiles to be used to destroy Israel, long-range missiles to strike the United States; as threatened time and again.

 

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the largest sponsor of world terrorism is estimated to possess sufficient uranium to enable it to create nine nuclear weapons after undertaking the short step to enrich its uranium product from the current 60 percent to the required 90 percent enrichment. "Since 16 February 2021, the Agency has not been able to verify Iran's total enriched uranium stockpile precisely on any given day", reads the IAEA's May report of verification and monitoring in Iran. 

 

As far as cooperating with the international inspection agency is concerned, Iran has never been open and above-board with respect to its nuclear plans and actual research and production practises. Inspectors were withheld the opportunity to monitor heavy water production required for the nuclear program; access to enrichment facilities were refused for Natanz and Fordow; and centrifuge inspections or other infrastructure were not allowed to proceed. 

 

Then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility some 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran in 2008. (AP/Iranian President’s Office)

 

Iran is a signatory to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between it and the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany, agreed to in 2015. When the deal was signed then-U.S. President Barack Obama, described the outcome as: "The historic deal which will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon". This was a deal that failed to include Iran's emerging technology in the production of ballistic missiles, and one that completely sidestepped its primary links to terrorist groups.

 

Since that signing and the pledge inherent in its agreement a decade ago,  Iran has  hindered inspectors, flouted a key point of limiting levels of uranium enrichment to an agreed-upon 3.67 percent -- instead proceeding with enrichment of uranium to 60 percent in direct violation of the agreement. The Islamic Republic succeeded in amassing a stockpile of 408.6 kilograms of 60 percent uranium.

 

Figures from the IAEA state that 42 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium can produce one atomic bomb, enriched further to 90 percent. 408 kilograms therefore, represents a potential for nine weapons if further enriched. A controversy has erupted in the wake of Saturday's bunker-busting bombs aimed at penetrating the mountain fastness of the Fordow facility. There is uncertainty over the extent to which Iran's nuclear program was impacted. 

 

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his military leaders face an enemy with superior military hardware. Anadolu via Getty Images

 

Iran is unlikely to be entirely shut off from obtaining nuclear weapons in months or years into the future. What the strikes accomplished was to address the immediacy of the situation whereby prevention was required to ensure atomic bombs, so close to completion on the horizon, was set back for possibly a considerable amount of time. In that time, it would be possible, even feasible, that the regime would fall, and with it the Islamist ideology of acquiring weaponry of a striking calibre that could result in catastrophic loss of human life.

 

Were Iran to be left to its malign devices as it has been to the present time -- prior to Israel's unleashing of an aerial campaign of precision and determination to not only strike nuclear emplacements, but military and IRGC bases, weapons caches, along with assassinations of key government, military and scientific leading figures to send the program into disarray while eliminating many of the figures deeply involved in supporting nuclear weaponry development -- the production of nuclear weapons was assessed to be mere weeks or months ahead.

 

Iran's bad faith relationship with the nuclear inspectors, its hidden nuclear sites, its stated intentions threatening the survival of an entire country in the Middle East, naming other countries as enemies to be dealt with harshly as "Death to America" portends, made it a mandatory intervention of survival for at least two countries, and likely more, inclusive of the majority-Sunni Arab countries sharing the geography of the Middle East, which Iran's Shi'ite-led 'axis of evil' was groomed to conquer.

 

 

 

Iran has furthermore, trained and armed terrorist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq, providing them with updated technologically advanced rockets. There are no guarantees that Iran would withhold from its proxy terrorist groups atomic weaponry that would make them infinitely more dangerously effective at carrying out their directives from Iran to do its bidding in attacking and annihilating the Jewish state. Jihad demands total loyalty to the concept of killing non-believers as an obligation to Islam.

 

Terrorist groups in possession of nuclear weapons would represent a nightmare scenario of helplessness for any targeted population living in fear and  trepidation of imminent attacks by terrorist groups for whom a massive death toll would be viewed as a success in following through that obligation to prove to Islam that the world stands in awe and suspense over where and when the final blow from Islamist terror would strike in its challenge of the non-Muslim democratic world.

 

The decisions made by Israel and the United States in striking at Iran and its threatening forces was long overdue in view of the simmering antagonisms and terrorist attacks taking place throughout the world as Islamist terror normalized its presence as a counter-weight in world affairs to long-distant colonial rule and the supremacy of Western thought, technology, laws and values in a world that Iran believes belongs to Islam and its values and laws.

 

Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, an Iraqi militia trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards  Wilson Center

 

Solution to Iran's Nuclear Ambitions ... Regime Change

"Craters are visible at the Fordo site, Iran’s main location for enriching uranium to 60%. Entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit [at Isfahan, as had buildings] related to the uranium conversion process. At Natanz [the fuel enrichment plant had] been hit again."

"[But] no one [including International Atomic Energy Agency, was] in a position to assess the underground damage at Fordo."

"[Calling for inspectors to be allowed back] to Iran’s nuclear sites and account for the stockpiles of uranium, including, most importantly, the 400kg enriched to 60%."

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general, U.N.'s IAEA

 

"The fundamental reality remains that military action alone can only roll back the program by degrees, not eliminate it fully."

"[The success of the American attacks, particularly at the Fordo plant], is not immediately apparent. Imagery can’t show much about the damage down at the centrifuge enrichment hall, so the U.S. and Israel will be relying heavily on intelligence from inside the Iranian system"

"[But even if the destruction was widespread], Iran retains extensive expertise that will allow it to eventually reconstitute what aspects of the program have been damaged or destroyed."

"The Iranian nuclear program is decades old and draws on extensive Iranian indigenous expertise. The physical elimination of the program’s infrastructure — and even the assassination of Iranian scientists — will not be sufficient to destroy the latent knowledge that exists in the country."  

Darya Dolzikova​, senior research fellow, Royal United Services Institute think tank, London

A man walks past a billboard displaying images of top Iranian commanders and scientists killed in Israeli strikes early Friday, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

 

Just as there is no way to obliterate the fixation of the Islamic Republic of Iran's desired destruction of Israel, no method exists to destroy the obdurate determination of the Ayatollahs and the Islamic Republican Guard Corps, dedicated to mastering and producing the methodology and materials required to produce atomic bombs, nuclear warheads and their medium- to long-range ballistic delivery systems. North Korea developed its nuclear program in defiance of world opinion because paranoia drove it to have that ultimate weapon.

 

The Islamic Republic of Iran would not be the only Islamic nation in possession of nuclear weapons, politically unstable Pakistan has its nuclear arsenal, and its deadly conflicts with India, another nuclear country, constitutes a risk of spectacular proportions. The Islamic regime in Iran is the world's leading state supporter of terrorism. And its direct threats against the existence of other countries -- most notably Israel, but the United States as well -- make it an imperative that their aspiration of nuclear 'defence' be denied.

 

People watch from a bridge as flames from an Israeli attack rise from Sharan Oil depot, following Israeli strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, June 15, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

 

Israel's daring aerial attacks that began over a week ago targeting the minds that promote nuclear weaponry, their military, their nuclear sites, weapons bases, airfields and naval ports in the interests of preventing Iran from taking the imminent final steps to ownership of the nuclear prize, was a start, one long overdue, given the force of Iran's malevolent actions through its terrorist proxies and its ultimate goal soon to be realized of having the means to obliterate Israel from the Middle East.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump's telegraphed and well-publicized messages that he might and he might not, but likely would proceed in aiding Israel in its goal of destroying the nuclear enrichment sites that augured ill for its existence, served to give advance notice to Iran that it would be well advised in preservation of its goal, to remove the advanced centrifuges and the enriched uranium stockpiled in the three nuclear sites, Fordo, Isfahan and and Natanz as a precaution. The mystery now is where they have been taken to.

 

A combination picture shows satellite images over Fordow underground complex, before and after the U.S. struck the underground nuclear facility, near Qom, Iran, June 20, 2025 (L) and June 22, 2025. via Maxar Technologies

 

Their very existence and the determination by the theocratic regime to continue its mission of nuclear thrust guarantees that the ceasefire that President Trump demanded would lead to a further commencement by Iran of its nuclear program at a time and a place of its choosing. It has, to the present, forged on, despite censure and sanctions, setbacks and opposition, and will continue, in the belief that it pursues a sacred mission dear to Islam in the destruction of Israel and by extension all non-faithful.

 

A cataclysmic upheaval caused by a nuclear detonation would have the effect of hastening the appearance of the Hidden Mahdi upon which event Armageddon would occur, destroying everything and everyone on Earth.  Muhammad al-Mahdi, worshipped in Shi'ite Islam, believed to be the twelfth and last Imam, destined to reappear and bring justice to the world. Justice comprised of mass death to non-Muslims and any Muslims failing to follow Shi'ism for only they will be elevated to a heavenly state, all others will perish.

 

Iranian flags fly as fire and smoke from an Israeli attack on Sharan Oil depot rise, following Israeli strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, June 15, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

 

This ultimate reward for faith requited yearned for and eagerly awaited. The means by which the Islamic Republic can hasten the arrival of the Hidden Imam, is to trigger a massive upheaval, awakening the present-but-not-present Imam to usher the Shia faithful to heaven and punish all others for their untoward unwillingness to embrace Islam, the religion of peace. 

 

Australia: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at a news conference Monday that Iran “cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon.” He said: “The US action was directed at specific sites central to Iran’s nuclear program. We don’t want escalation and a full-scale war,” adding that Iran had “failed to comply” with international obligations.

United Kingdom: Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged Iran to return to the negotiating table after the US strikes, saying on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear program “is a grave threat to international security. Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat.” Hours later, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy echoed the prime minister in a post on X, adding: “The UK did not participate in these strikes. We urge Iran to show restraint and reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis.”

France: Foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot said France had noted the US strikes “with concern,” and that it had not participated. “France has repeatedly expressed its very firm opposition to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons,” he said.

Japan: Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said “a de-escalation as soon as possible is more important than anything” but that “at the same time, Iran’s nuclear weapons development must be stopped.”

Saudi Arabia: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Kingdom is following “with deep concern” the developments in Iran and urged the international community to increase its efforts toward a “diplomatic solution that would guarantee an end to this crisis and lead to turning a new leaf toward achieving security and stability around the region,” in an Arabic-language statement.

Qatar: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that “dangerous tensions experienced by the region will lead to catastrophic escalations on both the regional and international fronts.” It urged all sides to “exercise wisdom and self-restraint,” and avoid further escalation that would impact people in a region already beset by conflict and humanitarian crises.

Kuwait: The foreign ministry singled out the United Nations Security Council in a call “to honor its responsibilities to maintain global peace and security.” Its statement called for an “immediate and complete halt of any and all forms of escalation, for a complete ceasefire of military activity, and for a complete ceasefire of military activity, and for restraint of language and self-restraint.”

 

Traces are seen in the sky after Iran's armed forces say they targeted The Al-Udeid base in a missile attack, in Qatar, June 23, 2025 (credit: REUTERS/STRINGER)

 

 

Ukraine's Grievances

"It has already been confirmed during repatriations that the bodies of 20 people handed over to us as our deceased soldiers are Russian."  

"They threw the corpses of their citizens at us. This is their attitude toward war; toward their soldiers."

"And this is already documented."

"Sometimes these bodies even have Russian passports."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

https://t.me/V_Zelenskiy_official/14801 

 

In a numerically large prisoner exchange, including the bodies of dead combatants, Ukraine discovered that in their haste and negligence, Russia sent along to Ukraine the corpses of some twenty Russian servicemen, along with Ukraine's own. Ukraine describes the exchange as symbolic of Moscow disorganization in organizing large exchanges of wounded prisoners-of-war and the remains of troops fallen in battle. 

 

Bizarrely, among the dead sent to Ukraine was an Israeli citizen. Identities of the bodies were not disclosed. The Russians, for their part, denied that they had carelessly or inadvertently sent along the remains of Russian soldiers, insisting that the entire number of those sent to Ukraine were Ukrainian in origin. 

 

A Russian passport and ID found with one of the 20 dead Russians was shown as evidence of the Ukrainian claims, however. The document showed the man to whom it belonged had come from the Moscow region. Direct peace talks taking place in Istanbul have produced only the exchanges of the dead and wounded soldiers on both sides; no other tangible results have been seen to credit the talks with having achieved.  

 

A photo of the passport belonging to a Russian soldier whose body was handed over to Ukraine during a military remains exchange, published on June 19, 2025. (Ihor Klymenko / Telegram)

 

Ukraine and Russia had agreed to exchange bodies of fallen soldiers in a 6,000-for-6,000 format as a result of the second round of negotiations in June. Ukraine had expressed concern that the sheer numbers involved would place a strain on time required for forensic examinations and the investigation of the dead identities. Russia's plan, suspected Mr. Zelenskyy, was to accommodate the U.S. insisting on peace talks, to persuade the U.S. not to impose more sanctions. 

 

While Russia proceeded with its war on the winning edge. Placing Ukraine "in a really difficult situation" deciding whether to continue the Istanbul-based negotiations leading to precisely nowhere, other than enabling Moscow to continue stalling as though it was involved in the talks with the sincere intention of contemplating a ceasefire, even as the Kremlin is convinced that Putin's 'special military operation' is on the verge of winning.

 

Stopping just short of explicit support for the strikes that Israel has hit Iranian nuclear sites, IRGC bases, airfields and naval bases, Mr. Zelenskyy declared Ukraine in support of stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. His more basic concern is the effect that this new conflict in the Middle East will draw attention away from Russia's conflict imposed on Ukraine.  

 

President Trump has had a rocky relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY/AFP via Getty Images

 

"Of course, we are against Iran having nuclear weapons. That is, if today they can attack any country, or they can provide weapons to Russia or another country, or even not a country, but a terrorist organization, we do not know to whom they can provide weapons. So this is very, very dangerous."

"Iran gave the Russians everything to kill us. They gave them martyrs, they gave them missiles, and they gave them licences."

"This means that, perhaps, they will provide nuclear weapons and all the experience to their allies. And you hear and understand who their allies are. They are not our allies. They are our enemies." 

"The fact that their production capacities have now become weaker [after Israeli airstrikes at Iranian production facilities] is [a] positive for us."

"But at certain points it may already be too late [since Iran transferred the technology to Russia]."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy  

Pointing out Russia's pact with Iran and North Korea where Iran has supplied Russia with the missiles it hits Ukraine with and North Korea has sent its troops to aid Russia in battle with Ukraine, viewing them all as an evil triumvirate Ukraine must grapple with. Iran-produced Shahed drones have been modified by Russia, using them hundreds at a time to barrage Ukraine. An intermediate-range ballistic missile,the Oreshnik, is being produced by 39 Russian companies; the missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. 

 

A serious escalation occurred in November when Russia attacked Ukraine with the missile. "And therefore it is absolutely incomprehensible why sanctions should not be imposed urgently" on the 21 companies producing the Oreshnik missiles not yet under sanction by the West. At the same time rumours that Patriots air defence systems were destroyed in recent Russian drone and missile barrages, were dismissed.

 

Ukraine, stated Mr. Zelenskyy has begun the use of domestically produced interceptors to shoot down Shahed drones, seeking financing from Germany to speed up production of the weapons. He has, as well, asked western partners to set aside 0.25 percent of their GDP in support of Ukraine's local defence industry. 

 

"Putin really wants us to be without America. For President Trump, the Israel-Iran issue is certainly a higher priority today. The Russians will not be able to really support Iran, because they do not have the forces. But they will pretend to be trying. And this is also a sign, I think, to President Trump."

"I really do not want Trump to negotiate with the Russians against this background not in the direction of Ukraine."

"Therefore, I emphasize once again, from our side we are giving signals and we want nothing to be a cover-up, so that President Trump chooses the historically correct step. Since it is historically right to be with us. Because Putin is an aggressor. And in any case, the aggressor will lose."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

Remembering ... Forgotten

The gentleman will please remember that when his half-civilized ancestors were hunting the wild boar in Silesia, mine were princes of the earth. Judah Benjamin, in reply to a taunt by a Senator of German descent.

None could have been more greatly taken by surprise and mortally offended than secular Jews in civilized, cultivated Germany - who considered themselves more affected and deeply steeped in modernity and creative energy and intelligence by their venerated generations of German citizenship than their Jewish heritage - to discover that they were regarded as mere Jews, fit for nothing but eradication by the Third Reich.

Their steep complacency at having attained acceptance at the highest levels of German society, academia, political life and wealth would be shattered by the reality of the military-political juggernaut that would overtake Europe and reach out to Asia, enveloping as it progressed, the near east and North America.

The intellectual vastness and social connections to the master race admitted of a moral certainty of racist exceptionalism that excluded Semites from the stellar genetic superiority of the Aryan race of supermortals.

You call me a damned Jew. My race was old when you were all savages. I am proud to be a Jew. John Galsworthy, Loyalties, Act. II.

Hungarian and Czechoslovakian Jews considering themselves culturally superior to Polish and Italian Jews never imagined their countries would accept that they were dross too, to be disposed of summarily along with their Latvian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and other European countries' Jewish counterparts.

The massive round-up, degradation, humiliation, scorning, enslavement in ghettoes and death-camps located around Europe with infamous names like Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, with their slave labour, their medical experiments, their punishments and starvation rations, their gas chambers and chimneys puking the dark detritus of burnt bodies in a ghastly parody of orderly convention, bespoke the Nazi ideal of eradicating the impediments to the attainment of human perfection.

The Jews are among the aristocracy of every land; if a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes. George Eliot, Daniel Deronda

The quietly determined theatre of extermination became a subterranean affair of cleansing the world of a plague, a dread scourge of those posing as human whose subhuman facade had been revealed by Nazi ideology that wallowed in the worship of pride, pursued perfection, and visualized a very exclusive and choice Utopia. The very physical characteristics of the perfect Nordic male would effectively have excluded the German chancellor.

And the Jews, en masse, no offence, merely acknowledgement of the most appalling inferiority soiled by genetic traits betraying their unworthiness of sharing the air, the water and other precious natural resources, were specifically chosen, in their totality, for annihilation, to make the world of the truly entitled by nature and inheritance, a better place.

Who hateth me but for my happiness?
Or who is honoured now but for his wealth?
Rather had I, a Jew, be hated thus,
Than pitied in a Christian poverty.
Marlowe, The Jew of Malta

One might think that a collective representing the world's religious leaders would seek to intervene. They did not, presumably on the presumption that God would look after His own. The saving grace being that a small but noted number of religious and their laity took it upon their consciences and moral certainty to act on their own to save whom they could among Jews.

Suavity toward the Jews! Although you have lived among them, it is evident that you little understand those enemies of the human race. Haughty and at the same time base, combining an invincible obstinacy with a spirit despicably mean, they weary alike your love and your hatred. Anatole France, The Procurator of Judea

As in medical science, when an anomalous, sinister, threatening bacteria or virus emerges to threaten humanity as a horrible existential pandemic, all scientific and technological means must be harnessed toward the imperative of destroying the threat to the well-being of humanity's continued existence...

And, since time immemorial Jews, with their strange religion insisting on an especial status with their Maker, and exhibiting typically hideous traits offensive to others already held a tradition of suspicion and rejection, there was little problem in reaching international consensus that Something Must Be Done.

When people talk about a wealthy man of my creed, they call him an Israelite; but if he is poor they call him a Jew. Heinrich Heine

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew. Albert Einstein

That 'something' emerged as an exquisitely planned and executed genocide. So expertly dedicated to its task, it succeeded in destroying resources to the military deeply engaged in challenging and overcoming resistance to German fascism's indomitable need to conquer the world and to dominate it for at least a thousand years.

And while it hampered the military, it succeeded in its exemplary mission to rid the world of a menace. The Jews sacrificed for the salvation of world civilization.

A hopeless faith, a homeless race,
Yet seeking the most holy place,
And owning the true bliss . . . .
Or like pale ghosts that darkling roam,
Hovering around their ancient home,
But find no refuge there.
John Keble, The Christian Year: Fifth Sunday in Lent

The tradition of a two-millennium-old story of sacrifice and redemption repeated. World Jewry has never recovered its numbers. The Jewish population of Israel, established post-war as the traditional homeland of the Jews, and considered by Jews to be its only safe haven on Earth, is now roughly reflective of the numbers that perished in the Holocaust.

And Israel shall be a proverb and a by-word among all people. Old Testament: 1 Kings

The invidious scourge of ethnic hatred known as anti-Semitism lives on, succeeding once again in the temporary wake of post-Holocaust remorse. The world and its affairs returned to normalcy.

Still on Israel's head forlorn,
Every nation heaps its scorn.
Emma Lazarus, The World's Justice