The Israel-Iran Conflict, Explained

Written By Leeja Miller

Sources:

Transcript:

Hi you’re tuned into Why, America? I’m Leeja Miller, let’s get started. I recently asked you what questions you had about the latest headlines. Lettiejane asks: “What is happening with Iran and the whole WW3 thing? I’m genuinely lost on what is happening and I’m seeing a lot of random bomb threats” and inadifferentdimension1774 asks “Are we on the brink of WWIII? Should I start doing my bucket list?” That sums up a lot of sentiment I saw in responses to my call for questions. My TikTok for you page is also littered with incredibly unhinged and unserious jokes about a potential third world war. [insert clip] Which like laugh to keep from crying I guess. So let’s talk Iran, Israel, and World War 3.

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The conflict between Israel and Iran is complex, and it can be hard to spot the biases that are impacting how the media is covering the conflict. This headline from PBS caught my eye “Nobody knows what I’m going to do,’ Trump says on Iran” It’s helpful to see in the Ground News browser extension that this publication leans left, so to get a fuller picture of the story I can click on Full Coverage. On the Ground News website I can see that 60 sources are covering this topic, with interpretations varying wildly depending on the bias of the publication.

For example, left leaning Bloomberg uses the headline “Trump Refuses to Reveal US Plans for Iran, Says ‘Late’ for Talks” while far right The Daily Wire uses the headline “Trump Lacerates Reporter Asking Him To Publicly Reveal His Plans On Striking Iran.” Depending on where you get your news, you’re going to get very different takes on the same story. And if you only pay attention to one side or the other you might miss the full picture of the national conversation happening around the issue on all sides of spectrum.

This is where Ground News comes in - and why I've been using them for over a year. Today’s partner Ground News is an app and website that offers tools to help you critically analyze the news you read, providing context to understand the full picture.

By using the Ground News Vantage Subscription, I can also see the blindspot feed where I can see stories disproportionately covered by one side of the political spectrum. For example, zero right-leaning sources are covering the story “Trump administration blocked from cutting local health funding for four municipalities” Interesting. I feel better equipped to make sense of what’s happening in the world without being influenced by just one perspective. And listen I’m not the only one who loves Ground News, the Nobel Peace Center even called it "an excellent way to stay informed, avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview.”

I’m always really impressed with Ground News and genuinely think they’re a great resource. If you want to stay informed on US Politics and more Subscribe through this QR code or our link below at ground dot news slash leeja for 40% off this unlimited access Vantage Plan. It comes out to $5 a month for unlimited access to ALL the features I’ve mentioned. Thanks Ground News!

Not to sound like an annoying AI-written blog post but first, what is a world war.

The term “World War” was first used interchangeably with the more popular phrasing, “Great War”. It wasn’t until the sequel, the SECOND World War, that the term became the default. But it’s not the default everywhere. Russians call WWII the “Great Patriotic War!”

I mention this because it demonstrates how the phrase “World War” hinges on a Western-centric conception of “The World.” I don’t think we’ll register anything as a “World War” until it feels like the war is happening inside what we’ve been conditioned to perceive as “our World” — that is to say, in the US or Europe. If home turf didn’t matter, then the MANY proxy wars the US fought, boots on the ground, against the USSR ALL OVER THE GLOBE during the “Cold War” would surely have added up to count as a “World War” by now. So, is it a gross, flawed metric to wait for fighting to happen in the US or Europe to call something a “World War”? Absolutely. But it’s an accurate reflection of how the phrase is invoked, generally.

Still, there’s no official definition we can point to on a lil clipboard, like, “Yes this now qualifies as a world war” The US has worked hard to remain the ONLY global superpower since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. In addition to outspending liTerally everyone on our military, we’ve been attempting to keep Russia AND China artificially behind the technological curve for decades. So World War Three would likely involve one or more countries moving against ”the West” to BECOME a superpower, because in the world order established after world war 2, the “west” established some clubs to solidify their dominance that the rest of the world wasn’t allowed into.

The first international organizations were formed in the wake of WWII to maintain global stability and avoid future wars. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations, and NATO, (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) have not managed to secure lasting global peace and prosperity, per se. But they have successfully established a world order with the US and its European allies at the top.

NATO is the exclusive club for Western democracies. There are 32 member states. The founding members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. Most of the rest of Europe eventually joined, including Turkey, but not Switzerland due to their general neutrality, and importantly not Ukraine, largely because of Article 5 of NATO’s charter, which translates to, “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.” If Ukraine were a member, the war there and Putin’s continued aggressions would translate into larger regional conflict. And the nuclear powers within NATO, especially the US, the only country twisted enough to have actually used them before, coupled with our obscene military spending year over year, has made US-led NATO a formidable and highly successful alliance. One which theoretically could have disbanded in 1991 after its primary opponent, the Soviet Union, was defeated. Instead, NATO has only grown, adding former Eastern Bloc countries as members and solidifying the hold of Western-style democracies around the world.

But as you might imagine, Western hegemony has gotten pretty fuckin’ old for nations that a) want to run things differently and/or b) are preoccupied with NATO’s many hypocrisies and abuses against other countries. And having spent the better part of a century forced to bend to Western will, some of the more ambitious countries we’ve marginalized are coming together. They each have distinct goals, but a common purpose temporarily unites them —dismantling the current “world order” and unseating the US as the dominant global power.

So let’s just get a lay of the land of the various relations among some key Arab countries, specifically. Obviously tomes have been written about each individual country and their relations with other countries, this is a simplified primer for those of us who don’t know much about relations in the Arab world.

Two of the most prominent players in the Middle East are the Saudis and the Iranians. Saudi Arabia has been a longtime ally of the US ever since massive oil reserves were discovered there in the first half of the 20th century. Despite our ideological differences, Saudi Arabia has supported the US in numerous proxy wars with Russia across the region over the years.

But while Saudi Arabia has enjoyed relative political stability with the US’s support, the same cannot be said for Iran, which has faced a TON of interference from foreign powers— including the US. In 1953, we staged a coup to remove the popular Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and prop up monarch Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in his place, aka The Shah. The Shah went on to operate a brutal secret police force against his own people in Iran until being deposed in 1979 by theocrat Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini had rallied the people of Iran in a religious rebellion against Western-backed secular monarchies. To which Saudi Arabia, a Western-backed state, was like, “Oh shit, we shouldn’t let this catch on,” and proceeded to fight Iran on numerous fronts, including Iraq, Morocco, and Lebanon. This was also not welcome news to the US or its ally Israel, because a popular revolution unseated their boy The Shah in Iran and put in place someone who wasn’t willing to be a puppet for the west. The current supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei was a major figure in Iranian independence and has largely continued that anti-Western trend since replacing Ayatollah Khomeni in 1989.

The Saudis and Iranians are incentivized to meddle in regional affairs for two main reasons— 1) regional conflict DOES pose a real potential threat to their borders, and 2) every conflict presents an opportunity to establish dominance. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran want to be the most influential Islamic state, and proxy wars have been critical outlets for that competition. One of those proxy conflicts is Yemen’s Civil War, which has become one of the worst humanitarian crises on Earth— in the last decade, more than 350,000 people have died from violence, famine, or lack of medical support. Today, the Saudi military is helping Yemen’s central government fight the Iran-backed rebel army, the Houthis, who currently control territory containing more than 70% of Yemen’s population. But, because of numerous war crimes, persistent famine, and general chaos, the Houthis lack legitimacy as leaders, both inside parts of Yemen and outside the country. And the Houthi’s quest for credibility brought them into another conflict altogether — the Israel-Hamas War.

Since November of 2023, Houthis, claiming solidarity with Palestine, have been attacking cargo ships in the Red Sea doing business with Israel. This activity has made the Houthis a lot more popular in Yemen thanks to the widespread support for Palestine across the Arab world.

Jordan has a complicated relationship with both Israel and Iran. Jordan has a population largely of Palestinian origin or refugees, because of its proximity to Israel, but it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 after years of border and water disputes. The West Bank and East Jerusalem used to be controlled by Jordan prior to the Six Day War in 1967. The peace treaty with Israel makes Jordan one of only a few Arab countries with official ties to Israel. But like I said Jordan’s population is largely of Palestinian origin. So the genocide in Gaza understandably creates a strain on that fragile peace treaty and there has been unrest within Jordan from the large population of people who do not agree with Jordan’s alliance with Israel. Jordan has pushed for a ceasefire and sent aid to Gaza.

Iraq is also physically in the middle of the Israel/Iran conflict, and also walking a tightrope in its relations in the region. Iraq and Iran have deep regional ties dating back centuries and are key economic partners. Those ties were strengthened in many ways by the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. There are also a number of different factions in Iraq backed by Iran. And now Israeli and Iranian missiles and drones are flying over Iraqi airspace. As with much of the Arab world, the Iraqi government is also sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and strongly opposes Israel’s genocide in Gaza. But US forces are aligned with and provide assistance to Iraqi security forces, so there is a strategic alliance between the US and Iraq that must be managed.

As I mentioned, Iran is gunning for the “top spot” in the Arab world, eager to oppose US and Western influence. And Israel is the poster child for Western influence in the Middle East. Iran’s anti-West sentiment and its nuclear ambitions are seen by Israel as an existential threat. And after many years of supporting various radical groups across the region, Iran now heads up a formidable armed coalition. The so-called “Axis of Resistance” comprises Hezbollah in Lebanon, a group that was aided by Iran when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, The Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, and, until last year, Syria under authoritarian president Bashar al-Assad. The Assad regime was toppled in December 2024, and the new government is largely resentful of the close ties and support that Iran gave to the Assad regime and therefore Iran can no longer count on an ally in Syria. Syria has largely remained silent on the current escalation between Israel and Iran.

On April 1st of last year, Israel launched an airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the capital of Syria. The strike killed seven commanders — among them, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was responsible for mobilizing military operations of various Axis of Resistance groups in support of Hamas. So Israel wanted him dead because he’s supporting Hamas and posed a threat of escalation in the area.

Two weeks later, Iran, because again at the time Syria was a close ally, sent back a barrage of drones and missiles, almost all of which were intercepted by Israel. While Israel has routinely interfered in Iran — killing nuclear scientists, attacking Iranian industrial infrastructure and bases, targeting Iranian truck convoys traveling to Syria–that was the first time since 2018 that Iran retaliated directly. US diplomacy helped diffuse the conflict and walk Iran and Israel back from the brink of an all-out war.

Since then, however, Israel has been gaining strength and taking out targets in the region to the point that the Axis of Resistance, especially the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and of course Hamas in Gaza, are weakened and Iran is much more isolated. So a year ago, Israel and Iran could be talked down from the brink of war. But things have only escalated since then. Which brings us to today.

On Friday, Israel launched “Operation Rising Lion” against Iran, claiming that Iran was quote “approaching the point of no return” in its development of a nuclear weapon. Whether or not it actually has nuclear weapons capabilities is contested. The US assessment as of last week was that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, there had been no change in US intelligence reports on the issue. However, the UN nuclear watchdog, the international Atomic Energy Agency, did declare that Iran was in breach of its non-proliferation obligations and had enough uranium enriched to near-weapons grade to make nine nuclear bombs. Iran denies the assessment and says its nuclear program is intended for energy purposes only. A set of nuclear negotiations had been scheduled between Iran and the US for Sunday. Those plans were scrapped by Iran who said they wouldn’t negotiate while under Israeli attack. So the timing of Israel’s attack, two days before these scheduled nuclear negotiations, is suspicious to say the least.

As part of Friday’s initiation of hostilities, Israel launched a series of strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and military commanders. Geography reminder, Israel and Iran do not share a border, they are separated by Iraq and Jordan, so the military strikes necessarily happen via air–drones, missile strikes, etc, or by sea. And because of that the entire region is vulnerable if these two powers go to war.

Israel attacked six cities, including Tehran as well as Iran’s nuclear facility in Natanz. And Iran has labelled the attacks a declaration of war, and has hit Israel with missiles as well, sending 100 drones and launching missiles over Tel Aviv. Many of the missiles were intercepted either by Jordan which was vulnerable to being hit, or by Israel’s air strike defense system. But this weekend was not the first time Jordanian forces have shot down Iranian missiles headed for Israel. The April 13th Iranian counterstrike on Israel last year I mentioned earlier, Jordan intercepted dozens of Iranian drones in that attack as they entered Jordan’s airspace. Again, Jordan said this was in order to prevent danger to Jordanian civilians. Whether or not that’s true is hard to tell–this is a country walking a tightrope in which much of its population is against ties with Israel, and it shares a border with Israel. So claiming they are doing it to protect Jordanian civilians, and not to protect Israel, is more politically tenable.

Jordan’s involvement of course still angered Iran, which warned Israel’s allies not to shoot down missiles and threatened that the conflict would spread to US bases in the region.

On Sunday, the conflict continued with explosions across Israel and Iran, including attacks on Israel by Houthis from Yemen, the first Iranian ally to enter the fray.

As of Monday, 224 Iranians had been killed with 24 killed in Israel, most of the dead were civilians, and millions of civilians have been affected throughout the region, with many forced into air raid shelters and advised to take cover or flee. Lines at gas stations and bumper to bumper traffic has been reported in Tehran as many attempt to leave the area or flee Iran altogether. On Monday, Iranian missiles hit Israel’s largest oil refinery in Haifa Bay. Israel struck the offices of Iran’s state broadcaster. Israel claims to have destroyed more than a third of Iran’s missile launchers. On Tuesday, Israel carried out extensive strikes on Iranian military targets, and Iran claims to have hit Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate and the operation center of Israel’s spy agency Mossad. And as of today, Wednesday June 18th, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Israel struck two centrifuge production facilities in Iran, and that there had been direct impacts on underground enrichment halls in Iran’s largest uranium enrichment center in Natanz.

Okay, where does the US fit into this. Back in 2015, Obama reached an agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear capabilities and require ongoing monitoring and reporting requirements. In 2018, Trump withdrew from the deal, complaining it “wasn’t tough enough.” And then no new deal was ever reached. A new nuclear deal was to be negotiated on Sunday, again that got scrapped after Israel attacked Iran. Trump initially indicated he didn’t want to get involved, but has since increased his rhetoric against Iran, calling for Iran’s unconditional surrender and saying “nobody knows” if he will order US forces to attack Iran’s nuclear sites. He literally said “nobody knows what I’m going to do.” That’s, like, NOT good.

The US armed forces have shifted military aircraft and warships in recent days to locations around the Middle East, and US officials confirmed Tuesday that they have taken defensive actions to take out incoming Iranian missiles to protect Israel. Additional refueling aircraft and fighter jets have been moved to strategic locations in Europe, including England, Spain, Germany, and Greece, according to public aviation tracking websites. And US fighter jets have been patrolling the skies around the Middle East, allegedly to protect US personnel and installations on the ground. And amid all of these strategic moves and delicate tensions, you have Trump, a roving idiot with a social media addiction, making posts that are taking a sledgehammer to everything. In one post, he said “we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” And Iran outright rejected Trump’s social media calls for an “unconditional surrender” a phrase I’m sure Trump has heard in a war documentary before but that actually means something and hasn’t been requested from a country since World War 2.

So as of right now, the US has posted up a large fleet of ships and aircraft, shot down missiles and drones headed for Israel, and vowed to protect its personnel on the ground in the region. A lot of attention has been paid to the fact that, if Israel wants to knock out Iran’s nuclear capabilities, it would need to get at its nuclear site Fordo, a complex built deep inside a mountain. This is something Israel cannot do on its own. The only bomb capable of penetrating deep enough into the ground to hit Fordo is the 30,000 pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, also known as the bunker buster. And the US is the only country that has one, and the US Air Force’s B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is the only aircraft that can carry the 30,000 pound bunker buster. As of right now, there are no B-2s in the middle east, and Israel has been barred from obtaining a bunker buster. Absent the use of the bunker buster, Israel is attempting other measures to block entrance to Fordo or attack nearby energy centers, to try to render the site unusable.

So that’s where we stand now–Israel is hitting various Iranian nuclear facilities, killing key commanders and nuclear scientists, along with civilians, and Iran is retaliating by hitting key Israeli assets. And the US is standing by and acting vaguely in defense of Israel without actually entering into the war by carrying out attacks of its own or supplying Israel with the bunker buster of its dreams. And “nobody knows what Trump is going to do.” So that’s probably bad.

Here are the mitigating factors I’m holding on to. Trump is a fucking idiot with lead fingers ready to shoot off tweets at all hours of the night that could fully upend the current world order. That is true. And he has put in place leaders that are equally fucking stupid, like Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, who is so woefully unqualified to be handling this shit it’s actually shocking. But there are still people within the armed forces that have a grasp on middle east relationships and the severity of this situation. Any decision by Trump to allow Israel to use a bunker buster would have severe international consequences, not least of which potential nuclear contamination from the fallout of the attack. The sheer amount of technical logistics of even managing to transport the bunker buster to Israel without being spotted makes it a challenge to coordinate any such a strike with Israel. Like you can’t really fly a 20-foot, 30,000 pound bomb through the skies without detection, ya know?

There are also numerous US assets and personnel on the ground in the region that are actively in danger but would most certainly be attacked by Iran if the US got involved with the conflict. And those attacks could very well not be contained to just the Middle East region.

This is all on top of the fact that Trump explicitly has condemned the war in Iraq started by President Bush and is aware of the strong MAGA faction that is against getting entangled in foreign wars. He ran on that isolationist, anti-war stance and was elected by a large faction of people who want to see the US pull out of all foreign wars and avoid future entanglements. While there are hawkish Republicans that are concerned about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and are calling for involvement in the conflict, there is a HUGE swath of lawmakers and MAGA supporters that are opposed to further conflict, especially in the Middle East, after 20 years of war there. And this is a rare instance where a bipartisan coalition has formed. Republican Representative from Kentucky Thomas Massie has joined with Democrat Representative from California Ro Khanna to introduce a bipartisan war powers resolution that would prohibit involvement in the conflict with Iran without consent from Congress. And Democratic Senator Tim Kaine filed a similar resolution in the Senate.

At this point it’s hard to tell which faction of the MAGA movement will win out. Isolationism is a key component of the Project 2025 playbook, which calls for quote “a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of US participation in all international organizations” and transforming NATO so that members are self-sufficient and less reliant on the US. And Trump has repeatedly called for an end to entanglement in foreign wars. That being said, the US has strong ties to Israel and our Congress and President have a long history of blindly supporting Israel even in the face of genocide and other atrocities. And another key tenet, THE key tenet, frankly, of the Project 2025 playbook is a concentration of power in the hands of the President by any means necessary. The constitution gives Congress the right to declare war, but will the orchestrators of Project 2025 take kindly to Congress asserting that power and constraining Trump? Maybe yes in this instance where it serves their isolationist ends. At the same time, there is a LOT of money to be made off war, so you better bet there are lobbyists in the ears of Trump and all our politicians promoting an escalation of the conflict.

Here’s my best guess–the increased US military presence in the Middle East is posturing meant to intimidate Iran, but there are no real plans to get involved beyond providing defensive protection to Israel. This keeps Israel happy, benefits the lobbyists salivating at the idea of profiting off further war because it takes a lot of money and resources to deploy these military assets, while also avoiding further escalation that could put US bases and personnel at risk. This is a tenuous balancing act, though, and things could escalate at any minute should Iran strike US assets first. Especially given the damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure over the last week and the US and Israel’s own nuclear powers, the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction continues to be a strong motivator to avoid escalating the conflict and it’s unlikely that Iran could withstand an actual war with the US, so despite increased hostilities I don’t think either side wants the US to be involved. And given all this background, no I don’t think World War 3 is imminent. Israel is not a member of NATO, Europe is not in a place to step in to support Israel nor is it under any obligation to do so, and the US getting involved in the conflict would create so much potential for escalation with very little gain on the part of the US. That being said, Turkey is a member of NATO and shares a border with Iran. It is an ally of Israel but also deeply critical of the genocide in Gaza. And Saudi Arabia is a close US ally and holds huge oil reserves and has worked towards normalizing relations with Israel but backed off over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which Saudi Arabia condemns. So I’ll be keeping an eye on Turkey and Saudi Arabia, because I think it would take increased attacks across the Middle East, especially into NATO member Turkey before any sort of escalation of conflict to a global scale where Europe would also get involved such that this could be classified as a World War.

If you want to support my work, all my videos are completely ad free and uncensored over on Patreon, Patreon dot com slash leeja miller.

Thank you to my multi-platinum patrons Philly Tech Dude, Marc, Sarah Shelby, Travis, Art, David, R_H, L’etranger (Lukus), Thomas Johnson, and Tay. Your generosity makes this channel what it is, so thank you!

And if you liked this episode, you’ll like the one from Monday about the politically motivated murders in Minnesota.


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