According to most information flowing from the region, a second wave from Israel us underway (or just completed). The first wave targeting was the Iranian military leadership and nuclear scientists, the second wave now hitting the nuclear installations.
We could tell from the initial targeting, the IDF were not targeting hardened installations, they were targeting people who run them where they live in the middle of the night. This appears to be confirmed by ground reporting of residences being the target with highly strategic Mossad agents on the ground doing major intelligence activity to identify the targets. It appears Israel was very successful (but still really early).
That approach also establishes the baseline for internal Iranian political opposition to push for regime change.
The second wave of Israeli targeting then goes directly at the nuclear installations. This approach also makes sense. First round takes out the brain power, second round takes out their hardened facilities (much more difficult to eliminate).
As the operation proceeds, we now turn focus to the U.S. interests, and this is where we use hindsight to last Sunday’s Camp David meeting.
Secretary of State / National Security Advisor Marco Rubio emphasizes Israel is acting “unilaterally,” without USA support. President Trump proactively and strategically emphasizes his preferred approach of “diplomacy.”
Some will doubt, but I would draw your attention to Trump’s relay of the call with Vladimir Putin last week. Obviously, President Trump understood Israel was on the cusp of taking some ‘unilateral’ action, albeit with a likelihood of a head’s-up to USA of approximate timing (Sunday Camp David as a proactive ‘get us prepped’ agenda).
The scenario begins to become self-evident when you consider that President Trump redirected 20,000 patriot defense missiles from Ukraine to Isrrael, much to the chagrin and anger of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as expressed June 9th. Which also takes us into the conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Under this scenario, Camp David on Sunday would likely be a coordination meeting between President Trump, Secretary/NSA Marco Rubio and top military officials where the topic was getting our interests prepared and shifted as the administration knew this week something was going to happen with Iran. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday the U.S. moves personnel and non-essentials into a more secure and stable environment. Friday, Boom.
Back to Putin.
What type of communication President Trump had with Vladimir Putin about Iran -as the current status was fluid- will likely never be known; however, we can be generally certain President Trump expressed a proactive tone to President Putin of his administration NOT wanting military conflict over the issue of Iranian nukes.
Transparently, President Trump would know Putin’s strong likelihood to repeat that sentiment to the leadership of Iran, which would be the impetus and motive for the discussion segment about Iran. [Review with hindsight]
From President Trump’s perspective, he wants a diplomatic solution, but he is politically committed to supporting Israel regardless of his agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to launch IDF strikes. However, if Netanyahu is going to punch his opposition, he better knock him out, because Trump is not going to expand U.S. involvement in collateral consequences.
Netanyahu has to approach the attack from this framework of Trump.
The context would be, President Trump is resigned to the intransigent demands of Bibi along with the annoying background cheers from the USA coliseum crowd in DC cheering for the battle. President Trump then hands Putin a pair of brass knuckles and warns him again (Camp David), if the opponent gets up – the primary focus of Trump is going to be defending team USA, not Bibi.
Netanyahu organizes his IDF strikes to hit the Iranian leadership first, then go after the installations.
A regime change would be the ultimate denuclearization, and -in this scenario- that could also help Trump vis-a-vis pressure on Putin’s mindset.
That’s the 30,000 review so far.
Unfortunately, back home we’ve now got the pro-Palestinian crowd fired up with the anti-ICE crowd, both essentially the same under different agendas depending on the rage du jour. That’s what we will likely see on “No Kings Day” Saturday, June 14.