Trump calls for Iran's 'unconditional surrender' as Israel-Iran air war rages on

 

Trump weighing options as Iran conflict escalates

Smoke billows in the distance from an oil refinery following an Israeli strike on the Iranian capital Tehran. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)

WASHINGTON/DUBAI/JERUSALEM: President Donald Trump called on Tuesday for Iran's unconditional surrender and warned US patience was wearing thin, but said there was no intention to kill Iran's leader "for now", as the Israel-Iran air war raged for a fifth day.

Explosions were reported in Tehran and the city of Isfahan in central Iran, while Israel said Iran fired more missiles late on Tuesday and early Wednesday. Air raid sirens sounded in southern and central Israel, and explosions were heard over Tel Aviv. The Israeli military said it had conducted strikes on 12 missile launch sites and storage facilities in Tehran.

Trump's comments, delivered via social media, suggested a more aggressive stance toward Iran as he weighs whether to deepen US involvement.

"We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding," he wrote on Truth Social. "We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now... Our patience is wearing thin."

Three minutes later, he posted, "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!"

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face the same fate as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion and hanged in 2006 after a trial.

"I warn the Iranian dictator against continuing to commit war crimes and fire missiles at Israeli citizens," Katz told top Israeli military officials.

Trump's sometimes contradictory and cryptic messaging about the conflict between close US ally Israel and longtime foe Iran has deepened the uncertainty surrounding the crisis. His public comments have ranged from military threats to diplomatic overtures — not uncommon for a president known for an often erratic approach to foreign policy.

Trump said on Monday that he might send US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff or Vice President JD Vance to meet Iranian officials. The president said his early departure from the Group of Seven nations summit in Canada had "nothing to do" with working on a ceasefire deal, and that something "much bigger" was expected.

Britain's leader Keir Starmer said there was no indication the US was about to enter the conflict.

Trump met for 90 minutes with his National Security Council on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the conflict, a White House official said. Details were not immediately available.

The US is deploying more fighter aircraft to the Middle East and extending the deployment of other warplanes, three US officials told Reuters. The move follows other deployments that US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth described as defensive in nature. The US has so far only taken defensive actions in the current conflict with Iran, including helping to shoot down missiles fired toward Israel.

Women react as they check the destruction in the northern Arab-Israeli city of Tamra. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

Regional Influence Weakens

Khamenei's main military and security advisers have been killed by Israeli strikes, hollowing out his inner circle and raising the risk of strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had killed Iran's wartime chief of staff Ali Shadmani, four days after he replaced another top commander killed in the strikes.

With Iranian leaders suffering their most dangerous security breach since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the country's cybersecurity command banned officials from using communications devices and mobile phones, Fars news agency reported.

Israel launched a "massive cyber war" against Iran's digital infrastructure, Iranian media reported.

Ever since Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023, and triggered the Gaza war, Khamenei's regional influence has waned as Israel has pounded Iran's proxies — from Hamas in Gaza to Hizbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq. Iran's close ally, Syria's autocratic president Bashar al-Assad, has been ousted.

Israel launched its air war — its largest ever on Iran — on Friday after saying it had concluded the Islamic Republic was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has pointed to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Israel, which is not a party to the NPT, is the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed that he will not back down until Iran's nuclear development is disabled, while Trump says the Israeli assault could end if Iran agrees to strict curbs on enrichment.

Before Israel's attack began, the 35-nation board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years.

The IAEA said on Tuesday an Israeli strike directly hit the underground enrichment halls at the Natanz facility.

The Iranian news website Eghtesadonline, which covers economic news, reported on Tuesday that Iran arrested a foreigner for filming "sensitive" areas at the Bushehr nuclear power plant for Israel's spy agency Mossad.

People take cover inside a cable car tunnel following a missile attack from Iran on Israel, at Haifa, Israel June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Itay Cohen

Iranian security forces also arrested a "terrorist team" linked to Israel with explosives in a town southwest of the capital Tehran, Iranian state media reported.

Oil Markets on Alert

Israel says it now has control of Iranian airspace and intends to escalate the campaign in coming days.

But Israel will struggle to deal a knock-out blow to deeply buried nuclear sites like Fordow, which is dug beneath a mountain, without the US joining the attack. Israel's Katz said Fordow was an issue that will be addressed.

Iran has so far fired nearly 400 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones towards Israel, with about 35 missiles penetrating Israel's defensive shield, Israeli officials say.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they hit Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate and the foreign intelligence service Mossad's operational centre early on Tuesday. There was no Israeli confirmation.

Iranian officials have reported 224 deaths, mostly civilians, while Israel said 24 civilians had been killed. Residents of both countries have been evacuated or fled.

Global oil markets are on high alert following strikes on sites including the world's biggest gas field, South Pars, shared by Iran and Qatar.

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Force cannot bring peace to Middle East – this is a consensus in international community

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Turmoil in Korean Peninsula

https://youtu.be/E1wdWN1LBy8

 

Park Geun-hye - Ousted from office

Park ousted but her policy stays in S.Korea

The South Korean Constitutional Court on Friday upheld the parliament's decision to impeach Park Geun-hye, making her the first democratically elected president in the country to be deposed. Park may also face criminal charges.

A few months back, when Park's close friend Choi Soon-sil was first exposed of wrongdoing, few people thought Park would be impeached. But as her misdeeds including her involvement in Choi's illegal profiteering and graft by herself were disclosed one by one, the true life of Park startled South Korea and the entire world.

The impeachment of Park has no direct connection with its diplomatic policies. However, if the leader of the opposition party is elected president later, South Korea may have a chance to shift diplomatic policies.

During the first half of Park's presidency, China-South Korea relations changed for the better, as Seoul maintained a balance between Beijing and Washington.

Despite South Korea being an ally of the US, its trade volume with China reached more than double that with the US.

There is a strong pro-US political faction in South Korea. Whenever South Korea's relations with North Korea become strained, they would try their best to push the country back to its old route of aligning with the US.

The leader of South Korea's biggest opposition party has been leading a popular poll as a presidential contender. He holds a negative attitude toward THAAD. South Korea may change its diplomacy if he wins the election, though the scale of change is still hard to predict.

Unwanted gift

South Korea appears to have completely overthrown Park, however, Park's policies, especially her signature work to deploy THAAD in South Korea, are still being 100 percent implemented by the caretaker government.

If Park is only a "princess" lacking the ability of judgment and easily being manipulated, then her presidential decisions should be thoroughly re-examined; if she was truly strategically visionary for the country, then her relationship with Choi would not be so scandalous.

We have to say that South Korean society's attitude toward Park is full of contradictions.

Attacking Park and in the meantime upholding her policy is not a reasonable behavior.

Park's decision to accept THAAD has pushed her country closer to the US, which is a serious geopolitical mistake.

It turned South Korea from as a country benefiting from its proximity to two big countries into a pawn of the US in Asia, making it a miniature Japan instead of an independent country. If South Korea doesn't correct its path, Park's legacy would still be in control of the country, as if she remains in the presidential hall.

Seoul shares fate with Pyongyang, not Washington

The South Korea-US Combined Forces Command kicked off their annual joint Key Resolve military exercise on Monday. The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and F-35B stealth fighters will arrive in South Korean waters to conduct the exercise, which will simulate a preemptive strike against North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities when signs of attack are detected. The US military is also deploying a new-type of Gray Eagle drone in South Korea that is capable of striking North Korean targets.

The Yonhap news agency, citing government sources, reported that the drills will include missions that could penetrate Pyongyang and target war command and key military facilities. They send an explicit radical threat to Pyongyang.

To decapitate the North Korean leadership and to punish "the South's imperialist running dogs" with nuclear weapons are both the craziest threat Pyongyang and Seoul have sent to each other. They are equally hysterical, expressing both sides' viciousness to destroy the other.

The US-South Korean joint drills without doubt are a deterrent against North Korea. How can Pyongyang remain indifferent facing a military exercise that includes more than 300,000 military personnel to carry out missions targeting its war command and top leader? In such a case, by no means will both sides be in the mood for negotiations. Even if they sit down, they cannot establish a minimum degree of trust for talks.

By deterring North Korea, the US and South Korea are encouraging the country to take a firm grip on the nuclear capabilities it has acquired so far. They intend to scare Pyongyang, but the actual effect is the opposite. Instead, Pyongyang believes that nuclear weapons are the reason why Washington and Seoul dare not put their plan of subverting the North's regime into practice.

Through joint drills, more and more US strategic weapons are deployed on the Peninsula, posing a greater potential threat to China. Seoul may have more sense of security. But it disregards China's security concern, it may even feel schadenfreude. To the Chinese people, the South Korean government has lost its rationality on the security issue.

China has participated in the tough sanctions the US and South Korea launched against the North, while the two countries rejected China's proposal that the US and South Korea suspend their military exercises in exchange for a halt of North Korea's nuclear activities.

The US and South Korea often accuse China of being uncooperative, but the reality is they are uncooperative over China's mediation.

The US is here to stir up more trouble in Northeast Asia. By hitching itself to the US chariot, South Korea naively thinks it shares a common destiny with the US. However, if war breaks out, the battlefield is bound to be the Korean Peninsula while the US is on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. South Korea and North Korea are the two who really share a common destiny.

Put a break on Peninsula vicious cycle 

 
US and South Korean diplomats gave a negative response to the proposal raised by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi Wednesday on the issue of the Korean Peninsula. During a press conference Wednesday on the sidelines of the ongoing annual sessions of the National People's Congress, Wang noted that Pyongyang, which is promoting its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and Washington and Seoul, which are holding large-scale military exercises to pile increasing military pressure on North Korea, are like "two accelerating trains coming towards each other, with neither side willing to give way." Wang stressed that the priority for now is to "flash a red light and apply the brakes on both trains."

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley responded Wednesday local time that the US must see "some sort of positive action" from North Korea before it could take Pyongyang seriously at the negotiation table. Cho Tae-yul, South Korea's UN ambassador was more direct, saying "This is not a time for us to talk about freezing or dialogue with North Korea."

However, those two diplomats' remarks do not mean that the appeal from Beijing only had a life that lasted several hours.

In fact, Wang's solution is the only way out to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue apart from the use of force. It won't be easy for all three sides, the US, South Korea and North Korea, to take a step back, but when warfare is so imminent, if they don't want to fight, they might eventually be forced to choose the path which China suggested.

Of course, if they are so determined to go to war, although China does not wish to see that, still, they are free to go ahead.

In the eyes of the Chinese people, the North Korean nuclear issue was not created by Pyongyang alone. The country's insistence on developing a nuclear program is without doubt a wrong path, yet Washington and Seoul are the main forces that have pushed North Korea to this path.

Now they want to stop Pyongyang from going ahead while refusing to reduce the impetus they are giving to North Korea. In the end, they failed to reach their goal and blame China for not being cooperative enough.

Wang's suggestion aims at stopping the vicious circle on the Peninsula through an abrupt brake.

It must be uncomfortable to do so, nevertheless, it can avoid the worst-case scenario. It is believed that even if Washington, Seoul and Pyongyang refuse to admit it ostensibly, they will consider the option raised by China to avoid war.

China has expressed its willingness to be a "railway switchman" over the Korean Peninsula issue, but what happens next depends on Pyongyang and Seoul, as well as on whether the new US President has the boldness to make a peaceful decision. If the two trains resolve to have a head-on collision, a switchman will be of no use even if he wants to help.

THAAD provides a reason for China to elevate nuclear prowess

According to reports from South Korea and the US Tuesday, the two countries have started deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea. Parts of the shield, including launch vehicles, have already arrived, and service personnel and other equipment will be put in place within two months.

It seems that Washington and Seoul are determined to accomplish the installation of THAAD before the coming South Korean presidential election.

In the end, China has not been able to prevent THAAD from being set up in South Korea, but this was predicted by most observers at the beginning. Therefore, Beijing should keep calm and adopt resolute and efficient measures to minimize its threat toward China. In the subsequent games, Beijing will step by step make South Korea feel the pain and make the US realize its mistake.

We should start from increasing sanctions toward Seoul in an orderly way, comprehensively lower the level of Sino-South Korean exchanges, roll back all the privileges that Seoul has gained from China, and just maintain a normal relationship between the two.

Over the past years, South Korean commodities and cultural products have been particularly popular among Chinese consumers given the close ties between Beijing and Seoul. But we can take the current opportunity to squeeze South Korean cultural products out of the Chinese market. This is the price the country must pay for the THAAD deployment.

China should also focus on military countermeasures and strategically deal with more threats. The deployment of THAAD in South Korea has two consequences - it directly threatens military activities within China, moreover, it sets a precedent that Washington can arbitrarily implement its anti-missile arrangements around China. Both will jeopardize China's security.

Can we neutralize THAAD technically? Research in this field must be enforced. If possible, Beijing must realize it at all costs. One thing is for sure, China's related strategic weapons must target South Korea's Seongju County, where THAAD will be installed.

We must prevent the US from setting up more THAAD batteries to China's southeast or redeploying tactical nuclear weapons on South Korean soil. All that cannot be achieved by simply sanctioning the Lotte Group. The THAAD deployment will become a turning point in the Northeast Asian paradigm. When we take one step forward, we must think two steps, three steps ahead.

The most essential task for China now is to boost its military power. The THAAD installation has offered China a crucial reason to increase and improve its tactical nuclear weapons. It would be worth it if Beijing can comprehensively elevate its strategic nuclear power because of THAAD.

The world has come to a crossroad where Washington is attempting to establish global military hegemony through its anti-missile system, while Beijing and Moscow are trying to smash that plan. This is the essence of the reality.

Sources: Global Times

North Korea: launched a long-range rocket, cannot repeat China’s nuclear weapons path

North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday morning. Pyongyang authorities said they had successfully launched the Kwangmyongsong-4 earth observation satellite, while the US, South Korea and Japan considered the launch to be a long-range missile test.

Pyongyang has made progress in long-range rocket and missile technology, but it is far from mastering mature long-range missile system and building a strategic deterrence. North Korea hopes it can effectively threaten the US homeland, but it views the matter too simply. Washington regards Pyongyang’s rocket launch as “severe provocation.” The majority of the international community doesn’t believe that in the foreseeable future, Pyongyang can miniaturize warheads and have the long-range nuclear strike ability to coerce Asia-Pacific countries and the US.

Long-range missile technology is similar to rocket technology, but there are differences. The deterrence of long-range missiles using liquid propellant is limited due to their restrained mobility and slow response times. According to analysis from the US and South Korean side, Pyongyang's liquid propellant is backward and unreliable. North Korea has no successful record in long-range missile launch. As long as the Kwangmyongsong-4 enters the target orbit, it can be considered successful. But after all, the launch of a rocket and a missile is different.

Long-range missiles need a huge supportive system, for instance, the ability to measure flight attitude, orbit accuracy and landing location, but Pyongyang doesn’t have any of this. Washington and Seoul believe that North Korea has a rather limited missile testing ability. With the missile and rocket launched by the North landing in the ocean with little possibility of it being retrieved, it is extremely difficult for Pyongyang to collect the test data. Its industry is also not able to manufacture all the materials necessary for developing long-range missile and nuclear bomb.

Some believe Pyongyang's research into nuclear weapons and long-range missiles is similar to China's atomic and hydrogen bomb development in the 1960s. Since China succeeded, so will North Korea.

This is a serious misreading. China faced a different environment than North Korea today in developing nuclear weapons. It was before the Non-Proliferation Treaty was adopted in 1968. Plus, China has a vast territory, and has nuclear test sites in the desert, while North Korea’s limited space makes this impossible.

China’s strategic deterrent power of nuclear bomb and missile, limited at the beginning, were enhanced as science and technology improved in the country. It has become even more credible with the mobility of land-based ICBMs and the upgrading of sea-based missile launching system.

Pyongyang is at the stage of developing nuclear equipment and long-range rockets, which however has developed far from the reality of the country's technology and economic development. So far, it is hard to tell whether it brings more strategic security or strategic harm to Pyongyang.

How far can Pyongyang’s nuclear bomb and missile develop? It is not up to the political determination of Pyongyang, since it involves complicated geopolitical forces which North Korea can hardly harness. Pyongyang must think carefully how to extricate itself from the increasingly grave situation. - Global Times

Related:

Discussion of THAAD deployment is shortsighted move of Seoul and Washington

However, China’s determination to safeguard its national security should be clearly shown, so that the other stakeholders will have to think carefully before they make any decision that might challenge China’s position.

Beijing won’t allow war on Peninsula

China will “by no means allow war on the Korean Peninsula” a foreign ministry spokesperson said Wednesday, stressing Beijing was deeply concerned over Pyongyang’s announced plan to launch a satellite later this month, only weeks after it tested a nuclear bomb in defiance of international sanction