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airstrikes
Iran Suspends Cooperation with IAEA, Accusing Nuclear Watchdog of 'Complicity' in Trump Strikes
"The IAEA, which did not even formally condemn the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, has put its international credibility up for sale," said Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.
Jun 25, 2025
The Iranian parliament approved a bill Wednesday suspending its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The resolution states that weapons inspectors with the United Nations nuclear watchdog organization will not be allowed to enter the country unless it guarantees the security of Iran's nuclear facilities and their ability to pursue peaceful nuclear activities.
Ahead of the vote, lawmakers denounced the IAEA, accusing it of enabling U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities Saturday—strikes Iran, as well as other observers of international law, have denounced as a clear violation of its sovereignty.
"The IAEA, which did not even formally condemn the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, has put its international credibility up for sale," said Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. "For this reason, the [Atomic Energy Organization of Iran] will suspend its cooperation with the Agency until the security of its nuclear facilities is guaranteed, and Iran's peaceful nuclear program will proceed at an even faster pace."
In response to the resolution, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said that "the return of inspectors to Iran's nuclear facilities is a top priority."
Independent inspectors have not yet been able to inspect the damage to the three nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan—hit by the U.S.
Following the strikes, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that Iran's nuclear sites were "completely and fully obliterated."
However, reporting by CNN and The New York Times on Tuesday, based on unnamed sources familiar with an internal assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, undercut that claim, stating that the strikes only set back Iran's nuclear program by a matter of months.
Grossi said Monday that the airstrikes likely inflicted "very significant damage" at Fordo, but that no conclusions could be reached until independent inspectors are allowed to examine the site and account for Iran's uranium stockpile.
The latest IAEA report issued on May 31 found "no credible indications of an ongoing, undeclared structured nuclear program" being pursued by Iran—a finding echoed by U.S. intelligence agencies.
However, the IAEA did find that Iran had significantly increased its uranium stockpile enriched to 60%, near weapons-grade, which it said was a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Despite no "imminent threat," according to the most recent intelligence assessments, the Trump administration cited those IAEA findings to justify its attacks.
As a result, Iran's nuclear organization has questioned the IAEA's credibility as a neutral broker, accusing them of "deliberate inaction," following American and Israeli strikes. It said in a statement Sunday that these strikes were carried out "with the IAEA's silence, if not complicity."
Some critics have argued that the IAEA's decision to declare Iran in violation of the NPT was the result of significant U.S. arm-twisting and that the IAEA has not applied similar scrutiny to Israel's nuclear weapons program.
Iran maintains that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and that strikes upon its nuclear facilities violate the NPT, which grants countries an "inalienable right" to develop nuclear energy for nonmilitary purposes.
Nuclear experts warn that the U.S. strikes on Iran have undermined the credibility of the NPT, prompting some factions in Iran to call for the nation's exit altogether.
Kelsey Davenport, the director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, suggested Monday that U.S. attacks may only embolden Iran and other nations to violate the treaty and pursue nuclear weapons, perceiving them as necessary for their protection.
"From a nonproliferation perspective, Trump's decision to strike Iran was a reckless, irresponsible escalation that is likely to push Iran closer to nuclear weapons in the long term," Davenport said. "Politically, there's greater impetus now to weaponize."
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Trump Said He Would Be a 'Peace President' But 'It Was All Lies,' Say Critics
Trump campaigned to stop "endless war," but now he's bringing the U.S. into a dangerous new one.
Jun 23, 2025
During his run to retake the White House in 2024, U.S. President Donald Trump promised to avoid "endless war" and serve as a "peace president."
"We will measure our success not only by the battles we win," Trump said during his second inaugural address in January, "but also by the wars that we end and, perhaps most importantly, the wars that we never get into."
But after he launched airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites and called for "regime change" this weekend, critics accused him of blatantly misleading the American public.
"Trump, who proclaimed upon his inauguration he wanted to be remembered as a 'peacemaker,' couldn't even wait a half a year into his term to do the thing that he had told everyone he wouldn’t do, and which he built his entire political brand on opposing," wrote columnist Branko Marcetic in Jacobin.
On the campaign trail, Trump lambasted his predecessor, Joe Biden, as a "warmonger," promising to end the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. However, both conflicts not only continue to rage, but have grown bloodier.
Massacres by Israel Defense Forces soldiers in U.S.-administered aid sites have ramped up in recent months as Israel advances with what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described in February as "U.S. President Trump's plan for the creation of a different Gaza.”
As Trump has abandoned talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine have likewise surged in recent weeks. Shortly after Trump's airstrikes on Iran, the Kremlin launched over 300 drones and dozens of missiles at Kyiv, leaving seven people dead and 31 injured, according to The Washington Post.
"Trump said he could end Russia’s war against Ukraine before his inauguration. He said he would negotiate an end to the war in Gaza with a phone call," wrote civil and labor rights leader Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II on X. "He said Biden was going to drag the US into World War III, but he would be a peace president. It was all lies."
Since he entered the political arena Trump has railed against the wars launched by former President George W. Bush. On the Republican primary debate stage in 2015, he described the Iraq War as a "big, fat mistake," building his credibility with Americans seeking a break from the GOP's interventionist foreign policy consensus.
After Trump's airstrikes on Saturday, his associates attempted to downplay the obvious comparisons with Bush's disastrous legacy.
Vice President JD Vance—who on the campaign trail called out Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' coziness with Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and his ex-congresswoman daughter, Liz Cheney—went on NBC to do damage control and explain how Trump's actions were somehow different from those of the 43rd president.
"I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern," he said. "But the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives."
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both assured the public that this would not be another war of "regime change," like Bush waged in Iraq.
But Trump thoroughly undermined their claims on Sunday night, when he posted on Truth Social: "It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!"
In a Sunday column for The Guardian, Mohamad Bazzi, director of the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies and an associate professor of journalism at New York University, argued that Trump is following Bush's model.
" Donald Trump has dragged the U.S. into another war based on exaggerations and manipulated intelligence," Bazzi wrote. "The people of the Middle East will pay the highest price for yet another reckless war built on a lie."
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With All Eyes on Gaza, Israel Bulldozed 'Mile After Mile' of West Bank
"We watched their bulldozers tear up streets, demolish businesses, pharmacies, schools," said one local leader. "They even bulldozed the town soccer field, and a tree in the middle of a road."
Sep 25, 2024
As the world watched Israel's assaults on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, The New York Times on Wednesday also directed attention to the West Bank, detailing how "Israeli military bulldozers tore up mile after mile" of Jenin and Tulkarm in recent weeks.
While "nearly nightly raids" by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) "have become the norm" in the West Bank since the Hamas-led October 7 attack, the military last month "launched one of its most extensive and deadliest raids" in the illegally occupied Palestinian territory in years, the newspaper reported, citing videos and interviews with residents.
"We watched their bulldozers tear up streets, demolish businesses, pharmacies, schools. They even bulldozed the town soccer field, and a tree in the middle of a road," said Kamal Abu al-Rub, governor of Jenin. "What was the point of all of this?"
In addition to ground operations in the West Bank, the IDF has increased airstrikes that critics say run afoul of international law. The military defended the strikes and told the Times that in recent raids, troops found weapon stockpiles and killed or arrested dozens of militants—but also caused some "unavoidable harm to certain civilian structures."
In response to videos included in the reporting, freelance journalist Pete Tucker accused Israeli soldiers of "methodically laying waste to" the West Bank.
Malini Ranganathan, an associate professor at American University's School of International Service, said on social media that "Israel's criminality knows no limits. IDF bulldozers have been obliterating the West Bank, even tearing up roundabouts."
Israeli forces have damaged homes, shops, and roads along with internet, electricity, phone, water, and sewage lines in the West Bank. Emergency crews have been unable to respond to hundreds of calls per day, because they can't reach people in need.
"They are imposing conditions, materially and psychologically, that make people feel: Gaza is coming to you," Al Haq director Shawan Jabarin told the Times. "There is a feeling among Palestinians across the West Bank that what is coming is very bad—that it will be a plan to kill and expel us."
Since the October 7 attack on Israel that killed more than 1,100 people, Israeli forces have slaughtered at least 41,455 Palestinians in Gaza and 716 in the West Bank. Across the Palestinian territories, over 100,000 others have been injured over the past year. The bloodshed led to an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The ICJ in July issued a nonbinding advisory opinion that Israel's decadeslong occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal and must end "as rapidly as possible." Instead, Israel has ramped up attacks on not only the Palestinian territories, but also Lebanon, home to the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah.
This week's bombing campaign in Lebanon—which has killed at least 569 people—sparked fresh calls for the Biden administration to finally cut off weapons to Israel, as did the new reporting from the Times, which has been accused of pro-Israel bias in its coverage of the assault on Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israeli destruction in the West Bank continues. The International Middle East Media Center reported that "on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers invaded the town of Beit Ula, west of Hebron in the occupied West Bank's southern part, [and] bulldozed over 20 dunams of land, uprooting more than 600 fruit-bearing trees, and demolishing several agricultural structures and wells."
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