Darrell Castle talks about the attack by the nation of Israel upon the nation of Iran and what involvement the U.S. will have in the war.

Transcription / Notes

IRAN CANNOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 20th day of June in the year of our Lord 2025. My beat is war today and there is obviously a big one to talk about and that is the attack by the nation of Israel upon the nation of Iran. Will the U.S. attack Iran’s nuclear sites on behalf of Israel. We hold our breath to learn what Netanyahu will have the U.S. do.

I have been a bit unsure about how to approach this Report since I’m pretty sure that virtually everyone knows about Israel’s attack by now. What most may not have considered is that in less than a week Israel, a nation of about 9 million people almost completely destroyed Iran’s ability to make war either offensively or defensively. Iran, a nation of about 90 million people or roughly 10 to 1 in population was believed to be at the end of a decades long pursuit of a nuclear weapon or that is at least what Israel keeps telling the world.

Donald Trump told Iran that he wanted to negotiate an end to its nuclear ambitions and he gave them 60 days to enter into a deal to end their nuclear program. He at first seemed willing to allow enough enrichment for peaceful nuclear power but later backed away and said no enrichment at all. Iran said well, then we can’t have a deal so at midnight of the 61st day Israel attacked and destroyed all the above ground nuclear facilities of Iran and assassinated many of Iran’s top military leadership along with its nuclear scientists.

Now, it’s pretty clear that when Trump invited them to negotiate what he really meant was accept my demands or suffer the consequences. So, what was Iranian leadership thinking by continuing nuclear enrichment and refusing to talk. I obviously don’t know the workings of the Mullah’s minds but I can use what I do know to make a reasonable guess. I think they did not recognize in time that the world has changed dramatically in a very short time. Since the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, Israel has essentially been at war dismantling the Iranian proxy, terrorist armies bit by bit. The terrorist proxies are the way Iran spread its control across the entire region.

The three Iranian proxy groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis have all been reduced to ineffectiveness by the Israel attacks. Hamas, what is left of it, is a pile of rubble. The Houthis are under constant air attack and Iran publicly abandoned them. Hezbollah had its leadership destroyed in a now famous exploding cell phone attack, and their sponsor in Syria has been overthrown. Israel attacked the Iranian anti-air defense system a few months ago and rendered it ineffective obviously. Apparently Israel’s intelligence arm, the Mossad had so completely infiltrated Iran they built an Israeli military base inside Iran.

Iran apparently didn’t recognize any of that and whether by inertia, or poor thinking just continued business as usual. With all their terrorist groups anemic or destroyed they literally have no friends left. Nations like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Emirates may pay lip service to Iran but secretly I suspect they are cheering the Israelis on. The other change that Iran didn’t see was that Russia, their once staunch ally has been strangely silent other than offering asylum to Iranian leadership. Russia is no longer a Middle East power and protector of Iran because it has all it can handle in Ukraine. Perhaps Russia is secretly happy about the war because it detracts the U.S. from Ukraine and most importantly it might raise the price of oil worldwide thus helping Russia’s one product economy.

China, Iran’s other powerful friend is presently trying to resolve a trade war with the U.S. and seems to have no desire to involve itself in a Mideast war although there are rumors of Chinese resupply...