Israel – Iran: The Confrontation

The confrontation between Israel and Iran does not correspond at all to the image presented by the media. Its roots go back to the time before the Islamic Republic and have nothing to do with the production of a nuclear bomb.

Thierry Meyssan
Voltairenet.org
Tue, 17 Jun 2025 

The current start of the war is intended to cover up the misdeeds of the Argentine Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The time has come: the confrontation between Israel and Persia has begun. Its origins lie not in the Islamic Republic, but in everything that preceded it. This war will continue until one of the opponents is exhausted.

To understand what is happening and avoid falling into one of the two official narratives that obscure the reality of the problem, we need to take a few steps back.

Iran’s Enemies in the 20th Century

All demonstrations in Iran against external enemies end with the inevitable “Death to the United Kingdom, Death to the United States, Death to Israel!” It is a cry that comes from the depths of Persian suffering since World War I.

Although we in the West are not aware of it, Iran was the victim of the largest genocide of the First World War in 1917-1919 [ 1 ] . 6 to 8 million people died of hunger out of a population of 18 to 20 million, i.e. between a quarter and a third of Iranians. Iran, although neutral, was crushed by the British armies, against a background of rivalry with the Bolsheviks and the Ottomans. This horror left a traumatic memory that is still very much present in Iran [ 2 ] For an Iranian there is no doubt that the United Kingdom is the first enemy of his country.

The British, who had colonized Iran with the help of one of his officers, Reza Shah (1925-1941), overthrew him to install his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1941-1979), in power. Behind these guises, they plundered the country’s oil. In 1951, the Shah appointed Mohammad Mossadegh as prime minister. Mossadegh nationalized oil at the expense of London. What followed was a conflict in which the British attacked viciously and organized a color revolution with the help of the Americans. This was “Operation Ajax” [ 3 ] . The new [Persian] regime was no longer led by London, but by Washington. The American embassy, ​​which installed the telephone system, tapped all the ministers’ lines so that they could listen in live, without their knowledge. This system was discovered during the 1978 revolution. So Iranians have no doubt that the United States is their second enemy.

When Mossadegh was ousted, the British appointed General Fazlollah Zahedi in his place. Zahedi was a Nazi they had imprisoned in Cairo, but London was counting on him to restore “order.” So he set up a secret police forcemodeled on the Gestapo. He recruited former Nazis to train them, and several hundred “revisionist Zionists” were sent by Yitzhak Shamir (then working for the Mossad) to supervise them [ 4 ] . The horrors of the Savak, the most horrific secret police in the world at the time, can still be seen in the museum dedicated to it in Tehran [ 5 ] . So there is no doubt in the Iranian mindset that Israel is their third enemy.

Israel’s Only Enemy in the 20th Century

Contrary to what the Israeli public believes after 25 years of “revisionist Zionist” propaganda, Iran – neither that of the Shah nor that of the Islamic Republic – has never had the goal of destroying the Jewish population of occupied Palestine. As President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made clear, the goal was to destroy the State of Israel in the same way that Russia had destroyed the USSR [ 6 ] .

No, the only enemy of the State of Israel is the one that has sabotaged every attempt at peace between Jews and Arabs for 80 years: the United Kingdom. As I have often explained, when the Foreign Office drew up its plan, The Future of Palestine, in 1915, it specified that a Jewish state should be established in Mandatory Palestine, but that it should in no way be able to guarantee its own security. It was not until two years later that the government of David Lloyd George drew up the Balfour Declaration, which announced the establishment of a Jewish National Home, and the government of Woodrow Wilson committed itself to the establishment of an independent state for the Jews of the Ottoman Empire.

The author of this text, Lord Herbert Samuel, became the British High Commissioner in Palestine. True to himself, he preferred the “revisionist Zionists” of Jabotinsky on the one hand and the anti-Semite Mohammed Amin al-Husseini as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on the other. He was subsequently appointed Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in the government of Archibald Sinclair.

This policy continues unabated to this day, with the UK still supporting the “revisionist Zionist” Benjamin Netanyahu on one side and the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian branch, on the other.

The continuation of the conflict between the “revisionist Zionists” and Iran

Immediately after World War II, United States President Dwight Eisenhower was concerned that his Israeli counterpart, Chaim Weizmann, would create a “Greater Israel,” in other words, the re-establishment not of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (which was already largely part of the State of Israel), but of the old Assyrian Empire (i.e., from the Nile to the Euphrates). He asked his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, to organize an alliance between Syria and Iran as a counterbalance to Israeli influence.

It was at the request of Washington that Syrian President Adib Shishakli (SSNP) (1953-1954) signed a military cooperation agreement with Iranian monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on May 24, 1953 [ 7 ] . It is therefore foolish to condemn this same alliance (now called the “Resistance Axis”) now, just because the two regimes have decolonized.

Yet that is what we do. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter ousted the Shah of Iranand his pretense of Middle East domination by obtaining an atomic bomb supplied by French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and his Prime Minister Jacques Chirac . [ 8 ] To replace him, he transferred Imam Rouhollah Khomeini from France to Tehran, on the advice of his national security adviser Zbigniew Brzeziński. Israel initially supported Iran against Iraq, supplying it with as much weaponry as it needed. Tel Aviv even hosted the Iranian side of the Iran-Contra scandal. Then it gradually changed its strategy, [ 9 ] while retaining certain vestiges of the Shah’s era. For example, the EAPC-B consortium, owned equally by the two states, still operates the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, which is important to the Israeli economy. In 2018, the Knesset passed a law that makes any publication about the owners of this company punishable by 15 years in prison [ 10 ] .

After the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Iraq in 2003, ostensibly because of its role in the September 11, 2001 attacks, London and Washington began spreading rumors about an alleged Iranian nuclear weapon, just as they had done about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction . [ 11 ] At that time, London and Washington hoped to force Iran to help them against Iraq.

This intoxication led to the voting on UN Security Council resolutions 1737 (December 23, 2006) and 1747 (March 24, 2007) . [ 12 ] Israeli opposition leader Benyamin Netanyahu subsequently took up this propaganda.For twenty-five years, he continually denounced the “imminent” production of an Iranian nuclear bomb, even when Tehran submitted a draft resolution to the United Nations to create “a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East. ” [ 13 ]

Be that as it may, in 2013, William Burns (Joe Biden’s CIA director) negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran in Oman on behalf of President Barack Obama. This was orchestrated during the 5+1 meetings (i.e. the five nuclear powers in the Security Council plus Germany) in Geneva. But it was not signed until two years later in Vienna, with the United States and Iran reserving a long hiatus to draw up a secret additional annex.

In a very long interview [ 14 ] near the end of his second term, Barack Obama explained that he refused to prevent Iran from starting a race for the atomic bomb as a preemptive measure, but that he was prepared to intervene if Tehran pursued a military nuclear program. His national security adviser, Susan Rice, said:

“The Iran deal was never primarily intended to usher in a new era of relations between the United States and Iran. It was much more pragmatic and minimalist. The goal was simply to make a dangerous country significantly less dangerous. No one expected Iran to become a benevolent player.”

The United States’ position [ 15 ] has not changed. Although President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPoA and the secret annex negotiated by Barack Obama during his first term, he only verbally banned Iran from enriching uranium, but not during the negotiations.

During this period, Iran began to mobilize the Shiite communities in the Middle East to ensure its security. Then, with General Qassem Soleimani, Tehran returned to the Khomeini doctrine of aid rather than orchestration. Thus, Iran had no more “proxies” before Israel destroyed Hamas, Hezbollah, and many others. Each of them had become independent.

The events that provoked the confrontation

On June 7, Esmaïl Khatib, the Iranian Minister of Intelligence, revealed an operation carried out by his secret services. They had managed to steal confidential documents about Israel’s nuclear program, just as the Mossad had managed to steal Iranian documents about their nuclear research in April 2018 [ 16 ] .

On 12 June, the IAEA Board of Governors – chaired by Rafael Grossi – adopted a resolution [ 17 ] stating:

“The Director General, as stated in document GOV/2025/25, cannot provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful.”

It therefore considered:

“Iran’s repeated failure since 2019 to cooperate fully and in a timely manner with the Agency regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared sites in Iran, as set out in document GOV/2025/25, constitutes a breach of its obligations under its safeguards agreement with the Agency within the meaning of Article XII(C) of the Agency’s Statute.”

It would then refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council.

But while the Iranian documents seized by the Mossad did not reveal a military nuclear program, [ 18 ] despite the statements of Benyamin Netanyahu, the neutrality of the Argentine Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has been questioned based on the first Israeli documents seized by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. They show that he passed on observations of his organization to Israel, even though Israel is not a member. Among the IAEA governors, Russia, China and Burkina Faso opposed this resolution.

Laurence Norman, the Wall Street Journal’s special envoy to the Davos forum on Iran’s nuclear program, reported Rafael Grossi’s statement on Ukraine’s nuclear program on Twitter, but did not publish an article on the subject. The information was confirmed by another journalist, this time from the New York Times, also on Twitter.Coincidentally, Rafael Grossi has already been grilled about his strange silence during the Russian special operation in Ukraine: during a speech at the Davos Forum in 2022, he revealed that the Ukrainian regime had stored 30,000 kilos of plutonium and 40,000 kilos of enriched uranium at the Zaporijia plant. After that, nothing more, despite Russian objections.

The day after the publication of the documents seized by Iran, Tel Aviv attacked Iran. This is exactly the same behavior as during the 2006 war against Lebanon. Israel claimed to act after several of its soldiers were captured by Hezbollah. In reality, it attacked to block investigations by the Lebanese police and judiciary into a vast network of Israeli espionage and terrorism in Lebanon; investigations that could have led to a new interpretation of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, as I have shown in my book L’Effroyable imposture 2 [ 19 ] .

References:

[ 1 ] The Great Famine & Genocide in Iran, 1917-1919 , Mohammad Gholi Majd, University Press of America (2013).

[ 2 ] « 8-10 million Iranians died over Great Famine caused by the British in late 1910s, documents reveal », Sadegh Abbasi, Khamenei.Ir, November 4, 2015.

[ 3 ] Countercoup, the Struggle for the Control of Iran , Kermit Roosevelt, McGraw-Hill (1979). The British Role in Iranian Domestic Politics (1951-1953) , Mansoureh Ebrahimi, Springer (2016). Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran , Mark J. Gasiorowski & Malcolm Byrne, Syracuse University Press (2004). The CIA in Iran: The 1953 Coup and the Origins of the US-Iran Trade , Christopher J. Petherick, American Free Press (2006). Iran and the CIA: The Fall of Mosaddeq Revisited , Darioush Bayandor, Palgrave Macmillan (2010).

[ 4 ] « SAVAK : A Feared and Pervasive Force », Richard T. Sale, Washington Post , May 9, 1977. SAVAK oder der Torterfreund des Westens. Aus den Akten des iranischen Geheimdienstes , Harald Irnberger (1978).

[ 5 ] Photos of Iranian leaders visiting the site are used by the People’s Mujahedin to make it appear as if the reconstructed tortures were carried out by them.

[ 6 ] ” Reuters participates in a propaganda campaign against Iran “, Voltaire Network , November 23, 2005.

[ 7 ] Syria and the United States , David W. Lesch, Westview (1992).

[ 8 ] The Carter Administration and the Fall of Iran’s Pahlavi Dynasty: US-Iran Relations on the Brink of the 1979 Revolution , Javier Gil Guerrero, Palgrave Macmillan

[ 9 ] The Secret War With Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Power , Ronen Bergman, Simon and Schuster (2008).

[ 10 ] ” Israel and Iran collaborate to exploit the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline “, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network , January 9, 2018.

[ 11 ] ” Who’s afraid of Iran’s civilian nuclear program? “, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network , 27 July 2010.

[ 12 ] Checking Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions , Henry Sokolski & Patrick Clawson, University Press of the Pacific (2004). Iran and the Bomb: The Abdication of International Responsibility , Thérèse Delpech, Columbia University Press (2009). The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West , Dore Gold, Regnery Publishing (2009). Nuclear Politics in Iran , Judith S. Yaphe, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University (2010). Nuclear Iran , David Patrikarakos, Bloomsbury (2012).

[ 13 ] ” Establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East “, Voltaire Network , 4 May 2010.

[ 14 ] ” The Obama Doctrine “, by Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic (USA), Voltaire Network , March 10, 2016.

[ 15 ] Crescent of Crisis: US-European Strategy for the Greater Middle East , Ivo H. Daalder & Nicole Gnesotto & Philip H. Gordon, Brookings Institution (2006). The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment , Sasan Fayazmanesh Routledge (2008). US Foreign Policy and Iran: American-Iranian Relations Since the Islamic Revolution , Donette Murray, Routledge (2009). Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy , Trita Parsi, Yale University Press (2017). President Obama and Iran: Engagement, Isolation, Regime Change , Raymond Tanter, Iran Policy Committee (2010).

[ 16 ] ” Benjamin Netanyahu reveals the “Iranian secret nuclear program” “, by Benjamin Netanyahu, Voltaire Network , April 30, 2018.

[ 17 ] « Accord de Guarantees TNP avec la République Islamique d’Iran », Résolution adopted on 12 June 2025, à la 1 769 e session, AIEA.

[ 18 ] Shock Wave Generator for Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program: More than a Feasibility Study , David Albright & Olli Heinonen, Foundation for defense of democracies, May 7, 2019.

[ 19 ] L’Effroyable imposture 2 : Manipulations & Fake News , Thierry Meyssan, Alphée et Demi-Lune (2007).