Iran, Israel and America: The 12-Day War, and What It Means

Revisionist Historian Offers expert Analysis on Iran
AMERICAN FREE PRESS
Issue 27/28. July 7 & 14, 2025. Pages 18-19.

In this interview, conducted by AFP’s James Edwards, Revisionist historian Mark Weber sorts out the fast-paced, confusing events of recent months regarding Iran and the Middle East. Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review, is also a lecturer, and current affairs analyst. Educated in both the United States and Europe, Weber holds a master’s degree in modern European history and is considered an expert on World War II.

American Free Press: As a result of your three visits to Iran, you are unusually well-informed about that country and its relations with the US. What do you think is most important for Americans to understand about Iran.

Mark Weber: Iran is a much more complex, important, and fascinating country than the mainstream U.S. media and many American politicians suggest. Fox News and similarly slanted media outlets give an especially distorted, cartoonish portrayal of Iranians and their government.

With a population of some 90 million, Iranians are justifiably proud of their rich and impressive heritage, history, and culture. Iranians are Muslim, but their heritage, culture and ancestry are very different than that of the other Muslim countries of the region. Iranians are not Arabs.

Iranians are a proud people. They remember and deeply resent how foreign powers, especially Britain and the U.S., for many years humiliated, exploited, and oppressed them. Along with many millions around the world, Iranians are angered and perplexed by America’s record of one-sided support for Israel and its aggression and brutal treatment of non-Jews.

The large Iranian crowds that shout “Death to America,” are venting anger at the U.S. government, not the American people. In fact, and as visitors to the country can readily learn for themselves, Iranians have a remarkably friendly attitude toward Americans.

AFP: While in Tehran, you delivered a lecture to hundreds of university students and spoke at a conference of government leaders, which the country’s president also addressed. What else can you tell us about Iranian society and government that the US media either omits or distorts?

Weber: Iran is a much more open and “pluralistic” society than, say, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or some other countries in the region. While Iranian elections are certainly not as ‘free” as those in the US, they are not rigged. Iranian elections are real contests of candidates who present different views on important issues. Some recent presidential candidates were elected in spite of disapproval by the religious “establishment.”

Iranians are very aware of the what’s going on in the world. Iran is not a “closed” country like North Korea. Many Iranians routinely travel from their country and return home. Each year, hundreds of thousands of tourists visit and travel widely in Iran. As any visitor to the country will easily discover for himself, Iranians are quite open about expressing their views and complaints, including criticisms of the government.

Although the Iranian press is restricted, it’s at least as “free” as that of Ukraine or Saudi Arabia. “Reformist” daily newspapers are often critical of government policies.

Women are a majority of Iran’s university students. Women hold four cabinet-level posts in the current Iranian government.

Contrary to the impression given by some U.S. politicians and much of the media, very few Iranians regard American society as any kind of model. Especially outside of the relatively well-to-do neighborhoods of north Tehran, most Iranians are religiously and socially rather “conservative.” For example, only a tiny minority of Iranians would tolerate the “gay pride” parades that are accepted in the United States and western Europe.

It’s true that many Iranians, probably a majority, are unhappy with their government – but not in the way that the U.S. media and American politicians suggest. The main complaint of most Iranians is not about whether women should or should not have to cover their head, but rather about the sluggish economy, inflation, and a lack of good jobs and economic opportunity. Many Iranians blame their economic problems on the country’s aging, dogmatic and inflexible political leadership. A common complaint is that Iran’s religious “establishment” plays an oversized, intrusive and bureaucratized role in the national economy, and thereby stifles innovation and free enterprise.

In recent weeks, the Israeli government and the pro-Israel media in the U.S. have promoted the idea that that Iranians are desperately eager for “liberation” and “regime change.” Prime Minister Netanyahu has been pushing the son of the Shah who was ousted in a popular uprising in 1979 as the ideal person to head a new government in Tehran. Some US Republicans, including John Bolton and Rudolf Guiliani, have promoted the bizarre MEK terrorist cult as an alternative Iranian government. The chance that either of these foreign-based opposition groups will take power in Tehran is just about zero. Neither has any popular support among Iranians.

Any new “regime change” government is much more likely to emerge from Iran’s military, and it would almost certainly be less religious and more nationalistic than the current one.

AFP: What was Israel’s motive in launching its “preemptive” attack against Iran on June 13? Were Israel’s leaders really concerned that Iran would soon acquire nuclear weapons?

Weber: For decades Netanyahu has pressed for the destruction of Iran, and indeed of any regime in the Middle East, that does not accept Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

Netanyahu has a long record of skillfully lying to Americans. For more than 30 years, he and other Israeli leaders have been pressuring the U.S. to attack Iran, based on bogus claims that Iran is just one or two or three years away from having nuclear weapons. If Iran had really wanted to build nuclear weapons, it would have done so years ago. Iran is certainly as capable of doing so as Pakistan or North Korea.

Netanyahu has promoted other lies, which America’s pro-Israel media and politicians readily accept. For example, he pressed the U.S. to invade, bomb an occupy Iraq in early 2003. Shortly before that ill-fated attack, Netanyahu assured members of the U.S. Congress that “if you take out Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

In 2015 Iran and the U.S. concluded the JCPOA agreement whereby Iran accepted years of comprehensive, intrusive international inspections to ensure that it was not developing nuclear weapons. Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China also signed the agreement. U.S. national security experts overwhelmingly endorsed it. Even the former head of Israel’s atomic energy agency, Uzi Eilam, publicly said: “The bottom line is the agreement is good for Israel.”

Netanyahu’s fierce opposition to the agreement was motivated, above all, by fear that it would “normalize” relations between Iran and the US and Europe, which would greatly help Iran’s economy, and boost Iran’s stature and influence in the world.

Anyone who is serious about wanting Iran not to have nuclear weapons should support the revival of the 2015 JCPOA agreement. Even assuming that Iran’s leaders are deceitful and untrustworthy, the JCPOA is much better than no agreement at all.

Pressed by Netanyahu, President Trump tore up the JCPOA agreement in 2018.

AFP: You were a live guest on my radio program on June 21 just as news broke of the U.S. bombing of Iran. What were your thoughts when you heard the news?

Weber: My first reaction was surprise. Along with millions of other Americans, I had been deceived by President Trump, who had assured the world that he wanted to reach an agreement with Iran about nuclear weapons, and who had warned Israel not to attack Iran while negotiations with Tehran were still ongoing.

I also immediately thought that Trump’s decision to attack was a dangerous gamble. If Iran responded to the U.S. bombing by striking back hard at the U.S., and thereby expanding the war, Trump would quickly lose public support, even among his loyal “base.”

Fortunately, the quickly arranged ceasefire seems to be holding.

AFP: In less than two weeks, Israel launched a full-scale air attack against Iran, Iran forcefully retaliated with missile strikes against Israel, the U.S. joined with a bombing raid against Iran, and Trump worked out a ceasefire that abruptly ended the conflict. How would you explain such an astonishing turn of events over such a short period of time?

Weber: Short answer: Trump’s unpredictable personality and incoherent outlook.

Just before Israel launched its massive June 13 attack against Iran, Trump publicly warned Israel not to strike Iran while negotiations are still ongoing. But after Israel struck, Trump approved the attack and acknowledged that he had known about it in advance. On June 17 Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” but now he talks as if he wants to make a “deal” with Tehran. Which is it? Who knows?

Although some consider Trump’s incoherence and unpredictability a virtue, such behavior is dangerous. A harmful consequence of Trump’s record of repeatedly breaking his word, and trashing even formal agreements that he himself had signed, is that no one, not even traditional friends of the U.S. and certainly not Iran, can ever trust him or the U.S. government about anything. The resulting global instability is bad for Americans and the world.

AFP: What consequences to you see of President Trump’s unilateral decision to attack another sovereign country?

Weber: The Trump administration has acted in blatant violation of the UN Charter, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and even his own public pledges. Leaders of both major US political parties have accepted Trump’s brazen scorn for solemn international agreements. As a result, leaders in Europe, Russia, China and everywhere else in the world cannot trust any pledge or agreement made by an American government.

Trump ordered U.S. bombers to strike Iran without even a pretense of authorization by the U.S. Congress. Some people might think that’s just fine. But that means accepting the principle that a U.S. president, acting solely on his own authority, can plunge the U.S. into war against a country that is not even an immediate threat. Accepting that means that Americans will have no basis on which to object when future U.S. presidents decide, on their own authority, to drag the U.S. into foreign wars.

AFP: Because the international situation is still uncertain, things could change drastically by the time this is published. All the same, what do you see as the longer-range consequences of the dramatic events of recent weeks?

Weber: One possible far-reaching consequence is that some regional powers, notably Iran and Turkey, may conclude that because they cannot trust either the U.S. or Israel, they should follow Israel’s example and begin to build – covertly and in violation of international agreements – their own nuclear arsenal.

Iran apparently continues to insist on its right to develop a peaceful nuclear program, a position that Russia publicly supports. That stance may provide a pretext for Israel’s Netanyahu to demand that the U.S. once again attack Iran, if necessary with ground troops and a full-scale invasion, to compel Iran to “surrender.” Israel’s cheerleaders in the U.S. Congress and media would then predictably press Trump to “finish the job.”

The events of recent months and weeks have also encouraged ever more Americans to question the dubious premises on which this country’s decades-long support for Israel have been based. During the past two years, sympathy and support for Israel have fallen sharply in the U.S. and around the world. Even many of Israel’s long-term supporters have been shocked by the brutality of Israel’s Jewish-supremacist government in oppressing Palestinians.

If the ceasefire holds, world attention will return to Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, and the U.S. military, economic and diplomatic support that makes it possible. The events of recent months will also further encourage growing public awareness of the power and influence of the organized Jewish community, which is the basis for America’s crucial, decades-old backing of Israel.

AFP: How likely are President Trump’s recent decisions on behalf of Israel to erode support among his loyal “base,” and thereby discredit those policies his supporters regard as really important?

Weber: That’s not likely, at least in the short term. Trump supporters, like most Americans, are normally not concerned with U.S. foreign policy. Americans mostly care about policies that directly impact their day-to-day lives. They become unhappy with foreign policy measures only when they result in many American deaths, or when the costs become so exorbitant that they begin to hurt working- and middle-class people economically. Fortunately, the dramatic events of recent weeks have not resulted in American deaths.

AFP: Why does Trump continue to be such an emphatic supporter of Israel? What’s in it for him?

Weber: That’s a good question, for which no one seems to have a satisfactory answer.

Trump must realize that even among his loyal, hard-core “base,” there’s very little support for U.S. involvement in foreign wars, and markedly declining sympathy for Israel. Moreover, and as Trump has repeatedly complained, in spite of giving Israel “everything,” American Jews overwhelmingly still not do not like or trust him.

Despite occasional outbursts of impatience with Netanyahu or exasperation with Israel’s leaders, Trump shows no sign of abandoning his ardent support for the Zionist state. At least with regard to the Middle East, Trump is still very much an “Israel First” president.

 

James Edwards is the outspoken host of The Political Cesspool, one of America’s most potent talk radio programs. He has made numerous television guest appearances and his work as a political commentator over the past two decades has been the subject of articles in hundreds of print publications and media broadcasts around the world. Visit ThePoliticalCesspool.org for more info.