Defiant Iran boasts all its nuclear material is ‘in a safe place’

‘Israel hit Natanz, Isfahan, Khandab, and Arak but they were already evacuated’, Iranian commander Mohsen Rezaei said on Thursday.

Iran boasted that all its nuclear material had been moved to ‘a safe place’ before Israeli missiles struck its nuclear sites.  

‘Israel hit Natanz, Isfahan, Khandab, and Arak, but they were already evacuated,’ Iranian commander Mohsen Rezaei said on Thursday.

‘All the materials have been moved to a safe place,’ he added.

Israel has been launching missiles at Iran in an attempt to cripple its nuclear capabilities since last Friday, and US President Donald Trump was thinking about getting involved.

But, Trump dramatically stepped back from the brink last night as Britain prepared to take part in peace talks with Iran.

In the previous 48 hours, the US President had demanded Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’ and threatened air strikes ‘in days’.

However, after spending the afternoon locked away in the White House Situation Room, which he has dubbed ‘the War Room’, he said he would give Tehran two weeks in which to make a deal.

Negotiations will start today with Britain, France and Germany due to sit down with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt read out a statement from Mr Trump that said: ‘Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.’

Iranian commander Mohsen Rezaei boasted that all its nuclear material had been moved to ‘a safe place’ before Israeli missiles struck its nuclear sites

He said during a TV interview: ‘Israel hit Natanz, Isfahan, Khandab, and Arak but they were already evacuated’

Trump dramatically stepped back from the brink last night as Britain prepared to take part in peace talks with Iran

Israel has been launching missiles at Iran in an attempt to cripple its nuclear capabilities. Pictured: The Iranian nuclear facility at Arak in central Iran on June 18, 2025 (top) and the damage at the Iranian nuclear facility after an Israeli strike on June 19

Pictured: An image claiming to show smoke rising into the sky after an Israeli strike on an inactive nuclear facility in Arak

Pictured: Damaged equipment litters the floor of an office building used by the Iranian Broadcasting Organisation, hit by Israeli missiles days earlier on June 16

The dramatic developments came on another day of horror as an Iranian ballistic missile struck Soroka Hospital, in Beersheba, which suffered extensive damage.

The attack, a direct hit, left 71 injured and saw prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing revenge. 

‘Iran’s terrorist tyrants launched missiles at Soroka Hospital and at a civilian population in the centre of the country,’ he said. ‘We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran.’

The hospital hit threatened to tip the Middle East into all-out war as Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, ‘can no longer be allowed to exist’, branding him ‘the modern Hitler’.

Mr Netanyahu also refused to rule out an assassination attempt. The US has previously vetoed two attempts on Khamenei’s life.

Israel also intensified its aerial attacks on Iran, blowing a large hole in a heavy water nuclear facility in Arak, having warned locals to evacuate the area in advance. 

Earlier in the week an Israeli strike hit the building housing Iran’s state broadcaster in Tehran. Mr Trump’s surprise retreat appeared a victory for the UK-led diplomatic push as Sir Keir Starmer appealed for ‘cool heads’.

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Israel Dismantles Iran’s Defenses, but Will It Be Enough?

Israel Dismantles Iran’s Defenses, but Will It Be Enough?

We are at a historic time in the Middle East, but all of this chaos and war will be for naught if Iran’s theocracy emerges intact.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. We are at a historic time in the Middle East. Never in our lifetimes have we been closer to a complete revolutionary fervor that gives promise of normalcy for the Middle East. And never have we been in more danger of seeing the entire region blow up.

What am I referring to? The war right now between Iran and Israel.

It is surreal. If we had this conversation five years ago and I said to you, the Iranian nation—that is huge compared to Israel, 10 times the population—the Iranian nation has lost all control of the Houthi terrorists and they are themselves neutered. Their surrogates in the West Bank, Gaza are neutered. They’re gone, Hamas as a fighting force. The formidable, the terrifying Hezbollah cadres, they’re inert.

There is no more Syria—the Assad dynasty, the pro-Iranian Syria—it’s in chaos. But whatever the chaos is, it seems to be anti-Iranian. There is no Shia Crescent, starting with Tehran, all the way to the Mediterranean. Lebanon is free of Iranian influence. So is Syria. Gaza, de facto, will be.

There is no Russian presence. It’s not a patron. It is not a protector. It’s not a power in the Middle East. It’s tied down in Ukraine.

And Iran itself, the formidable powerhouse of the Middle East that evoked terror all over, has no defenses.

And now we’ve seen five days of war, in which the Israelis have systematically dismantled all of the Iranian missile defenses. They have air defenses. They have dismantled the terrorist hierarchy. They have dismantled the people who are responsible for the nuclear program.

We’re down to a single critical issue. They have suffered casualties. The Iranians have sent over 400 ballistic missiles and drones into Israel. And 90% are stopped but that 10% gets through.

But here’s the crux. All of this chaos and all of this war will be for naught if Iran’s theocracy emerges intact from this war and its nuclear infrastructure can either be quickly rebuilt or there are elements of it that have been missed and maybe there is enough fissile material—if not already, soon—to make another bomb.

So, here we are at the critical point.

Should Israel continue, does it have the ability to nullify the entire nuclear program, which was the object of this war? Or must it rely on the bunker-buster devices, bombs of the United States?

And if the United States should try to go into these key nuclear facilities and blow them up—with the ordinance and the aircraft that it has, which Israel lacks—will it be fighting an optional Middle East war? Of which the MAGA doctrine says: No more forever wars. No more intervention in the Middle East. No more ground troops.

Or can President Donald Trump say: “I’m not an isolationist. I’m a Jacksonian. You should have known that when I took out Qasem Soleimani in my first term, when I took out Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, when I took out the Wagner Group. I don’t like to intervene. But when people threaten the United States and our deterrence as a matter of conjecture, I want to ensure that they understand the repercussions.”

And so, is there a fight between the isolationists and the Jacksonians or is it just a minor group of people on the right who don’t want any action at all?

And we don’t know the answer yet. But if this war should end with the Iranian regime intact and the elements of its nuclear program recoverable, then, in some ways, it will be all for naught. And people will make the necessary adjustments in the Middle East. And it won’t be necessarily, well, Iran is still very weak. They’ve lost all their terrorist surrogates. They have no air defenses. They’ve lost their media. They’ve lost their commanding—it will be more like, my gosh, Iran survived everything that Israel and, by association, the United States threw at it. It’s indestructible.

And so, we’re at a critical cusp. It’s, do you risk more danger by taking out and eliminating the nuclear threat for good and, by association, humiliate the theocracy to the point it can be overthrown, or do you play it safe and have negotiations and allow the regime and the remnants to survive?

I don’t like forever wars. I don’t like preemptive wars. I do not like the United States intervening anywhere in that godforsaken area. But if the war ends with the regime intact and a recoverable nuclear program, it won’t just be back to square one, it will be a disaster.

So, we’ll see what happens. And hold on, everybody. I think we’re going to see things that we haven’t seen in a lifetime in the Middle East. And it could turn out very bad, but it could also turn out to be quite revolutionary and remake the map of the entire region.

Victor Davis Hanson: Israel-Iran War Will ‘Be For Naught’ if the Regime, Nuclear Program Survive

Regardless of whether Israel has the capabilities to decimate Iran’s entire nuclear program, or if the United States needs to become further involved in the war and provide Israel with “bunker-buster” bombs, one thing is clear: “If this war should end with the Iranian regime intact and the elements of its nuclear program recoverable, then, in some ways, it will be all for naught,” argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.”

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