Welcome to The Deep Dive. Today, we're really
digging into that intense 12 -day Iran -Israel
conflict back in June 2025. Right. You probably
remember former U .S. President Trump's big social
media announcement June 23rd. A complete and
total ceasefire. Quite the declaration. So the
big questions are, was that ceasefire ever actually
real? How did things get so bad? And well, did
the fighting really stop? Let's unpack the sources.
Well, first off, you have to understand this
wasn't spontaneous at all. It was really the
culmination of years of mounting tensions. OK.
Think back. The U .S. pulled out of the JCPOA
in 2018, then the Gaza war starting late 2023,
plus those key assassinations, Haniyeh Nasrallah
in 2024. Right. A lot leading up to it. Exactly.
And the immediate spark really was the IAEA report
on June 12 finding Iran noncompliant. That seemed
to be the trigger. And then just a day later,
June 13th, Israel launches Operation Rising Lion,
their stated goal, degrade, destroy and remove
Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities. And
it was a massive operation. Huge. Sources say
over 200 jets, 330 munitions, hitting about 100
targets. And that included critical sites like
Natanz and Fordow. Yeah, the big ones. And the
human cost was reportedly significant, too. Hundreds
killed in Iran, according to initial reports.
Then Iran hit back fast with Operation True Promise
III. And this was a big deal because, for the
first time, Their missiles actually got through
Israel's air defenses in significant numbers.
Hitting cities like Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba.
The reports mentioned 28 killed in Israel, over
1 ,200 injured. A major escalation on their part,
too. So after about nine days of this direct
back and forth, the U .S. steps in decisively.
June 22nd, Operation Midnight Hammer. Right.
And this involved the B -2 stealth bombers. Using
those JBU -57s, the massive ordnance penetrators,
the bunker busters. Iran's three most vital nuclear
facilities, Fordo, and Tanzan, Isfahan. That
really upped the ante. A critical escalation,
definitely. But Iran's response on the 23rd was
interesting. Highly calculated. A missile barrage,
yes, but symbolic. Targeted the U .S. Al Udeid
air base in Qatar, right? That's right. But crucially,
with advance warning, so no casualties, no real
damage, it felt like... Well, like a necessary
response for their credibility, but designed
to avoid a full blown war with the U .S. Yeah,
a sort of face saving off ramp, you could say.
OK, so that brings us back to Trump's ceasefire
announcement on the same day, June 23rd. Was
this like a signed deal or something else? No,
not a formal agreement. It was. much more fragile,
really hammered out through frantic back -channel
diplomacy. Great channels. Two main lines, basically.
A direct one, Washington to Jerusalem, Israel
agreed, claiming victory, of course. And then
Doha, Qatar, mediating between the US and Iran.
Which is fascinating, right? Guitar playing mediator,
even after its own territory was technically
attacked, she was their whole strategic, indispensability
-formed policy in action. So what was the actual
plan for this fragile ceasefire? Well, the idea
was staggered. Iran was meant to stop strikes
at midnight Eastern time. Israel, 12 hours later.
12 hours later. Hmm. That sounds risky. It was.
And the messaging was all over the place. Trump
tweets, now in effect. Israel says, hold on,
we'll respond forcefully to any violation. And
Iran. Iran's foreign minister publicly denied
any formal agreement existed at all, though he
did sort of offer a conditional halt to attacks.
It was messy. So it fell apart quickly then.
Almost immediately. Yeah. Within hours, Israel
accused Iran of launching new missiles claimed
four people were killed in Beersheba. Did Iran
admit to that? No, they vehemently denied it.
But that accusation was enough. Israel announced
renewed, intense operations. Even with Trump
publicly pleading on social media, bring your
pilots home now. Yeah, those pleas didn't seem
to land. So really an autopsy of a failure for
that ceasefire. No unified agreement, that staggered
timeline breeding mistrust, and just fundamentally
different goals for everyone involved. Exactly.
It was more a ceasefire of narratives than actual
reality. And the result. Well, this whole 12
-day war effectively shattered that old illusion
of a manageable shadow war between Iran and Israel.
Now it's direct conflict and a very unstable
new reality. So where did that leave the main
players? Israel claimed victory, shifted focus
back to Gaza. Right. Iran, meanwhile, took some
devastating hits, clearly forcing a strategic
rethink. And the U .S., while they demonstrated
their deterrent power, made their red lines pretty
clear. You mentioned a strategic rethink for
Iran. What does that look like? It's what some
are calling a strategic inversion. The cost of
direct war proved so high for Iran that paradoxically,
it probably increases the value of its proxy
network groups like Hezbollah. So a return to
the shadows or maybe asymmetric retaliation.
That seems more likely, yes. Using proxies becomes
strategically more important again. And the economy.
Oil prices jumped over 10 percent. The Strait
of Hormuz is always a flash point. Absolutely
a huge risk. But there's also this idea of mutually
assured economic disruption. Iran itself relies
heavily on the strait for its own oil exports.
Ah, so closing it completely hurts them badly
too. Precisely. Which acts as a powerful disincentive
against total closure. So maybe the most likely
scenario going forward is more of a controlled
confrontation. Low intensity grinding conflict.
Flare ups, proxy actions, cyber attacks. But
maybe avoiding that full scale direct war we
saw for those 12 days. So our deep dive really
shows the ceasefire wasn't an end, was it? Right.
Just... the end of the most intense chapter so
far, the actual drivers of the conflict. Still
very much there. Definitely. The region seems
locked in this perilous unstable equilibrium
now. Which leaves us wondering, what form does
this conflict take next? And maybe more importantly,
what happens if one side miscalculates in this
new unstable environment? The next chapter, well,
it's still being written for all of us to understand.