Iran War Started : People Winning, 100%, Ayatollah 0%

 Nadene Goldfoot                                 

•                                                                              
  
                                             Tousi of Tousi.tv on youtube

     News has come from only one source for us, Tousi.tv in England, a young Iranian man living there.

    The Iranian War has started, and almost finished

The people took the cities of Tehran and two other large cities.  The pictures were of night with bonfires lighting up.  The Ayatollah is in hiding, calling in his Arab friends to help him out, but Israelis are already there helping the young civilian Iranians .  

Trump must have had this all planned.  What a surprise.  He has the armada still waiting for his messages.  I saw the old flag hoisted with the lion in the middle.  The people were singing Iranian freedom songs.  The word I've heard was that the Ayatollah got even more horrible, killing women and children.  It' could be 40,000 were slaughtered by this evil regime.  

• Background: Born in Iran, he came to the UK as a child with his mother, a political refugee, and is dedicated to promoting values like free markets, free speech, and British culture. 
• He has shown pictures with the sound of the streets of Tehran taking over the capital and two other cities. 
•  Israel has been there helping, but I don't know anything about it yet.
• "Tousi TV" likely refers to Mahyar Tousi, a prominent Iranian-British political commentator, YouTuber, and media figure known for his conservative/classical liberal views and advocacy for free speech, who has appeared on various shows and runs his own platforms, though there isn't a dedicated "Tousi TV" Wikipedia page, but rather a page for the individual, Mahyad Tousi, detailing his work. 
  • Media Presence:
     He's a well-known political YouTuber and commentator, often appearing on shows like 
    Tonight Live with Dan Wootton
    , 
    Mark Steyn
    , and 
    Farage
    , and hosts his own content
    .
  Content Focus: His work centers on political commentary from a conservative perspective, often featuring debates and critiques of mainstream narratives. 

  Key Information & Related Links:

  • Mahyad Tousi Wikipedia Page: Provides a broader overview of his film/TV production work and personal details.
  • Battle of Ideas Profile: Highlights his political mission and values.
  • IMDb Page: Lists his appearances in TV series and podcasts as a commentator/self. 
• 
  

Who's Leading the Iran-Israel War?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

Smoke rises from the Iranian state TV building in Tehran after an Israeli strike. Photo: Stringer/Getty Images  This was a targeted strike.  

My attention as been drawn to the fact that Trump has told Teheran to evacuate!  Why?  Israel is not nor will want to bomb the civilians of Iran.  Israel has been pin-pointing all along;  they have the capability, to only hit places causing bombing from Iran to Israel!  They have wiped out top leaders of Iran's army, etc., bases, things like that.

Won't that put civilians in the way of the battlefield?  They can't leave by plane;  where can they go but to the hills where the nuclear centers are.  Tehran, home to 10 million people, suffers from severe traffic congestion making a speedy evacuation impossible, says Al Jazeera.                    

"The Israeli military has said it has complete control of the skies over Tehran. It signaled Monday that it's expanding its targets beyond strictly military or nuclear sites, including by bombing Iranian state TV."

In Israel's recent strikes against Iran, the commander-in-chief of the Iranian military, General Hossein Salami, was killed. 

Israel's strikes on Iran killed several Iranian commanders on Friday, including Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s highest-ranking military officer, and Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, who was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an elite wing of the Iranian military.

While Salami was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is the overall commander-in-chief of the armed forces.  Trump does not want him targeted.  Evidently he is still in Iran, though there were rumors he had fled to Putin in Russia.  

Eyal Zamir (Hebrew: אייל זמיר; born 26 January 1966) is the current Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, having taken office on 5 March 2025. Zamir previously served as the Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Defense (2023–2025), as Deputy Chief of Staff between 2018 and 2021, commander of the Southern Command,Military Secretary to the Prime Minister, commander of the 36th Division and commander of the 7th Armored Brigade.  The Israeli military chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, stated that Israel's actions were a "fight to preserve our existence". 

PM , formerly Captain Benjamin Netanyahu served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at age 18  elite special forces unit known as Sayeret Matkal. 

• It is considered one of the premier special forces units of Israel.
• It is known for its clandestine operations and is often tasked with intelligence gathering and counter-terrorism missions.
• Sayeret Matkal is modeled after the British Army's Special Air Service (SAS) and shares the motto "Who Dares Wins". 

"President Trump called on Iranian civilians to "immediately evacuate Tehran" on Monday evening, shortly after which the White House announced he would be departing the G7 summit early to "attend to many important matters."

Why it matters: It's not immediately clear what triggered Trump's dramatic post on Truth Social or his early return from Canada. Israel has been conducting strikes in Tehran since Thursday night, but the U.S. has so far declined to join the operation.

• White House spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer denied reports the U.S. was attacking Iran: "American forces are maintaining their defensive posture, and that has not changed. We will defend American interests," he wrote.
• Trump later told reporters before departing Canada that "they (Iran) want to make a deal, and as soon as I leave here, we're going to be doing something. But I have to leave here."
• Tehran is home to around 10 million people, with around 17 million in the metropolitan area.  I repeat, Israel is not aiming at killing the civilians.  If they leave Tehran, won't they find themselves in the battlefield and be in more harm?  
  
• Pete Hegseth is the USA's Secretary of Defense.  Did he call Trump back? 
• USA's General Flynn is also commenting:
• The conflict has clearly intensified with Israel launching its initial airstrikes back on 13 June. Targets in Iran include military & nuclear facilities, such as Natanz, Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center, Tabriz Airbase, Hamedan Airbase, Amand Missile Base, Bakhtaran missile base, & energy infrastructure such as South Pars, Fajr-e Jam, and Shahran oil depot, as well as the Farda Motors factor. Israel described these actions as aimed at dismantling Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile capabilities, reporting a 90% interception rate of Iranian munitions. Iran responded with Operation True Promise III, launching 7 waves of ballistic missile attacks & two waves of drones, causing significant casualties, w/ at least 13 deaths & 270 wounded in Israel.
•  DUBAI/JERUSALEM, June 17 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted a "real end" to the nuclear dispute with Iran and indicated he may send senior American officials to meet with the Islamic Republic as the Israel-Iran air war raged for a fifth day.
  Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said meanwhile that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face the same fate as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion and eventually hanged after a trial.

• Resource:
• https://www.axios.com/2025/06/16/trump-evacuate-tehran-warning-israel

Iran Riots Over Death of Young Kurdish Woman,, Mahsa Amini

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini , died in a hospital in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstances.  She was arrested, and taken away by Iran's religious morality police  for wearing her head covering a little too far back, exposing some of her hair.  All this happened in Tehran for "improperly" wearing her hijab.  She was still in police custody when she died.  

Upon hearing of the hijab law in 1979, women were appalled.

Iran introduced a mandatory dress code for women, in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic standards, a short time after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. On 7 March, less than a month after the revolution, Khomeini decreed the hijab (Islamic headscarf) to be mandatory for all women in their workplace, and decreed that women would no longer be allowed to enter the workplace or any government office unveiled, which he termed as "naked".

Violence and harassment against women not wearing the hijab in accordance with Iranian government standards had become common after the revolution, whether by law enforcement personnel or pro-regime vigilantes. From 1980, women could not enter government or public buildings or attend their workplace without hijab. In 1983, mandatory hijab in public was introduced in the penal code, stating that "women who appear in public without religious hijab will be sentenced to whipping up to 74 lashes". But in practice a number of women, such as Saba Kord Afshari and Yasaman Aryani, were sentenced to heavy prison terms.

In the last decade, clothing in Iranian society underwent significant changes, and young women in particular tend to be more liberal about hijab rules, prompting the Guidance Patrol, Iran's morality police, to launch intermittent campaigns to verbally admonish or violently arrest and "re-educate" women they considered to be wearing the hijab incorrectly. 

Under routine circumstances, the detainees are brought to a center where they are re-instructed in the dress regulations for hours, before being made to sign a pledge to uphold said regulations, and then being allowed to leave with their family.
"What happened this time?  Was it because she was a Kurd? 

The Iranian government insisted that Amini died from a heart attack, but reports indicate she died from a skull fracture due to heavy blows to the head. People believe she was beaten into a coma.  

People from different layers of the society across Iran have joined protests since Amini, an Iranian Kurd, died after being detained in Tehran on Sept. 13 for "inappropriate attire".

Sixteen or Seventeen years old, Nika is now dead.  

The death of a 17-year-old girl since the start of the protests has become another focal point of protester anger, with activists on Twitter saying Nika Shakarami was killed in Tehran while demonstrating over Amini's death. State media said on Wednesday a judicial case had been opened into Shakarami's death, citing officials claiming it had nothing to do with the unrest, and that she had fallen off a roof and her body contained no bullet wounds.                                       

Most homes in Iran have flat roofs, even acting as streets.  Here is a musician on the top of one roof.  Notice her hijab exposing some hair.  It would be very hard to keep any scarf from not slipping back.  The morality police should wear a scarf and see how long it stays put without slipping.  

Relatives of a girl who died during protests in Iran have been forced into making false statements, a source close to the family has told BBC Persian.

Nika Shakarami, 16, went missing in Tehran on 20 September after telling a friend she was being chased by police.  On Wednesday night, a state TV report showed her aunt, Atash, saying: "Nika was killed falling from a building."   Her uncle was also seen on TV speaking against the unrest, as someone seems to whisper to him: "Say it, you scumbag!"

The source told BBC Persian that these were both "forced confessions" that came "after intense interrogations and being threatened that other family members would be killed".  Atash and Nika's uncle, Mohsen, were detained by authorities after Atash posted messages online about her niece's death and spoke to the media. The televised statements were recorded before they were released, according to the source.                              

  Iranian Kurdish women - hijabs aren't working so well

 

Kurds in Iran constitute a large minority in the country with a population of around 9 and 10 million people. Iran is the 6th most populated Muslim majority country in the world with 76, 923,300 with Indonesia being the first with 228,582,000., and this was back in 2011.

Their original home was in Kurdistan, a mountainous region now divided among Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The campaign of Iraqi government against Kurds in 1988 was called Anfal ("Spoils of War") The Anfal attacks led to destruction of two thousand villages and death of between 50 and 100,000 Kurds. After the Kurdish uprising in 1991 (Kurdish: Raperîn) led by the PUK and KDP, Iraqi troops recaptured the Kurdish areas and hundreds of thousand of Kurds fled to the borders.

 Jews had gone into Kurdistan as early as the time of Ezra(5th century BCE) led Jews of Babylon back to Jerusalem.  Kurdish Jews speak a language close to that of the Babylonian Talmud.  A Jewish community living in Kurdistan toward the end of the 19th century numbered from 12,,000 to 18,000.  This could be why the DNA of Kurds is the closest to the Jews.  After 1948, the great majority of Kurdish Jews, from all areas, immigrated to Israel and settled in or near Jerusalem.  

Kurds have been taking on ISIS in battle and winning.   The region’s Kurds are emerging as important players. Kurdish groups, from the peshmerga of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, and even Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party, have been on the front lines in the fight against ISIS. Kurds are also playing an important role in sheltering refugees and protecting other minorities in the region.

Resource:

https://www.reuters.com/world/iran-summons-british-envoy-alleging-uk-meddling-unrest-2022-10-05/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mahsa_Amini#:~:text=On%2016%20September%202022%2C%20a,%2C%20Iran%2C%20under%20suspicious%20circumstances.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/06/iran-protests-nika-shakarami-mahsa/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds_in_Iran

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Kurds#:~:text=The%20Anfal%20attacks%20led%20to,Kurds%20fled%20to%20the%20borders.

US Air Defense Pact Called MEAD That's Getting Turned Down

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

     Tehran and their very large missile

Just what is this US Air Defense Pact?  The pact, called “MEAD — Middle East Air Defense,” is meant to connect air defense systems to combat Iran's increasing use of drones and missiles in the Middle East. Iran's statement comes ahead of US President Joe Biden's planned visit to Israel  and Saudi Arabia.    The plan was for nine Arab rulers to meet Biden for a unique summit to launch the first US-led regional air defense cooperation pact. Here are 3 kings and a president.                                                      

                                                    President of the UAE
                                                                                             

                                         King Abdullah of Jordan

  King of Morocco                                                  

                                          
                                                               King of Saudi Arabia

                                                             

Illustrative: Posters of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in Iraq in a US drone attack on January 3, 2020, are seen in front of Qiam, background left, Zolfaghar, top right, and Dezful missiles displayed in a missile capabilities exhibition by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard at Imam Khomeini grand mosque, in Tehran, Iran, January 7, 2022 (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Tehran says ‘entry of foreigners in the region’ is the ‘main cause of tension and regional rift.  “The entry of foreigners in the region… will not create security and stability but is itself the main cause of tension and regional rift,” ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said, according to Reuters.’  

                     Israel's Defense Minister, Benny Gantz

Briefing lawmakers at the Knesset’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee last month, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said the pact was “already in action” and that he hoped it would expand with Biden’s visit.  However, UAE opted out of US-planned air defense pact as Biden flew to Jeddah.

      Anwar Gargash, political advisor to Prince Zayed of UAE.

The United Arab Emirates knew this would upset  US President Joe Biden ahead of his arrival in Jeddah on Thursday, July 15 on the second leg of his Mid-East trip after Israel.  However, the UAE, a key member, got in first with a stunning announcement. Anwar Gargash, political adviser to Crown Prince Muhammed bin Zayed said “The United Arab Emirates will not be part of an ‘axis’ against Iran even…  if Tehran’s actions are not helping diplomatic efforts.” He further disclosed, “The UAE is working to send an ambassador to Tehran as it seeks to rebuild bridges with Iran. The idea of a confrontational approach to Tehran is not something Abu Dhabi supported.”

    Bisher al-Khasawneh, PM of Jordan

The UAE is important as they are part of the Abrahamic Accords with Israel.  They opted out  after an earlier knock from Amman.  Jordan’s prime minister Bisher al-Khasawneh, told the BBC, “Iran does not threaten Jordan’s national security, Jordan does not treat it as a threat, and is open to developing a healthy relationship with the Islamic Republic.”  

Last week, Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh spoke in front of the parliament and made offensive, false, and insulting remarks against Israel. His use of extreme terminology is intolerable. Wanting to express support for the Palestinian rioters, he said that the Jews were “defiling Al-Aqsa Mosque.” This is a sharp terminology. In addition, following the clashes on the Temple Mount, Israel’s deputy ambassador to Jordan was summoned to the Jordanian Foreign Ministry, where he was reprimanded. 

The US-backed pact reportedly involves the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt, plus Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with which Israel has no formal diplomatic relations. It builds on the 2020 Abraham accords between Israel and four Arab countries, including Sudan and Morocco.

The fact remains that Jordan and the UAE are of different strains of Islam from Iran.  They all read the Koran.  They follow the Sunni belief system while Iran follows the Shi'a and is an Islamic state with 98% of its people.Iran, 6th largest of Muslim states, has a population of 76,923,300, following the Jafari fiqh, and has 545,000 active troops, which is even more than Egypt has.    

Jordan had 5,568,565 people with 95% Muslim in 2011, while UAE had 5,432,746 with 76% Muslim.  They're comparable in population.  Jordan's main fiqh is Shafi'i while UAE's is Maliki;  both state religions.  A fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is often described as the human understanding and practices of the sharia, that is human understanding of the divine ...The difference is that Jordan's military power of active troops was 100,700 while UAE was 50,500.  

The 3 states all have slightly different interpretations of the Koran that rules their actions with Jordan and EAU being the closest.  

                                                    

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and US President Joe Biden participate in a welcoming ceremony at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, July 13, 2022 (photo credit: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)

The highlight of his two and a half-day Israel trip was the Jerusalem Declaration he signed with Prime Minister Yair Lapid, in which the US vowed to use “all elements in its national power” to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. However, aside from protestations of undying friendship and the unshakable strategic partnership binding the two peoples, the two governments ended the visit at odds on at least two key issues.

 In particular, Biden stuck to his guns on diplomacy as the best way to achieve Iran’s nuclear disarmament. Lapid failed to push him into a commitment to act should dialogue fail or endorse the Israeli proposition that nothing but a credible military threat would provide the necessary deterrence.

The president also stood by his belief in a two-state resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, although he admitted it was “not near.”                                        

The only tangible achievement from the Biden trip was the gesture he obtained from Saudi Arabia to open its skies to Israeli carriers, although a breakthrough to normal relations with Riyadh was not in sight.  Saudi Arabia is the 14th state in size of Islamic states with 27,601,038 population with 100% Muslims.  They do not allow anyone else to live there.  They are Sunni but with Hanbali as their fiqh, and is an Islamic State for sure.  Their active troops number 199,500.  

 The Biden administration is urging Arab nations to team up with Israel to counter Iranian missiles, but continued mistrust and technological differences mean any kind of alliance could be years away.

Officials and experts say a more realistic goal would be for Israel to share some intelligence with Arab states, conduct tabletop exercises together and perhaps even purchase additional compatible weaponry. That’s more attainable than a regional defense shield linking shooters with radars, satellites and other sensors, they say.  At least relations are better than they were in 2016.  Back then, Jerusalem had ties with only Egypt and Jordan. But Tehran’s increasingly aggressive actions in the region, coupled with several deals brokered by the Trump administration, have drastically changed the diplomatic landscape.

Resource:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-israel-us-air-defense-pact-with-arabs-would-increase-tensions/#:~:text=The%20pact%2C%20called%20%E2%80%9CMEAD%20%E2%80%94,Saudi%20Arabia%20later%20this%20week.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/03/mirage-of-peace-joe-biden-ventures-into-middle-easts-shifting-sands

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_leaders_of_Middle_Eastern_and_North_African_states

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/12/biden-middle-east-air-defense-alliance-00045423