From Carter to Obama to Trump: Rising Lion, Midnight Hammer, and the Dawn of a Free Iran

How decades of American hesitation ended in decisive strength—uniting Israel, empowering the Iranian people, and rewriting the destiny of the Middle East.

The night sky over the Middle East has flared twice in ten days—first with the roar of Israeli jets, then with the thunder of American stealth bombers—and the ground beneath Tehran’s rulers is finally shaking.

Operation Rising Lion—Israel’s lightning strike on 13 June 2025

For fourteen months Israel’s intelligence services tracked every wire, tunnel, and scientist inside Iran’s atomic maze. Just after midnight on June 13, more than two hundred fighter jets and drones swept in from every angle, hitting a hundred separate targets from Fordow to Natanz. Dozens of senior nuclear physicists and IRGC commanders were killed; centrifuge halls were left smoking ruins. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, citing the Book of Numbers, called the mission “a rising lion that will not rest until the threat crouching at our door is gone.” (jpost.com, lieber.westpoint.edu)

Israel’s triumph in Operation Rising Lion was forged long before the first cockpit canopy snapped shut. For more than a year, Mossad operatives—often posing as truck drivers, construction crews, even clerical staff—carried miniature drone parts, encrypted beacon chips, and precision-guided rockets across Iran’s borders in single-use couriers, then cached them in rented basements from Esfahan to the Zagros foothills. By late May they had quietly assembled entire micro-drone “nests” inside the country. At 00:17 on June 13, those swarms lifted off first, slamming radar dishes, fiber trunks, and SAM batteries in a hundred-mile arc around Fordow and Natanz, blinding Iran’s early-warning net and tricking gunners into firing west while the real strike jets roared in from the southeast. Seconds later, embedded Mossad sabotage teams—inserted weeks earlier through Armenia and the Gulf—ignited pre-planted charges inside command bunkers, severing hard-line communications and freezing launch codes for ballistic missiles. Other teams opened hidden weapon caches, firing Spike NLOS missiles at mobile launchers that might have threatened Israeli aircrews. This seamless choreography of internal sabotage and external airpower left Iran’s defenses gasping; by the time Revolutionary Guard commanders pieced together what had happened, their radars were dark, their runways cratered, and their most guarded centrifuge halls lay in ruins. In short, Israel did not break into Iran on June 13—it was already living there. (csis.org, nypost.com, my.rusi.org, washingtonpost.com, m.economictimes.com, jinsa.org)

Operation Midnight Hammer—the U.S. blow on 22 June 2025

Nine days later, seven B-2 Spirit bombers lifted off under radio silence. Most of the world thought they were headed toward the Pacific. Instead, in a feat of strategic deception, they turned east and crossed into Iranian airspace at dawn, guided by decoy fighters and hidden by the electronic fog of supporting drones. Each bomber carried two 30-thousand-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators—the first combat use of the bunker-buster designed for exactly this target. Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan vanished in pillars of dust. A U.S. submarine volleyed two dozen Tomahawks as the bombs fell, sealing the destruction. Pentagon briefers later called it “the largest B-2 strike in history” and “a spectacular military success.” (businessinsider.com, abcnews.go.com, cbsnews.com, reuters.com)

Operation Midnight Hammer unfolded in the predawn hours of 22 June 2025 when seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers slipped out of Whiteman AFB, refueled over the Atlantic, and then vanished under radio silence as a separate decoy cell drew public flight-trackers west. Eighteen hours later the real strike package—part of a 125-aircraft armada supported by “dozens” of tankers, EA-18G jammers, and an Ohio-class submarine firing Tomahawk cruise missiles—pierced Iranian airspace. In a 25-minute window the bombers released fourteen 30-thousand-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, the first combat use of the weapon, boring through hundreds of feet of limestone and reinforced concrete at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. Simultaneously, precision-guided standoff missiles and cyber-blinding spoofers knocked out air-defense radars and command links. Pentagon briefers later called it the largest B-2 strike in history: seventy-five precision weapons delivered, every target “functionally obliterated,” no U.S. casualties, and a flight path so well cloaked that Iranian radar operators reported the detonations before they registered incoming tracks. (theguardian.com, nypost.com, theaviationist.com, twz.com, bloomberg.com, breakingdefense.com)

Iran strikes back—but does it matter?

Stunned and wounded, the regime fired missiles and drones toward Israel. Most were shot down, but one warhead slammed into Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, injuring 71 civilians—including newborns whisked to underground wards just hours earlier. Even in retaliation, Tehran managed only to remind the world whom it really targets: ordinary families, not soldiers. (cbsnews.com, reuters.com)

While Israel’s Operation Rising Lion confined its bombs to nuclear labs, missile batteries, and IRGC bunkers—after publicly urging Iranian civilians to leave areas around those sites (newsweek.com)—Tehran lashed back with the same terror playbook its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah use: aim for the softest targets. Ballistic missiles slammed into Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, shattering a children’s ward (reuters.com), and another warhead tore through a religious school in central Israel, reducing classrooms to rubble (reuters.com). The contrast could not be starker: Israel warned and protected civilians—even inside Iran—while the ayatollahs treated their own people as human shields and foreign innocents as expendable props in a propaganda war against America and the Jewish state.

Iran’s leaders like to threaten that, if cornered, they will drown the region in missiles and choke the Strait of Hormuz—but the math now betrays them. Since Operation Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer, Tehran has burned through roughly three hundred ballistic and cruise missiles, and Israeli strikes have already destroyed a third of its launchers; intelligence estimates say the regime no longer possesses the stockpile—or the intact factories—to sustain another week of barrages at the same tempo. (thetimes.co.uk) Even its favorite doomsday lever, closing Hormuz, would backfire: more than **80 percent of the crude and condensate that sails through that narrow waterway is bound for Asia—chiefly China, India, Japan, South Korea, and LNG-rich Qatar—while barely 7 percent of U.S. oil imports and about 2 percent of total American consumption now depend on those lanes. (m.economictimes.com, eia.gov) In other words, an Iranian blockade would starve Beijing and Doha long before it pinches Houston, while U.S. shale fields, Canadian pipelines, and an unmatched Fifth Fleet keep America’s engines humming. The ayatollahs can still shake a fist, but every option left on their board hurts them—and their patrons—far more than it hurts the United States or its allies.

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Why these blows matter

For forty-six years the Islamic Republic has exported terror—Hamas rockets, Hezbollah tunnels, Houthis drones—while chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Washington’s answers often oscillated between wishful talks and silent ransoms: President Carter’s meek response to the hostages; President Obama’s cash-for-centrifuges JCPOA; President Biden’s quiet channel that funneled billions through oil waivers. Each gesture bought only time for darker schemes.

President Donald Trump rejected that script. He brokered the Abraham Accords—peace between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan—proving that strength invites partnership, not war. Now, by ordering Midnight Hammer, he has matched words with steel. The alignment with Israel is no accident; it is a doctrine: deter tyrants, embolden friends, and leave room for the people of Iran to breathe free.

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From Abraham to Cyrus

Inside Iran, satellite dishes glow at night with a new phrase: “Cyrus Accords.” Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has given it shape—an Iran returned to its pre-1979 dignity, shaking hands with Jerusalem just as Cyrus the Great once freed the Jews to rebuild their Temple. His message is trending in Farsi hashtags because, for the first time in decades, hope feels tangible. A regime stripped of its atomic shield cannot forever crush a nation that sings in the streets. (rezapahlavi.org)

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The strategic picture

• Israel’s strike decapitated leadership and shattered R&D hubs.

• America’s strike pulverized hardened bunkers and deep tunnels the Israelis could not reach.
  Together they form a pincer: brains removed, machines destroyed.

Iran can still launch missiles, but every launch burns scarce stockpiles. Its proxies can still shout, but funding will thin as oil revenue is diverted to basic repairs. Meanwhile, Gulf states—already cooperating under the Abraham banner—see which alliance truly keeps them safe.

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The debate: guns or diplomacy?

Critics warn of escalation; diplomats plead for a seat at the table. Yet decades of paperwork did not stop enrichment, and polite distance did not spare Israeli hospitals. Deterrence backed by readiness to negotiate from strength is not war-lust; it is the oldest formula for peace. Even the fiercest opponents admit Iran’s nuclear timetable has been pushed back years, buying space for genuine internal change.

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A horizon without sirens

Picture a Tehran where women walk unveiled because no morality police exist to beat them; where Persian engineers collaborate with Israeli start-ups on desalination plants for a warming region; where tourists fly directly from Tel Aviv to Shiraz to taste saffron ice cream and hear the story of Queen Esther told beside the tomb of Cyrus. This is the world the twin operations have nudged closer—not by conquering land, but by breaking the chains that kept two ancient peoples apart.

The path is narrow. Ayatollahs still cling to their pulpits; Europe will wring its hands; the UN will draft condemnations. But the alternative—another decade of centrifuges spinning under mountain rock—was narrower still, ending only in either surrender or catastrophe.

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A call to courage

Israel has severed the terror octopus at its neck: the Islamic Republic’s nuclear core is crippled, its missile claws maimed, and its proxy tentacles—Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen—left twitching without guidance or gold. America stood shoulder-to-shoulder throughout the fight, proving that when the Star of David and the Stars and Stripes lock arms, even the darkest ambitions can be shattered. With the bomb factories buried and the launch codes silenced, the final step no longer belongs to jets or bombs—it belongs to the brave men and women of Iran. Only they can sweep away the mullahs’ ruins and raise a new republic worthy of Cyrus and Ferdowsi, a nation free to trade with Jerusalem, innovate with Silicon Valley, and sing in every language of liberty.

And so this war—fought to end the wars—opens the door to an age the Middle East has never known: an arc of cooperation from the Mediterranean to the Gulf, where Jews, Muslims, and Christians visit each other’s holy sites without fear; where energy wealth funds hospitals, not militias; where the ingenuity of Tel Aviv, Dubai, and a reborn Tehran powers shared prosperity; and where America stands not as distant policeman but as trusted partner in growth. The swords have struck their last blow; now let the ploughshares carve gardens across the desert and let every Abrahamic voice rise in a chorus of peace.

To the students of Tehran who paint “Woman, Life, Freedom” on campus walls: the lion and the eagle have roared for you. To the fathers hiding satellite dishes on rooftops: keep them angled to the sky. To every American and Israeli who doubts the cost: count not the dollars spent but the lives spared when missiles rust and terror budgets run dry.

History rarely gifts us moments this clear. June 2025 will be remembered either as the month the free world finally said “Enough” or as a fleeting spark smothered by hesitation. The choice now belongs to us: press forward, build the alliances, lift the Iranian people, and finish what Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer began.

Let us have the courage to see it through, so that one day soon we can greet a dawn over Jerusalem and Tehran alike—two capitals, one horizon, no sirens in the air—where children learn that the shouts of “Death” were replaced by cheers of life, and the long night that began in 1979 is, at last, over.

Best Regards,

Afshine Ash Emrani, M.D., F.A.C.C.
Assistant Clinical Professor, UCLA
David Geffen School of Medicine
Castle-Connolly Nationwide Top Doctor (Since 2008)
Los Angeles Magazine Super Doctor (Since 2010)
LA Style Magazine Top 100 Doctors in America (2024)


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