An empty base as a target, with many hours warning, and a limited number of missiles fired at some of the best air defense systems in the world. Iran’s retaliation for the US’s weekend strikes on three of its nuclear facilities can only have been designed to deescalate.

The US-run Al Udeid airbase in Qatar had been evacuated days earlier, with satellite images showing the departure of planes and personnel widely publicised in the media. It is the most important US military airbase in the region, the home of Central Command. It even launched the drone that killed Iran’s top military personality, General Qasem Soleimani, in 2020, Iranian state media said in the hours after “Operation Glad Tidings of Victory.” The Monday strike against Al-Udeid had close to zero chance of American casualties – and provided the perfect moment of quasi-absurd face-saving for Iran.

The first hint of a possible strike came when the US Embassy in Doha, Qatar, issued an emergency “shelter in place” order for US citizens. As if to remove any doubt, Qatar closed its airspace about an hour prior to the launch of what appears to have been close to a dozen missiles by Iran. Adding to the favourable conditions of the launch for Iran’s dwindling arsenal, Qatar is close enough to permit the use of shorter-range missiles, stocks of which have not been as depleted as the medium-range missiles used to hit Israel over the past week.

To pour water on anything resembling a flame, Iran’s National Security Council said moments after the attack the number of missiles fired had been “as many as the number of bombs used in the attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.” Packaging the barrage as the definition of a proportionate response, the Iranian statement went on to insist the attack posed “no dangerous aspect to our friendly and brotherly country of Qatar and its noble people.”

Tehran’s method of retaliation-without-fangs has been successfully tried and tested. After Soleimani was killed, Iran’s retaliatory missile attack against the US’s Al Asad airbase in Iraq was reportedly telegraphed to Baghdad beforehand, possibly helping reduce the level of US injury suffered to mostly concussions. Iran’s response to Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in July 2024 in the heart of Tehran heavily telegraphed in advance.

“We knew they’d retaliate. They had a similar response after Soleimani,” a senior White House official said Monday night.

A playbook appears to be forming. But it is one that compounds Iran’s military weakness each time it is employed. In 2020, the Islamic Republic lost its pre-eminent military personality – an Iranian hardline hero. In 2024, it showed that valuable allies were not safe in central Tehran. This year, the regime has lost control of its own airspace to the point of previously unthinkable strikes on their prized nuclear facilities by both Israel and the US.

This is stark testament to the differing powers on display. Iran has to feign its strength in a managed presentation of restrained and muted anger. The US and Israel get to break taboos daily, shattering Iran’s long-held position as a regional power in under ten days, and perhaps ending its ambitions to be a nuclear power.

There is now only one real red line left for the United States or Israel to cross, and that is to directly target Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But that may seem ill-advised, given the likelihood this octogenarian theocrat would be replaced by a younger hardliner who is keener to flex Iran’s muscles of deterrence. Better to accept toothless retaliations amid Tehran’s slow decline.

Each expression of Iran’s anger has confirmed its slow erosion of power. An angry fledging nuclear power would have accelerated its race to an atomic bomb. That may still happen. But it looks more likely that Iran is desperately hoping its performative lashing out can sate what remains of its hardliners, decimated by Israeli strikes. It may even hope to shuffle back to diplomacy, with talks to contain a nuclear program and ballistic missile stockpile likely severely depleted to shadows of what they were merely ten days ago.

In the past 48 hours, the Middle East has witnessed an unprecedented US airstrike on Iran with its most powerful non-nuclear weapons, an Iranian retaliatory strike on the largest US air base in the region, to an apparent truce that will see Iran and Israel end their hostilities that have set the world on edge.

The region and the wider world watched warily as events unfolded overnight into Tuesday, but with a degree of hope as daylight broke in the region that what US President Donald Trump called the “12 Day War” may be over.

“THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.

Around the same time, Israeli emergency workers were at the site of what appeared to be Iran’s final attack of the 12-day conflict, a missile strike in Beer Shiva that left at least five people dead and 20 wounded.

It could be the last hostile act of two days of whipsawing developments leading up to Trump’s surprise announcement of a ceasefire.

Here’s the situation Tuesday in the Middle East.

The ceasefire deal

On Monday evening in Washington, the US president announced the ceasefire.

“It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE,” Trump said in a social media post.

“I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, “THE 12 DAY WAR,” Trump said.

Trump said the ceasefire would be phased in, with Iran ending attacks on Israel first, then Israel stopping its attacks on Iran 12 hours later. But the exact timing of those events was unclear.

During the negotiations, Trump communicated directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff negotiated the terms, through direct and indirect channels, with the Iranians, the source said.

Trump said in a later social media post that both Israel and Iran came to him to get a ceasefire done.

Iranian state media reported, however, that Trump sought the ceasefire deal “in a begging-like manner” after the attack on the US air base in Qatar.

Whether a ceasefire will hold remains to be seen.

Around the time Iran was supposed to have stopped its attacks under the Trump timeline, its missiles hit Israel, killing at least five civilians, according to Israeli officials.

Iran fires on biggest US base in region

Just hours before Trump’s ceasefire announcement, Iran fired about a dozen short- and medium-range ballistic missiles at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest US military installation in the Middle East.

But Tehran tipped both the US and Qatar that the strike was coming, and air defenses, including Patriot missile batteries, were able to intercept all but one of the incoming Iranian missiles, according to US and Qatari officials. No deaths or injuries were reported in Qatar.

In a social media post, Trump thanked Iran for warning the missile attack was coming.

“Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE. I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured,” Trump said.

“Tehran’s choice to limit its retaliation and deescalate the crisis is rational on their part given overwhelming US strength and Iranian weakness,” said Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities.

What about Iran’s nuclear program?

Israel’s contention that Iran would soon be able to build a nuclear weapon was the impetus for the conflict, which began with Israel Defense Forces strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and against Iran’s military and nuclear program scientists on the night of June 12-13.

Trump followed on Israel’s airstrikes by ordering an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, including a fleet of US B-2 bombers to dropping fourteen 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on two deeply buried sites in Iran, the first time weapon had been used in combat.

Trump administration officials said Iran’s nuclear weapons program, which they said was just days away from the ability to make a nuclear bomb, was set back years by the US strikes.

Experts were more skeptical, saying Iranian stores of enriched uranium may have escaped destruction in the US strikes and Tehran may be able to make a weapon in just a few months.

What now for Gaza?

The Middle East has been a tinderbox since October 2023, when Hamas militants from Gaza entered Israel in force, killing hundreds and taking dozens more hostage.

Israel responded with an invasion of the Palestinian enclave to root out Hamas from tunnels and other fortifications that has left over 55,000 people dead, much of Gaza in ruins and its population of 2.1 million at risk of famine, according to the World Health Organization.

While the world’s attention has been on Israel’s fighting with Iran, dozens of people have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza as they scramble to get the limited food aid allowed into the territory, including 21 in the past day, Palestinians say.

A group advocating for the return of Israeli hostages held in Gaza has called for the ceasefire between Israel and Iran to be expanded to include the war-torn enclave.

“Those who can achieve a ceasefire with Iran can also end the war in Gaza,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement Tuesday.

The forum said the ceasefire “must expand to include Gaza” and called on the government “to engage in urgent negotiations that will bring home all the hostages and end the war.”

“After 12 days and nights during which the people of Israel could not sleep because of Iran, we can finally go back to not sleeping because of the hostages,” the forum said.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid echoed those sentiments, writing in a post on X: “And now Gaza. This is the moment to close that front as well. To bring the hostages home, to end the war. Israel needs to start rebuilding.”

The smile on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s face was impossible to hide.

Minutes after President Donald Trump announced that the US had bombed three of Iran’s nuclear facilities, Netanyahu effusively praised the American leader as someone whose decisions could lead the region to a “future of prosperity and peace.”

Since Israel launched its attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and other targets, Netanyahu and the country’s other political echelon had been careful not to be perceived as dragging Trump into another war in the Middle East. In the end, the US joining the campaign – and taking credit for the results – is arguably an even bigger success for Netanyahu, who brought the world’s superpower into what had been Israel’s mission.

Netanyahu has talked about the threat of Iran for much of his political career, parading out visual aids on occasion – like a cartoon of a bomb at the UN General Assembly in 2012 – to help his audience. But the longstanding criticism was that Netanyahu’s rhetoric was all bark, no bite.

For all the talk of the threat Iran posed to Israel and the wider region, Netanyahu never pulled the trigger on a major military operation. Instead, he authorized sporadic high-risk, high-reward operations from Israel’s Mossad spy agency, including the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and the stealing of the country’s nuclear archive.

But Iran’s nuclear program survived largely unscathed, and Netanyahu was left for years with no measurable achievement against an issue he came to see as an existential threat to Israel.

The last 10 days rewrote the script.

Aviv Bushinsky, who worked with Netanyahu during his first term in the late-90s, called the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities “no doubt his greatest accomplishment.”

Israel’s initial waves of attacks and its establishment of air superiority over Iran began a clear string of military successes, which the Trump administration ultimately joined.

The scale of the success is so great that Bushinsky argued it made Netanyahu’s one of the country’s top two or three leaders since the country’s founding in 1948. The “stain” of failing to stop the Hamas-led attack on October 7 remains with Netanyahu, Bushinsky said, but the attack on Iran has immediately become part of his legacy.

“Netanyahu has a signature of taking down the nuclear capabilities of the Iranians,” he said.

Now Netanyahu immediately faces another challenge: deciding what to do next. At least publicly, the US has made it clear that it sees the Iran strikes as finished as long as Iranian forces don’t attack US troops in the region.

But after starting the campaign alone, Israel is still pressing its advantage. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Sunday that Israel was preparing for the “campaign to prolong.” Before the weekend, Israel had conducted the military campaign against Iran on its own, and it has since carried out more strikes after the US bombing of the nuclear facilities.

“If the war was designed to obliterate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, and the president of the United States says they destroyed the three facilities, then why isn’t Israel announcing mission accomplished?” former Israeli consul general Alon Pinkas asked rhetorically. “This military solution for everything is fine, as long as you understand that it is aligned with political goals. And I don’t see them.”

Since the start of the Trump administration, the friction between Trump and Netanyahu has been on full display as the White House pursued a series of steps in the region that left Israel sidelined. Trump’s first trip to the Middle East blew right past Israel without stopping, the American president signed a ceasefire deal with the Houthis in Yemen that cut out Israel, and he surprised Netanyahu in April by announcing nuclear negotiations with Iran.

The US decisions raised questions about whether Netanyahu was able to handle a second Trump administration, especially one with a far more vocal isolationist wing.

All of those questions disappeared in a puff of bunker buster smoke in the aftermath of the US strikes as the two leaders heaped praise on one another

The issue of Iran had broad consensus among much of Israeli society, with a majority of the country viewing a nuclear Iran as an existential threat.

According to a survey from the Israel Democracy Institute done before the US strikes, approximately 70% of Israelis supported the campaign against Iran, while nearly as many believe it was right to launch the strikes without a guarantee of US involvement.

That level of support has drawn accolades for Netanyahu even from his detractors.

“You don’t have to like Netanyahu in order to admit yes, he achieved something,” said Ben-Dror Yemini, a political analyst for Israel’s prominent Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

But the current moment – one in which Israel and the US have carried out punishing strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities – requires sensitive diplomacy and a willingness to back off the military successes that appear to have come so easily, Yemini said.

The decision to act and the decision to wait each involved its own elements of risk, according to former US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro.

“There’s risk in any use of forces and certainly in a major decision like this one from the United States,” Shapiro said. “But there was risk in not acting and leaving Iran within weeks of a nuclear bomb at the time of their choosing.”

But having made the critical choice to go after Iran’s nuclear facilities, Shapiro said it would be a grave mistake to assume the conflict is over.

Asked if the Middle East was safer now than it was before US involvement in the strikes against Iran, Shapiro said it depends on whether the bombing campaign destroyed or significantly damaged Iranian nuclear facilities. It also depends on how Iran chooses to respond, which he said requires the international community to lead Iran away from escalation.

“It’s too early to celebrate the achievement.”

At least 20 people have been killed and 52 more are injured after a “terrorist attack” on a Greek Orthodox church in the Syrian capital on Sunday, according to the country’s health ministry.

He opened fire on the congregation of Mar Elias Church in Damascus, before “detonating himself using an explosive vest,” the ministry said in a statement.

A mass was being held at the church at the time of the attack, according to Syria’s state news agency SANA.

A video circulating on Syrian social media from inside the church shows dead bodies, significant destruction, shattered glass and broken chairs in the area where mass was being held, with blood visible throughout the scene.

Syria’s civil defense, popularly known as the White Helmets, said emergency teams were working to transfer the bodies to hospitals and secure the area.

“The treacherous hand of evil struck” on Sunday, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch said in a statement, writing that “an explosion occurred at the entrance of the church, resulting in the deaths of numerous martyrs and causing injuries to many others who were inside the church or in its immediate vicinity.”

“We offer our prayers for the repose of the souls of the martyrs, for the healing of the wounded, and for the consolation of our grieving faithful. We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to our faith and, through that steadfastness, our rejection of all fear and intimidation,” the church said.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Geir O. Pedersen, expressed “outrage” at the “heinous crime,” his office said in a statement.

“Mr. Pedersen calls on all to unite in rejecting terrorism, extremism, incitement and the targeting of any community in Syria. He sends his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and his hope for the recovery of those injured,” the statement said.

The United States’ Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, called the attack an act of “cowardice,” saying in a statement that it has “no place in the new tapestry of integrated tolerance and inclusion that Syrians are weaving.”

The foreign ministries of Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Ukraine, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands also spoke out in condemnation of the attack.

US President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities puts the Middle East in a volatile position, with all eyes now on Tehran’s next move.

Speaking in Istanbul, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday his country has “a variety of options” when deciding how to respond to the US attacks.

From striking US bases in the region, to possibly closing a key waterway to global shipping, Iran is likely mulling its next moves. All carry inherent risks for the Islamic Republic, Israel and the United States.

Here’s what to know:

Iran could hit US military interests in the region

Direct US involvement in the conflict could see Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) activate what remains of its proxies across Iraq, Yemen and Syria, groups which have previously launched attacks on American assets in the region.

While Iran’s strongest ally in the region was once Lebanon’s Hezbollah, that group has been significantly weakened by Israeli attacks.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) says the US maintains a presence at 19 sites in total across the region, with eight of those considered by analysts to have a permanent US presence. As of June 13, the CFR estimated some 40,000 US troops were in the Middle East.

In Iraq, for example, there were 2,500 US troops as of late last year. An Iranian attack on these forces is not inconceivable. In 2020, an Iranian missile attack on a US garrison left more than 100 soldiers with traumatic brain injuries.

A resurgence of attacks from Yemen against US assets is already on the table. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels previously vowed to attack American ships in the Red Sea should the US join Israel’s conflict with Iran. A prominent Houthi official said in a social media post early Sunday that “Trump must bear the consequences” of the US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

It is unclear if this marks the end of a US-Houthi ceasefire struck in May, in which Washington said it would halt its military campaign against the Houthis in exchange for the group stopping its attacks on US interests in the region.

Knowing that it can’t outright win a conflict against Israel and the US, experts have said that Tehran could seek to engage in a war of attrition, where it tries to exhaust its adversary’s will or capacity to fight in a drawn-out and damaging conflict, which Trump at the outset of his presidency said he wanted to avoid.

Iran could disrupt global oil trade

Iran also has the power to influence the “entire commercial shipping in the Gulf,” Ravid said, should it decide to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping route.

There have so far been no material disruptions to the global flow of oil. But if oil exports are disrupted, or if Iran tries to block the Strait of Hormuz, the global oil market could face an existential crisis.

The strait links the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is a key channel for oil and liquefied natural gas exports from the Middle East to the global market. About 20 million barrels of oil flow through the strait each day, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

A prominent adviser to Iran’s supreme leader has already called for missile strikes and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

“Following America’s attack on the Fordow nuclear installation, it is now our turn,” warned Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor-in-chief of the hardline Kayhan newspaper, a well-known conservative voice who has previously identified himself as a Khamenei “representative.”

Iran could race to build a bomb

Some experts say that Iran is very likely to race for a nuclear bomb now, even if the current regime collapses and new leaders come in place.

“Trump just guaranteed that Iran will be a nuclear weapons state in the next 5 to 10 years,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute in Washington, DC, said on X. “Particularly if the regime changes.”

Parsi has said that even if the regime collapses and new military elements assume power, they are likely to be much more hawkish than the current regime and race toward a nuclear weapon as their only deterrent.

Experts have previously said that Iran likely moved its stocks of enriched uranium from its key nuclear facilities amid Israeli strikes.. Nuclear power plants that generate electricity for civil purposes use uranium that is enriched to between 3.5% and 5%. When enriched to higher levels, uranium can be used to make a bomb Israel and the US accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons; Tehran insists its program is peaceful.

Iran is also likely to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or the NPT, under which it has pledged not to develop a bomb.

“Iran’s response is likely not just limited to military retaliation. NPT withdrawal is quite likely,” Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, said on X.

Iran could just keep hitting Israel for now

Iran’s first response to the US’ attack on its nuclear sites was to attack Israel, not US bases.

Iranian missiles hit a group of buildings in Tel Aviv, where 86 people were admitted to hospital with injuries overnight and on Sunday morning, according to Israel’s ministry of health.

Knowing it may not be able to sustain a full-on confrontation with the US, and hoping that Trump will scale back on his involvement following Sunday’s strike, Iran may merely seek to perpetuate the status quo, fighting only Israel.

Trump at the time wanted to “send a big message, get the headlines, show US resolve, but then avoid a wider war,” Shabani said.

While Iran may feel it has to retaliate to save face, it may be a bloodless response, similar to what happened in 2020, when it launched a barrage of missiles at US bases in Iraq, which resulted in traumatic brain injuries to personnel but no deaths.

Iran could resort to cyberattacks or terrorism

Two military analysts have said Iran could resort to “asymmetric” measures – such as terrorism or cyberattacks – to retaliate against the US because Israeli attacks have reduced Iran’s military capabilities.

“I think (the IRGC is) going to be a little bit careful, and I suspect that’s going to take us to all of the asymmetric things they can do: cyber, terrorism. I think that they’re probably going to be looking for things where the US cannot just put up the traditional defenses,” he added.

But, “albeit wounded,” the IRGC still has “some tremendous capacity,” he said. “It has capabilities that are already within the region and then outside the region. We are vulnerable… around the world, where the IRGC has either influence or can make things happen asymmetrically.”

Iran could resume nuclear talks

Iran has refused to return to the negotiating table while under Israeli attacks.

On Sunday, Araghchi said he does not know how “much room is left for diplomacy” after the US military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

“They crossed a very big red line by attacking nuclear facilities. … We have to respond based on our legitimate right for self-defense,” Araghchi said.

Parsi said that by doing so, “the Iranians have cornered themselves.”

“Their aim is to force Trump to stop Netanyahu’s war, and by that show his ability and willingness to use American leverage against Netanyahu,” Parsi wrote. “But the flip side is that Tehran has given Israel a veto on US-Iran diplomacy – by simply continuing the war, Israel is enabled to block talks between the US and Iran.”

Iranian and European officials met Friday in Geneva for talks, which an Iranian source said started out tense but became “much more positive.”

Speaking Sunday, Araghchi said the US had decided to “blow up” diplomacy.

“Last week, we were in negotiations with the US when Israel decided to blow up that diplomacy. This week, we held talks with the E3 (group of European ministers)/EU when the US decided to blow up that diplomacy,” Araghchi said on X.

“The more likely situation is that the talks are over for now.”

Large crowds gathered at the Enqelab Square in central Tehran on Sunday evening, protesting the strikes. Footage published by the state-affiliated Fars News Agency showed people waving Iranian flags and punching the air, carrying signs that read: “Down with the USA, down with Israel.”

Hamid Rasaee, a politician, said even people critical of the regime were protesting.

Trump ordered attacks on three of Iran’s most important nuclear facilities early Sunday morning – a move that has placed the US in the center of the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Iranians had faced the possibility of US intervention ever since Israel launched its strikes on nuclear and military targets last week – but many believed any action was days away.

That’s in part because Trump said Thursday he would decide whether to strike Iran within two weeks, seemingly opening a window for negotiations. That all changed early Sunday, when American bombers dropped more than a dozen massive “bunker buster” bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities, and Tomahawk missiles launched from the sea struck Isfahan.

“We do not have nuclear weapons, so why does he strike us?” he added, alluding to the Iranian regime’s insistence the country’s nuclear program is peaceful. Trump has claimed Iran was weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon, dismissing assessments from his own intelligence community that Iran was still years away from a weapon.

Qom residents slept through the attacks

While Trump has claimed the three sites struck by the US were “totally obliterated,” his defense secretary has said the full impact is still being assessed. And unlike the strikes by Israel in recent days, some of which targeted densely populated areas, the US attacks were concentrated in locations off-limits to most civilians.

Residents of Qom, a city some 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Fordow nuclear site, woke to the sound of emergency vehicles’ sirens and the news that the secretive complex had been bombed a few hours earlier.

Five people living in Qom said they were surprised to learn what had happened when they got up, having heard nothing overnight.

Qom does not have an aerial attack warning system, so residents would have had no warning before the strikes.

Qom is considered a holy city, home to Iran’s largest and most famous Shia seminary. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei studied at the Qom Seminary, as did several of Iran’s former presidents.

Similarly, people living in a village some 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Natanz facility said they heard nothing overnight.

In Tehran, far from the targeted nuclear sites, many were calling for Iran to respond with force. Fars released a compilation of short interviews with people on the streets of the capital Sunday.

Each of the eight people featured urged a retaliation – with most saying Iran should strike US bases in the region and close down the Strait of Hormuz on Iran’s southern shore, through which a third of global seaborne oil trade passes.

In Iran, signs of dissent tend to be quickly quashed, making it dangerous for people to express disagreement with the regime.

But Mohsen Milani, an Iranian scholar who has lived in the US for decades, said the US attack on Iran could spark more genuine support for the regime.

“It could ignite a new wave of nationalism, damage the future of U.S.-Iran relations more than the 1953 coup, accelerate Tehran’s pivot to Russia and China, and fundamentally reshape Iran’s defense, deterrence, and nuclear posture,” he said in a post on X.

Some of this sentiment was already on show in Tehran on Sunday.

“I will stay here and I will sacrifice my life and my blood for my country,” she said.

Everywhere around her, people were protesting the US, many holding anti-Trump signs and posters. Some of the posters ended up on the ground, where people stamped on them.

“We were living our normal lives and they attacked us. If someone strikes the United States, would they not answer? Of course they would,” she said.

Another person living in Tehran said they believed the regime was greatly weakened by the US strikes – because its opponents would now be able to call its bluff.

“The claims that the Iranian regime has always made – that it will attack all American bases and close the Strait of Hormuz – they made all these claims and the whole world saw that (the US) came and easily hit the Fordow and Natanz sites … but Iran was completely silent and no fighter planes took off and (it) used no defenses or missiles,” the person said, adding that if there is no response in the coming days, the regime’s supporters could abandon it.

“No sane person will stand by someone who is in a weak position, not even their own supporters,” they said.

A British-flagged luxury superyacht that sank off Sicily last year, killing UK tech magnate Mike Lynch and six others, completed its final trip to the Sicilian port of Termini Imerese Sunday, a day after recovery crews finalized the complex operation to lift it out of the water.

The white top and blue hull of the 56-meter (184-foot) Bayesian, covered with algae and mud, was kept elevated by the yellow floating crane barge off the port of Porticello, before being transferred to Termini Imerese, where it docked in the early afternoon.

On Monday, the delicate recovery operation will be concluded, as the vessel will be transported to shore and settled in a specially built steel cradle.

Then it will be made available for investigators for further examinations to help determine the cause of the sinking.

The Bayesian sank Aug. 19 off Porticello, near Palermo, during a violent storm as Lynch was treating friends to a cruise to celebrate his acquittal two months earlier in the US on fraud charges. Lynch, his daughter and five others died. Fifteen people survived, including the captain and all crew members except the chef.

Italian authorities are conducting a full criminal investigation.

The vessel was slowly raised from the seabed 50 meters (165 feet) deep over three days to allow the steel lifting straps, slings and harnesses to be secured under the keel.

The Bayesian is missing its 72-meter (236-foot) mast, which was cut off and left on the seabed for future removal. The mast had to be detached to allow the hull to be brought to a nearly upright position that would allow the craft to be raised.

British investigators said in an interim report issued last month that the yacht was knocked over by “extreme wind” and couldn’t recover.

The report said the crew of the Bayesian had chosen the site where it sank as shelter from forecast thunderstorms. Wind speeds exceeded 70 knots (81 mph) at the time of the sinking and “violently” knocked the vessel over to a 90-degree angle in under 15 seconds.