The Last American Vagabond - How Iran’s Counter-Strikes On Israeli Bases Are Reshaping The Middle East

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

Welcome to Foreign Policy with Robert Inlakesh. In today’s episode Robert breaks down how the recent US/Israeli attacks, and the response by Iran, has changed the de facto rules of engagement, and what this may means for the future of this war.Bitcoin Donations Are Appreciated:www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/bitcoin-donation(3FSozj9gQ1UniHvEiRmkPnXzHSVMc68U9f)The Last American Vagabond Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Last American Vagabond Substack at tlavagabond.substack.com/subscribe

Robert and Lekesh reporting here for the Last American Vagabond, and today we're going to cover the recent escalation between the Israeli U.S. alliance and Iran. And although there have been a number of different flare-ups which have taken place over the past weeks, we'll start with the most important development, and that is Israel's fret originally, which they then carried out to bomb the subject. suburbs of Beirut. The reason why this is significant because Israel of course has bombed the sovereign suburbs of Beirut many times before, including right after the temporary ceasefire between the United States and Iran was agreed to where they killed around 300 people in around 10 minutes. But the reason this time it's very important is because Iran responded. And Iran issued a threat immediately last Monday when Netanyahu and his defense minister announced that they were going to do massive retaliatory strikes in Beirut, the Lebanese capital.

And immediately, when those threats were issued by the Iranians that they were going to strike Norvern occupied Palestine, hit Israeli military sites, this made them pause. Both the Israelis and the Americans, there was an instant phone call between Trump and the Israelis, which has been overhyped in terms of the Israelis, which has been overhyped in terms of what was actually said and Trump actually laying down his red lines. I think the story about Trump reigning in Netanyahu has now been thoroughly debunked because Netanyahu went away and attacked Beirut anyway. But it did make the Israelis delay their attack, which is the sign number one of the regional power dynamics. And what this means is that Iran still possesses

deterrence power, which is important when we're looking at potential negotiations and when we're looking at the state of affairs following the 40 days of intense conflict, which started with the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran on February the 28th. The other part of this is that Iran had a plan and Iran was willing and ready to go to another round of all-out war. It was very clear. The attack that the Iranian launched was not exactly Operation True Promise, which for those who can remember back in 2024, the Iranians on October 1st launched the Operation True Promise attack on the Israelis using hundreds of ballistic missiles. The Iranians didn't do that this time around,

and likely they didn't do this because if they were to bring out that many launchers, we've given the state of affairs right now, there's a good chance to the Israelis or the Americans could have attempted to take out those launchers or a large portion of them and they could have lost dozens of launchers in one go. So it wouldn't have been the best idea. But for the current circumstances, this was a large attack, which the Israelis initially denied did any damage whatsoever, but then the satellite imagery came out and confirmed that at least there were hits on a Ramat David air base in Norvern.

occupied Palestine. The Israelis then launched a counterattack and many people said, well, Iran then launched some missiles at different sites in Israeli military sites, but that wasn't so overwhelming, that wasn't so much, but a lot of people aren't talking about what the actual damage and results of the Israeli strikes actually were. Now the Israelis have no problem, as we know, with killing large numbers of civilians, but they did not attack densely populated urban areas. They didn't, according to the reports that came out of Iran, they didn't kill a single Iranian. Now, they injured over a dozen people, but they targeted what Iran has admitted to,

three different radar sites, a petrochemical company, and a number of different targets that were already hit multiple times during the actual war, the full-scale war, which is rather weak in terms of an Israeli response, especially given the fact that the Israelis had launched their strike on Beirut, and that itself was quite limited, although it did kill two civilians. It was a limited attack on Beirut, and then it had prepared this attack to launch an Iran, yet it was quite lackluster, and the Iranians responded in kind because again, it was a rather lackluster attack. Now, Donald Trump intervened to try and say, hey, we need to stop this and then it stopped until later on, then he announced that, you know,

Iran had shot down an Apache helicopter and that he had to respond himself and so forth. And the situation evolved from there. But if we're looking at the Israelis and the Israeli side, of course, this was coordinated with the United States. So they were trying to test Iran They weren't trying to go into an all-out war. That's very important as well. Because Iran, the missile strikes were important. They do give an indication of where things are at, what Iran is capable of doing. But the most important element here, which many people have missed, is the fact that Yemen's Ansar al-La not only fired on the Israelis with ballistic missiles in coordination with Iran,

after Iran was hit, but they also imposed now, or reimposed, their blockade on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. So they've locked down the Babelamandab straight for the Israelis, and they are threatening to lock it down for all shipping if there is an escalation against them. And so this is a major development. Ansar Allah, the Yemeni, government in Senat was not too heavily involved in the 40-day war. It did fire some missiles here and there, but it didn't take great action. Iran is now pulling that card at a point where the Strait of Hormuz has been closed since the beginning of March, and the results of that closure are now starting to show up. And so closing Baban Mendeb,

would severely impact global trade and the global economy as well. So they have linked Iran, Yemen, with Lebanon, and of course themselves, and asserted and began to indicate as well that the Gaza Strip is involved in this. In other words, all fronts in the Iranian-led axis of resistance are linked. And what they are trying to impose is the NATO-style world. clause of an attack on one is an attack on all. And if we are to assume that that is what they are indeed going for, and it does look like the Iranians are pressing forward with this, then the concept that has long been in the, let's say, the circles of the axis of resistance, which was promoted

by the former Secretary General of Hezbollah and the former IRGC commander, of the Quds force, Qasem Soleimani, for many years, is the idea of the unity of squares. And so what this means is that all the fronts are combined. Now, Sayy Hassan Nasrallah, before he was assassinated in September of 2024, had stuck to that. But Iran was the only one that was not part of this equation. The Iranians would not respond to what was happening in the Gaza Strip, for instance. The Iraqi factions, the Islamic resistance in Iraq, on Sara-La, and Hezbollah all fought on the side of the Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza. But the missing piece was Iran. Israel believed that when it managed to force Hezbollah on the 27th of November

2024 into an unfavorable ceasefire, which Israel would go on to violate 15,400 times, according to UNIFIL, that they had broken this equation. And thus, they had broken the axis of resistance. After this, the fall of the Syrian government was a major moment, which the Israelis again believed furthered the aim of destroying the axis of resistance. And then in their minds, Iran, the government in Iran falling was the final part of the access resistance that they needed to take out. And that hasn't happened. The very opposite has occurred because of the Israeli-U.S. aggression on Iran now. That is what the Iranians are going towards.

That's what they're heading towards. And so when the Trump administration now is making his threats against the Iranians, bombing Iranian targets, and then talking about having a deal right there ready to go straight after, he is in a very difficult position because Iran, its position in the region, is actually stronger, way stronger than it was before this war was launched against them. They have control over the Strait of Hormuz, they have managed to batter the Arab Gulf states, with the exception of Oman, which has more so sided with Iran in this conflict, but the rest of them have taken huge blows, and not them themselves have been targeted directly in such a severe way.

Of course, there have been hit, but more so the U.S. bases. So the US and its power in the region has been undermined in the Gulf states, which is, you know, the center of wealth in the region. And then now they are only just playing the card of getting their allies in Yemen to blockade the Red Sea again. They have all these levers and they're pulling them strategically and they have relinked the fronts and they have brought back those concepts that Sayyahasana Nasrallah and the IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Salimani had to put forth all of those years ago that many believed had dissipated, that Iran was not interested in upholding this anymore. So this all makes it more difficult for the United States and it makes it more difficult for them because time is not on their side. The longer this drags

out, the worst things are going to get economically. So there is only a limited amount of time before the repercussions are going to become evident for the entire world, including global food supply as well. That's another thing. So supply chains are going to be under strain. And at this point, the Americans either have to accept a deal with Iran, which will include all the front's closing, or go to all-out war. And the real question here is whether the United States can say no to Israel, because that is what is blocking a deal. At the end of the day, a deal right now would benefit the United States. They have not succeeded in overthrowing the Iranian government. They haven't even succeeded really in weakening them. But the Israelis want

them to go further. They want them to attack and destroy much of Iran's infrastructure. The United States doesn't want to necessarily go ahead with that because if they do, number one, there's repercussions for their own forces. But perhaps just as importantly here, the infrastructure of the Arab Gulf states, the U.S. allies, these massive oil producers, is also going to be decimated. When that's fine for the Israelis, the Israelis want to to be the ones dominating the entire region. But that's not so good for the United States because the United States enjoys trade with these Gulf Arab regimes.

In fact, Donald Trump frequently has bragged about the trillions in investment that these Gulf Arab nations have pledged in the US economy. So now we are at the point where Israel refuses to withdraw from Lebanese territory. It clearly doesn't have a plan. it wants to drag the U.S. further and further, and it's digging its own grave with every single day. They have no strategy that they're putting forth, which brings me to the conclusions here, either the U.S. and the Israelis are going to have to back down, even if another round of warfare happens and they try to get, or the Israelis at least, try to get everything that they can

out of this, hoping that inflicting damage on Iranian infrastructure will, in the law, long-term weaken Iran and allow for regime change, sort of like we saw, for example, in Syria. It wasn't the war itself that resulted in the collapse of the government in Damascus. It was afterwards. It was the economic decline, the sanctions. You know, on top of the damage that was done to infrastructure, which happened much earlier, I don't believe that that is actually a winning strategy in Iran. It doesn't work the same way. But that is clearly what the Israelis are trying to get at. Because if the Israelis don't win this, the only other option for them is diplomacy if they want to survive.

This is their 1948 redo moment where they want to achieve greater Israel. And if they don't get it, then they have to make a deal. And that means a deal with the Palestinians as well if they simply want to survive. But they don't want to do that desperately. which again, either there's a deal, Israel eventually is destroyed, or we're looking at a situation where the unthinkable could happen. The Israelis could just go completely mad. And that will ultimately, I believe, result in their destruction if they're going to go down

that route. But it will be very dangerous. And we could even see them use nuclear. their nuclear arsenal. Now, that's not for certain, but the Israelis are in a very tough position. They're getting battered in Lebanon. The Iranians are asserting their dominance in the region, and this is a position Israel's never been in. The Iranians have actually never been this dominant over the Israelis. And what happened from what Israel has presented as this massive strategic victory, which ultimately they got in the ceasefire agreement in November 24 and then the overfro

of the Syrian government afterwards. What looked for a while like Israel was suddenly in control and on the front foot has now been flipped back on the Israelis. They're now on their back foot. They don't know what to do. And so taking nuclear weapons out of it for a moment, it is extremely likely that they are going to get aggressive on a... number of different fronts in any way they can. So they will pick up their bombing

campaign, for instance, perhaps in Gaza. They've already been escalating them, their bombardment of Gaza, and they are going to try and claw at whatever they can because of their desperation. So this is something to look out for, and it's important again to understand everything in its context and these power dynamics, Because this, what we've just discussed here, is what's going through the minds of the officials, the decision makers in Tel Aviv and to an extent in Washington, if you believe that they have minds of their own anyway.