Early Read: Our Leader in Indian Newslink Digital Edition June 15, 2025
Venkat Raman
Auckland, June 14, 2025
The skies over the Middle East, so often clouded by mistrust and proxy conflict, have darkened to a shade of peril not seen in generations.
With Israel’s audacious, large-scale strikes deep inside Iranian territory on Friday, June 13, 2025, the long-simmering shadow war has burst violently into the open, pushing two of the region’s most formidable powers to the very edge of a catastrophic, full-scale confrontation. The world holds its breath, not in anticipation, but in dread. The drumbeat of war is growing louder, and we must, with a united voice, demand it be silenced before it consumes us all.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the strikes were to ‘roll break’ the threat from Iran. This has been his stand for a long time.
Operation Rising Lion
What transpired on June 13 2025 was an escalation of breathtaking scope. Under the codename ‘Operation Rising Lion,’ Israeli warplanes reportedly struck at the heart of Iran’s national security apparatus. The targets were not merely peripheral assets; they were strategic centres of power and ambition. The Natanz uranium enrichment facility, a focal point of international concern for years, was hit. Military headquarters and command centres were attacked. Perhaps most provocatively, the strikes constituted a decapitation attempt against Iran’s military leadership.
The list of those killed, according to reports from multiple news organisations, is a roll call of Iran’s most powerful figures. General Hossein Salami, the Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and General Mohammad Bagheri, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, were among the dead. Alongside them, key nuclear scientists, the intellectual drivers of Iran’s atomic programme, were eliminated. While the strategic utility of these killings will be debated by military analysts for years to come, the human cost is already apparent. Iranian state media has reported the deaths of civilians, a tragic and inevitable consequence when munitions fall on a nation.
Iran threatens response
The reaction was as swift as it was predictable. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, promised a ‘harsh response,’ warning that a ‘bitter and painful’ fate awaited Israel.
In Jerusalem, a state of emergency was declared, the population bracing for the retaliation to come. The United States, while publicly distancing itself from the operation, issued urgent directives for its personnel across the region to shelter in place, a clear acknowledgement of the volatile and unpredictable aftermath. This is the classic, terrifying choreography of escalation.
An act of aggression is met with a vow of vengeance, each step leading further down a path from which there may be no return.
This moment feels different, and dangerously so. The unwritten rules of engagement, which saw both nations strike at each other through proxies and in the shadows, have been torn asunder. This was a direct, state-on-state attack. The risk of miscalculation is now terrifyingly high. A retaliatory strike from Iran, whether through a barrage of ballistic missiles or the activation of its proxy network across the region, could easily spiral out of control. A wider war could draw in Lebanon, Syria, and Gulf nations, creating a vortex of violence that would destabilise the entire global order.
The Strait of Hormuz
Let us be clear about what such a war would mean, not just for the Middle East, but for the world. The global economy, already fragile, would be shattered. The Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for global oil supplies, could become a warzone, sending energy prices soaring and triggering a worldwide recession. The humanitarian cost would be unimaginable, creating waves of refugees on a scale that would dwarf current crises. It would divert essential resources and political will away from other pressing global challenges, from climate change to pandemic preparedness.
Most chillingly, it would be a war fought between a state widely believed to possess a nuclear arsenal and a state on the threshold of acquiring one. The spectre of nuclear conflict, a fear that has haunted humanity for eighty years, would feel terrifyingly close. This is a fire that, once lit, may prove impossible to extinguish.
Therefore, this is a moment for wisdom, not warfare. It is a moment for restraint, not retribution.
We appeal directly to the leadership in both Jerusalem and Tehran. True strength is not measured by the power to destroy but by the courage to step back from the abyss.
The grievances are deep, the history is bitter, but the future of your people, and the stability of our shared world, hangs in the balance. The path of escalation leads only to ruin, to cemeteries filled with your youth and cities turned to rubble. The only victory in such a conflict is avoiding it. The world is watching. We implore you, for the sake of all humanity, to choose peace. Choose restraint. Pull back from the brink.
