Good morning, and welcome to the Daily Odds. It's Tuesday, the twenty fourth of June.
I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm Sam Kulski.
Over the weekend, the US struck Iran.
The operation President Trump planned was bold and it was brilliant, showing the world that American deterrence is back.
Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon, and we support action to prevent that.
That is what this is.
It's the largest attack America has ever carried out on Iran and comes amid a war between Iran and Israel, which counts the US as its closest ally. In today's episode, we'll explain the historic strike, discuss Iran's reaction, and catch you up with this rapidly evolving story.
Okay, So, Lucy, when you and I chatted in the office on Friday afternoon, yeah, the position was that we knew that President Trump was considering the possibility of the US striking Iran. Here said this very ominous, indecisive quote of I may do it, I may not do it. Late last week, then on Sunday morning, our time, about ten am, he did do it, and he launched strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran. There's so much one pack, But give me a sense of how we got here.
Yeah, I mean it's hard to know where to even start. I know that we have been discussing how we can explain the US Iran relationship. If that's something you would be interested in, please reach out to us.
I'll let us know.
I'm just going to kind of talk about the last few days, just to catch people up to speed. I think it starts with a statement from the UN Nuclear Watchdog earlier this month. So the watchdog said Iran had failed to comply with its international legal obligations to allow independent monitors from the UN to fully investigate its nuclear sites.
It said it hadn't answered questions about activities at certain sites, and it said Iran hadn't explained why it was accruing quote, highly enriched urani, which is the kind that you need for nuclear weapons rather than nuclear energy. The Watchdog did not find that Iran had a nuclear weapon or had made one, but it said it was the only nation without nuclear weapons that is producing such material, which the watchdog couldn't ignore given the potential proliferation implications and.
All of those international regulations that govern the nuclear energy and nuclear warfare sphere or comes in this framework of the international community trying to figure out how to prevent a nuclear war essentially, But what do you mean by the word proliferation?
In this context, the word proliferation means increasing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. The UN's main treaty on nuclear weapons is called the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which binds countries to never acquire nuclear weapons other than a handful which had developed and detonated one before nineteen sixty seven. Iran had signed this treaty, as has the US. Israel has not. Nuclear weapons are
obviously catastrophic. We know from the only time in history they have been used in conflict, during World War II, when the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how wide ranging and long lasting the effects can be. There are strict regulations under international law around which countries are allowed to have them.
As I said earlier, we have heard, though from governments around the world, including our own, that Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, can never become a nuclear nation.
And what is it about Iran that puts it in that category of country.
For some context origious statement from the G seven summit earlier this month, where world leaders said Iran can never have a nuclear weapon because it is the principal source of regional instability and terror. We know so that Iran financially and militarily supports a number of groups in the region, Hamas in Gaza, Hesbla and Lebanon, and the Huthis in Yemen, among others. All three groups are designated as terrorist organizations
by Australia. We also know that the Iranian regime has said its goal is to destroy Israel, and again on that note of concern about what it would do to the region. Saudi Arabia, for example, has said it will acquire nuclear weapons if Iran develops one. Israel is believed to have nuclear weapons, but it has never publicly confirmed
or denied either way. Finally, in twenty fifteen, Iran signed a treaty that it would not develop nuclear weapons, that its nuclear program would only be for energy in exchange for other countries, slowly lifting financial restrictions on Iran.
Okay, so let me kind of bring that all together. You've got a country that is known to be supporting and financially facilitating known terrorist groups in the region. And it's a region where other countries have said, well, if they keep developing their nuclear program, then we'll have to as well. So you've got a backdrop of all of
these concerns. Then you have their promise of not developing a weapon, and then last week we got this release from the UN Nuclear watchdog saying there are concerns that they are in fact making progress. Yeah. Then what after that?
Israel carried out a series of strikes on Iran. Israel said it was targeting military and nuclear infrastructure, including the residences of military generals in apartment buildings in Tehran. Here's what Israeli PM Benjamin Netnya, who said was Israel's justification.
In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before, steps to weaponize this enriched uranium. If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year, it could be within a few months, less than a you this is a clear and present danger to Israel's very survival.
Iran, for its part, has repeatedly said its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, Iran's supreme leader is called the Ayatollah, and he said a few times in the past that the use of nuclear weapons is haram or forbidden under Islam, and Iran, as we know, is an Islamic republic ever since its revolution in nineteen seventy nine. Iran responded by striking back. It hit Israeli cities Telabev and Haifa. In the ensuing days, the nations have struck each other with missiles.
Both sides say they're aiming for military infrastructure. Both sides have killed and injured civilians. The latest death toll that we have from Iranian authorities is four hundred and thirty deaths,
mainly civilians. Israeli authorities report twenty five civilian deaths. During this time, there was a lot of discuss about whether the US would strike Iran, as we mentioned at the top of today's episode, given its close relationship with Israel and its capabilities as the world's most powerful military.
It's crazy to think that from when that nuclear report came out to last Friday was only about a week. Yeah, it was about eight or nine days, So so much happened in that period, and this idea of US involvement started to become more and more present in the new cycle, in the language with which all parties were speaking and analyzing the situation. And then on Sunday morning, there was this strike from the US and we found out via a post to President Trump's social media platform Truth Social.
Tell me about the strike.
We know the US struck three nuclear sites in Iran. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Sunday night our time that the US flew B two Spirit planes, which are really big and really quiet aircraft. He said these were flown into Iranian airspace without being detected and dropped what he called massive ordinance penetrators. We would know these better as bunker busters. It's a kind of bomb
that drops deeply into the earth before exploding. These were dropped because at least one of Iran's nuclear sites is deep underground.
About ninety meters I think underground, so a substantial amount of earth to get through with the bomb. Yeah, to actually do some damage to the facility, yeah.
Hegsath said it was the first time these had ever been used. He added that the goal of the operation was to quote neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program and the collective self defense of our troops and our ally Israel.
So to translate some of that kind of corporate political speak to what Hags Earth is actually saying there, He's saying, essentially that the US needed to bomb these Iranian nuclear facilities because there was a threat to America and a threat to Israel and a threat to American troops in the region. Yeah, and what is his boss, President Trump said about this?
Shortly after Trump made that truth social post, he spoke at the White House. He is a bit of what he said.
This cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy. For I ran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. The nights was the most difficult of them all by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes.
And that last part of the statement, Lucy, was probably of the most concerns of you and I when we were watching that address live on Sunday. It really brought to the fronts this idea that the US could continue striving which the international community might consider more of a full blown war with Iran, rather than this language around a targeted strike, a limited strike, allumited operation. What has the reaction been from Iran to these strikes, especially with that framing by President Trump.
So Iran called for the UN Security Council to have an emergency meeting, which happened on Monday morning our time. The Security Council, for those who might not know, is one of the UN's main bodies. It's responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. It's the only body in the UN that actually has the power to make decisions that member states are obligated to implement. It has fifteen members. Some of these are permanent, some of them
are temporary. The US is one of the permanent members. Australia has been a temporary member in the past. We are not currently on the makeup of the Security Council. So at that Security Council meeting, Iran's delegate used Netnyahu again, he's the Israeli Prime Minister of quote hijacking US foreign policy, dragging the United States into yet another costly, baseless war. He called the US attack quote aggression and unlawful action,
and said the allegations of nuclear development were baseless. He said Iran had a right to defend itself and that its response would be quote proportionate in terms of what that attack could involve. We should remember Iran is a long way from even the US East Coast, and not many countries have missiles that have a long enough range
to travel that far. I would think it would be more likely for Iran to attack a US military base in the region, which, as we said, was something that Trump was thinking about.
The other potential, therefore, Iran is a response directly against Israel they see as part of this duo with the US. That indeed happened in the twenty four hours after the strikes on the three nuclear facilities. What has the position been from the US and Israel in the days since the strike?
Yeah. So.
At that Security Council meeting, the US said its move was justified because of the UN Watchdog report and that it needed to act now to quote eliminate a longstanding but rapidly escalating source of global insecurity and to aid our ally Israel in our inherent right of collective self defense. Israel's representative called the attack a quote last line of defense,
saying the cost of inaction would have been catastrophic. A nuclear Iran would have been a death sentence, just as much for you as it would have been for us.
We'll be back with more of today's date dive right after this. I want to talk a little bit more about this idea about self defense and the way that that's used in coordination with an idea of a preemptive strike as well. There's been a number of times in the international arena in the last couple of years that we've seen self defense and preemptive strike language US. We can talk about Hamas attacking Israel on the seventh of
October twenty twenty three. We can also talk about Russia invading Ukraine.
The year before.
Where does this idea of self defense come from? Because I know there's a body of international law. It's a notoriously hard area to actually police, But give me a sense of kind of the rule book that sits behind all of this.
Yeah, the idea of the right to self defense comes from the United Nations Charter. It's kind of its founding document. It was signed when the organization was being formed in the dying days of World War II. Under that charter, which member states agree to, countries have a right to quote individual or collective self defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace
and security. So that's what the US is talking about in relation to collective self defense acting on behalf of their ally is. It remains to be seen if the UN its other members will accept the possibility of progress towards a nuclear bomb as enough to justify an attack of individual self defense by Israel on Iran. Iran would argue and has argued, because Israel attacked it, it now has a right to self defense.
So we've talked through the United Nations response to this and the Security Council. Let's hone in though, on Australia's reaction. Yeah, what has the reaction been from the Australian government.
We've heard that the government supports the US strikes, with Foreign Minister Pennywong saying it supports quote action to prevent Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, and that is what this is. She said, these sites are specific to Iran's nuclear program, and we know that the UN Nuclear watchdog has said
that Iran is enriching to almost military levels. However, both Penny Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanizi have been to emphasize that these strikes were unilaterally from the US, that this was carried out by the US without any other country involved. The Prime Minister said Australia supported action to prevent Iran from making a nuclear weapon, but said the government wanted to quote diplomacy, dialogue and de escalation in the region.
And the other part of this story is that there are Australians in the conflict zone, both in Iran and in Israel. What's the update on planned evacuations of these citizens and their families in both of those countries.
So Penny one confirmed yesterday morning twenty nine hundred Australians and their families have requested help to leave Iran. In Israel, thirteen hundred Australians have applied to leave. The government is working on various ways of getting people out of the region.
So ultimately where we're at is still a number of unknowns and a lot of this story to still play out over the week ahead. Lucy, I don't think this is the last time we're going to be chatting about this story on the podcast this week, let alone into the future. Thank you for breaking down what happened over the last couple of days, and we look forward to chatting again as this story does progress. And thank you
for joining us on the Daily Os. We'd love to know, as Lucy mentioned in the podcast, what questions you've got about this topic so we can be as helpful as possible amid the uncertainty. We'll be back again with some headlines in the afternoon. Until then, have a beautiful day. My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bungelung Kalkuttin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily os acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.