The Israeli-Iran conflict of 2025 began on June 13, 2025. On this date, Israel launched “Operation Rising Lion,” a significant attack targeting dozens of locations across Iran, including key military and nuclear facilities. Iran retaliated with its own ballistic missile and drone attacks on Israel later that same day.
The Israeli government cited imminent nuclear materials enrichment by Iranian centrifuges as a reason for its preemptive, unprecedented and unprovoked attacks into Iran. Bibi’s government says the Iranian nuclear sites are just a step away from high grade nuclear enrichment, one that is capable of producing military grade nuclear materials for atomic bombs, although these claims have been consistently denied by the Iranian government and the United Nation’s atomic watchdog.
Israel has likened this very purported nuclear enrichment as being existential to Israel, hence the immediate airstrikes against Iranian military, nuclear and oil installations.
All this is just a ruse. First and foremost, a strike of this capacity requires elaborate logistics and methodical planning for its success.
For instance, Iran is about 1,000 to 1,200 miles from Israel (depending on the target), and that’s one way. So a round-trip would be over 2,000 miles, far beyond the unrefueled range of most Israeli aircraft. So here’s a clear breakdown of what it would likely take for Israel to conduct sustained airstrikes (multiple sorties) over Iran, especially targeting nuclear facilities like Fordow and Natanz.
The distance between Israel and Iran is 1,000 to 1,200 miles, depending on the flight route and the strike target. Also, the aircraft of choice for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is the F-35I; due to its significant technological edge over Iranian military aircrafts. Also there would be a Boeing 707 Re’em for aerial refueling. Now, an F-35I costs 35,000 dollars and a Boeing 707 Re’em 40,000 dollars to operate respectively. The Israeli aircrafts operated from an average of 8 hours (from takeoff to return to base of origin), and a total of 200 IDF planes took part in Operation Rising Lion. The math here is 35,000 × 200 × 8 = 56,000,000. Now if an estimate of 4 Boeing 707 Re’em were used, this would translate to a math’s of 40,000×4×8= 1,280,800 dollars. In total the figure rises to 1.5 billion dollars that was spent on the strike, including munitions rearmament and airframe maintenance etc.
Now this is a huge figure of dollars and experience for IDF to just conduct a preemptive strike. Operation Rising Lion was only successful because Israel has been orchestrating these attacks for a long time ago, and the financial burden has been assimilated into the operations budget of the IDF.
The financial strain of the Israeli offensive operations does not include defensive (the cost of interceptor missiles, since they are pretty sure Iran will strike back).
Since the last couple of days, PM Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has constantly counted on his US counterpart President Trump to join “the war to end all wars”. He did ask for the US to drop GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator; a mammoth bunker busting bomb with enormous penetrative and explosive ability which can only be delivered a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. Back then in late April these bombers arrived at Diego Garcia Base in the Middle East.
Bibi has not stated his strike aims in Iran; so far it’s all been rhetoric about regime change, and a near stage of nuclear weapons acquisition which he says posed an imminent threat to Israel.
All these are manufactured excuses, a ruse, manipulative rhetoric to open another segment of war, one which would drag the world’s accountability eyes away from the genocides committed by the IDF in Gaza and the occupied territories.
President Trump said he wouldn’t strike at Iran unless Iran becomes an obstacle to US ambitions. Later the next day Trump said that “we have achieved air superiority over Iran” and in the next couple of days B-2 Spirit bombers were seen pummeling Iran under the US president’s orders, without Congressional support.
The so-called preemptive strikes against Iran were all a ruse just like Iraq. When the time for accountability comes, Israel will play the tape of an existential threat from Iran and subsequently after it’s preemptive strikes that Iran hit it with such brute force that they had to beckon to President Trump to pummel Iran. Meanwhile, in essence the Israeli sorties over Iran were meant to disable air defenses at the present to enable unimpeded US bomber strafing missions in the very near future.
So far this manipulation has been a success, because we did seem to have forgotten what’s happening in Gaza and shifted our gaze to Iran, after the U.S Air Force bombed Iran. What a perfect ruse to start the so called “war that will end all wars.”
Precious Allwell is a Nigerian author and geopolitical analyst. He have been featured regularly by The Business Day Newspaper, The Republic Magazine and lots more.
