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← The June 2025 Twelve-Day War

How Israel Brought America Into the Twelve-Day War

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED that Israel started the war, that Israel could not destroy Iran's deepest nuclear site without American bombers, that Israel asked the United States to join, and that Israel's prime minister publicly credited his own "diplomatic campaign" for the American strike. STRONG that bringing the United States in was built into Israel's war plan from the start, based on leaked Israeli deliberations published by an Iranian-American advocacy group and on Israeli officials' own statements.

This page answers the question most Americans never got to ask: why were American bombers over Iran at all? Iran had not attacked the United States. America's own intelligence agencies had told Congress three months earlier that Iran was not building a bomb. American diplomats were in the middle of talks with Iran. The answer, in the words of Israel's own leaders, is that Israel started a war it could not finish alone, and then worked to bring America in to finish the part that only America could do.

The one target Israel could not reach​

Iran's most important enrichment plant, Fordow, is built inside a mountain near the city of Qom, roughly 80 to 90 meters under rock (@shanaka86). The only conventional bomb designed to reach it is the American GBU-57, a 30,000-pound "bunker buster," and the only aircraft that can carry it is the American B-2 stealth bomber.

Israel's own jets never touched it. On June 16, three days into Israel's war, the head of the UN nuclear agency said, "We have not observed any damage to the uranium enrichment facility at Fordow" (as relayed by @warintel4u). An Arab commentator whose post was seen 1.5 million times put it plainly: America alone had "that capability after Israel failed at Fordow" (@aishaalsayed9, June 22, 2025). A Pakistani researcher interviewed by Iran's Tehran Times said the same thing from the other side: Israel's claim to be targeting Iran's nuclear program "is beyond its strike capability. This is evident, from United States leading the strikes at Natanz, Fordow and Esfahan" (Tehran Times interview, June 23, 2025).

So an Israeli war against Iran's nuclear program was, from the first day, a war that needed America to succeed.

What Israel's leaders said in private​

In September 2025, the president of the National Iranian American Council, Jamal Abdi, posted what he called "leaked transcripts of Israeli deliberations during 12-day war." As quoted there, Israel's military chief said, "If the US cooperates with us, we can make the hit within 48 hours," a senior military official said, "Fordo will be destroyed only if the US attacks it," and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer said Netanyahu had "pushed and maneuvered" Trump toward a decision on sending American refueling planes (Abdi on X, September 15, 2025; the post was seen more than 320,000 times). Abdi's reading: "Dragging the U.S. into war was central to plan." The full set of quotes, including the defense minister's argument for striking Iran's "civilian national infrastructure," is on The Leaked Israeli Deliberations.

What Israel's leaders said in public​

Netanyahu did not hide his role once the bombs had fallen. On June 24, he told Israelis the American strike was "the fruit of a diplomatic campaign I led with [Strategic Affairs] Minister Ron Dermer," thanked Trump for "his part in defending Israel," and said, "Israel has never had a friend like President Trump in the White House" (Times of Israel, as quoted by Hugh Hewitt). Trump, for his part, thanked Netanyahu the night of the strike: "We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before" (Times of Israel, full text). And a year later, at the United Nations, Netanyahu described the war as one fought together: "Brave American pilots, alongside brave Israeli pilots, flew joint missions over the skies of Iran" (as paraphrased from his September 24, 2026 speech by Urgent Intel).

Israel was told of the American strike before the American Congress was. "An Israeli official told me Israel was notified by the Trump administration in advance of the U.S. strike in Iran" (Barak Ravid, June 21, 2025). Most American lawmakers were "kept in the dark" (AP via PBS). The full public record is on Netanyahu's Campaign and the Joint War.

The request, day by day​

Two days into the war, "An emergency Pentagon meeting discusses Israel's request to intervene in the war against Iran. Source: NBC" (Clash Report, June 15, 2025). The Mossad chief had spent the spring trying to "convince Trump's team to harden their negotiating positions" (Jerusalem Post). The day-by-day story of how the request was made and answered, June 12 to June 22, is told in detail in the sibling section: June 2025: How America Joined.

Commentator Tucker Carlson went further, saying, as three accounts summarized his broadcast, that during the twelve-day war "IDF officers were inside the Pentagon, issuing orders to U.S. military leaders" (@Megatron_ron, October 3, 2025, seen more than 800,000 times). That claim and the history behind it are examined on Mossad in the Pentagon.

Israel's intelligence was already inside Iran​

The war Israel asked America to join was one Israel had been preparing on the ground for years. The Times of London, from leaked intelligence documents, described Israeli "boots on the ground" at nearly every major facility later targeted, as summarized by FDD's Mark Dubowitz (June 30, 2025). A former Mossad director boasted in 2026, "We toured the Fordow nuclear site many times to understand the site" (@MarioNawfal, citing Israeli media). See Mossad Inside Iran.

How Iran saw it​

Iran's leaders said from the first day that the United States was a party. Iran's UN ambassador told the Security Council on June 13 that Israel's attacks "constituted a declaration of war" (Wikipedia). After the American strike, Iran's Foreign Ministry said it "showed that they were also involved in planning Israel's initial attack on Iran" (The Ukrainian Review). Iran's defense minister said later, "Behind this war, America was present with all its might" (@ME_Observer_). Those are Iran's words. What makes them hard to dismiss is that Israel's prime minister said much the same thing, proudly.

Why this matters to an American family​

The United States did not go to war with Iran in June 2025 because Iran attacked America, or because American intelligence found a bomb program. It went to war to finish an Israeli operation that Israel's own planners said could not succeed without American bombers. The President's letter to Congress named the collective self-defense of Israel as one of the reasons (govinfo.gov). The same pattern, Israel starting a war and America finishing it, repeated in 2026, when the price rose to American lives, planning for American ground raids inside Iran, and a Congress building the machinery of a draft. See After the Ceasefire, American Soldiers on the Ground in Iran, and The Forced Draft Law.

The former head of America's National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, who resigned over the 2026 war, said the war could not end "until Israel is taken out of the loop" (as reported by EIR). See Joe Kent's Resignation.

Go deeper​

Status: Benjamin Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, Eyal Zamir, Donald Trump, Jamal Abdi, Barak Ravid, Tucker Carlson, Joe Kent and Aziz Nasirzadeh are alive, as far as these sources show.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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