In Episode 284 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg  interviews Frieda Afary of the blog Iranian Progressives in Translation, author (most recently) of Socialist Feminism: A New Approach, and a longtime voice for democratic-secular opposition movements in Iran. How is the situation of Iran's civil resistance complicated by the US-Israeli air-strikes on the country, and how should progressives in the West respond?

On June 23, two days after the US carried out air-strikes against Iran's nuclear sites in what is being dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran launched missiles at al-Udeid air base in Qatar, headquarters for US Central Command's regional operations and host to some 8,000 US troops. The US said nearly all the missiles were intercepted and there were no casualties. In a post on TruthSocial, President Trump shortly later claimed a ceasefire between Israel and Iran has been reached, with Israeli media reporting that the truce was brokered by Qatar. Sources also told Reuters that Iran had tipped off Qatar authorities before the attack, who then warned the US—accounting for the light damage and raising the possibility that, as in US-Iran brinkmanship of early 2020, the supposed Iranian retaliation was choreographed to allow Tehran to save face. The US, Israel and Iran alike are now all claiming victory, and it remains unclear how seriously Tehran's nuclear capabilities have in fact been degraded. (BBC News, The Guardian, JP, TWZ, NYT, NDTV, FirstPost)

With Israel's criminal air-strikes on Iran's nuclear sites releasing radioactive contamination, Bibi Netanyahu cynically invokes the "Woman, Life, Freedom" protest movement that shook Iran for months from September 2022. Of course nothing is less conducive to pro-democracy civil resistance in Iran than to have this cause associated with the foreign power that is bombing the country's territory—and is itself oppressing the Palestinians with biblical justifications. In Episode 282 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg again advocates a neither/nor position that rejects the militaristic and reactionary regimes of both Zionism and political Islam, and looks to a secular order in the Middle East.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on June 13 urged both Iran and Israel to exercise "maximum restraint" amid a sudden escalation between the two states following Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear installations. Condemning the Israeli strikes, the statement from the secretary-general's office expressed concerns about a wider conflagration throughout the Middle East, warning that "a descent into deeper conflict" would be "a situation that the region can hardly afford." 

President Donald Trump's administration plans to increase the number of undocumented migrants being transferred to the US Naval facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to government documents obtained by Politico and the Washington Post. The documents, reported by the media outlets June 10, state that 9,000 undocumented immigrants are currently being vetted for transfer to Guantánamo, with the first transfers to begin as soon as later this week.

California filed suit against the Trump administration June 9, asserting that its activation and deployment of the state National Guard to quell protests in Los Angeles is unconstitutional. The suit asks the US District Court for the Northern District of California to halt President Donald Trump's "unlawful militarization" of Los Angeles.

The US Department of State imposed sanctions on June 5 on four individuals serving as judges on the International Criminal Court (ICC) for their involvement with the ICC's investigations into the US and Israel. The sanctions were imposed pursuant to Executive Order No. 14,203, "Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court," which President Donald Trump signed on Feb. 6. The order was signed in response to the ICC's warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant. The stated purpose of the order was to underline the position that the US and Israel are not within the jurisdiction of the ICC under the Rome Statute, and therefore any investigation into the actions of the two countries is invalid.

President Donald Trump issued a proclamation June 4 implementing a nearly full travel ban on nationals from a dozen countries, severely restricting potential entry into the United States. The proclamation is based on an executive order issued on Trump's first day in office that laid the foundation for the administration to enact extensive immigration controls. Trump claimed the action serves national security interests: