President Donald Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu declared the Iranian military and its leadership effectively dismantled following unprecedented joint military operations. As both leaders urge the Iranian public to establish a new government, remaining IRGC officials are threatening to annihilate regional energy infrastructure in retaliation.
In a sweeping declaration of military victory, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Iran's armed forces and top leadership have been completely dismantled. According to a translated press conference shared by Vahid Online—a widely viewed Persian news aggregator known for bypassing state censorship to broadcast critical coverage of the Islamic Republic—Trump stated that Iran's navy, air force, air defenses, radars, and communications are "completely blown up." Asserting that the main danger of the war ended within the first two days, Trump claimed "two levels of leadership" have been eliminated. On the breaking war-news channel Akhbar Fori, Trump was quoted stating that the U.S. accomplished in days what should have been done over a "47-year period" against a "nation of terror and hate."
With the current regime structure severely degraded, Trump signaled a desire for regime change led from within Iran. In another translated segment provided by Vahid Online, Trump expressed disappointment in Iran's selection of a new leader—alluding to Mojtaba Khamenei—stating it would only repeat past problems. Rejecting the idea of a complete institutional purge akin to Iraq, which he noted spawned ISIS, Trump emphasized a preference for an internal transition. He publicly questioned the viability of the "Shah's son" and instead praised the U.S. partnership with Venezuela as a functional model, citing the successful extraction and Houston-based refining of "100 million barrels" of Venezuelan oil. Trump added that while Iranians are a "brilliant" and "energetic" people, they are trapped in a system that "only makes failure possible," and he intends to establish a new framework yielding "years of peace."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the aggressive U.S. posture, directly mocking new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and Hezbollah's Naim Qassem. As reported by Vahid Online, Netanyahu joked, "If it were up to me, I wouldn't issue them life insurance," branding Khamenei a "puppet of the IRGC" who cannot show his face in public. Addressing the Iranian public via video from an undisclosed location, Netanyahu urged them to take to the streets, stating Israel is delivering heavy blows to IRGC and Basij forces to create the "optimal conditions" and necessary space for a popular uprising.
Despite the catastrophic losses claimed by the U.S. and Israel, remaining Iranian officials issued fierce, apocalyptic warnings. Vahid Online relayed threats from Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman for the IRGC's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, who warned of a "crushing and devastating response" if Iran's energy infrastructure or ports are attacked. He declared that any such aggression would result in all regional oil and gas infrastructure serving the U.S. and its Western allies being "burned and destroyed." Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, further threatened that any U.S. strike on Iran's power facilities would plunge the entire region into a blackout "within half an hour." Simultaneously, Trump issued a stark ultimatum demanding the immediate removal of any Iranian mines potentially laid in the Strait of Hormuz, threatening military consequences of an "unprecedented and unimaginable level" if his demands are ignored.
The intense military conflict and threats of regional energy annihilation are already sending geopolitical shockwaves into neighboring economies. The crisis coincides with severe currency volatility in neighboring Afghanistan, where intense speculative trading and high liquidity have driven massive, rapid fluctuations in the Afghani against the U.S. dollar and Pakistani rupee over the past week.
The source material relies heavily on Persian machine translations of live statements by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Vahid Online's translations faithfully capture Trump's distinct conversational syntax and tangential speaking style (e.g., pivoting from Iran to Venezuelan oil operations and referencing 'Delcy'). The aggressive rhetoric is accurately preserved, as are the maximalist retaliatory threats from the IRGC. Vahid Online's editorial posture is implicitly anti-regime, acting as a conduit for U.S. and Israeli messaging directly to the Iranian public, while highlighting the IRGC's desperation.