Missiles, Lies, and Media Wars: The Crisis They Don’t Want You to See

According to a senior military official quoted in The New York Times, the biggest threat to the secrecy of Operation Midnight Hammer wasn’t spies or satellites. It was Trump’s thumbs.

By early Monday, June 23, ballistic missiles were launched by Iran toward Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, home to the U.S. Central Command’s nerve center. Around the world, air base defenses braced. Qatar’s skies shut down.

Now Russia has entered the chorus. Dmitry Medvedev called Trump’s strike “a new war” — and warned that securing Iran with nukes would be a moral surge that could free Tehran from confrontation.

Code-named Operation Midnight Hammer, it was America’s overt insertion into what had been Israel’s conflict with Iran. Before sunrise in the night between June 21–22, stealth B‑2 bombers shimmied across continents — bearing bunker-buster bombs set against a horizon in Iran. Fourteen massive choices, including Tomahawks from submerged submarines, punctured the earth at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

USA Today

“Spectacular military success,” President Trump crowed on Truth Social that morning, punctuating his approval with chest-thumping bravado. Trump also claimed the strikes had caused “monumental damage” to Iran’s nuclear sites — though no independent evidence has yet emerged. The International Atomic Energy Agency is still on the ground, assessing the physical and environmental fallout from Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — sites once secluded deep within mountains and desert sands.

But as the dust settled, the shadows lengthened.

And while U.S. military planners obsessed over satellite images and target algorithms, another variable kept them on edge — and it wasn’t Iranian defenses. It was the President of the United States.

According to a senior military official quoted in The New York Times, the biggest threat to the secrecy of Operation Midnight Hammer wasn’t spies or satellites. It was Trump’s thumbs.

“The biggest threat to opsec,” the official said, “was the president himself.”

As airmen armed B‑2 bombers in the dead of night, Trump fired off a warning on Monday, June 17: “Everyone should evacuate Tehran,” he posted. By Friday, June 21, he had left the G7 summit early, telling reporters he had to do something “much bigger” than a ceasefire. “Stay tuned,” he teased.

What had once been a covert buildup became a breadcrumb trail of chaos. Each tweet gave shape to Pentagon whispers and foreign intel chatter. Every “stay tuned” fed into Tehran’s anxiety — and perhaps even influenced their decision to strike Al Udeid hours after the U.S. attack.

The social media age has reshaped war — but never like this. Never where Twitter fingers can so easily become trigger fingers. It’s also being used to rebrand an old playbook.

A Familiar Lie, A Different Desert

The U.S. has been here before.

We were told Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. We were told time was running out. We were told war was the only option. And then, nothing — just decades of devastation. No WMDs.

For thirty years, officials have warned that Iran was “weeks away” from building a nuclear weapon. That same phrase — “weeks away” — has been repeated so often it’s practically muscle memory in national security briefings. And yet, it’s always just out of reach, always just enough to justify new sanctions, new strikes, new wars.

The truth is simpler and more dangerous: Iran is not what’s escalating global war.

The escalation is coming from leaders — leaders who treat diplomacy like weakness and war like content. It’s coming from a U.S. president who liveblogs military action, from allies who escalate under cover of confusion, and from regimes seeking regional dominance under the guise of defense.

Meanwhile in Moscow, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Vladimir Putin. Russia, long wary of becoming Tehran’s lifeline, has publicly defended its abstention from sending arms even as Israel’s bombs rained. But Araghchi made clear that Iran expects Moscow to “play an active role” in the coming days.

General Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran’s Joint Staff, delivered a stern warning: the U.S. strikes “amount to invasion,” and have given Tehran “a free hand to act against U.S. interests and its army.” Iran will respond, he said.

And between Trump’s reckless broadcasts, Israel’s relentless strikes, Russia’s silent calculations, and Iran’s vow to retaliate — the boundaries of war have dissolved. This is no longer a contained regional conflict.

We’ve entered a new theater of escalation, bounded less by geography and more by ego — where leaders play with matches while the world stands in dry grass. It’s a sprawling, global negotiation by force, where each move shifts balance, perception, and risk for the futures of many.

Yes, we’ve seen this before. And history will continue to test our humanity, as it has many times. This time, the spark might not just be a bullet or a bomb. It might be a tweet. A post. A press conference staged like a prophecy.

War of Narratives: Trump Attacks Media Over Nuclear Assessment

In a dramatic escalation beyond bombs, President Trump has targeted news outlets over reporting on the true impact of U.S. strikes:

• On June 25, Trump railed against CNN and The New York Times, denouncing their coverage as "fake news" and calling CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand “bad and sick,” demanding her immediate firing "like a dog".

• He accused them of "demeaning" military pilots and downplayed their reports that early intelligence showed only partial, not total, damage to Iran's nuclear sites, despite his administration confirming the DIA assessment was real.

• Over the past 24 hours, this media war intensified: Trump has now promised “irrefutable evidence” to prove major outlets “lied”—setting up a Pentagon press conference to back his narrative.

• CNN’s Jake Tapper struck back, calling the attacks "ugly" and "un-american," underlining that journalists must report facts—even during war

Why This Matters

Transparency: Early DIA reports confirmed the strikes caused setback—but not obliteration—of Iran’s nuclear program.

Media as Mandate: Journalists are not obstacles to victory; they're necessary checks on power—especially when war is underway.

Escalation by Words: The president’s threats to fire reporters mirror other aggressive impulses — highlighting how tweets are now warfare too.

If we do not awaken to the weight of what is unfolding — if we treat this as just another headline, another news cycle — we risk more than peace, we risk our humanity in this moment.

This crossfire between government and media raises urgent questions:

• If we can’t trust the truth about military success, what are we being asked to believe?

• Who holds leaders accountable when bombs fall and borders shake?

• When journalism is labeled “enemy,” what remains to stop marching into deeper conflict?

Even as missiles fly and rhetoric intensifies, it's not just battles over land—but battles over truth.

What begins in pixels may end in ashes—or spark the moment we remember our duty to each other and how similar our needs are.

If not our governments — then we must defend that truth ourselves.

Dream Big, Act Bigger.