The Daily Populous Wednesday June 10th, 2026 evening edition
Authored by cnn.com and submitted by One-Emu-1103

Summary Iran's recent strikes on Israel signal a strategic shift, with Tehran now willing to respond directly to attacks on its regional allies.

The move aims to pressure the US and Israel into honoring the April ceasefire that Iran says has been repeatedly violated.

Experts say Iran is testing the US-Israel alliance and creating new leverage as US President Donald Trump pushes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toward a diplomatic deal.

Iran’s strikes on Israel this week were some of its most audacious attempts yet to redefine the boundaries of a confrontation that for decades has largely been fought through proxies, covert operations and carefully calibrated retaliation.

By targeting Israel in response to attacks in Lebanon, Tehran appeared to be signaling that its red lines no longer stop at its own borders – and that its leaders are ready to take greater risks.

Since the April 8 US-Iran ceasefire, Tehran has repeatedly accused Israel and the United States of eroding the truce through military action. The US has carried out strikes on Iranian targets even as indirect negotiations continued. Israel, meanwhile, has launched nearly 3,500 strikes in Lebanon, according to the country’s prime minister, including in the capital Beirut, despite restrictions imposed by the truce.

Iran responded with a series of calibrated retaliatory strikes against US and Gulf targets, while warning that if diplomacy failed it was prepared to resume the war and expand it beyond the Persian Gulf, potentially threatening shipping routes stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

Overnight Tuesday into Wednesday there were renewed exchanges of fire between the US and Iran following the downing of a US Army helicopter earlier in the week, underscoring the ongoing precariousness across the region.

Iran’s strikes on Israel signal broader shift

This week’s strikes on Israel, however, appeared to mark a further step. Tehran signaled that Israeli military action against its regional allies could also trigger a direct Iranian response. The objective was to break the diplomatic deadlock in talks to reach an interim peace agreement and support Hezbollah.

“We have overturned the ceasefire equation that existed on paper while being repeatedly violated in practice on the ground,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator in the talks, said Monday. “Until there is a genuine willingness to build trust, Iran’s response will remain the same.”

Iran has insisted it will not allow Israel and the US to continue their attacks while claiming to remain committed to a ceasefire that Tehran says is being repeatedly violated. “Under no circumstances” would it accept such an arrangement, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Monday.

The move suggests a broader shift in Tehran, where a new generation of leaders is increasingly abandoning the cautious, reactive approach that long defined the Islamic Republic’s strategy towards its adversaries. Rather than relying primarily on deterrence and strategic patience, they now appear more willing to take risks and to deploy Iran’s military, economic and regional leverage to shape events in the Middle East.

It is also the same Iranian leadership that US President Donald Trump has described as “more rational” and “pretty reasonable.”

“The Iranians have put both the Israelis and the US in a box now,” Aaron David Miller, a former US Middle East peace negotiator, told CNN’s Jessica Dean. “They’re risk ready. They think they’re winning. They don’t think the ceasefire is serving their interests.”

Israeli settlers use a tractor to haul away a large section of a downed Iranian missile on June 8, 2026 on the outskirts of Jericho, Israel. Erik Marmor/Getty Images

In 2020, the first Trump administration broke a longstanding taboo by assassinating Qasem Soleimani, the highest-ranking Iranian official killed by the United States at the time. Tehran’s response, under the leadership of then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, reflected his preference for calibrated retaliation over uncontrolled escalation: Iran launched a missile strike at a US airbase in Iraq after warnings were passed on that gave US forces time to seek shelter.

In June 2025, when the US joined Israel in attacking Iran, Tehran again opted for a proportional response, signaling that despite its fiery rhetoric it still viewed escalation management as necessary.

This week’s strikes on Israel suggest that calculation may be changing. “This is the first time in decades that a regional power has the means, capacity, and willingness to put hard power against Israeli military maneuvers or aggression against a third party,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, a US foreign policy think tank.

Following the attack, Iran warned that it was prepared to “raise the level of tension” to challenge what it described as Israeli and American assumptions about the limits of its response.

“If the Israelis and Americans imagine that through ‘controlled tension’ they can make Iran and (its proxy network) the Resistance Front predictable in the face of their crimes, or limit the type of Iran’s response, they are committing a foolish mistake,” an unidentified military source was cited as saying by Tasnim news agency, which is close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC.)

Tehran is seeking to create a “new equation” that aims to prevent Israel from acting not only against Iran itself but also its proxy network in the region, Danny Citrinowicz, former head of the Iran branch in Israeli military intelligence, told CNN’s Becky Anderson.

“The events of the past 24 hours once again demonstrated that Iran’s current leadership increasingly believes that whatever cannot be achieved through diplomacy can ultimately be achieved through the use of force,” he wrote on X.

Exploiting cracks in the US-Israel relationship

Iran also appears to be testing the US-Israel alliance and exploiting growing differences between the two countries over the conflict’s endgame. Trump has publicly broken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on several occasions in recent weeks, insisting that a diplomatic agreement with Tehran is within reach and asserting that Israel “won’t have any choice” but to accept it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (L) and US President Donald Trump meet in the Oval Office of the White House on April 7, 2025 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

That strategy may be yielding results. After Iran attacked Israel on Monday, Trump moved quickly to prevent further escalation, speaking with Netanyahu twice within hours in an effort to dissuade him from retaliating.

Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said Washington “bears responsibility” for Israel’s actions and warned that they would “inevitably” affect the diplomatic process. An Israeli military official, meanwhile, stressed that US forces played no role in the attacks on Iran, though they did assist in intercepting incoming Iranian missiles.

Iran may have succeeded in forcing Washington to make a choice between supporting Israel’s military freedom of action and preserving a diplomatic track with Tehran.

Trump’s pressure on Netanyahu has “added another chit to the pot” for Iran, said Miller, referring to Tehran’s new leverage. “Which will be the creation of a new norm.”

CNN’s Aida Karimi, Nadeen Ebrahim and Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.

NekoCatSidhe on June 10th, 2026 at 12:54 UTC »

I think I should point out that not taking risks still got them sanctioned, attacked by surprise, bombed, and now blockaded. It doesn't seem to be much of a risk to be bolder if your enemies are still going to attack you even if you don't take those risks. Trying to put Iran's back against the wall as Trump did may have been a bad idea. People fight a lot more when they feel like they are being cornered, particularly when they have reasons to think that their enemies are not as strong as they looked at first.

But in that case, it looked more to me like a political maneuver. Israel made a political mistake by negotiating a ceasefire with the Lebanese government and then not respecting it by bombing the Lebanese Army and then Beirut. Iran then attacked Israel to show that they were willing to defend at least Lebanon's capital against attacks by Israel, politically undermining a Lebanese government that is hostile to them and Hezbollah, but also shown as de facto unable to defend their country from Israel's invasion, whether through diplomacy or force.

And they also correctly calculated that Trump would prevent Israel from escalating beyond a few revenge strikes against Iran, thereby sowing discord between the US and Israel, and making Netanyahu look weak ahead of the elections in Israel. So the risk paid off, from their point of view.

AnimateDuckling on June 10th, 2026 at 12:31 UTC »

I seems rather obvious no? Iran has lost its grip on Syria. Hamas is barely a shadow of its former self. Houthis are not that responsive for whatever reason, It still has Hezbollah but Hezbollah is being dismantled harshly. It can't offer much in the way of funding in the current conditions.

Literally the only thing it can do in hopes to save Hezbollah and maintain a threatening presence on Israels borders is to pressure USA to stop Israel through amping up the risk factor/pain factor in the region again.

This is desperation.

One-Emu-1103 on June 10th, 2026 at 12:01 UTC »

Iran’s strikes on Israel this week were some of its most audacious attempts yet to redefine the boundaries of a confrontation that for decades has largely been fought through proxies, covert operations and carefully calibrated retaliation.

By targeting Israel in response to attacks in Lebanon, Tehran appeared to be signaling that its red lines no longer stop at its own borders – and that its leaders are ready to take greater risks.

Iran responded with a series of calibrated retaliatory strikes against US and Gulf targets, while warning that if diplomacy failed it was prepared to resume the war and expand it beyond the Persian Gulf, potentially threatening shipping routes stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.