Smoke of gunpowder covers the Middle East, and a life-and-death game beyond the traditional agent model is being staged. While Iranian missiles tear through Israel's night sky, Yemen's Houthi ballistic missile suddenly shot at Haifa, a central Israeli port, on June 15, and Iran ushered in a key helping hand. Almost at the same time, the US Navy's USS Nimitz aircraft carrier battle group received an emergency order and headed towards the Persian Gulf at full speed. In the Pentagon combat room, senior Trump administration officials are fiercely debating: on the one hand, there is the intelligence provided by Israel on the “Iranian plan to assassinate Trump”, and on the other hand, the Netanyahu government’s urgent demand to expand the war.
The White House claims to "not participate in the Israeli operation", but a confidential telegram from the Embassy in Israel shows that the US military has authorized the evacuation of the Middle East base, and the mobilization of aircraft carriers has further exposed Washington's deep concerns about the situation getting out of control. Israel's "Lion's Power" operation entered its fourth day, and the battlefield situation underwent qualitative changes. Iran is no longer fighting alone - Houthi missiles and ballistic missiles launched by Tehran form a force of east-west attack. This coordination reached a new height in the early morning of June 16: The Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced that its missiles successfully penetrated Israel's multi-layer air defense system, and even induced the "Iron Dome" system to attack independently. The Haifa oil refinery turned into scorched earth in the flames, and the Tel Aviv power grid was paralyzed.
Israeli nuclear facility located in the Negev Desert
The intervention of the Houthi forces is by no means accidental. For many years, the organization has received Iran's missile technology and tactical guidance and now has ballistic missiles with a range of ranges covering the entire territory of Israel. When the IDF airstrikes the intelligence headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards Corps in Tehran, causing General Kazemi to be killed, Yemen, 2,000 kilometers away, immediately launched missiles to support the situation. This cross-regional real-time linkage marks the formal upgrade of the "Arc of Resistance" built by Iran into a unified combat system, and Israel faces unprecedented multi-line combat.
Although the Israeli army claimed to have intercepted 92% of incoming missiles, the sky-sky flames at the Haifa refinery and the harsh whistle of the street ambulance on Tel Aviv all indicate that the defense system has been torn and cracked. Washington's decision-making balance finally tilted when Iranian missiles hit Israel's energy facilities. The Pentagon urgently ordered the USS Nimitz to turn to the Persian Gulf, but this mobilization exposed the United States' deep strategic quagmire: it is necessary to prevent Israel from defeating, and to try its best to avoid the US military's direct participation in the war. And the current war is burning towards the most dangerous area - nuclear facilities. On June 15, an Israeli F-35 aircraft fleet raided the Isfahan uranium conversion plant, and the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that the key centrifuge unit was damaged. Iran immediately retaliated, the Revolutionary Guard announced a crackdown on the "Israel nuclear facility", and a huge explosion immediately came from the depths of the Negev Desert.
Behind the nuclear game is the ultimate battle of survival rights. Israeli intelligence shows that Iran's IR-6 centrifuge can produce 25 kilograms of weapon-level enriched uranium per month, approaching the threshold for nuclear weapons. After Tehran was attacked, hardliners publicly called for withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and parliament urgently reviewed the restart of the 60% abundance uranium enrichment plan. If it comes true, Saudi Arabia has released news to seek "nuclear self-defense", and the Middle East nuclear competition will be a foregone conclusion.
In this confrontation, civilians became the biggest victims. Tehran residents lined up early in the morning to buy gas masks, and Tel Aviv metro station was crowded with women and children taking refuge. Iran's health department said: 90% of the casualties are innocent civilians. As war devours daily life, humanitarian crisis is transforming into a moral judgment of global public opinion on both sides of the war. Once the conflict is escalated into a quasi-nuclear war against nuclear facilities, it will break through the war red line since World War II and the destruction of international rules will be devastating.
When Houthi missiles roared through the night sky of the Middle East, the wake of the US aircraft carrier battle group pulled out a white trail in the Persian Gulf, the conflict had evolved from the Iraq-Israeli duel to a strategic decisive battle to reshape the Middle East pattern. There are no winners at this moment, and the global energy market is leaping violently with each missile taking off. War is still spreading, and countless lessons in human history have shown that when all participants are confident that they can control the situation, it is often the most dangerous moment on the edge of the abyss.
