INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION: Pre-War Prediction Track Record -- June 13, 2025 US/Israeli Strikes on Iran

Collection Date: 2026-02-08 Collector: intelligence-collector Classification: Open Source Analysis

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The June 13, 2025 Israeli strikes on Iran (Operation Rising Lion) achieved strategic surprise against both Iran and the global analyst community. A deliberate US-Israeli deception campaign -- involving planted stories of bilateral tensions, fake diplomatic scheduling, and personal misdirection -- successfully lulled Iran and most Western analysts into complacency. While several structural indicators were visible in retrospect (Trump's 60-day ultimatum, IAEA escalation, force posture changes), no major think tank, intelligence analyst, or OSINT practitioner publicly predicted the specific timing of the June 13 strikes with confidence. The deception campaign is widely regarded as one of the most successful strategic deceptions in modern military history.

CONFIRMED FACTS (A1-B2)

The Deception Campaign

• February 2025: Netanyahu and Trump met and began plotting strike scenarios. Netanyahu presented four attack options ranging from Israeli-only to US-led. Trump initially chose diplomacy but intelligence-sharing and military planning continued. -- Source: Washington Post via Times of Israel

• Spring 2025: False narratives of US-Israeli tensions were deliberately planted in media. "All the reports that were written about Bibi not being on the same page with Witkoff or Trump were not true. But it was good that this was the general perception." -- Source: Israeli official via Times of Israel

• June 12, 2025: Trump publicly stated he preferred a negotiated solution over military action -- one day before the strikes began. -- Source: Multiple wire services

• June 12, 2025: Israeli officials leaked that Ron Dermer and David Barnea would meet Witkoff to discuss next steps; a round of nuclear talks was scheduled for June 15 in Oman. The meeting was never actually planned. -- Source: Times of Israel

• June 12, 2025: Netanyahu's office announced he would not cancel his weekend vacation. Wedding preparations for his son continued. A security cabinet meeting was disguised as a routine Gaza hostage discussion. -- Source: Hudson Institute

• June 12, 2025: IAEA Board of Governors passed a US/UK/France/Germany resolution declaring Iran non-compliant with nuclear obligations for the first time since 2005. -- Source: FDD, Arms Control Association

• June 13, 2025 (early hours): Israel launched Operation Rising Lion -- 200+ fighter jets, 330+ munitions, ~100 targets, 30 IRGC generals killed in minutes, 9-11 nuclear scientists assassinated. -- Source: Multiple (Wikipedia, Britannica, CSIS, JINSA)

Iran's Intelligence Failure

• Iran was caught completely off guard. Despite weeks of visible indicators (IAEA censure, US military repositioning, Israeli air activity), Iran failed to trigger emergency protocols, disperse senior personnel, or adopt elevated defense posture. -- Source: Hudson Institute

• IRGC admitted intelligence failures. Former IRGC Navy Commander Hossein Alaei stated Iran's intelligence structure was "not equipped" and "not structured in line with the level of Israeli intelligence and security activity." Multiple targeted individuals were living in the same residential building. -- Source: Iran International

• Iran arrested 21,000 "suspects" during and after the conflict, reflecting massive paranoia about Mossad infiltration. Hundreds arrested on espionage charges. -- Source: Israel Hayom

US Intelligence Community Knowledge

• US intelligence anticipated Israeli action and supported precautionary moves (force repositioning, diplomatic evacuations). However, it "functioned just enough to warn and reposition -- but not to clarify objectives, align messaging, or shape outcomes." -- Source: Just Security

• US embassy evacuations began June 11 -- just two days before the strikes. This was the single most visible pre-war indicator available to OSINT analysts. -- Source: Responsible Statecraft

PRE-WAR STRUCTURAL INDICATORS (Visible but Not Acted Upon)

These indicators were publicly available before June 13 but were generally not synthesized into a prediction of imminent strikes:

PRE-WAR PREDICTIONS AND ASSESSMENTS: WHO SAID WHAT

Category 1: Analysts Who Were Broadly Prescient (But Not Operationally Specific)

Ahmad Naghibzadeh (retired University of Tehran professor of political science, former Sciences Po department director)

• When: March 2025 (approximately 3 months before strikes)
• What: Predicted Israeli strikes on Iran, targeting of military commanders, weakening of the Islamic Republic's regional position, and government entanglement in domestic unrest.
• Assessment: Most clearly prescient individual analyst identified. His predictions "have largely materialised" according to Euronews retrospective (Jan 2026). However, he did not predict the specific timing of June 13.
• Confidence: B2 (reliable source, probably true)
• Source: Euronews

INSS (Institute for National Security Studies, Tel Aviv)

• When: May 6, 2025
• What: Published "Between a Nuclear Arrangement and Military Strike in Iran -- Toward a Decision," explicitly analyzing the binary choice between diplomacy and military strikes, identifying a compressed negotiating window, and noting Iran's vulnerability.
• Assessment: Framed the correct question and identified the strategic logic that led to strikes, but did not predict specific timing or that strikes were imminent.
• Confidence: B2
• Source: INSS

FDD (Foundation for Defense of Democracies)

• When: April 23, 2025
• What: Published "Tehran is Exposed," arguing Iran had "never been so vulnerable" and Israel must "take advantage of this window of opportunity." FDD analysts stated "most of those capabilities and assets are in place and are ready to be deployed."
• Assessment: Advocated for strikes and described the strategic window, but this was consistent with FDD's longstanding hawkish position on Iran. More advocacy than prediction.
• Confidence: B3
• Source: FDD

Dan Perry (journalist/commentator)

• When: April 2025
• What: Published "Time for a Nuclear Ultimatum on Iran" on Medium, arguing for an ultimatum backed by massive force and noting Iran's "unusual vulnerability."
• Assessment: Advocated for an ultimatum approach that aligned with what actually happened, but this was commentary/opinion, not a specific prediction of imminent military action.
• Confidence: C3
• Source: Medium

Category 2: Structural Analysts Who Identified the Logic but Did Not Predict Timing

IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies)

• Published analyses on escalation risks and the strike-vs-deal dilemma. Later published "Attacking Iran and Tempting Fate" (August 2025) and "The Risk and Reward of Preventive Strikes Against Iran" -- but these were post-war.
• Source: IISS

Crisis Group (International Crisis Group)

• Maintained an "Iran-US/Israel Trigger List" tracking escalation indicators. Ali Vaez and Crisis Group team tracked diplomatic developments closely. However, no public pre-June 13 assessment declaring strikes "imminent" has been identified.
• Source: Crisis Group

CSIS, Brookings, RAND, CFR

• Published analyses on the Iran nuclear problem and potential strike scenarios throughout spring 2025, but no identified pre-war publication from these institutions predicted June 13 strikes as imminent.
• Post-war analyses from all were extensive and substantive.

Category 3: The OSINT Community

Daniel Rosehill (OSINT practitioner)

• When: Post-war (created retrospective GitHub project)
• What: Created a project to "retrospectively analyse signals of war ahead of the Iran-Israel conflict, June 2025." Found that US diplomatic evacuations broke "around lunchtime the day before" the strikes -- suggesting the OSINT window was extremely narrow (~12-18 hours).
• Assessment: The project itself is evidence that the OSINT community did NOT see it coming in advance. The project explicitly aims to learn lessons for future events.
• Source: GitHub

Broader OSINT Community

• No evidence found that OSINT practitioners publicly predicted the June 13 strikes in advance.
• OSINT tools tracked the conflict in real-time once it began (satellite imagery, flight tracking, Telegram monitoring), but this was reactive, not predictive.
• The dual carrier deployment and Patriot repositioning were observable indicators but were apparently not publicly synthesized into a strike prediction.
• Source: Medium/OSINT Journo

Yonatan Back (Israeli tech worker)

• When: January 2026 (post-war)
• What: Built "StrikeRadar" -- an AI-powered dashboard using Claude to predict likelihood of a US strike on Iran in real-time, aggregating APIs from flight data, news, military movements, weather, etc.
• Assessment: The very existence of this tool, built after the June 2025 war, reflects the lesson learned that better real-time indicator aggregation was needed.
• Source: Haaretz, Ynet

Category 4: Prediction Markets

• Pre-June 2025: No evidence found that major prediction markets (Polymarket, etc.) had active "Israel/US strikes Iran" contracts before June 13.
• Post-war (2026): Polymarket now has substantial Iran strike contracts ($188M+ in volume), with odds of 61% for US strike on Iran by June 2026, reflecting lessons learned from the June 2025 surprise.
• Source: Yahoo Finance, Polymarket

Category 5: Warnings from Within Iran

• No credible pre-war warnings from Iranian intelligence or media have been identified.
• Iran's intelligence apparatus was comprehensively penetrated by Mossad, with over 100 Iranian agents armed with specialized weapons inside the country.
• Post-war, Iran admitted catastrophic intelligence failures: targeted individuals lived together in single buildings, overlapping intelligence agencies created inefficiency rather than redundancy.
• The IRGC subsequently arrested thousands, including executing suspected Mossad agents during and after the war.
• Source: Iran International, Israel Hayom

THE DECEPTION CAMPAIGN: HOW IT DEFEATED ANALYSIS

Mechanism of Deception (per Hudson Institute case study)

Israel executed a multi-layered cognitive warfare campaign that exploited both media dynamics and Iran's doctrinal assumptions:

1. Diplomatic misdirection: Fictitious "sixth round" nuclear talks announced; Oman talks scheduled for June 15 created expectation of continued engagement.

2. Leadership distraction: Netanyahu's son's wedding preparations, announced vacation plans, and "routine" cabinet meeting on Gaza hostages all signaled normalcy.

3. False bilateral tensions: Deliberately planted stories of Netanyahu-Trump disagreements and Netanyahu-Witkoff friction diverted attention from coordinated planning.

4. Exploiting Iran's doctrinal assumptions: Iran assumed threats would come externally, be preceded by observable escalation, and require visible force buildup. Israel "cognitively bypassed" these assumptions through perception management.

5. Compartmentalization: Israeli military planning used "shomer sod" (guardian of the secret) nondisclosure agreements. Even senior IDF regional commanders were unaware.

6. Information saturation: Israel "saturated global media, diplomatic channels, and public discourse with false cues."

Why It Worked Against Analysts

The Doha Institute for Graduate Studies analyzed how the deception shaped public perceptions, noting that media "exaggerated" the diplomatic framing while "indicators that a conflict was imminent had been rife since early June." However, focus on "disagreements between Trump and Netanyahu, the latter's preoccupation with his son's wedding, and the Iranian-American negotiations in Oman" displaced analysis of military indicators.

Key analytical failures:

• Anchoring bias: Analysts anchored to the diplomatic narrative (ongoing talks, scheduled June 15 round) rather than military indicators.
• Confirmation bias: Reports of US-Israel tensions confirmed existing assumptions about Trump-Netanyahu friction.
• Precedent bias: Prior rounds of nuclear talks had not led to military action, creating a pattern expectation.
• Signal-to-noise problem: The volume of deceptive signals overwhelmed genuine indicators.
• Source: Doha Institute, Hudson Institute

POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTIONS AND RETROSPECTIVES

Major Post-War Analyses Published

Notable Absence

No "who predicted it" retrospective articles have been identified. Unlike some historical conflicts (e.g., the 2008 financial crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, or Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine), there has been no significant media or academic retrospective specifically cataloguing which analysts predicted the June 2025 strikes and which did not. This itself is notable and may reflect:

• The effectiveness of the deception (virtually no one publicly predicted it, so there is no "I told you so" narrative)
• The rapidity with which post-war analysis moved to consequences rather than prediction failure
• The complexity of distinguishing advocacy (FDD et al. calling for strikes) from genuine prediction

TIMELINE OF KEY PRE-WAR EVENTS AND ANALYSIS

KEY ACTORS IDENTIFIED

Analysts/Institutions with Pre-War Relevance

• Ahmad Naghibzadeh: Retired University of Tehran political science professor. Most prescient identified analyst -- predicted Israeli strikes, targeting of commanders, and domestic unrest in March 2025.
• INSS (Tel Aviv): Published most analytically relevant pre-war assessment (May 6, 2025) framing the strike-vs-deal decision.
• FDD: Advocated for military action and identified Iran's vulnerability window (April 2025).
• Critical Threats Project (AEI): Maintained ongoing Iran tracking but no identified pre-war prediction of imminent strikes.
• Crisis Group: Maintained trigger lists but no public imminent-strike warning.
• Daniel Rosehill: OSINT practitioner who created post-war retrospective project on missed signals.
• Yonatan Back: Israeli tech worker who built StrikeRadar dashboard (post-war, using Claude AI) to predict future strikes.

Key Deception Actors

• Benjamin Netanyahu: Co-architect of deception campaign with Trump.
• Donald Trump: Participated in deception; publicly called for diplomacy June 12 while coordinating strikes.
• Ron Dermer: Israeli strategic affairs minister; used as decoy for fake diplomatic meetings.
• David Barnea: Mossad chief; simultaneously ran covert ops inside Iran and served as diplomatic decoy.
• Steve Witkoff: US envoy; his scheduled meetings served as deception cover.

CRITICAL INFORMATION GAPS

• Were there classified intelligence assessments (US DNI, CIA, MI6, BND) that predicted the strikes? The Just Security article suggests US IC "anticipated" Israeli action, but the scope and timing of internal assessments remain classified.
• Did any Israeli media figures or retired generals make specific pre-war predictions in Hebrew-language media that have not been translated or indexed in English?
• What did Iranian reformist or diaspora media say in the days before June 13? Persian-language sources have not been fully surveyed.
• Did financial markets or commodity traders detect pre-war positioning? Oil price movements in the June 11-12 window may indicate insider awareness.
• What did Russian or Chinese intelligence assessments say? Did Moscow or Beijing have advance warning?
• Were there private/subscription-only intelligence services (Stratfor, Janes, Oxford Analytica, Eurasia Group) that issued warnings to subscribers?
• Were any social media accounts or Telegram channels flagging specific indicators in the 48-72 hours before the strikes?
• What was the Polymarket or other prediction market activity specifically in the 48 hours before June 13, 2025? Pre-war contract data has not been located.

SOURCE SUMMARY

COLLECTION NOTES

Information Environment Assessment

1. Deception dominance: The US-Israeli deception campaign was so effective that it shaped not just Iranian perception but the entire Western analytical environment. This creates a fundamental epistemological challenge: the absence of pre-war predictions is itself partly a product of the information operation.

2. Retrospective clarity: In hindsight, multiple structural indicators were visible (60-day ultimatum, IAEA timeline, force posture, diplomatic evacuations). However, these competed with stronger counter-signals (ongoing negotiations, scheduled talks, public statements favoring diplomacy, reported US-Israel tensions).

3. Advocacy vs. prediction distinction: Some analysts (FDD, some Israeli hawks) advocated for strikes and described the strategic logic, but advocacy is not prediction. Calling for action is different from predicting it will happen.

4. The 36-hour window: The US embassy evacuations beginning June 11 were the single most actionable OSINT indicator, but provided only ~36 hours of warning -- too late for most analytical cycles.

5. No "intelligence failure" narrative (in the West): Unlike the failure to predict Russia's 2022 invasion (where extensive debate occurred about intelligence community performance), there has been minimal Western media criticism of the failure to predict the June 2025 strikes. This may reflect acceptance that the deception campaign was legitimate operational security rather than an intelligence failure.

6. Persian-language gap: This collection relied primarily on English-language sources. A comprehensive assessment of Iranian pre-war analysis and warning signals would require Persian-language source review, which was not conducted.

7. Subscription-service gap: Major private intelligence services (Janes, Stratfor/RANE, Oxford Analytica, Eurasia Group) may have issued subscriber-only warnings. These are behind paywalls and were not accessed.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

Bottom line: The June 13, 2025 Israeli strikes on Iran achieved strategic surprise not only against Iran but against the global analytical community. The most prescient identified analyst is Ahmad Naghibzadeh, an Iranian academic who predicted Israeli strikes and targeting of commanders approximately three months in advance -- but even he did not specify the June 13 date. Think tanks like INSS and FDD correctly framed the strategic logic and vulnerability window but stopped short of predicting imminent action. The OSINT community was entirely reactive. The deception campaign's success in weaponizing the diplomatic narrative and planting false bilateral tensions represents a significant case study in how information operations can defeat open-source analysis.

Confidence: HIGH that no major public analyst or institution predicted the specific June 13 timing. MEDIUM that no analyst predicted imminent strikes in the 1-2 week window (some structural analysis pointed in the right direction). LOW confidence in completeness -- classified assessments, Hebrew/Persian-language sources, and subscription services remain ungathered.