It's Tuesday, June 24, 2025. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

Events continued to unfold just over the last couple of days, particularly in the Middle East,

and we're looking specifically at the military action

taken by Israel against Iran, retaliation by Iran against Israel, the entry of the United States

and our armed forces into the picture on Sunday morning. A retaliation that came from Iran,

but in a limited sense, it was a missile attack upon a U.S. military base in

Qatar. The very interesting thing about this, it really comes down to two very interesting things.

Number one, it was really clear that Iran was not seeking to harm American military personnel.

So as you look at this in the theater of world affairs, this was an act in the theater in which Iran was able to say to the nations, and for that matter, most importantly, probably to its own people, that it had undertaken a retaliatory strike against the United States over against the rather massive aerial and submarine launched attack that had taken place from the United States

there against nuclear facilities on Sunday morning. It began very early Iran time on Sunday morning.

So to save face, Iran has launched an attack against the United States, but there are two things

about it. Number one, the United States was informed that the attack was going to take place so the

personnel could be moved.

And secondly, the attack was actually quite limited and measured.

And so the attack did take place.

Iran did retaliate, but it did so in a calculated manner, calculated not to escalate

the war.

That's the important thing here.

And when you look at what the

White House have been saying after Sunday's attack there on nuclear facilities and Iran, it was almost

as if the United States and specifically the White House had expected this kind of response. So what is

the clue there? The clues come down to this. The president warned Iran against striking out

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