Donald Trump and Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu are unleashing death and destruction across the Middle East to further their own imperialist ambitions (Photo: Flickr)
The US-Israeli attacks had killed over 555 Iranians by Monday—already nearly equal to the death toll of the Israel-US attacks on Iran last June. The images of dead Iranians, destroyed buildings and enormous clouds of dust highlight the extent of US-Israeli ongoing aggression.
One raid flattened a girls’ school, killing at least 150 children. Verified videos show men searching the rubble for victims.
The raids also killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and seven other Iranian officials, it was confirmed on Saturday. Iran has since launched a three-person interim leadership.
Donald Trump says his ambition is regime change in Iran. He told the Washington Post newspaper that he already had “three very good choices” to replace Khamenei.
The US attacks came after a breakdown of the US-Iranian negotiations over Iranian nuclear capacities. Iran refused to stop its civilian nuclear programme entirely—so Israel and the US responded with brute force.
Israel and the US have consistently lied about Iran developing nuclear warheads as justification for dragging the whole region into war.
Iran, a society of 92 million people, will not easily be beaten. It is asserting its right to defend itself and has responded to the Western aggression by targeting US military bases across the region.
As well as retaliating against Israel, Iran has targeted Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, in some cases targeting civilian infrastructure.
It seems unlikely the Gulf states will intervene directly, so Iran may strategically be banking on the Gulf nations pressuring Trump to stop the aggression.
Israel is using the chaos to boost its own regional standing, setting its sights on Lebanon. Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah—allied to Iran—launched missiles at Israel on Sunday. Israel replied with a barrage of attacks, killing at least 30 people.
Israeli military spokesperson Effie Defrin said that 100,000 reservists are on standby for a ground invasion into Lebanon. Defence minister Israel Katz, said Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem is a “target for elimination”.
Trump’s rhetoric shows the risk of further escalation, saying the US is on a “righteous mission”.
After three US soldiers were killed taking part in the attacks, he said the US “will avenge their deaths and deliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against, basically, civilisation”.
Since the bombing began, Trump has made no mention of “diplomacy”. The US claimed Iran had asked to restart talks, but Iran’s security council secretary Ali Larijani said on Monday, “We will not negotiate with the US.”
Rather than condemning Trump’s illegal attack, prime minister Keir Starmer is pushing Britain onto the frontlines.
While he stressed that Britain was not involved in the air strikes, he said he gave the US permission to use British bases in Cyprus to strike Iranian missile sites. He added that British warplanes “are in the sky”.
A joint statement with France and Germany said, “We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire
missiles and drones at their source.”
The attack has caused chaos in the region. Thousands of flights are suspended, and oil prices are jumping as the Strait of Hormuz is heavily disrupted.
The strait is the shipping passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and a fifth of the world’s oil supplies pass through it.
Trump and Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu have plunged the region into chaos, for their own imperialist ambitions. Any rhetoric of humanitarianism or liberating the people of Iran is irrelevant—it is up to Iranians to determine their future, not Western bombs.
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Another day of mass resistance
