No to Trump’s war on Iran

Condemning the joint Israeli-US unprovoked and illegal bombardment of Iran is absolutely necessary, especially as the various reasons advanced by Donald Trump and his cronies for justifying the war are blatant falsehoods.

These range from ‘freedom for the people’ of Iran, an alleged threat from long-range ballistic missiles, Teheran’s desire for nuclear weapons, the impossibility of reaching a negotiated deal and a pre-emptive attack by Iran on US interests.  

This was all too much for some sections of the US media, who have mostly suffered in silence under Trump’s second presidency.  They pointed out that the Defence Agency Intelligence Assessment  last year indicated that Iran would not have intercontinental ballistic missiles until 2035 at the earliest.

On the nuclear materials question, just before the attacks began, the Omani foreign minister, who was the mediator of joint talks, said “substantial progress” was being made and a deal was “within our reach.” He told CBS News’ that Iran had agreed it will “never, ever have … nuclear material that will create a bomb.”

Only last June, another joint US-Israel attack was said to have destroyed Iran’s capacity to build a nuclear bomb. It’s nothing short of a miracle that Iran was able to rebuild the programme so that it could be bombed again. Shades of Iraq and the 2003 invasion predicated on the threat from non-existent ‘weapons of mass destruction’.

As for liberating Iranians from the grip of a theocratic dictatorship which recently slaughtered thousands of protesters, this too is a nonsense. One of the first sites bombed was a girls’ school, with hundreds killed. The regime’s political prisoners are being taken to secret locations while people have been warned they face death if they protest on the streets. The US and Israel have now turned to the region’s Kurds, inviting them to invade Iran. Yes, it doesn’t get crazier than this.

So, one by one the ‘justifications’ have been exposed as Trump’s very own fake news.

If you are looking for the real reasons for the AI-driven targeting of Iran, with thousands of targets, including many human beings, wiped out in the blink of an eye, search no further than the nature of the US and Israeli regimes.

They are lawless, authoritarian regimes whose trajectory is outright dictatorship. Both are facing critical autumn elections, the mid-terms in America and a general election in Israel. War against a relatively defenceless ‘enemy’ is undoubtedly aimed at reinforcing the status quo.

This is made easier when ‘opposition’ parties lend their support, as most Democrats have in the US, despite bleating on about Trump’s brazen decision to bomb before Congress had an opportunity to debate the issue. This is reminiscent of Labour’s crucial support for Thatcher’s military adventure over the Falklands in 1982, which effectively ensured another 15 years of Tory government.

Trump has ignored the divisions within his own Republican Party, where MAGA activists are at each other’s throats at the president’s breaking of a pledge to end the country’s involvement in foreign wars. The Iran attack also comes at a time when Trump’s popularity is sinking and his involvement with the notorious Epstein remains an issue.

For the Israelis, they bomb Iran and Lebanon to demonstrate that a Palestinian state is literally dead and buried, as far as Netanyahu is concerned, after slaughtering 75,000 men, women and children in Gaza. They are busy incorporating the occupied West Bank into Israel, with Washington turning a blind eye and the Arab states sitting on their hands.

An international order of deliberate chaos and catastrophe is rapidly emerging. The United Nations is a dead duck, sidelined by Washington. FLOTUS Melania Trump chairing a 2 March UN Security Council session speaks volumes. In its place, the so-called Board of Peace – which Gulf states paid to join – is a Board of War. George Orwell in his book 1984 captured this contradiction well, when the Ministry of Truth carried the slogans: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”  

Soaring oil prices will drive up inflation to unbearable levels and deepen the economic crisis of capitalism, which is weighed down by unsustainable levels of debt. In turn, this process will fuel the resistance in the major powers where representative democracy has become a fiction when it comes to delivering for the mass of the population.

Europe and the US are now going their separate ways, even though only Spain has condemned the bombing with Keir Starmer only berating the Iranians for responding with missiles and drones of their own. Home secretary Shabana Mahmood is taking the opportunity of war to ratchet up attacks on migrant rights while attention is elsewhere.

The Iranian regime is corrupt and despicable, of that there is no doubt, with its oppression of women and  denial of human rights. However, it is for the Iranian people themselves, exercising their inalienable right of self-determination, to find a new, democratic way forward. The Israel-US bombardment has effectively silenced the recent mass movement. It must be allowed to find its voice again. That’s reason enough to oppose Trump’s war.

• No mullahs, no shahs!
• Free Iranian political prisoners!
• Let the Iranian people decide!