Tag: perpetual war

Israel Says They “will Respond with Force” to Iran Attack

Israel has announced plans to “continue the intensive operation to strike Tehran” after both sides apparently ignored the ceasefire agreement that President Trump announced yesterday. 

As The Gateway Pundit reported, Iran bombed Israel on Tuesday morning after a ceasefire was agreed to on Monday.

This comes after the US dropped bombs on three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend amid an escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, and Iran responded with a coordinated attack on a U.S. airbase in Qatat but gave advanced notice.

The response from Iran, President Trump said, was “very weak,” but “they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE.” He added, “I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured,” calling on Iran and Israel to “proceed to peace and harmony.”

Trump later  announced that Israel and Iran had agreed to a total ceasefire “upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World.”

“During each CEASEFIRE, the other side will remain PEACEFUL and RESPECTFUL,” the President demanded.

However, Iran’s attacks came in response to Israel launching the first attacks on Tehran last night after the ceasefire was announced by President Trump on Monday evening.

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World War is on the Horizon

Have you noticed how the Trump-hating media is praising Trump to the high heavens for his gratuitous, reckless, military aggression against Iran, an act of war without a declaration?  This tells us something.  Trump has deserted MAGA-America and joined the ruling establishment.  In return the establishment is presenting their man as a great success.  

The establishment now has Trump at war.  The power and profit of the military/security complex is secured.  Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was no more successful than Israel’s.  If Iran continues to hold together, Iran, if its government is competent, will use its missile advantage to continue to punish Israel. Within two weeks Israel could be out of missiles and forced to sue for peace.  But that time is unlikely to come. Israel’s plight and Israel’s control over the US government will bring Trump in to save Israel from humiliating defeat.

Remember, Iran is on the list of Muslim countries to be destroyed by the US for Israel.  Here is 4-star general Wesley Clark, former commander of NATO on TV explaining that on 20th September 2001 he was informed by a general in the Pentagon that the US had decided to take out 7 Muslim countries in 5 years. It has taken longer, but 5 of those countries have been destroyed.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo6u9DpASp8

Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary had called for this action, and it became the essential component of the neoconservatives’ policy. We watched it, if we paid attention, unfold in the “Dubya,” Obama, Biden, and Trump regimes.

Iran’s parliament has voted to close the Strait of Hormuz except for oil delivery to China.  The final approval has to come from the Supreme Leader.  Iran should simply wait and let Washington close the Strait, allegedly to punish Iran by blocking oil sales, but really to punish China by denying China its oil supply. Iran should let Trump, who has sold out MEGA-America, and the American Establishment execute themselves.

If the Strait is closed, what would be the price of gasoline in the United States?  Could it be $8 a gallon?  Or would the Kremlin rush oil to the US to save Americans from the consequences of their own policy? The Kremlin often seems more concerned to rescue its enemies than to stand by its allies and to protect Russia.

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Democratic security chief claims Kamala Harris lacked the ‘courage’ to bomb Iran like Trump

A Democratic national security aide to Joe Biden and Bill Clinton has come forward to praise Donald Trump‘s ‘bold’ decision to bomb Iran, and says Kamala Harris lacks the ‘courage’ to have done the same. 

The official, former NSC official Jamie Metzl, is no Trump fan – calling him out for ‘dangerous and undemocratic’ actions. But he says the president took a needed step to try to wipe out Iran’s nuclear program.

‘I voted for Kamala Harris and have been a vocal critic of many dangerous and undemocratic actions taken by President Trump. But I’m not a blind tribalist and am perfectly comfortable praising President Trump for bold and courageous actions in support of America’s core national interests, as he took last night,’ Metzl posted online after the military carried out the attack on Trump’s nuclear facilities on orders from President Trump.

The Democrat wrote about his bonafides and said Trump deserved credit for giving the order despite previous ‘undemocratic’ actioins.’ 

‘I served on the National Security Council under President Clinton. I was Joe Biden’s Deputy Staff Director of the Senate foreign Relations Committee. I voted for Kamala Harris and have been a vocal critic of many dangerous and undemocratic actions taken by President Trump. But I’m not a blind tribalist and am perfectly comfortable praising President Trump for bold and courageous actions in support of America’s core national interests, as he took last night,’ he wrote Sunday.

‘Although I believe electing Kamala Harris would have been better for our democracy, society, and economy, as well as for helping the most vulnerable people in the United States and around the world, I also believe VP Harris would not have had the courage or fortitude to take such an essential step as the president took last night,’ he wrote.

He landed a booking on Fox News hours after the posting.  

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NYT Gave Green Light to Trump’s Iran Attack by Treating It as a Question of When

In the wake of the US-supported Israeli attack on Iran, and days before the direct US bombing that followed, the New York Times editorial board (6/18/25) argued that “America Must Not Rush Into a War Against Iran.”

This language was as shifty as it was deliberate. Rather than oppose a policy of unprovoked aggression and mass murder, the Times editorialists suggested such a campaign was happening too hastily, and it should be preceded by more debate.

The opinion writers at the most important paper in the world were fully in favor of attacking Iran; they only worried that Trump would go about it the wrong way. In fact, the Times’ justification for war was identical to that of the Trump administration’s explanation after the fact.  It laid it out in the first paragraph:

A nuclear-armed Iran would make the world less safe. It would destabilize the already volatile Middle East. It could imperil Israel’s existence. It would encourage other nations to acquire their own nuclear weapons, with far-reaching geopolitical consequences.

The New York Times‘ echo of the standard Israeli and US propaganda line offers an opportunity to critically examine this most recent justification for aggressive war.

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Trump Thanks Iran for Early Notice on Retaliatory Attack on US Base in Qatar

President Trump on Monday thanked Iran for giving the US notice of its plans to launch a retaliatory attack on the US’s Al Udeid base in Qatar, saying it prevented casualties.

Iran’s military launched the attack on the US base in response to the US bombing of three of its nuclear facilities. Trump called the Iranian retaliation “weak,” suggesting he’s not planning to respond.

“Iran has officially responded to our Obliteration of their Nuclear Facilities with a very weak response, which we expected, and have very effectively countered. There have been 14 missiles fired — 13 were knocked down, and 1 was ‘set free,’ because it was headed in a nonthreatening direction,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done. Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE. I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured,” the president added.

Trump said that now Iran has the chance to “proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region” and that he will “enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same.”

In another post, Trump also noted that there were no Qatari casualties. “Regarding the attack today at the American Base in Qatar, I am pleased to report that, in addition to no Americans being killed or wounded, very importantly, there have also been no Qataris killed or wounded,” he said.

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Bombing Iran Is Part of the USA’s Compulsion for War War War

Twenty years ago, one day in June 2005, I talked with an Iranian man who was selling underwear at the Tehran Grand Bazaar. People all over the world want peace, he said, but governments won’t let them have it.

I thought of that conversation on Saturday night after the U.S. government attacked nuclear sites in Iran. For many days before that, polling clearly showed that most Americans did not want the United States to attack Iran. “Only 16 percent of Americans think the U.S. military should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran,” YouGov pollsters reported, while “60 percent say it should not and 24 percent are not sure.”

But as a practical matter, democracy has nothing to do with the chokehold that the warfare state has on the body politic. That reality has everything to do with why the United States can’t kick the war habit. And that’s why the profound quests for peace and genuine democracy are so tightly intertwined.

On Saturday evening, President Trump delivered a speech exuding might-makes-right thuggery on a global scale: “There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days.”

More than ever, the United States and Israel are overt partners in what the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946 called “the supreme international crime” – “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression.”

Naturally, the perpetrators of the supreme international crime are eager to festoon themselves in mutual praise. As Trump put it in his speech, “I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before.” And Trump added: “I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they’ve done.”

A grisly and nefarious truth is that, in effect, the Israeli military functions as part of the overall U.S. military machine. The armed forces of each country have different command structures and sometimes have tactical disagreements. But in the Middle East, from Gaza and Iran to Lebanon and Syria, “cooperation” does not begin to describe how closely and with common purpose they work together.

More than 20 months into Israel’s U.S.-armed siege of Gaza, the genocide there continues as a joint American-Israeli project. It is a project that would have been literally impossible to sustain without the weapons and bombs that the U.S. government has continued to provide to the Orwellian-named Israel Defense Forces.

The same U.S.-Israel alliance that has been committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has also enabled the escalation of KKK-like terrorizing and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people in the West Bank. The ethnocentric arrogance and racism involved in U.S. support for these crimes have been longstanding, and worsening along with the terrible events.

The same alliance is now also terrorizing Iranian society from the air.

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Trump Never Has Been a Sincere Advocate of Realism and Restraint

Even before President Donald Trump ordered B-2 bombers to attack Iran’s nuclear sites and plunge the United States into another Middle East war, it should have been apparent that he has never been committed to a foreign policy of realism and restraint. Other actions during the initial weeks of his second term already had unsettled supporters who hoped that Trump would adopt a more sober, “America first” policy.  Enthusiastic backers believed his boast that he would promptly bring the war between Ukraine and Russia to an end.  Their broader underlying assumption was that the United States would no longer waste American lives and financial resources on armed ideological crusades around the world.

Trump’s subsequent waffling on the Ukraine-Russia conflict confirmed his lack of commitment to meaningful policy change that would take the United States out of the line of fire.  His knee-jerk support for Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians did the same for expectations regarding a new, more balanced perspective on that issue.  The president’s subsequent approval of U.S. support for Israel’s new war of aggression against Iran, along with his demand for Tehran’s “unconditional surrender,” should have eliminated any lingering doubt about his toxic hawkishness.

Expectations for a sensible, restrained foreign policy by a Trump administration were always naïve.  As I have pointed out in multiple articles over the years, Trump’s supposed commitment to a more realistic, cautious U.S. foreign policy was largely an illusion.  He fostered that illusion whenever it served his political interests, while his opponents played their own role in the political charade by insisting that Donald Trump was an evil “isolationist” who was infecting the Republican Party and thereby undermining America’s noble leadership role in the world.

His actual conduct differed little from the policies of his openly hawkish, global interventionist predecessors. During his first term, Washington’s already bloated military budget continued to grow without interruption.  Despite promising during the 2016 presidential campaign to end the futile and bloody U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, Trump did not even reach a peace accord with Taliban forces until the final year of his term.  Meaningful U.S. troop withdrawal did not take place until he had already left the White House.

Trump forged far closer U.S. military ties with Taiwan and embraced uncompromising policies toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on a wide range of economic, diplomatic, and security issues.  He showed not a hint of receptivity to being more cordial toward Beijing.

Perhaps the biggest gap between illusion and reality during Trump’s first term was the issue of policy toward Russia.  Trump’s political opponents created and circulated the smear that he was soft on Russia at best and an outright Russian agent at worst.  Once again, the president’s track record pointed to a totally different conclusion.  Even on the Ukraine issue, Trump’s stance toward Moscow was disturbingly conventional.  Indeed, in some ways it was more confrontational than the policy that Barack Obama pursued.  Under Trump’s leadership, the United States transferred sophisticated weapons to Kyiv, trained Ukrainian troops, and conducted joint military exercises with Ukrainian forces.  Obama had prudently declined to take any of those steps.

Beyond the Ukraine issue, Trump’s policies were openly hostile to an assortment of Russia’s high-priority interests and objectives. Moscow regarded the continuation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, concluded during Ronald Reagan’s administration, as extremely important for protecting crucial Russian security needs.  Trump withdrew the United States from that treaty.  A similar pattern occurred with respect to the Open Skies agreement, a longstanding, confidence-building measure that had been in effect since Reagan’s administration.  Trump’s dismissive treatment of arms control agreements that Russia considered essential directly contradicted the idea that he practiced appeasement toward the Kremlin.

Trump’s hostility toward both arms control and overall policies toward Iran also was evident during the president’s first term.  He scuttled the multilateral agreement that the major global powers had reached to limit Tehran’s nuclear program and assure that it remained peaceful.  As an additional provocation, the White House ordered the assassination of a top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, a killing carried out while he was on a diplomatic mission to Iraq, a supposed U.S ally.

Given Trump’s flagrant animosity toward the government in Tehran, it should not be surprising that he has chosen Iran to be an early target for militarily aggression in his second term.  He fully supports Israel’s new war of aggression against its Middle East neighbor and uncritically accepted Tel Aviv’s assertion that Iran was on the brink of building a nuclear arsenal.  Yet most experts, initially including Tulsi Gabbard, his own appointee as Director of National Intelligence, strongly disputed that allegation.

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White House doubles down on ‘regime change’ with call for Iranian people to rise up against the Ayatollah

The White House doubled down on ‘regime change’ with Iran amid concerns the Islamic republic could retaliate after America’s military strike, saying the Iranian people have the power to decide if they want to keep Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as their leader.

‘Why shouldn’t the Iranian people take away the power of this incredibly violent regime that has been suppressing them for decades,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox & Friends on Monday morning.

Leavitt was echoing President Donald Trump‘s Truth Social post from Sunday, where he floated the possibility of ‘regime change.’

‘It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!’ the president wrote. 

Leavitt said the president was ‘raising a good question that many people around the world are asking.’

‘The president believes the Iranian people can control their own destiny and what he said last night makes complete sense,’ she said. Leavitt also noted the president ‘is still interested’ in a ‘peaceful diplomatic solution.’

The double down comes after some administration officials tried to walk back any talk of regime change.

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A Brief, Bloody History of All the Times the U.S. Caused Chaos in the Middle East

If at first you don’t succeed, make more problems for yourself. That seems to be the mantra in Washington when it comes to the Middle East. Every few years, a U.S. president asks Americans to go along with a small military commitment in the region—or starts one without asking the public. Almost inevitably, it causes bigger problems than promised.

Friends turn into enemies. The chaos allows bad actors to grow, or creates new factions with a reason to resent America. The political goalposts shift; the U.S. government discovers that a problem it didn’t care about before is actually a “vital interest.” And time after time, politicians promise that all these problems can go away with just one more decisive strike against the real cause of conflict in the region. No forever war is ever advertised that way from the beginning.

President Donald Trump is speedrunning this whole problem. Just a month ago, he was promising the end of “nation building” and grandiose “neocon” schemes. Now, he’s directly entered the Israeli-Iranian war by bombing Iran. While Vice President J.D. Vance tried to claim that “we’re not at war with Iran” and the attack would be a one-off incident, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself have both hinted that the U.S. will escalate to regime change if Iran does not surrender. Here’s how we got to this point—and some of the times we’ve seen this movie before.

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Iran fires 10 missiles at two US bases in the Middle East in retaliation for Trump bombing

Iran has launched at least 10 missiles at the United States’ biggest base in the Middle East and another in Iraq in response to President Trump bombing nuclear labs over the weekend. 

Aerial defenses were activated shortly after a ‘credible threat’ alert was issued to the Al Udeid base in Qatar, which hosts over 10,000 US troops as well as over 100 aircraft, strategic bombers and tankers. 

US bases in Kuwait, Iraq and Bahrain also sounded their air raid sirens shortly after the Al Udeid base was targeted by Iranian missiles. 

President Trump has convened his national security team in the White House as US targets across the world are put on high alert.  

It comes as Iran warned the United States will ‘directly pay’ for strikes on its nuclear facilities ‘rather than standing behind Israel,’ with the Islamic Republic prepared for a war lasting up to two years, a senior Iranian official told reporters.

Tehran’s mission to the UN said the US and Israel, as well as the United Kingdom, France and the International Atomic Energy Agency director personally, will all ‘bear full responsibility for the death of innocent civilians in Iran.’

Trump used 30,000 pound bunker buster bombs to hit its nuclear facilities on Saturday night, then sparked Iranian fury when he raised the prospect of regime change the next day. 

Iranian state media warning that up to 50,000 American soldiers would be returned to Washington in ‘coffins’.

Israel also launched an attack on ‘regime targets’ in Tehran on Monday, with ‘hundreds’ of members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said to have been killed in a huge wave of strikes.

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