The Trump administration has joined Israel in launching large-scale
attacks across Iran. The strikes mark the beginning of “major combat
operations,” according to President Trump, and in response Tehran has reportedly launched
retaliatory attacks in Middle Eastern countries that host US military bases.
With the death toll mounting and the war threatening to
spiral out of control, here are five-things Americans need to know.
1: Trump says he’s trying to prevent Iran from getting a
nuclear weapon. But it’s the United States and its allies that are the greatest
nuclear threat
The United States, not Iran, is the country setting the
worst example in promoting nuclear weapons in the world today.
It was Trump who pulled out of the US-Iran nuclear deal
during his first term — even though the UN certified that Iran
was in compliance — and resumed harsh sanctions, deployed more troops to
the region, and even assassinated an Iranian general.
Trump’s hostility despite Iran’s earlier compliance only
bolsters the claim of Iranian leaders who believe the country needs nuclear
weapons as a deterrent against aggression.
Meanwhile, Trump just let the last existing nuclear
agreement between the US and Russia, the two countries with the most warheads,
expire. Trump is also giving unconditional backing to Israel — the only country
in the Middle East that actually has nuclear weapons — and is
now supporting the launch of a nuclear program in Saudi Arabia.
2: Trump is contributing to the suffering of ordinary
Iranians, not rescuing them
The Iranian government recently carried out a brutal
crackdown on protesters and critics. Trump has claimed that the US is “coming
to the rescue” of Iranians who’ve challenged their government.
But in reality, his actions have put countless Iranians in
harm’s way. Over 1,000 civilians have already been killed in the strikes
so far — including 165 in an appalling strike on a girl’s school.
Even before the latest violence, US sanctions had devastated
Iran’s population — especially women, children, the sick, people with
disabilities, and other vulnerable people — leading to countless preventable
deaths.
3: The United States is an unreliable negotiator
How could Iran — or any country — now take the US seriously
at the negotiating table after Trump blew up the Iran nuclear deal?
Even if they did, US demands keep changing. In recent
negotiations, the US kept moving the goal posts, going from the demand
that Iran not develop nuclear weapons to saying that the country’s civilian
nuclear program, its treatment of dissidents, its relationship with regional
allies, and its ballistic missile arsenal would all be on the
negotiating table.
As Trump put it bizarrely on FOX News, the deal he
wants should have “no nuclear weapons, no missiles, no this, no that, all the
different things that you want.”
4: The United States has been threatening Iran, not the
other way around
Even before the war, US military bases across the
region surrounded Iran with troops and weapons. But there are no Iranian
troops or military assets anywhere near the United States.
There is also no question that the most aggressive Middle
Eastern power at the moment is Washington’s ally Israel — which continues
its genocide in Gaza and attacked six other countries in
the last year alone — all enabled through military assistance, arms transfers,
and political protection by the United States.
5: Trump’s war with Iran — and his aggressive foreign
policy generally — are unpopular with Americans
The majority of Americans — 61 percent — disapprove of
Trump’s aggressive foreign policy in general. And in a recent Reuters poll, just
one quarter said they approved of Trump’s decision to strike Iran — and
that was before the announcement that US servicemembers had been
killed.
Attacking Iran is not popular, and Trump does not have a
mandate to do it. Whatever criticisms one may have of Iran’s government, they
do not justify this illegal war.
