CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

America’s War of Choice is Israel’s War of Necessity

Photograph Source: U.S. Central Command – Public Domain

Jeffrey St. Clair recently stated in CounterPunch that “Iran’s leadership was discussing a plan to end its enriched uranium program when [the February 28th] attack was launched.” The U.S. bombing “was a joint venture with Israel,” stated St. Clair, “which has never wanted negotiations with Iran, only an end to the regime.” Stephen Zunes remarked just after the attack that “an Omani mediator said a nuclear agreement with Iran was within reach [and] in response, the United States and Israel started bombing.”

Further, Lawrence Davidson indicated that “Iran had agreed to deactivate its uranium stockpile. This done, it could not create a bomb. It is exactly the moment that the Iranians agreed to this that Trump and Netanyahu decided to launch their attack.” Trita Parsi at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft verifies a similar claim.

Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat said, “the moral dilemma that we are all facing as neighbors of Iran on this first day, of what is likely to be a protracted regional escalation, is about defending multilateral norms vs. nuclear proliferation.” “The U.S. attacks are from an international law perspective,” said Ulgen, “totally illegal and illegitimate, but now that the campaign has started, Iran’s political will and nuclear infrastructure emerge relatively unscathed from all of this. The next phase will surely be regional proliferation.” Lebanese journalist Kim Ghattas called Trump’s actions “the ultimate hubris, a president more focused on the spectacle of power than its consequences.”

Leading up to the war, as for the death toll among the 2025-2026 Iranian protesters in 27 of its 31 provinces, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch estimated the number to be around 6,000 while a number of 33,000 spread on social media and among right-leaning diasporic sources without verification. The larger figure conflates historical prison executions dating back to 1988, is impacted by internet blackout, and politically motivated.

Additionally, actors such as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), may have intentionally inflated the numbers. Further, there have been reports that political violence in Tehran extends to leftists found and killed by Mossad. These facts illustrate a gap between irresponsibly circulated statements by Trump apologists and the actual verifiable evidence. What is more, Trump and Netanyahu’s poorly handled public statements months prior to the war, signaled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to hunt down U.S. and Israeli recruited Iranian soldiers (610,000 active personnel,) according to Seymour Hersh.

Overall, U.S. intelligence found no proof of an imminent Iranian threat although the UN could not verify a complete suspension of uranium. On March 3, it was reported by Iranian authorities that at least 168-180 people, including many school children, were killed in Minab by an airstrike. The girls’........

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