CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Five Things Americans Need to Know About the US and Iran

Photograph Source: Alan S. Brown, U.S. Army – Public Domain

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 U.S. military bases.

With hundreds of Iranians already killed 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 U.S.-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........

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