CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

A War That Cannot be Won: Israel and the United States Bomb Iran

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Having just formed the Board of Peace, the United States and Israel have begun the board’s first war, this time on Iran. The US-Israel attack launched early on February 28, on sites in Iran has already caused devastation, including the deaths of at least 60 little girls from an elementary school in Minab (Hormozgan Province), and dozens of others across the country. The latest estimates put the death toll at 201.

In fact, the attack on Iran on February 28, 2026, was not the first strike on Iran. Israel and the US have been in a state of war against Iran for decades, either through direct military strikes (as recently as June 2025) or through the long hybrid war imposed on Iran (including punitive US sanctions that began in 1996).

Neither Israel nor the United States value the United Nations Charter, whose Article 2 has been routinely violated by both (neither face condemnation in the UN Security Council, which impacts the reputation of the Charter). For decades now, the United States and its Global North allies have demonized Iran, treating its politics as terrorism and its government as dictatorial. They have essentially created the argument that attempts to overthrow the government in Tehran is legitimate even if it is a violation of the UN Charter.

However, US President Donald Trump does not have the appetite for a long war. He has a short-attention span and seeks quick victories that can quickly give him a headline for the news cycle, like the kidnapping of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, and the executive order to prevent the sale of oil to Cuba on January 30. Trump hoped for a similar outcome: the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or the president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Reports have confirmed that Iran’s supreme leader was in fact killed in the Israeli-US attack. However, despite........

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