Little about the U.S. attacks on Iran makes sense.

I will leave it to regional experts to explain the rationale behind and the impact of the strikes that U.S. President Donald Trump launched last week in coordination with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As usual, my goal is to focus on the potential impacts on this part of the world and what it says about U.S. foreign policy — especially at a time of supposed tectonic shifts in U.S. thinking.

The U.S. and Israel have launched “major combat operations” against the regime in Iran. After assembling the largest armada in recent history, Trump initiated “Operation Epic Fury” (who comes up with these names?). Airstrikes claimed dozens of casualties, among them Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled the country with an iron fist for 40 years. Also reportedly killed were more than 150 people at a girls’ school, most of them students.

Trump has called on the Iranian people to rise up, the hard-line conservatives to give in and declared his readiness to talk to the government about a peace deal. Iran responded with retaliatory strikes against targets across the region, killing scores, among them six U.S. military personnel as of Monday. Undaunted, Trump said “We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon.”

The first question is “why” — a question with many angles and interpretations. It could mean why destroy a nuclear program that, according to Trump, had been “completely and totally obliterated” last summer and at a time when U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations in Geneva were reportedly making real progress.

It could mean why promote regime change in Iran when Trump’s own National Security........

© The Japan Times