WAR ON IRAN
Trump has decided to attack Iran. What for? Is it to cripple Iran’s nuclear program? That was done last June by US-Israeli bombing. Is it to stop aid to so-called “Iranian proxies”? They have already been effectively beaten down in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Is it to allow Iranians the opportunity for a better government? That is something for the Iranian people to manage for themselves. So it must be to eliminate the anti-US regime of an oil-producing country, as Trump has done in Venezuela. Another important reason may be to protect Israel, whose interests the US government has taken to be especially important.
Will bombing accomplish Trump’s goal of regime change? Probably not, but it will kill a lot of Iranians and show who is boss in the region and the world. That one man and his coterie of advisors in a supposedly democratic country can go to war against a nation of 85-90 million people, without the approval of its legislature is appalling. But the warmaking power, supposedly in the hands of the president and Congress, has been missing one of its partners for a long time.
Sources: New York Times, 3/1/16 and The Economist, 2/28/26