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<font size="1"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-trump-escalating-us-israeli-war-iran/29231?fbclid=IwAR0iPwxBugyTxtwKd2u6_HYGTsIrIw0Qy9KGte68MMlifSe4GLxKegWNzYU">https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-trump-escalating-us-israeli-war-iran/29231?fbclid=IwAR0iPwxBugyTxtwKd2u6_HYGTsIrIw0Qy9KGte68MMlifSe4GLxKegWNzYU</a></font>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Why Trump is escalating the US-Israeli war on Iran</h1>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah">Ali Abunimah</a></span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publisher"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/electronic-intifada">The Electronic Intifada</a></span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">3 January 2020</span></span>
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<img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2020-01/sfphotosfour395743.jpg?itok=4E54qvRX×tamp=1578064243" alt="People demonstrate with flags and posters" title=""><p>An
Iranian man carries a portrait of Qasem Soleimani, in Tehran on 3
January, the day after the Iranian general was assassinated in an
American air attack on Baghdad airport.</p><small>
<span>SIPA</span></small><p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-lauds-trump-for-killing-of-irans-soleimani-says-israel-stands-by-us/">praised</a>
the US attacks on Iraq that killed senior Iranian general Qasem
Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of Iraqi militias that
were instrumental in the defeat of ISIS – so-called Islamic State.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump “is worthy of full appreciation for acting with determination, strongly and swiftly,” Netanyahu <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGzQ7Krcblc&feature=youtu.be">said</a> Friday.</p>
<p>Other senior Israeli politicians, including supposed opposition leaders, lauded the American attack. Among them, <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/amir-peretz">Amir Peretz</a>, head of the ostensibly center-left Labor-Gesher party, said Soleimani “deserved to die” and thanked Trump.</p>
<p>Peretz’s hatred of Iran is perhaps understandable. He was defense
minister during Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, in which that
country’s resistance – supported by Iran – dealt Israel a humiliating
defeat.</p>
<p><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/yossi-melman">Yossi Melman</a>, a veteran analyst of Israeli intelligence, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-abu-mahdi-al-muhandis-iran-kataib-hezbollah-qassem-soleimani-u-s-strike-iraq-syria-israel-1.8344495">called</a>
the US escalation “good news for Israel” because it draws the United
States even further into Israel’s attacks on Iran and its interests.</p>
<p>In an initial response, Iran’s foreign minister <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/javad-zarif">Javad Zarif</a>
lauded Soleimani as the head of “the most effective force” in fighting
ISIS and al-Qaida, and termed his killing an act of “international
terrorism.”</p>
<p>There is, no doubt, great satisfaction in Israel and among its most
fanatical supporters at a move that ratchets the situation towards even
more catastrophic violence.</p>
<h2>Unhinged jingoism</h2>
<p>The assassination of Soleimani followed American attacks last Sunday
that killed more than two dozen members of Kataib Hizballah, an Iraqi
militia that helped defeat ISIS.</p>
<p>That <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/iraq-protesters-attempting-storm-us-084500170.html">prompted protests</a> that breached the perimeter of the heavily fortified US embassy in Baghdad.</p>
<p>The US <a href="https://thedefensepost.com/2019/12/29/us-airstrikes-kataib-hezbollah-pmu-iraq-syria/">claims</a> the group carried out a <a href="https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/american-defense-contractor-killed-troops-wounded-in-rocket-attack-on-base-in-kirkuk-1.612677">rocket attack</a> on a northern Iraqi military base days earlier that killed an American contractor.</p>
<p>Senator <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ted-cruz">Ted Cruz</a> praised Trump’s killing of Soleimani as “long overdue justice for our Israeli allies” – whatever that means.</p>
<p>Trump – who ran for office <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-condemns-tony-blair-iraq-war-disaster-460564">railing against the Iraq war</a>
– is now resorting to the same sorts of lies and exaggerations all his
predecessors have used to manipulate the public into supporting their
military adventures:</p>
<p>There will no doubt be much more of this unhinged jingoism.</p>
<h2>Democrats tacitly support Trump</h2>
<p>Support for Trump from the far right is to be expected, but sadly so is tacit support from so-called progressives like Senator <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/elizabeth-warren">Elizabeth Warren</a> and centrists like former Vice President <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>, both Democrats running for president.</p>
<p>Their mealy mouthed criticism of the president’s killings starts from the premise that Soleimani is a Bad Man – the villain <em>du jour</em> who deserves to be liquidated.</p>
<p>But they are only worried about the timing, process and possible consequences.</p>
<p>They never question the premise that the United States has the right
to send troops, aircraft carriers and drones to impose its will on every
corner of the world, to bomb and kill and install handpicked puppet
leaders in any country that fails to toe Washington’s line.</p>
<p>In other words, they too are committed imperialists, just liberals.</p>
<p>Senator <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bernie-sanders">Bernie Sanders</a>
warned that Trump’s “dangerous escalation brings us closer to another
disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and
trillions more dollars.” But he stopped short of condemning the killing
of Soleimani itself.</p>
<h2>Iran encircled</h2>
<p>The reality – clear to those whose view is not obscured by devotion
to US power or to sectarian hatred – is that Iran has for decades been
pushing back <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/04/2012417131242767298.html">against US encirclement</a> and efforts at regime change.</p>
<p>That began after the 1979 Islamic Revolution which overthrew the Shah, a loyal American puppet and <a href="https://lobelog.com/the-unwritten-history-of-israels-alliance-with-the-shahs-dictatorship/">ally of Israel</a>.</p>
<p>In 1980, the West, especially the United States, supported Saddam
Hussein’s invasion of Iran. That launched an eight-year war that is
estimated to have cost <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iran-Iraq-War">hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Iranian lives</a>.</p>
<p>American, British, French and German companies <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/longroad/etc/arming.html">supplied Iraq</a>
with arms, including the ability to manufacture chemical weapons.
(After that war, Saddam had pretensions of becoming a regional power in
his own right – notably his criminal invasion of Kuwait in 1990. No
longer serving its purposes, the US turned on Iraq, waging decades of <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1999/09/former-un-official-says-sanctions-against-iraq-amount-genocide">lethal sanctions</a> and war.)</p>
<p>Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the US invaded Iran’s eastern
neighbor Afghanistan. Two years later, the George W. Bush administration
invaded and occupied Iraq, immediately to Iran’s west.</p>
<p>This came amid euphoria from the neoconservatives at the heart of the
Bush administration that Damascus and Tehran would be the next targets.</p>
<p>This all <a href="https://ips-dc.org/the_attack-syria_coalitions_neocon_roots/">followed the script</a>
set out by the Project for the New American Century, a think tank
pushing for regime change across the region as a way of securing
American and Israeli domination.</p>
<h2>Nuke Iran</h2>
<p>Allied with American imperialists, Israel and its supporters have
been the prime backers of escalation if not outright war with Iran.</p>
<p>Israel, and specifically Netanyahu, took the lead in working to end the <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/iran-nuclear-agreement">2015 deal</a>
which saw Iran voluntarily place its nuclear energy program under
strict limits in exchange for a lifting of economic sanctions.</p>
<p>Israel has <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/452624-trump-netanyahu-discuss-increased-sanctions-on">relentlessly</a> <a href="https://apnews.com/986325879d8747b491e165385d67d404">pushed</a> for the punishing economic war waged by Trump aimed at inflicting suffering on ordinary people and bringing Iran to collapse.</p>
<p>As scholar <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/greg-shupak">Greg Shupak</a> <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-israel-wants-iran-destroyed/27531">observes</a>, “US and Israeli planners despise Iran principally because it is an independent regional power.”</p>
<p>“It has a strong military and a foreign policy that includes
providing material support for armed Palestinian resistance to Israel
and for Hizballah’s defense of Lebanon from US-Israeli aggressions,
including the joint invasion in 1982 and the US-backed Israeli assault
in 2006,” Shupak adds.</p>
<p>The hatred is so extreme that <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/sheldon-adelson">Sheldon Adelson</a>, the pro-Israel billionaire and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-adelson-reportedly-watches-election-with-trump-1.6632299">top funder</a> to Trump and the Republican Party, has previously <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/sheldon-adelson-calls-on-us-to-nuke-iranian-desert/">called on the United States to nuke Iran</a>.</p>
<p>Israel’s determination to weaken Iran – and if possible bring about
regime change – has been the motivation for years of Israeli attacks.
These include dozens of bombing attacks in <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/terrified-israel-escalates-attacks-across-region">Syria and Iraq</a> and the murder of Iranian scientists.</p>
<p>But as Shupak notes, the main Israeli strategy has been to push for
Iran to be “subjected to enough socioeconomic asphyxiation that its
government will be overthrown or it will be subjected to even greater
outside control than it was under the nuclear deal” – a deal Iran abided
by until the US withdrew from it in 2018.</p>
<p>This is in sharp contrast to Israel, which is <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2014/11/israeli-nuclear-weapons-2014/">widely acknowledged</a> to possess a nuclear arsenal, but which unlike Iran, adamantly <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-nuclear-treaty-idUSTRE64S1ZN20100529">refuses</a> to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty or to agree to any international supervision.</p>
<p>It’s important to keep things in perspective: Iran’s military budget is a <a href="https://sipri.org/sites/default/files/2019-05/fs_1905_gulf_milex_and_arms_transfers.pdf">relatively modest $13 billion</a>.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia – its implacably hostile US-backed neighbor – spends five times as much. The United States just passed a <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/12/11/house-passes-progressive-defense-bill-377-48/">bipartisan</a> military budget of $738 billion – or 55 times what Iran spends.</p>
<h2>Perverted logic</h2>
<p>Still, relatively puny Iran has managed some significant achievements.</p>
<p>Lebanon’s Hizballah, supported by Iran, dealt Israel – <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2006/8/14/seymour_hersh_u_s_helped_plan">and by extension the United States</a> – a major strategic defeat when Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006.</p>
<p>More recently, it was Iran’s support, specifically under the guidance
of General Soleimani, that rolled back ISIS across Syria and Iraq, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/14/iran-iraq-isis-fight-militants-nouri-maliki">stopping the group from taking Baghdad</a>.</p>
<p>The growth and spread of groups like ISIS and al-Qaida – a <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-us-foreign-policy-spawned-terror-and-trump/27371">direct consequence</a> of American wars and interventions – has been a catastrophe for millions of people across the region.</p>
<p>But these groups never really bothered the United States and Israel,
who just see them as more tools in their effort to impose their will.</p>
<p>That is why the United States sent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html">at least a billion dollars of arms</a> into the hands of such groups to fuel the war in Syria.</p>
<p>That is why Israel <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/06/in-secret-program-israel-armed-and-funded-rebel-groups-in-southern-syria/">armed and funded</a> groups linked with al-Qaida in Syria as well.</p>
<p>In 2014, then vice president, Biden <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/10/uae-says-amazed-joe-biden-syria-remarks-20141058153239733.html">apologized</a> for accidentally <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOf7jzc7faY">revealing</a>
an unpalatable truth: It was the US’ closest allies in the region –
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – who also sent
“hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of
weapons” to groups including Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaida and “extremist
elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”</p>
<p>Biden suggested that this support was crucial to spawning ISIS, an <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2013/12/27/how-al-qaeda-changed-syrian-war/">offshoot</a> of al-Qaida and its allies.</p>
<p>In 2016, Israeli defense minister <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/moshe-yaalon-0">Moshe Yaalon</a> made <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/israeli-defense-minister-i-prefer-isis-iran-our-borders-417726">clear</a> Israel’s agenda: “In Syria, if the choice is between Iran and the Islamic State, I choose the Islamic State.”</p>
<p>And that is no doubt why Yaalon <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/isis-fighters-regret-attacking-israel-apologize-defense-minister-591020">welcomed an apology</a> from ISIS after it attacked Israeli forces in Syria’s occupied Golan Heights in 2016.</p>
<p>This Israeli logic can be applied to the region at large, especially Israel’s increasingly cozy <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/saudi-israeli-relations">relationship with Saudi Arabia</a>, which is founded on joint enmity towards Iran.</p>
<p>Columbia University professor <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/joseph-massad">Joseph Massad</a> has <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/non-aggression-pacts-between-israel-and-gulf-states-would-bring-both-war-and-shame">suggested</a>
that recent US-backed moves to reach formal “non-aggression pacts”
between Israel and certain Gulf States may be a preparatory step for a
wider war against Iran as well as against Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the
Palestinians.</p>
<p>Understanding this perverted logic is essential to seeing why the US
and Israel appear so determined to pursue conflict with Iran no matter
the human cost.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah">Ali Abunimah</a> is executive director of The Electronic Intifada and author of</em> One Country <em>and</em> The Battle for Justice in Palestine.</p><br></div></div></div></div></div></div>