Widespread strikes across 14 Iranian cities, apparent killing of Ayatolla, raise questions about legality, goals, and the true cost of regime change
By now, we all understand that the major US-Israeli military raids across vast areas of Iran are triggering a flood of counterattacks and ripples intended or not, and unanswered questions about how this will end and the price to be paid.
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have provoked a war whose justification and legal authority is unclear, whose goals embrace “regime change” by an Iranian public rather than the joint military forces, and whose reach can easily spread across the region. There were reports, including statements from Trump, that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in bombings that also left at least 50 Iranian schoolchildren dead in their school.
The prospects remain high for substantial civilian death and injury in Iran, Israel and on American military bases in the region, for a destabilized Middle East, for immediate oil and economic price rises over strangled Gulf traffic. For all the punditry yesterday, the most important practical assessments from the targeting and counterattacks were hard to confirm. What we can expect is Trump emerging to praise the raids as overwhelmingly successful, still with us in the dark about how to measure success.
As much as Iran’s bristling aggressiveness over years has made that country an international scourge, Trump’s decision to launch widespread, simultaneous bombings in at least 14 Iranian cities as “negotiations” towards halting nuclear weapons development and limitations on missile production were still underway seems abrupt. This Iran not only is willing to threaten with proxy armies in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and more, it has been willing to kill tens of thousands of its own citizens who challenge its regime,
From the voluminous reporting, Iranian offers in those negotiations had made substantial headway towards meeting an impatient Trump’s demands, though he and Netanyahu remained unhappy that the offers did not reflect total capitulation. Any number of sourced reports had Trump reacting personally to Iranian leadership as “bad people” as much as about achieving any verifiable nuclear agreement.
Iran’s Aggressiveness
There is plenty of international agreement that the Iranian government has exported violence and supported international terrorism, that it is sworn to elimination of Israel, that it believes in imposed theocracy and that it is brutal to its own citizens. The question for the U.S. always has been what to do about it.
It must be underscored that Trump ended the deal struck by Barack Obama more than a decade ago that largely mirrors what his administration has been discussing with Iran now. The same Trump who convened an international Board of Peace under his control is at war again.
But without Trump preparing the nation or seeking congressional authority for warmaking, we’ve pulled the trigger – and are expecting the magic of enlightenment to strike Iran. There is no “law enforcement” action here, as cited in Venezuela, and it is a war action that has the U.S. acting without its European and global allies. One Trump social post cited Iranian interference in U.S. elections, a Trump staple.
We are unclear what happens if there are American or Israeli casualties or an attack, say, on a U.S. warship.
Apart from all else, at a time of political lows for himself, Trump is violating his compact with MAGA political backers who have supported his insistence to avoid international conflicts.
Of course, Iran is fighting back with the very missiles under discussion, seeking to hit civilian and military sites in Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and more.
For Trump, war is sending bombers – war from afar and above. Perhaps the most cynical view of these raids centers on the Trump belief that bombing will bring about political goals. Somehow, with no apparent plan in place, even the death of the ayatollah by an American bomb will not logically lead to Iranian timidity with a pliant new government.
Trump is appealing to the Iranian public to overthrow its leadership as if no American or Israeli lives will be put at risk or as if there is an Iranian government-in-waiting to continue normal daily life for 90 million Iranians of varying ethnicities and allegiances.
Trump’s previous raid on nuclear weapons plants prompted insistence that he personally had obliterated Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Now, again, we’re being told Iran is “within days” of producing a bomb – without public evidence – and that we need to punish Iran for five decades of threats.
The shifting explanations for why are starting a war halfway around the world raise questions about whether the negotiations were real in the first place.
If nothing else, these raids show Trump’s penchant for simplistic, unproven messages.
