With a joint offensive alongside Israel targeting Iran, America has once again intervened to destabilise the West Asian region. The question of whether this will bring any stability to Israel will be answered in the negative. By killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his family and close associates, Israel has imposed on Iran a war without red lines. Yet, America no longer seems capable of defining a clear objective or endgame for this conflict. Regime change in Iran is not something that can be achieved easily. Even the latest reports suggesting America’s willingness to engage in ceasefire talks provide no assurance that Iran would consent. The crucial question for Tehran now is how it can proceed by trusting America. For Israel launched missiles at Iran immediately after it was announced by Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi, who mediated the settlement talks, that Iran had agreed to eliminate its uranium stockpiles required for nuclear enrichment. It became clear that America had shown no sincerity in these discussions. Every war America has waged to resolve problems in other countries has only generated chaos and complexity. When it comes to democracy, America has often supported regimes far from democratic or installed even ruthless rulers. To recall, in Iran, it was the United States that overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, using the CIA, and installed Reza Shah Pahlavi of the deposed Pahlavi dynasty which had ruled Iran earlier. This was in response to Mosaddegh’s nationalisation of the oil industry, much against the wishes of the entrenched Western interests in Persian oil. From that point onward, America’s intrigues in the region has been much in display.
Under the Shah’s rule, the Iranian people were oppressed, and in the popular uprising of 1979, they overthrew that regime under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. Since then, America has continued to thirst for Iran’s blood with increasing hostility. It was also the reason why America incited Iraq, led by neighbouring Saddam Hussein, to wage war against Iran. By the time the eight-year war ended in 1988, over 1 million people had died, and the economic losses ranged from 500 billion to one trillion dollars. And then came the war against Iraq which by then had become America's bete noir on the argument - which later transpired to be false - that Iran possessed weapons of mass destruction. The war that was imposed on Iraq, under global misinformation, became a humanitarian and health disaster, causing famine, disease, and children with disabilities. Throughout all this, America enjoyed regional support from Israel; it can also be said Israel enjoyed US support. It is Israel, a country possessing over a hundred nuclear warheads and which has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, that now claims Iran, a country without nuclear weapons and a signatory to the non-proliferation agreement, is a nuclear threat.
Although most countries are aware of these facts, Israel continues to justify the expansion of its defence capabilities by claiming that it is a nation surrounded by hostile states. In reality, it is Israel, not its relatively unmilitarised neighbouring Arab countries, that poses the threat. When Israel carries out acts of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in their homeland, it receives full support from America, a country that claims to be a democracy. This paradox is highlighted even by political leaders in Israel and the United States. US Senator Tim Laine, for instance, wrote on Twitter that as a member of the Armed Forces and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, he had access to papers none of which bore evidence that Iran was any close to achieving nuclear enrichment. Even when UN inspectors had access to Iran, they did not testify that any such threat existed. The nuclear agreement signed with Iran in 2015 during the Obama administration set limits on Iran’s testing and, in return, lifted sanctions on the country. However, after Trump came to power, the United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018. Now, once again in power, Trump has launched an attack in concert with Israel, without even obtaining the congressional approval required under the American constitution to declare war.
The humanitarian and economic repercussions of this move are already visible. Oil prices have surged, air traffic in West Asia has been disrupted, and the region faces potential recession and crises. There is little point in stating this; but truly only when America realises the true cost of war will it think twice before venturing into another conflict.