April 22, 2026 at 12:07 pm
The savage, unprovoked American/Israeli attack on Iran illustrates an old play, as far as the American side is concerned. It is amazing that the same script is rolled out for each violent, imperialist episode, yet there are still people who line up to watch the show. The plot always involves the barbarian bogeyman: Mohamed Mosaddegh, Jamal Abdul Nasser, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Ayatollah Khomeini, and now Ayatollah Khamenei. The bogeymen, however, are not always Muslim. We can add to the above list Jacobo Árbenz, Ho Chi Minh, Salvador Allende, Maurice Bishop, Manuel Noriega, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and, most recently, Nicolás Maduro. This is to say nothing of the long list of African leaders, such as Patrice Lumumba, who have earned the ire of our rabid empire.
Usually, in the case of Middle Eastern operations, there is the pernicious lie about weapons of mass destruction, culminating in the fiction of the imminent acquisition of a nuclear weapon. These lies are etched into the popular imagination by a complicit media, trumpeting the bellicose tripe served up by America or its Israeli surrogates. Remember Judith Miller?
The propaganda campaign is followed by savage violence that leaves a failed or fragmented state in its wake. In the Middle East, such a state is incapable of impeding the march of the Zionists toward Eretz Israel, although, as I will argue, that is not the primary purpose of these campaigns. This latest war against Iran, in the view of a coterie of deluded fools, will culminate in the Battle of Armageddon. Finally, there are the hundreds of thousands of corpses of innocent men, women, and children buried under the rubble of psychopathic, megalomaniacal lust. A recent study undertaken by Brown University highlights the staggering human toll of American aggression in the Muslim world. It argues that since 9/11 America’s wars in the region are responsible for almost five million deaths. The only crime of the victims is being born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The latest iteration of this repetitive fiasco gives new meaning to the phrase that the first casualty of war is the truth. Nothing illustrates this fact more than the parade of lies marshaled to justify the unprovoked, treacherous attack on Iran. “We are liberating the Iranian people.” A lie. “We are finishing a war we didn’t start.” A big lie. “Iran failed to negotiate in good faith, refusing all offers, leaving us no choice but to attack.” A lie. “We were forced to act when we learned the Zionists were going to go it alone.” A lie. “We are engaged in a limited action to destroy their navy and cripple their missile program.” Yet another lie. Then there is the whopper, the mother of all lies: “We were forced to act when we learned the Iranians were on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon” (under the auspices of the nuclear program we “obliterated” several months ago). The maliciousness of this lie lies in the fact that the Israelis have repeated it ad nauseam since 1996.
If these justifications are lies, what is the reasons for this act of naked aggression? Here are some of them, as I see it. From the American perspective: destroying the Islamic Republic; undermining the Iran/GCC reproachment, thereby forcing the GCC countries to keep all their strategic eggs in the American basket; creating an economic crisis in China, which purchases a disproportionately high percentage of its energy resources from the Persian Gulf; seizing Iranian petroleum and gas resources then integrating a “domesticated” Iran into the declining petrodollar system; finally, perpetuating the massive profits of the American war machine. For example, the Afghan war led to the transfer of three trillion dollars into the coffers of war profiteers. The cost of the Iraq War was equally grotesque. The Gaza Genocide has thus far led to over one hundred billion dollars in revenue for mostly US and Israeli weapon makers. The attack on Iran promises to be a bonanza for the military-industrial complex. As they say, “War is bad for business unless you are in the business of war.”
From the perspective of Israeli strategic interests there is some overlap with all the American interests mentioned above. Their specific concern, however, would be the following: removing the last strategic obstacle to the illusionary goal of their regional political, military, and economic dominance via the American destruction of the Islamic Republic. I say illusionary because just as Israel could not destroy Iran without massive American assistance, it could never fill the vacuum created by an American exit from the region. This is especially true considering Israel’s weak industrial capacity, its small population, and the accelerating erosion of support for the Zionist project in the United States. There are other reasons, but for now these should suffice.
There will be no regime change in Iran. The best-case scenario for the aggressors would be splitting off Kurdish regions in the west and Baluchi regions in the east from the control of the Tehran-based central government. This, however, is extremely unlikely, as an early attempt to do so using the Kurds failed.
There will be no internal uprising, therefore, no restoration of the Pahlavi monarchy via the Shah’s son or similar efforts. This also means there will be no repetition of the recent protest movement, where there is overwhelming evidence suggesting that Mossad operatives and the CIA armed, agitated, and actually participated in the most violent actions accompanying the ‘Protests.” This is not to deny that unarmed civilians were also in the streets, with many losing their lives. I would argue, however, that this violent episode, with its wildly exaggerated death tolls, was aimed at destabilizing and delegitimizing the Iranian government. This was done as a precursor to its toppling in the immediate aftermath of the initial American/Israeli blitz.
There will not be a quick or easy resolution for the American/Israeli alliance. It attacked Iran promising a rapid regime change. Iran, therefore, is engaged in a war for survival. The inability of the attackers to immediately achieve their objectives has left Iran with significant geopolitical leverage that will largely influence how and when the conflict ends. While escalation from the American/Israeli side, including the possibility of a nuclear attack, is conceivable, it would not necessarily bring a decisive resolution to the conflict that is favorable to the aggressors. Owing to the decentralized nature of Iran’s command structure, even in the unlikely event of a nuclear attack that would devastate Tehran, Iran would still possess the ability to launch missiles and drones, and to totally shut down the Strait of Hormuz. A nuclear attack would only provide the incentive for Iran to utilize these critical strategic assets to maximum effect.
Armageddon is not just around the corner. Bizarre eschatological interpretations used to justify political or military agendas cannot serve as a sound basis for foreign policy. President Trump, having purged the military, the State Department, and other relevant governmental branches of any critical voices, is surrounded by ideologically driven sycophants, many of whom, in saner times, would be banished to the lunatic fringes of the internet. Those among them promoting views foretelling an apocalyptic cataclysm will be forced to reconsider their calculations.
The current unprovoked American/Israeli war on Iran is not an extension of a wider Sunni/Shiite conflict. This is not to deny that Iran has made significant sectarian-informed strategic mistakes over the life of the Islamic Republic. Those mistakes have occurred primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and, to a lesser extent, Iraq.
In 1982, Iran supported the Syrian government’s destruction of Hama and the accompanying slaughter of upwards to 30,000 residents of that city. The role played by the Iranian government in that sordid affair has been brilliantly documented by Dr. Hamid Algar in his introduction to Dr. Umar Faruq Abdullah’s book, “The Islamic Struggle in Syria.” The Hama massacre helped to entrench the tyrannical, secular, minority rule of Hafiz al-Asad and his Alawi-dominated Socialist Ba’th Party over the overwhelmingly Sunni Syrian population. It also worked to undermine the kind of Sunni/Shiite unity that the Iranian Islamic Revolution had rhetorically advocated under Ayatollah Khomeini.
From 2011, when it decided to help prop up the embattled Assad regime, with the full support of its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, Iran was a key actor in a series of events that contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians, the displacement of millions more, and the reduction of large swaths of major Syrian cities to rubble. This occurred even though the Sunnis of Syria welcomed, with open arms, the Shiites, including elements of Hezbollah, fleeing the 2006 Israeli devastation of Southern Lebanon. We could, of course, point to the myriad ways Sunni parties, acting as American proxies, also contributed to the destruction of Syria, but we are analyzing the issue as it relates to the role Iran has played in undermining the support of many Sunnis during the current conflict.
Since 2014, in Yemen, acting through its local Houthi proxy, Iran has contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians, and at the peak of the fighting, to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. This is not to say that Sunni actors, such as the Saudis, the UAE, ISIAP, Al-Qaeda, Sudanese mercenaries, etc., are innocent in Yemen or elsewhere. That is far from the case. It is to say that no amount of strategic reasoning, appeals to anti-Zionist resistance, or other political justifications can erase the pain and suffering many Sunnis have endured owing to decisions the Iranians have made.
In summary, Iranian policies, in the places mentioned above, and elsewhere, have contributed to the creation of a significant Sunni/Shiite divide owing to the horrific death, destruction, and displacement they have helped to unleash. Hence, I will not argue with anyone who chooses to view the current conflict through a sectarian lens that would deny their support to even the innocent people of Iran.
I, however, cannot view the crisis through such a lens. In my view, it is not a Sunni/Shiite “fitna.” Rather, it is an extension of an ongoing American war that has led to the destruction or destabilization of Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria itself. They are all, except for Lebanon and Iraq, overwhelmingly Sunni countries.
For numerous reasons, some of which are alluded to above, it is tempting to name the major objective undergirding these wars, “Making the World Safe for Israel.” I would resist that temptation and argue that America has reached the terminal stage of the imperial life cycle where the interests of the state have become subservient to the interests of the military-industrial complex. The wars in the Muslim world, of which Israel is a major beneficiary, are the easiest to market to the American public. Hence, their constant reoccurrence. This contention will be the primary, but not the exclusive focus of the second part of this article.
(to be continued)
© April 21,2026
