There has scarcely been an attempt to pretend any justification in international law for the attack on Iran and murder of its leader. The response of the UK government, focusing almost entirely on condemning Iran for exercising its legitimate right of self-defence, takes the Starmer dishonesty meter further off the scale.
The RAF has been actively involved in genocide in Gaza for two years with its surveillance and logistic support for the IDF. It is now fighting for Israel again; intercepting Iranian missiles is not defensive; it is joining in the attack on an already vastly overmatched opponent.
I am afraid that the truth is the Iranian attempt to defend itself militarily will be less impactful than many anti-imperialists hope. The astonishing amounts of money spent by the US government on military and surveillance technology simply do have real-world effect.
Here in Venezuela, having seen the major sites struck by the US on 3 January, I have concluded that no act of betrayal was needed. Just overwhelming force and precision technology applied against a technologically unequal opponent whose key capabilities were all on open hilltops or in unhardened barracks.
Iran is much more militarily sophisticated, but facing exponentially more force. Khamenei was killed in his own home, not hiding away. He is going to prove a lot more powerful as a martyr than as a ruler with his internal critics.
We are facing not only a period of unapologetic imperialism to which virtually all Western countries are prepared to defer, but a return of medievalism, both in the sheer barbarity and scale of physical abuse, as witnessed in Gaza and in general Israeli brutality, and in use of kidnap and murder as methods of high policy. Legitimising the killing and kidnap of leaders of opposing states is of course a double-edged sword.
Having sanctioned genocide, mass killings and deliberate destruction of medical facilities and staff, the mass murder of children, as well as the kidnapping and murder of Heads of State, it is hard now to imagine almost any atrocity which the Western powers are in any moral position to condemn.
While Iran’s military ability to strike back is limited, the ramifications of this attack will not be. The rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have reverted to the norm of being not only reliable US and Israeli satraps, but promoters of atavistic hatred of Shia Muslims.
The West is deliberately exploiting the Shia/Sunni divide, as it has for centuries; but this will now destabilise the region for decades. Iraq in particular is going to be convulsed, and so will Pakistan. In Bahrain, the Shia population has been held in check by its Sunni rulers using systematic Western-sponsored murder and torture. Using it as a base to murder the Ayatollah is going to blow back.
It would appear that we are going to witness an aerial campaign to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure, as in Iraq where 65% of clean drinking water, 50% of hospitals and clinics and 80% of electrical generation was destroyed by “liberation” by the NATO powers. The object is the destruction of Iran as a viable state.
It is worth recalling that Iran used to be a Western-style state with a reasonable democracy. It was the election of the Socialist Mosaddegh in 1951, and his nationalisation of British Petroleum, which was met by the MI6- and CIA- sponsored coup of 1953. The vicious and vainglorious rule of their puppet Shah was the cause of the theocratic revolution.
Escalating Western sanctions were imposed by the US or EU on Iran in 1979, 1984, 1995, 1996, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2025. There were UN-approved sanctions imposed from 2006 to 2010. These very substantially hampered Iran’s economic development.
The curious thing is that the founding myth of the Western powers is that economic development leads to an expanding, educated middle class which promotes both economic and social liberalism and produces the conditions for democracy. By this reading, if you wished to cement in power an authoritarian government, then limiting economic development is the way to do it. There is something in this reading; I do not doubt that the West’s relentless efforts to strangle Iran – which have had some real success – have hampered its political development.
That is not to accept all the Western myths about Iran. Female education is very strong, and there is extensive female participation throughout economic and governmental institutions. Iran has an extremely good record of tolerating and even supporting minority religious communities, including the Jewish community. There are plenty of women in Tehran without head coverings – Iran is far more tolerant in this regard than Saudi Arabia. While it retains a retrograde intolerance of gay people, it acknowledges gender dysphoria and assists trans people.
I am not prepared to give a moment of countenance to arguments that bombing Iran back to the nineteenth century is going in any way to improve the lives of its people. It did not do so in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. It was a disaster which unleashed waves of refugees upon Europe, leading directly to the rise of the far right.
I think it is unlikely to change the form of government in Iran in any significant way. Regime change by bombing is a highly problematic concept.
What it has done is to remove Ayatollah Khamenei, whose fatwa on the creation of a nuclear weapon was the only reason Iran does not have one. It is delusional to believe that Iran, with its excellent scientific base, could not have developed nuclear bombs in secret away from those monitored enrichment programmes, had it chosen to do so. What is likely to result in the medium term from this conflict, if it long continues, is a more primitive, more atavistic and nuclear-armed Iran.
The Iran nuclear deal torpedoed by Trump in 2018 had provided a rare moment of hope. With sanctions easing, there were chances of both smoother economic development and reform in Iran. That is why Israel wanted the agreement scuppered.
The attempted obliteration of Iran is part of a systematic attempt to eliminate by physical force all pockets of resistance to American hegemony. We have seen Rubio’s astonishing assertion of Imperialism as a positive force. Matthew Lynn in the Washington Post exemplified the new Western doctrine. He mocked China for its pacific policy. He argued that for China to build infrastructure for the Global South was futile because the United States might simply seize, blockade or destroy any infrastructure by military force. This he viewed as not shameful, but a great triumph.
What long-term lessons China, Russia and the Global South are learning from the abandonment by the entire West of the principles of international law, we shall see in the decades to come. None of this is going to be good for anyone. It is not just a Trump phenomenon. Biden fully supported the Gaza genocide. Almost all major political parties throughout the West are under firm Zionist control, as is all of the significant major media and the ownership of every significant alternative media platform.
Iran has provided, directly and through proxies, the only military opposition to the creation of Greater Israel. This war is for Greater Israel. But it is also a wider effort to re-establish the failing economic dominance of the United States by military control of key resources. There is no part of the world which will be safe from the fallout.
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I think parts of that are too pessimistic the GAE & Israel’s air defences seem to be relatively ineffective and the capacity to manufacture arms is limited. Whatever strengths they have in treachery & spying.
Iran OTOH seems to have invested a lot in relatively cheap drones & missiles produced in bulk and they’ve got a lot of fat targets to choose from, if they want to hit them.
They could render the Gulf States and to a lesser extent Israel literally uninhabitable by hitting their desalination plants for example.
No mention of all the civilians killed by the IR dictatorship this year? In the tens of thousands at minimum.
Their lives are simply immaterial to your blinded partisan view.
Well, have a good cry now because your Ayatollah is dead. Good riddance to criminal murderers.
Your numbers are rubbish, western propaganda. In addition, the unrest was controlled by the West for as long as possible. But thanks to Chinese and Russian assistance, the regime changers failed. Now they are trying again with greatly increased effort – and they will fail again. And as for criminal murderers, Netanyahu and Tronald are hot contenders for that title.
What do you expect from Westminster, when they make secret deals with Zionists.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Project_HEZUK
While all of that may be true, I have more confidence in the analysis from former military personnel.
I can see easily, that logistics is a much more significant problem in a war scenario, than many appreciate. Venezuela was short ways and no regional backing for the attacked. Iran is extremly long ways for the US and a potential problem with regional allies as well as probable support in one way or the other.
My guess is, that russian and/or chinese intelligence is provided in realtime , making the naval assets highly vulnerable and the targetting much more reliable (while also improving the data of said intelligence). The amount of obvious hits already achieved and the apparent failure of western missile defence tell me, that the 12-day-war already improved the approach of the iranian forces.
The next weeks will see drastically rising fuel prices and the regime changes may come in quite a different way, than anticipated.
I saw footage of people in Qatar cheering when Iran took out that US radar system. Perhaps it’s time Iran shifted it’s focus from well defended US based in the region to undefended puppet leaders in the region. I feel that most of the people, like us, just want shot of their US proxy puppets. Giving them that can only benefit them in the long run.
Me too. Venezuela was all takk – a kidnapping, shooting down a few cigarrette boats and stealing a few Oil tankers. Even by S America gangster standards that is pretty small beer. And there was no way Vz could have attacked US mainland.
Israel and US bases in Gulf are extremely vulnerable. The logistics of supplying more than a weeks missiles is extremely difficult. And US jets have never been meant for multiple missions.
Clearly Trump has been told this would be a slam dunk – clearly he has been deliberately lied to by advisers.
US military seems to have told him to get out of Ukraine for fear of Russia and get out of China seas for fear of China.
Telling him to get out of Gulf for fear of Iran (shortly after quitting Red sea because of Yemen) seems to be a message he refuses to hear.
That we are even discussing this is a clear sign of how far US is on the way out and is no longer a major power.
This is an absolutely fascinating account of the negotiations last week between America and Iran, from an aide who was there (and beautifully written, i may add).:
https://x.com/gothburz/status/2027852172923154714?s=20
The deal was more or less done. Why would the US then tear it up to go on the attack? Other sources claim that Netanyahu, true to form, launched an attack which was calculated to force Trump to join in. As we know, Trump is a vainglorious idiot who Netanyahu and his powerful lobby play like a fiddle. Two absolute dictators, with blood in their hands who will drag us all to hell, in their psychotic drive to escape accountability, burying all the mounting evidence of their crimes and mendacity. We are ruled by toddler brained psychos with extraordinarily sycophantic administrations, who have driven a stake into any lingering ideas of international, or even national laws, however shaky they were, and we will live with the consequences for years. Turns out so-called democracies have no mechanisms or processes to stop ruthless demagogues seizing power and trashing any institutions which might rein them in. While the press swallows every pathetic lie and excuse they make, as if it is all normal, unremarkable even.
Militarily this is an inadequate assessment.
Craig, are you aware of the reports about Russian AD-systems in Venezuela turned off before the US attack.
That was only possible due to betrayal.
Otherwise those US helicopters would have been shot down. They are really easy targets.
Also no Venezuelan Air Force was defending.
Apparently Maduro was totally looped out of commmunication.
The government was left in the dark literally.
Add to that e.g. the stories about the Russian unit to protect Maduro. It was stood off by none other than soldiers by the Venezuelan side.
Again this is not an issue of technology but CIA´s “human resources” and their betrayal of Maduro.
Mark Sleboda predicted that this would happen.
I didn´t want to believe. As I wrote here back then I doubted Venezuelan elites would commit any betrayal.
If the pressure used by the US agencies possibly left them no choice is a different, moral matter.
And eventually Iran and Venezuela militarily are incomparably different players.
This also is no sudden development of Iran. Damage from Iranian missiles in June caused in Israel was extensive. And eventually Israel asked the US to end it in a face-saving way. There were allegedly huge insurance payments and arguments between ordinary Isaelis and the insurance companis due to the scale of damaged caused.
Also the question of whether Iran destroys an aircraft carrier may be less so one of capability, but of choice.
A sunken “USS Gerald Ford” is a real scenario but not a desireable one for this planet.
I am aware that the core technological features of the latest hypersonic missiles are too closely protected from public to answer all questions with 100% certainty.
But the Russian Navy, were their engineers and technicians not sure that the technology works as intended, would not build up its forces with missile-equipped submarines and frigates.
If Iran has such missiles either Russian-made or domestically produced or both I don´t know for sure. But the IRGC Commander yesterday not without cause warned of totally new weapons which could be used if this war would go on.
Since the late 1970s the US Navy has pondered about the vulnerability of US Carrier Strike Groups.
Now the technology has caught up with those worries.
There are reasons why the US Joint Chiefs of Staff did not want this attack against Iran.
The fact that we see a related playbook as in Venezuela is evidence for the limitations of the US militarily.
It´s the only thing they really know how to do. But that is not adequate in this case.
Former British Navy Commander Steve Jermy recently mentioned the huge challenge he and the crew faced when during Falklands French-made Exocet were threatening British vessels. And those missiles were subsonic and had small range.
I suspect that the Ayatollah chose not to hide in a bunker but allowed himself to be martyred. That is what faith and courage look like.
He died like a dog, with innocent human shields around him. He won’t be missed, and only mourned by lunatics.
Please save your misanthropic comments for other sites.
Kaveh Ahangar
March 1, 2026 at 17:19
Unfair to dogs..
No doubt, other US presidents could’ve targeted and killed leaders in the past too, but they refrained for two very good reasons; the first relates to ownership of process : the people you are trying to encourage to ‘rise up’ have to do it themselves, if you want any regime change to stick i.e. the population need to feel it’s somehow organic, whether that’s actually the case, or not, in reality. The U.S. understood this with Saddam Hussein, in Iraq. A despised war criminal like Netanyahu urging the people of Iran to obey him, by rising up, as we’ve seen, will likely have the precise opposite effect.
The second, is the risk of tit-for-tat assassinations. Targeting not just Iranian leaders, past and present, but family members creates unknown risks for Trump’s own family: Barron Trump, Ivanka; Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, who’ll be looking over their shoulders, long after their father and in Jared’s case, father-in-law, leaves office.
A righteous war to liberate women that starts by blowing up 200 primary school girls.