Boys With Toys Try to Blow Up Iran

Once again, the United States and Israel have launched an unlawful war of aggression against another country. Once again, US and Israeli officials claim “self-defense” and “pre-emption,” attempting to gaslight the world into accepting a narrative that those on the receiving end of the aggression are the aggressors. In déjà vu of the unlawful US war against Iraq, the false claims made about Iran’s capacities and intentions are turned into justifications for war. But in this case, the pretext is even thinner, and most people can see through the veneer. We have been here before, and we know what comes next: chaos, destruction, and death.

No legal basis

There is no international legal basis for “pre-emptive strikes” or “preventative war,” nor would the case with Iran have met any conditions even arguable for such strikes. The war violates both international law, including the UN Charter, and US domestic law, including the US Constitution and the War Powers Resolution. As Ben Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, explained, the attack on Iran is “clearly a violation of the ban on the use of force under the UN charter and international law, which is the linchpin of the international order since 1945.” Regime change by force and political assassinations are also unlawful.

But the law clearly means little to the men in charge of US and Israeli foreign policies and militaries, who named the attacks “Operation Epic Fury” as if they were high school gamers running the world from their parents’ basement. Self-proclaimed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the US military would not be constrained by “stupid rules of engagement” during this war. Not that previous US administrations have always felt constrained by the rules governing the conduct of war, either. The fact that the United States and Israel have consistently gotten away with and been rewarded for their illegitimate, unjustifiable attacks against other countries and their grave violations of international law and human rights abuses, has emboldened both countries to be perpetual bullies, armed willingly by other governments around the world.

This is not specific to the current administrations of the United States or Israel, or of the governments that support their unlawful actions. Rather, this routine has been going on since World War I, when the goal of war became total capitulation of one’s enemy and dominance of the victors, and it stopped mattering to governments how many corpses their conflicts churned out in an industrial process of death and destruction.

Death and destruction

In keeping with this trend, during the first few days of this latest war that began on Saturday, 28 February 2026, the US and Israel have so far bombed more than 2000 sites in Iran, including a girl’s school, a gymnasium, a café, medical facilities, and more civilian infrastructure, as well as military installations and uranium enrichment facilities. They also assassinated Iran’s Supreme Leader and other government officials. So far, these unlawful attacks have killed at least 780+ people.

Iran has responded by deploying missiles against Israel and US military bases and embassies in the region. These have also hit civilian infrastructure, including a hotel and apartments. So far, these attacks have killed about a dozen people.

The chaos is already spreading. Israel has used the pretext of its war with Iran to also intensify its ongoing bombing of Lebanon and has launched a ground invasion. It has also intensified its attacks in the West Bank and forced starvation in Gaza under cover of this new war. US fighter jets were accidently shot down by Kuwait while the thousands of US troops stationed in dozens of miliary bases across the region brace for impact.

The official US calculation of how long this war “will take” continues to change, with Trump regime officials claiming it would be a few days, then a few weeks, now maybe a few months. The fact is, the US government has no idea what comes next, because it hasn’t prepared for it.

Capricious and delusional foreign policy in service of economic interests

Analysts have rightly noted that Trump’s “capricious war” on Iran is a “war of choice” that “borders on delusion”. Others have compared it to Trump’s days a real estate mogul, when he repeatedly bankrupted casinos because of his love of high-stakes gambits. In this context, the stated justifications for the war are just as incoherent as the lack of understanding about what happens now that the war has begun.

In the few days since the US and Israel began this war, the narrative of justification has changed from pre-empting an Iranian attack against the US and Israel, to ending its nuclear and ballistic missile program, to regime change and assassination of the Ayatollah, to protection of Iranian protestors, to retaliation for alleged Iranian interference in US elections, to protection of US and Israeli “interests” in the region.

The last is the only justification that carries any weight in the real world. Israel has long sought to eliminate an independent Iran to secure its dominance in the region, a role the US has financed and supported since Israel’s founding. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s endorsement of the vision of a “Greater Israel” guides the quest for territorial expansion of Israel throughout the region, and while Iran is not historically part of that expansion, it has long stood in the way of this goal. To subvert Israel’s objectives of expansion throughout the region, Iran has funded and armed various groups, fomenting violence. But again, Israel’s claims that Iran’s state-sanctioned violence is a threat to Israel is more gaslighting about who is the aggressor. The root cause of the violence is Israel’s colonial project, for which it has no right to self-defense.

Meanwhile, US billionaires, fossil fuel companies, and neoconservatives have also long been pushing for regime change in Iran, hungry to install another puppet government that will fulfil their interests as they had before the 1979 revolution. And of course, weapon contractors will see skyrocketing profits as they do with every war. Economic and military dominance are the true justifications for this war; everything else just offers cover for those supporting the war to do so on international security or human rights grounds. In this context, the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and intensified blockades Cuba to force these countries to capitulate to US interests can be seen as precursors to the war on Iran. The Trump regime’s hyper-masculinized “bullying as foreign policy” and categorical reassertion of “might makes right,” “winner takes all,” and doctrines of imperial expansion and control are fulfilling the destiny of US military dominance.

The myth of WMD is back again

But even in this era where the US government openly admits when it’s seeking to overthrow governments to secure access to oil, it still offers a halfhearted alternative pretext for war. Hence the focus on Iran’s nuclear program, the question of which could have been settled more than a decade ago if it were not for the neocons and Israelis pressuring Trump to turn it back into an issue. So, they have fallen back on what they used for Iraq: the constructed threat of weapons of mass destruction.

The claims about Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs made by Israeli and US officials are demonstrably false. As international and US experts and intelligence operatives have consistently shown, Iran is not close to developing nuclear weapons or intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the United States; its uranium enrichment, while higher than what is necessary for use in nuclear power reactors, is still far short of what is needed for use in nuclear weapons; and Iran’s political and religious leadership has repeatedly said it has outlawed the pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has assessed several times that there are “no credible indications” of activities relevant to weaponization of Iran’s nuclear program after 2009 or any diversion of nuclear materials for military purposes. All US intelligence agencies have found the same. Iran has been subject to the strictest IAEA inspections regime ever. The IAEA and many states have rightly expressed concern with Iran’s increasing level of uranium enrichment beyond what is considered required for civilian use. However, increasing its enrichment levels was a direct response to the Trump regime’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 and the unlawful resumption of sanctions against Iran in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

Rather than pre-empting an alleged attack, the US and Israel are waging pre-emptive strikes against diplomacy. Since initiating this latest war, Trump has said that Iranian officials are now willing to talk and that they should have done it sooner. This absurd claim ignores the fact that the US and Iran were in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program already. Mediators of those talks were confident an agreement could be reached. The need for these negotiations at all is of course also only because Trump unilaterally withdrew from the previous JCPOA with Iran, negotiated during the Obama administration, with which Iran was fully complying when Trump ripped it up and unlawfully reapplied sanctions.

While the Iran-US talks have been taking place, the real strategic work has been taking place between US and Israeli officials, who coordinated a synchronization of attacks against Iran. “In what has now become a signature component of Trump’s approach to Iran,” Drop Site News reported, “the U.S. constructed a false veneer of continuing diplomatic negotiations, only to turn around and launch a major attack.”

Indeed, the US-Israel war against Iran was timed to wreck the ongoing negotiations, not bring Iran to the table. This was made even clearer on Tuesday, 3 March when Trump declared it was “too late” for talks with Iran. Not to mention, of course, the double standards inherent in two nuclear-armed states bombing a non-nuclear-armed state, claiming to be threatened by it. Unlike Iran’s nuclear program, neither the US nor Israel’s nuclear programs are subject to IAEA inspections. In addition, attacking nuclear facilities, even those buried deeply underground as Iran’s are, risks radioactive contamination. Such attacks constitute a violation of the UN Charter, international law and the IAEA Statute.

War is not a non-proliferation strategy. Eight months after Israel and the United States attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities in June 2025, we are seeing the same false claims about Iran’s nuclear program, claims that Netanyahu has been making for thirty years. Furthermore, the possession of nuclear weapons by some states is the leading cause of proliferation. Theories like nuclear deterrence and strategic stability incentive proliferation because countries that feel threatened by nuclear-armed states see value in acquiring their own nuclear weapons.

Similarly, war is not a human rights strategy. Claims that the Iranian government’s violent repression of protestors and others provide justification for war overlook two important facts: 1) Human rights will be further abused and violated during war, as we can see already with the mounting civilian death toll; and 2) War provides an excuse for governments to intensify their internal repression, torture, incarceration, and execution of those resisting state violence.

Shameful response from the West and its destruction of international law

Despite all these facts, Western allies of the United States and Israel have given their blessing for this unlawful war. The slavish support of US allies for the war against Iran, including Australia, Canada, and most European governments, has once again put the self-described “middle power” squarely in support of war crimes and the violation of international law. From arming Israel during its genocide of Palestinians to supporting this new war on Iran, these countries are proving that they will continue to support the deconstruction of their alleged “rules-based order” if it suits their political and economic interests. So much for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s claim to no longer support the pursuit of power by global hegemons—proving his own point that the “middle powers” are just as lawless when it’s convenient for them.

The hypocrisy of Western states in relation to Iran’s nuclear program is particularly acute. The nine nuclear-armed states are spending billions every year to modernize, upgrade, and expand their nuclear arsenals, delivery systems, and related facilities. And while Israel and the US are bombing Iran to prevent its nuclear program, Canada announced it will supply nuclear-armed India with uranium, while France announced it will increase its nuclear stockpile and work with other countries on an “advanced deterrence strategy,” including the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, and Denmark. “The next 50 years will be an era of nuclear weapons,” proclaimed French President Emmanuel Macron. Both of these moves violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which all these countries except India are bound.

The double standards are unconscionable and reckless, adding more fuel to the fire engulfing the infrastructure of international law. So far, Spain is the only Western government to condemn the war on Iran, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchéz openly rejecting the unilateral military action by the United States and Israel. Spain is also refusing to materially support the war, denying the US permission to use jointly-operated military bases on its territory. This is the only responsible action by any state in the world and must be replicated by others. But most Western countries, the most militarized capitalist states in the world, are clearly marching in the other direction: back to the hellscapes of global war and lawlessness.

The war must end now, with the immediate cessation of hostilities by Israel and the United States, an end to Iran’s retaliatory attacks, and the complete draw down of US forces in the region. Beyond this, urgent action is needed by the rest of the world to halt the furious onslaught of “might makes right,” “winner takes all,” imperial pursuit of power and treasure that dictate US and Israeli policy. The boys with their bombs must be stopped, before it’s too late for the rest of us.

A version of this article was originally published by Reaching Critical Will.

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