Early this morning, Israel conducted unprecedented strikes on Iran, killing civilians along with senior military officials and scientists and basically forcing the Iranian government into a position in which it must retaliate – as if there already was not enough going on in the Middle East, particularly with Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Israel, of course, thrives on perpetual upheaval and mass killing, all the while portraying itself as the victim of the folks it is slaughtering and otherwise antagonising. True to form, the Israelis have now cast Iran as the aggressor, with the country’s nonexistent nuclear weapons allegedly posing a “threat to Israel’s very survival”, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared in his statement announcing the launch of “Operation Rising Lion”.
Unlike Iran, Israel does happen to possess nuclear weapons – which just renders the whole situation all the more flammable. But for Netanyahu, at least, keeping the region in flames is a means of saving his own skin from domestic opposition and embroilment in various corruption charges.
The United States, for its part, has denied collaboration in the Israeli attacks, although just yesterday US President Donald Trump acknowledged that an Israeli strike on Iran “could very well happen”. The US head of state, who in March trumpeted the fact that he was “sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job” in Gaza, has more recently gotten under Netanyahu’s skin by urging a diplomatic solution with Iran, among other insufficiently belligerent moves.
By launching a so-called “preemptive strike” on Iran, then, Israel has effectively preempted the prospect of any sort of peaceful solution to the issue of whether or not the Iranians should be permitted to pursue a civilian nuclear enrichment programme.
Already on Wednesday, Trump confirmed that US diplomatic and military personnel were being “moved out” of certain parts of the Middle East “because it could be a dangerous place, and we’ll see what happens”.
Now that the place appears to have become definitively more dangerous, the White House has scheduled a National Security Council meeting in Washington – with Trump in attendance – for 11 am local time (15:00 GMT). In other words, perhaps, there is no rush to deal with a potentially impending apocalypse without leaving US officials ample time for a leisurely breakfast first.
Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio has, however, already weighed in on developments, stating: “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.”
Rubio additionally warned: “Let me be clear: Iran should not target US interests or personnel.”
To be sure, the United States is no stranger to targeting Iranian interests and personnel. Recall the case of the January 2020 US assassination by drone strike of Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which simply further enshrined imperial double standards.
The assassination, which took place in Baghdad during Trump’s first stint as president, constituted a violation of international law – hardly an aberration in US foreign policy. The killing was so exciting even to members of the liberal US media that, for example, The New York Times swiftly published the opinion by its resident foreign affairs columnist that “one day they may name a street after President Trump in Tehran”.
That day has yet to come – though Trump would have undoubtedly been regarded with less ill will in Tehran had he stuck to the “America First” policy that is the cornerstone of his second administration. As the name suggests, this policy ostensibly promotes a focus on US citizens and their needs rather than on, you know, bombing people in other countries.
And yet the at least tacit endorsement extended by Trump for today’s attacks on Iran would seem to call into question American priorities – and raise the possibility that the US is instead putting “Israel First”.
Indeed, this would not be the first time the US government is accused of placing Israel’s policy objectives ahead of its own. The billions upon billions of dollars in lethal aid that Republican and Democratic administrations alike have showered upon Israel can scarcely be said to benefit the average US citizen, who would certainly be better off if said billions were invested in, say, affordable housing or healthcare options in the US itself.
Understandably, such financial arrangements lend themselves to rumours that Israel is in fact calling the shots in Washington. But at the end of the day, key sectors of US capitalism make a killing off of Israel’s regional savagery; you’re not going to hear the US arms industry, for instance, complaining that today’s assault on Iran doesn’t put America first.
The Reuters news agency reports that the spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces has “said Israel and its chief ally the United States would pay a ‘heavy price’ for the attack, accusing Washington of providing support for the operation”.
And whatever that price is, Israel’s chief ally will no doubt ultimately find that it was all worth it.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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