A Saudi delegation will also visit the US in an effort to de-escalate tension in the Middle East
by Kyle Anzalone | January 29, 2026 at 2:52 pm ET
Senior Israeli defense officials met with top US officials to discuss a future conflict with Iran. According to Axios, “The Israelis came to DC to share intelligence on possible targets inside Iran.” Israeli military intelligence chief Gen. Shlomi Binder led the Israeli delegation and met with US officials at the Pentagon for two days earlier this week. US officials told the outlet that President Donald Trump is still considering an attack on Iran. One official with knowledge of the meetings said Bidner had brought intelligence that was requested by the President. Late last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed Trump to help Israel take out the government of Iran. The President is reported to be considering a range of options to cause regime change in Iran, including high-level strikes and an oil blockage. Trump has ordered a massive military buildup in the Middle East, including fighter jets, an aircraft carrier strike group, and advanced air defense systems. On Wednesday, Trump renewed the threat to attack Iran if Tehran does not agree to a nuclear deal with the US. Iranian officials have stated they are willing to negotiate with the US if Trump stops threatening Iran. Additionally, Tehran has ruled out agreeing to eliminate its uranium enrichment program. While Israel is pushing for Trump to start a war with Iran, other countries in the Middle East are trying to broker a deal. Turkey has offered to host talks with Iran. Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman will meet with US officials in the Pentagon on Thursday. Axios notes that Ryiahd has been acting as a backchannel between Washington and Tehran. Iran has threatened to retaliate against any attack by striking US bases across the Middle East.
President Donald Trump renewed his threats to attack Iran if the Islamic Republic does not comply with his demands. The President claimed that Iran must agree to a new nuclear deal or would be attacked by the “armada” Trump has assembled in the Middle East.
“A massive Armada is heading to Iran. It is a larger fleet, headed by the great Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln, than that sent to Venezuela. Like with Venezuela, it is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary,” the President wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.
“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!” He continued, “As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”
After returning to the White House, Trump tightened sanctions on Iran and threatened to attack the Islamic Republic if it did not agree to a deal that would limit or eliminate its civilian nuclear program.
Tehran has stated that it is willing to agree to limitations and strict inspections of its nuclear program, but it will continue to enrich uranium. The President has asserted that Iran must completely eliminate its enrichment program.
Prior to the unprovoked Israeli attack on Iran in June that ignited a 12-day conflict, Washington and Tehran were in the process of establishing a new nuclear agreement. When Trump ordered US forces to aid Israel and attack Iran, those negotiations failed. Iran has offered to return to the table if Trump stops threatening the Islamic Republic.
Late last year, Trump renewed his threats on Iran, this time asserting that the US would attack the Islamic Republic if the government’s crackdown led to the deaths of protesters. While thousands died during the demonstration in Iran, Trump decided not to launch an attack.
Trump declined to give the order to attack Iran out of concern that the planned strikes would fail to topple the government, and US troops in the Middle East and Israel would be vulnerable to counterattacks.
Trump has ordered an aircraft carrier strike group, fighter jets, and advanced air defense systems to the Middle East. The larger American military presence in the region will give the President additional options for attacking Iran and defeating counterattacks.
Trump is reportedly considering a range of options for bringing about regime change in Iran, including an oil blockade and strikes on high-level targets in Tehran.
The director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, David Barnea, arrived in the U.S. on Friday morning for talks on the situation in Iran, according to an Israeli source and another source with knowledge of the meeting.
Why it matters: Barnea’s visit is part of the consultations between the U.S. and Israel over the protests in Iran and possible U.S. military action in response to the regime’s crackdown.
Barnea is expected to meet in Miami with White House envoy Steve Witkoff, who is managing the direct channel of communication between the U.S. and Iran. Witkoff has been in touch with Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, during the protests. It’s not yet clear whether Barnea will meet President Trump in Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.
Driving the news: Barnea’s trip follows a phone call on Wednesday between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the Iran crisis.
During the call, Netanyahu asked Trump to hold off on military action against Iran to give Israel more time to prepare for potential Iranian retaliation. An Israeli source said that in addition to concerns about retaliation, the current U.S. plan includes strikes on security force targets in Iran, but is not seen by Israel as strong enough to meaningfully destabilize the regime. U.S. officials say military action is still on the table if Iran resumes the killing of protesters. Israeli officials think that despite the delay, a U.S. military strike could take place in the coming days.
What to watch: The U.S. military is sending additional defensive and offensive capabilities to the region to be ready in case Trump orders a strike, U.S. sources say.
The Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its strike group are making their way to the Middle East from the South China Sea. More air defense systems, fighter jets and possibly submarines are also expected to arrive in the region.
The intrigue: When he reached out to Witkoff, Araghchi proposed a meeting and the resumption of nuclear negotiations.
The Israeli government is concerned the Iranians will use such negotiations to buy time and relief from the U.S. pressure. On the other hand, some officials think the current crisis could convince the Iranian regime to make concessions it refused to consider in the past, on the nuclear program, missile program, and proxy groups.
At a conference of the Israeli-American Council in Miami on Thursday night, Witkoff said he communicated with the Iranians the day before about the potential mass hangings.
“That has been shut down,” Witkoff said.
Witkoff said he hopes it will be possible to get a diplomatic solution with Iran and noted that any deal will have to address uranium enrichment and Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, Iran’s inventory of ballistic missiles, and its network of proxies in the region. Witkoff said Iran’s economy was badly “stumbling” and if Tehran wants to change that and return to the community of nations, it can be accomplished through diplomacy. “The alternative will be a bad one.”
Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran on January 9, 2026.
(Photo by MAHSA / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)
It’s virtually impossible to predict what lies ahead for Iran and its people. But if President Donald Trump decides to take military action against Iran’s current regime, nothing good will come out of it.
Iran’s Islamic regime is under incredible pressure as the protests that begun in late December over the collapse of the currency have morphed into a mass popular uprising that has spread across the entire country and shows no sign of slowing despite a brutal crackdown that has resulted so far in the killing of thousands of protesters.
Make no mistake about it. Iran’s current leadership is murdering its own citizens in order to remain in power and thus block the growing support for secularism, freedom, and democracy. It’s as simple as that. This is a regime that has been facing unprecedented hostility by the United States and some of its closest allies since coming to power in 1979 but has been far more interested in exporting the Islamic revolution than looking after the well-being of its own citizens. It is a reactionary regime that has suppressed the fundamental rights of women, banned independent tradeunions, and engaged in a systematic crackdown of communists and other leftists, all the while catering to powerful national capitalist interests.
Iranians have a long history of rebellion against authoritarianism and repression. Under the Shah, Iran had one of the world’s most brutal and repressive regimes, strongly supported by the United States. Indeed, while the Shah sought to modernize the country and even gave women the right to vote, and the Family Protection Law of 1968 granted women certain rights in divorce and custody, he and his generals ran the country with an iron first. Tens of thousands of Iranians were killed during the Shah’s reign, and Iran’s dreaded secret police, SAVAK, employed torture and execution to stifle political opposition.
Yet, Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution, aided by Marxists, intellectuals, various secular groups, and the middle class, did not represent a transition from monarchy to democracy. Instead, it replaced a brutal, pro-Western monarchy with a theocratic regime that rolled back much of the social progress that had occurred up to that point. Repression came back, this time with an Islamic face, though the regime enjoyed at first considerable support among merchants, students, clerics, and the poor. Khomeini’s regime massacred and exiled all communists and embarked on a campaign of purification of policies. Women’s rights were drastically curtailed, and this included the removal of professional women from the public sector as well as the adoption of various means and methods aimed at discouraging women in general from entering the labor force.
The US is an imperialist power with a long history of undermining democracy throughout the world. The Iranian people will not accept US interference into their own political affairs.
Iranian women took to the streets by the thousands just a few weeks after the revolution to oppose Khomeini’s decree mandating the hijab. This decree was followed by a ban on alcohol, the separation of men and women in schools and beaches, and the criminalization of music. Iran was converted in no time from a Westernized society with a brutal political regime to an Islamic state sustained by an equally brutal political regime. Under the new social order, religion and state mixed as thoroughly as they did in Saudi Arabia. The only difference is that the two countries followed different branches of Islam–Iran’s political system is based on Shiism, while Saudi Arabia’s rests on Wahhabism.
More recently, in 2022, the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Jina Mahsa Amini while under morality police custody sparked the nationwide “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, which people from all walks of life joined to call for an end to the four-decade rule of Iran by the religious fanatics. The Iranian authorities responded by detaining thousands of people while killing more than 560 protesters. It was reported that the average age of those arrested was 15.
The key reasons behind the current anti-government protests are economic hardships and political grievances. Iran’s economy has been under severe strains for a long time due to the international sanctions but also because of mismanagement, corruption, and a host of deep structural problems (chronic inflation, widespread poverty, and high youth unemployment, among others) which the regime has failed to address.
Protests broke out on December 28 after the Iranian currency, the rial, crumbled against the US dollar, leading to soaring food prices and to an even higher inflation rate, which had already risen to nearly 50%. It all started with demonstrations by shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, but they quickly spread to numerous cities across the country, reflecting deep and widespread discontent among the general citizenry with the current regime. This means that the protests, which have been very large in size and joined by people from across Iranian society, are not simply driven by economic worries. They are political protests against a corrupt and oppressive regime.
According to some sources, more than 2,500 people have been killed by the Iranian authorities since the protests begun, but there are unverified reports, suggesting that the number of protesters killed could be at least 12,000 and possibly as high as 20,000. Leading Iranian officials have labeled protesters as “enemies of God,” a charge that is punishable by death under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They also insist that the protests are foreign driven.
Israel and the United States would like nothing more than to see regime change in Tehran and turn Iran into a US-Israeli vassal state. But the claim that the Iranian people are protesting against a dictatorship by being a pawn in the hands of foreign powers deserves nothing but scorn. Nonetheless, it speaks volumes of how alienated the regime’s rulers must feel from the nation’s citizenry. I suspect that deep down they are cognizant of the fact that their regime lacks political legitimacy in the eyes of the vast majority of the Iranian people.
The people of Iran have not forgotten the involvement of the CIA in the 1953 coup that ousted the democratically elected Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh. Their desire to get rid of Iran’s current regime is not an invitation for foreign interference. Indeed, who is to say that perhaps none of the courageous protesters would be paying with their lives for Iran to be free from an oppressive theocracy if the 1953 coup hadn’t happened?
It’s virtually impossible to predict what lies ahead for Iran and its people. But if President Donald Trump decides to take military action against Iran’s current regime, nothing good will come out of it. The US is an imperialist power with a long history of undermining democracy throughout the world. The Iranian people will not accept US interference into their own political affairs. In fact, such action may cause many Iranians to unite, at least temporarily, behind the regime. In sum, only the Iranian people themselves should be able decide their nation’s future.
The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets.
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Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. His latest books are The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change (A collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky; Haymarket Books, 2021), and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (Verso, 2021).
A B-2 stealth bomber conducts a flyover on the South Lawn of the White House, Saturday, July 4, 2020, in Washington. [AP Photo/Alex Brandon]
The Trump administration is preparing an imminent military attack on Iran, in the next stage of a regime-change operation aimed at returning the Middle Eastern country of 93 million people to neocolonial subjugation and placing its vast oil reserves under US imperialist control and domination.
For days, Trump, America’s fascist would-be dictator president, and his henchmen have been threatening to strike Iran with bombs and missiles under the cynical pretext of “defending” anti-government protestors.
On Tuesday morning, in a social media post framed as a message to the Iranian protesters, Trump declared, “TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS… Help is on its way.” This was just hours before he was to confer with top Pentagon generals and his national security staff on “options” for attacking Iran.
Open-source intelligence and flight-tracking data reveal that since December there has been a surge of US war materials to the Persian Gulf region, a necessary prerequisite for waging war on Iran.
Trump’s attempt to depict himself as the “liberator” of the Iranian people is a monstrous fraud, based on the Hitlerian concept of the “Big Lie.”
US imperialism never reconciled itself to the mass uprising that overthrew the tyrannical regime of the Shah in 1979. It has mounted a decades-long campaign of threats, military aggression and economic warfare against Iran and its people. In 2018, Trump torpedoed the UN-backed Iran nuclear accord and unilaterally imposed crippling sanctions—subsequently reinforced under the Democrat Biden—with the avowed aim of crashing Iran’s economy and bringing about regime change.
Washington’s desired outcome has always been driving the Iranian people into deprivation and misery. The sanction-enforced cut-off of access to drugs and advanced medical devices has alone caused tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of premature deaths.
As always, the US corporate media are all reading from the same script dictated from the White House. They question nothing, investigate nothing.
Less than two weeks ago, Washington illegally attacked Venezuela, killing more than 80 people, kidnapped its president and seized what are the world’s largest oil resources. In the weeks preceding, the media repeated the administration’s transparent lies that President Nicolás Maduro headed a narco-terrorist regime, just as they breathlessly repeated the claims of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney regarding Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” in the run up to American imperialism’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Now Trump, his Democratic Party enablers and the media would have us believe that Iran is in the grip of a “popular uprising” that is being “brutally” crushed by the Iranian authorities. This is the new manufactured casus belli. It replaces that used to justify last June’s 12-day US-Israeli war on Iran that killed more than 1,000 people and which Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked when they held a war conclave at Mar-a-Lago on December 29—the threat supposedly posed by Iran’s civilian nuclear program.
No doubt there is widespread anger and dissatisfaction with Iran’s clerical-led bourgeois nationalist regime, which represses any form of working-class political self-expression and has systematically dismantled the social concessions made to the working people in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 revolution that overthrew the tyrannical monarchical-dictatorship of the Shah.
But the protests now unfolding in the streets of Iran are not a movement of and for the working class. This is attested by their social composition, absence of any demands to address the pressing socio-economic problems facing Iran’s workers and rural toilers, and the lack of any organized working-class intervention in the form of mass strikes.
The protests were initiated by the bazaari—that is a section of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie comprised of money-lenders, merchants and shopkeepers—and have taken on an ever more explicit right-wing, pro-imperialist character akin to the “color revolutions” instigated by American imperialism and it agents in Ukraine, Georgia and elsewhere.
The operatives of the CIA and other imperialist intelligence agencies are manifestly present and playing a major role in inciting violence, alongside such foreign-based imperialist operatives as the Shah’s son, the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who late last week urged protesters to press for the government’s overthrow by “seizing and holding city centers.” On Thursday, Israel’s far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu boasted that Israeli agents are operating on the ground in Iran.
As in 1953, when the CIA and Britain’s MI5 organized the coup that overthrew Iran’s elected president, the nationalist Mossadegh, imperialism works through sections of the Iranian bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, including no doubt disaffected sections of the Islamic Republic’s establishment, eager to secure their wealth and privileges by functioning as direct imperialist agents.
These elements are viciously hostile to the plight of the oppressed masses as exemplified in the prominent protest slogan, “My heart beats only for Iran—not for Gaza, not for Lebanon!,” the protesters’ targeting of Afghan refugees and increasing embrace of the Pahlavi dynasty.
Due to the misrule of the Islamic Republic and the political confusion spread by the pseudo-left in and outside Iran, who call for unity with far-right forces in the name of “democracy,” tragically some workers and students have no doubt been caught up in the ongoing protests and state repression. But as the World Socialist Web Site previously explained, “any progressive tendency in Iran would have to immediately repudiate Trump’s ‘support’, denounce the threat of imminent US military action and call for the immediate lifting of the punitive sanctions that are strangling Iran’s economy.”Available from Mehring BooksThe struggle against imperialism and for workers’ power in IranA pamphlet by Keith Jones
From all indications, as the pro-imperialist character of the protests has become clearer, they have become restricted to more privileged sections of Iranian society. Within the working class the memory of the Shah’s regime, its subservience to US imperialism, monopolization of the country’s wealth and the brutal repression upon which it rested, endures.
Those now expressing their “horror” and “revulsion” at the “brutality” of the Iranian regime have not been moved by the ongoing slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza—to say nothing of the Nazi-style starvation of the entire enclave’s population—perpetrated by Israel with the full support and military assistance of Washington, first under Biden and now Trump.
As in Venezuela at the beginning of the year, the Trump administration is acting with utter criminality and recklessness.
However, more than criminality connects the attack on Venezuela and the regime-change operation, and an impending military attack targeting Iran. They are part of a developing world war.
The US is seeking to seize hold of the world’s oil resources in preparation for military confrontation with China. China imports more than 70 percent of its daily oil consumption, with Iran accounting, according to various estimates, for 11 percent or more of all Chinese imports in 2025 and Venezuela’s 3-4 percent. Losing access to Iranian oil would be a significant economic and strategic shock to China’s independent industrial base.
Workers must be warned: US imperialism is on the verge of launching a new war against Iran whose consequences are incalculable. In threatening Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated “When [Trump] says he’ll do something, he means it.” Trump has repeatedly vowed to unleash military fury against Iran, just as he has pledged to rule like a dictator.
“I don’t need international law,” Trump told the New York Times last week. “The only thing that can stop me,” he continued is my own will.
In reality, there is something that can stop him: the international working class. Even as Trump prepares for war on Iran, 15,000 nurses are on strike in New York City—the largest nurses’ strike in the city’s history. In France, hundreds of thousands have struck against austerity. Italy saw a general strike in November. Belgium’s workers walked out against the country’s coalition government. From Germany to the UK to Latin America, the objective conditions for a global movement against capitalism and war are emerging.
As the WSWS wrote in its New Year statement: “The ruling class has made clear what they want 2026 to be: a year of unrestrained military violence. The answer must be to make 2026 a year of class struggle and the development of a mass movement for socialism.” This depends on the building of a new leadership in the working class, rooted in the principles of Marxism and armed with the strategy of permanent revolution to forge its political independence and unify its struggles across state boundaries and continents.
The White House said on Monday that US airstrikes against Iran are “on the table” as President Trump has continued his threats to bomb the Islamic Republic amid protests in the country.
“One thing President Trump is very good at is always keeping all of his options on the table,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “And airstrikes would be one of the many, many options that are on the table for the commander-in-chief.”
Leavitt added that “diplomacy is always the first option for the president,” though Trump backed an Israeli attack on Iran during the last round of nuclear negotiations back in June. “The president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran,” Leavitt said.
A US Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, June 2025, after supporting the US attack on Iran
On Sunday night, Trump suggested Iran had reached out to discuss the possibility of holding negotiations and suggested he was open to diplomacy, but also said he was considering “very strong” options. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said that the “communication channel” between Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi remains open.
Axios and The Wall Street Journal both reported on Monday that Trump was leaning toward bombing Iran but was still exploring the possibility of negotiations. However, it’s unclear what sort of diplomatic deal would satisfy Trump as he continues to shift the pretext for potentially launching another war.
In recent weeks, Trump has threatened to bomb or support an Israeli attack on Iran if it rebuilds its civilian nuclear program or “continues” its conventional missile program, and has repeatedly threatened to attack the country if Iranian authorities kill protesters. The Axios report said that if Trump decides to bomb Iran, the strikes would likely target elements of Iran’s government responsible for internal security.
Iran’s position is that it doesn’t seek war with the US, but it’s warning that it will strike back if Trump follows through on his threat. “If Washington wants to test the military option it has tested before, we are ready for it,” Araghchi told Al Jazeera.
The Telegraphreported over the weekend that amid the threats of US airstrikes on Iran, the US military has conveyed to President Trump that it needs time to position assets in the region to prepare for Iranian counterattacks, which would likely involve missile strikes on US bases.
The president made the comments while meeting with Netanyahu in Florida
by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, December 29, 2025 at 4:36 pm ET | Gaza, Israel
President Trump said on Monday that he would support an Israeli attack on Iran if Tehran “continues” its conventional missile program or if it works to rebuild its civilian nuclear program that was damaged by US airstrikes during the US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic in June. The president made the comments at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked if he would back more Israeli attacks on Iran. “If they continue with the missiles, yes. The nuclear, fast,” he said. “One will be yes, absolutely,” he added, appearing to reference Iran’s missiles. “The other was we’ll do it immediately,” he said, referencing the possibility of Iran rebuilding its nuclear program. The president also threatened to “knock the hell” out of Iran if it “builds up again.” President Donald Trump reacts as he shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon arrival for meetings at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, US, December 29, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst According to media reports, Netanyahu was expected to ask Trump to support a new war against Iran over concerns related to its ballistic missiles. Iranian officials have been clear that they won’t agree to a deal to curb Tehran’s missile program since it’s the only deterrent the country has against the US and Israel. After the meeting, Trump and Netanyahu held a joint press conference where the US president again expressed support for the idea of another attack on Iran, though he suggested it wasn’t “confirmed” that Tehran was “building up” again. Any Israeli strikes on Iran would require US support since the US military played a major role in intercepting Iranian missiles fired at Israel, though they made it through US and Israeli air defenses, which is ultimately what led Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire after 12 days. The US also supported Israel’s attacks by refueling Israeli aircraft and then launched its own airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Amid the threats of another US and Israeli attack, Iran has warned that it’s ready to respond. According to Iran’s PressTV, the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces warned in a statement on Monday that “any renewed hostile act against the country will be met with a far harsher, more crushing, and more damaging response than in the past.”
The Israeli PM is expected to make the case during a December 29 meeting at Mar-a-Lago
by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, December 21, 2025 at 4:15 pm ET
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to ask President Trump to support another US-Israeli war on Iran, according to an NBC News report from Saturday.
The report said that Netanyahu will stress Israel’s concern over Iran’s production of ballistic missiles and will present Trump with options for the US to join or assist Israel with an attack on Iran. Israeli officials are also warning that Iran is reconstituting its nuclear sites that were bombed by the US during the war in June, but that was not their immediate concern.
According to a report from Israel Hayom, Israeli officials are preparing an “intelligence dossier” on Iran to present to Trump. Netanyahu’s office has said the meeting will take place at Mar-a-Lago on December 29, though President Trump suggested last week that it wasn’t finalized, saying, “We haven’t set it up formally, but he’d like to see me.” Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, has been warning that another war with Iran was likely since Israel didn’t achieve all of its goals during its previous attack on the country, pointing to the fact that Iran’s missile strikes forced Israel to agree to a ceasefire quickly.
“The June war resulted in mutual deterrence, a situation Iran can accept, but one that is intolerable for Netanyahu and his legacy. Ultimately, the conflict was neither a victory for Israel nor for Iran,” Parsi wrote in Responsible Statecraft on Sunday, responding to the NBC report.
“It is precisely this balance of terror that prompts Israel to seek a new round – Israel’s military doctrine does not allow for any of its regional foes to deter it or challenge its military dominance. Iran’s missile program currently does exactly that,” Parsi added. “And this is precisely why Trump must say no to Netanyahu. Because Israel’s objective is not security in the conventional sense, but rather absolute dominance.”
Earlier this month, Trump suggested the US could destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles when a reporter said Iran was “reconstituting” its missile program. “Well, they can try, but it’s going to take them a long time to come back,” Trump said.
“But if they do want to come back and they want to come back without a deal, then we’re going to obliterate that one too. We can knock out their missiles very quickly. We have great power. And we helped Israel a lot. We were shooting down the drones. We were doing a lot of things for Israel. We did a good job for Israel. But Israel did a good job, they fought, they all fought bravely,” the president added.
Israeli officials tell Axios that the White House was notified early enough that the strikes could have been called off
by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com,| September 15, 2025 at 2:26 pm ET
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed President Trump that Israel planned to launch airstrikes against Hamas officials in Qatar shortly before the attack took place, and Trump didn’t oppose the plan, Axios reported on Monday, citing several Israeli officials.
In the wake of the Israeli bombing of Qatar, a major non-NATO ally of the US, the White House claimed that by the time it learned about Israel’s plans to strike Doha, it was too late to stop it. Trump himself also claimed that he was not notified about Israel’s plans and that he was “very unhappy” about the attack.
The Israeli officials speaking to Axios said that while Netanyahu informed Trump of his plans to bomb Doha relatively late in the game, there was still time for the strikes to be called off. Three Israeli officials said Netanyahu notified Trump at about 8:00 am Washington, DC time and that the strikes hit Doha at 8:51.
Trump and Netanyahu at the White House on April 7, 2025 (White House photo)
“Trump knew about the strike before the missiles were launched. First there was a discussion on the political level between Netanyahu and Trump, and afterwards through military channels. Trump didn’t say no,” a senior Israeli official told Axios.
A second senior Israeli official said that if Trump “had wanted to stop it, he could have. In practice, he didn’t.” Both officials claimed that if the US opposed the attack, Israel would have called it off.
The claims from Israeli officials align with Israeli media reports on the day of the strikes that said the US had given Israel a green light to go ahead with the bombing, which killed five lower-level Hamas officials and one Qatari security officer. A report from Middle East Eye, which cited US and regional officials, said that Trump had “blessed” Israel’s attack on Doha.
Israeli officials speaking to Axios said that Israel had decided to go along with the US claims that it wasn’t informed about the plan to strike Doha. “On our side, it was decided to help them with that for the sake of the US-Israel relationship,” one official said.
Following the bombing, Netanyahu released a statement claiming that the airstrikes were “a wholly independent Israeli operation. Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility.”
About 100 kilometers east of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, lies the Azeri–Chirag–Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) oilfield, the largest in the Caspian basin’s Azerbaijani sector. Operated by BP Exploration Limited, it feeds directly into the infamous Baku–Tiflis–Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline.
South of Baku, at the Sangachal terminal, oil and gas are stored before being exported. According to BP, around 106 million barrels of oil and condensate passed through Sangachal in the first half of this year, primarily via the BTC Pipeline.
From there, oil crosses Azerbaijan and Georgia, enters Turkiye, and finally reaches the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. As authors James Marriott and Mika Minio-Paluello explain in ‘The Oil Road: Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London’ (2012), the oil takes two primary paths from Ceyhan: one to the Italian port of Miggia via the Greek Islands, the other south along the Levantine coast to the Suez Canal.
Pipeline to genocide
After that, oil and gas inexplicably find their way to fund the Israeli occupation state’s genocidal war on Gaza. The profits enrich bankers in the City of London and British Petroleum shareholders. Everyone wins – except the Palestinians.
The BTC Pipeline, stretching nearly 1,800 miles, is a main energy artery for the occupation state. It supplies an estimated 40 percent of Tel Aviv’s crude oil needs, while Israel ranks sixth among importers of Azerbaijani oil. Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy giant SOCAR, one of Israel’s key energy partners, is also Turkiye’s largest foreign investor, as confirmed by SOCAR Turkiye CEO Elchin Ibadov.
The BTC Pipeline’s legal foundation is anchored in two key agreements. The more consequential of the two comprises Host Government Agreements signed between BP’s BTC Consortium and each transit country. These contracts essentially override national sovereignty.
Article 2 of the Intergovernmental Agreement illustrates this starkly:
“Each State declares and guarantees that it is not a party to, or is not legally bound to apply or comply with, any internal law or regulation, or any international agreement or treaty, that is inconsistent with, undermines, or impedes this Agreement, or that adversely affects or restricts the State’s ability to enter into or implement this Agreement or other relevant Project Agreements.”
Even after the devastating earthquakes that shook south-eastern Turkey in 2023, it was BP who declared force majeure for the Ceyhan Terminal in Adana, where Azerbaijani oil is shipped.
This effectively prioritized oil exports over local disaster relief. A BP spokesperson in Baku confirmed the declaration, which allowed the company to bypass contractual obligations.
A map showing the Baku–Tiflis–Ceyhan (BTC)Pipeline route.
Beyond Baku: The global complicity network
Yet focusing solely on Azerbaijan and the BTC Pipeline obscures the bigger picture: The occupation state is deeply embedded in the global energy trade, both as importer and exporter.
Investor-owned and private oil companies are complicit. According to last year’s report by Oil Change International, these firms collectively supply 66 percent of Israel’s oil, with 35 percent of that share coming from six major international oil companies – BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies – between October 2023 and July 2024.
Over the same period, Kazakhstan supplied 22 percent of Israeli crude. African nations – notably Gabon, Nigeria, and Congo – contributed 37 percent. Even Brazil, under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (a vocal critic of Tel Aviv) continued shipments throughout 2024. In May 2025, Brazilian oil workers’ unions revealed in a joint letter to the president that 2.7 million barrels of crude had been exported to Israel that year.
Israel also imports refined petroleum products critical for its military occupation across Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. Mediterranean states like Cyprus, Italy, Greece, and Albania have all shipped fuel, diesel, and naphtha.
Cyprus has additionally provided transshipment services. Meanwhile, Russian vacuum gas oil (VGO) continues to flow into Haifa’s refineries. One major source remains Kazakhstan’s CPC Blend crude, exported via Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
Despite its shift toward natural gas, coal still comprised 12.7 percent of Tel Aviv’s energy supply in 2023, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), with the top suppliers being BRICS nations. Colombia provides 50–60 percent of the coal. Russia and South Africa follow closely despite their condemnations of Israel and South Africa’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case. The US and China round out the top five.
Arab and Muslim countries are no exception. Following 7 October 2023, the Saudi-led OPEC bloc rejected Iran’s calls for an oil embargo. Tel Aviv continues to receive modest but steady crude flows through the Sumed (Suez-Mediterranean) Pipeline, transporting oil from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, and Egypt. In 2020, Israel’s Europe–Asia Pipeline Co. signed a transport agreement with UAE firm RED Land Bridge Ltd., deepening the ties between Gulf states and Tel Aviv.
Leviathan’s bounty and Arab betrayal
Perhaps the most scandalous development is that Israel itself has become an energy source.
In August 2025, Egypt signed a record-breaking $35-billion gas deal with Tel Aviv, nearly tripling its gas imports from the Leviathan offshore fields – the largest export agreement in Israeli ‘history.’ NewMed Energy, an Israeli company, anticipates transporting 130 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas to Egypt by 2040.
Natural gas exports to Egypt and Jordan rose 13.4 percent in 2024, despite rhetorical condemnations from Arab leaders. Energy Minister Eli Cohen lauded the figures, claiming they prove Israel’s energy sector is a “strategic asset” and key to “regional stability.”
Reuters also noted that “Israel is positioning itself as a regional energy hub and has committed to supplying natural gas to Europe, which has been diversifying away from Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.”
Last year, the Leviathan field produced 11.33 bcm of gas, generating $282 million in revenue. The nearby Tamar field earned $232 million from 10.09 bcm. Total gas production rose 8.3 percent, with royalties climbing nearly 11 percent to $704.5 million. State revenues from gas are projected to hit $1.4 billion this year, doubling within a few years.
The masquerade of embargoes
On 21 August, Reutersreported that Turkiye informed its port authorities that ships linked to Israel would be barred from docking. The new requirement insists that guarantee letters confirm no Israeli ties or military cargo on board.
Ankara claims to have halted trade with Israel post-7 October. But the reality suggests otherwise. Tankers frequently disable their tracking systems in the eastern Mediterranean, feign destinations in Egypt or elsewhere, and arrange deliveries through third-country traders.
Russian Telegram channel Dva Mayora exposed Greek tankers Seavigour and Kimolos for involvement in these covert routes in 2025. As of 22 August, the Marshall Islands-flagged Nissos Antimilos was seen 190 kilometers west of Haifa, fresh from Ceyhan and awaiting an Israeli tanker for offshore transfer.
Arab and Muslim-majority states, it seems, prefer performative outrage over substantive action. Their duplicity ensures that, while Tel Aviv drops bombs on Gaza, the oil fueling its war machine flows uninterrupted.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
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