In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we're doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation.
Joshua Scheer
Jeffrey Sachs doesn’t raise his voice — he doesn’t have to. In this wide‑ranging conversation with Tucker Carlson, Sachs lays out a devastating, historically grounded indictment of U.S. foreign policy, the manufactured “Iran threat,” and the decades‑long fusion of American empire with Israel’s regional ambitions. What emerges is not a hot take but a cold, clinical autopsy of a war machine that has slipped beyond democratic control.
From the 1953 coup to the present blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Sachs traces how Washington’s obsession with dominance — and Israel’s pursuit of permanent military supremacy — has pushed the world to the brink of a conflict that could collapse the global economy in weeks. He dismantles the nuclear‑weapons narrative, exposes the bipartisan addiction to sanctions and covert warfare, and warns that the U.S. is now trapped in a crisis of its own making.
This is one of Sachs’ clearest, most unflinching interviews to date — a map of how we got here, and a warning about what comes next if the “grown‑ups” don’t seize the wheel.
Jeffrey Sachs Warns: The U.S.–Israel War Path Toward Iran Is Leading the World Into Economic and Political Collapse
Jeffrey Sachs has spent decades advising governments, studying development, and watching empires rise and fall. In his latest interview, he delivers a stark message: the United States and Israel are steering the world toward a catastrophic confrontation with Iran — and the window for avoiding disaster is closing fast.
A Global Crisis Triggered by a Manufactured One
Sachs argues that the current crisis is not an accident but the predictable outcome of decades of U.S. interference in Iran, beginning with the 1953 CIA‑MI6 coup that toppled Iran’s elected prime minister. That single act — the theft of Iran’s sovereignty and its oil — set the stage for 70 years of hostility, sanctions, proxy wars, and regime‑change fantasies.
According to Sachs, the present escalation is driven less by Iranian behavior than by Washington’s refusal to accept that Iran slipped out of U.S. control in 1979. The “Iran menace,” he says, is a propaganda construct — a way to justify endless pressure on a country that has not invaded another nation in more than a century.
The Strait of Hormuz: A Choke Point for the World Economy
Sachs warns that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a direct consequence of the spiraling conflict — has already triggered a global economic emergency. Oil, gas, fertilizers, petrochemicals, and metals flow through this narrow waterway. With it blocked, the world economy is “reeling,” and the clock is ticking.
The off‑ramp exists, Sachs insists: de‑escalation, diplomacy, and reopening the strait. But it requires political maturity — something he argues is in short supply in both Washington and Jerusalem.
Israel’s Parallel Agenda: Regional Dominance at Any Cost
Sachs draws a sharp distinction between U.S. and Israeli motives. For Washington, Iran represents a rebellion against American empire. For Israel, Iran is the last major obstacle to full military dominance across the Middle East and North Africa.
He argues that Israel’s political leadership — backed by a powerful U.S. lobby — has long sought to neutralize Iran not because of nuclear fears, but because Iran resists Israeli hegemony. This, Sachs says, is the real engine behind the push for confrontation.
The Nuclear Lie
One of Sachs’ most forceful points is his dismantling of the nuclear narrative. U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly stated that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon. Iran has sought international monitoring and compliance frameworks — including the JCPOA — only to see the U.S. sabotage its own agreements under pressure from domestic political forces aligned with Israel.
Calling the nuclear rhetoric “Orwellian,” Sachs argues that the real goal is regime change, not nonproliferation.
A War That Would Reshape the World in Weeks
Sachs warns that a U.S.–Israel attack on Iran would not be a limited strike. It would trigger a regional war, destroy infrastructure across the Gulf, and plunge the global economy into chaos. Within weeks, he says, the world would look “profoundly damaged,” with the risk of escalation into a global conflict.
This is not hyperbole, Sachs insists — it is the logical outcome of the current trajectory.
The Real Question: Who Is Steering U.S. Policy?
Throughout the interview, Sachs returns to a central theme: the absence of democratic control over U.S. foreign policy. Decisions of war and peace are being shaped by lobbies, political vanity, and imperial reflexes — not by the interests of the American public.
The result is a government that no longer serves its citizens, a political class insulated from consequences, and a foreign policy apparatus that treats global stability as collateral damage.
A Final Warning
Sachs’ message is clear: the U.S. and Israel are playing with forces they cannot control. The world is at a fork in the road — diplomacy or disaster — and the people making the decisions are the least equipped to choose wisely.
For Americans, the stakes are not abstract. Sachs argues that the economic, political, and moral costs of this conflict will fall squarely on the public, not on the leaders who helped create it.
Iranian attacks on US bases across the Middle East have caused far more damage than the Trump administration has publicly acknowledged, and an Iranian fighter jet was able to bomb at least one US base, NBC News reported on Saturday, citing unnamed US officials.
The administration has attempted to cover up the damage to US bases in the war, and has gone as far as requesting that Planet Labs and other satellite imagery companies black out war images, making it difficult to ascertain the damage.
The NBC report said that the Pentagon has also kept the information on the damage from Congress. “No one knows anything. And it’s not for lack of asking,” a Republican congressional aide told the outlet. “We have been asking for weeks and not getting specifics, even as the Pentagon is asking for a record high budget.”
Iranian missile and drone attacks have targeted US bases in seven Middle Eastern countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Jordan, and Qatar. US officials said that an Iranian F-5 fighter jet was able to bomb the US base at Camp Buehring in Kuwait despite it having air defenses, marking the first time in many years that an enemy fixed-wing aircraft struck a US military installation.
Smoke rises from the direction of a US naval base after a missile attack on the service center of the US Fifth Fleet in Manama, Bahrain, February 28, 2026 (screenshot of social media footage obtained by REUTERS)
The US armed Iran with Northrop Grumman-made F-5 fighter jets before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and Iran has developed its own version of the aircraft, known as the HESA Kowsar.
Kuwait was also the site of a March 1 Iranian drone attack that killed six US Army Reserve soldiers and injured more than 20. The drone targeted a makeshift operations center in Port Shuaiba, and according to survivors of the attack who spoke to CBS News, the facility was unprotected despite claims from US War Secretary Pete Hegseth that the drone was able to “squirt” through air defenses.
The Pentagon has confirmed the deaths of at least 13 US soldiers and the injuries of more than 400 in the war. The bases across the region were mostly evacuated since they were so vulnerable to attack, something The New York Times previously reported. “Many of the 13 military bases in the region used by American troops are all but uninhabitable, with the ones in Kuwait, which is next door to Iran, suffering perhaps the most damage,” the Timesreported on March 25.
The NBC report said that the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain “sustained serious damage” and that other US bases in the country also suffered serious damage that is likely repairable. The report also cited the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington-based think tank, which said it assessed Iran hit more than 100 targets across 11 bases, and that the repairs would cost at least $5 billion, though the number doesn’t account for some of the radars, weapons systems, and other equipment that was destroyed.
A US legal memo reveals Iran war was launched at Israel’s request, contradicting Trump’s repeated claims of independence.
Key Developments
US document states war was conducted in “collective self-defense of its Israeli ally.”
Admission contradicts Donald Trump’s claims that Washington acted independently.
Memo frames ongoing war as legally continuous conflict, removing need for renewed justification.
US Memo Contradicts Trump Narrative
A US State Department legal memorandum has revealed that the so-called Operation Epic Fury, launched on February 28, was carried out “at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally,” directly contradicting repeated public claims by US President Donald Trump that Washington acted independently in its war against Iran.
The document explicitly states that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with Iran “at the request of” Israel, framing the military campaign not as a unilateral American decision, but as part of a coordinated war effort aligned with Israeli objectives.
This admission stands in clear contrast to Trump’s earlier assertions that the United States was acting on its own strategic calculations, without external influence, in launching the large-scale military operation.
The memo goes further by constructing a legal argument that the war did not begin with Operation Epic Fury, but is instead part of an ongoing, long-term armed conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran.
‘Collective Self-Defense’ of Israel
According to the document, US military action is justified both as collective self-defense of Israel and as an exercise of Washington’s “own inherent right of self-defense.”
It argues that hostilities have been continuous for years, citing repeated US communications to the United Nations Security Council and asserting that no formal end to the conflict ever occurred.
“The United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense,” the memo states.
By defining the war as “ongoing”, the document claims that Washington is not required to reassess legal justifications such as imminence or proportionality for each new military action.
President Trump on Thursday shared a post calling for the killing of Iranian leaders who won’t accept US demands, ramping up his threats against the country amid a very fragile ceasefire.
The post Trump amplified was written by Marc Thiessen, who served as a speechwriter for the George W. Bush administration. “If there are two factions in Iran, one that wants a deal and one that doesn’t, let’s kill the ones who don’t want a deal,” Thiessen said in a post on X where he was quoting himself from an appearance on Fox News.
In the piece, Thiessen argued that Trump should restart the bombing campaign against Iran. “Right now, the remnants of the Iranian regime are under the misimpression that Trump wants a deal more than they do,” he wrote.
“Trump needs to disabuse them of that notion. He has reportedly told Iran that it has three to five days to make a serious counteroffer. If it fails to do so, he should resume combat operations — starting with strikes targeting Iran’s recalcitrant leaders. If the Iranian regime is really ‘fractured’ between a faction that wants a deal and a faction that does not, there is a simple solution: Kill the faction that does not,” Thiessen said.
Thiessen said the US should maintain the blockade and claimed the US military could open the Strait of Hormuz by force and that it just needed 14 more days to “finish the job” against Iran.
The Trump administration has pushed the narrative that Iran’s military has essentially been obliterated, but Iran was able to continue missile and drone attacks throughout the entire war, and according to US officials speaking to The New York Times, US intelligence assesses that Tehran likely has access to the majority of its missiles and launchers.
Published date: 23 April 2026 15:40 BST | Last update:1 hour 50 mins ago
Amal Khalil, the seasoned journalist, was born during a years-long Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. She was killed there four decades later by invading Israeli forces.
“Amal was present in every home. Every home in Lebanon has lost her,” Ali Khalil, her brother, said tearfully a day after she was targeted and killed by Israel.
“Amal resembles the south in all its details – its sweet breeze, its valleys, its mountains, and its old houses. She resembles all of that.”
Khalil is remembered fondly by her colleagues as generous, fearless and pioneering.
“I want to express gratitude for everything she did for us young journalists,” Hussein Chaabane, a Lebanese investigative and legal journalist, told Middle East Eye.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
“She was so generous even if we were competitors. She never hesitated in sharing a contact, a key – and she had all the keys in the south.
“She knew it like the palm of her hand and she shared this love and dedication with everyone who needed it.”
Khalil, 42, was killed on Wednesday as she went to cover an earlier Israeli attack in the town of al-Tayri.
‘She knew [the south] like the palm of her hand and she shared this love and dedication with everyone who needed it’
– Hussein Chaabane, journalist
An initial strike hit a vehicle in front of Khalil and freelance photographer Zeinab Faraj, prompting the pair to take shelter in a nearby house.
A second strike then hit the house, according to the health ministry. Rescuers retrieved Faraj, who sustained a head wound, but were fired on before they could reach Khalil.
Hours later, they found Khalil dead under the rubble.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam described the killing as a war crime and said Lebanon would spare no efforts in pursuing the culprits internationally.
“The killing of Amal was the killing of a woman of resistance,” Lebanese filmmaker Bachir Abou Zeid told MEE.
“Israel killed her because she was a journalist of resistance, not simply because she was a journalist.”
Writer shaped by occupation
Khalil was born in 1984 in al-Baisariyah, in the Saida district of southern Lebanon.
She grew up during the civil war and Israel’s occupation of large parts of southern Lebanon, and recounted seeing occupied villages in the distance when she was a child. Her own town was retaken from Israeli forces shortly before her birth.
Khalil grew up reading As-Safir, a now defunct popular Lebanese newspaper, through which she says she learnt about everyday people’s struggles, about prisoners and the forcibly disappeared, and about the civil war.
She studied Arabic literature in the city of Saida, and – without the knowledge of her parents – travelled to Beirut, where she became involved in communist activism.
It was then that her writing career began to take off, and she wrote several pieces for al-Hasnaa magazine.
“One story I particularly remember was for the Valentine’s Day special issue, about how queer people celebrated love in a conservative society,” she recalled in an interview in January with The Public Source, a Beirut-based outlet.
Khalil joined the nascent Al-Akhbar newspaper in April 2006, a few months before the first issue went to print. She would go on to work there for 20 years.
Weeks after she joined, Israel launched a 33-day war on Lebanon – a moment which Khalil described as a turning point in her career.
She had initially joined the paper to write about women’s and cultural issues. But amid the backdrop of war, she collected the stories of those displaced and bombarded by Israel.
It was a theme that would continue throughout her professional life.
‘The pressure to break me was relentless, but I didn’t yield’
– Amal Khalil
Khalil was largely based in the city of Sour, also known as Tyre, where she pursued public interest stories.
“Going after corruption cases and social issues in the area, sparing no one – not even my family – led to confrontations,” she recounted.
“I was threatened, assaulted, and intimidated. The pressure to break me was relentless, but I didn’t yield.”
Although al-Akhbar has provided favourable coverage of Hezbollah and resistance against Israel, she said she did not write with limitations.
She recalled al-Akhbar defying a request by Hassan Nasrallah, then Hezbollah’s leader, to not publish a WikiLeaks documents about Nabih Berri, the parliament’s speaker, back in 2011.
Over time, she became al-Akhbar’s go-to field reporter for the whole of the south, covering Sour, Bint Jbeil and Nabatieh, among other areas.
Face to face with Israeli troops
Khalil knew all too well that Israeli forces have a habit of targeting Lebanese journalists.
In 2010, she wrote an obituary for her slain colleague Assaf Abu Rahhal, who was killed by Israeli shelling.
She recalled a Lebanese soldier handing her Abu Rahhal’s blood-stained ID card. “It was all that remained of Assaf. I will never forget that day,” she said.
Khalil was unwavering in her support for leftism and resistance against occupation.
In more recent years she began to produce more video content, learning to edit the films herself, even though she was insistent that she did not want to appear in them.
‘I’m here to tell the stories of the people, not to become the story myself’
– Amal Khalil
“For me, it was simple: I’m here to tell the stories of the people, not to become the story myself,” she said.
During Israel’s 2023-2024 war on Lebanon, which broke out when Hezbollah attacked Israel in solidarity with Palestinians being slaughtered in Gaza, she documented evidence of Israeli targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure.
“From the very first day of the genocide, Amal confronted Israel through her coverage,” said Abou Zeid.
“Her documentation, her movement from one area to another, and her amplification of the story of the people in the land and the south.”
After a ceasefire was announced in February last year, she reported on Israel’s near-daily violations of the truce.
Khalil was confronted by Israeli forces on a number of occasions during her career. The closest shave, she said, was in November 2024, when Israeli forces fired volleys to drive her and colleagues back from a bulldozer.
‘Never accepted Israeli limitations’
Colleagues and friends remember that Amal refused to bow to Israeli orders or limitations on her movements.
“Not for a single moment did Amal abide by Israeli instructions about where she could go,” said Abou Zeid.
“Amal was not a journalist in the conventional sense of the profession. Her love for the land and for her people outweighed everything.”
Khalil said herself following the 2024 war that people had advised her to restrict her movements, but that her faith and her revolutionary upbringing taught her to stand “in the face of oppression”.
‘Her love for the land and for her people outweighed everything’
– Bachir Abou Zeid, filmmaker
“My alignment with the people of the south, my presence among them since the July 2006 war, has always been the right choice. They have always lived up to that faith placed in them,” she said.
“They will grow stronger, more steadfast, and more committed to this unwavering compass, toward truth, and toward Palestine.”
Less than two months after fascist US President Donald Trump launched the criminal US/Israeli war against Iran in the dead of night on February 28, the conflict is having a devastating economic impact on tens of millions of workers around the globe.
American imperialism’s determination to consolidate its dominance over the Middle East, one of the world’s most critical energy-producing regions, has already claimed the lives of thousands of Iranians in six weeks of brutal and indiscriminate bombardment. But the economic fallout from the US-instigated war and blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could prove even more deadly.
Prior to the war’s outbreak, the Strait of Hormuz accounted for some 20 percent of global oil traffic and a significant portion of natural gas shipments. The consequences produced by the disruption of these energy supplies are already reverberating across the world economy. They include rising fuel costs, higher electricity prices and escalating transportation expenses for billions of people.
The Middle East is also a major producer of fertilisers, so prices have jumped amid the planting season for farmers in the northern hemisphere. The result is both increased production costs for crops and reduced harvests, as farmers plant less to cut costs or use less fertiliser, which will fuel a food-price spiral over the coming months and into 2027.
Shipping disruptions, compounded by heightened insurance premiums and rerouted trade flows, have further increased the price of food imports. The Containerised Freight Index rose 10 percent within a month of the war’s outbreak, underscoring that even traffic not directly impacted by the Strait of Hormuz blockade is affected.
On top of the destruction of schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure by US and Israeli missiles, the working class in Iran is bearing the economic brunt of the war. A government spokesman admitted that approximately 2 million workers have lost their jobs as a direct consequence of the conflict.
The impact of the war has been particularly acute across the Asia-Pacific region, due to its heavy reliance on oil imports from the Middle East. Over 80 percent of crude and LNG normally transiting the Strait of Hormuz is destined for countries in the Asia-Pacific, including major industrial economies like China and Japan. Fuel prices have risen sharply in India’s major cities, with petrol and diesel costs increasing by roughly 10-15 percent within weeks.
In Indonesia, nickel producers have cut output by at least 10 percent due to shortages of natural gas and sulphur, which are required to produce the high temperatures necessary for extraction and refining of the metal. Severe disruptions to the garment factories of Bangladesh have also been reported due to a lack of polyester and nylon, fossil fuel byproducts used to make clothing.
Another critical channel of impact is the disruption of remittances. Millions of workers from South Asia and Africa are employed in the Gulf region, sending vital income back to their impoverished families. The war has disrupted these flows, as economic activity slows and employment opportunities shrink.
Motorists queue up to get fuel at a pump, fearing a possible fuel shortage due to the US Iran war, in Ahmedabad, India, Monday, March 23, 2026. [AP Photo/Ajit Solanki]
The United Nations Development Programme estimated in a recent report that the war on Iran could cost 36 countries in the Asia-Pacific nearly $300 billion and plunge up to 8.8 million people into poverty. Five million of these people live in Iran, where the human development index has already lost 1–1.5 years due to the war.
The New York Times worried in a lengthy analysis published April 20 that countries throughout the Asia-Pacific may face “shortages [that] could push several countries into convulsions of unrest, followed by recession,” if the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked for just a few more weeks. Even high-end production, including of semiconductors essential for producing chips built in Taiwan, faces problems. Prior to the war, Qatar produced a third of the world’s helium, a critical component of the semiconductor production process. But it stopped production on March 2 after an Iranian retaliatory attack hit its gas facilities. As the Times put it, cuts to chip production “would roll through everything from electronics to cars.”
In Africa, Nigeria has seen fuel prices rise by over 50 percent, despite the country being a massive oil producer and exporter. Since the country of some 240 million people is heavily dependent on imports of refined oil products, petrol prices have risen significantly, leading to increases in public transport costs and the price of staple foods. In Kenya, the fuel price regulator hiked petrol prices by over 16 percent and diesel prices by over 24 percent in mid April, following a 68 percent increase in the cost of oil imports.
Many African countries depend on imported fertilisers. The surge in natural gas prices has driven up costs for farmers, threatening lower crop yields and outright famine in areas where subsistence farming prevails. At the same time, currency depreciation in several countries is amplifying the impact of global price increases, making imports even more expensive, eroding real wages and pushing up already crippling debt repayment costs for financially strapped governments.
In Europe and North America, fuel prices have also risen sharply, placing yet another burden on working people’s budgets amid stagnant economic growth, mass layoffs and social attacks by the ruling elites in every country to pay for bloated military budgets and the enrichment of the financial oligarchy. In Germany, national airline Lufthansa announced the immediate closure of its CityLine subsidiary amid a strike by thousands of airline workers for job security and pay increases. The continent’s governments are investing trillions of euros in their own war machines to prosecute their predatory imperialist interests at the expense of workers’ livelihoods and social programmes.
Across the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal has announced the era of the “mega layoff,” with job cuts in finance, technology, entertainment and manufacturing.
By contrast, the war is proving to be a bonanza for the corporations and financial oligarchy. According to one investigation, the world’s major oil conglomerates will pull in additional profits of over $230 billion in 2026 alone.
The World Socialist Web Site has insisted that US imperialism’s war on Iran is one front in the early stages of a third world war, which includes the US/NATO war on Russia in Ukraine and preparations for a military conflagration with China. As the imperialist powers in North America and Europe scramble for the upper hand in the redivision of the world, they are totally indifferent to the impact on billions of workers from the global economic and social disaster produced by crisis-ridden capitalism and their crazed policies. But this very disaster creates the material conditions for the development of a working class movement to end the war and the capitalist profit system which is its root cause.
The parallels to World War I are striking, when food riots across Europe during 1916 and 1917 gave an initial expression to growing popular opposition to the imperialist slaughter. The most consequential of these were protests that erupted demanding bread in Petrograd in early 1917, marking the beginning of Russia’s February Revolution. Eight months later, the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky led the working class to power on a socialist programme that would bring the world war to an end.
Today, the world economy is integrated to such a degree that initial expressions of social unrest provoked by the war have already erupted in its first weeks. Beginning on April 10, tens of thousands of industrial workers in India’s national capital region launched strikes and protests against price hikes triggered by the war. Workers demanded wage increases to cover higher rents, fuel costs, and food prices. Protests have also erupted in countries as diverse as the Philippines and Ireland.
Now, as in 1917, the decisive tasks are the fight to develop a conscious, unified movement of the international working class and build a mass revolutionary party capable of leading the struggle for workers’ political power.
The global nature of the crisis demands an international response, transcending national divisions and opposing militarism. Workers in Iran, the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa share a common interest in ending the war and the bankrupt capitalist order that gave rise to it. This requires the independent political mobilisation of the working class on a socialist programme to place the commanding heights of the economy under democratic workers’ control, ensuring that production is organised to meet human needs rather than private profit.
Under these conditions, the upcoming International May Day Online Rally 2026 assumes critical importance. It will articulate the revolutionary socialist programme and perspective workers around the world require to fight imperialist war and its barbaric consequences. Register today to participate, and encourage your work colleagues and friends to do the same.
Joe Gill MEE, 21 April 2026 09:07 BST | Last update:8 hours 4 mins ago
Comparisons between the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Gaza genocide, and Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union are being made by scholars
A picture of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on fire during a protest against the US-Israeli military action in Iran, near the US Embassy in Manila, Philippines, 9 April 2026 (AFP)
It has long been considered offensive and antisemitic to draw comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel, but on the specific question of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its wars of expansion, including the war on Iran, the dam has broken.
Norman Finkelstein, the eminent American Jewish scholar and son of Holocaust survivors, drew the direct comparison between Hitler’s war in the east and the war launched by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran on 28 February in a recent Middle East Eye interview.
I have long thought the comparison is merited, for a number of reasons, beginning in 2023 with the start of the war on Gaza.
Like Hitler’s Germany, Israel’s leaders made the fatal error of not knowing when to stop, and opening up several fronts – seven at one point. Each tactical victory – against Hamas, then Hezbollah, encouraged further audacious attacks. Having waged a genocidal campaign in Gaza, colonial expansion in the West Bank, and relentless attacks on Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, Prime Minister Netanyahu turned to Iran in 2025.
Why? A messianic ideology of Jewish supremacy that drives the prime minister and the settler politicians on whom he depends. The politics of ethnonationalism, territorial expansion and hyper militarism are similar, if not identical, to the ideology of the Second World War fascist axis led by Nazi Germany. And this ideology of ethnic supremacy leads to overreach.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
Trump, as a white nationalist who believes in US exceptionalism, shares the same inflated belief in unlimited US power, but is less unequivocally bent on permanent war. (Trump bears some comparison with Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, whose record of failed imperial adventures more closely resembles Trump’s.)
Iran and the Soviet Union
Finkelstein, speaking of the Iran war, compared it to how the war of extermination waged by Hitler on the Soviet people inspired them to rally and defend the country. “This was the same mistake made by Trump. The more Trump turned it into a war of extermination like the Nazis did with Russia… the people rallied, it was the Soviet Union’s Great Patriotic war, a second time.”
Another parallel to the Second World War is that the West’s enemy is a revolutionary regime which is facing severe internal pressures. The Soviet Union in the 1930s was perceived as being weak due to violent internal upheaval; the similar position of Iran before the war encouraged Netanyahu and Trump to believe that a surprise attack would lead to a rapid victory.
The Soviet Union in the 1930s was perceived as being weak due to violent internal upheaval; similar to the position of Iran before the war
Both the Soviets and Iran lacked major global allies prepared to come to their defence. Like the Soviet Union, Iran had non-state groups in different countries that supported its international vision, but these groups pose a limited threat to the world’s most advanced military, and a nuclear-armed regional military power.
Like Iran, the Soviet Union had sought to avoid war by making agreements with its chief enemy, Germany, in the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939. In the case of Iran, the 2015 nuclear deal was supposed to end the threat of conflict. But Trump ripped it up in 2018.
Both Iran and the Soviet Union had been through very difficult years preceding this frontal military attack. Iran had faced comprehensive sanctions, which helped to spark three major uprisings against the regime, in 2019, 2022 and lastly in January 2026.
The Soviet regime, while in the process of rapidly industrialising, had waged a terror campaign against kulaks, national minority groups, and swathes of the Bolshevik administration, including the officer corp of the Red Army, in which millions died – a point explicitly made by Finkelstein (although he exaggerated by saying “tens of millions” died). As a result, Hitler saw Soviet Russia as weak and vulnerable. He predicted a sweeping victory over Stalin.
As Finkelstein explained: “The first months of the war were a cake walk, disaster for the Soviets… but the Germans made one big mistake: they wanted what was called living space, lebensraum, and [that] means they had to get rid of the people living there, and so they embarked on a war of extermination… Notwithstanding the brutality of Stalin’s regime, notwithstanding collectivisation and the purge trials, which eliminated the entire military and political leadership, the people embraced the “Great Patriotic War”.
Like the Israelis and the Trump White House, the Nazis had a racial contempt for their Slavic enemies who they considered to be inferior and not able to resist the advance of the German armed forces. Trump and Netanyahu likewise consistently belittle the capacity of their enemies, believed the Iranian regime would crumble under direct assault, and see their technological and military superiority as decisive over the “Arabs” and Iran. Trump called the Iranians “animals”.
These Iranians supported the US-Israeli war. Now they realise their mistake
The killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war was supposed to be the knockout blow. It would be as if Hitler had a rocket system that could accurately target Stalin’s rooms in the Kremlin and wipe out the dictator and his politburo. Would that have caused the Soviet regime to collapse amid invasion? Unlikely.
The first year of the Nazis’ invasion saw a devastating series of retreats and defeats for the Soviets. The Wehrmacht rolled through Ukraine, where the famine and terror of the previous decade had drained support for the Soviets, allowing the Germans to march rapidly on to the Russian steppe; in the north the Nazis advanced through Belarus to the gates of Moscow and Leningrad, imposing a brutal siege on the latter. Hitler had every reason to think victory over the Communist regime in Russia was all but certain.
But to successfully overthrow a regime one needs to find new, pliable rulers who are able to replace the old ones. This has not proved possible in Iran, with Reza Pahlavi shown to be wholly inadequate to the task, lacking political skills and wide popular support in Iran.
Germany, and the US and Israel, overlooked the lack of strategic route to defeat their enemies in the long run. In the short to medium term, they win based on superior air power, intelligence, and destructive offensive forces, but in the longterm, the outlook is more problematic, as people constantly attacked in their own lands are certain to resist.
Iranians have come to realise that Trump and Netanyahu are not interested in their liberation – they wish to destroy the country’s independent existence and to fragment it along ethnic lines.
Iran’s new leaders
Moreover, in the case of Iran, the wiping out of the older generation of leaders and commanders has changed the calculus of the regime, brought in new commanders, and if anything ended the restraint that was the policy under Khamenei. The attacks on Gulf states, the blockade of Hormuz, and the insistence that Lebanon must be part of a lasting ceasefire deal show how much Iran, post-February, is no longer afraid to directly confront the encirclement imposed by the US and its allies.
The wiping out of the older generation of leaders has changed the calculus of the regime, ending the restraint that was the policy under Khamenei
Iran, like Russia, is a vast continental nation, and presents huge challenges for any foreign power wishing to conquer or dismember it. Hitler openly saw the Soviet Union as part of the future Third Reich, as a vast colonial territory providing resources and agricultural lands to feed the empire, while turning its people into little more than slaves. After the victories of the first year of the war in the east, things turned sour for the Nazis at Stalingrad in late 1942.
Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders long declared their intention to remove the Iranian regime, using agents on the ground, assassinations and sabotage, and imploring Iranians to rise up against the ayatollahs. But after the mass protests and brutal crackdown in January, these calls have not been heeded. Iranians have rallied to the nation.
If, however unlikely it seems, the latest US-Iran ceasefire somehow transitions to a more permanent agreement to end hostilities on Iran’s terms, it would be seen as a historic defeat for the US, on par with Vietnam. And a break with the total war that killed tens of millions in the 1940s.
As of now, the US is blockading Iran’s ports and seized an Iranian ship, while moving thousands of troops into the region. At home, Trump is on a war footing, putting the auto sector on notice to convert to weapons production, while asking Congress for a $1.5 trillion “defence” budget, the largest ever. This does not look like imminent peace, but with Trump, who knows?
When will it end?
And what about Gaza? The genocide is far from over. For the Palestinians, this question is existential.
History offers some clues. No modern genocide has lasted more than four years. Rwanda’s lasted 100 days – the fastest, most brutal, in history. Cambodia’s lasted over three years until Vietnam invaded and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. The Armenian genocide lasted just over one year. Stalin’s special operation against the Poles, Ukrainians and other national minorities lasted 16 months. The German siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days. The Holocaust, the worst of all, lasted four years.
So far the Palestinians have endured 926 days of extermination and siege. According to a 2025 household survey and joint mortality study, the Gaza death toll had reached 84,000 by January 2025 and is likely now well over 100,000, on top of 6,500 killed by Israel in Lebanon, and thousands more in Iran.
The biggest defeat of all is not in Lebanon, or Iran, but in Washington. US voters have had enough of wars and Israel
Crucially, in most cases, genocide precedes the collapse or military defeat of the perpetrator.
Israel has always relied on unconditional US support, which culminated in Washington arming a genocide, then backing not one, but two unprovoked assaults on Iran, and a prolonged war against Hezbollah. All of them failed, at appalling human cost. And now that US weapons pipeline is in jeopardy.
The vote last week in the US Senate on supplying arms to Israel was historic. Even though it passed, 40 out of 47 Democratic senators voted for Bernie Sander’s resolution blocking a batch of military aid. By contrast, last April, only 15 of the Democratic caucus’s 47 members supported similar measures. This signals a dramatic shift against Israel in Washington.
Democrats who want to be re-elected in November know they must now distance themselves, not just rhetorically, but also financially and politically, from Israel and its powerful US lobby. Aipac is still spending hundreds of millions to get its candidates elected, but the taint of lobby money is increasingly electoral poison.
Netanyahu had his golden time with Trump’s first term, then Joe Biden, and Trump two. That time is coming to an end. Most likely, he will look for a way to prolong Israel’s campaign for regional supremacy and remain in office as long as possible, but he is running out of road.
He now faces his biggest defeat of all; not in Lebanon, or Iran, but in Washington. US voters have had enough of forever wars and Israel.
In Israel, as Finkelstein warns, it is not just Netanyahu, but the whole of Israeli society that “has turned into homicidal maniacs” supporting war on Iran, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and Lebanon, and genocide in Gaza.
The final lesson of World War Two was that fascism was defeated after its leaders’ disastrous military overreach and defeat at the hands of the Soviet Red Army and partisan resistance. Today’s fascist war leaders have learned nothing from this history.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Joe Gill has worked as a journalist in London, Venezuela and Oman, for newspapers including Financial Times, Morning Star and Middle East Eye. His focus is on geopolitics, economic history, social movements, and the arts.
The US-Israeli war on Iran has given Gulf monarchies fresh cover to deepen repression, criminalize dissent, and tighten their grip over every version of reality that falls outside the state line.
Since 28 February, the US and Israel have been waging war on Iran, with consequences that reach far beyond the battlefield. Across the Persian Gulf, governments have seized on the conflict to expand repression at home.
Under the pretext of combating “disinformation” and “rumors” on social media, Gulf states have launched sweeping arrest campaigns against hundreds of citizens and residents, making clear that any expression outside the official narrative can now be treated as a “security threat” or even the “voice of the enemy.”
Calls not to photograph or publish footage did not arrive as casual advice. Interior ministries across the Gulf issued them as official warnings. At first glance, the arguments appeared plausible: avoid panic, protect national security, deny useful information to the enemy. Within days, however, these directives became the basis for a much broader campaign of repression, one that moved quickly from warnings to prosecutions.
The Gulf states have imposed a near-total blackout on the flow of information, claiming that independent content could spread fear, aid the enemy militarily, or amount to treason. In practice, the war on Iran has become a ready-made excuse to criminalize speech.
Bahrain: From emergency measures to mass arrests
Manama justified its tightening security measures through a series of official statements. The Interior Ministry’s Civil Defense Council announced a ban on gatherings “in order to maintain compliance with public safety responsibilities in light of the blatant Iranian aggression against Bahrain.” What appeared to be a response to regional escalation quickly turned into cover for a far broader crackdown.
Authorities arrested more than 260 citizens on charges including “misuse of platforms” and “sympathy for Iranian aggression.” According to human rights sources, three of those detained were women. Authorities also published photographs of detainees in an effort to shame them publicly.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the arrests went far beyond any legal framework. On 4 March, dozens of men stormed the home of Munir Mirza Ahmed Mushaima. Some wore black uniforms and white helmets, while others were in civilian clothing. They arrested him without presenting a warrant, accusing him of running a social media account that contained “illegal content.”
The crackdown has not been limited to Bahraini citizens. Residents of various nationalities have also been arrested for filming, posting, or reposting videos related to attacks on the country. Bahrain’s Public Prosecution has even asked courts to impose the death penalty on people accused of “spying with the enemy.”
The campaign has also turned deadly. Mohammad Mohsen Mousavi, who was arrested in mid-March, reportedly showed signs of torture on his body during funeral preparations. The Interior Ministry responded by defending his detention and accusing him of links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The UAE and Saudi Arabia move to monopolize the narrative
Abu Dhabi has followed Bahrain’s path closely. Since the outbreak of the war on Iran, restrictions on the movements of citizens and residents, as well as on what they can post online, have sharply increased.
The Public Prosecution warned X users against circulating images or videos from attack sites. These measures followed months of tighter digital censorship linked to tensions with Saudi Arabia over Yemen.
Authorities in Abu Dhabi alone have reportedly arrested more than 100 people, including foreigners, on charges of filming, publishing videos, or spreading “inaccurate information.” The State Security Agency also announced that it had dismantled a network allegedly “funded and managed” by Hezbollah and Iran. Officials claimed the network was planning to destabilize the country’s financial system.
Content creators have also come under pressure. Authorities now require prior approval before influencers or public figures can post, even when discussing routine issues such as hotel overcrowding or the effects of the war on daily life.
According to UAE sources, prosecutors circulated lists of accounts accused of publishing “illegal content offensive to the state and its leadership.” Dozens of accounts were blocked on X, including “Elon Trades,” after it posted a video showing a fire at Dubai’s Fairmont Hotel that drew more than one million views.
Outside of the UAE, several prominent accounts reported receiving notices from X informing them that their profiles had been blocked inside the Gulf state following requests linked to Emirati authorities.
Among them were Yemeni lawyer Mohammad al-Maswari who insisted that his posts were “based on rejecting the division of Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya, and any support for terrorist militias”; Egyptian presenter Osama Gaweesh; Al Jazeera‘s Yemeni affairs editor Ahmed al-Shalafi, who received a message from the UAE Public Prosecution, “with charges of insulting state institutions, inciting hatred and sedition, and other charges”; and Doha-based academic Marc Owen Jones, whose work focuses on digital repression and authoritarianism in the Gulf. Their cases suggest that the crackdown is no longer limited to those inside the country, but is increasingly targeting critics abroad as well.
Saudi Arabia has taken a similar route. In early March, state agencies launched a media campaign under the hashtag “#التصوير_يخدم_العدو” – “filming serves the enemy” – to frame any attempt to document strikes as a threat to national security.
Riyadh crafted a campaign designed to portray cameras and mobile phones as weapons in enemy hands. The government also circulated memos banning what it called “infringing content,” “anonymous videos,” and “rumors,” while urging the public to rely exclusively on official sources.
The result was a tightly controlled media environment in which the state monopolized the narrative and criminalized any attempt to challenge it.
Saudi authorities have not publicly announced arrests linked to the war, but Saudi sources tell The Cradle that several citizens and residents have been detained. Those arrested reportedly include Sheikh Hassan Al-Mutawa, the preacher of Al-Khader Mosque in Al-Rabiiya on Tarut Island in Qatif governorate.
Kuwait and Qatar widen the dragnet
As the war escalated, Kuwait issued Law No. 47 on “Counter-Terrorism” on 15 March 2026. The text of the law includes broad and vague language that can easily be used to restrict freedoms.
Article 1 defines a “terrorist act” as any act aimed at spreading fear among the population or endangering public safety. Such wording leaves the law open to broad interpretation and allows authorities to treat almost any form of dissent as a security offense.
Kuwaiti authorities later announced the arrest of dozens of alleged Hezbollah members, including Kuwaiti and Lebanese nationals, accusing them of plotting attacks and threatening the country’s sovereignty. At the same time, the Interior Ministry warned against publishing any photos or information related to strikes, claiming they could destabilize public opinion.
Authorities also detained several Kuwaitis and foreigners, including content creator Badr al-Husseinan. He was charged with broadcasting false news, harming national interests, and misusing a phone after posting a satirical video about the hardship people faced during the war.
On 14 April, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called for the release of US-Kuwaiti journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who had been detained for more than six weeks over social media posts linked to the war.
Authorities accused him of spreading false information, harming national security, and misusing a mobile phone after he shared footage of a US fighter jet crash near a military base in Kuwait. CPJ said the material was already public and verified, describing his detention as part of a wider campaign to silence scrutiny and tighten control over the narrative.
Qatar has adopted many of the same measures. Since the beginning of the war, the Interior Ministry has banned the publication of photos and videos related to attacks inside the country, describing them as threats to national security.
The Department of Combating Cyber Economic Crimes announced the arrest of more than 300 people of different nationalities over the circulation of what it described as “misleading” videos and information.
One of those detained was Egyptian teacher Mohamed Tawhid, who lived in Doha. Tawhid commented on the breaking news broadcast by Al Jazeera in March about a drone attack on Al-Udeid Air Base. Quoting the Qatari Defense Ministry, the report said the attack had been intercepted.
Tawhid replied: “You are idiots who protect those who do not protect you.” He deleted the comment soon after posting it, but was arrested shortly afterward.
Screenshot of Egyptian teacher Mohamed Tawhid’s now-deleted X post, which was one of the main reasons behind his arrest by Qatari authorities.
Rumors also circulated that Jordanian researcher Fatima al-Samadi had been arrested. A source later denied the reports, but confirmed that she had come under pressure and temporarily deactivated her accounts before returning online.
Israeli spyware and the Gulf security state
At the time of writing, there is still no conclusive evidence linking spyware such as Pegasus, developed by Israel’s NSO Group, or Graphite, developed by Paragon Solutions, to the latest arrest campaigns across the Gulf.
Still, the possibility cannot be dismissed. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain have all previously been linked to Pegasus use against dissidents under the banner of “national security.”
In February, a Paragon Solutions employee briefly posted an image on LinkedIn that appeared to show details from the Graphite spyware interface. Before it was deleted, the image reportedly revealed operating logs, encrypted messaging data, and other technical details.
The Paragon employee’s now-deleted LinkedIn image that showed the Graphite control panel on the screen in the background.
There is no documented use of Graphite in the Gulf so far. Yet the history of Gulf states purchasing Israeli spyware and using it against dissidents means the possibility remains very real. Graphite can reportedly exploit security vulnerabilities without requiring the target to click a malicious link or interact with the device in any way. The absence of official confirmation does not mean such tools are not being used.
The Gulf states have shifted from claiming to defend national security to building systems of permanent repression. They have exploited the war on Iran to expand prosecutions under labels such as “combating disinformation,” “preventing rumors,” “treason,” and “sympathy with the enemy.”
What is taking shape is not a temporary wartime response, but a deeper transformation in the meaning of security itself. Across the Gulf, governments are imposing the official narrative by force and treating any alternative version of events as a punishable offense.
The repression machine continues in war as in peace.
Has the war on Iran given Gulf governments a new pretext to suppress dissent?Yes, the war is being used to justify a major expansion of repressionGulf states are reacting to real security threats, not targeting dissentThe crackdown began long before the war, but the conflict accelerated itRepression varies from one Gulf state to another
The carefully planned destruction of Iran’s healthcare infrastructure fits into a long history of deliberate U.S. attacks on hospitals, writes Alan Macleod.
The aftermath of the attack by the United States and Israel on Tehran’s Gandhi Hotel Hospital. (Hossein Zohrevand / Tasnim News Agency / CC BY 4.0)
The United States and Israel are systematically targeting hospitals in Iran. In one month of bombing, the two countries have hit at least 307 health centers across the country, according to reports from the Iranian Red Crescent.
The carefully planned destruction of the Islamic Republic’s medical infrastructure fits into a long history of deliberate U.S. attacks on hospitals. Since the end of World War Two, Washington has targeted medical centers in at least 16 countries, and the 307 Iranian sites hit does not even come close to the record for the number of hospitals in any country destroyed by American bombs and missiles.
There was no warning. U.S. and Israeli airstrikes hit Gandhi Hotel Hospital in northern Tehran on March 1, and again on March 2.
Locals were fasting for Ramadan as missiles tore into the building, shattering glass and wrecking its neo-natal unit and ICU. Completed in 2009 and described as “beacon” of Iranian medicine and one of the most advanced medical centers in West Asia, the 17-storey building was among the country’s most important hospitals.
Gandhi Hospital in Tehran on March 2, after U.S.-Israeli strikes. (Tasnim News Agency / Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
Images of the aftermath show a once proud building in ruins, with floor after floor devastated. Gandhi Hotel Hospital is one of more than 300 medical centers that have been hit by U.S. and Israeli strikes. Nine days afterward, on March 11, the Persian Gulf Martyrs Educational and Medical Center in Bushehr on Iran’s southern coast was targeted and severely damaged.
Missile explosions destroyed much of the hospital’s medical equipment. Even as the glass was still falling, authorities made the decision to rush patients to the nearby Nuclear Scientists Martyrs Hospital, despite the fear of a double-tap strike, like the ones often seen in Israeli attacks on Palestine.
On March 21, the Imam Ali Hospital in Andimeshk, Khuzestan Province, was targeted. Video footage from the aftermath of the attack shows wards, waiting rooms, and corridors completely devastated, with both walls and roofs collapsing under the strain of U.S./Israeli bombardment.
The Imam Ali is Andimeshk’s only hospital, and patients were forced to be bussed to healthcare facilities in other cities, according to Hossein Kermanpour, head of public relations for the Iranian Ministry of Health. “I wish [Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu] understood that this is a crime against humanity,” he said.
Other medical infrastructure, including a first responders’ center, an Iranian Red Crescent office, and the Pasteur Institute, a medical research laboratory, have also been hit. “What message does attacking hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and the Pasteur Institute as a medical research center in Iran convey?” asked Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian;
“As a specialist physician, I urge WHO, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and physicians worldwide to respond to this crime against humanity.”
The attacks have been largely ignored by Western media. Few newspapers or TV news reports have even mentioned the damage to the country’s healthcare system, let alone centered it as a major news story.
Long US History of Bombing Hospitals
President Trump has a history of targeting medical facilities. Last year, U.S. forces carried out 14 separate airstrikes on the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Saada, Yemen, the centerpiece of the country’s healthcare network.
For a full investigation into the attack, and the U.S.’ long history of targeting civilian medical infrastructure around the world, see the MintPress News report: “With Yemen Attack, U.S. Continues Long History of Deliberately Bombing Hospitals.”
Repeated attacks against hospitals is more of a pattern than an aberration for Trump. In 2017, the U.S. carried out 20 strikes against a hospital in Raqqa, Syria, using white phosphorous munitions to do so, killing at least 30 civilians in the process.
Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, was not less fond of targeting healthcare facilities. In 2015, his administration ordered a bombing campaign against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.
The building was one of the largest and most recognizable in the city, and an internal inquiry found that the airmen aboard the gunship pushed back against the order, citing its illegality. They were overruled and forced to carry out the strike, killing at least 42 people.
Obama speaking on the military intervention in Libya at the National Defense University, March 28, 2011. (National Defense University, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Obama’s attack on Doctors Without Borders marked the only time in history that one Nobel Peace Prize winner has attacked another one. During his time in office, Obama bombed seven countries, including Libya, where U.S. planes struck a hospital in Zliten, leveling it completely. At least 11 people were killed in the operation.
Perhaps no nation on Earth has felt the impact of American power in the 21st century as badly as Iraq. Successive administrations attacked critical infrastructure there, including in 2003, when President Bush bombed the Red Crescent Maternity Hospital in Baghdad.
While many were killed in the strike, the real death toll, as UNICEF noted, was far higher, as with no medical care, maternal mortality spiked after the attack.
The 1990s is often remembered in the West as a time of peace. Yet President Clinton used the period to target medical infrastructure in three separate countries. In Yugoslavia, U.S. planes bombed a number of hospitals, including dropping now-banned cluster munitions on a facility in Niš, killing at least 15 people.
In Somalia in 1993, U.S. soldiers carried out a mortar attack against the Digfer Hospital in Mogadishu, destroying the building’s main reception area. They then proceeded to bomb the journalists attempting to cover the incident. Meanwhile, in Sudan, Clinton ordered a hit on the Al-Shifa medicine factory in Sudan.
Fourteen cruise missiles pounded the plant, turning what had been the largest producer of medicine in the country into a pile of twisted metal. The German Ambassador to Sudan estimated that, without the antibiotics, antimalarials, and other drugs it produced, the true death toll of the strike was in the “tens of thousands.” Few Americans know about this incident.
The 1980s were a dangerous time to be a doctor in a country designated for regime change.
The U.S. invaded Grenada in 1983, in order to put an end to the socialist revolution on the Caribbean island. In the process, it bombed the Richmond Hill Mental Hospital, killing dozens.
In El Salvador, U.S.-backed death squads flying in American aircraft stormed a hospital in San Ildefonso, killing five people. Paratroopers also kidnapped, raped, and tortured the staff, including French nurse Madeleine Lagadec, causing a major diplomatic incident.
Between 1981 and 1984, at least 63 health centers in Nicaragua were forced to close, due to attacks from U.S.-backed and trained “Contra” death squads, whom President Reagan labeled “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.”
The most well-documented case of U.S. attacks on Vietnamese medical infrastructure occurred in December 1972, when American planes dropped over 100 bombs on the giant Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, killing at least 28 staff and an unconfirmed number of patients.
During a Congressional hearing on clandestine activities in Laos and Cambodia, lawmakers were told that bombing of hospitals in those countries was “routine.”
To this day, Laos remains the most bombed country in history. North Korea, however, suffered the brunt of American attacks. In the course of the Korean War, the U.S. military destroyed an estimated 1,000 hospitals through bombing, as entire cities were leveled.
Professor Bruce Cummings, America’s foremost expert on Korea, estimates that the U.S. killed around 25 percent of the entire North Korean population between 1950 and 1953.
Israeli Crimes & American Dreams
Special surgery building at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, after being bombed by Israel on March 21, 2024. (Jaber Jehad Badwan/ Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
Israel, of course, is no stranger to bombing hospitals, either. Virtually every health center in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. Israeli Defense Forces snipers have targeted healthcare workers inside hospitals, and have kidnapped, and tortured doctors.
A particularly noteworthy example is that of Adnan Al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Hospital. In December 2023, al-Bursh was arrested and detained for months, and was likely raped to death by IDF troops.
Israel is now systematically targeting Lebanon’s health system, as it did with Palestine, shelling hospitals deep inside the country. As a result, at least 57 Lebanese healthcare workers have died. The U.S. attacks on Iranian infrastructure are part of a wider regime change operation aimed at overthrowing the Islamic Republic and installing a U.S.-compliant administration.
In recent times, Washington has assassinated the country’s supreme leader, carried out protracted economic warfare that has seriously harmed Iran, and fomented protests aimed at destabilizing and dislodging the government.
Trump also confirmed that his administration smuggled arms to Kurdish groups and to protestors leading the recent anti-government demonstrations — a key factor in the violence that erupted. Thus, while systematic U.S./Israeli attacks on Iranian hospitals are shocking acts, they fit into a clear pattern stretching back over 80 years.
As cataloged here, the United States has bombed healthcare infrastructure in at least 16 countries since the end of World War Two. Hitting hospitals may be a war crime, but it is as American as apple pie.
The US is sending thousands of additional troops to the Middle East and is considering restarting the bombing campaign against Iran or launching ground operations in the country, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed US officials.
The report said that the forces include 6,000 troops aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush and its accompanying warships. Notably, the Bush traveled around southern Africa on its way to the region instead of going through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, the typical route of US warships, signaling the US is concerned the Houthis in Yemen could close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
About 4,200 other US troops, including thousands of Marines, are heading to the region from the Pacific aboard the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group. The Post said they are expected to reach the Middle East by the end of April. Once both forces arrive, the US will have more than 60,000 troops in the region.
Marines aboard the USS Portland, part of the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, conducting weapons functions check during a drill in the Pacific Ocean on April 9, 2026 (US Marines Corps photo)
The buildup and the US blockade of Iranian ports are framed as an effort to get Iran to agree to US demands for a diplomatic deal. But according to President Trump, the US is continuing to demand that Iran make a commitment to never again enrich uranium for civilian purposes, a condition that’s seen as a non-starter and will likely lead to a renewal of the bombing campaign if the US sticks to it.
The current ceasefire between the US and Iran will expire on April 22 if it’s not extended. Other reports have said that President Trump has considered launching “limited” strikes in Iran to get Tehran to capitulate, but any renewed bombing campaign would mean a return to full-blown war.
Concerning possible ground operations, the Post report said that Trump administration officials have “discussed everything from launching a complex Special Operations mission to extract Iranian nuclear material, to landing Marines on coastal areas and islands to protect the strait, to seizing Kharg Island, an Iranian export facility in the Persian Gulf.”
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Peace and Justice Post 
You must be logged in to post a comment.