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The West’s War Against Iran

Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, June 20th, 2025 - 51 comments
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Gordon Campbell Werewolf: “a home for longform journalism on politic, art, and culture.”

Attack on Iran image

Clearly, the world needs to stop talking about Israel’s right to defend itself, and start talking about the world’s need to defend itself against Israel. Gaza, Lebanon, Iran….these have become the stepping stones in Israel’s plan to expand its rule, unrivalled, over all the land between the river and the sea.

Iran was on the cusp of making a nuclear weapon? Even the crackpot American Congresswoman politician Marjorie Taylor Greene has been un-impressed by that excuse, noting that Israel “has been saying the same thing for the past 20 years”. Donald Trump’s intelligence boss Tulsi Gabbard recently testified under oath to a Congressional hearing that Iran was not engaged in building a nuclear weapon:

Trump’s intelligence czar Tulsi Gabbard, another anti-war figure, testified in March that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.“The IC [Intelligence Community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003,” Gabbard said, while noting, however, that Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels, unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.

Iran is surrounded by enemies. Like North Korea, it may well regard having a nuclear weapon capability as its best self-defence against invasion. Yet even if one treated the nuclear enrichment- to-nuclear bomb progression as inevitable – which it wasn’t – can Israel actually succeed in destroying Iran’s well-protected nuclear facilities? Probably not. Not unless there is regime change in Teheran, which has long been the end purpose of Israel’s aggression.

Israel is unlikely to succeed in this aim, either. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in recent days, called once again on the “proud people of Iran” to stand up for their “freedom from an evil and repressive regime.” As this Al Jazeera columnist has pointed out:

The assumption that Iranians would simply do Israel’s bidding as it bombs them relentlessly and unilaterally, seems akin to the notion that if Israel starves and exterminates the Palestinians in Gaza to the required extent, they would rise against Hamas and remove it from power.

Even if one bought the notion that all the Iranian people have been waiting for is an Israeli strike to move against the regime, Al Jazeera says, such beliefs demonstrate a profound lack of understanding of the wider historical forces that shape Iranian politics:

While many Iranians undoubtedly oppose the Islamic Republic, Iranians of all political persuasions are consistently “patriotic”, committed to supporting Iranian sovereignty and independence from any attempts by external elements to impose their agendas on their country.

For that reason, any invading force should be careful about what would come in the wake of their initial “victory.” Israel, the US and any puppets they install in power would face being mired for a generation in a war of resistance that would dwarf what happened in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003.

Shades of 2003

Talking of 2003…Israel’s decision to attack Iran (even while talks between the US and Iran on limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions were still happening in Oman) shares that equally cynical historical precedent.

Back in March 2003, the US had used the “weapons of mass destruction” excuse to justify its invasion of Iraq, an attack it launched even while the UN arms inspectors were still at work inside Iraq, looking for those mythical WMDs.

Then as now, we are not talking about a pre-emptive war against an external existential threat. This is a war of aggression against a sovereign nation, and it is being waged by an expansionist Israel, with US approval and support.

Israel would not have proceeded without getting a green light from the US, which began issuing travel advisories and moving its diplomats out of the region in the week before the attacks began.

Beyond the US, Israel can always count on other Western nations to do next to nothing to halt its aggression, or to punish it in any significant way. All year, the West has been bending over backwards to avoid looking as though it is criticising Israel for its genocidal use of starvation as a weapon of war against the two million Palestinian civilian inhabitants of Gaza.

For example: when the leaders of Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand announced sanctions against two extremist members of the Israeli Cabinet, the co-signing leaders made a truly pathetic distinction:

These measures are directed at individuals who directly contribute to extremist settler violence,” said Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand. “The measures are not directed against the state of Israel itself.”

Right. So, what on earth would Israel have to do – and what would a collectively responsible Israeli Cabinet have to sign off on – before New Zealand could gather up the courage to impose sanctions on the state of Israel?

To state the obvious…long ago, Israel went well past the point of proportionate retaliation for the Hamas terrorist actions of October 7,2023. Israel’s subsequent actions in Gaza continue to be unfathomably cruel and evil.

What mother or father, watching their sons and daughters being systematically starved to death before their eyes, would not risk crowding and jostling for the inadequate amounts of dried food (much of it useless without fuel or water) that is being dribbled out through a handful of privately-run US aid centres – and not through the far more extensive and competent UN aid facilities?

Desperate Palestinians are being drawn by the hunger of their families into congregating outside these sham US aid centres, where scores of them are then being shot down by Israeli troops on a daily basis.

Food is being used as a lethal magnet to facilitate further mass killings, while New Zealand – and the rest of the Western world- continue to urge both sides to show restraint. Ludicrously, we continue to call on Israel to abide by the norms of international law that the IDF has consistently flouted in Gaza for the past 18 months.

Nearly 20,000 dead Palestinian children later, and with the surviving children being slowly and deliberately deprived of food and water, we are still imploring Israel to show restraint.

Iran’s bomb

Reportedly, Israel’s latest attacks targeted and killed Ali Shamkani, Iran’s chief negotiator in the US-led nuclear containment talks in Oman. Israel has also killed at least six of Iran’s leading nuclear scientists, including Fereidoun Abbas, the former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Association. (Back in 2010, Abbas had been seriously wounded when a motorcyclist detonated a magnetic bomb under his car.)

Since 2010, Israel has been steadily murdering a succession of Iran nuclear scientists, who had been working on the country’s development of nuclear energy in order to meet the country’s long-term and entirely legitimate energy needs.

Because of the potential that further nuclear enrichment might someday result in the development of a bomb, the Obama administration struck a deal in 2015 with the then-relatively liberal administration of Hassan Rouhani in Teheran.

Under the terms of that 2015 deal, Iran agreed to desist from added enrichment, in return for economic sanctions being lifted, and for Iran being enabled to trade with the West. In the wake of this opening, a more democratic society might have been able to emerge in Iran. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors at the time, Iran lived up to its side of the bargain.

America, however, did not. Once elected in 2016, Donald Trump immediately scrapped this deal, and imposed even heavier trade sanctions. By doing so, Trump fatally undermined Iran’s political liberals, and confirmed the predictions made by the regime’s hard-liners that the US could never be trusted.

By scrapping the 2015 deal, Trump also forced Iran into an enduring dependence on China as the only major market for its oil. This entirely avoidable outcome gave China a reliable proxy state in the Middle East, and a platform for influence that it had never had before.

Fast forward to this year. Nearly 10 years after Iran had restricted its nuclear ambitions in return for trade advantages that it never received, Trump was back again at the bargaining table in Oman – offering Iran what one critic called “a dime-store version” of the same deal that Trump had torn up in 2016.

Regardless, Iran continued to talk, while preparing for the Israeli attack that everyone knew was coming, whatever concessions Iran offered. Few will shed tears over the likely fall of the stupidly brutal and corrupt regime in Teheran, which lost its revolutionary lustre decades ago.

For example: even on the cusp of the Israeli attack, the religious authorities in Teheran were engaged in a crackdown on ordinary citizens walking dogs in public, or riding with them in cars. Allegedly, a prayer said when one has a dog hair on one’s clothing will not be effective. ( I’d love to know how this was tested.)

To repeat: Iran will not be an easy conquest. The country has had long experience of being subjected to external aggression and to the rule of foreign-backed puppets. For example, a US/UK funded coup in 1953 toppled the democratically elected Mossadegh government, and brought the Shah to power.

As mentioned above, if Iran’s current government is overthrown by external forces it will be extremely difficult to govern, given the underground resistance that will surely flourish in the wake of any foreign-led regime change.

Ironically…who might the US and Israel like to install as the ruler of a newly “democratic” Iran? That amenable puppet could well be the 65 year old Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the Shah deposed in 1979. The more things are changed in Iran, the more they are likely to stay the same.

Footnote: Meanwhile, back in Gaza: to discredit and divide support for Hamas, the Israelis have reportedly armed and assisted a criminal Palestinian militia led by a Rafah resident called Yasser Abu Shabab. Reportedly, this gangster chief and his roughly 100 armed followers have – apparently with Israel’s blessing – been looting aid convoys. and re-selling the food at a profit.

Footnote Two: The media coverage of the Iran/Israel conflict to date has, as usual, been heavily weighted in favour of reportage from the Israeli side of the conflict.

Extensive sympathetic coverage is being extended to Israeli citizens – and to embedded Western media – sheltering under Israel’s extensive Iron Dome missile defence system. As well, Israelis are reportedly getting phone warnings of incoming Iranian missiles in time to move into bomb shelters that are – also, reportedly- well stocked with food and water.

The citizens of Iran have no such luck – which may explain why their death toll is currently running at nearly 20 times higher – and they are certainly not getting such sympathetic treatment from our media. Al Jazeera, again:

The Iranian Health Ministry said early Monday that at least 224 people have been killed, 90 percent of them civilians, and 1,481 wounded since Israel attacked Iran. Dozens of women and children were among the dead.

So it goes. In the Middle East, they seem to be chronically unwilling/unable to give more than fleeting air time at best, to non-Israeli/US voices. Even the liberal voices on Israel’s Ha’aretz news service are rarely called upon.

True, foreign media have been barred by the IDF from entering Gaza. Yet, as this columnist in the Independent newspaper recentlypointed out, it probably wouldn’t have made much difference to the coverage, anyway:

The truth is the coverage would have looked much as it has done for more than a year and a half, with Israel dictating the story lines, with Israel’s denials foregrounded, with Israel’s claims of Hamas “terrorists” in every hospital, school, bakery, university, and refugee camp used to justify the destruction and slaughter.

British doctors volunteering in Gaza who have told us there were no Hamas fighters in the hospitals they worked in, or anyone armed apart from the Israeli soldiers that shot up their medical facilities, would not be more believed because Jeremy Bowen interviewed them in Khan Younis rather than Richard Madeley in a London studio.

Same as it ever was. That’s the problem with the eternally lopsided US/Israeli news coverage that we get of conflicts in the Middle East that involve Israel.

51 comments on “The West’s War Against Iran ”

  1. Bearded Git 1
    20 June 2025 at 12:32 pm

    Great post Werewolf.

    Very similar sentiments in an equally impressive article are found here in a Guardian editorial:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/19/the-guardian-view-on-trump-and-iran-netanyahus-war-has-no-visible-exit

    Reply
  2. Dennis Frank 2
    20 June 2025 at 12:46 pm

    His framing is a dead give-away: the West is not at war with Iran. Israel is in the middle-east. Can't even get the basics right!

    This from folks closer to the action suggests that the best thing for Iran to do is crawl into a hole: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/19/escalate-deescalate-what-options-iran-end-israel-war

    Xi and Putin have warned T about intervening: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/19/putin-xi-criticise-israels-attacks-on-iran-urge-de-escalation

    Moscow and Tehran signed a long-delayed strategic cooperation agreement in January, reinforcing ties between the allies who share an anti-US stance.

    Although Russia has not yet provided Iran with weaponry, it has assisted with its contentious nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is for peaceful civilian purposes. Speaking on the sidelines of the International Economic Forum on Thursday, Putin said that more than 200 Russians were continuing to work at Iran’s Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant, and that an agreement had been reached with Israel over their safety.

    Reply
  3. Psycho Milt 3
    20 June 2025 at 1:43 pm

    Depressing to see someone I once used to respect relying on sources like Tulsi Gabbard and Muslim Brotherhood propaganda outlets to make a case in support of one of the worst regimes since the Nazis.

    Also depressing to see him peddle the postmodernist left approach of "Never mind the facts, authority figure so-and-so says…" In this case, the level of nuclear enrichment carried out is known, Gordon. It doesn't matter what Tulsi Gabbard says, or what people said about weapons of mass destruction in 2003, the level of enrichment speaks for itself. It may have become popular to believe that rhetoric counts for more than reality, but it remains untrue no matter how many people believe it.

    Reply
      • Psycho Milt 3.1.1
        20 June 2025 at 4:01 pm

        Don't expect me to sit through Qatari propaganda videos. If you're able to present some kind of argument, do it. Mine is "the level of enrichment speaks for itself."

        Reply
      • Muttonbird 3.1.2
        20 June 2025 at 9:00 pm

        Interesting that the IAEA has been accused of colluding with the Zionists in the development of the report, and that information used in the targeting of Iranian scientists came from the IAEA.

        It makes sense because this report is what Israel and its lap-dogs are hanging their kippah's on.

        Reply
    • Incognito 3.2
      20 June 2025 at 2:25 pm

      You seem to be rather frivolous and fickle with giving and taking respect for someone else. Very post-modern of you.

      Reply
    • SPC 3.3
      20 June 2025 at 3:29 pm

      I'll help with nuance.

      (article correction – Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018)

      1.By 2003 the Iranians had let it be known that they were looking at developing nuclear weapons.

      Context

      Iraq – Iran war (Israeli aid to Iran, Israeli attacks on Iraqi nuclear centres)

      Iraq invasion of Kuwait, UN intervention, cease-fire and arms inspections and sanctions on Iraq.

      Iran's intent was leverage to ensure serious intent as per the arms inspections.

      US regime change in Iraq.

      2003 – Iran let it be known they were ending any effort at nuclear weapons.

      2.Since then Iran has continued with moves to nuclear power development (pre-requisite in getting a nuclear weapons, even if there is no intent to do so).

      They also developed their missile technology (now far superior to the once feared Iraqi scuds). And began to supply missiles to their proxy Hezbollah, rather than Syria or Lebanon. Thus a way to attack Israel without a consequence of war for Lebanon or Syria.

      3.Aware of the Israel attacks on Iraqi sites, Iran has built centrifuges underground and inside a mountain. Why? Iran has a deliberate policy of being able to enrich uranium to weapons grade.*^

      4.It now has enough enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.**

      5.It has deliberately kept any work to develop weapons secret.^^

      This is of a design to allow Russia to supply 5 reactors and nobly say it will take any weapons grade uranium off Iran – so people see this as nuclear power only. But^ remains – and ^^ might as well.

      There are knowns and there are unknowns (experts do not speak to unknowns, only what is known).

      What can be surmised, Iran wants the capability to go to weapons after getting nuclear power. The question is when. And how quickly they want to be able to do this, so no one can stop them.

      6.The regime in Iran needs to seen as dangerous so they can pose as the revolutionary power capable of removing Israel and the West from ME (their so called purpose for being in governance in Teheran).

      In that it is like the Iraqi regime in Baghdad c2000-2003.that those in the south and east wanted gone.

      We can all see the PNAC in Likud.

      Ideally the matter is resolved without PNAC like action in Gaza (worse), West Bank (worse) and Iran (just got started).

      Now the best option is to not make matters worse.

      This is like missiles in Turkey and Cuba, US and Russian ones in Europe.

      It requires balanced diplomacy.

      One option.

      A.Hamas (and all Hamas prisoners exchanged for hostages) and IDF are gone from Gaza (aid flows in – Arab League peacekeepers prepare the way for a rebuild partnering with a local civilian administration and WB parliament elections and a directly elected PM, with the PLO head representative of the Palestinian state to the UN).

      B.The 5 nuclear reactors are allowed into Iran, all weapons grade enriched uranium is removed. Iranian capacity to enrich uranium is limited to non military use level. All Iran's centrifuges have to be in above ground sites.

      Reply
      • Psycho Milt 3.3.1
        20 June 2025 at 4:26 pm

        If I've learned anything at all the last two years, it's that Israelis seriously can't afford to be as ignorant or flippant about threats posed to them as well-meaning liberals like Campbell are.

        The EU can easily afford to send some naive stuffed shirts to Iran, diplomatically negotiate a deal in which the Islamic Republic promises not to pursue nuclear weapons creation in exchange for lifting of sanctions, and then congratulate themselves on all the new post-sanctions money coming in while the Islamic Republic continues its enrichment programme in secret. Israel cannot afford that level of naivety, and doesn't try to. Campbell's never likely to face the risk of nuclear attack, but Israelis know that Iran can hit them with missiles and that their country's so small it would only take a couple of nukes over Tel Aviv and Haifa to effectively end the place. The unseriousness of liberal left writings about Israel is inexplicable.

        Reply
        • Res Publica 3.3.1.1
          20 June 2025 at 4:44 pm

          One of the dumbest undercurrents in this entire discourse is the assumption that Israel, Ukraine, or any other small-but-strategically-important state is just a puppet of the U.S., corporations, or whatever shadowy force someone believes is calling the shots in their grandiose moral narrative.

          These countries have their own agendas — sometimes more aggressive, sometimes more pragmatic, but unquestionably their own. Pretending they’re passive satellites flattens the real complexity of global politics into a cartoonish, America-centric morality tale. Once again, it replaces understanding with projection.

          The same goes for this overused, underthought idea that “the West” is somehow at war with Iran. It isn’t. Israel is.

          And even then, it’s not a conventional war — it’s tit-for-tat airstrikes, cyberattacks, assassinations, and missile barrages between two regional powers locked in a long-running shadow conflict.

          Yet every time tensions escalate, some corner of the internet springs into life to tell us that “the West”, that shapeless boogeyman, is orchestrating everything.

          On one hand, we're told the West is too liberal, too decadent, too weak to project real power. On the other, it's cast as a hyper-coordinated imperial machine capable of regime change at the push of a button.

          Pick a lane.

          The truth? We can’t even agree on the shape of electrical plugs.

          Reply
          • Incognito 3.3.1.1.1
            20 June 2025 at 5:54 pm

            Pick a lane.

            But isn’t that what people do and what you’re criticising them for?

            Reply
          • Muttonbird 3.3.1.1.2
            20 June 2025 at 6:18 pm

            These countries have their own agendas.

            Indeed. Israel's is colonial settler expansion into areas they believe they occupied several millennia past.

            That agenda must be extinguished.

            Reply
            • Res Publica 3.3.1.1.2.1
              21 June 2025 at 9:26 am

              That agenda must be extinguished.

              And how exactly would you go about that, Muttonbird Ahmadinejad? |

              You say it’s just the ‘agenda’ you want to extinguish, not the people. But it’s a bit like what Kipling said about the danegeld: once you start down that road, you don’t get to stop.

              You might tell yourself it’s just the idea you're fighting, but sooner or later it’s the people who pay the price.

              That starts to sound a lot like genocide, even if you mumble your way around it

              Reply
        • Muttonbird 3.3.1.2
          20 June 2025 at 6:15 pm

          Might is right and diplomacy be damned. This is consistent with the erosion of dialogue based order in favour of strongman, populist hegemony and ideological expansion. A return to the Nazi era.

          Israelis know that Iran can hit them with missiles.

          They sure do.

          and that their country's so small it would only take a couple of nukes over Tel Aviv and Haifa to effectively end the place.

          True, but the inference being Iran is bigger so is able to take a few nuclear strikes.

          Charming.

          Reply
          • Psycho Milt 3.3.1.2.1
            20 June 2025 at 6:28 pm

            If facts offend you, the problem is with you, not with the facts.

            Reply
            • Muttonbird 3.3.1.2.1.1
              20 June 2025 at 6:31 pm

              Israel will not be safe until it abandons its expansionist ideology.

              Reply
              • Psycho Milt …
                20 June 2025 at 7:16 pm

                Sure, and Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. Declarations of faith are cheap and meaningless.

                Reply
                • Muttonbird …
                  20 June 2025 at 8:01 pm

                  If facts offend you, the problem is with you, not with the facts.

                  Reply
                  • Psycho Milt …
                    20 June 2025 at 8:23 pm

                    This suggests you're unable to distinguish between your opinion and fact. It's a common problem on social media, but I'm a patient man so I'll try to help you, pointless though I expect the effort will be.

                    "[Israel is] so small it would only take a couple of nukes over Tel Aviv and Haifa to effectively end the place" is a fact. It's a matter of observable reality: number of square kilometers, population density and spread, destructive power of nuclear blasts, effective nuclear fallout radius. However you feel about that fact, the reality of it remains unaltered.

                    "Israel will not be safe until it abandons its expansionist ideology" is an opinion. It's not a matter of observable reality, it's a belief that you hold to be true, much like Christians hold "Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end" to be true. None of us are under any obligation to share such beliefs, in fact we may consider the beliefs to be ridiculous, and may say so. That's because they're not facts.

                    Reply
                    • Muttonbird …
                      20 June 2025 at 8:42 pm

                      I'm not sure what you think are arguing against. You said:

                      Their country's so small it would only take a couple of nukes over Tel Aviv and Haifa to effectively end the place.

                      And I said, "true".

                      They will always be as vulnerable. While they carry on with their supremacist settler agenda, that also seems a fact.

                    • Res Publica []
                      20 June 2025 at 10:30 pm

                      So lets entertain a scenario where Israel pulls out of all of the occupied territories tomorrow and recognises a viable Palestinian state.

                      What then? Iran and all of it's terrorist proxies just give up and go home?

                    • weka …
                      20 June 2025 at 10:51 pm

                      "Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end"

                      As an aside, this sounds like the Matrix. Not neo, but the judging of the living and dead and having no end. I should stop reading about AI.

                    • Psycho Milt …
                      21 June 2025 at 8:31 am

                      @weka. I spent my childhood reciting that every week in church. We were supposed to be looking forward to it, but these days I just find the idea quite horrifying.

  4. aj 4
    20 June 2025 at 3:09 pm

    I watched this long-ish episode this morning from Novara Media, having read the promo. Dalia Gebrial and Kieran Andrieu discussing Israel’s war on Iran and a section where Tucker Carlson exposes Ted Cruz yet again.

    It's worth the time, especially about the middle third where Cruz makes himself look deranged by any average measure of sanity and Netanyahu no less so.

    It is not broken up into sections (yet) but about the middle third is the most revealing part.

    This is what 'The West' by and large is supporting, and New Zealand and others should hang their head in shame.

    Israel Discovers That Bombing Hospitals Is A War Crime

    https://youtu.be/-YErHr58qyU

    Reply
  5. bwaghorn 5
    20 June 2025 at 3:39 pm

    Like North Korea, it may well regard having a nuclear weapon capability as its best self-defence against invasion.

    Yeah ya lost me there if there one country that actually needs liberation from the scum at the top it's north Korea, can't really be bothered with what else you type.

    Reply
  6. Pablo 6
    20 June 2025 at 4:07 pm

    Here is an alternative take to that of Western corporate media on the Iran-Israel conflict: https://www.kiwipolitico.com/2025/06/careful-what-you-wish-for/

    Reply
    • Muttonbird 6.1
      20 June 2025 at 6:26 pm

      Great to read pragmatic analysis of likely scenarios. None of them good if the US becomes further involved.

      Reply
  7. Res Publica 7
    20 June 2025 at 4:35 pm

    For the love of everything decent, can we stop trying to turn every conflict into a bizarre morality play for five minutes?

    We do not live in a uniquely moral moment, nor are we the first to face complex conflicts with no clean solutions.

    What’s different is the volume, not the virtue, of our moral performance. And mistaking volume for clarity is part of the problem.

    The situation in the Middle East and North Africa isn’t some grand ethical purity test. Real-world diplomacy isn’t a high school debate club for armchair philosophers.

    Yes, it’s tragic. It’s violent. It’s destabilizing. But it is not a stage for your personal reckoning with Good and Evil. It’s a slow-motion catastrophe born of strategic blunders, proxy warfare, nationalist delusions, failed diplomacy, and decades of mutually reinforcing trauma.

    The idea that you can frame this in black-and-white moral terms. Or that picking a “side” amounts to a personality trait, is juvenile.

    Yes, war crimes are happening. Yes, civilians are dying. That’s horrifying. But if you think shouting “genocide” or “terrorist state” online somehow clarifies the situation, you’re not helping you're just cheering your favourite of two bad choices. While pretending you're somehow heroic.

    This post is a perfect case in point: a list of one-sided accusations masquerading as analysis, delivered with the confidence of someone who’s never read a single serious book on Middle East history, deterrence theory, or asymmetric warfare.

    It offers outrage, not strategy. It substitutes certainty for understanding.

    News flash: Policy problems aren’t morality puzzles waiting to be solved by the pure of heart. They’re filled with bad options, conflicting interests, and players operating under fear, ambition, history, and ideology.

    It is absolutely true that Israel may be pursuing regime change in Iran alongside any number of other foreign policy objectives. That might be unwise. It might be illegal. It might be disastrous. But it is not uniquely immoral.

    States do this all the time when they perceive a threat to their survival or regional balance. Iran sponsors militias that target civilians. Israel has assassinated scientists. Neither side is pure. That’s the point. Moral language is too blunt a tool to dissect strategy. What we need is judgment, not outrage.

    This is a region teetering under nuclear risk, superpower friction, generational trauma, and civilian suffering on all sides. It demands serious thought, not cosmic melodrama.

    If you want to argue policy — by all means.

    But if your contribution is just to assign moral blame and perform allegiance, maybe sit down, sit this one out, and let the adults talk.

    The people caught in the middle deserve better from us: serious and sober analysis.
    Not slogans. Not outrage. Not moral theater. Just the courage to think clearly in a world that rarely makes that easy.

    Reply
    • Psycho Milt 7.1
      20 June 2025 at 6:43 pm

      In the 2000s I was sent on a week-long leadership programme (disclaimer: at which my lack of talent in this field was clearly established), some of it consisting of role-playing scenarios, and the thing that stuck with me and that I've probably benefited from most was that none of it was an ethical test, it was all "Which of these shitty options that people will hate you for do you choose, and why?" The last couple of years, it's helped me recognise that however much I dislike Netanyahu and his government, a left-led Israeli government would most likely be doing the same things, for the same "shitty options" reasons.

      Reply
    • KJT 7.2
      21 June 2025 at 8:57 am

      But if your contribution is just to assign moral blame and perform allegiance, maybe sit down, sit this one out, and let the adults talk.

      The people caught in the middle deserve better from us: serious and sober analysis.
      Not slogans. Not outrage. Not moral theater. Just the courage to think clearly in a world that rarely makes that easy.

      Yes.

      You may consider if you and PM are living up to, "being the adults"?

      Or just finding convoluted ways of saying, without saying it out loud "Israel good, Iran bad"!

      Reply
      • Res Publica 7.2.1
        21 June 2025 at 9:19 am

        You may consider if you and PM are living up to, "being the adults"?

        Or just finding convoluted ways of saying, without saying it out loud "Israel good, Iran bad"!

        I don’t think I’ve ever claimed Israel is “good.” I’ve been pretty explicit that its conduct in Gaza amounts to a series of abhorrent war crimes against a largely powerless civilian population. That’s not in question.

        What I do object to is the reflex, especially among parts of the left, to reduce an incredibly complex, morally fraught situation into a neat binary: Western/Zionist imperialism bad, therefore anything opposed to it must be good.

        That’s not analysis. It’s just moral theater. And worse, it treats any attempt at nuance or clear thinking as ideological betrayal.

        I find it incredibly frustrating that my politics are called into question simply because I won’t parrot slogans. I’m not questioning anyone’s credentials as a leftist: only questioning whether some of these takes show even a moment of independent thought, or if they’re just designed to earn applause from the right audience.

        his kind of moral exhibitionism achieves nothing. It alienates ordinary people, it weakens our credibility, and it makes the left look unserious.

        The average New Zealand voter isn’t changing their ballot over Gaza. They see this endless posturing as confusing at best, and self-destructive at worst.

        Call me a reactionary, a sellout, a National Party plant if you want. I honestly don’t care. Our purpose as a movement should be to win power and implement policy that materially improves people’s lives. Everything else is window dressing.

        Reply
      • Psycho Milt 7.2.2
        21 June 2025 at 10:46 am

        You read Res Publica's entire post about this not being a matter of morality or virtue and decided it meant "Israel good, Iran bad?" That's quite an achievement.

        Israel isn't a person, it can't be "good" or "bad." As a country it has national interests though, same as every other country, and right now it has a very strong national interest in destroying Iran's proxies and its nuclear programme. Wailing about "the West's war against Iran" ignores that and co-opts the conflict for idle rhetorical value against liberal democracy (which is what Campbell means by "the West").

        I do see a matter of morality/virtue in one sense, ie "the open society and its enemies." I'm a firm believer that open societies are superior to the ones that enemies of the open society come up with. In that one sense, Israel is currently 'better' than its neighbours. However, that's irrelevant to this particular conflict.

        Reply
  8. Muttonbird 8
    20 June 2025 at 6:38 pm

    – AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo

    For years, Israel has targeted Iranian nuclear scientists, hoping to choke progress on Iran’s nuclear program by striking at the brains behind it.

    Now, with Iran and Israel in an open-ended direct conflict, scientists in Israel have found themselves in the crosshairs after an Iranian missile struck a premier research institute known for its work in life sciences and physics, among other fields.

    “The Weizmann Institute has been in Iran's sights,” said Yoel Guzansky, an Iran expert and senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank. He stressed that he did not know for certain whether Iran intended to strike the institute but believed it did.

    While it is a multidisciplinary research institute, Weizmann, like other Israeli universities, has ties to Israel’s defense establishment, including collaborations with industry leaders like Elbit Systems, which is why it may have been targeted.

    But Guzansky said the institute primarily symbolizes “Israeli scientific progress” and the strike against it shows Iran's thinking: “You harm our scientists, so we are also harming (your) scientific cadre.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360731056/iranian-missile-strikes-israels-crown-jewel-science-causing-heavy-damage-multiple-labs

    This building and scientific program would still be intact if it were not for Israel’s recklessness.

    Reply
  9. Muttonbird 9
    20 June 2025 at 8:47 pm

    – Smoke billows from a building at Soroka hospital in Beersheba, Israel, after an Iranian missile attack, on 19 June 2025 (Maya Levin/AFP)

    Outrage over Iran's attack on Soroka hospital stands in stark contrast to global silence over the decimation of Gaza's healthcare system

    What is especially striking about this moment is the selective moral outrage from Israeli officials. The same ministers who justified the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system now describe an attack on an Israeli hospital as a red line, a war crime.

    Herzog’s sentimental imagery of doctors rushing between beds evokes the stark reality in Gaza, where health workers have been shot and shelled in operating rooms, imprisoned, or forced to abandon their patients under fire.

    https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/bombing-hospitals-red-line-unless-israel-doing-it

    Reply
  10. aj 10
    21 June 2025 at 4:28 pm

    Sachs speaking with Glenn Diesen. This is bloody frightening, who says this war is not about religion as well as the usual culprits power and money?

    This is the group of people that voted Trump in, keep paying for and getting whatever Israel wants, as per the – Carlson interview clips at https://thestandard.org.nz/the-wests-war-against-iran/#comment-2036774

    (Shown on Glenn Diesen’s youtube channel earlier today, won’t link directly to it)

    It's incredible we ended up in this situation. I think everyone realized how crazy and insane such an attack would be and that's exactly how it's turning out as well.

    It was so crazy that I didn't think it would happen. Honestly this is my naiveté I have to say, because I constantly overestimate the idea of a rational response to our circumstances, and I underestimate the hubris, the arrogance, the hatreds and the readiness of people like Netanyahu to bring us to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.

    By the way I have to say and I should add there is some group, bizarre as it sounds, that looks at the prospect of nuclear Armageddon and shrugs their shoulders and says "Well that's all biblical prophecy in the book of Revelation."
    I get my email from American Christian evangelicals who are the major voter base for Israeli extremism, and I get letters explaining to me "Mr Sachs, it's all in the prophecy, and the darker things get, the more these are sign of the times of the coming Armageddon".

    That to me is perhaps the most terrifying point that some people on this planet actually look at the prospect of Armageddon not only with equanimity but even with expectation. This is terrifying and there are millions of American voters like that weird as can be I have to say but

    I also recently expressed my assumptions that perhaps this wouldn't be an attack, because it would be too crazy but again I was also proven wrong.

    Reply
    • Muttonbird 10.1
      21 June 2025 at 5:57 pm

      That Christian rapture/entertainment evangelism is here too:

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/brian-tamaki-leads-protest-against-immigration-non-christian-religions/QPOCLWOGHBEFJGF4HX2YEJTOHE/

      Also heavily homophobic and islamophobic.

      Reply
    • Psycho Milt 10.2
      21 June 2025 at 6:46 pm

      Bloke will shit his pants when he finds out about Muslim attitudes to Armageddon, particularly Shia Muslims.

      What does he mean by "we ended up in this situation?" It's a war between Israel and Iran, and we can be pretty confident neither can expand the war very far because they're a couple of thousand kilometers apart, neither has long-distance invasion capability and the more powerful one (Israel) is a tiny fraction of the other's size. If neither of the men in the interview are citizens of the two belligerents, who's "we?"

      What ability does Binyamin Netanyahu have to "bring us to the brink of nuclear Armageddon?" Only one of the belligerents is nuclear-armed (I assume it is, anyway) and the chances of it using nukes is pretty much non-existent. This is like the cries of "nuclear Armageddon" and "World War 3" over the last three years about helping Ukraine. Also, it's possible Netanyahu is making nuclear Armageddon less likely via this conflict.

      Reply
      • Muttonbird 10.2.1
        21 June 2025 at 7:01 pm

        It's with noting Israel is as lethal as a nuclear strike just using conventional weapons.

        Hiroshima 70,000 dead.

        Nagasaki 40,000 dead.

        Gaza 58,700 dead.

        And Israel is just getting started on their quest.

        Reply
        • Psycho Milt 10.2.1.1
          21 June 2025 at 8:34 pm

          It wasn't worth noting, but thanks for the reminder you take Muslim terrorist groups' propaganda as fact.

          Reply
          • Drowsy M. Kram 10.2.1.1.1
            21 June 2025 at 9:51 pm

            Violent and Nonviolent Death Tolls for the Gaza War: New Primary Evidence [20 June 2025]

            https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.19.25329797v1

            Pick the propaganda/poison you find most palatable, but imho characterising these war casualty estimates as 'propaganda' would be irrational – hateful even.

            As of 18 June 2025, over 57,800 people (56,152 Palestinians and 1,706 Israelis) have been reported killed in the Gaza war according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as well as 180 journalists and media workers, 120 academics, and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, a number that includes 179 employees of UNRWA. Scholars have estimated 80% of Palestinians killed are civilians. A study by OHCHR, which verified fatalities from three independent sources, found that 70% of the Palestinians killed in residential buildings or similar housing were women and children.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war

            All this 'propaganda' will be the death of me sad

            In January 2025, a peer-reviewed analysis was published in The Lancet regarding mortality due to traumatic injury in the Gaza Strip between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024. The research was conducted by scholars from the University of Cambridge, Yale University, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Nagasaki University. The paper utilized a model with "three-list capture–recapture analysis using data from Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) hospital lists, an MoH online survey, and social media obituaries", and estimated 64,260 deaths from traumatic injury during this period, likely exceeding 70,000 by October 2024, with 59.1% of them being women, children and the elderly. It concluded the GHM undercounted trauma-related deaths by 41% in its reports. It also noted that its findings "underestimate the full impact of the military operation in Gaza, as they do not account for non-trauma-related deaths resulting from health service disruption, food insecurity, and inadequate water and sanitation."

            "Diversion" done! Bibi is now grifting to draw the US into the Israel-Iran war.

            The Annexation of the West Bank Is Complete
            [17 June 2025]
            With eyes on Gaza, Israel has quietly annexed the West Bank

            Reply
            • Psycho Milt 10.2.1.1.1.1
              22 June 2025 at 10:00 am

              How about not picking any propaganda poison? It's a war, we know people are being killed. We also know we have no reliable figure for how many are being killed, so just peddling a Muslim terrorist group's numbers as fact is unethical and unjustifiable.

              Activists publishing claims on Wikipedia or The Lancet tend not to trouble themselves with how many of the people killed in the war were combatants in it, how many were killed either accidentally (eg via failed rocket launches or booby-trapped buildings) or deliberately (as alleged thieves, traitors etc) by Hamas, or were killed needlessly due to their own government's policies (eg refusing to build or provide shelters, inadequate emergency services, preventing compliance with Israeli evacuation requests etc).

              In short, claiming that we know how many civilians have died and that Israel killed them is pointless.

              Reply
              • Drowsy M. Kram …
                22 June 2025 at 11:57 am

                Activists publishing claims on Wikipedia or The Lancet…

                Which 'activists' are you talking about Psycho – are you an activist?

                The IDF only does asymmetric war, from munitions to casualties.

                And, tbh, I don’t understand why the IDF would stop viewing “shelters” and “emergency services” as legitimate military targets.

                Reply
                • Psycho Milt …
                  22 June 2025 at 4:43 pm

                  "I don’t understand why the IDF would stop viewing “shelters” and “emergency services” as legitimate military targets."

                  And therein lies much of the problem with discussion of this subject.

                  Re 'activists,' Wikipedia has become notoriously infected with editors who monitor particular articles to ensure they're re-edited to reflect the activists' view within minutes of being corrected, and there's a major issue with "peer review" of academic publishing being carried out by peers who are known to share the authors' political opinions. To me, that's activisim.

                  Reply
                  • Drowsy M. Kram …
                    22 June 2025 at 6:49 pm

                    Wikipedia has become notoriously infected with editors who monitor particular articles to ensure they're re-edited to reflect the activists' view within minutes of being corrected, and there's a major issue with "peer review" of academic publishing being carried out by peers who are known to share the authors' political opinions.

                    Vis-à-vis the Gaza war, can you provide (preferably disinterested) evidence of these notorious Wikipedia infections and/or “a major issue with "peer review"“?

                    I'm open to the idea that casualty estimates for the Gaza war are propaganda and/or misinformation – truth is the first casualty of war
                    sad

                    Information war: Iran and Israel battle to control the narrative
                    [YouTube (16 minutes), 21 June 2025]

                    Reply
                    • Muttonbird …
                      22 June 2025 at 7:11 pm

                      Visual evidence helps.

                      If you look at the scale of destruction wrought by Israel people it looks similar to WW2 and particularly the US attack on Japan.

                      But then perhaps all this is a series of false flags, and not only was Hamas responsible for this destruction but they convinced the world's media otherwise.

                      Hey-ho.

                      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/25/bombs-buried-in-gaza-rubble-put-at-risk-thousands-returning-to-homes-say-experts

                    • Psycho Milt …
                      22 June 2025 at 8:42 pm

                      My comment about activists is based mainly on the gender wars, but this conflict is just as productive of activists, so is likely to be similarly affected. In the case of Gaza casualty numbers, two facts to make clear right up front are:

                      1. The Gaza Health Ministry is operated by a Muslim terrorist group.

                      2. The fact its casualty figures fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians makes them worthless. Crating a section of the article featuring speculations about the proportion doesn't change that.

                      The article doesn't make those two facts clear up front, so it's likely activist-driven.

                      Re peer review, it's a problem throughout the modern social sciences, eg if you're a gender-studies academic writing gibberish like "sex is a spectrum," it's sent for review to peers who also believe sex is a spectrum, rendering the process worthless.

                    • Psycho Milt …
                      22 June 2025 at 8:44 pm

                      "Visual evidence helps."

                      Helps what? If you can identify which buildings in that picture were blown up by Israelis and which by Hamas, go to it by all means. Until then, perhaps acquire the humility to admit you don't know.

                  • Drowsy M. Kram …
                    22 June 2025 at 10:14 pm

                    My comment about activists is based mainly on the gender wars, but this conflict is just as productive of activists, so is likely to be similarly affected.

                    Is there really no better (evidence-based) way of evaluating the alleged involvement of ‘activists’ in Gaza war propaganda and/or misinformation than by raking up what happened in "the gender wars"?

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_in_the_Gaza_war

                    As for "two facts to make clear right up front", the first isn't as black and white as you suggest. Regarding the second, casualty figures that don't distinguish between combatants and civilians are not "worthless", imho.

                    What is Gaza’s Ministry of Health and how does it calculate the war’s death toll? [7 Nov 2023]
                    Hamas, as Gaza’s ruling authority, exerts control over the Health Ministry. But it’s different than political and security agencies that Hamas runs.

                    The Palestinian Authority, which controlled Gaza before Hamas overran the area in 2007, retains power over health and education services in Gaza, though it’s based in the occupied West Bank. The ministry is a mix of recent Hamas hires and older civil servants affiliated with the secular nationalist Fatah party, officials say.

                    The Fatah-dominated authority that administers Palestinian cities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has its own health ministry in Ramallah, which still provides medical equipment to Gaza, pays Health Ministry salaries and handles patient transfers from the blockaded enclave to Israeli hospitals.

                    Health Minister Mai al-Kaila in Ramallah oversees the parallel ministries, which receive the same data from hospitals. Her deputy is based in Gaza.

                    The Ramallah ministry said it trusts casualty figures from partners in Gaza, and it takes longer to publish figures because it tries to confirm numbers with its own Gaza staff.
                    …
                    The United Nations and other international institutions and experts, as well as Palestinian authorities in the West Bank — rivals of Hamas — say the Gaza ministry has long made a good-faith effort to account for the dead under the most difficult conditions.

                    “These figures are professionally done and have proven to be reliable,” said Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, adding he remained “cognizant of different blind spots and weaknesses” such as the failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants.

                    Reply
      • aj 10.2.2
        21 June 2025 at 7:26 pm

        I admire your optimism, PM.

        Reply
        • Psycho Milt 10.2.2.1
          21 June 2025 at 8:24 pm

          I admit, Trump is unpredictable and it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that he might decide the USA should join the war despite no-one having asked it to, but that would be such a slap in the face of his "no more foreign wars" fan base, it's really hard to imagine him doing it.

          Reply
  11. Drowsy M. Kram 11
    23 June 2025 at 9:27 am

    Invading Iraq ended the threat of Iraq's WMDs – as if they'd never been – but at a price.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

    USA/Israel may have similar 'success' with Iran – please let the price be less, this time.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_war

    Reply

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