Orono, Maine (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Is there a long-term strategic goal to be achieved in the incessant bombing of Iranian cities by Israel?. In the 24 plus days of this onslaught the U.S. has, intentionally or not, managed to obliterate a girls school and kill 170 eight to twelve year old students and their teachers.
America is obsessed with security needs and has built over 800 facilities and bases around the world, nineteen of them located in the Middle East. It is these that are targeted by Iran to prevent bombing campaigns by Israel and the U.S.
Most of these bases were built after the formation of the 1979 Islamic Republic, when tens of thousands of Iranians left with the Shah to become refugees in the U.S. In a recent poll, more than half of these some 400,000 Iranian-Americans favored a diplomatic solution to the current war, while a minority supported the Israeli-U.S. bombing.
In the Iran bombing campaign, labeled “Operation Epic Fury,” one of the results has been that most ships are not allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a state of affairs that is now affecting oil and natural gas prices on a global scale.
Neither military leaders nor the American Congress were able to comprehend, or warn Trump, of the dire possibilities that can result from bombing Iran. The death of civilians and the destruction of the infrastructure of the country is horrific enough, but the prevention of much of the oil and LNG shipments that constitute 20% of global oil supply, will have worldwide consequences when gas prices continue to rise and electricity shortages take place, as well as food prices rising.
There is no longer any doubt that Israeli leaders, especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have persuaded Trump to undertake this consequential war. It is a painful paradox that Israel is attacking Lebanon simultaneously while relying on their “Dahieh Doctrine,” a strategy of the large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure in order to pressure governments hostile to Israel. The logic is that the death and destruction of the civilian populations will compel them to sue for peace. But, more often than not, the opposite happens and those suffering from bombing become even more entrenched, as is taking place in Iran.
The Lebanon attacks have displaced 800,000 people, with the bombing resulting in severe damage to 439 healthcare facilities while over 1000 civilians have been killed and 2500 wounded; at the same time the U.S-Israel bombing of Iran has killed an estimated 1500 with 21,000 injured.
According to an Israeli news report, “hundreds” of demonstrators rallied in downtown Tel Aviv against the Iran war, the first crowd action in what could well be a wave of protests seeking an end to the government’s forever wars.” The protest leader Uri Weltman said that “Netanyahu is not satisfied with us absorbing Iranian missiles for the second time – he also wants us to sink into the Lebanese forever war for the fourth time.”
Photo of building in Isfahan Province, Iran, by Eltaf Hussain Hassani on Unsplash
Another Israeli journalist, Yossi Verter, wrote: “PM Netanyahu and his allies are …a lot more dangerous than any murderous regime or terrorist organizations. The opposition to them must… be fought…through a stubborn insistence on adhering to the law, to norms and to basic values.”
An “Alliance for Middle East Peace” (ALLMEP) made up of over 200 organizations and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis, works diligently for peace. These grass-roots groups represent the moral and ethical heart of Israel and Palestine. It will be through their efforts that healing relations will take place between various factions after Netanyahu and his supporters have exhausted their self-destructive missions.
In the meantime, we will see the Israeli leadership suffer far more harm (morally and materially) than those they attempt to bomb into submission. According to a Tel Aviv University study, 100,000 of Israel’s most educated professionals, including 500 doctors and 633 PhDs, departed the country in 2023 – 2024, realizing perhaps, that it is cooperation and friendships that allow them to work at their best and not a perpetually militant society.
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