by Dave DeCamp | March 2, 2026 at 5:23 pm ET | Iran, Israel
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday said that the US launched a war against Iran because Israel was planning to attack, an admission that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu steered the US into the conflict.
“It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States, Israel, or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States,” Rubio told reporters.
“If we stood and waited for that attack to come first, before we hit them, we would have suffered much higher casualties. And so the president made the very wise decision — we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces,” he said.
Secretary Marco Rubio visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem, September 14, 2025. (Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett)
Rubio’s comments align with reporting from The New York Times that said when Tucker Carlson recently met with President Trump and tried to convince him not to launch a war with Iran, the president said he had no choice but to join a strike that Israel would launch.
The Times report said that Netanyahu was determined to ensure that the negotiations between the US and Iran wouldn’t get in the way of planning for a joint US-Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic.
But Trump and his top officials tried to sell the war as being related to Iran’s nuclear program despite insisting that it was “obliterated” by the June 2025 US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Vice President JD Vance even claimed that there was evidence Iran may be trying to build a nuclear weapon.
Now that the war has started, the Trump administration is sending mixed messages about the goal. President Trump suggested in his first statement that he is pursuing regime change, and the initial round of US-Israeli attacks killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but Rubio said on Monday that the goal was aimed at eliminating the “threat” posed by Iran’s missiles.
“The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets. That is what it is focused on doing right now, and it’s doing quite successfully,” he said.
When asked for a timeline, Rubio said the war will last “as long as it takes” for the US to achieve its objectives.
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Tuesday, March 03, 2026
Rubio Says the US Launched a War With Iran Because Israel Was Planning To Attack
This Illegal US-Israeli Attack on Iran Is Also an Assault on the United Nations
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Amir Saeid Iravani, speaks during an emergency Security Council meeting on the situation in Iran at the UN on February 28, 2026 in New York City. U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States and Israel had launched an attack on Iran Saturday morning.
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Let us be clear about what the United States and Israel are pursuing. The US objective is not the security of the American people. The objective is global hegemony. The attempt is to destroy the UN and the international rule of law—an attempt that will fail.
Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares
Mar 02, 2026 Common Dreams
On February 16, 2026, one of us (Jeffrey Sachs) sent a letter to the UN Security Council warning that the United States was on the verge of tearing up the United Nations Charter. That warning has now come to pass. The United States and Israel have launched an unprovoked war against Iran in flagrant violation of Article 2(4) of the Charter, without authorization from the Security Council, and without any legitimate claim of self-defense under Article 51. They are trying to kill the UN Charter and the international rule of law, but they will fail.
At the Security Council on February 28, 2026, the US and its allies directed their condemnation not at the American and Israeli aggression, but at Iran. One US ally after the next condemned Iran for its retaliatory attacks yet absurdly failed to condemn the illegal and unprovoked US-Israeli attack on Iran. This performance by these countries was disgraceful and turned reality completely upside down.
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The joint US-Israeli attacks were described by Trump as necessary because Iran “rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.” This is of course a flat lie. As the letter of February 16 recounted, Iran agreed a decade ago to a nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was adopted by the UN Security Council in Resolution 2231. It was Trump who ripped up the agreement in 2018. In June 2025, Israel bombed Iran in the midst of US-Iran negotiations. This time too, the Israel-US war plans were set weeks ago when Netanyahu met with Trump, and the negotiations underway between the US and Iran were a charade. This seems to be the new modus operandi of the US: start negotiations and then aim to murder the counterparts.
It is easy to understand why the US allies behave in the embarrassing and self-abasing way they did at the UN Security Council. In addition to the United States, eight of the other fourteen Council members host US military bases or grant the US military access to local bases: Bahrain, Colombia, Denmark, France, Greece, Latvia, Panama, and the United Kingdom. These countries are not fully sovereign. They are partially governed by the US. The US military bases house CIA operations, and the host countries constantly look over their shoulder to try to avoid US subversion in their own countries.
As Henry Kissinger famously said, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be its friend is fatal.” We can add that to host US military bases and CIA operations is to turn your country into a vassal state.
As an absurd but telling example, the Danish ambassador parroted every US talking point, pointing her finger at Iran for its aggression as if Iran had not been attacked by the US and Israel. She completely forgot that such humiliating vassalage to the US will not play well for Denmark if the US occupies Greenland.
The truthful voices at the Security Council came from the countries not occupied by the United States. Russia explained correctly that the so-called West (that is, the countries occupied by the US) is engaged in victim-blaming when it points its finger at Iran. China reminded the Council that the crisis began with the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, not with Iran’s retaliation. Somalia’s ambassador, speaking on behalf of several African member states, truthfully portrayed the source of this recent escalation. The UN Representative of the League of Arab States spoke brilliantly about the root cause of Israel’s mad aggression: the denial of rights to Palestinian people, and Israel’s use of mass murder and regional war to prevent the emergence of a State of Palestine.
When Iran retaliates against US military bases in the Gulf, it is exercising its inherent right of self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter. We must remember that the US and Israel are openly and repeatedly assassinating Iran’s leaders, with the aim of overthrowing its government. When states murder a foreign head of state and attempt to destroy the government, the target of those threats is entitled under international law to defend itself.
The US-Israeli bombing murdered not only Iran’s Supreme Leader and several top government officials, but also more than 140 young girls in their school in Minab. These young children are the victims of a horrific war crime. The countries today that gave a pass to the United States and Israel for these killings—notably Denmark, France, Latvia, the United Kingdom, and of course the US —are also complicit in this war crime.
This UN Security Council emergency meeting will likely be remembered as the day the United Nations ceased to function from its headquarters on American soil. An international organization dedicated to the peaceful settlement of disputes cannot credibly operate from a country that wages illegal wars, threatens member states with annihilation, and treats UN Security Council resolutions as disposable instruments of convenience. For the UN to survive, and we need it to survive, it will need several homes around the world—in Brazil, China, India, South Africa, and others—honoring the true multipolarity of our world.
Let us be clear about what the United States and Israel are pursuing. The US objective is not the security of the American people. The objective is global hegemony. The attempt is to destroy the UN and the international rule of law—an attempt that will fail. Israel’s objective is to establish a Greater Israel, destroy the Palestinian people, and assert its hegemony over hundreds of millions of Arabs across the Middle East (from the Nile to the Euphrates, as US Ambassador Mike Huckabee recently asserted).
The United States’ delusional efforts at global hegemony are proceeding region by region. The US has recently claimed, in a wholly twisted supposed revival of the Monroe Doctrine, that it controls the Western Hemisphere and can dictate how Latin American countries conduct their economic and political affairs. The US kidnapped the sitting Venezuelan president to prove the point, and it now threatens to overthrow the Cuban government as well.
Today’s war against Iran aims to prove that the US similarly owns the Middle East. The war is part of a 30-year campaign, initiated by the Clean Break doctrine, to overthrow all governments that oppose US and Israeli hegemony in the region. Those joint Israel-US wars have included the genocide in Gaza, the occupation of the West Bank and the decades of wars and regime-change operations in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
One part of the US global plan is to commandeer the world’s oil exports and to weaken China and Russia in the process. The US seizure of Venezuela was designed to ensure American control of that country’s oil exports, especially to control the flow of oil to China. US sanctions on Russia aim to prevent Russian oil from reaching India and China. Now the US aims to stop the flow of Iran’s oil to China. More broadly, the US aims to control the entire Gulf region plus Iran to maintain its imperial dominance.
The international order that Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt helped to build after the catastrophe of WWII was founded on a simple and profound idea – that law and respect, not force, should govern relations among states. That idea is now being destroyed by the very nation that did most to promote it in founding the UN. The irony is bitter beyond measure.
The truth is that the devastation of the war will not directly affect the so-called West: their children will not suffer traumas or death, and their countries will not be set ablaze. The victims of this attack are the people of the Middle East. They are the expendable ones who suffer from Western arrogance, abuse of power, and addiction to war.
We close with two observations. First, the United States will not achieve global hegemony or kill the UN. The world is too large, too diverse, and too determined to resist domination by any single power, much less one with 4 percent of the world’s population. The world outside of the US and the countries it occupies want the UN to live and thrive. The US attempt will surely fail, but it may cause immense suffering before it does.
Second, if Israel continues its addiction to war and occupation, it too will not survive. That addiction represents a mix of theocracy and post-traumatic stress. Part of Israel believes that it is the biblical kingdom of the 5th century BC. The other part lives in the traumatic memory of the Holocaust, and so is determined to kill any perceived adversary rather than learn to live together with it in peace. The Israeli Ambassador’s twisted defense of Israel’s brazen attack on Iran, as usual, cited the Bible and Auschwitz as the two justifications. These are Israel’s two perennial references, but not the real world of today.
A state that depends on permanent war, permanent occupation and slaughter of the Palestinians, and the indefinite subjugation of millions of people has no viable future, and the policies that the United States is now pursuing on Israel’s behalf will accelerate rather than prevent that outcome.
The two-state solution, which the Council has endorsed repeatedly, offers Israel a path to peace. Tragically Israel rejects that. The result, eventually, will be the end of Israel itself in its current form, especially as the US population is rapidly turning against Israel’s violent theocracy and towards the cause of Palestine. Perhaps there will be one democratic state for both Arabs and Jews living in peace, together, with an end of apartheid rule.
These are harsh truths, but emergencies demand honesty. The UN is being murdered by Israel and the United States. The Security Council must rouse itself from their military occupation by the US, and remember that they are the stewards of the UN Charter’s promise to maintain international peace and security.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That’s why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we’ve ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here’s the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That’s not just some fundraising cliche. It’s the absolute and literal truth. We don’t accept corporate advertising and never will. We don’t have a paywall because we don’t think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. – Craig Brown, Co-founder | about:blank |
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Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author, most recently, of “A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism” (2020). Other books include: “Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable” (2017) and “The Age of Sustainable Development,” (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.
Sybil Fares is a specialist and advisor in Middle East policy and sustainable development at SDSN
Monday, March 02, 2026
US-Israel war on Iran ‘decided weeks ago’ under cover of nuclear talks: Report
A planning document from 2009 suggested the US or Israel launch a regime change war Iran while using the pretext of negotiations to deflect blame on to Tehran
News Desk, The Cradle, FEB 28, 2026
(Photo credit: Carlos Barria – Pool/Getty Images)
The unprovoked US-Israeli war against Iran launched on 28 February had “been planned for months, and the launch date decided weeks ago,” even as the US and Iran carried out indirect nuclear negotiations, an Israeli defense official told Reuters.
Washington and Tel Aviv renewed negotiations in February over Iran’s nuclear program. President Trump was under pressure from Israel force Iran to give up uranium enrichment, as well as its ballistic missile program and support for regional resistance forces.
Amid the negotiations, Trump sent an “armada” of US naval ships and warplanes to the region, threatening to launch an attack if officials in Tehran refused to make a deal.
After the latest round of talks on Thursday, a senior US official told Axios the talks were “positive.”
Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who mediated the talks, said the talks had shown “significant progress.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also expressed optimism, saying both sides had shown a “clear seriousness” about getting a deal.
However, the US and Israel launched large-scale attacks against Iranian targets early Saturday, suggesting the negotiations had never been serious.
In the wake of the attacks, Omani Foreign Minister Albusaidi said that the negotiations he mediated had been “deliberately undermined.”
Mehran Kamrava, director of the Iranian studies unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, stated that Israel “appears to have launched an attack designed to derail the negotiations.”
A planning document prepared years ago by the US think tank Brookings Institution provided a blueprint for regime change in Iran that outlined such a strategy.
“Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran,” written by analysts at the Brookings Institution in 2009, recommended that the US carry out negotiations ahead of a planned attack to give the false impression that the US had done everything possible to avoid war.
Iran could then be blamed for rejecting a “good deal,” thereby shifting blame onto the Islamic Republic for what would be an unpopular war both among the US public and internationally.
“The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down,” the document stated.
“Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians’ brought it on themselves’ by refusing a very good deal,” the document added.
After the start of the US and Israeli strikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched barrages of ballistic missiles and drones at targets in Israel and US bases in the region.
Damage to targets within Israel is difficult to assess due to media censorship imposed by the Israeli military.
However, sirens were heard across Israel as the military issued a “proactive alert to prepare the public for the possibility of missiles being launched toward the state of Israel.”
The military announced the closure of schools and workplaces, with exceptions for essential sectors.
The Israel Airports Authority announced its airspace had been closed to all civilian flights.
Amid the Iranian attacks, Israel’s energy sector shifted into emergency mode.
Israel’s energy ministry instructed Greek firm Energean to temporarily suspend production at its offshore Karish gas field.
The ministry also ordered the closure of the country’s largest gas field, Leviathan, as a precautionary measure.
Some units of the Haifa oil refinery were also shuttered.
Trump Should Be Impeached, Removed From Office for Illegal War on Iran
A demonstrator holds a ‘Stop Trump’s Wars’ placard during a protest against the war with Iran in Parliament Square, as USA and Israel launch attacks on Iran.
(Photo by Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Trump’s illegal, unconstitutional war on Iran is not only a moral and humanitarian disaster, but also a profound constitutional crisis.
Mar 01, 2026 Common Dreams
Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) condemns Donald Trump and the Trump Administration, as well as their enablers in Congress, the media, and elsewhere for launching and supporting a reckless, illegal, unprovoked, and unconstitutional war on Iran over the past 24 hours.
Last June, we issued a statement denouncing Trump’s bombing of Iran because it posed risks of “spiraling into a regional or even global conflict that could shatter fragile economies and displace millions.” Trump’s unprovoked war on Iran is now confirming our worst fears.
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This war is already inflicting significant humanitarian suffering, causing chaotic economic disruption, and risking grave damage to the international order.
The War on Iran has also precipitated a constitutional crisis, attacking the foundational principles of our democratic republic by blatantly violating the separation of powers. It also violates the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
We the People must not fail to meet this crisis. This latest precedent of unchecked abuse of power imperils our democracy, potentially fatally.
The US Constitution vests in Congress the sole authority to declare war (Article I, Section 8). Members of both parties have already acknowledged that Trump’s war against Iran without prior authorization from Congress is unconstitutional.
Senator Jeff Merkley, (D-Oregon), a veteran member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations said this war “shreds our Constitution, which assigns decisions of war to Congress.”
Member of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) called the war “blatantly unconstitutional.” Rep. Khanna co‑authored a bipartisan War Powers Resolution that would restrain Trump from launching such illegal, immoral, and reckless military operations.
Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) described Trump’s attacks as “acts of war unauthorized by Congress.” He is also leading the effort for the War Powers Resolution.
Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sponsored a similar Resolution. Sadly, Republican congressional leaders continue to block Rep. Khanna’s and his colleagues’ efforts to enact a War Powers Resolution in the House.
This unconstitutional, illegal war continues an alarming pattern of the Trump regime’s contempt for the Constitution, Congress, U.S. law, and international norms, as well as basic ethics and morality. Trump has previously ordered illegal attacks against Iran and Venezuela without lawful authorization.
The Trump administration has routinely trampled basic human and civil rights through violent, even deadly operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeting US citizens and lawful residents. We cannot tolerate fascistic policies including fatal shootings, abusive raids, indefinite detentions, and family separations.
Trump, his Department of Justice, and other appointees have escalated their contempt for Congress and the constitutional separation of powers by publicly attacking members of Congress during hearings, by stonewalling and ignoring subpoenas, and by defying oversight powers, and by implementing illegal orders and lawless policies.
Trump’s illegal war on Iran and the rule of law establish an intolerable pattern of egregious abuses of power, directly threatening our constitutional order, our safety, and our way of life. These intertwined crises cry out for an immediate, decisive response by the Congress and the US public.
Therefore, PDA demands that all members of Congress, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike, uphold their oath of office to defend our constitutional republic. The Constitution offers one and only one remedy when President a repeatedly breaks the law and arrogantly refuses to abide by the limits on the power clearly laid out in the Constitution. That remedy is impeachment, followed by removal from office.
To effectuate that, PDA calls upon its hundred of thousands of supporters across the country—as well as every American who wants to preserve our constitutional democratic republic—to contact their Senators and Representatives by phone, email, social media, and in‑person visits to demand two things: 1. An immediate end to the War on Iran, and 2. The initiation of impeachment proceedings against Trump and all complicit Trump Administration officials.
Furthermore, we urge organizations and individuals across the country to launch protests and other forms of nonviolent civil disobedience to demand an end to the war. These could include boycotts, or a refusal to purchase any non‑essential goods and services, or some form of intentional non-participation, or any other lawful means until all US military operations against Iran cease and Congress initiates efforts to remove all lawless Trump officials from power.
Trump’s illegal, unconstitutional war on Iran is not only a moral and humanitarian disaster, but also a profound constitutional crisis. The Congress and the American people must oppose, rebuke, and punish Trump and all those complicit in the Trump administration’s escalating attacks on our liberty, our Constitution, and the rule of law. We the People must not fail to meet this crisis. This latest precedent of unchecked abuse of power imperils our democracy, potentially fatally. We can and must overcome these clear and present threats to our lives, liberty, and way of life.
Sunday, March 01, 2026
Oppose the US imperialist war on Iran!
David North@davidnorth, wsws, 28 Feb 2026
The attack on Iran ordered by Donald Trump and his war-crazed cabal is a massive political crime, illegal under international law and in direct violation of the US Constitution. It has been launched, in collaboration with the genocidal Israeli regime, without even the figment of authorization from Congress, against a country which has not attacked the United States and poses no threat to it.
Within the first hours of this criminal attack, at least 24 students were killed in an air strike on a girls’ school in Minab in southern Iran. How many thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands will be killed in the days ahead?
Only four days ago, Trump appeared before Congress and the American people to deliver his State of the Union address. Even though he had obviously decided to launch the war, he concealed his decision and barely mentioned Iran in the course of his two-hour rant.
Now, Trump, baseball cap on his head, announced his decision in the dead of night, while most Americans were sleeping. He has set the United States and the entire world on a disastrous course. This war will not solve the internal social crisis of American society, nor will it reverse the protracted deterioration in the global position of US capitalism.
All these contradictions, domestic and international, will be intensified. The war itself will inevitably escalate and engulf the entire planet.
No amount of media propaganda can disguise the fact that the attack on Iran is precisely what was described at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders back in 1945-46 as a “crime against peace.”
In the future, historians will compare Trump’s February 28, 2026 attack on Iran to Hitler’s September 1, 1939 invasion of Poland. They are crimes of equal magnitude.
The Socialist Equality Party demands that the bloody assault on Iran be stopped immediately.
The working class and youth and all progressive and decent people must oppose this war, which has been launched in the interests of the financial-corporate oligarchy.Available from Mehring BooksThe struggle against imperialism and for workers’ power in IranA pamphlet by Keith Jones
The same administration that has deployed ICE agents to terrorize American cities and neighborhoods, that is violating the Bill of Rights, is the same government that has launched this criminal war.
Call meetings in your factories, workplaces, schools and neighborhoods demanding the immediate end of this war.
The world must know that the American people oppose this war and want no part of it.
Take a stand. Make your voices heard.
Philip Giraldi: Wars and Rumors of Wars
Trump and Netanyahu open the gates of Hell
Philip Giraldi • February 28, 2026
So now the die is cast and the United States has joined Israel in an unprovoked attack on a non-threatening Iran to destroy its military capabilities and to bring about regime change. This is a major mis-step that could easily turn out very badly as it is a pointless war of choice that could easily escalate to neighboring states and become nuclear if a reckless Israel decides it needs to “defend” itself against an Iranian response. US Navy vessels might also find themselves vulnerable to Iranian missiles.
As the attack took place, President Donald Trump announced the latest bit of nation destroying from his Florida home away from the White House, which he is also wrecking as part of a lavish and characteristically tasteless ballroom “reconstruction.” By way of his Truth Social Platform, he declared early Saturday morning that “We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally — again — obliterated. We’re going to annihilate their navy.” The destruction of the missiles as a top priority was clearly under orders from Israel, which sees the weapons as the major threat against it. Trump also called on the Iranians to rise- up and overthrow their government.
Trump also conceded that Americans will die against Iran, adding that “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost” in what the “War Department” has dubbed “Operation Epic Fury… We may have casualties.” He acknowledged that there could be American deaths following Iran strikes, saying “that often happens in war.” There is without doubt a certain irony in having at the helm of state an ignorant and seemingly deranged draft dodger president announcing a war while wearing a baseball cap who wallows in threats and generating conflicts while claiming to be a man of peace. Enabling wars in Ukraine and Gaza while also recently threatening Venezuela and now Cuba is not the way to go to make the world a better place. Sadly, Trump’s entire family has likewise avoided military service, he being once again willing to pay the ultimate price for his warmaking using other American families’ sons and daughters as cannon fodder.
Unfortunately for both the United States and for the sanction-plagued long suffering Iranian people, the grounds for the act of war as elaborated by President Donald Trump are completely fatuous, to include Iranian presumed development of a nuclear weapon and its possession of ballistic missiles that will be able to strike the United States. Both claims are denied by US intelligence and other sources. They are lies plausibly sourced from Israel and clearly improvised to justify the carnage, similar in form to the infamous Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lying claim in 2002-2003 that Iraq was building “weapons of mass destruction” which might lead to a “mushroom cloud” over America. The Iraq war killed 500,000 Iraqis and 4,431 invading Americans, but who will be counting when you are aiming at something as glorious as regime change in Persia?
Looking beyond what disaster comes out of Iran, the long term danger is that we Americans now have a president who believes that he can act with impunity anywhere in the world, having publicly declared that he believes that he “…can do whatever he wants.” That includes going to war contrary to the US Constitution, though Congress is now feebly attempting to enforce the so-called War Powers Act. As Israel is behind the current fighting, there is no chance that official Washington will be anything but supportive of the conflict as will also the media. Given the carte blanche for military action anywhere and at any time, Cuba is possibly next on the list as the Administration appears set on destroying its economy through sanctions prior to taking control of it, similar to the plan for Venezuela that played out recently and that has been used against Iran.
Beyond that, destroying Iran is being done solely to benefit what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees as his national interest. That the war is taking place at all is due to Israel’s absolute control over America’s political class, a reality that Netanyahu and his predecessors in office have not been exactly shy about admitting. The US is a hapless giant that has been corrupted by Jewish billionaire money from within to be totally committed to the expansion of greater Israel no matter how many have to die in the process. Do the Israelis care what happens to the American people? No. The US is a necessary resource which they will squeezed dry of money and political support before being discarded like a used diaper.
Given that Israel has turned the United States into a war criminal and enabler of crimes against humanity, it is absolutely astonishing how the “official” inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein, for example, manages to completely avoid and totally ignore the obvious story, namely that Epstein and his billionaire buddy Les Wexler and his Mega Group were all parts of a vast and far reaching Israeli intelligence operation intended to penetrate (and I use that word deliberately) and manipulate the elite political and media classes in the United States. Last week we witnessed the Clintons being questioned by Congress. Hillary denied having ever met Jeffrey, and she “had no idea” regarding his illegal or immoral activities. Admittedly, Hillary might for once be telling the truth since Bill, following up in Congress on Friday, had plenty to hide from his own wife and others given his own demonstrated definition of illegal and immoral. Former President Clinton said he “did nothing wrong” and had “no idea of the crimes” Jeffrey Epstein was committing as he kicked off a deposition with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday. But Bill was equally unhelpful in his private meeting with the congressmen, perhaps suggesting that his frequent trips on the Lolita Express were solely due to the fact that he needed a ride from New York State to Florida. And what about the record of sixteen visits to the White House by Epstein while you were president, Bill?
Neither Clinton, of course, comes even close to the intensity and frequency of the multitude of citations covering the Donald Trump relationship with Epstein, but whether Congress will have the nerve to go after a mentally confused sitting president whose own “morality” extends beyond casual pedophilia to enabling genocide has to be doubted. And be it Clinton or Trump, one can be sure that no one in Congress except Thomas Massie will have the intestinal fortitude that it would require to go after the real culprit, war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of merry cutthroats leading America’s “best friend and closest ally,” the Jewish State of Israel. It’s a relationship that includes the just starting American war against a non-threatening Iran but who’s counting the body bags coming home when Iran strikes back? It won’t be good old draft dodger Donald Trump, who will lie about it as he usually does!
That Israel gets away with obtaining billions of dollars, weapons and unlimited political protection from Washington while also spying on us would appear to be enough of a gift but the one way relationship is far worse than that, including as it does an option to compel the United States into going to war whenever Israel wants to genocide another neighbor. The politicians that make up the Jewish/Israeli government are the worst scum imaginable, though I guess one would have to include in that number our own trash like Congressman Randy Fine of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Most Israelis believing that they are “chosen” and thereby have the birthright to abuse and kill people at will, including tens of thousands of children lest they “grow up to be terrorists.” And now the United States of America is on the same page. There is a solution however. It’s called kicking Israel and its fan club the hell out of the United States and having Washington begin to treat the nations that make up the rest of the world with respect without the employment of threats or military action. I rather suspect that a majority of the American people would today want us to get out of Iran and would support the option of a country at peace with everyone!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
Saturday, February 28, 2026
Israel strikes two schools in Iran, killing more than 80 people
State media says Israeli attack on girls' school in the city of Minab in the south of the country kills dozens.
Published On 28 Feb 202628 Feb 2026
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An Israeli strike has hit an elementary girls’ school in Minab, a city in the Hormozgan province of southern Iran, killing dozens of people, according to state media, as the immediate civilian cost from Israel and the United States’s huge bombardment of Iran comes into sharper focus.
Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim News Agency cited the Judiciary of Minab as saying that the death toll had risen to 85 after Saturday’s strike on the school.
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Workers are continuing to clear wreckage from the site, where 63 others were injured on Saturday, said Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. The strike is part of a wave of joint US-Israeli military attacks across Iran that has triggered an outbreak of regional violence.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi shared a photo of the attack, which he said destroyed the girls’ school and killed “innocent children”.
“These crimes against the Iranian People will not go unanswered,” Araghchi wrote in a post on X.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei also slammed the “blatant crime” and urged action from the United Nations Security Council.
Separately, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported that at least two students were killed by another Israeli attack that hit a school east of the capital, Tehran.
