When President Trump said, “Iran must unconditionally surrender”, it suggests he has not read the history of this nation. Surrender is the worst thing for us. It’s the same with calling for zero enrichment, giving up our missiles and our allies – they don’t understand the identity of the Iranian people. We fought against Saddam Hussein for 8 years to ensure we did not lose a centimetre of our land. When you don’t understand things like that, it can cause many mistakes, as we have seen.

“They’re scum … they’re led by sick people and they’re vicious, violent people. There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.” Trump said after bombing Iran yesterday and threatening to tear up the MOU. The pussy-grabbing Leader of the Free World has always had poor impulse control but we are moving into a new phase with F-bombs, real bombs and threats to entire civilizations becoming daily occurrences. 

We are in an era of American statecraft that is largely based around violence, threats of violence and the deployment of sanctions, other forms of financial strangulation, physical blockades and the intimidation of even the US’s closest allies. It didn’t start with Trump.

Western countries, including  Australia and New Zealand, were quick to line up to support Operation Epic Fury, the US-Israeli blitzkrieg on the Islamic Republic of Iran. They were effectively throwing international law into a cauldron of blood and mayhem.  These same Western powers – and the Gulf Arab states that stand with them – may soon live to regret it.

When I heard the terrible news that the Americans and Israelis had killed over 150 children this week in an elementary school in Minab in Southern Iran it took me back to a wonderful day I spent in Isfahan in 2018. I met lots of Iranian school children and their teachers that day. They were keen to practise their English and ask lots of questions. I want to share that day with you because it was filled with hope, with promise for a better world.  

If Israel and the US attack Iran, the cosy worlds of Europe, Australia and New Zealand could be swept up in an economic catastrophe. Should the Iranians survive a terrifying onslaught, they have vowed to strike back in a way that could crash the global economy.  How they could quite possibly do this is the topic of this article.

As protests unfold in Iran, Israeli and US figures openly talk of regime collapse. Foreign interference risks worsening violence and derailing change from within. What’s really going on?

If Iran falls, war in our region – intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely. Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs. “Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.

The US-Israeli surprise attack on Iran is literally and figuratively designed to unleash centrifugal forces in the Islamic Republic.  Both Iran’s nuclear programme and its government – in fact, the whole edifice and foundation of the Islamic Republic – is at the beginning of the greatest stress test of its existence.

“JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” Trump said. The Western media described Trump’s and Netanyahu’s threats after the first wave of attacks on Iran as “warnings”.  They were, in fact, expressions of genocidal intent. 

I won’t mince words: what we are witnessing is the racist, genocidal Israeli regime, armed and encouraged by the US, Germany, UK and other Western regimes, launching a war that has no justification other than the expansion of Israeli power and the advancement of its Greater Israel project.