Category World News

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in his 2002 testimony to the US Congress that an invasion of Iraq was necessary to end the “war on terror” and stop Iraq and terrorist organizations from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. He added that the conflict would be brief, and that it would elicit a new era of Western-friendly democracy, not just in Iraq but throughout the region, including Iran. The proclamation was not accurate.

Prior to the invasion of 2003, many experts and officials already knew that Saddam Hussein’s regime lacked al-Qaeda and had no weapons of mass destruction. Unavoidable suffering, insecurities, insecurity, chaos, and the breakdown of government were all inevitable outcomes of the war. And that is what transpired. Today, Iraq is at best a fragile nation with significant political and economic challenges.

Many analysts eluded commenting on how the two allies allegedly failed to learn from the Iraq war and are now making the same mistakes in Iran after Israel and then the US attacked it earlier this month. If the 2003 invasion had had the objectives of halting the proliferation of WMDs and establishing democracy in mind, these analyses would have been accurate. They weren’t, though.

The US and Israel’s goal in the war was an Iraq that wouldn’t impede the Israeli-occupied Palestinians’ claim to sovereignty and its role as a representative of US imperial power in the area. In Iran today, this is also the desired outcome.

The assertions that Iran was “on the verge of” developing nuclear weapons have no justification, just as the claims about Iraq’s weapons-of- mass destruction have been proven to be completely false. No concrete proof has been presented that Tehran was actually developing nuclear weapons. Instead, lies and hypocrisy have been displayed in a way that is unmatched.

Two nuclear powers are engaged in illegal “pre-emptive” aggression under the guise of stopping nuclear proliferation, one of which stands out as the only state in history to have used a nuclear weapon not once but twice. The other, who refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has a mass-murder-suicide-style nuclear doctrine, is at this situation.

Israel and the US are obviously not interested in Iran’s nuclear program. They want Iran to become a regional power, which is why regime change has already been discussed in the media.

US Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz have called for the sacking of Iran’s government in addition to numerous statements from Netanyahu, Israeli defense minister Israel Katz, and other Israeli officials. US President Donald Trump posted a message on social media on Sunday to join the calls for a change in Iran’s regime.

Iranians are now being urged to “stand up” and fight for their “freedom.” However, Israel and the US don’t want Iran to have freedom and democracy. Why? Because of the fact that a free and democratic Iran would reject the brutalities of a colonial-state project in its vicinity.

They would prefer any other political force to do their bidding, such as the Pahlavi dynasty, which was a violent, tyrannical monarchy that was once the Pahlavi dynasty, which overcame its demise in a popular revolution in 1979.

Israel and the US would prefer a destabilized, fragmented, weak, chaotic, and divided Iran, which would be ruined by a civil war. That would serve their purposes, just as a war-torn Iraq did.

The political elites in Israel and the US have jointly supported a well-established policy objective since the 1990s, which is to weaken regional powers in the Middle East and cause instability through subversion and aggression.

This strategy of attacking Middle Eastern states was described in a policy document called Clean Break, which was written by former US Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle and other neoconservatives in 1996.

Perle and al simply capitalized on the well-known imperial strategy of creating division and chaos to facilitate imperial dominance.

However, there are risks in this approach. A weakened or dispersed Iranian state can result in the same dynamics as the demise of the Iraqi state opened the door to violent non-state actors and helped Iran strengthen its position as a regional power challenging US-Israeli interests.

The US and Israel’s actions are encouraging more nations to pursue nuclear weapons on a more global scale. Nuclear weapons are a necessity to acquire just to prevent such attacks, which states are learning from the US-Israeli aggression against Iran. In other words, this war is likely going to cause more proliferation, not less.

As long as the chaos and destruction it causes in the area allows it to accomplish its strategic objective of ending all resistance to its settler colonization project, the Israeli state doesn’t seem concerned about proliferation. In a nutshell, Israel will do anything to bring the entire region to its knees in order to do so. Because it is essentially free to bear the cost of regional instability.

In contrast, chaos in the Middle East directly affects US interests. In the short run, a dysfunctional Iraq or weakened Iran may be beneficial to the US, but instability could impair its grander plans to control global energy markets&nbsp and halt China.

The unjustified aggression will have a ripple effect on the rest of the world, just as it did following Iraq’s invasion in 2003.

Some European nations have appeared to support the attack despite the numerous negative economic effects they may experience as a result of that war, which has had a brutal, decades-long impact on the global response to the US-Israeli aggression against Iran.

This complacency with imperial violence must end if governments truly want to make the world a safer place. They have come to the sobering conclusion that the US and Israel, thanks to their racist colonial designs, cause chaos and destruction.

US imperialism is an unjustifiable effort to rob people of their resources, dignity, and sovereignty, while the Israeli settler colonial project is an unjustifiable one of displacement, expulsion, and genocide.

The world needs to press Israel to abandon its settler colonial project and establish a decolonial relationship with the Palestinians in a decolonized Palestine, as well as to compel the US to let its citizens live in freedom and sovereignty.

Only this will prevent unending chaos, instability, suffering, and pain.

Early on Sunday, the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear sites after more than a week of Israeli strikes on Tehran’s military and nuclear sites, stoking concerns about radiation leaks and contamination in Iran and neighbouring countries in the region.

US President Donald Trump said the US strikes “obliterated” key nuclear enrichment facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. So far, no increase in radiation levels has been detected outside the targeted sites.

But the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has warned of chemical contamination inside these facilities. And experts have said that any attack on Iran’s only operating nuclear power plant, Bushehr, could lead to a major radiation crisis.

Here is what we know about the potential of radiation risk and contamination in Iran and the region:

What do we know about the Israeli attack on the Fordow site?

The Israeli army attacked Iran’s Fordow nuclear site a day after it was targeted in US strikes, according to a spokesman for the Qom province crisis management headquarters.

Morteza Heydari provided no further details regarding the attack, but said “no danger is posed to citizens” in the area.

Following the attacks on three nuclear sites, including Fordow, Trump claimed “monumental damage’ to the nuclear sites. “Obliteration is an accurate term!” he posted on his Truth Social platform.

On Monday, Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, said “very significant damage” is expected at the Fordow site. While “no one, including the IAEA, is in a position to have fully assessed the underground damage at Fordow”, he said it is expected to be “very significant”.

That’s because of “the explosive payload utilised and the extreme vibration-sensitive nature of centrifuges”, Grossi said at an emergency meeting of the IAEA’s board of governors.

Did the US attacks cause radioactive contamination?

In the aftermath of Sunday’s attack, levels of radioactivity in Iran and nearby countries are normal, confirmed their governments and the IAEA, which noted that no off-site radiation has been reported.

In a statement on Sunday, the IAEA said that the Isfahan site, which was previously also struck by Israel, had sustained additional damage after the US strikes.

The IAEA said that any radioactive contamination caused at Isfahan is limited to the buildings that were damaged or destroyed.

“The facilities targeted today either contained no nuclear material or small quantities of natural or low-enriched uranium, meaning any radioactive contamination is limited to the buildings that were damaged or destroyed,” the agency said.

Grossi, the IAEA chief, said that the US strikes on Isfahan hit several buildings, including some “related to the uranium conversion process” while a fuel enrichment plant was hit at Natanz.

Grossi said IAEA inspectors stand ready to check the targeted facilities “when agreed with Iran”.

The IAEA monitors and reports nuclear activities of Iran through inspections, monitoring equipment, environmental sampling, and satellite imagery, according to a UN website news release.

Why did radiation remain at normal levels?

There are multiple possible reasons why the radiation has stayed at normal levels.

One is that Iran had moved away its nuclear infrastructure in anticipation of an earlier Israeli strike. Mahdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said earlier that Iran had moved its nuclear infrastructure from Fordow in anticipation of an attack.

So far, only enrichment sites, where uranium is enriched to make atomic bombs, have been hit.

At enrichment sites, uranium exists in gaseous form, which combines with fluoride gas to form uranium hexafluoride. This is spun around in centrifuges to increase the amounts of uranium-235, the isotope that can support nuclear fission chain reactions.

Hence, if struck, uranium hexafluoride might leak out of enrichment sites. The fluoride gas is deadly when inhaled and can be corrosive to the skin.

Moreover, enrichment facilities are also fortified underground and buried hundreds of metres deep, making them difficult to damage and hence lessening radiation risks.

On the other hand, nuclear reactors primarily use uranium. In a nuclear reactor, the fission chain reaction needs to take place within a fraction of a second, leading to a nuclear explosion from the tremendous amount of energy released. Typically, 90 percent enrichment is needed to make an atomic bomb.

Why are experts warning against attacking the Bushehr plant?

Concerns have particularly been raised against attacks on the Bushehr nuclear site, with the IAEA chief warning of a disaster if the plant located at Iran’s Gulf Coast is hit.

Grossi said on Thursday that a direct hit to Bushehr, which is monitored by the IAEA, would result in a “very high release of radioactivity to the environment”.

Grossi added that Bushehr contains “thousands of kilogrammes of nuclear material”. In a worst-case scenario, it would require evacuation orders to be issued for areas within several hundred kilometres of the plant, including population centres in other Gulf countries, he said.

The IAEA chief said that a strike on the two lines that supply electricity to Bushehr could cause its reactor core to melt, with dire consequences.

Authorities would need to take protective actions including administering iodine to populations and potentially restricting food supplies, with subsequent radiation monitoring covering distances of several hundred kilometres.

On June 19, the Israeli military said that it had attacked Bushehr, but later said that the announcement was a mistake.

Bushehr, which is located around 750km (465 miles) south of Tehran, is Iran’s only commercial nuclear power plant. It is run by uranium produced in Russia.

Bushehr, home to around 223,504 people, has two large nuclear reactors – one of them still under construction.

“It would be very dangerous if it were hit with a bomb or the cooling systems are interrupted,” Robert Kelly, a former IAEA inspector who has worked in Iraq, South Africa and Libya, told Al Jazeera.

“You might get an accident on the scale of Fukushima, where the reactor would melt down inside its building and maybe release small amounts of gas to the environment,” Kelly said.

In March 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling systems of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, located in Okuma on Japan’s east coast. Radioactive material was released from the site, leading to tens of thousands of people being evacuated.

A UN report deems Fukushima the largest civilian nuclear accident since that in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986.

“If somebody attacks the town of Bushehr, it may not be the reactor. So when people are saying they’re attacking Bushehr or attacking the reactor of Bushehr, it could be the one that’s not finished yet,” Kelly said.

“I think the Russians would have a lot to say about someone attacking the facility that they already built and the one that’s worth about $7bn that isn’t finished yet. I think Israel has to take the Russians into account in this case, too.”

Russian state news agency RIA reported that the head of Russia’s nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, warned:  “If there is a strike on the operational first power unit, it will be a catastrophe comparable to Chernobyl.”

Why are Gulf States worried?

A strike on Bushehr would contaminate a critical source of desalinated potable water for Gulf countries, including Qatar.

Qatar and Bahrain are 100 percent reliant on desalinated water for drinking water. All of Bahrain’s groundwater is saved for contingency plans.

In March, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said during an interview with US media personality Tucker Carlson that Qatar had conducted simulations of an attack on Bushehr. The Qatari PM revealed that an attack on the plant would leave the Gulf entirely contaminated and Qatar would “run out of water in three days”.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is reliant on desalinated water, which accounts for more than 80 percent of its drinking water.

In Saudi Arabia, around 50 percent of the water supply came from desalinated water as of 2023, according to the General Authority for Statistics.

While countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman have access to other water sources, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait do not have other options.

Kelly said that the nuclear reactors are extremely tough and are designed to melt down inside their containment in certain accident situations.

“The idea that very much of the material inside is going to get out is actually pretty small, so I think people are maybe obsessing too much,” he said.

I completely disagree with that assessment. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte refuted Al Jazeera’s James Bays’ claim that the military alliance is acting hypocritically by not criticizing the US for its actions in the Middle East.

Amid Israel’s ongoing attacks in Gaza and Iran, US President Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites has deepened fears of a regional conflict in the Middle East.

Over the weekend, the United States military carried out its first known strikes against Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled pro-Western Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Tehran has vowed to respond, prompting fears of escalation.

During an address to a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, Turkiye on Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US crossed “a very big red line” by attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

One way Iran could retaliate is to shut the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade route where one-fifth of the world’s oil supply – roughly 20 million barrels – and much of its liquified gas, is shipped each day. That would lead to a surge in energy prices.

So, what do we know about the strategic passage, and can Iran afford to block it in response to the US and Israeli aggression?

What is the Strait of Hormuz?

The Strait of Hormuz lies between Oman and the United Arab Emirates on one side and Iran on the other. It links the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea beyond.

It is 33km (21 miles) wide at its narrowest point, with the shipping lane just 3km (2 miles) wide in either direction, making it vulnerable to attack.

Energy traders have been on high alert since Israel launched a wave of surprise attacks across Iran on June 13, fearing disruptions to oil and gas flows through the strait.

While the US and Israel have targeted key parts of Iran’s energy infrastructure, there has been no direct disruption to maritime activity in the region so far.

Still, even before the US strikes on Saturday, the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran had sparked ocean freight rates to surge in recent weeks.

Freight intelligence firm Xeneta said average spot rates have increased 55 percent month-over-month, through to last Friday.

Who would need to approve the closure?

Iran has in the past threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, but has never followed through on the threat.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council must make the final decision to close the strait, Iran’s Press TV said on Sunday, after parliament was reported to have backed the measure.

However, the decision to close the strait is not yet final, as parliament has not ratified a bill to that effect.

Instead, a member of parliament’s National Security Commission, Esmail Kosari, was quoted in Iranian media as saying: “For now, [parliament has] come to the conclusion we should close the Strait of Hormuz, but the final decision in this regard is the responsibility of the Supreme National Security Council.”

Asked about whether Tehran would close the waterway, FM Araghchi dodged the question on Sunday and replied: “A variety of options are available to Iran.”

In his first comments since the US strikes, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Israel has made a “grave mistake” and “must be punished”, but did not make any specific reference to either Washington or the Strait of Hormuz.

How would the closure work in practice?

Iran could attempt to lay mines across the Strait of Hormuz.

The country’s army or the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) may also try to strike or seize vessels in the Gulf, a method they have used on several occasions in the past.

During the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, the two sides engaged in the so-called “Tanker Wars” in the Persian Gulf. Iraq targeted Iranian ships, and Iran attacked commercial ships, including Saudi and Kuwaiti oil tankers and even US Navy ships.

Tensions in the strait flared up again at the end of 2007 in a series of skirmishes between the Iranian and US navies. This included one incident where Iranian speedboats approached US warships, though no shots were fired.

In April 2023, Iranian troops seized the Advantage Sweet crude tanker, which was chartered by Chevron, in the Gulf of Oman. The vessel was released more than a year later.

What would it mean for the global economy?

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday called on China to encourage Iran to not shut down the Strait of Hormuz after Washington carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

Speaking to Fox News, Rubio said: “It’s economic suicide for them if they do it [close the strait]. And we retain options to deal with that, but other countries should be looking at that as well. It would hurt other countries’ economies a lot worse than ours.”

For starters, shutting Hormuz risks bringing Gulf Arab states – which have been highly critical of the Israeli attack – into the war to safeguard their own commercial interests.

Closing the strait would also hit China.

The world’s second-largest economy buys almost 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports (roughly 1.6 million barrels per day), which are subject to international sanctions.

According to Goldman Sachs, a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could push oil prices above $100 per barrel. That would push the cost of production up, eventually affecting consumer prices – especially for energy-intensive goods like food, clothing and chemicals.

Oil-importing countries around the world could experience higher inflation and slower economic growth if the conflict persists, which could prompt central banks to push back the timing of future rate cuts.

But history has shown that severe disruptions to global oil supplies have tended to be short-lived.

Before the start of the second Gulf War, between March and May 2003, crude oil surged by a whopping 46 percent at the end of 2002. But prices quickly unwound in the days preceding the start of the US-led military campaign.

Similarly, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sparked a sharp rally in oil prices to $130 a barrel, but prices returned to their pre-invasion levels of $95 by mid-August.