Is
it Donald Trump who's afraid of peace or is it the political establishment of
Washington DC that's afraid of peace? Recent negotiations between
Washington and Teheran seemed to be making some progress towards a situation in
Iran that did not involve death and destruction. While a treaty between
the two nations was not just over the horizon, the potential that a framework
that genuinely discussed an equitable way for both countries to avoid war
seemed possible. The attack by Israeli and US forces and Iran’s ensuing
counterattacks of February 28,2025 rendered that possibility moot.
Israel claims the existence of the current government in Iran is an existential threat to its existence. If one looks at the situation from a perspective not tainted by Israeli and US imperial designs, and from one that includes a history of the region that extends into a past well before the creation of the western colony called Israel, a more honest appraisal would claim that the existence of Israel is an existential threat to the people who live in what is often called the Mideast. Indeed, if the current conflict follows certain trajectories, it could be an existential threat to the entire world.
In recent months, as the Trump regime has kidnapped heads of state, blockaded nations, murdered dozens on the high seas and established a domestic secret police regime in the US, one can't help but make comparisons to similar endeavors in the past. One potential comparison the current regime in Washington invites is to one of history's most hated governments --the Nazis under the reign of Adolf Hitler. I recognize that the similarities are not specific or identical, however bear with me as I make a couple general comparisons. As the Nazis consolidated their internal security in the months after Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship of Germany, its military and diplomatic forces annexed Austria and then invaded Poland in the years 1938-1939. With the expansion of the numbers and roles of Homeland Security agents like those in Minneapolis, the kidnapping of its leaders and government by threat in Venezuela and now the attack on, murder of its rulers and a potential invasion of Iran, the general scenario is closer than comfort allows.
In 1968, the Americal division of the US army slaughtered over five hundred civilians in MyLai, Vietnam. On February 13, 1991, the US Air Force (USAF) bombed a civilian air defense shelter, killing 408 Iraqis. In April 1999, the USAF bombed a civilian train in the former Yugoslavia, killing over sixty civilians and in October 2015, the USAF bombed a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing more than forty patients and staff. As I am writing, this the numbers of school children killed after US forces bombed an elementary school in the opening hours of the attack on Iran being discussed here, with the toll already over one hundred. More bodies continue to be discovered in the rubble. One fears that this is just the beginning of what will become a long list of atrocities committed by US forces beyond the atrocity of the military conflict itself.
Speaking of further atrocities, the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei along with his daughter, grandchild and son-in-law certainly qualifies, albeit in a different way than the massacre of the schoolchildren. No matter what one thinks of Khamanei and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran—and there is certainly plenty to be take issue with in terms of human rights abuses—for the head of the government Martin Luther King, Jr called “the world's greatest purveyor of violence” to characterize the ruler of Iran as "evil" renders the word meaningless. The United States government has proven once again that its only strength is brute force, murder and destruction; its only intent is domination. Dialogue and negotiations are pretenses it undertaken and designed only as a prelude to military attack. The deeds of so-called bad guys it claims are its targets pale in the wake of the self-righteous and ultimately cynical deeds perpetrated by the White House, the Pentagon and the rest of the US war machine.
There are those who insist that this attack was undertaken at the behest of Israel; that the Trump administration works for Israel and its agenda. This argument ignores a vital historical fact: Washington has interfered in Iran’s internal affairs for decades—first as a client state in the aftermath of the 1953 CIA-engineered coup, then as a whipping boy since the revolution that overthrew Washington’s puppet in 1979. Since that revolution, Washington has fought Iran by proxy in the Iran-Iraq war, manipulated its revolutionary government in the early 1980s with the offer of weapons and weapons parts to influence the makeup of the post-revolutionary government and, in the last couple decades, helped cause the deaths of untold thousands of Iranian people via sanctions, lies and subterfuge.
There’s plenty of speculation as to what will happen next in Iran and West Asia as a result of this attack and all that’s led up to it. Although it is tempting to add my considerations to the growing list of articles and op-eds, I have to agree with Karen Young of the neoliberal Middle East Institute who wrote on the think tank’s website soon after the February 27th attack, “It’s early for assessment and can change quickly….” I would further add, it’s way too early for assessment. One only has to remember the weeks immediately after George W. Bush’s stroll across the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and his characterization of the 2003 attack on Iraq as having been accomplished. Within weeks an asymmetrical war of resistance to the US occupation began in earnest and lasted several years. Another example of the dangers of speculation regarding outcome of imperial attacks on non-compliant nations would be the aftermath of the US/NATO attack on Libya. After Hillary Clinton joyfully celebrated ruler Gaddafi’s assassination by Washington’s military, the country spiraled downward into its current situation of banditry, religious sectarianism and economic depression. One could even consider the aftermath of the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022 in a list of potential scenarios Iran could experience. Still, I will refrain from any deeper speculation at this point in time.
To return to the question I opened this piece with: Is it Donald Trump who's afraid of peace or is it the political establishment of Washington DC that's afraid of peace? My answer is no, it’s not just Donald Trump's war being fought in Iran, nor is it Netanyahu’s. It is Washington's war and it is Washington that fears peace.
