Over the last century, we’ve watched as the United States has carried out countless “regime change” operations across the globe. From South America to the Middle East, the CIA has installed puppet governments favorable to American interests.
These U.S.-engineered coups have destabilized nations, subverted democracy and made the world a more dangerous place — often in the name of democracy, national security and world peace.
Israel and the United States are now using the same fabricated arguments to topple the Iranian government, arguing that Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon” because it’s a “destabilizing” force in the Middle East and a threat to world peace.
The hypocrisy and entitlement of two of the most dangerous and violent nuclear-armed nations on earth telling another country not to develop nuclear weapons could not be more brazen. It undermines international efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.
The United States is the only country in the world that has deployed a nuclear weapon, killing almost a quarter of a million people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Nearly all were civilians. It has since waged numerous bloody wars, including in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, leading to the creation of Daesh — perhaps the most destabilizing terrorist group in the Middle East we’ve ever known. America has a staggering 5,277 nuclear warheads at its disposal, second only to Russia’s 5,449.
Israel, a country that is actively committing genocide against the Palestinians, has blatantly violated the rules and norms of warfare by killing Gaza civilians en masse and attacking five of its neighboring countries just this year. Though it’s the only country in the world that refuses to confirm or deny its nuclear arsenal, it is an open secret that Israel has at least 90 nuclear warheads in its illegal, undeclared nuclear weapons program. Some estimates place its atomic stockpile at 400 warheads.
Meanwhile, the Israeli documentary series “The Atom and Me” reveals how Israel stole highly enriched uranium from a nuclear facility in Pennsylvania in the 1960s. Successive U.S. presidents turned a blind eye and have since avoided questions about Israel’s nuclear program and deliberately ignored its own intelligence about it.
But it doesn’t even need nuclear bombs to wreak havoc in the Middle East. During its two-year genocide of Palestine, Israel has so far unleashed some 70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza, equivalent to six Hiroshimas, according to Paul Rogers, a professor of peace studies at the University of Bradford. Yet we’re told that Iran is the threat to the Middle East.
Israel has also never signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which aims to curb the spread of nuclear weapons, and has rejected calls for it to join the treaty. It has barred the International Atomic Energy Agency from conducting inspections of its nuclear facilities and refuses to accept the watchdog agency’s safeguards on its nuclear activities. At the same time, it opposes the establishment of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.
The hypocrisy and entitlement of two of the most dangerous and violent nuclear-armed nations telling another country not to develop nuclear weapons could not be more brazen. It undermines international efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.
Iran, on the other hand, was one of the earliest signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970. Iran has long insisted that its nuclear program is peaceful and abided by its non-proliferation obligations — until Trump pulled out of the treaty in 2018 and reintroduced sanctions on Iran. Despite that, Iran has been fully cooperating with international inspectors for decades, who have confirmed it was not building nuclear weapons.
America’s own intelligence confirms this. As recently as March, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said: “The IC [Intelligence Community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” This has been confirmed by reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency as well.
For Iran, a nuclear weapon — an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction by its very nature — is deemed to be religiously impermissible. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa, or religious decree, forbidding the possession and use of one. “Building and stockpiling nuclear bombs is wrong and using it is haram (religiously forbidden),” he declared in 2019.
What Israel and the West accuse Iran of doing is actually a confession about themselves.
If there’s any country that should be stopped from having nuclear weapons, it’s Israel — a rogue nation defying all international conventions to continue its bloody genocide and expand its borders. Its nuclear threat is the one we should be taking seriously.
Israel’s “Samson Option” is a little-known doctrine which threatens the world with destruction if Israel’s existence is at stake. Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, told Progressive magazine:
“The Samson Option is believed to refer to Israel’s plans for overwhelming nuclear retaliation against non-nuclear adversaries if the country faces an imminent, existential threat. It would likely include deliberate, disproportionate nuclear strikes against non-military targets, such as cities, despite the clear violation of international humanitarian law.”
Those targets include European capitals, warned Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. As he told journalist David Hirst in the book The Gun and the Olive Branch, “We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force.”
American-Jewish author Ron Rosenbaum wrote in his 2012 book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III that in the “aftermath of a second Holocaust,” Israel could “bring down the pillars of the world (attack Moscow and European capitals for instance)” with its nuclear-armed submarines and even target the “holy places of Islam.”
And we’re meant to believe Iran is the biggest nuclear threat?
If Israel and the United States were truly concerned about the threat and danger of nuclear weapons, they wouldn’t be bombing Iran’s nuclear sites and risking the spread of deadly nuclear radiation in the region.
If Israel and the United States were truly concerned about the threat and danger of nuclear weapons, they wouldn’t be bombing Iran’s nuclear sites and risking the spread of deadly nuclear radiation in the region.
After Israel’s lawless and unprovoked attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi issued a statement condemning the targeting of nuclear sites:
“I have repeatedly stated that nuclear facilities must never be attacked, regardless of the context or circumstances, as it could harm both people and the environment,” he said. “Such attacks have serious implications for nuclear safety, security and safeguards, as well as regional and international peace and security.”
Case in point: the Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster in 1986. After a mistake by engineers working at the plant, an explosion released dangerous radioactive material into the atmosphere. This was spread by the wind as far as Russia and Ukraine in the east and France and Italy in the west. It resulted in 5,000 cases of thyroid cancer and exposed 10 million people to radiation. The cost of the disaster was $700 billion, making it the most expensive disaster in history due to the long-term health implications and clean-up costs.
To add to the hypocrisy, U.S. officials were briefed that only dropping a tactical nuclear bomb would destroy Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility, the Guardian newspaper reported. The irony of dropping nuclear bombs to destroy nuclear bombs cannot be lost on anyone.
President Trump has long insisted that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” But this demand has now gone further, with Trump refusing to allow Iran to have any nuclear capability, even for peaceful energy means. He doesn’t want a deal, but for Iran to capitulate to his demands to “entirely” stop its uranium enrichment. This is the real reason he allowed Israel to attack Iran — to compel it to submit to his terms in negotiations.
Ali Shamkhani, one of Iran’s top commanders, was leading negotiations with the U.S. and was prepared to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The next meeting of negotiations was just two days away when Israel assassinated him and began a war of aggression against Iran.
Mohamed ElBaradei, former director general of the IAEA, accused both the U.S. and Israel of an attempt at “national humiliation” against Iran by their illegal attacks on nuclear facilities. He said suspicion that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon did not constitute an “imminent threat” and that such attacks would “destroy the [Non-Proliferation Treaty].” It would send a message to the world that a country’s “ultimate security” would be in developing nuclear weapons, he warned.
The United States subscribes to the principles of national sovereignty and territorial integrity. It wouldn’t tolerate any such demands on it by a foreign power, nor would it stand for any intrusion into its territory. Nor would Israel. Yet both still feel entitled to dictate terms to a sovereign nation making its own decisions and abiding by international standards — something these two countries consistently and brazenly fail to do.
The world must urgently work toward the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons; dictating to others while stockpiling their own, however, reeks of hypocritical entitlement and undermines such efforts.
