This is a conflict over the control of land and sea, not trade. China won the trade war with the United States years ago . To control the Middle East, the United States and Israel have to crush the resistance of the people who have ongoing connection to the land for centuries, the Palestinian people.
The project that the US supports is a greater Israel. Zionist USrael has reduced Gaza Lebanon Syria and Iraq to various post-apocalyptic states of rubble poverty starvation civil strife economic instability political turmoil full stop. Who serves in the IDF is irrelevant. Most of the genocide has been done from the air. This is the MO of the murderous United States. Israel was beaten on the ground in Lebanon by Hezbollah in 2006. The US marines were driven out of Lebanon in the 1980s when they lost nearly 400 personnel in one bombing incident.
The myth of Israeli supermen created by Moshe Dayan in 1967 has been exposed by the Palestinian resistance fighters. One Palestinian fighter is worth 100 Israeli soldiers. The Iranian leadership underestimated the penetration of Mossad, thus resulting in a lot of its military and scientific leadership being assassinated. However, Iran has responded to that threat by bombing Mossad HQ positioned near Soroka hospital.
The West believes its own propaganda that Iran is a closed society. This is simply not true. People only have to look at Iranian films to realize that in many ways, it is more open than the United States. Trump is using the military against his own people. Trump is replacing the military leadership in the United States with Maga people. This is to prepare for a coup should it be required later in his second term.
Attempts by Netanyahu to bring Teheran to its knees have failed. Iran is likely to agree to a deal on enrichment but only one that will stick. They have no reason to trust Trump. The mullahs are conserving their most advanced missiles. This is because they don’t want to run out of air defense when the US launches his ballistic missiles at Teheran. It is slightly that the Pentagon has advised Trump to wait, for tactical reasons.
There is a lot of mythology about Trump. He is not hard to read. The US fully intends to attack Iran, the only question is when and with what. We can only hope Trump/Netanyahu do not use nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, Iran has been concentrating on military targets in Israel. The irony is that the Israelis have been claiming that Hamas is hiding out under hospitals. But Mossad headquarters is right near a hospital. Iran has been bombing Israeli airfields in the Negev.
People have made the mistake of not listening to Trump. Gaza is about land. The man who has spent most of his life in a hotel calls it real estate. Palestine is about land or more correctly about the connection to land. Even Iraq was about land. That was because Chevron couldn’t pump the oil without the Americans controlling the land. Of course, there is gas off the coast of Gaza, and pipelines are necessary. But there will be no access to the pipelines until the Palestinian resistance is crushed. That is why the Israelis and Americans are as one. They wish to rid Gaza of people because it is the Palestinians who have such a strong connection to their land. Israeli settlers want the land in the north of Gaza and all of the land in the West Bank.
Ian Curr, 21 June 2025
Remember Iran has no nuclear weapons, was signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which meant it had agreed to not develop nuclear weapons- and was open to IAEA scrutiny. US & Israel have nuclear weapons. Israel has not signed the NPT or allowed IAEA inspection. The US, Israel, Iran and Australia have refused to sign nuclear weapons ban: the Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons- which has been ratified (bc signed by most nations) meaning nuclear weapons are now illegal… Why is Australia supporting strikes on Iran? If Australia cared about nuclear weapons proliferation why hasn’t Australia signed the ban? [from fb]
These are next dates, hoping to get them onto social on Friday:
Sunday June 29th at 1pm @ Reddacliffe place –
Title: Sanction Israel
Subtitle: Stop Genocide. Stop War
Friday 11th July at 3.30pm @ Jim Chalmers office – Logan Central Plaza 38-74 Wembley Road.
Title: Jim Sanction Israel Now! Subtitle: Stop the weapons supply, End the Complicity.
Sunday 20th July 2025 at 1pm @ King George Square –
Tile: Sanction Israel – Magan-djin
Subtitle: Supports the Convergence in Canberra. Join the united call to sanction the state of Israel in response to the genocide in Palestine
Wednesday 23rd of July at 6pm @ Albion Peace Centre, 102 McDonald Road, Windsor
Tite: Public Meeting
Subtitle: Action for Palestine – Boycott Caltex Edition.
INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS (ICAN)
Founded in Melbourne 2007 Ican was sparked in Australia through collaborations led by the MEDICAL ASSOCIATION FOR PREVENTION OF WAR (MAPW) and
INTERNATIONAL PHYSICIANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF WAR (IPPNW)
It is a coalition of non-governmental organisations in more than one hundred countries promoting support for and implementation of the UNITED NATIONS TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
ICAN was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2017
They are proudly independent, non partisan and funded by donations from their community of supporters.
LATEST NEWS 18th June Campaign media release
The Israel-Iran conflict shows the deadly danger of nuclear brinkmanship.) Australia must reject nuclear weapons. The escalating conflict between Israel and Iran is a terrifying reminder of how close the world remains to nuclear disaster.
We call on the Australian government to
Condemn Israel’s illegal military attack and call for an immediate end to hostilities
Oppose any threat or use of nuclear weapons under any TO
Implement Labor’s national policy commitment to sign, then ratify the TPNW without delay
ACTION – WRITE TO THE PM
Include the 3 demands written above
Use the online contact form pm.gov.au/contact or via post
The Hon Anthony Albanese MP
Prime Minister Parliament House CANBERRA ACT 2600
Thanks, Rosemarie
Friends of the Earth, Brisbane
Friends of the Earth Pace Collective
Authorised by Cam Walker, Friends of the Earth Australia, 312 Smith Street, Collingwood, VIC, 3066.
IPAN condemns the Australian Government’s support of illegal US bombing of Iran
USA bombing against sovereign nation Iran is a flagrant violation of international of law
National peace network condemns USA bombings and Australian Government’s support of them
IAEA has stated there is ‘no credible indication’ of an active, coordinated weapons program
Australian Government must declare ‘no participation’ in illegal attacks on Iran
IPAN calls for a national day of action on July 4.
The Independent Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) condemns the illegal USA bombing against sovereign nation Iran, as well as the illegal attacks by Israel. The bombings represent a flagrant violation of international of law.
‘We call upon the Australian Government to declare “no participation” in illegal attacks on Iran and to promote the upholding of international law”, urged IPAN spokesperson Dr Alison Broinowski, a former Australian diplomat.
‘The USA and Israeli attacks on Iran are entirely outside international law which is absolutely critical as without it we will have the law of the jungle’, Dr Broinowski stated.
“Which state will be next if this situation continues?” Dr Broinowski asked.
‘The world is crying out for leaders who will stand up for international law’, Dr Broinowski stated.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, which has been carrying out inspections in Iran, has stated that ‘while it cannot guarantee Iran’s nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons programme either’.[i]
‘It must be remembered that Iran has only attacked Israel after Israel has launched assassination attacks or other attacks on Iran”, stated Dr Broinowski.
‘In fact its Israel which has nuclear weapons which threatens neighbouring countries, and it refuses to join the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, consequently there is no oversight by the IAEA”, Dr Broinowski said.
Prominent Australian Journalist Peter Cronau has today written that[ii]
‘A plan was developed for the United States to use diplomacy to entice Iran into negotiations that then fail, so Iran can be attacked while the US is pushing a false narrative saying the Iranians “brought it on themselves.’
‘The plan also urged the US to encourage or assist the Israelis, as a direct US proxy, to conduct the strikes on Iran so as to deflect criticism and retaliation onto Israel, as Declassified Australia reports.’
IPAN condemns the Australian Government for publicly stating support for the USA bombings.[iii]
IPAN calls for Prime Minister Albanese to urgently warn the USA that Australia will not cooperate with any further escalation in this conflict.
‘Australia must not be complicit or involved in any way and this must include the refuelling of aircraft; communication with nuclear submarines; and the kind of command-and-control war fighting logistics that runs through the global communications and surveillance infrastructure that includes Pine Gap and North West Cape’, stated Dr Broinowski.
‘As a joint partner, Australia should notify the USA that no Australian joint defence facility is available to attack Iran, or any other nation’ and ‘IPAN maintains its long-held concern that the US-Australia alliance is dragging Australia into further USA wars’, stated Dr Broinowski.
The USA and Israel must heed the warnings given by the IAEA of the possible release of radioactive material into the atmosphere in the region. The IAEA has warned the worst-case scenario would be if the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant was struck, as this could ‘necessitate protective actions, such as evacuations and sheltering of the population or the need to take stable iodine, with the reach extending to distances from a few to several hundred kilometres…[and possibly] food restrictions’.[iv]
The UN Secretary general Antonio Gutierrez has stated[v]:
‘There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control – with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world.’
‘Peace can only happen if all sides accept international law. We call on the Australian government to request the USA and Israel and Iran to return to the negotiating table, to de-escalate their responses and respect their boundaries under international law’, stated Dr Broinowski.
In response to these appalling developments in the Middle East, IPAN calls for a national day of action on July 4.
ENDS
——————————————————————————-
Media Interviews: Dr Alison Broinowski 0422 608 580
Media Liaison: Jonathan Pilbrow 0403 611 815
Spokesperson Bio: Dr Alison Broinowski, AM, FAIIA, FAHA, Member of Australians for War Powers Reform, Former Australian diplomat, Academic, Author. Alison Broinowski joined the Australian foreign service in 1963 and then alternated between living and working in Japan, Burma (Myanmar), the Philippines, South Korea, Jordan, Mexico, and the US (UN New York). Alison is the author or editor of 14 books and many articles on Australia’s interface with the world, particularly Asia. Her books include Howard’s War, 2003 and Allied and Addicted, 2007. After 1996 Alison taught and researched international relations at the Australian National University, Macquarie University, and the University of Wollongong. Alison has been President of Australians for War Powers Reform and a Board member of World BEYOND War. Alison was also a Panel Member for the IPAN’s People’s Inquiry (2020-2022).
[i] https://www.deccanherald.com/world/explained-how-close-is-iran-to-having-nuclear-weapons-3593098
[ii] THE PLAN TO BOMB IRAN – Declassified Australia
[iii] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-23/federal-politics-live-blog-june-23/105447868
[iv] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/iaea-director-general-grossis-statement-to-unsc-on-situation-in-iran-20-june-2025
[v] https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2025-06-21/statement-the-secretary-general-iran
—
Annette Brownlie 0431 597 256
For imperialists, the land (and sea) is only about trade – either resource extraction or secure trade routes. Basic Marxism – capitalism creates imperialism and imperialism creates war. I think you would be wrong to think the Palestine/Israel/Iran war is an exception to that rule. Religious Zionism is just the hegemonic puppet show to justify US imperialism, just like Christianity and white supremacism was the hegemonic puppet show to justify the British genocide and occupation here, which was about wool for British textile mills, not religion.
[from fb https://www.facebook.com/share/19Kdxn9vBT/
Watch ““It’s Always About Oil”: CIA & MI6 Staged Coup in Iran 70 Years Ago, Destroying Democracy in Iran” on YouTube
Thanks Trevor
Readers should be careful of predictions of the future . No one knows that foreign country . Also, be mindful of the military limitations of the United States. Although the most powerful, the US military still has logistical problems in the Middle East that are unresolved. If you have the time, have a listen to Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on those failings. For reasons given by Naomi Klein in disaster capitalism in the “The Shock Doctrine” I am always nervous about articles that rely upon anything said by Jeffrey Sachs. – Ian Curr Editor 21 June 25
https://www.youtube.com/live/jlSCZkMDN6k?feature=shared
Centrifugal forces have been unleashed in Iran
The US-Israeli surprise attack on Iran is literally and figuratively designed to unleash centrifugal forces in the Islamic Republic.
Two nuclear powers are currently bombing the nuclear facilities of a third state. One of them, the US, is handling mid-air refuelling, bombs and an array of intelligence. If successful, they will destroy or, more likely, destabilise the uranium enrichment centrifuges at Natanz and possibly the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, causing them to vibrate and spin uncontrollably, generating centrifugal forces that could rupture containment systems. Spinning at more than 50,000 rpm, it wouldn’t take much of a shockwave from a blast or some other act of sabotage to do this.
There may be about half a tonne of enriched uranium and several tonnes of lower-grade material underground.
If a cascade of bunker-busting bombs like the US GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators got through, the heat generated would be in the hundreds, even thousands, of degrees Celsius. This would destroy the centrifuges, converting the uranium hexafluoride gas into a toxic aerosol, leading to serious radiological contamination over a wide area. The head of the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, warned repeatedly of the dangers over the past few days. How many people would be killed, contaminated or forced to evacuate shouldn’t have to be calculated: it should be avoided at all cost.
Divided opinions
Some people think this attack is a very good idea; some think this is an act of madness by two rogue states. On 18 June, Israeli media were reporting the US had rushed an aerial armada loaded with bunker busters to Israel while the US continued its sham denials of involvement in the war.
Jeffrey Sachs and Sybil Fares warned this week of “Israel bringing the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon in pursuit of its illegal and extremist aims”. They point out that for some decades now, Netanyahu has warned that Iran is weeks or even days away from having the bomb, begging successive presidents for permission to wage a Judeo-Christian jihad. In Donald Trump — the MAGA peace candidate — he finally got his green light.
The centrifugal forces destabilising the Iranian state
The other — and possibly more significant — centrifugal force that has been unleashed is a hybrid attack on the Iranian state itself. The Americans, Israelis and their European allies hope to trigger regime change. There are many Iranians inside and outside the country who would welcome such a development. Other Iranians suggest they should be careful of what they wish for, pointing to the human misery that follows, as night follows day, wherever post 9/11 America’s project to bring “democracy, goodness and niceness” leads. If you can’t quickly think of half a dozen examples, this must be your first visit to Planet Earth.
Is regime change in Iran possible?
So, are the Americans and Israelis on to something or not? This week, prominent anti-regime writer Sohrab Ahmari added a caveat to his long-standing call for an end to the regime. Ahmari, an Iranian, who is the US editor of the geopolitical analysis platform _UnHerd_ said: “The potential nightmare scenarios are as numerous as they are appalling: regime collapse that leads not to the restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty and the ascent to the Peacock Throne of its chubby dauphin, Reza, but warlordism and ethno-sectarian warfare that drives millions of refugees into Europe. Or a Chinese intervention in favour of a crucial energy partner and anchor of the new Eurasian bloc led by Beijing… A blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on the Persian Gulf monarchies.”
Despite these risks, there are indeed Iranians who are cheering for Uncle Bibi (Netanyahu). Some have little sympathy for the Palestinians because their government poured millions into supporting Hamas and Hezbollah – money that could have eased hardship inside Iran, caused, it must be added, by both the US-imposed sanctions and the regime’s own mismanagement, some say corruption.
As I pointed out in an article The West’s War on Iran shortly after the Israelis launched the war, the regime appears to have a core support base of around 20%. This was true in 2018 when I last visited Iran and was still the case in the most recent polling I could find.
I quoted an Iranian contact who told me shortly after the attack they had scanned reactions inside Iran and found people were upset, angry and overwhelmingly supportive of the government at this critical moment. Like many, I suggested Iranians would — as typically happens when countries are attacked — rally round the flag. Shortly after the article was published, this statement was challenged by other Iranians who dispute that there will be any “rallying to the flag” – as that is the flag of the Islamic Republic and a great many Iranians are sick to the back teeth of it. Some others demur:
“The killing of at least 224 Iranians has once again significantly damaged Israel’s claim that it avoids targeting civilians,” Dr Shirin Saeidi, author of Women and the Islamic Republic, an associate professor of Political Science at the University of Arkansas, told The New Arab on 16 June. “Israel’s illegal attack on the Iranian people will definitely not result in a popular uprising against the Iranian state. On the contrary, Iranians are coming together behind the Islamic Republic.”
To be honest, I can’t discern who is correct. In the last couple of days, I have also had contact with people inside Iran (all these contacts must, for obvious reasons, be anonymous). One of them welcomed the attack on the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps). I also got this message relayed to me from someone else in Iran as a response to my article:
“Some Iranians are pro-regime and have condemned Israeli attacks and want the government to respond strongly. Some Iranians are pro-Israel and happy that Israel has attacked and killed some of their murderers and want regime change, [but the] majority of Iranians dislike both sides. They dislike the regime in Iran, and they are patriotic so they don’t want a foreign country like Israel invading them and killing people. They feel hopeless and defenceless as they know both sides have failed or will fail them.”
Calculating the incalculable: regime survival or collapse?
Only a little more than half of Iran is Persian. Minorities include Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Arabs, Balochis, Turkmen, Armenians and one of the region’s few post-Nakba Jewish congregations outside of Israel today.
Mossad, MI6 and various branches of the US state have poured billions into opposition groups, including various monarchist factions, but from a distance they appear fragmented. The Mojahedin-e-Khalq armed opposition group has been an irritant, but so far not a major disruptor. The most effective terrorist attacks inside Iran have been launched by Israel, the US and Britain – including the assassination of a string of Iranian peace negotiators, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, nuclear scientists and their families, and various regime figures.
How numerous the active strands of anti-regime elements are is hard to estimate. Equally hard to calculate is how many will move into open confrontation with the regime. Conversely, how unified, durable — or brittle — is the regime? How cohesive is the leadership of the IRGC and the Basij militias? Will they work effectively together in the trying times ahead? In particular, how successful has the CIA, MI6 and Mossad been at penetrating their structures and buying generals?
Both Iran’s nuclear program 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. If the centrifugal forces prove too great, I can’t help but think of the words of William Butler Yeats:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Peace and Prosperity to all the people of Iran. And let’s never forget the people of Palestine as they endure genocide.
Eugene Doyle
21 June 2025