Australia and the World Past and Present

The US has bombed three nuclear sites in Iran – at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordo.

In the past few weeks Israel and Iran have been trading missile attacks.

It was not always clear that the US would join Israel in the fray.

But now it has, with President Donald Trump ordering the decisive action.

Israel believes that it cannot sit by and watch as Iran moves towards acquiring nuclear weapons.

Israel is hyper-vigilant about its own security. Many Israeli leaders believe that the events of the last few years prove that Israeli needs to retain a strong army and be ever-ready to use it.

There was the Hamas attack in 2023 and rockets launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon. There have also been missile attacks from Syria and Iran.

Trump called the Iran the world’s “number one state sponsor of terror.”

America’s latest attack shows what the US is capable of.

It has a tremendous ability to strike targets of the other side of the world without committing boots on the ground.

For the US, this is essentially a remote war.

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, probably thinks that this is a prime opportunity to strike at Iran. Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been severely weakened. Bashar al-Assad has been removed from Syria. In the last few weeks Israel has taken out a large number of Iran’s top brass. It points to Israel’s willingness to strike unilaterally at officials in another country.

General Mohammed Bagheri was killed. He was the most senior officer in the Iranian armed forces.

Hossein Salami was also killed. He was head of the Revolutionary Guards.

Trump didn’t bother reaching out for international support at the UN. He didn’t worry about trying to create a ‘coalition of the willing’. Trump is not very interested in creating alliances.

Netanyahu has said that regime change in Iran is not the objective of the latest military action, but that it may be a result.

Regime change is generally not supported by international law. When regime change does occur, the consequences can not always be accurately predicted.

The obvious case is Iraq.

The US led action to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The goal was achieved, but out of the ashes rose ISIS which was even more destructive than Saddam had been.

It is hard to believe that Biden would have ever authorised the action taken by Trump.

There is a concern that the conflict in the Middle East is spiraling more and more out of control. Most of the fighting of the last few years has been between the Israeli state and the non-state actors like Hamas and Hezbollah. It has now spilt over into regular missile exchanges between countries.

Iran for its part claims that its nuclear program is peaceful.

If Iran really did want to develop a nuclear weapon as a guaranteed deterrent from Israeli attacks, then the latest barrage may have reinforced this view further.

Significant military attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and personnel will set their nuclear program back. But it cannot remove the threat for all time.

Violence tends to reinforce violence.

The action may have been seen as necessary by Trump and Netanyahu. But it will not result in more goodwill from Tehran.

We are likely to see more anti-Israeli sentiment and more hatred of the US in the region.

The challenge remains for all. How do we reverse the spiral of conflict and violence in the Middle East? Hatred and distrust are winning the day and the consequences are there for all to see.