Israel Attacks Iran—and Burns Down the Off-Ramp With America
It took 22 months to get from President Barack Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo, promising a “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” to his decision to bomb Libya in March 2011, opening up a new chapter of America’s wars in the region.
President Donald Trump has broken that record. Just last month, he was in Saudi Arabia promising the end of the “neocon” era and a future “where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence.” Now he’s cheering on the Middle Eastern equivalent of Pearl Harbor. And he reportedly used the promise of talks as a smokescreen for the opening shots of this war.
The United States and Iran were scheduled for a round of negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program in Oman on Sunday. Trump even hinted at a grand bargain involving the United States, Israel, and Iran to end the war in Gaza, which continues to drag on.
But on Thursday night, Israeli bombs brought down apartment buildings in a surprise attack on Tehran, killing several generals and nuclear scientists as well as other bystanders. The Israeli military also hit military bases around Iran, and it claims to have damaged the Natanz uranium enrichment plant. Iranian media estimate the casualties at 73 deaths and 329 injuries, including women and children.
“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday morning. “I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told, that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come.”
Trump said that Iran could still accept a deal “before there is nothing left,” and a Trump administration official told Reuters that “we still intend to have talks Sunday.” That ship seems to have sailed, though. State media in both Iran and Oman have announced that the negotiations are officially over. One of the officials killed in his home, after all, was Ali Shamkhani—the top Iranian nuclear negotiator.
“The Zionist regime at dawn today extended its vile and bloody hand to commit a crime in our dear country and revealed its evil nature more than ever by striking residential centers,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared in a statement. “The regime must expect harsh punishment. The powerful hand of the Islamic Republic’s armed forces will not let it go, God willing.”
So far, Iran seems to have been disoriented, much like the Lebanese militia Hezbollah after the Israeli pager attacks. The Iranian government has apparently been focused on replacing the casualties, who include Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, the military chief of staff, and Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, in charge of Iranian missile forces. In the first few hours after its attack, Israel says, it shot down a slow-moving Iranian drone swarm outside its airspace.
Some of the attacks were reportedly car
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