Por Sasan Fayazmanesh
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Photograph Source: Dan Scavino – Public Domain |
It has now been more than 30 years since the butcher of Auschwitz Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu, warned the world that Iran would soon acquire nuclear weapons. In 1992, in an address to the Israeli Knesset, he stated: “Within three to five years, we can assume that Iran will become autonomous in its ability to develop and produce a nuclear bomb.” He repeated the warning and whispered the need to invade Iran in the ears of every US president ever since. The warnings became louder after Al Qaeda attacked the US. The Jerusalem Post reported on September 12, 2001, that “Netanyahu warned last night that the attack could be a harbinger of worse tragedies that could kill millions of people once Iran or Iraq acquires nuclear weapons.” Later Netanyahu admitted that he had told the US Congress that there was “no question whatsoever that [Saddam] Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction.” Ahead of the 2003 Iraq invasion, Netanyahu told the US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, “you will finish this [invasion] very quickly. But your primary goal is the Iranian regime. And the Iranian regime is trying to develop a nuclear weapon.” He urged the US to invade both Iran and Iraq, but primarily Iran. This was, of course, at the time when Netanyahu’s moles in the White House, the so-called neocons (neoconservatives), were pushing George W. Bush to invade Iraq and Iran, in a policy that was called dual containment. Bush complied by invading Iraq, saying: “God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [Hussein], which I did, now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.” But given the fiasco that followed the Iraq invasion, Bush did not grant Netanyahu his main wish, i.e., invading Iran. Netanyahu, however, kept trying. In 2009, after Barack Obama took office, Netanyahu told members of Congress that Iran was just one or two years away from nuclear capability.
Three years later, on September 27, 2012, Netanyahu appeared before the UN General Assembly and held up a diagram of a cartoonish-looking bomb with a fuse and drew a redline on it at 90% enriched uranium. The bizarre spectacle was mocked by some as “Bibi’s Wile E. Coyote-style cartoon bomb.” As I stated at the time, this was not only the proverbial “one too many times” that Netanyahu had cried wolf, but it was mocked so much by the media that it seemed to be the beginning of the end of Netanyahu’s intense and unsuccessful campaign to make the US attack Iran.
Netanyahu could not convince Obama that bombing Iran was necessary. Instead, Obama signed a deal with Iran in 2015 called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In exchange for some sanctions relief, the JCPOA placed a 15-year limit on Iran’s enrichment of uranium to a maximum level of 3.67%, limited the stockpile of enriched uranium to 300 kilograms, and put a 10-year limit on the number of centrifuges Iran could operate. Netanyahu did everything in his power to sabotage the enactment of the JCPOA. He even appeared before a joint session of the US Congress in 2015 to challenge the US president and overturn the deal. He received standing ovations, but the JCPOA continued to hold despite much opposition to it in the US Congress.
But why was Netanyahu crying wolf for all those years and trying to defeat an agreement that assured peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program? The answer is that Netanyahu never believed that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. Like the case of Iraq, Netanyahu, as I had argued for many years in my books and articles, used the issue of a nuclear bomb as a ruse to bring about the so-called regime change in Iran. Why a regime change? Because Iran, similar to Saddam Hussein, supported militant groups that stood in the way of total annexation of Palestinian lands. Netanyahu was interested in resurrecting the friendly relations that Israel had with the Shah of Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. This intention was laid bare recently when Netanyahu talked about regime change, and the son of the infamous Shah declared his readiness to return to Iran.
Netanyahu could not get what he wanted as long as some degree of sanity prevailed in the White House. All this changed when Donald Trump, who shares many traits with Netanyahu, entered office. The man who had never read a page of the JCPOA and had no clue what the agreement was all about withdrew the US from the JCPOA, talking gibberish as to why he was doing so. But it appeared that his animosity toward Obama was the sole reason for his action. The leaders of Iran decided to stay in the agreement but kept enriching more and more uranium, hoping to bring the US back to the bargaining table. Instead of negotiating, Trump exerted “maximum pressure” on Iran by imposing more and more sanctions. He invaded Iranian airspace by flying a drone that was shot down by Iran and ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force. Iran attacked a US base in Iraq and promised to punish the perpetrators of the assassination. The attack was choreographed, designed mostly for domestic consumption. Iran had informed the US ahead of time about the attack, and, therefore, there were no serious injuries. Trump left office without any retribution for assassinating an Iranian general and his compatriots.
Joe Biden, a self-proclaimed Zionist, who showed signs of aging and dementia, was not much interested in returning to the JCPOA. He allowed Netanyahu to turn Gaza into a killing field and to slaughter people in Lebanon. He also continued Trump’s policy of maximum pressure on Iran, levying more and more sanctions and threatening, through his European allies, to bring back UN- imposed sanctions, using a clause in the JCPOA usually referred to as “snapback” or “trigger mechanism.” He was also hoping that the IAEA would build a stronger case against Iran, using some decades-old issues, as well as some new ones, such as activities related to the enrichment of uranium. Knowing all of this, the leaders of Iran, instead of trying to de-escalate the situation, continued to increase the stockpile of enriched uranium and the level of enrichment. This insane and dangerous act, as I argued in a recent interview, was meant to bring back to the negotiation table a cognitively impaired man and his mostly Israeli-loving advisors. The Iranian leaders ignored the fact that Netanyahu was on a killing spree in the region and would soon attack Iran with his far more superior force, aided by the US and European allies. Instead, the generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) boasted, almost daily, about their prowess and the impending demise of Israel.
In April 2024, Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus, killing top Iranian commanders and several officers. A few days later, the IRGC launched drones and missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted by Israel, the US, European countries, and regional allies of Israel. Soon after, Israel attacked Iran, taking out some anti-aircraft systems that protected nuclear facilities. In July 2024, Israel assassinated one of the political leaders of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in a guesthouse in Tehran run by the IRGC (details of which remain unclear to this day). The IRGC did nothing but make the usual bombastic statements. In September 2024, Israel injured Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon in the infamous and diabolical pager attack on Iran’s ally, Hezbollah. Subsequently, Israel killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, in an airstrike near Beirut. In retaliation, in October 2024, Iran launched drones and ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were once again intercepted. Israel responded by attacking and destroying Iran’s air defense systems in late October. Iran promised retaliation, but it never materialized. By now, the IRGC knew what Israel was capable of and that Iran had no air defenses. Yet, they continued with their pompous rhetoric. The amount of enriched uranium, particularly highly enriched, also increased. The stage was set for a full-blown attack on Iran by Israel and its allies.
Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election gave the Iranian leaders the false hope that they could make a deal with a man who bragged about his deal-making abilities. So, they enthusiastically welcomed making a deal with Trump and entered five rounds of negotiations with Trump’s representative, Steven Witkoff. As I stated in my interview with a reformist journal in Iran—a few weeks before the Israel/US-Iran war—the leaders of Iran not only forgot Trump’s hostile acts toward Iran, but they ignored all the vile traits of the man. They appealed to his crooked shopkeeper mentality. They forgot that Trump, who is basically a real estate dealer, knew nothing about the intricacies of Iran’s nuclear dispute and the history of Netanyahu’s decades-old claims about Iran’s intention. All Trump knew and could say was that “Iran can’t have a nuclear bomb.” Steven Witkoff was also a real estate dealer and as ignorant as Trump about world affairs. In the first rounds of negotiations, he appeared to be completely lost, not knowing what the issues were. He made comments that were contrary to the wishes of Netanyahu and his brethren in the US, mostly the same neocons who had made the US invade Iraq in search of nuclear bombs that did not exist. But after a few rounds of talks, Witkoff was apparently told to say that Iran couldn’t enrich any uranium on its soil, period. Soon after, Trump, who was silent about the issue of enrichment level, started to say the same thing. This position, as most analysts pointed out, was a “deal-breaker.” The Iranian officials had always argued that, under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, they have an inalienable right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Thus, they would never agree to the zero-enrichment level proposed by Trump and Netanyahu. Given the impasse, war was inevitable; Netanyahu’s 33-year-old dream was finally becoming a reality.
Two days before the sixth round of negotiations started, Israel staged a massive attack against Iran with the full knowledge and backing of Trump and his cohorts. It is, of course, too early to evaluate this attack and its consequence, especially in this short space. But in brief, the attack that lasted for 12 days resulted in the death of many top members of the IRGC, Iranian nuclear scientists, and ordinary citizens. According to the latest official data, as this essay is being written, 935 people died in Iran. Other sources put the estimate much higher. Israel also bombed Iranian nuclear facilities, missile sites, storage facilities, chemical facilities, infrastructures, hospitals, residential buildings, etc. They even bombed Iran’s state broadcasting building and the Evin prison, where some political prisoners are kept. This last diabolic act was apparently intended to help bring about the proverbial “regime change.” According to official estimates, 79 people died in that attack. Iran threw some punches of its own against Israel with drones and long-range missiles. But the death and destruction in Israel was nothing near to what Israel had done to Iran. According to Israeli sources, 28 people died in Israel. The death ratio between Iran and Israel, by itself, points to the power imbalance.
In the middle of the war, the deranged man who rules the US tried to take credit for what the madman in Israel was doing. He posted on his “Truth Social”: “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” He seemed to forget that he had said he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize, wanted to get the US out of “forever wars,” and was in the middle of negotiations with Iran when his and Netanyahu’s war with Iran started. In a final act of madness, the President of the US did what previous presidents had refused to do: he dropped bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities at the behest of Netanyahu. These nuclear sites had already been attacked by Israel, but in one case—a deeply buried facility at Fordo—the US dropped twelve 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” bombs. After bombing these sites, Trump said: “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” In another choreographed act, intended mostly for domestic consumption, Iran, in turn, fired some missiles at a US base in Qatar, almost all of which were intercepted, since Iran had already warned Qatar.
After this senseless war, which has cost many lives and perhaps billions of dollars (one bunker-buster bomb alone is estimated to cost $20 million), an uneasy and unofficial truce ensued. All sides declared victory and boasted about their destructive abilities. Somewhat reminiscent of the Iraq War, when US forces looked for nonexistent nuclear bombs, the US, Israel, and the IAEA are now trying to find out what happened to the stockpile of enriched uranium. Were they “obliterated,” along with the nuclear sites? Are they still there, or were they taken away? To find some answers, human elements, such as IAEA members, must enter the sites. But then the IAEA, which Iran accuses of being in cahoots with Israel, the US and other Israeli allies, can’t access these sites, especially if they were “obliterated.” This is now a bigger mess than before the war started.
I have been asked by some people what I expect to happen next. My answer is: I don’t know! We deal with some madmen and a few madwomen. Can we predict what mad people would do?
Some things, however, are certain. Netanyahu has not accomplished his goal of “regime change,” i.e., to restore the monarchy in Iran. He will, therefore, continue his push. The new IRGC officials will continue with their long-winded rhetoric about their prowess and the imminent demise of Israel. They will try to resurrect their enrichment program and use it as a bargaining chip to get some sanctions relief. They might dig deeper holes to protect their nuclear facilities, but they will certainly not build shelters to protect their citizens from future attacks. And Donald Trump will continue to wreak havoc on this planet.
Sasan Fayazmanesh is Professor Emeritus of Economics at California State University, Fresno, and is the author of Containing Iran: Obama’s Policy of “Tough Diplomacy.” He can be reached at: sasan.fayazmanesh@gmail.com.
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