Israel’s attack on Iran brings the region, and the world, closer to disaster, but the question of US complicity is key to how catastrophically this could escalate, argues Chris Bambery

What Israel has done with its air strikes on Iran is an immensely provocative series of killings of very high-level Iranian figures, including five top nuclear researchers, the head of Iran’s military, Mohammad Bagheri, and Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. A senior advisor to the country’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, Ali Shamkhani was ‘critically injured’. Just stop and imagine the response in Tel Aviv or Washington if Iran had done the same to Israel or the US.

Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the attacks were targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and ballistic-missile factories. They were not. Yes, a few attacks were carried out on outdated or mothballed facilities, but that was camouflage. Six Iranian cities were struck with dozens of civilian casualties, including children.

Iran’s nuclear facilities and its ballistic missiles are deep underground in the mountains. Israel does not have the means to hit them. Even the US’s most powerful ‘bunker buster’ can’t and it’s not clear even a nuclear strike could.

These attacks don’t come anywhere near the genocidal assault on Gaza, but they are far more dangerous in terms of the potential for escalation. Netanyahu has long wanted a war against Iran, one involving the USA. Any sustained Israeli campaign against Iran would require US help, not least with air refuelling.

Iran is not Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis (and Israel cannot destroy them). It is a sovereign state of ninety million people. Despite US-led sanctions, it has powerful armed forces, including ballistic missiles which have successfully hit Israel during last year’s two rounds of strikes following Israeli attacks. The drone attack on Israel that Iran launched immediately after today’s attacks are a reaction not a response.

Iran is also allied by treaty with Russia, which is providing air-defence systems. In this week’s phone conversation between Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump, it was widely reported that Putin warned Trump against attacking Iran. Iran is also closely tied to Beijing.

The big question Moscow and Beijing will be asking is how much the US knew of this attack, and how much were they involved. In Tehran there will be less doubt. Donald Trump and US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, have both said the US was not involved. Questions will be asked whether US planes refuelled the Israeli attackers, but America would have known about Israel’s planned attacks. Israel was under lock down prior to the attack, while Netanyahu says he informed the White House. Trump says he had advance knowledge.

Trump says he does not want a war between Israel and Iran, but the question is why he didn’t pick up the phone and tell Netanyahu to stop. He claims to have done that before. Israel, with its beleaguered economy, is reliant each day on US finance and weaponry. The genocide in Gaza could not go on without that aid.

Deadly calculations

Trump also has form here. The US and Iran are involved in talks over the Iranian nuclear programme. On Sunday, US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff is due to meet Iranian ministers in Oman. Even before the Israeli attack on Iran, these talks hung by a thread. Witkoff had previously said he had agreed Iran could undertake a low level of nuclear enrichment for its civilian programme. That would be perfectly legal, but Trump then said no to any nuclear enrichment and Witkoff echoed that. Both knew such a ban would be totally unacceptable to Iran, which has right, whatever you think of nuclear energy, to do that as a sovereign state.

In March, the US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said Iran was not building a nuclear bomb. Earlier the CIA had made public the same assessment. So, if the talks in Oman were to go ahead, and that’s a big question, things were not looking good even before today and Trump had already fallen back on threatening Tehran if it did not reach an agreement.

Of course, Trump may think it’s a clever way to do a deal by letting Israel apply a bit of muscle. The trouble is this isn’t a New York property auction. Iran will carry out a precisely measured response to today’s attack. Israel will have to live with that, adding to its economic woes and internal divisions.

The US armed forces are not keen to get dragged into a war with Iran. The US has military bases across the Persian Gulf and in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, which are all easy targets. A US ‘shock and awe’ campaign as in Iraq is unlikely to succeed against a far stronger and better armed state.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has issued a fatwa against building a nuclear bomb on religious grounds, but Israel’s actions are undermining that. A poll carried out at the beginning of last year showed 69% of Iranians support the building of a nuclear bomb. That can only increase. Most asked would probably respond, ‘why is it ok for Israel to have nuclear bombs, but it’s not for Iran?’

On Wednesday, Tulsi Gabbard, fresh from a visit to Hiroshima, went on social media to warn that the US has never been closer to nuclear annihilation, saying: ‘This isn’t some made-up science fiction story. This is the reality of what’s at stake, what we are facing now, because as we stand here today, closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elite and warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, Perhaps it’s because they are confident that they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and for their families that regular people won’t have access to.’

Gabbard called on people to ‘speak up and demand an end to this madness.’ She continued, ‘We must reject this path to nuclear war and work toward a world where no one has to live in fear of a nuclear holocaust.’ For once, words of sense from an American leader, not that I think they will carry much weight in the White House.

Meanwhile, you do not have to be a fan of the Islamic Republic of Iran to understand that Israel’s attack is pushing the world nearer to calamity. We have to oppose both Israel’s war drive every step, as well as US complicity and involvement.