Heading towards global war?

 

   By Reginald Johnson

            (Editors note:  As this article was being published, President Trump announced that the war on Iran would be over "soon." This is a bizarre statement. Just the day before, his war secretary Pete Hegseth said the war was "just beginning." On Saturday, Trump said ground troops could be sent to Iran. The administration doesn't seem to know what it is doing. If the war ends soon, that will be a good thing. But I'm very skeptical this will actually happen, because nothing that Trump says can be trusted. Remember this is the same president who ordered bombing attacks against Iran in the middle of what were supposed to be good faith negotiations with Iran over that country's nuclear development program. He did this twice, last year, and then again this year.) 

        As the Iran War ratchets up in intensity, there is fear the war could spark a global conflict with disastrous consequences.

       In the nine days since the United States and Israel launched their unprovoked attack on Iran, the war has already spilled over into many other countries in the region, with Iran hitting US bases and other targets in Bahrain, Kuwait, Dubai and Qatar. Israel has moved again into Lebanon, attacking the pro-Iranian group, Hezbollah.

   Missile attacks have also taken place against targets in Turkey and Azerbajan, with Israel blaming Iran. But the Iranians have denied responsibility and claim that Israel conducted "false flag" strikes trying to draw Turkey and Azerbajan into the war.

  In still more developments, Russia reportedly is providing Iran with intelligence on US targets in the region and US President Donald Trump is considering giving arms to the Kurds in Turkey, so they can invade Iran. Trump is also said to be weighing sending US ground troops to fight in Iran.

 Finally, as oil prices skyrocket due to shipping lanes being closed through the Strait of Hormuz, there are concerns about how China will respond to the situation. China gets 60 percent of its oil from Iran, and now that supply may be threatened with the strait closed.

    One of those who's deeply disturbed about the trend of events is Columbia Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

 "We are probably in the early days of World War III," said Sachs, a former UN official and a noted foreign policy critic. "The question is, whether it is contained."

   Speaking on a podcast with Prof. Glenn Diesen, Sachs said he's both concerned about the escalating trend of the war and also the irrational behavior of Trump.

  He described Trump as "mentally unhinged" and a "madman" determined to establish American hegemony around the world, despite the risks.

   Sachs said the world has seen madmen before who were bent on conquest, such as Napoleon and Hitler.

  But, Sachs said, "we've never had a circumstance like this in the nuclear age."

  "I would say the world is in a more dangerous situation than ever before. Period," he said. 

  Despite the gravity of the moment and Trump's reckless policy, Sachs said there are few in Washington, DC willing to call out Trump and demand that the war end before it is too late.

  "We're wondering, where, if any, are the grown-ups in the United States in positions of authority who will speak truthfully about this?" he said in another interview with Danny Haiphong.

    "I don't see almost any. There are a few voices in Congress, (Senator) Rand Paul is one of them, Congressman (Thomas) Massie is another...but there are very few others and this is what is alarming," Sachs said.

  Two other military/foreign policy experts, Ret. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson and former CIA analyst Larry Johnson said in interviews recently that due to economic pressures relating to the price of oil, and Israel's losses in the war, the Iran conflict would probably not last long. Both said that contrary to the glowing reports in the US media about US progress in the war, Israel was being hit hard by Iranian missiles and US bases have been badly damaged, too.

 Another concern for Israel is they are running out of interceptors to block incoming missiles.

Speaking on a podcast with Danny Haiphong, Wilkerson said his biggest worry is that Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu might resort to using a nuclear weapon if Israel is losing badly.

  "I have no doubt he'll use one," Wilkerson said. "That's really the problem."

'This could go nuclear'

 

     By Reginald Johnson

         Although there's still hope for a diplomatic solution to settle the dispute between the United States and Iran, chances remain high that the US and Israel will attack the Middle Eastern country.

    And should war break out with Iran, a global conflict involving the major powers could be triggered, and the possibility that nuclear weapons will be used is not out of the question.

   That's the view of one the most prominent US foreign policy critics, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs.

    Speaking on the Danny Haiphong podcast recently, Sachs said:  "No war is inevitable, but this war is likely. It's championed by Israel, and Israel is running American foreign policy in the Middle East."

   Sachs added that US President Donald Trump is a "puppet" of Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, who, he said, "has wanted a US attack on Iran for 30 years." 

  The former advisor to the UN Secretary-General and now teacher at Columbia made his remarks as tensions build between Washington and Tehran, with Trump demanding that Iran end its nuclear development program and threatening to use military force against Iran if it refuses to do so. Talks are ongoing between the two nations, but there's skepticism about whether the negotiations are going anywhere.

Sachs said the situation vis a vis Iran is "fraught with danger."

Unlike other countries like Venezuela, Syria or Somalia that US has been able to attack with little or no  pushback, Iran would be a much more formidable opponent. Iran is a much larger country with a strong ballistic missile system; it has a nuclear energy program which could be retooled to build a nuclear bomb, if leaders chose to do that; and it has major powers for allies, in Russia and China, both nuclear-armed.

  "Iran is not isolated in this and their friends are many, and some are nuclear-armed. This is just the kind of thing that can absolutely lead to a disastrous cycle of escalation." Sachs said.

  "This could go nuclear," he said. 

Sachs said it was critical at this point for the leaders of other large countries that have a stake in the Middle East, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia and China, to get involved and "explain to Mr. Trump, 'Don't do this.' "

  " And whether that is enough remains to be seen," he said. 

  

  

Israeli TV: Netanyahu blocked peace in Gaza while Biden did nothing to stop the slaughter

    By Reginald Johnson

  

  An investigation by Channel 13 in Israel has revealed that during the first 16 months of the Gaza War, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu actively impeded efforts to bring about a peace settlement and that at no point did the US administration of former US President Joe Biden demand that Israel curtail its brutal military operation and agree to a cease-fire, despite a mounting death toll.

The bombshell report also showed that American officials were aware of Israeli war crimes but covered them up in order to give legal clearance for continuing to ship weapons to Israel.

The report was posted on the Drop Site News site on X.

“A sweeping Israeli channel 13 investigation has exposed the administration’s complicity in Israel’s 19-months long war in Gaza. Nine top Biden officials acknowledged avoiding real pressure on Israel – even as the death toll surpassed 30,000. Israeli leaders openly bragged they dragged out the war playing for time until Donald Trump’s return to the presidency,” said the cover story by Drop Site News. Former Israeli officials were also interviewed.

“God, did the state of Israel favor that Biden was the president,” said former Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog. “We fought for over a year in Gaza and the administration never came to us and said ‘cease-fire now.’  It never did. And that’s not to be taken for granted.”

 The report said that Biden aides privately admitted that Netanyahu was prolonging the war. “He’s undercutting it every step of the way,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a senior national security aide. “All the security people are coming out and saying it,” he said.

The report said Netanyahu spurned possible peace plans, including a proposal by the US and Saudi Arabia. That plan collapsed because it required acceptance of a “political horizon” for the Palestinians and Netanyahu would not agree to it.

The Channel 13 investigation also said Netanyahu sabotaged the talks on the release of the Israeli hostages, in order to extend the war. The Israeli prime minister “deliberately tanked negotiations” fearing a deal would force him to end the war.

  The investigation also found that American officials were aware of Israeli forces illegally blocking humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza but covered it up. State Department official Stacy Gilbert resigned after the revelations about the Israeli violations were taken out of a required aid compliance report.

  “The final version cleared Israel of violating US law despite overwhelming evidence of aid obstruction.” Gilbert called it “shocking in its mendacity”  and said “everyone knows this is not true.”

  The Channel 13 story added, "Even as settlers looted Gaza-bound trucks and Israel blocked humanitarian aid, Biden certified compliance and kept weapons flowing."

   The Gaza War began in October of 2024, after Hamas militants raided a southern Israel music fair, and killed 1200 people. Some 240 hostages were taken. Israel then launched a furious air and ground assault into the Palestinian enclave and thousands were killed in the first few weeks.

  The war has dragged on since then with staggering results. Some 60,000 Gazans, mostly civilians, are dead; much of Gaza's infrastructure has been leveled, including universities and apartment buildings; and most of Gaza's hospitals are destroyed or heavily damaged. Now 2.2 million residents are under threat of starvation, as Israel has imposed a food and water blockade.

  UN officials have accused Israel of waging a genocide in Gaza, which Israel has strenuously denied.

  The US has fully backed Israel in the war and billions of dollars in military aid has been provided.

'Nobody's going to force us out'

   By Reginald Johnson 

 Lana Savoca was stunned.

 President Donald Trump had just announced that the United States would take over the war ravaged Gaza Strip “clean it up” and redevelop it as a new “Riviera” on the Mediteranean.

  At a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said the “spectacular” new development would bring new jobs, new housing and finally peace to the area. But he also said the people there would have to relocated and it was possible US troops might be used to assist in the operation, although administration officials later walked that back.

  “It’s really a shock to me. I couldn’t believe it,” said Savoca, a writer and Palestinian activist who lives in Greenwich, CT.

 “It’s a real slap in the face to see them sitting next to each other (Trump and Netanyahu) talking about Gaza and just prime real estate and how they were going to clean it up and how it’s destroyed now and how people can’t live there and trying to find a better place for Palestinians,” she said. “In other words, ethnic cleansing them and saying it in such a calm, methodical manner. I mean, I wish I had better words for it, but it’s kind of unbelievable.”

 Savoca, who lost over 90 members of her extended family during Israel’s brutal 15-month military operation in Gaza, said she was surprised by the President’s words because during his campaign Trump had expressed anger at Netanyahu for the way Israel had acted during the war. She thought he would have come up with a better plan for the future.

  Savoca said the idea of the Palestinians being forced out of Gaza is appalling and brings back memories of the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes to create land for Israel in 1948. This followed approval of a UN partition plan dividing the old Palestine, which had been held by the British.

 Palestinians call that period “The Nakba,”  which in Arabic means, catastrophe.

 “It’s just awful, these people who’ve been through so much, and now they’re choosing to stay, and they’re traveling back up north where their homes used to be and now there’s nothing but rubble and poisons from all the destruction and they desperately want to stay there,” she said.

 

Lana Savoca at a protest against the Gaza war in Washington, D.C.

                  

  Trump’s plan for a Gaza takeover has been widely criticized by leaders in the Middle East and also some in the West including Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Legal experts have also said that the US taking Gaza over and driving people out is a breach of international and humanitarian law.

 Despite the criticism,Trump has doubled down on his plan in interviews and in social media posts. While Democrats have attacked Trump’s idea some Republicans have endorsed it.

  Observers also worry that Trump’s proposal for a US takeover of Gaza and relocation of the Palestinians undermines the chances that the fragile cease-fire in place for the past several weeks can still hold. The truce put at least a temporary stop to a war which has taken 66,000 lives and left Gaza in ruins. World court officials have labeled Israel’s campaign an act of genocide.

 Another Palestinian who is sharply critical of  the Trump plan is Johnny Sakakini, who operates  Abby’s Falafel restaurant in Trumbull.

 “He’s got a mad dog mentality," Sakakini said of Trump. "This is barbaric. So much has been destroyed and so many killed and now America is coming to steal the rest. There’s no respect for anything. I don’t even know why the United Nations even exists, if America can come along and do whatever the hell they want and nobody can stop them.”

  “So basically it’s 1948 all over again in a different way – with American hands,”  he said. “Before it was British hands, now it’s American hands. Steal and grab land from Palestinians and expel them and keep them as refugees for the rest of  their lives somewhere else.”

 Sakakini, who grew up in the West Bank and then immigrated to the United States over 30 years ago, said the Trump idea is doomed to failure, because the Palestinian people will not be expelled.

 “They’re not going to leave, no matter what he does,” he said. “If Israel could not do anything for 15 months, with all the power, all the weapons it has engaged in, almost like nuking the place down, and we stayed, we’re not going anywhere, we’re staying. Nobody’s going to force us out.”

        

Johnny Sakakini, a Palestinian-American, at his restaurant in Trumbull.

  Harold Koh, Professor of International Law at Yale Law School,  told the BBC that the Gaza takeover idea  "is an astonishingly misguided policy proposal that would also be massively illegal.”

  “As a matter of policy. we have a President who’s proposing to fix the century-old Middle East problem by building a beach resort on destroyed property of people of color, who’ve been involuntarily displaced maybe even by the U.S. Army. It’s a bit of an Atlantic City solution to a serious and horrible problem,” Koh said.

 He added,  “The way that he proposes to do it sounds like forcible displacement which is a war crime, a crime against humanity and also an invasion of sovereignty and a violation of the right of self-determination which is a violation of the UN Charter.”

  Sakakini was asked what can be done at this point to help the Palestinians and solve the conflict with Israel.

  “What can be done is, leave it to the United Nations. The only way is for the Palestinians to have their own place, what it was in 1967 (prior to the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank) and Israel has their land. Just leave us alone, let us live in peace. Stop poking with us. That’s the only way,” he said.