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Opinion
Bombing Iran Means Murdering Children
Mr. President. I am connected to all of humanity, all of life. And so are you. When someone is murdered, part of all of us is murdered.
Mar 05, 2026
“The missile hit during the school’s morning session. In Iran, the school week runs from Saturday to Thursday, so when US and Israeli bombs began falling at around 10:00 am on Saturday, classes were under way. At a point between 10:00 am and 10:45 am, a missile directly hit Shajareh Tayyebeh school, in Minab, southern Iran, demolishing its concrete building and killing dozens of seven to 12-year-old girls.” —The Guardian
War is not an abstraction. It’s living hell... or dying hell. When the United States and Israel (President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) started bombing Iran, I felt the collective human soul begin to vibrate once again, and I began screaming to myself: This is not who we are!
Even though it is.
Our “interests” are what matter, right? Individual human lives are far less important—just read the news. And the larger the death toll, the more abstract those lives get. What isn’t abstract, apparently—what really matters—are the nation’s interests, whatever the hell those are. And interests grow increasingly simplistic as a war goes on, ultimately amounting to winning... not losing.
Every new war reopens an enormous question: How do we evolve beyond this?
I must stand up to this lie and its missiles. I must join the millions—billions?—of others around the globe and stare this lie in its face. We are fully human, not half-human or 10% human or whatever, Mr. President. I am connected to all of humanity, all of life. And so are you. When someone is murdered, part of all of us is murdered.
So I refuse to look at this latest war with abstraction or indifference. As I write, the estimated total of Iranian deaths by US and Israeli bombs is over 1,000 (and the number may well have gone up since I began this sentence). A total of 153 cities across Iran have been damaged by the bombing, according to NBC News, and at this point there have been over 1,000 attacks on the country.
And yes, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the “supreme leader,” has been killed. He was a brutal leader. But his murder does not justify all the others, let alone does it justify the possibility of another US “war without end” and the shattering and slaughter of an entire country.
I return to The Guardian words quoted above, which, as far as I’m concerned, get at the true nature of war. They refer to the US-Israeli bombing of a girls’ school in Minab, a coastal city in southeastern Iran on Saturday morning, just as “Operation Epic Fury” began—and just after school started.
The Guardian story continues:
Photographs and verified videos from the site, which the Guardian has not published due to their graphic nature, show children’s bodies lying partly buried under the debris. In one video, a very small child’s severed arm is pulled from the rubble. Colorful backpacks covered with blood and concrete dust sit among the ruins. One girl wears a green dress with gingham patches on her pockets and the collar, her form partly obscured by a black body bag. Screams can be heard in the background.
One distraught man stands in the ruins of the school, waving textbooks and worksheets as rescuers dig by hand through the debris. "These are the schoolbooks of the children who are under these ruins, under this rubble here," he shouts. "You can see the blood of these children on these books. These are civilians, who are not in the military. This was a school and they came to study."
Iranian state media reported that 168 people were killed in the school’s bombing—mostly young girls, but also teachers and staff. And 95 others were injured. And the hellish nature of this story doesn’t necessarily end here. According to research by Al Jazeera, the bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school may have been deliberate, not simply an accident, but there’s no definite proof of this. In any case, whether deliberate or “collateral,” the bombing happened. And it was not an abstraction.
When a new war begins, humanity’s cancer continues. As the Cabinet of the Progressive International put it:
These strikes did not begin today. They are an extension of a longer project to redraw the map of West Asia by force. From Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya to Syria, Yemen to Iran, each escalation is a stepping stone in a broader project to suffocate regional sovereignty in the service of US and Israeli interests. Each has left behind shattered states, displaced populations, and the wreckage of societies that dared to assert independence.
Imperialist war does not liberate peoples—it subjugates them.
Every new war reopens an enormous question: How do we evolve beyond this? There will always be conflict—not to mention fear, greed, the complexity of getting along—but I know... and so do many others... that we can scrape and crawl and find our way beyond turning conflict into war. We can and we must. Extinction also looms.
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US Media Only Care About Iranian Deaths When They Serve the Imperial Narrative
By repeatedly bringing up Iranian state brutality, US corporate media effectively distract from the brutality of the strikes on Iran, which happen to be perpetrated by two states that have zero “parallels” in terms of “levels of violence."
Mar 05, 2026
The United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, propelling the entire region into a predictable cataclysm of unprecedented proportions.
This puts paid to the alleged “peacemaking” project of US President Donald Trump, who was supposed to be keeping the country out of international wars rather than actively seeking to expedite the end of the world.
The attacks put an abrupt end to the negotiations underway between the US and Iran—to the delight of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has always viewed as anathema anything remotely resembling diplomacy or the pursuit of peace.
‘Trigger Iran to Retaliate’
Three days before the joint strikes, a Politico exclusive (2/25/26) reported that “senior advisers” to Trump “would prefer Israel strike Iran before the United States launches an assault on the country.” As per the report, administration officials were “privately arguing that an Israeli attack would trigger Iran to retaliate, helping muster support from American voters for a US strike.”
Nor has much attention been paid to the hundreds of other casualties of the US-Israeli strikes, which is unsurprising given the media’s tendency to humanize Iranians only when they can be portrayed as victims of their own government.
So much for subsequent US-Israeli attempts to cast the assault as “preemptive” in nature. Indeed, there is nothing at all “preemptive” about forcing Iran to retaliate; this is instead what you would call a deliberate provocation.
Unfortunately for the “senior advisers,” Trump and Netanyahu ultimately opted to pull the trigger simultaneously, thus depriving the US administration of its fabricated casus belli.
‘A Clear Explanation of the Strategy’
In the aftermath of the strikes, certain US corporate media outlets unleashed ostensible critiques of the war—having apparently spontaneously forgotten their own fundamental role in paving the warpath by devoting the past several decades to demonizing the Iranian government (or “regime,” as we are required to refer to imperial foes).The New York Times editorial board (2/28/26), for example, immediately penned an intervention titled “Why Have You Started This War, Mr. President?”—the headline of which was later amended to “Trump’s Attack on Iran Is Reckless.”
This is the same New York Times, of course, that has been known to publish such masterpieces as “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran” (3/25/15), a 2015 call to arms by former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.
Now, after calling out Trump’s “reckless” attack, the Times editorial board proceeds to undertake its own rationalization of war on Iran—provided it is overseen by “a responsible American president” who takes the time to offer “a clear explanation of the strategy, as well as the justification for attacking now, even though Iran does not appear close to having a nuclear weapon.”
Because Trump could give fuck all about being “responsible,” however, the US newspaper of record assumes the duty of laying out the litany of Iranian transgressions for its readers, such as the killing of “hundreds of US service members in the region”—decisive proof that “Iran’s government presents a distinct threat because it combines this murderous ideology with nuclear ambitions.”
Never mind the hundreds of thousands of regional deaths wrought in recent years by the (already nuclear-equipped) US military, including on account of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, which the Times and like-minded media did their best to shove down the throats of the American public.
‘Few Recent Parallels’
Following the weekend’s strikes on Iran, many US media were quick to mention the Iranian government’s response to protests that erupted in December against high inflation. The Washington Post (2/28/26), for instance, specified that the “strikes come in the wake of a violent crackdown by Iran’s security forces… on anti-government demonstrations.”
Citing reports of “more than 7,000 people dead,” the Post went on to lament that “the level of violence against protesters has few recent parallels, human rights groups say.”
Not mentioned in such reports is the key role devastating US sanctions on Iran—a form of lethal violence in themselves—played in fomenting the protests in the first place. Ditto for Israel’s own admitted interference; Mossad’s Farsi-language X account urged Iranians to “go out together into the streets. The time has come.” The Jerusalem Post (12/29/25) reported that the intelligence agency continued: “We are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.”
“Foreign actors are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed,” Tamir Morag of Israel’s right-wing Channel 14 remarked (Times of Israel, 1/16/26). “Everyone is free to guess who is behind it,” he winked.
But by repeatedly bringing up Iranian state brutality, US corporate media effectively distract from the brutality of the strikes on Iran, which happen to be perpetrated by two states that have zero “parallels” in terms of “levels of violence.” The ongoing US-backed Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip has officially killed more than 72,000 Palestinians since October 2023, though household surveys indicate the true toll could be substantially higher (Lancet, 2/18/26).
In its own anti-war-but-not-really dispatch, the Times editorial board also took care to reference how Iran “massacred” protesters, as well as the fact that the government “oppresses women”—forever a favorite talking point of the same media outlets that advocated for bombing Afghan women to save them from the Taliban.
Unuseful Victims
It can be safely filed under the “can’t make this shit up” category that among the first casualties of the current war on Iran were the at least 175 people confirmed dead in a missile strike on a girls’ elementary school in the city of Minab.
While the establishment media initially treated this particular atrocity as a brief aside (Washington Post, 12/28/26; Wall Street Journal, 12/28/26)—leaving the job of actual reporting to independent outlets like Middle East Eye (2/28/26) and Drop Site News (2/28/26)—it eventually became unavoidable. As the corpses of young children are of no use to the imperial narrative when they are killed by the US and Israel rather than by Iran, however, the requisite moral condemnation has been in short supply.
Nor has much attention been paid to the hundreds of other casualties of the US-Israeli strikes, which is unsurprising given the media’s tendency to humanize Iranians only when they can be portrayed as victims of their own government. While the death toll made headlines in outlets like Al Jazeera (3/2/26) and Truthout (3/2/26), in major US media like the New York Times (3/2/26) and Washington Post (3/2/26), it was basically a footnote.
Three US troops killed in Iran’s retaliatory strikes, on the other hand, have received considerable airtime, with the Associated Press (3/1/26) noting that these were “the first American casualties in a major offensive that President Donald Trump said could likely lead to more losses in the coming weeks.”
And as the entire region rapidly goes up in flames, it seems those senior US advisers may have gotten their casus belli, after all.
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Iran Under Fire: The United States, Israel, and the War
Geopolitics and crude realism are driving events: Trump and Netanyahu both assume that the strong can act as they wish and that the weak will suffer what they must.
Mar 05, 2026
Cynicism, illusions, and imperialist ambitions are accompanying the bombs raining down on Iran in this war between gangster states. Public feuding between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had seemingly brought relations between their two countries to an all-time low over Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza. But the differences between them were grossly exaggerated by liberal media. This second and far more intense bombing of Iran, which followed the attacks of June 2025, was planned well in advance. The United States and its regional proxy, Israel, share a common desire to assert the latter’s hegemony over the Middle East.
Why did the bombing of Iran happen now? Yes: Trump wished to deflect attention from the Epstein files, the fascist tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the “affordability crisis,” a host of diplomatic setbacks, and a sinking approval rating that stands at 43%; indeed, Netanyahu’s numbers have fallen to 30%. Both leaders need a win. Attacking the retrograde Iranian regime should appeal to independent voters and Trump’s base. It should do the same for Netanyahu, who will only gain support from the orthodox religious-settlement parties on which his coalition rests. And the risk seemed worth taking: Iran looked weak in light of lingering effects from the June 2025 bombings, the collapse of its national currency, and the massive early 2026 protests that swept the country. All of this made Iran appear weak—just how weak it is remains to be seen.
Geopolitics and crude realism are driving events: Trump and Netanyahu both assume that the strong can act as they wish and that the weak will suffer what they must. Only Iran has been left standing among Israel’s regional rivals: Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco have either tacitly or formally recognized the “Zionist entity.” Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are doing brisk business with it. Syria has been torn apart by the civil war that culminated in the fall of its murderous president, Bashar al-Assad. Iraq is still plagued by the legacy of internal strife following the American invasion of 2001. Lebanon is a mess. As for Palestine, it is plagued by ever-expanding Israeli settlements, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and a crisis of sovereignty. It was not now or never when it came to attacking Israel’s most dangerous enemy, but now seemed a particularly opportune time.
Neither American nor Israeli foreign policy is unique. At different points in history, all “great powers”—England, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia—pursued policies that simultaneously strengthened their regional hegemony, expanded their “living space,” secured their spheres of influence, and used horrific tactics to achieve their aims. The justifications remain roughly the same: the national interest is being served; its security requires proactive measures; the victims will benefit from defeat; and, of course, imperialism is realizing the nation’s “destiny.”
Opportunities exist for progressive forces to act decisively. However, most Democrats remain fixed on formal rather than substantive criticisms.
Not some biblically ordained mission of the Jewish people regarding the conquest of Judea and Samaria, not the non-existent Jewish world conspiracy described in the fabricated “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” not American fears of a non-existent Iranian nuclear weapon, and not the desire to spread democracy, inspired the war. Far better reasons can be found. There are material and psycho-political gains that the United States and Israel would gain with respect to oil (prices), real estate, annexation projects, inflation of group narcissism, and the celebration of an unpopular president for conquering a hated enemy seem too obvious to require further elaboration.
Iran is the most vocal enemy of the United States. Defeating it would nicely complement attempts to reaffirm the United States’ regional hegemony over Latin America and the Caribbean called for by the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and new versions of what was once known as its “manifest destiny.” National security is the lame justification for attacking “narco-terrorist” states, but also for acquiring Greenland, and the desire for more living space, which has led to demands that Canada become the 51st state. The United States is intent on asserting itself as the independent world hegemon that is accountable only to itself. This helps explain its growing separation from Europe and NATO, its withdrawal from international treaties and organizations, and its abandonment of the multilateral approach to crisis situations.
Justifications for the bombing of Iran have shifted from the need to defend the protesters to being “proactive” in the face of an “imminent threat” to the dangers attendant on the regime building a nuclear weapon and its unwillingness to "make a
deal.” But the bombing didn’t take place until the protesters were slaughtered, the CIA itself denied that an attack on the United States was imminent, and President Barack Obama had already sealed a complicated deal with Iran that prevented it from developing a nuclear device for military purposes. Insisting that he could get a better deal, however, President Trump tore up the existing agreement on May 8, 2018.
Of course, that attempt failed. Monitoring Iran became impossible as new opportunities emerged to rekindle its suspended nuclear enterprise. Given American-Israeli views and prejudices about Iran, it mattered little that Iran just recently claimed (as it had while negotiating with Obama) that it was only interested in developing nuclear energy for domestic purposes. Following the bombing of Iran in June 2025 by the United States and Israel, their leaders insisted that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been destroyed. But this was a lie: Its nuclear facilities survived. Trump and Netanyahu are now trying to turn the falsehood into truth.
There should be no misunderstanding: Iran’s theocracy is corrupt, self-righteous, dictatorial, and incompetent in its administration of economic affairs. The country was experiencing a downward economic spiral, and near collapse, when its government cracked down on protesters; its criminal inhumane actions resulted in 10,000 deaths and 50,000 arrests. However, these courageous revolts in the name of democracy are intertwined with the cynical reality that we are experiencing now. The cunning of history is in effect as Trump calls upon Iranians to overthrow their regime now, because they will “never get a better chance,” and thereby heightens the prospect for further reprisals and perhaps even civil war.
What will happen once the regime falls is apparently of secondary concern just as it was before the American invasion of Iraq. Belief that the Iraqi people would celebrate the arrival of American troops was naïve at best and though opposition to its leader, Saddam Hussein, was widespread, internal divisions existed between various tribal-religious militias often with very different political aims. It was the same following the fall of Bashir al-Assad in Syria and any number of uprisings in Africa. Arguably the greatest of all political philosophers, Thomas Hobbes, warned that to topple a sovereign without having another ready to step in is a recipe for chaos; it is a lesson that the United States has yet to learn.
The stakes have only grown with the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Khamenei and various important officers of the noxious Revolutionary Guard. Unsurprisingly, the announcement of Khamenei’s death was not only greeted by joyful celebrations, but by outbreaks of public mourning. Iran is divided, and the consequences appear ominous. Some members of the Supreme Council, which will choose Khamenei’s successor, have popularly based military followings. Clashing ambitions and other contentious concerns could lead them to turn against one another or, as a religious combine, against a democratic opposition whose leadership and goals remain unclear.
Meanwhile, the war is expanding as Israel sends troops into Lebanon in order to eliminate Hezbollah and Iran strikes the Gulf States and the US embassy in Riyad, Saudi Arabia. There is hardly a state in the region that that has not been subject to missile hits or worse, and President Trump has said that he might employ ground troops, which can only mean invasion. Nor should Iran count on its neighbors for support. Iran is Shiite and Sunni Muslims in other Middle East countries are unlikely to engage in a show of solidarity; indeed, the Arab League has been notably cautious in its response to the crisis. There is also little likelihood that criticisms and condemnations will translate into serious consequences for the aggressors. The regional balance of power is secure, and the religious zealots and xenophobic settlers, whose parties are keeping Netanyahu afloat, are surely happy.
Meanwhile, Iran and its citizenry are already paying an inordinate price for this Western escapade, suffering over 1,000 dead in the first few days of the conflict and devastating attacks on the infrastructure. It is likely to get worse. American and Israeli aims remain unclear; “mission creep” is taking place as the goal shifts from forcing Iran to the negotiating table to assuring “zero” capacity for Iran to build a bomb to regime change to regional reordering. But, then, there is time to decide. The president who once constantly complained about American involvement in foreign wars has stated that citizens should prepare for a long conflict. Hopefully not too long, of course, since Americans tend to celebrate foreign wars when they start, but quickly become impatient when the body bags start coming home—and they will.
Opportunities exist for progressive forces to act decisively. However, most Democrats remain fixed on formal rather than substantive criticisms. They are primarily engaged in legalistic attacks on President Trump for not consulting Congress before declaring war, acting unilaterally, and ignoring the Constitution. That is insufficient. Judgments must be made should Trump’s attack on the Iranian theocracy prove successful—and regarding the new circumstances that this might create. The Democratic Party has not offered its own version of what policies will serve the national interest when it comes to the Middle East. It has not explicitly condemned American imperialism, and it has not punished Israel for its outrageous behavior in Gaza and the West Bank. of Israel. In short, the party has not presented even the rough outlines of an alternative foreign policy. Unless Democrats rise to the occasion, their prospects for changing America’s standing in the world and recapturing its promise are bleak as the midterm elections approach in 2026.
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5 Things to Know About Trump's Illegal War on Iran
Whatever criticisms one may have of Iran’s government, they do not justify this deadly act of aggression.
Mar 05, 2026
The Trump administration has joined Israel in launching large-scale attacks across Iran. The strikes mark the beginning of “major combat operations,” according to President Donald Trump, and in response Tehran has reportedly launched retaliatory attacks in Middle Eastern countries that host US military bases.
With hundreds of Iranians already killed and the war threatening to spiral out of control, here are five things Americans need to know.
1: Trump says he’s trying to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But it’s the United States and its allies that are the greatest nuclear threat.
The United States, not Iran, is the country setting the worst example in promoting nuclear weapons in the world today.
It was Trump who pulled out of the US-Iran nuclear deal during his first term—even though the United Nations certified that Iran was in compliance—and resumed harsh sanctions, deployed more troops to the region, and even assassinated an Iranian general.
How could Iran—or any country—now take the US seriously at the negotiating table after Trump blew up the Iran nuclear deal?
Trump’s hostility despite Iran’s earlier compliance only bolsters the claim of Iranian leaders who believe the country needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent against aggression.
Meanwhile, Trump just let the last existing nuclear agreement between the US and Russia, the two countries with the most warheads, expire. Trump is also giving unconditional backing to Israel—the only country in the Middle East that actually has nuclear weapons—and is now supporting the launch of a nuclear program in Saudi Arabia.
2: Trump is contributing to the suffering of ordinary Iranians, not rescuing them.
The Iranian government recently carried out a brutal crackdown on protesters and critics. Trump has claimed that the US is “coming to the rescue” of Iranians who’ve challenged their government.
But in reality, his actions have put countless Iranians in harm’s way. Hundreds of civilians have already been killed in the strikes so far—including 165 in an appalling strike on a girl’s school.
Even before the latest violence, US sanctions had devastated Iran’s population—especially women, children, the sick, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable people—leading to countless preventable deaths.
3: The United States is an unreliable negotiator.
How could Iran—or any country—now take the US seriously at the negotiating table after Trump blew up the Iran nuclear deal?
Attacking Iran is not popular, and Trump definitely does not have a mandate to do it.
Moreover, US demands keep changing. In recent negotiations, the US kept moving the goal posts, going from the demand that Iran not develop nuclear weapons to saying that the country’s civilian nuclear program, its treatment of dissidents, its relationship with regional allies, and its ballistic missile arsenal would all be on the negotiating table.
As Trump put it bizarrely on Fox News, the deal he wants should have “no nuclear weapons, no missiles, no this, no that, all the different things that you want.”
4: The United States has been threatening Iran, not the other way around.
Even before the war, US military bases across the region surrounded Iran with troops and weapons. But there are no Iranian troops or military assets anywhere near the United States.
There is also no question that the most aggressive Middle Eastern power at the moment is Washington’s ally Israel—which continues its genocide in Gaza and attacked six other countries in the last year alone—all enabled through military assistance, arms transfers, and political protection by the United States.
5: Trump’s war with Iran—and his aggressive foreign policy generally—are unpopular with Americans.
The majority of Americans—61%—disapprove of Trump’s aggressive foreign policy in general. And in a recent Reuters poll, just one-quarter said they approved of Trump’s decision to strike Iran—and that was before the announcement that US servicemembers had been killed.
Attacking Iran is not popular, and Trump definitely does not have a mandate to do it. Whatever criticisms one may have of Iran’s government, they do not justify this illegal war.
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