As Israel escalates attacks on Iran, increasing the death toll to 220 and striking Iran’s state broadcasting service and nuclear sites, the US appears to be laying the groundwork for the possibility of joining the war. Axios reported that the Trump administration told allies in the West Asia region that the US would not get involved in the war unless Iran targets the US.
The leaders of the Group of Seven issued a statement in support of Israel on Monday, the same day that Israel bombed Iran’s state television station. “We affirm that Israel has a right to defend itself,” the G7 leaders stated. “Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror.”
“Israel’s war on Palestinians and its attack on Iran is not what surprises the world. What does is the open support by a handful of settler colonial and ex-colonial powers, the G7 and their hypocrisy,” said Prabir Purkayastha, editor of NewsClick. “They term Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, its wars against Lebanon, Syria and now Iran, as ‘Israel’s right to self-defense.’ A right that Lebanon, Syria or Iran apparently does not have.”
Trump left the G7 Summit ahead of schedule, prompted by the ongoing war. On Monday, he called for an immediate full evacuation of Iran’s capital, Tehran.
“IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. Tehran has a population of around 10 million.
Meanwhile, the US military is taking measures to prepare to potentially join the conflict. The USS Nimitz carrier strike group is sailing towards the region ahead of schedule, altering its course after canceling a planned trip to Vietnam.
The long-standing US goals of regime change in Iran
Anti-imperialist groups within the US have pointed to their own country’s role in this conflict. “It is now crystal clear: Donald Trump is the co-architect of the Israeli war against Iran and shares full responsibility with Benjamin Netanyahu for the extraordinary danger facing the whole world,” wrote the Party for Socialism and Liberation in a statement. The PSL is one of the groups that organized anti-war protests in the wake of Israel’s strikes. “For months, Trump and his top officials pretended to be negotiating with Iran in order to trick the country’s government into thinking that an attack wouldn’t happen.”
The statement refers to the renewed negotiations between Iran and the US, aimed at reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which began in April of this year. Israel’s strike took place while Iran was in peaceful negotiations.
Read more: Will Trump return to the Iran–US nuclear deal?
According to the PSL, a consistent goal of the US is “the installation of a client government in Iran that would follow the orders of Washington and Wall Street – like the brutal dictatorship of the Shah that ruled the country from 1953 to 1979. To do it, they are willing to risk countless lives.”
Even in recent years, the US has carried out numerous acts of aggression against Iran, including Trump’s assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani during his first term, Trump’s walking out of the JCPOA in 2018, the inclusion of Iran on the US’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, and a regime of crippling US sanctions against the West Asian country.
“It’s a long-standing policy of the US to seek regime change in revolutionary governments around the world, and any government pursuing an independent path of self-determination and national development,” says Manu Karuka, Associate Professor of American Studies at Barnard College. “We see this reflected in Iran since their revolution, which was a genuine revolution, pursuing an independent path of self-determination. The US has had the long-term objective of overthrowing that government because of its independence.”
Karuka also relates the aggressive US approach towards Iran in terms of the broader geopolitical goals of the US. “In terms of the United States’ stated policy of great power competition with China, seeking the overthrow of the Iranian government, the possible breakup of the country into smaller pieces also serves that strategic aim,” Karuka tells Peoples Dispatch. “By spreading instability across Central Asia in particular, approaching both the southern border of Russia and the western border of China, this could help fulfill the long-standing objectives of overthrowing the government in China and breaking up China into smaller pieces.”
Rania Khalek, a journalist with BreakThrough News, who is based in Beirut, Lebanon, tells Peoples Dispatch that Iran “threatens US imperialist interests” by sitting atop “of a massive amount of fossil fuels that the Western powers used to loot or get for very cheap.”
“The US overthrew the democratically elected leadership of Iran and replaced it with dictatorship for many, many years, so that they could guarantee their access to that resource,” says Khalek.
According to Khalek, “Iran’s revolution in 1979 took back the country’s sovereignty and its resources and put it in the hands of the people. And ever since then, the US has been committed to reversing that.”
“In that time, Iran not only protected its own sovereignty and access to its resources, it also became the primary supporter of resistance groups to US and Israeli hegemony across the region, which added another reason for why the US has sought to overthrow the Iranian government and collapse their state,” Khalek describes. “They’ve tried to do that for many, many decades with sanctions, with covert operations through proxy fighting across the region, up until today, when they’re having a more overt war on the Iranians through their client state of Israel.”
