Update in the Works. Article was in the works before the Ayatollah was reported slain.
The first casualties reported by Iran were those from strikes on an elementary girls’ school. The U.S. and Israel carried out a series of unprovoked and devastating strikes on Iran on Saturday, sparking retaliation from the country as U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Iranians to overthrow their government.
Iranian media reported strikes across the country, including in the capital of Tehran and around the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, The Associated Press reported. It’s unclear if Khamenei and other top leaders survived.
One of the strikes, reportedly launched by Israel, destroyed an elementary school for girls in the southern city of Minab, killing at least 85 people, Iranian semi-official outlet Tasnim News Agency reported — seemingly the first reported casualties of the conflict.
Iran retaliated with strikes targeting Israel and U.S. bases in numerous Gulf Coast countries, including in a strike on the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. Many U.S. bases in the region were partially evacuated prior to the first U.S.-Israeli strikes.
In a video address posted as the first strikes were launched, Trump described the attack as “a massive and ongoing operation.”
“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy,” Trump said. He said that U.S. casualties are acceptable for this “noble” goal. “The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war.”
Trump urged members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard and police to “lay down [their] weapons and have complete immunity, or in the alternative, face certain death.”
“To the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” he said. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.”
Netanyahu struck a similar tone in his remarks in Hebrew on Saturday. “As a people who desire life, we have no choice but to engage in this campaign,” Netanyahu said, per a translation by AP. “The Iranian people in all their diversity — Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Balochs, Abkhazians, and all other citizens of this wonderful nation — this is your opportunity to establish a new and free Iran.”
These remarks are a dramatic departure from Trump’s speech following the U.S.’s strikes on Iran last June, signalling a much more drawn out assault. In June, Trump immediately demanded that Iran end the war in a brief address following the strikes. He declared the strikes a success, and said, “this cannot continue,” threatening more strikes if Iran didn’t relent.
In Saturday’s speech, Trump repeated numerous falsehoods, including statements that Iran “rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions” — a clear and blatant lie.
Rather, these attacks come in the middle of indirect negotiations between U.S. and Iranian officials on Iran’s nuclear program, in which Iranian officials have openly stated that they never plan to possess a nuclear weapon. On Friday, just hours before the strikes, mediator Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi said that “a peace deal is within our reach.”
“The single most important achievement, I believe, is the agreement that Iran will never ever have nuclear material that will create a bomb,” Al Busaidi said in an interview with CBS News. More negotiations were supposed to take place next week.
“I don’t know why the U.S. administration insists to start a negotiation and then, in the middle of them, attack the other party,” said Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday, likening the timing of the attack to the U.S. strikes mid-negotiations last June. “Everybody was happy” after the most recent round of negotiations on Thursday, he said.
CNN reports, citing a U.S. official, that the U.S. “has planned an escalating series of strikes with off-ramps along the way.” They would take place “over a one to two-day period with pauses to reset and assess battle damage.” However, it’s unclear how there can be “off-ramps” when the U.S. and Israel are openly angling for regime change.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has reportedly called for Congress to reconvene as soon as possible for votes on a war powers resolution, which Schumer has cosponsored. Both he and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) put out statements, however, expressed support for military action against Iran,, largely only criticizing Trump for the lack of clear messaging and process around the assault.
Leaders of other Western countries, including Canada’s Mark Carney and the U.K.’s Keir Starmer, said that they are in support of the U.S., with Starmer even going as far as to say, “Iran can end this now,” without offering any explanation as to how that could actually occur.
Many U.S. lawmakers denounced the attack, urging against a war with Iran.
“Trump is acting on the violent fantasies of the American political elite and the Israeli apartheid government, ignoring the vast majority of Americans who say loud and clear: No More Wars,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) in a statement.
“President Trump will pretend this is about democracy and the rights of the Iranian people. Don’t be fooled, Trump does not care about the Iranian people,” she went on. “Our government has imposed brutal sanctions that have destroyed the Iranian economy and the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. You cannot ‘free’ people by killing them and destroying their country.”
Israel framed the strikes as “preemptive,” but many critics said that that is a farce.
“Preemptive self-defense under international law requires an imminent armed attack, not political disagreement, not long-term rivalry, not speculative future threats. There has been no evidence of imminent attack from Iran that would justify bombing Tehran in broad daylight,” said the National Iranian American Council President Jamal Abdi in a statement.
“Bombing Tehran will not bring security,” Abdi went on. “It will endanger civilians, place U.S. service members at risk, empower the most repressive and violent elements inside Iran, and destabilize the region for years to come. For Iranians already suffering under repression, sanctions, and economic hardship, this escalation will mean only more pain.”
“‘Preemptive strike’ is the favorite lie that the genocidal government of Israel tells us before they kill children,” Tlaib said.
Civil liberties group Defending Rights & Dissent called for Trump and all cabinet members involved in the assault to be impeached.
“Trump’s aggression this morning against Iran is unconstitutional, unlawful, and immoral,” said Chip Gibbons, Defending Rights & Dissent’s policy director. “There was no emergency, this was a planned war of choice by Trump coordinated with Israel, a foreign government credibly accused of violating international conventions prohibiting apartheid and genocide.”
“Congress must immediately reconvene and invoke the War Powers Resolution,” Gibbons went on. “While that is an urgent first step, that is not sufficient. Trump must be impeached and removed from office, along with all members of his cabinet who played a role in this crime against our Constitution.”
This article was originally published by Truthout and is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
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