Phyllis Bennis & Khury
Petersen-Smith
There’s
no question that Washington’s longstanding military and economic support made
Israel’s illegal war possible.
Mourners
gather around the coffins of people killed in Israeli attacks in
Khorramabad, Iran, during their funeral in on June 16, 2025.AZIZ BABNEZHAD / TASNIM NEWS / AFP via Getty Images
Israel’s attack on Iran opens a
huge danger of escalation in the Middle East.
Israel has a long history of
attacking Iran — including bombing Iranian facilities, assassinating Iranian
leaders and scientists, launching cyberattacks, and more. Iran has on occasion
struck back, including launching strikes on Tel Aviv in this latest back and
forth.
But this latest assault is more
dangerous than previous rounds of violence. It holds the prospect of full-scale
war between the two strongest military forces in the region — and potentially
the United States too.
Don’t miss a beat
For decades, Congress and
multiple administrations have guaranteed billions of dollars in military aid to
Israel every year — an amount that’s skyrocketed since Israel’s attack on Gaza,
which the International Court of Justice and other authorities have called a
genocide. In 2024 alone, for example, U.S. taxpayers paid 40 percent of
Israel’s entire military spending.
So while it’s not yet clear how
much the U.S. knew or approved of Israel’s attack on Iran, there’s no question
that Washington’s longstanding military and economic support made it possible.
That alone is enough to make the U.S. complicit in Israel’s illegal war — and
worryingly, a target of Iranian retaliation, especially with so many U.S.
military facilities nearby.
There are about 40,000 U.S.
troops stationed across the Middle East, and now the U.S. is sending two
additional destroyers to the coast of Israel. Iran has already retaliated
against Israel. If Tehran also makes good on a threat to attack U.S. targets in
the region, or if the U.S. decides to help Israel escalate its attacks, there’s
a real risk the U.S. could become directly involved — perhaps including
airstrikes or troops on the ground.
Because the U.S. government has
long supported Israel, there’s a lot about Israel you simply don’t hear very
often in the United States. For one thing, there is only one nuclear weapons
state in the Middle East — and that’s Israel, not Iran.
Israel reportedly maintains at
least 90 nuclear weapons, but it’s the only nuclear power in the world that
refuses to confirm or deny its arsenal. While Iran has enriched uranium, it has
no nuclear weapons and — despite Israeli claims — does not have a program to
create one.
In the U.S., we hear a lot of
negative messaging about Iran. And like any government, Iran’s has policies and
practices that can be legitimately criticized.
But we should be clear that, when
it comes to life and politics in the Middle East, it’s Israel that remains the
main destabilizing force. Just in the last two years, Israel has attacked and
occupied new swathes of territory in Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and is
carrying out a genocide in Gaza. It has also bombed Iraq and Yemen.
Now Israel’s government is
raising the level of instability to a new level, directly confronting Iran.
U.S. support for these policies
has led to enormous suffering across the Middle East. And now it may be
directly endangering Americans as well, something the American people seem to
understand. In one recent poll, 60 percent of Americans — including over half
of Trump voters — oppose the U.S. getting more involved in the fighting between
Iran and Israel.
As in Gaza, Americans bear a
particular responsibility to try to stop this fighting, for the simple reason
that our government is supplying Israel’s weapons and preventing any
accountability for how they’re used.
Our message needs to be clear: No
war with Iran!
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