Indiana Center for Middle East Peace (ICMEP) condemns in the strongest terms the unprovoked bombing by the United States of Iranian nuclear facilities.
On Saturday evening, the President of the United States declared:
“Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”
Code-named “Operation Midnight Hammer,” it involved seven B-2 Spirit bombers dropping a dozen 30,000-pound bunker-busting Massive Ordnance Penetrators on nuclear facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. This was the first time these bombs were used in combat.
There are so many reasons to condemn this action taken by the President of the United States:
1. While Vice President, J. D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both went on Sunday talk shows to deny the object of the bombing was regime change, that this was a one-off (Vance said the US “isn’t at war with Iran but with Iran’s nuclear program”), Trump couldn’t help himself but undercut both of them by tweeting on Truth Social, “Why wouldn’t there be regime change?”
2. Of course, Rubio did himself and the administration no favors on CBS’s Face the Nation when asked by Margaret Brennan, “Are you saying there that the United States did not see intelligence that the supreme leader had ordered weaponization?” and he replied, “Forget about intelligence.” They have “everything they need to build nuclear weapons” and “that’s all we need to see,” he said. “I think that question being asked in the media, that’s an irrelevant question.”
3. The attack was carried out while Iran was still in a negotiating posture with the United States. Iran’s UN Ambassador Iravani told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Sunday that the US “had crossed a very big red line,” that it had “betrayed diplomacy,” that it had “decided to destroy diplomacy.”
4. Iran has now turned to its long-time ally, Russia, for support against US aggression. Russia has announced that there are many nations now ready to supply Iran with nuclear weapons. The very thing that Trump announced he didn’t want is more likely to happen because of his recklessness. Middle East scholar, Trita Parsi, says that Trump’s actions will accelerate Iran’s nuclear ambitions, that “within 5 to 10 years, Iran will go nuclear, both as a deterrent and as a nationalistic response to U.S.-Israeli aggression.”
5. Of course, Trump believes that he should be rewarded for this. He has made it clear, even as recently as a few days ago, that he wants, that he believes he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize (it still sticks in his craw that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize). He sees himself as the President of Peace (at the tip of American missiles and the threat of a nuclear bomb); of course, he’s a warmonger and a war criminal.
6. This is a man whose father got him an exemption from military service by paying off a podiatrist when he was younger who now regularly bullies people who disagree or who get in his way. His ego needs constant massaging; he does this through his ego-inflating bullying of others personally, and now as president, other nations, with the backing of a complicit Republican and feckless Democrat congress, dragging us into another war in the Middle East. And all the while, making America and Americans more unsafe in the process.
7. Trump’s bruised ego is still reeling a military parade that went bust, so he flexes his muscles with National Guard, Marines, and ICE agents deployed in American cities preying on vulnerable immigrants, even US citizens, and now globally, by bombing Iran and threatening further destruction.
8. And the elephant in the room – Israel. And not just Israel, but the Religious Right in Trump’s base that fawns over him and that he’s so eager to please. For over two decades, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s strongman/war criminal, has been trying to draw the United States into its war against Iran. And with the curreent US President and his Christian Zionist and Israel-first minions, he’s found a willing dupe to do just that.
So even though the spiritual leader of Iran had issued a fatwa against producing and using nuclear weapons; even though Islamic Shariah Law forbids the development and use of nuclear weapons; even his own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and most all of his intelligence agencies, recently said Iran was not developing nuclear weapons; and even though next to Israel, Iran has the largest number of Jews in the Middle East, 15,000, and there are 100 synagogues in Iran, 30 in Tehran – even with all this, leaders on the Religious Right have been beating the drums of war during both Trump terms, urging him to bomb Iran. This week, US ambassador to Israel and Baptist pastor, Mike Huckabee, gave tacit approval to “follow the heavenly voice” to nuke Iran. Israel’s dog wagging America’s tail, putting both countries in more danger.
When we were in Jerusalem recently, we saw a large sign – the flags of Israel and the US melting into each other, Mike Huckabee smiling in the background, and Trump in the foreground, and it read: “Donald Trump: Israel’s Greatest President.”
In his Sunday address, Pope Leo made this connection explicit, noting the bombing of Iran diverted people’s attention from Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population – especially in Gaza and other territories – risks being forgotten, even as the need for adequate humanitarian aid becomes ever more urgent. War does not solve problems. On the contrary, it amplifies them and causes deep wounds in the history of peoples – wounds that take generations to heal. No military victory can ever compensate for a mother’s pain, a child’s fear, or a stolen future.”
10. Bombing Iran is just one more example of the morally repugnant policies of this administration, all legitimized by a heretical Christian Zionist, Christian Nationalist, Christian triumphalist, Christian expansionist theology that worships a cruel MAGA anti-Jesus and a violent, tribal god. Christian nationalism and Zionism, and all supremacist ethno-exceptionalisms, are one giant inter-related death cult cut from the same cloth. It’s all a dangerous lie-of-a-theology that doesn’t care about Jews, only about Israel.
11. Trump closed his creepy remarks last night with five mentions of God, a sop for his evangelical base:
“I want to just thank everybody and in particular, God, I want to just say we love you, God, and we love our great military, protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel, and God bless America.”
These warped ideologies, these false theologies kill people. Enough of the Bible wrapped in the flag used to justify dropping bombs to kill people.
For all these reasons, and more, ICMEP condemns this ego-driven decision to bomb a sovereign nation during the midst of negotiations as well as proxy for Israel and its rabid Zionist – Jewish and Christian – supporters wedded to a heretical Christian nationalist theology.