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NUCLEAR OPTIONS  
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Tariq Ali
June 17, 2025
Sidecar, blog of New Left Review
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_ Netanyahu’s boast that he will bring about regime change has
produced the opposite effect. Hijabless women have been demonstrating
in the streets, chanting ‘Get an atom bomb’. The country that
urgently needs regime change is Israel.  _

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The expansion of the war from Palestine to Iran, which began on 13
June, signals an Israeli obsession persisting for four decades. As the
Trump administration was negotiating in bad faith with Iran over its
nuclear programme, the Israeli regime took advantage of an
interval to bomb Tehran, assassinating leading scientists, a senior
general and other officials, some of them engaged in the talks. After
a few unconvincing denials, Trump admitted that the US had been
informed of the attack ahead of time. Now the West is backing
Israel’s latest onslaught, despite what Tulsi Gabbard, the
Trump-appointed Director of National Intelligence, said as recently as
25 March: ‘The Intelligence Community continues to assess that Iran
is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not
authorized the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003.’  

The IAEA inspectors know full well that there are no nuclear weapons.
They have simply been acting as willing spies for the US and Israel,
providing pen-portraits of the senior scientists who have now been
killed. Iran has belatedly realised that it was pointless letting them
into the country and a parliamentary bill has been drafted to throw
them out. The country’s leadership had nothing to gain from
sacrificing this part of their sovereignty, yet they clung to the lame
half-hope, half-belief that if they did as the Americans wanted, they
might get the sanctions lifted and a US-guaranteed peace.  

Their own historical experience should have taught them otherwise.
Iran’s elected government was overthrown with covert Anglo-American
aid in 1953 and its secular opposition destroyed. After a quarter of a
century of Western-backed dictatorship, the Pahlavi dynasty was
finally overthrown. But a year after the 1979 Revolution, the West –
as well as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – funded Iraq to start a war
against Iran and topple the new regime. It lasted eight years and left
half a million people dead, mostly on the Iranian side. Hundreds of
Iraqi missiles hit Iranian cities and economic targets, especially the
oil industry. In the war’s final stages, the US destroyed nearly
half the Iranian navy in the Gulf and, for good measure, shot down a
civilian passenger plane. Britain loyally helped in the cover-up.  

Since then, the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy has always put the
regime’s survival at its centre. During the Iran–Iraq war, the
clerics had no hesitation in buying arms from their avowed enemies,
Israel included. Their solidarity with oppositional forces has been
fragmentary and opportunist, devoid of any consistent anti-imperialist
strategy, except in their lonely but crucial capacity as a defender of
Palestinian rights, in a region where every single Arab government has
capitulated to the hegemon. On 15 June, soon after the Israeli attack,
there was a remarkable procession of over fifty donkeys in Gaza, the
animals garlanded and covered with silk and satin robes; as they were
led down the street, children stroked them with genuine affection.
Why? ‘Because’, explained the organiser, ‘they have been more
help to us than all the Arab states put together’.  

Following the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Iranians
no doubt hoped that collaborating with Washington – clearing the
path for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and Mullah Omar – would win
them some respite. In many respects, the ‘War on Terror’ was not a
bad time for the Islamic Republic. Its standing in the region soared
together with oil prices, its enemies in Baghdad and Kabul were
brutally removed, and the Shia groups it had been backing since 1979
were brought to power in neighbouring Iraq. It’s difficult to
imagine that neither the Bush politburo (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice) nor
its unofficial US-based Arab advisers (Kanaan Makiya, Fouad Ajmi)
could have foreseen this outcome, but that appears to have been the
case. The first non-Western foreigner to visit the Green Zone as an
honoured guest was President Ahmedinejad. 

Both Sunni and Shia nationalists came together to oppose the occupying
forces, firing rockets and mortar at the US embassy. It was Iranian
state intervention that split this opposition, ensuring that a united
Iraqi resistance movement descended into a futile and destructive
civil war. Muqtada al-Sadr, a key Shia leader in Iraq, had been
shocked by the atrocities in Fallujah and led a series of popular
uprisings against the US coalition. At the height of the conflict, he
was invited to visit Iran and ended up staying – or being kept
there? – for the next four years. The subsequent entry of ISIS onto
the battlefield strengthened this tactical US–Iran alliance, with
the Pentagon providing air support to aid the assaults being carried
out by the 60,000 strong Shia militants on the ground.

Most of these forces were under the indirect command of Qassem
Soleimani, who was in regular communication with General David
Petraeus. Soleimani was a gifted strategist, yet susceptible to
flattery, especially from the Great Satan. He was the main thinker
behind the expansionist tactics deployed by Tehran after 9/11, but his
tendency to boast to his US counterparts alienated some of them,
especially when he explained accurately how the Iranians had foreseen
and exploited most US mistakes in the region. Spencer Ackerman’s
description rings true: 

He was pragmatic enough to cooperate with Washington when it suited
Iranian interests, as destroying the Caliphate did, and was prepared
to clash with Washington when it suited Iranian interests, as with
Soleimani’s backstopping of Syria’s Bashar el Assad or earlier
with IED modifications that killed hundreds of US troops and maimed
more. Soleimani’s impunity infuriated the Security State and the
Right. His success stung.  

Yet even as Iran’s regional power increased, social tensions at home
were rising. The revolution had excited hopes at first, but the
ensuing war with Iraq was debilitating. Partly for this reason, Iran
took a tougher stance on the nuclear question, asserting its sovereign
right to enrich uranium. Domestically, this was seen as a means of
reuniting the population. Externally, it has a perfectly logical
defensive purpose: the country was in a vulnerable position, encircled
by atomic states (India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Israel) as well as a
string of American bases with potential or actual nuclear stockpiles
in Qatar, Iraq, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Nuclear-armed US
aircraft carriers and submarines patrolled the waters off its southern
coast.  

Totally forgotten in the West is the fact that the nuclear programme
was an initiative first taken by the Shah in the 1970s with US
support. One of the companies involved was a fiefdom of Dick Cheney,
Bush’s sleazy Vice President. Khomeini halted the project when he
came to power, considering it un-Islamic. But he later relented and
operations restarted. As the programme ramped up in the mid-2000s,
Iran and its supreme leader found that their attempts to placate
Washington had come to nothing. They were still in the West’s
crosshairs. The Bush White House gave the impression that either a
direct US strike against Iran, or an attack via its tried-and-tested
regional relay, Israel, might soon be on the cards. The Israelis, for
their part, were virulently opposed to anyone challenging their
nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. Iran’s leader was described by
the Israeli government and its loyal media networks as a
‘psychopath’ and a ‘new Hitler’. It was a hurriedly
manufactured crisis, of the sort in which the West has become a
specialist. The hypocrisy was breathtaking. The US had nuclear
weapons, as did the UK, France and Israel; yet Iran’s search for the
technology required for the lowest grade of nuclear self-defence
provoked moral panic.  

In the scramble by European powers to enhance their standing with
Washington following the invasion of Iraq, France, Germany and Britain
were keen to prove their mettle by forcing Tehran to accept stringent
limits on its nuclear activity. The Khatami regime immediately
capitulated, imagining it was really being invited in from the cold.
In December 2003, they signed the ‘Additional Protocol’ demanded
by the EU3, agreeing to a ‘voluntary suspension’ of the right to
enrichment guaranteed under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Again, it
made no difference. Within months, the IAEA condemned them for having
failed to ratify it and Israel was boasting of its intention to
‘destroy Natanz’. In the summer of 2004, a large bipartisan
majority in the US Congress passed a resolution for ‘all appropriate
measures’ to prevent an Iranian weapons programme and there was
speculation about an ‘October surprise’ in the run-up to that
year’s election.  

At the time, I argued inthe _Guardian_ that ‘to face up to the
enemies ranged against Iran requires an intelligent and far-sighted
strategy – not the current rag-bag of opportunism and manoeuvre,
determined by the immediate interests of the clerics’. A number of
liberal and socialist Iranian intellectuals wrote back from Tehran to
express strong agreement, especially with my conclusion:  

Clearing the way for the overthrow of the Iraqi Ba’ath and Afghan
Taliban regimes and backing the US occupations has bought no respite.
The US undersecretary of state has spoken of ‘ratcheting up the
pressure’. Israeli defence minister Shaul Mofaz has said that
‘Israel will not be able to accept an Iranian nuclear capability,
and it must have the capability to defend itself with all that this
implies, and we are preparing.’ Hillary Clinton accused the Bush
administration of ‘downplaying the Iranian threat’ and called for
pressure on Russia and China to impose sanctions on Tehran. Chirac has
spoken of using French nuclear weapons against such a ‘rogue
state’. Perhaps it is simply high-octane rocket-rattling, the aim
being to frighten Tehran into submission. Bullying is unlikely to
succeed. Will the West then embark on a new war?  

US foreign policy was aptly summarised by Bush’s laconic avowal in
2003, ‘if you’re not with us, you’re against us’. Britain,
Canada, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Australia needed no convincing. To
this day, Iraq has not returned to the social and economic stability
that it had before ‘regime-change’. A million plus casualties and
five million orphans was the price it was forced to pay after its
government was mendaciously accused of harbouring WMDs. Western
companies now siphon off the bulk of Iraqi oil.  

Many who waged the Iraq war have since regretted it, but that has not
stopped imperial strategists from carrying on in similar fashion
elsewhere. In Gaza, the horror continues. Bombs, deaths, starvation
and a callousness that evokes how the Wehrmacht treated the
Slav _Untermensch. _The Israeli newspaper _Haaretz _has published
an editorial
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tougher than anything that has appeared in liberal dailies in the
Euro-Atlantic zone, which attacks European leaders’ pathetic
decision to sanction only the two outright fascists in Netanyahu’s
government and instead demands total sanctions against Israel itself.
This is what real friends of Israel should be demanding, rather than
encouraging its kamikaze politics and genocidal campaigns.  

After Israel’s near-complete success in levelling the Strip and
exterminating tens of thousands of its people, the Netanyahu
government clearly felt it was time to expand the war to other
targets. First there was the IDF’s campaign against Hezbollah, which
killed much of its leadership and left the organisation greatly
weakened, bringing Lebanon to heel. (It is no surprise that young
Lebanese have since climbed onto their roof terraces to cheer on the
Iranian drones.) Then came Syria, where Israel launched multiple
attacks without even pretending it was self-defence. In collaboration
with NATO-member Turkey and remnants of the Ba’athist apparatus,
Israel helped to install a puppet government under a well-trained US
stooge, the former al-Qaida operative Jolani.  

The stage was now set for the assault on Iran. As always, Western
double-standards are at work when Israel is involved. Israel has not
joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has not signed the
Biological Weapons Convention and the Ottawa Convention, has not
ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention and has disregarded
international law and UN resolutions for decades, with ICJ arrest
warrants now issued against Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes and
crimes against humanity, plus an ongoing genocide investigation . .
. This is what a rogue state looks like.  

The two countries are currently communicating via drones, F35s and
missiles. Both Tehran and Tel Aviv have suffered hits. The declared
Israeli aim of destroying the nuclear reactors has not been
accomplished and Netanyahu’s boast that he will bring about regime
change has produced the opposite effect. Hijabless women have been
demonstrating in the streets, chanting ‘Get an atom bomb’. One of
them told a reporter: ‘In parliament, they’re discussing closing
down the Hormuz Straits. No need to discuss. Just close them
down.’ Trump is insisting that the war can only end once Tehran
surrenders completely. Many Iranians now believe that the recent
nuclear negotiations were always a feint. In 2020, Trump used similar
tactics to carry out the assassination of Soleimani, persuading the
Iraqi Prime Minister to act as a mediator in US–Iran talks so as to
lure the General to Baghdad. So far, the Iranians have withstood the
assault. The country that urgently needs regime change is Israel. 

_Writer, journalist and film-maker Tariq Ali was born in Lahore in
1943. He owned his own independent television production company,
Bandung, which produced programmes for Channel 4 in the UK during the
1980s. He is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio and contributes
articles and journalism to magazines and newspapers including The
Guardian and the London Review of Books. He is editorial director of
London publishers Verso and is on the board of the New Left Review,
for whom he is also an editor._

_This is Sidecar, the NLR blog. Launching in December 2020, Sidecar
aims to provide a space on the left for international interventions
and debate. A buzzing and richly populated left-media landscape has
emerged online in the past decade, but its main English-speaking forms
have been largely monoglot in outlook and national in focus, treating
culture as a subsidiary concern. By contrast, political writing on
Sidecar will take the world, rather than the Anglosphere, as its
primary frame. Culture in the widest sense – arts, ideas, mores –
will have full standing. Translation of, and intellectual engagement
with, interventions in languages other than English will be integral
to its work. _

* Israel-Iran war
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* regime change
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* Netanyahu
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* nuclear weapons
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