23 March 2026

How Iran is a victim of US-Israeli terrorism

Middle East Eye

My first visit to Iran took place in September 2015, when I attended a conference in Tehran on the subject of “Iranian terror victims” - ranging, in this case, from the thousands of Iranians killed by the pathological regime-change cult known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq, to the Iranian scientists assassinated with the apparently not-so-secret help of the Israeli Mossad. . . .

At the conference, I spoke with Shohreh Pirani, the widow of Iranian scientist Dariush Rezaeinejad, fatally shot outside his home in 2011 at the age of 35. Pirani and her four-year-old daughter had witnessed the assassination, but despite the ensuing psychological trauma, Pirani assured me she felt nothing but pity for her husband’s killers. After all, she reasoned, such acts of terrorism were unquestionably driven by desperation.

Fast forward to the present moment, and the number of Iranian victims of terrorism has skyrocketed in accordance with the unprovoked and downright psychopathic war launched against the country by the United States and Israel on 28 February. READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.


03 March 2026

US Media Mostly Care for Iranians When They Can Be Used to Justify Bombing

FAIR

The United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, propelling the entire region into a predictable cataclysm of unprecedented proportions.

This puts paid to the alleged “peacemaking” project of US President Donald Trump, who was supposed to be keeping the country out of international wars rather than actively seeking to expedite the end of the world.

The attacks put an abrupt end to the negotiations underway between the US and Iran—to the delight of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has always viewed as anathema anything remotely resembling diplomacy or the pursuit of peace.

Three days before the joint strikes, a Politico exclusive (2/25/26) reported that “senior advisers” to Trump “would prefer Israel strike Iran before the United States launches an assault on the country.” As per the report, administration officials were “privately arguing that an Israeli attack would trigger Iran to retaliate, helping muster support from American voters for a US strike.”

So much for subsequent US/Israeli attempts to cast the assault as “preemptive” in nature. Indeed, there is nothing at all “preemptive” about forcing Iran to retaliate; this is instead what you would call a deliberate provocation. READ MORE AT FAIR.

02 March 2026

How the New York Times paved the way for apocalyptic war

 Middle East Eye

Shortly after the United States and Israel launched unprecedented strikes on Iran this weekend, blithely propelling the entire region into unfathomable chaos, the editorial board of the New York Times published its two cents’ worth in an editorial directed towards US sociopath-in-chief Donald Trump: “Why Have You Started This War, Mr. President?”

It’s a valid question, to be sure - particularly given Trump’s previous promise that he wouldn’t entangle the country in unnecessary conflicts abroad.

And yet it is a question that would be far less hypocritically posed by, say, a newspaper that had not once run an opinion piece by John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran”.

A few paragraphs into their ostensible antiwar intervention - which was subsequently retitled “Trump’s Attack on Iran Is Reckless” - the Times editorial board contended that the president’s “goals are ill-defined”, while he has “failed to line up the international and domestic support that would be necessary to maximize the chances of a successful outcome”. READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.