The US/Israeli war on Iran could easily spark a greater regional conflict if it continues. Donald Trump at first said Tehran would be taken in 3-4 days, then a day later claimed the war would last no more than 4-5 weeks and threatened that the US has enough weapons to fight “forever.” Already, the bombing has killed 787 people, including 180 at a girls’ school in Minab on Saturday as Operation Epic Fury began.

Iran is responding in self-defense with attacks on important regional bases and centers in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Israel after the bombings killed the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. An Israeli strike on Tuesday then bombed the Council of Experts in the holy city of Qom as they began deliberations on appointing a new leader. The White House has outlined its goals for the war, including the complete elimination of the Iranian government - a regime change operation.

On the killing of Khamenei, Trump told ABC News “I got him before he got me,” suggesting a paranoia around supposed Iranian threats to him.

The US/Israeli attacks and the Trump administration’s frantic and sometimes contradictory messaging might seem out of the ordinary, but deeper analysis shows that this war is not uniquely Trump’s. It’s an unprovoked, imperialist war of aggression like so many others that the US has launched on the people of the Middle East and beyond in its quest for complete domination of the world. It’s the latest in a long series of US interventions in Iran, starting with the 1953 US/British coup that overthrew the secular, nationalist government of Mohammad Mosaddegh and continuing through this past summer and today.

This war is also not a war that the US can win. Will imperial hubris land the region in another deadly, expensive “forever war?”

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The US Cannot Win a War Against Iran