Sunday, March 01, 2026

 Bernie Sanders

No War With Iran













 February 28, 2026

President Trump, along with his right-wing extremist Israeli ally Benjamin Netanyahu, has begun an illegal, premeditated and unconstitutional war. Tragically, Trump is gambling with American lives and treasure to fulfill Netanyahu’s decades-long ambition of dragging the United States into armed conflict with Iran.

The U.S. Constitution is clear. It is the Congress that declares war, not a president acting unilaterally. The Senate must reconvene immediately and vote on a pending War Powers Resolution, which I will strongly support.

Further, this attack against Iran is a clear violation of international law and will create increased instability in an already dangerous world. If the United States and Israel can launch an attack against a sovereign nation, so can any other country. Might does not make right. It creates international anarchy, death, destruction and human misery.

The American people were lied to about Vietnam. The American people were lied to about Iraq. The American people are being lied to again today — and once again, it is ordinary people who will pay the price.

The people of our country, no matter what their political persuasion, do not want endless war. They want decent-paying jobs, and health care and housing that they can afford. They want their kids to have an excellent education.

We must not allow Trump to force us into another senseless war. No war with Iran.

Bernie Sanders is a US Senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress.

China calls for end to strikes on Iran, UN says the hostilities “undermine international peace and security”

China calls for end to strikes on Iran, UN says the hostilities “undermine international peace and security”
/ UN homepage
By bno - Taipei Office March 1, 2026

The Chinese Communist Party in Beijing has called for an ‘immediate’ cessation of Israeli and US strikes on Iran. In doing so, CCP officials have stressed the need for dialogue, asking both Jerusalem and Washington to respect Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, reports are suggesting.

There have also been unverified claims that China may be willing to mediate between Tehran and the Israel-US joint attack force.

After initially referring to their “high concern” over the strikes on Tehran and others sites in Iran, China’s Foreign Ministry took to social media platform X saying “China calls for an immediate stop of the military actions, no further escalation of the tense situation, resumption of dialogue and negotiation, and efforts to uphold peace and stability in the Middle East.”

Tehran’s ambassador to the United Nation, Amir-Saeid Iravani, meanwhile has accused Israel and the US of being guilty of a war crime.

Also at the UN, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has slammed the “military escalation”, in the process, calling for an “immediate cessation of hostilities”.

“The use of force by the United States and Israel against Iran, and the subsequent retaliation by Iran across the region, undermine international peace and security,” Guterres said, adding that there are now “grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.”

Asia-Pacific left statements: Stop the war on Iran

US bombing Iran

Statements by Socialist Alliance (Australia), Socialist Party of Malaysia, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation and Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM, The Philippines) condemning the US-Israeli war on Iran.


Socialist Alliance (Australia): Stop the war on Iran

March 1

Socialist Alliance condemns the attacks on Iran by Israel and the United States and calls on the Australian Labor government to immediately reverse its support for this dangerous new drive to war.

They are illegal and break international human rights rules and obligations to respect the sovereign rights of nation states.

We support the Iranian people’s struggles for democratic reforms against the regime. But the US and Israel’s bombing will not assist that struggle in any way; if anything it will do the opposite — as we saw in Iraq.

The US and Iran were in talks over Iran’s nuclear program. Clearly, the US was not serious about this dialogue.

After 2.5 years of genocide, Israel and the US have the blood of more than 100,000 Palestinians on their hands; this war will add more.

We also condemn the Labor government for walking lock step with the US and Israel. PM Albanese cites Iran’s alleged attacks on Australia is reason to support the US and Israel’s attacks but no credible evidence has been revealed to the public. We are supposed to believe Labor’s captains calls after it refuses to cut ties with genocidal Israel.

We reject the dangerous AUKUS military alliance which is dictating Australia’s foreign policy and relations with other countries.

Australia must change course and demand the US and Israel pull back from this latest imperial attack.

Labor must insist on dialogue and respect for international law. The people of Iran deserve no less.

Socialist Alliance campaigns for an independent foreign policy based on international solidarity, peace and justice.

We urge everyone to join the protests opposing the US-Israel attacks, which endanger the whole world.


Socialist Party of Malaysia: Stop the US-Israel war on Iran

February 28

The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) strongly condemns the latest US-Israeli military attacks on Iran.

The genocidal Zionist regime of Israel and the imperialist US have launched another wave of military attacks on Iran today (28 February 2026). Before this, Israel, with the full backing from the US, conducted a 12-day military aggression on Iran in June 2025.

The latest military attacks take place following the repeated threat of US intervention in the Iranian political crisis, the unsubstantiated claim that Iran is “working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America”, and the latest round of inconclusive US-Iran nuclear talks.

The US-Israel military aggression on Iran is clearly against the UN Charter and international laws. It serves nothing to free the Iranian people from any form of repressive regime, instead further terrorising the people of Iran, bringing more destruction and miseries to the Iranian society, and further destabilising the Middle East region as well as jeopardising efforts to rebuild global peace by inviting more deadly conflicts.

Once again, the imperialist US and the genocidal Zionist regime of Israel have proven they are the real threat to world peace and global justice.

We call upon governments around the world, including Malaysia, to stand united in taking the following decisive actions:

  • pressure the US and Israel to immediately stop their barbaric war on Iran;
  • severe diplomatic and economic ties with both the US and Israel;
  • Impose a total arms embargo on Israel and a total international boycott of the US arms industries.

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation: Condemn the US–Israel military aggression against Iran

February 28

Once again Israel and the US have launched a criminal missile attack on Iran. The attack comes piercing the façade of US talks of diplomacy. The world also understands that this imperialist aggression has nothing to do with the Iranian people's own struggle against the Iranian government for justice and liberty.

India must insist on an immediate cessation of the attack on Iran.

That the attack started shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Israel tells us how ill-advised and detrimental to Indian interests that visit was. We call upon all peace-loving people of India and the world to stand with Iran and the Iranian people against this US-Israel military aggression.


Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM, The Philippines): We call on the peoples of the world to unite and mobilise against US-Israeli aggression and war! 

March 1

The Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) strongly condemns the coordinated U.S.–Israel military attack on Iran as a brutal act of imperialist war and aggression.

On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched a joint offensive against Iran, described by Israeli officials as “Operation Lion’s Roar” and by U.S. leadership as “major combat operations.” Explosions were reported in Tehran and across multiple Iranian cities. 

One of the targets was a girls elementary school in the southern city of Minab, where at least 100 children were killed. Reports from Iranian relief organizations indicate hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries across at least 24 provinces during the first day of the strikes, with widespread fear as citizens sought safety. 

This military assault is not an isolated incident. Israel, with the full backing from the US, conducted a 12-day military aggression on Iran in June 2025. For decades, the United States has pursued a policy of economic warfare, crippling sanctions, covert intelligence operations by Mossad and the CIA, and direct military attacks on Iran. 

U.S. sanctions have devastated Iran’s economy, contributing to inflation, shortages, unemployment, and deepening hardship among ordinary Iranians. 

Such policies are part of a long history of interventionism, dating back to the overthrow of the popular and democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 and continuing through the years.

Successive U.S. administrations have repeatedly and falsely claimed alleged threats against the U.S. to justify military action — from Vietnam to Iraq — only for those justifications to be discredited later. We now witness a similar false claim of the threat of Iran’s nuclear program as a pretext for war.

This assault is also an attack on the peoples of the Middle East and the Global South. From Cuba and Venezuela to Iraq and Iran, we must unconditionally oppose all efforts at U.S.-led regime change and domination. The ongoing genocide in Gaza and the broader pattern of violence perpetuated by imperialist alliances with Israel cannot be separated from the attacks on Iran. They signify an intensification of imperialist aggression against the Global South.

PLM calls for: 

  1. An immediate cessation of all US-Israel military operations and attacks on Iran. 
  2. A united response from the Global South in defence of peace, national sovereignty, and against imperialist aggression. 
  3. The Philippine government to publicly condemn this attack and reject any participation, support, or facilitation, including the use of Philippine territory or military bases in support of U.S. operations. 
  4. Solidarity with the Iranian people in their struggle for their rights and self-determination without imperialist manipulation and intervention. 

U.S. imperialism is the major threat to peace and national sovereignty worldwide. We therefore call on the people of the United States to be accountable, to mobilise and act to stop their government’s wars and aggression — in Iran, genocide in Gaza, intervention across the Middle East, in Latin America and throughout Asia and the Global South.

Another US-Israel Sucker Punch

Military gutlessness


A sucker punch is a punch delivered when the recipient of the punch is hit by surprise. As such a sucker punch indicates cowardice — that the sucker puncher did not have courage and decency to announce his intentions to engage in fisticuffs or battle. The current sneak attack (a so far failed attack) to take out the Iranian leadership by the US-Israel while negotiations are still ongoing in an attempt (half-heartedly or not by the US-Israel negotiators) to settle differences among the sides is a textbook example of cowardice, pusillanimity … gutlessness!

As such the United States and Israel have shamed themselves, their militaries, and their nation states. Obviously, a large segment of the population of both these scofflaw states is either ignorant or okay with their country and its leadership sucker punching an entity — rightly or wrongly — declared a threat.

The so-called leaders, president Donald Trump and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are both seeking to stall the wheels of justice for their misdeeds. Trump is seeking to evade lurid disclosures in the Epstein files. The latest news being that Trump’s Department of Justice illegally scrubbed a victim’s allegation that Trump sexually abused her when she was a minor. Trump is accused of all kinds of wrongdoing in addition to his acts of sexual misconduct.

War usually has a way of diverting attention.

Netanyahu was officially indicted for breach of trust, accepting bribes, and fraud. The International Criminal Court has also issued a warrant for the arrest of Netanyahu, former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, together with a former Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif (now deceased) “as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

Is it any wonder that the US and Israel are led into wars by so-called leadership? Now the Middle East is inflamed with war started by two war criminals.

Questions for the masses of Americans:

Are you fine with your military engaging in sneak attacks?

Are you fine with the lives of your men and women being put on the line to fight a war on behalf of Israel?

Is it okay that US Congressional approval was not given for such an attack?

Do you support the US commander-in-chief — a self-declared “peace president”?

Are you aware of any legal basis for the US-Israeli war started with a sneak attack?

Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Read other articles by Kim.


Mendacious Rationales: The Lies Behind Operation Lion’s Roar

Many in the United States would scarcely identify the difference between Iran and Iraq, both countries based on ancient civilisations so chronologically distant as to be fiction. If not Marvel, it’s not marvellous. But another fiction came into play towards the end of February as the United States and Israel reprised their role as world rogues and crockery breakers by attacking Iran for a second time in less than a year in a joint campaign called Operation Lion’s Roar and Epic Fury. Following the vulgar playbook on regime change used against Iraq in 2003 by the US-led forces, a variation of the same theme is being used against Iran.

The difference here is that neither the US nor Israel are willing to commit ground forces. They will kill key leaders and figures across the Iranian regime, leaving an inchoate resistance against the clerics to seize the day. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has apparently been killed, with US President Donald J. Trump calling him “one of the most evil people in history”. Israel also claims that the opening strikes killed seven senior defence and intelligence officials, including Khamenei’s top security advisor Ali Shamkhani, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Mohammad Pakpour, Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh and the chief of Iranian military intelligence Saleh Asadi.

The February 28 statement from Trump posted on Truth Social as an 8-minute video declared that the objective of the attack was “to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” This was curious given the previous US-Israeli attacks in June 2025 that had apparently “obliterated the regime’s nuclear program at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.” Then efforts were supposedly made on his part to seek a deal to prevent Iran ever pursuing nuclear weapons. “We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. Again they wanted to.”

In this haze of confusion, Trump had concluded that Tehran had, after all, decided to “rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland.” Their missile industry would be razed, the navy annihilated, the proxies crippled. Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard would receive total immunity if they laid down their weapons, “or you will face certain death.” As for the unspecified “great proud people of Iran”, they should stay sheltered as the bombing continued. When done, the government “will be yours to take”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement also confirmed the objective of ending “the threat of the Ayatollah regime in Iran.” That regime had domestically repressed its citizens, “instilled fear in the peoples of the region”, created a global terror network, “invested enormous resources to develop atomic bombs and tens of thousands of missiles intended, as it defined it, to erase Israel from the map of the world.” They armed “terrorist proxies”.

Even more stridently, and fanatically than Trump, Netanyahu restated those themes of existential threat and untrustworthiness so characteristic of the wicked Persian. Despite “a decisive blow” being struck against the regime and its proxies last June, “the wounded predator has not ceased its attempts to recover, for the same purpose, to destroy us.” (Evidently not that decisive, then.) Having stated every year for years that Iran would develop the means to destroy Israel within a short time, he came up with another fictional twist: not only were the tyrants “plotting to rebuild their nuclear and missile capabilities”, they were also placing them “underground, where we cannot reach them. If we do not stop them now, they will become invulnerable.”

The tissues of lies in both statements are impressive and incorrigible. Operation Midnight Hammer had seemingly not obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities, suggesting they had been ineffectual, indulgent or incompetent. And why bother keeping the US-Iranian dialogue on Teheran’s nuclear program going if a military solution proved inevitable? For a President who boasts about his ability to make deals, few are being brokered of late.

Both Israel and the US used the same verbal formulae as before: exaggerate the capabilities of Iran to build consensus for an illegal war; exaggerate a military prowess of such biblical force that simply does not exist. Again, there are too many chilling parallels to the pattern followed by the George W. Bush administration leading up to the pre-emptive attack on Iraq in March 2003. Imminent threats were very much part of the hysterical argot then in justifying the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Needing justifications plucked out of thin air, the US government sought propping evidence from the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Tony Blair duly supplied the infamous 2002 dossier with the chilling claim that Iraqi forces could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes of being ordered to do so. (This nicely supplemented the fabricated claim that Saddam Hussein was also pursuing a nuclear weapons program with the purchase of 500 tonnes of yellowcake uranium powder from Niger.) The key official behind the dossier, the diligent arms expert David Kelly, committed suicide in despairing disgust, having been ordered to include the 45-minute claim. No such weapons were ever found, and a central rationale of the invasion collapsed. The United States, UK, Australia and a motley crew of coalition members were found to be brigands.

There will, no doubt, be some cheer within Iran at these strikes, notably from the young who have suffered at the hands of a clerical, authoritarian regime. Washington’s allies will snivel with coerced approval citing the brutality of Iran’s regime while ignoring breaches of international law they are condoning. (Australia’s response was particularly despicable.) The Shia-Sunni division will be tested, with various US bases and military assets already struck in the Gulf States by a regime trying to survive. The United Nations will continue being treated like a bed-ridden dowager whose influence was from another day, conduct more contemptible even than 2003 when many Western states did, at the very least, show solidarity in rejecting the use of force by the United States and its allies in the absence of a Security Council resolution. In the meantime, American diplomats who open their frontier-stretched mouths claiming interest for peace and negotiations should make everyone reach for the gun.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.comRead other articles by Binoy.

The USrael Attack on Iran and 40thAnniversary of the Murder of Olof Palme


Today, USrael attacked Iran, for the second time within just one year. Today also marks the 40th Anniversary of the murder of Swedish PM Olof Palme (1927-1986).

In the video below, Palme condemns the US bombings of Hanoi, Vietnam, at Xmas 1972. He paid a price for it. He lists the names of places where crimes were committed up till then.

Today, we can add places such as Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Gaza — and on this very day, February 28, 2026, we can add Iran, Iran again and again — places Palme was spared the pain from witnessing.

The masters of war do it out of sheer psycho-political projection and accuse Russia, China, Iran and others of threatening — Trump justified his attack by reference to protecting the American people — while them themselves are infinitely more threatening, brutal and law-violating.

I stand with the Iranian people.

During my travels in Iran, I have talked with so many of all walks of life, old and young, part of the political system and civil society. I have experienced the Iranian history, culture and unique civilisation; I have met kindness, hospitality and civilised manners everywhere — never looked down upon because I came from a region that has only done violence to Iran.

I have seen the suffering of the Iranian people because of the suffocating US sanctions since 1979, the economic war the US has fought against the Iranian people all its — lying — presidents have said they love and respect so much, also Trump today.

No matter what you think about the Iranian theocracy and its repression of the Iranians, none of what the West and Israel do can be justified. It is exactly as barbaric as the places the courageous and visionary Olof Palme mentions.

Over 35 years, Iran has been accused – particularly by Israeli PM Netanyahu that a) it wants to become a nuclear weapons power and b) it will be able to produce nuclear weapons in a few months. The problem with these invented threats that serve as pretext for aggression is that a) is wrong and b) is right — and that proves that Iran does not want to become a nuclear weapons state. If it did, it could have acquire that status more than 20 years ago. Its leaders at different levels have stated again and again — but never reported in our media – that it does not aim to get nuclear weapons and that nukes belong to “haram” — the list of things that are forbidden in Islamic law.

Indeed, the absurd arguments behind USrael and the aggressions increases the likelihood that a future leadership of Iran will find it necessary to acquire nuclear weapons. Furthermore, it was Trump who took the US out of the JCPOA — a piece of the perhaps finest diplomacy in modern times — and thereby destroyed every kind of trust. He, not Iran, destroyed the mutual understanding and then slammed sanctions on Iran once again.

Those who keep silent about today’s truly unprovoked aggression – in the midst of negotiations that were nothing but a war for the US to get its military in place — those who do not protest and those who support this ongoing fascism/militarism/Imperialism are complicit with the US/NATO leaders in the mentioned decades of war crimes, crimes against humanity and the systematic destruction of the UN and international law.

Tragically, I am convinced that we shall hear no criticism or protests from EU or NATO leaders. I fail to see that they have the civil courage, the ethics and the intellect to do so.

After dozens of wars and regime changes, the genocide on Palestine and this repeated harassment of the Iranian people, after Greenland, Venezuela, Ukraine, after… one must wonder what it will take before Westerners wake up to the reality about the US — the US as an Empire — and not just a US under a MAGAlomaniac narcissist militarist kind of Emperor.

Do they — naively — believe that after Trump everything will be good again in God’s Own Country? It won’t.

Trump is as American as apple pie and does nothing the Deep State doesn’t endorse first. That is, the MIMIC – the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex.

This is about the US Empire, addicted to militarism and arrogance, in rapid decline and bound to fall – sadly hated by more and more people worldwide, not for what it once stood for but for how it has abandoned its own finest qualities, one by one. How it has become a rogue state…

If there is one good thing about Trump it is this: He will accelerate that decline and fall faster that anyone else can. But one must fear how he will react when he and his conspirators recognise that their game is over and the world (except the EU-NATO allies) has turned its back on the US and no longer obey His Master’s Voice?

Hitler did not have access to nuclear weapons in his bunker in Berlin. Trump has too many of them.

In summary, the Trump Regime is the genuine EE — Evil Empire. And thus, the biggest single threat to humanity’s survival.

And Olof Palme’s powerful condemnation of warfare, arrogant humiliation and his later advocacy of nuclear abolition, disarmament and common security stands the test of time — while today Western (and Swedish) leaders have already failed that test.

Jan Oberg is a peace researcher, art photographer, and Director of The Transnational (TFF) where this article first appeared. Reach him at: oberg@transnational.orgRead other articles by Jan.

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