Author: Daniel Larison

The Iranian retaliation in response to Israel’s April 1 attack on their consulate in Damascus was unprecedented. It was the first direct attack on Israeli territory from Iran, and it was reportedly the largest drone attack on record.

The attack was also one of the most telegraphed military responses of all time. After almost two weeks of warnings that a response was coming, the Iranian government gave advance warning to Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq several days before the attack, and they gave Israel, the U.S. and other regional states hours to prepare. Tehran wanted to make a point without doing so much damage that it would be guaranteed to trigger a wider conflict. The response could easily have been worse and more destructive than it was.

Continue reading “Lockstep US Support Fuels Conflict”

The Washington Post reports that Israel didn’t give the U.S. advance warning about the strike on the Iranian consulate last week that killed seven people, including a high-ranking IRGC general:

Senior Pentagon officials were frustrated that Israel did not notify the United States before conducting a strike on an Iranian site in Syria this month, an escalation that they assess increases risks to American forces in the Middle East, U.S. officials said.

Continue reading “Biden Walks Into Netanyahu’s Trap”

Almost three months after it began, the illegal U.S. war with the Houthis in Yemen continues. The war has failed to halt attacks on Red Sea shipping. As of last week, the U.S. and its allies have reportedly launched over four hundred strikes on targets in Yemen, but the repeated attacks on the Houthis appear to have done nothing but make them even more determined to launch more attacks of their own.

Military action was never likely to force an end to the attacks on shipping. Using force in this case was a blunder, and it has made it more difficult to resolve the situation now that the U.S. and its allies have killed dozens on the Houthi side. The U.S. and its allies have been fortunate so far not to have suffered any casualties, but their forces remain at risk on an unnecessary mission.

Continue reading “3 Months of the Illegal War in Yemen”

The Israeli military killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK) in three consecutive targeted attacks on their vehicles. The vehicles were marked with the WCK logo, they were traveling on an approved route in a so-called safe zone, and their movements were coordinated with Israeli forces. Despite all these precautions, the vehicles were struck one after another and all of the passengers were killed. WCK has suspended their operations in Gaza as a result of the killings. Other humanitarian agencies are considering doing the same because of the extraordinary danger to their workers.

Netanyahu claims that it was an “unintentional hit,” but that simply isn’t credible. There have been too many similar attacks on humanitarian workers throughout the war for anyone to believe that this was just an unfortunate accident. We heard many of the same excuses from the Saudi coalition in Yemen when their jets would bomb clearly marked hospitals and clinics. When a client government commits an outrageous crime like this, it claims it was not intentional and promises to investigate itself. Washington takes the denials at face value because acknowledging the reality would require the U.S. to stop arming the client to the teeth.

Continue reading “The War on Humanitarian Aid Workers”

There is a man-made famine in Gaza, and the U.S. keeps arming the government that caused it:

The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington’s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

Continue reading “Biden Keeps Fueling the Atrocious War in Gaza”

An official from UNICEF, James Elder, recently surveyed the devastation in Gaza and warned against an assault on Rafah:

“A military offensive in Rafah would be utterly catastrophic. The last remaining water points and hospitals [in Gaza] are there and there is nowhere else to go. Khan Younis, Gaza City barely exist any more,” he said. “Rafah is Gaza’s last hope and it is utterly bewildering that a conversation on a potential military operation is still continuing.”

Continue reading “Stop the War on Gaza Now”