<
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/28/trump-unprovoked-attack-on-iran-has-no-mandate-and-no-clear-objective>
"The first war of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace era has begun – an unprovoked
attempt at regime change in collaboration with Israel, with no legal
foundation, launched in the midst of diplomatic efforts to avert conflict, and
with minimal consultation with Congress or the American public.
Trump’s recorded eight-minute address after the first bombs had fallen made
clear that this would be no limited strike aimed at cajoling Tehran into
concessions at the negotiating table.
He warned that if Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not
surrender, they would be killed, and the country’s armed forces, its missiles
and navy would be smashed.
The way would then be open for the Iranian opposition and the country’s ethnic
minorities to rise up and bring the regime down.
“It’s time for all the people of Iran – Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Balochis and
Akhvakhs – to shed from themselves the burden of tyranny and bring forth a free
and peace-seeking Iran,” Trump said. There are no Akhvakhs in Iran. They are a
small minority in Dagestan, and it is unclear how they were included in Trump’s
list.
Coordinating the message as well as the missiles, Israel’s prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu said his country had joined the war “to remove the
existential threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran”.
The maximalist aims of the joint attack cast doubt on whether there had ever
been any prospect of success for the US-Iranian negotiations in the preceding
weeks, in which delegates discussed possible limits on uranium enrichment.
Those talks, the latest round on Thursday, had been conducted under the shadow
of what Trump called his “beautiful armada” gathering in the Middle East, the
biggest US force in the region since the ill-fated 2003 Iraq invasion, and it
now seems likely that only a complete capitulation on Iran’s part could stop
this assembled American might being unleashed.
Trump has long railed against the folly of the Iraq war. He campaigned twice on
a platform of ending US military entanglements abroad, and lobbied aggressively
to be awarded the Nobel peace prize based on the factually shaky claim to have
ended eight wars."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
