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middle east
Trump Urged to Oppose Israeli Prep for 'Disastrous' Strike on Iran Nuclear Facilities
"Trump must take action to course-correct on negotiations aimed at preventing war and Iranian proliferation," the National Iranian American Council.
May 21, 2025
Tuesday night reporting on intelligence that Israel is preparing to possibly strike Iranian nuclear facilities, as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration pursues a diplomatic deal with Tehran, sparked calls for the United States to oppose any such attack.
CNNreported on Israel's preparation for a potential strike, citing multiple unnamed U.S. officials who are familiar with the latest intelligence but also "caution it's not clear that Israeli leaders have made a final decision, and that in fact, there is deep disagreement within the U.S. government about the likelihood that Israel will ultimately act."
In a signal of how seriously the international community is taking CNN's reporting, oil prices jumped on Wednesday. According toBarron's: "Brent crude, the global standard, was up 0.9% at $65.95 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude gained 1% to $62.63 a barrel. Prices were paring their gains, after initially rising as much as 3%."
While the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. did not comment and CNN is awaiting a response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office and the U.S. National Security Council, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) weighed in with a Wednesday statement.
"This is not the first time that Israel is threatening to attack Iran—unilaterally and without justification, to disastrous consequence," said NIAC. "What is of critical importance is ascertaining why Israel's government is making this threat now. More likely than not, the radical Benjamin Netanyahu government sees an opportunity to press the Trump administration to take a hardline position in the Iran nuclear talks that will ensure their collapse and America's movement toward a preventable and disastrous war."
"It should also sharpen choices for the Trump administration," the group continued. "President Trump must take action to course-correct on negotiations aimed at preventing war and Iranian proliferation. The entrenching stalemate has largely been driven by far-reaching American demands that ignore strong alternatives that could weather Iran's own fierce domestic politics."
NIAC stressed that "there is a path to avoiding war, but it will require compromise and making sure that Israel is not leading America into a war that would have disastrous and generational consequences for the U.S. and Middle East as a whole."
Since October 2023, Israel's U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip—the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case—and American strikes on Yemen have escalated fears of the United States participating more directly in a regional war.
Despite Trump ditching a previous Iran nuclear deal during his first term, his second administration now claims it is aiming to work out a deal. However, whether the two sides can come to a new agreement remains to be seen.
Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, toldABC News' "This Week" on Sunday that the president "wants to solve this conflict diplomatically and with dialogue, but "we have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability. We've delivered a proposal to the Iranians that we think addresses some of this without disrespecting them."
As CNNdetailed Tuesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he does not expect nuclear talks with the United States to "reach a conclusion" and calledthe U.S. demand that Iran not enrich uranium a "big mistake." Still, according to Witkoff, there may be another round of negotiations in Europe this week.
Michael Hall, communications manager at the D.C.-based think tank Defense Priorities, suggested that the U.S. government should negotiate directly with Tehran, pointing to contact with the Kremlin, which has included calls between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Witkoff's meeting with Russia's leader—who launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
"The U.S. should make clear we are committed to avoiding a war and will not assist in any strike on Iran," Hall said on social media Tuesday. "If Trump can send Witkoff to Moscow, he can send Witkoff to Tehran. If Trump can call Putin, he can call the ayatollah. A good chance to prove American commitment to diplomacy."
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Is This the Beginning of the End for Benjamin Netanyahu's Political Career?
It remains uncertain how long Netanyahu will remain in power, but his political standing has significantly deteriorated as he faces widespread domestic opposition and international condemnation.
May 21, 2025
There was a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to have all the cards. The Palestinian Authority was largely passive, the occupied West Bank was relatively calm, Israel's diplomatic reach was expanding, and the United States seemed ready to bend international law to accommodate Israel's desire for complete control over Palestine.
The Israeli prime minister had also, at least in his own estimation, succeeded in subduing Gaza, the persistently defiant enclave that had for years struggled unsuccessfully to break the suffocating Israeli blockade.
Within Israel, Netanyahu had been celebrated as the nation's longest-serving prime minister, a figure who promised not only longevity but also unprecedented prosperity. To mark this milestone, Netanyahu employed a visual prop: a map of the Middle East, or, in his own words, "the New Middle East."
The intensified Israeli military operations in Gaza are an attempt by Netanyahu to project strength amid perceived political vulnerability.
This envisioned new Middle East, according to Netanyahu, was a unified green bloc, representing a future of "great blessings" under Israeli leadership.
Conspicuously absent from this map was Palestine in its entirety—both historic Palestine, now Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Netanyahu's latest unveiling occurred at the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, 2023. His supposedly triumphant address was sparsely attended, and among those present, enthusiasm was notably absent. This, however, seemed of little consequence to Netanyahu, his coalition of extremists, or the broader Israeli public.
Historically, Israel has placed its reliance on the support of a select few nations considered, in their own calculus, to be of primary importance: Washington and a handful of European capitals.
Then came the October 7 assault. Initially, Israel leveraged the Palestinian attack to garner Western and international support, both validating its existing policies and justifying its intended response. However, this sympathy rapidly dissipated as it became apparent that Israel's response entailed a campaign of genocide, the extermination of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza's population and West Bank communities.
As images and footage of the devastating carnage in Gaza surfaced, anti-Israeli sentiment surged. Even Israel's allies struggled to justify the deliberate killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, predominantly women and children.
Nations like Britain imposed partial arms embargoes on Israel, while France attempted a balancing act, calling for a cease-fire while suppressing domestic activists advocating for the same. The pro-Israel Western narrative has become increasingly incoherent, yet remains deeply problematic.
Washington, under former President Joe Biden, initially maintained unwavering support, implicitly endorsing Israel's objective—genocide and ethnic cleansing.
However, as Israel failed to achieve its perceived objectives, Biden's public stance began to shift. He called for a cease-fire, though without demonstrating any tangible willingness to pressure Israel. Biden's staunch support for Israel has been cited by many as a contributing factor to the Democratic Party's losses in the 2024 elections.
Then, U.S. President Donald Trump arrived. Netanyahu and his supporters, both in Israel and Washington, anticipated that Israel's actions in Palestine and the wider region—Lebanon, Syria, etc.—would align with a broader strategic plan.
They believed Trump's administration would be willing to escalate further. This escalation, they envisioned, would include military action against Iran, the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, the fragmentation of Syria, the weakening of Yemen's Ansarallah, and more, without significant concessions.
Initially, Trump signaled a willingness to pursue this agenda: deploying heavier bombs, issuing direct threats against Iran, intensifying operations against Ansarallah, and expressing interest in controlling Gaza and displacing its population.
However, Netanyahu's expectations yielded only unfulfilled promises. This raises the question: Was Trump deliberately misleading Netanyahu, or did evolving circumstances necessitate a reassessment of his initial plans?
The latter explanation appears more plausible. Efforts to intimidate Iran proved ineffective, leading to a series of diplomatic engagements between Tehran and Washington, first in Oman, then in Rome.
Ansarallah demonstrated resilience, prompting the U.S. on May 6 to curtail its military campaigns in Yemen, specifically the Operation "Rough Rider." On May 16, a U.S. official announced that the USS Harry S. Truman would withdraw from the region.
Notably, on May 12, Hamas and Washington announced a separate agreement, independent of Israel, for the release of U.S.-Israeli captive Edan Alexander.
The culmination occurred on May 14, when Trump delivered a speech at a U.S.-Saudi investment forum in Riyadh, advocating for regional peace and prosperity, lifting sanctions on Syria, and emphasizing a diplomatic resolution with Iran.
Conspicuously absent from these regional shifts was Benjamin Netanyahu and his strategic "vision."
Netanyahu responded to these developments by intensifying military operations against Palestinian hospitals in Gaza, targeting patients within the Nasser and European Hospitals. This action, targeting the most vulnerable, was interpreted as a message to Washington and Arab states that his objectives remained unchanged, regardless of the consequences.
The intensified Israeli military operations in Gaza are an attempt by Netanyahu to project strength amid perceived political vulnerability. This escalation has resulted in a sharp increase in Palestinian casualties and exacerbated food shortages, if not outright famine, for over 2 million people.
It remains uncertain how long Netanyahu will remain in power, but his political standing has significantly deteriorated. He faces widespread domestic opposition and international condemnation. Even his primary ally, the United States, has signaled a shift in its approach. This period may mark the beginning of the end for Benjamin Netanyahu's political career and, potentially, for the policies associated with his horrifically violent government.
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We Need a Coffee Party to Waken the People Being Strip-Mined by Dangerous Donald
As the marches, rallies, and town meetings swell, the demand that Trump be fired will boost popular support for his Impeachment and removal from office.
May 17, 2025
Dictator Donald Trump’s ego has gone global and dominates the news cycle. His domestic opponents are left with too little too late rebuttals and, again, are victims of his genius in diverting and distracting them and the media.
Take his “triumphant” trip to the wealthy Arab Nations in the Gulf. Their rulers flattered him 24/7 as the boss of the world while he flattered them in return for their business deals (some benefitting him and his family) and arms purchases. Trump enjoys being in charge. But he wasn’t.
Before, during, and after his trip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained his MASTER on the matters that count to the Israeli perpetrator of genocide. Trump said nothing serious about a cease-fire; nothing about opening the border to Gaza to thousands of waiting trucks (paid for by the U.S. taxpayer) carrying food, water, medicine, and other critical necessities for the starving, dying, besieged Palestinians in Gaza; nothing about the demands that Netanyahu lift his ban on American and other Israeli and foreign reporters going independently into Gaza.
The Democrats have failed to mobilize their voters into a powerful grassroots force or even encourage their partisans to do so on their own.
The media interpreted his skipping visiting Israel as a snub when it really was a clever way to avoid facing up to Netanyahu, especially for breaking the January cease-fire that Trump took credit for, and starting the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. Trump took Netanyahu breaking “his truce” as an affront to his famous ego by cowardly shutting his mouth.
To further favor Netanyahu and his U.S. domestic Lobby, Trump told the new president of war-torn Syria to make peace with Israel and join the Abraham Accords, negotiated by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. At the same time, Israel is using American-made F-16s to bomb Syria (without provocation) hundreds of times while seizing more and more of powerless Syria’s territory!
Domestically, Trump every day boasts about MAGA as he is Wrecking America. Simultaneously, second thoughts are seeping into his MAGA crowd and among the “Amen” sycophants that make up the GOP in Congress. They’re starting to say, in so many words, “Hey, we didn’t vote for this or that.”
Now Trump, aside from his delusionary rhetoric, is playing a Zig Zag game which indicates he senses when he is going off the cliff. His polls are dropping slowly and will drop further when the tariff-induced prices start climbing and the economy signals the dreaded stagflation on the horizon.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party and its so-called leadership is still backing and filling, despite powerful demands at packed Town Meetings in their Districts for their members of Congress to be “comprehensively aggressive,” as one Democratic voter put it.
First, they need to consult the dictionary so that they can discover the words that fit Tyrant Trump and the poisonous tusks of Felon Musk. Political cowards have trouble using plain, strong language to depict Trump’s fascist dictatorship moving into police state seizures of innocent people for using their freedom of speech.
They can learn from some of their predecessors like underdog Harry Truman in his 1948 presidential race with poll-favored Thomas Dewey. Here is “Give ’em hell Harry” speaking to 90,000 farmers and their families in a field in Dexter, Iowa:
I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who’s hitting you?… These Republican gluttons of privilege are cold men. They are cunning men… They want a return of the Wall Street economic dictatorship… I’m not asking you just to vote for me. Vote for yourselves!
When Trump, in 2016, started using MAGA as his constant slogan, the Democratic Party paid a consultant to later come up with the yawn-inducing slogan: “Build Back Better.” Kamala Harris used “the opportunity economy” as her catchphrase instead of the electric rhetoric and kitchen table agenda of Bernie Sanders—still the most popular politician in America.
Trump gives the Democrats so many unexploited opportunities. Three examples:
First, the Dems have missed making a big deal out of Trump and Musk shielding the biggest sources of their alleged interest in “rooting out waste, fraud, and inefficiency” in the executive branch. They do not touch “corporate crime” ripping off Medicare, Medicaid, et al. for tens of billions of dollars yearly, or huge amounts of corporate subsidies, giveaways, brazen tax dodges, and the bloated, unauditable military budget that Trump wants to increase by $100 billion more than requested by the generals.
Second, he keeps shouting “impeach,” the judges who cross him. The Democrats should return the favor by filing Impeachment articles in the House against Trump (See: the 22 Impeachable Offenses). Instead the so-called Democratic Party leaders are clamping down on the tiny number of House Democrats who want to do just that.
Third, the Democrats have failed to mobilize their voters into a powerful grassroots force or even encourage their partisans to do so on their own, as did the “Tea Party” in 2009 against Barack Obama. (Call it the “Coffee Party” to waken the population—liberal and conservative working families—both strip-mined by the plutocrat-oligarch Dangerous Donald.)
Trump recently bloviated “I Run the Country and the World.” The “Coffee Party” masses can focus all their growing pain and suffering from Trumpism with the outcry he well understands: “YOU’RE FIRED.” (See my recent column: “YOU’RE FIRED!” –GROWING MILLIONS OF AMERICANS ARE REJECTING TRUMP.)
As the marches, rallies, and town meetings swell, the demand that Trump be fired will boost popular support for his Impeachment and removal from office, as happened with Richard Nixon in 1974 for far lesser transgressions. “Impossible,” you say? Not when the congressional Republicans see the polls and economic recession dragging their sagging political future for 2026 by continuing their allegiance to Trump.
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