Early Friday morning, June 13, residents of Tehran were jolted awake by explosions rippling across this city of nearly 10 million in northern Iran. Without warning, Israel had launched a massive, unprovoked air attack, with 200 warplanes carrying out hundreds of strikes. They hit military targets as well as residential buildings in densely populated neighborhoods—upper, middle, and working class alike. “We woke up with our house shaking from the explosions, and it hasn’t stopped,” one woman said. In another neighborhood an entire apartment building had collapsed. Other apartment buildings were half standing, yet another with an entire floor blown out. “[T]he roof of several buildings had pancaked and debris, shredded glass and mangled metal covered the streets.”

One woman saw her friends grab their young children and rush downstairs to escape their apartment complex, passing “really awful scenes of blood and flesh and burned feet,” along the way. “Most of the people who lived near the strike sites are feeling a collective fear, especially their children,” she told the New York Times. 

It was a night of shock and terror, and by the time it was over at least 78 people—mainly civilians, including some children—had been killed and over 300 injured. But the horror wasn’t over. Israel continued its attack during the day Friday and on Saturday, when it targeted a fuel and gasoline depot in an affluent section of Tehran. “The fire is terrifying, it’s massive; there is a lot of commotion here,” one resident said. “It’s the gasoline depots that are exploding one after another, it’s loud and scary.”

Scores more Iranians died on Saturday, including 20 children, many reportedly when a missile collapsed a 14-story apartment block in Tehran.

“We’re seeing the same policy in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria — policies that contradict with what the West says it values, like democracy and human rights,” an Iranian journalist said. 

Israel Condemns Iran for Attacking Residential Areas—Expands Its Targeting of Civilian Infrastructure

Israel claimed to have attacked over 400 targets across Iran over the two days, including more than a dozen military bases, nuclear facilities, missile depots, air defense systems, and military research centers in multiple cities. Israel also carried out targeted assassinations killing at least four top military officials and nine nuclear scientists.¹

Starting on Friday, Iran launched three waves of drone and missile attacks on Israel, most of which were intercepted by U.S. and Israeli anti-missile defense systems. At least three Israelis were killed and 76 wounded according to the Israeli military, mostly in and around Tel Aviv.²

Iran claimed it was not targeting civilians, but Israel—yes the same Israel that has killed or wounded 50,000 Palestinian children in Gaza and destroyed almost all of its homes and 88 percent of its school buildings—seized on the deaths of three Israelis and injuries to 76 to expand its attack to civilian targets. “Israel has said today, because Iran targeted civilians in Israel, that they have crossed a red line and that Israel will now go after economic infrastructure,” PBS reported on June 13.³

On Saturday, Israel began attacking Iran’s critical oil infrastructure, including refineries in Tehran and another in Iran's South Pars gas field, which is situated over the world’s largest pure natural gas reserve.⁴ This signals a dangerous escalation and Israel’s intent to weaken or take down the Islamic Republic, not just its nuclear program.⁵

Escalating Threats and Counter-Threats

At this writing, events are unfolding very rapidly and appear to be heading toward further escalations and very grave dangers for the people of Iran, the Middle East and the world. 

On June 14, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened, "We will hit every site and every target of the Ayatollahs' regime, and what they have felt so far is nothing compared with what they will be handed in the coming days." “In the very near future, you will see Israeli Air Force jets over the skies of Tehran,” he boasted.⁶ Meanwhile, Israel’s defense minister issued this murderous warning: “If [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn." 

Iran’s Supreme Leader Khameini in turn vowed to continue its retaliatory attacks on Israel: “We will not allow them to escape safely from this great crime they committed.” And Iran warned Israel's allies that their military bases in the region would come under fire as well if they participated in shooting down Iranian missiles.

Who Is the Real “Existential Threat” to the Peoples of the Middle East?

Israel claims it had to attack Iran because Iran’s nuclear program constitutes an existential threat to Israel’s existence. “We have to erase this threat to our existence,” Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. told PBS NewsHour. “The Iranian regime has made a very concrete plan … which calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. And that's not something we can live with.”

These are baldfaced lies. As we wrote the night of Israel’s blitzkrieg: “This is a totally unjust attack. Israel—the ONLY nuclear-armed country in the Middle East, with at least 90 warheads—is attacking Iran, a non-nuclear rival, with the excuse that Iran MAY at some day in the future gain enough nuclear capability to develop a few weapons.”

Iran does not have now, and has never developed, a nuclear weapon. It claims it has had no intention of doing so. In 2015, Iran signed an agreement with the U.S. and other world powers limiting its nuclear enrichment program to nonmilitary uses only. It kept to that agreement. It was the U.S. and Donald Trump who didn’t and tore it up.

In reality, the main concern of Israel and the U.S. is not that Iran would develop a nuclear weapon or two and then attack them. The U.S. and Israel are concerned that if Iran did have a nuclear weapon, or was seen as close to having one, it would limit the military dominance and freedom of action of the U.S./Israel alliance—including to attack Iran. In other words, it’s not really about preventing Iran from attacking Israel, it’s about enabling Israel and the U.S. to attack Iran if they felt they needed to. 

Green Light or Yellow—Trump’s Now All In on Israel’s Onslaught

When Israel launched its military aggression against Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement declaring that “Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.” He also threatened, “Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.”

This is not true. Without getting into all the murky details of U.S. moves toward Iran over the last two months (many of which are not fully known), or whether Trump was ever serious about cutting a deal with Iran, the basics according to multiple news reports are this: 

The U.S. had been briefed for at least two months on Israel’s plans for attacking Iran. At one point, when Israel seemed close to launching the assault, Trump told him to hold off so U.S. negotiations could go forward. But recently, according to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump shifted his position. He knew Israel was going to attack (which is why the U.S. withdrew some diplomatic personnel from the region) and either gave the attack the go-ahead, or simply did not object.⁷

“Whether Trump provided a yellow light or a green light [to Israel] is almost besides the point at this moment,” Haaretz writes. “He is increasingly all-in, even more so as Israel's strategy appears to be working so far and diplomatic efforts with Iran seem to be dead in the water. It remains to be seen whether Trump's support will evolve into participating in any offensive action targeting Iran's underground nuclear facilities—which Israel cannot undertake on its own—or whether it will provide intelligence, aerial support or strictly rhetorical support.”⁸

It is unclear whether Trump was ever serious about cutting a deal with Iran and using the threat of or an actual Israeli attack to force Iran to capitulate to his demands—or whether the negotiations were more a ruse coordinated with Israel to get Iran to let down its guard (which they did) so Israel could strike. Or whether it’s some combination of both.⁹

What is clear is that Trump and the U.S. have already helped Israel shoot down Iranian missiles, and are already bringing more military forces to the region to defend Israel and other U.S. interests. (Negotiations seem, for the time being at least, to be off the table as Iran refused to attend the talks scheduled for the weekend of June 14-15.)¹⁰

And Trump is issuing threat after bellicose threat against Iran:

• Hours after Israel’s attack, Trump said that "the U.S. will defend itself and Israel if Iran retaliates."
• On Fox News, he said, "Two months ago, I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to 'make a deal.' They should have done it! Today is day 61…. I told them what to do, but they just couldn't get there.”
• The next day he warned of “even more brutal” attacks to follow and threatened Tehran that they must “make a deal… before there is nothing left” (even as Israel’s attacks have apparently killed the negotiations for now).
• He told ABC that Iran had “got hit about as hard as you’re going to get hit. And there’s more to come. A lot more.”¹¹

Israel Moves to Weaken, Perhaps Topple, Iran’s Islamic Republic 

The revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has analyzed that for the Trump fascist regime, “raw destructive power is what must rule in the international arena, without even the pretense of adherence to international law or concern about the sovereignty, or even the right to exist, of less powerful peoples and countries.”

This monstrous, criminal approach is very much at work in Israel’s attack and U.S. backing for it.

There are increasing signs that Israel isn’t just seeking to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, they are seeking—and the U.S. is backing them in this—to destabilize, gravely weaken, and perhaps topple the Islamic Republic itself and cement Israel’s position as the dominant regional power in the Middle East, and overall U.S. control.

For example, Netanyahu has appealed directly to the Iranian people and encouraged them to rise up and throw off the current regime.¹² “A senior official in the Israel Air Force said that Israel's ‘approach is to cause maximum harm’ in the attacks on Iran and indirectly threaten its regime,” Haaretz reports. “The air force said on Saturday that the attacks also threaten the government's position with regard to its citizens.”¹³

The Escalating Danger of Wider War

At this writing, Israel is warning of even more massive, destructive and wide-ranging attacks on Iran.

Iran in turn may be preparing to mount an all-out response, perhaps considering closing the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, through which some one-quarter of the world's oil supply is transported; striking U.S. bases; or even changing course and working to build a nuclear weapon, actions which would likely draw the U.S. directly into the war.¹⁴

Then there’s the whole issue of how imperialist rivals to the U.S.—Russia and China—will react to the situation. (Russia has already condemned Israel’s attack and offered to mediate a de-escalation.)

As we wrote following Israel’s attack:

This attack makes the world a much more dangerous place, not a safer one. Regional war between these two countries could very possibly spiral into a larger conflict in the Middle East—and even a world war involving imperialist powers with thousands of nuclear weapons that could bring an end to human civilization. This must be opposed by people in this country and around the world.

All this underscores the importance of what revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has said:

We, the people of the world, can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. They need to be overthrown as quickly as possible. And it is a scientific fact that humanity does not have to live this way—a whole different way to organize society, a whole better world, is possible.