Iran’s 2003 moment: Satisfying Israel’s ambition requires permanent bloodshed

Israel and the United States are bombing Iran, bringing immediate destruction to the region and the world. Explosions have struck the Pasteur area, directly targeting the presidential office and the national security council. The headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is under attack.

Casualty figures remain unclear, but the objective is unmistakable: decapitate Iran’s political leadership.

Simultaneous assaults are reportedly underway on the offices of the supreme leader and the assembly of experts. Across the country, explosions have hit cities from Qom to Karaj. Severe cyberattacks are disrupting communications and suppressing reporting.

With airspace closed, Iranian officials recognise this assault as the opening phase of a full-scale military exchange, completely rejecting the notion of a limited strike. Their response, they promise, will be crushing.

On Feb 27th, Oman’s foreign minister, Sayyid Badr Al-Busaidi, who has been mediating talks between Washington and Tehran, took the extraordinary step of appearing on CBS to publicly outline the exact terms under negotiation before war could obscure the truth. His intervention was unprecedented. It was also revealing.

According to Al-Busaidi, Tehran had agreed to sweeping concessions on its nuclear programme: zero stockpiling of enriched material, irreversible down-blending of existing stockpiles into neutral fuel and full access for American inspectors.

When CBS’s Margaret Brennan noted that Iran had refused American inspectors even under the Obama administration, Al-Busaidi replied that this was a “much, much better deal” because Iran was now “open to the idea in a way that … never had been the case in the past”.

Negotiators, he said, required only “three months of technical work” to finalise the agreement in Vienna this coming March.

Desperate to stabilise itself after the January 2026 uprisings, during which thousands of protestors were reportedly shot or hanged and tens of thousands imprisoned, Tehran had no choice but to enter these negotiations.

The government engaged in talks despite knowing the historical consequences of dealing with the United States, especially considering the joint US-Israeli attack last June that occurred during previous negotiations.

Having run a campaign as the “Peace President,” Trump could have used this opportunity and claimed a resounding diplomatic triumph. Instead, Washington and Tel Aviv chose bloodshed over a guaranteed deal.

Predictably, the Trump administration and the Israeli Defense Forces are framing their attack as self-defence. Air raid sirens broadcast from Israel cultivate sympathy, even as operations proceed with full American backing. And mainstream media ensures that the narrative of “pre-emptive necessity” remains intact.

The UN Charter, however, defines aggression as the supreme crime. Self-defence permits a state to respond to an imminent attack. It does not legitimise pre-emptive strikes against speculative threats, and it certainly does not legitimise preventive wars designed to eliminate hypothetical future capabilities.

Despite this, Israel and the United States operate as two of the few states allowed to wage what can only be described as preventative devastation, preventative genocide and the preventative slaughter of children to ensure they never grow up to resist.

In a recent video address, Trump told Iranians: “Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government.”

'Lay down your weapons': Trump warns Iran's armed forces as US launches military operation

Trump, Netanyahu and much of the Western political class recognise that dismantling the Islamic Republic would require direct military occupation and will produce a large influx of refugees.

They also know the government in Tehran will deploy every mechanism available to retain power, potentially unleashing internal bloodshed far exceeding previous uprisings. They simply do not care.

For Tehran, fighting back becomes the only avenue to puncture the myth of American invincibility and to threaten the Zionist colony in Palestine. Submission invites collapse, while resistance risks catastrophe.

Meanwhile, parts of the Iranian diaspora echo the same naivety that gripped exiled Iraqis in 2003.

Then, too, prominent figures living comfortably in Washington and London assured western policymakers that invasion would be swift, welcomed and transformative.

They promised that American tanks would be greeted with flowers, that state institutions would remain intact, and that a grateful population would quickly assemble a democratic order from the ruins of dictatorship.

In the years that followed, Iraq descended into insurgency, sectarian bloodshed and institutional collapse. Hundreds of thousands were killed. Millions were displaced. The state fractured, and the region absorbed the shockwaves for a generation. Many of the exiles who had advocated intervention were insulated from the violence they had helped legitimise.

The belief that foreign bombardment can midwife democracy rests on hope detached from precedent.

This is unequivocally Iran’s 2003 moment.

Like Bush, Trump manufactured a crisis founded on falsehood. And like Bush, he let Netanyahu and Israel lead him into further bloodshed.

Those still trying to salvage diplomacy have been left pleading from the margins. In a statement on X, the Omani foreign minister said:

“I am dismayed. Active and serious negotiations have yet again been undermined. Neither the interests of the United States nor the cause of global peace are well served by this. And I pray for the innocents who will suffer. I urge the United States not to get sucked in further. This is not your war.”