Donald Trump's outrageous, bellicose speech May 8 announcing that the United States would withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the "Iran nuclear deal") should be understood for what it is: a calculated maneuver to set the stage for a war against Iran with regime change as the goal. Israeli missile strikes targeting an Iranian position inside of Syria were reported just hours after Trump spoke, in what was clearly a coordinated effort to ratchet up tensions even further.

There is no doubt that Iran has lived up to its side of the JCPOA. The country agreed to a comprehensive and highly intrusive regiment of inspections in return for a badly needed easing of the suffocating economic sanctions imposed on the country by the United States and its allies. While the economic relief Iran was promised was never fully realized, the country still fulfilled its obligations under the agreement. The rhetoric coming from the U.S. government and Israel about the supposed threat of an Iranian nuclear weapons program has no basis in reality. 

The day after Trump's announcement, Israel unleashed a massive wave of air and missile attacks on targets throughout Syria, mainly targeting Iranians. The corporate media has painted the Israeli attack as a retaliation for the firing of Iranian rockets into the Golan, a region of southern Syria that has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Regardless of what happened in the Golan that night, it is outrageous to paint Iran as the initiator of the conflict, when their forces in Syria – which operate with the permission of the country's sovereign government – have regularly been the target of illegal Israeli airstrikes, including just the night before!

The Trump administration, with the help of its junior partners like Israel, is on the march towards a devastating war that could engulf the entire Middle East. The ANSWER Coalition will continue to help build the anti-war movement as people all over the world mobilize to avert this impending catastrophe.