Something happened Monday, and U.S. President Donald Trump is now determined to take the country to a war of choice. He can change his mind at the last minute, as he did in 2019, but short of that, there will be war.

It is important to understand that capitulation is most likely not an option for Iran for a variety of reasons.

First, Trump's conduct in the past 10 days has destroyed any confidence Tehran has in him and his desire for a peaceful outcome. For the Iranians to ever back down from their long-standing position to never give up enrichment, they must have confidence that backing down ends the conflict. They have no such confidence in Trump at this moment. They don't think he will stop there.

Trump's Iran war may destroy his presidency as George W. Bush's Iraq invasion destroyed his.

Second, Tehran has lost confidence in Trump's ability or willingness to say no to Israel (that confidence existed earlier to some extent). And Israel will not be content with even a complete dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program.

If the nuclear program is destroyed, Israel will then turn to Iran's missile program. It will not accept Iran having missiles that can wreak havoc on Israel—as Iran has done in the last few days. Without missiles, an air force, or a nuclear deterrent, Iran will be completely exposed and defenseless. Once that is achieved, the Israelis will push for regime change or regime collapse.

And after that, as the Israelis have done in Syria after Assad fell, they will push to destroy the rest of Iran's conventional military so that Iran won't be able to challenge Israel's emerging regional military hegemony for decades to come. Iran's territorial integrity will also be put at risk.

As a result, Tehran does not view capitulation—even if they desired it, which I don't think they do—as a stable outcome.

In their view, their only chance is to fight back. By making the war as costly as possible for the U.S.—even if they will lose it—they think they can either deter Trump, or make him cut the war short. As he did in Yemen.

Thus, if new talks take place and Trump insists on capitulation, he will get war. Iran will pay an immeasurable price. As will the region. But the U.S. will also pay a very heavy price. Scores of American soldiers may be killed. Oil prices will skyrocket, and gas prices in hot summer months in the U.S. will soar. Inflation will go up.

Trump's Iran war may destroy his presidency as George W. Bush's Iraq invasion destroyed his.

Iran will lose. But so will the U.S. Israel is perhaps the only country that will benefit from this war of choice.

Like all things in the Middle East, the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran can seem complicated. It’s not. The unprovoked Israeli attack on Iran is the 2003 Iraq War 2.0, except it has the potential to be far, far more catastrophic than the absolute catastrophe that was Iraq.

Like President George W. Bush’s 2003 war on Iraq, the war on Iran is an unprovoked, illegal, offensive, unilateral war of aggression, potentially aimed at regime change, and sold to the public based on lies about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

Just as the administration of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney lied about a bogus threat of Iraqi “mushroom clouds,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lying about a nuclear threat from an Iran that has no nuclear weapons and was in negotiations to avoid getting them.

Too many have been killed already in Iran and Israel thanks to the Israeli government’s unprovoked war. How many more Iranians, Israelis, and perhaps, soon, Americans must die before Trump stops Iraq 2.0?

This time the lies are even uglier because Netanyahu is weaponizing the memory of the Nazi Holocaust and 6 million dead Jews (including some of my family members), by trying to scare people with talk of a “nuclear holocaust” and “never again is now.”

Israel is the country with nuclear weapons, along with the United States. Iran has none. Iranians are the only ones now at risk of a nuclear holocaust.

Despite Donald Trump’s election night promise not to “start wars” and instead to “stop wars,” the United States is already fighting Iraq War 2.0 by defending Israel militarily, by arming Israel, by sharing intelligence with Israel, and by failing to stop Israel despite having advance notice of the war. President Trump called Israel’s attacks “excellent” last week and more recently said the U.S. military “could get involved.” Referring to Iran, Trump told ABC News, “There’s more to come, a lot more.”

People are sick of endless U.S. wars. People are sick of endless Israeli wars.

As Israel’s predominant patron, Trump has the power to stop Iraq War 2.0 by cutting off all weapons and assistance, including missile defense and intelligence sharing. If Trump doesn’t do these things, the war looks set to escalate further. Netanyahu has promised “weeks” more of fighting. Every passing day brings new opportunities for the U.S. military to get drawn further into the war, as Netanyahu has long hoped. How will Trump respond if an Iranian missile even accidentally kills U.S. soldiers in the region? The danger of a wider regional or even world war is equally real.

The longer term consequences could be equally catastrophic in unpredictable ways. Bush and Cheney’s 2003 war began with similar “shock and awe” attacks that quickly overthrew the Saddam Hussein regime only to birth an incredibly violent insurgency and civil war and the militant organization that became the Islamic State.

The total death toll in Iraq (alone) will never be known but is conservatively estimated at 1.2 million people killed from direct and indirect causes. The war displaced an estimated 9.2 million Iraqis. Injuries surely reach into the millions. The cost to U.S. taxpayers of 20 years of fighting in Iraq and against the Islamic State in Syria reaches nearly $3 trillion.

Too many have been killed already in Iran and Israel thanks to the Israeli government’s unprovoked war. How many more Iranians, Israelis, and perhaps, soon, Americans must die before Trump stops Iraq 2.0 (as Iranian leaders are also requesting)? How much more taxpayer money must be squandered, on top of the tens (perhaps hundreds) of millions of dollars the U.S. military has surely spent to date?

Netanyahu and neoconservative warmongers in the U.S. have long dreamed of seeing U.S. troops marching on Tehran. We cannot risk the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran becoming the full-blown sequel to the Iraq War that Trump has long claimed he opposed.

“We’re back,” I tell the room. It’s January 21, 2029, and I can barely contain my excitement. “America is back!”

I expect applause, but there is none.

I try again, louder this time. “After four long years, America is finally back! We’re ready to resume our international obligations!”

The members of the United Nations Human Rights Council are looking in every direction—except at me. I feel a tug on the sleeve of my suit jacket. I glance down and note that the representative from Morocco is passing me a slip of paper.

All I see are numbers. “This is… a bill?”

She nods. “Your international obligations.”

“Fifty-two billion dollars?”

“Four years of non-payment of U.N. contributions. We rounded it up.”

“That’s a lot of—“

She interrupts. “It doesn’t begin to cover the costs of the damage you did. We’re still preparing that bill.”

Read the room is what they tell you in Diplomacy 101. This room at U.N. headquarters, however, needs no reading. It’s an open book—a mix of indifference, amusement, and outright hostility.

The chair of the committee, a gentleman from South Korea, clears his throat and motions for me to sit down. Then the meeting continues. And so does my humiliation.

Oh, in case you didn’t realize, I’m the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. I was initially thrilled to take the job. For a former career foreign service officer, an appointment like this is the top of the ladder. Before the second set of Trump years began, I quietly worked my way up from the consular service and the ambassadorship in Malawi to deputy undersecretary of state for Latin American affairs. Even after Trump arrived back in the White House, I remained a firm believer in the “international community,” though I’d be hard-pressed to tell you anymore exactly what that is.

“How can we know that the next administration won’t pick up where Trump left off and go on a fresh rampage?”

Long ago, I pledged my allegiance to liberal internationalism, which, in my country nowadays, is like admitting to being a Shaker or an alchemist. Call me quaint, but I’ve always believed that the world needs to abide by certain rules and regulations. We all accept traffic laws, right? We assert our individuality by choosing the cars we want, but we also agree to stop at red lights, stay in our lanes, and maintain certain speeds. Violators are penalized.

The international community has a similar set of guidelines. Countries can assert their sovereignty by flying a particular flag, issuing colorful stamps, and singing boastful national anthems. But we also agree—most of us, at least—to certain rules of the road: Don’t invade other countries; don’t force children into your army; don’t kill off or, for that matter, deport a significant percentage of your own population. And yet, despite the international penalties, all too many countries still insist on being scofflaws.

To be ambassador to the U.N. is like being appointed to the rulemaking committee. Who wouldn’t be excited?

Well, me, to be exact, after my first day on the job.

Look, I knew it was going to be tough. The last four years, during which Trump 2.0 dumped on anything with the word “international” attached to it, were an affront to me and so many others. Thanks to Elon Musk’s infamous DOGE, I didn’t have to participate in that charade of diplomacy. Like many of my colleagues, I was purged in those days of “government efficiency” and forced into early retirement. From my perch at a D.C. think tank, I then watched Trump’s grim assaults and the backlash that ensued with a mixture of horror and schadenfreude.

Over the last four years, we liberal internationalists planned and plotted how we would make things right when we finally returned to power.

How naïve we were!

Trump Abroad

At first, Trump was merely predictable. Returning to the Oval Office in January 2025, he sang from a familiar hymnal by withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, the U.N. Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, and UNESCO. He stopped paying U.N. dues, which pushed many agencies to the edge and put a virtual stop to peacekeeping globally. He cozied up to strong men like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman. He made bold promises—end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours—that (no surprise!) he didn’t keep.

Then he started to innovate.

He imposed tariffs on everyone and anyone—allies like Canada, adversaries like China, incredibly impoverished countries like Lesotho, and uninhabited places like the Heard and McDonald Islands. He threatened to tear apart the global economy so that he could protect a few industries in the United States. Without an industrial policy to boost promising sectors of the U.S. economy, however, his tariff war ended up badly hurting American consumers and producers alike.

Of course, our new administration has just removed almost all of those tariffs, but it was way too late. “Honey,” the Canadian ambassador told me, “we diversified. We found new trading partners. And why would we want to go back to crazy now?”

The attacks on foreign aid, meanwhile, were unprecedented. (Boy, was that word overused during the Trump era!) In the administration’s first four months alone, more than 97,000 adults and 200,000 children died because of the funding freeze on foreign assistance and the dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Over the course of the next four years, more than 100 people died every hour, thanks to Trump’s and Musk’s disastrous cuts to USAID and other places. By the end of the Trump administration, that amounted to the deaths of 3 to 4 million people globally.

Those numbers are, of course, in the genocidal range. In effect, it was no different than the Nazi policy of culling the German population of the sick, the old, and the disabled—but this time it was applied to the global population. I don’t know what bill the U.N. will present to me for the loss of all that life, not to mention all the environmental damage to the planet, but however large, it will end up being of only symbolic value. We just don’t have the money—or, frankly, the desire—to pay such reparations.

What can’t be assessed monetarily is the demonstration effect of Trump’s flouting of the international rules of the road. Other strong-armed leaders—in Turkey, India, Argentina—followed Trump’s playbook, of course, just as he had taken cues from Hungary and Russia. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine surely inspired Trump to grab Greenland in 2027. And that illegal seizure of the world’s largest island—which our administration is determined to reverse—no doubt encouraged Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza, Russia to grab Moldova, and China to attempt its takeover of Taiwan.

Trump’s attacks on international institutions effectively unraveled the norms of global cooperation. Everyone is now scrambling to mine the seabed for its minerals. Almost everyone ignores arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court. The big powers do what they want, and the smaller powers do what they can.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said that “there’s no such thing as ‘society.’” Trump one-upped her by denying that there even was an “international community.” Through his actions, and in collaboration with autocrats the world over, he nearly denied it out of existence.

Trump at Home

What the Trump administration did at home was, of course, no better than what it did abroad—especially if you weren’t a rich white man. For instance, what started out as a campaign against undocumented immigrants turned into a full-blown attack on foreigners. Everyone without full citizenship was presumed guilty, rounded up indiscriminately, and deported to conflict zones or Salvadoran prisons, stopped at the border for “smuggling” or similar nonsense, or even penalized for speaking out against the murder of Palestinians. Then the administration began blocking foreign students from coming here to study, starting with the Chinese.

“Harvard, Yale, Stanford: these institutions used to be our Mecca,” the South Korean ambassador told me recently. “Now we’re telling our students to go anywhere but the United States.”

“But we’re back,” I repeated weakly.

“For how long?” he asked. “How can we know that the next administration won’t pick up where Trump left off and go on a fresh rampage?”

We’ve just inherited a government that resembles a city destroyed by a retreating army.

And in truth, many Americans are asking the same question after the cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and veterans’ benefits. They now look at the federal government warily, like a victim of three-card monte who’s allowed to win the first couple times only to be taken to the cleaners.

Of course, we’ve resurrected the Biden-era industrial policies that favored green tech. But MAGA lives on. Campaigns to block those policies are still being waged in courts that are now all too keen to punish federal “overreach.” In incorrigibly red states, even ones where the 2028 presidential election was unexpectedly close, governors are determined to flip off the feds. As I write this, “stop the steal” rallies over election 2028 are edging ever closer to violence, survivalists are grabbing their go bags, and there’s increasing talk in some communities of massive noncompliance with the federal government.

Red-blue animosity certainly preceded Donald Trump. These days, however, we seem to be on the brink of an all-out color war in this country. According to the MAGA crew, you’re either with them or against them (and the other side pretty much believes the same thing). The color purple? It’s been purged from our vocabulary.

The Whittling Away of Government

We’ve just inherited a government that resembles a city destroyed by a retreating army. It’s not just the ruined institutions—the gutted State Department, the defunct Education Department, or the eviscerated system of federal funding for scientific research and development. It’s the nationwide cynicism regarding government. Even before Trump, “politics” was increasingly becoming a dirty word. Now, it’s a toxic waste dump.

Our new administration has, of course, promised to build back better. But thanks to Trump, the American public no longer seems to believe that government should have a place in their lives or in the life of the country. Voters no longer have an appetite for foreign aid. They don’t support democracy struggles overseas, peacekeeping missions, or cooperation to address climate change. At home, the United States desperately needs immigrants to pick crops, construct buildings, and staff restaurants, among so many other things, but attitudes toward the undocumented have hardened.

Americans have become dangerously accustomed to the privatization of government. NGOs and wealthy foundations have taken over the work of USAID. Corporations are running the Postal Service and Amtrak. Financial services institutions have turned Social Security into a casino. The federal government, once dismissed as a fussy nanny, is now viewed as guilty of breaking and entering.

Sure, voters are fed up with corruption. That’s the main reason they ejected Trump and his party from office. But having come to associate government with corruption for so many years, many Americans now want as little of it as possible.

Honey vs. Vinegar

The precipitous decline in trust can be seen at the international level as well.

“We’ve decided to put you in the time-out corner,” the Malaysian ambassador tells me. “Until America can prove that it can behave itself.”

“But look at what we did eight years ago,” I protest, “when the Biden administration made nice with the U.N.!”

“And then came Trump 2.0, which was a lot worse than the first version.”

“We can’t afford to sit in a corner for four years. The world can’t afford it.”

“Consider yourself lucky. Some countries want to treat you like North Korea. Sanction you, blockade you, quarantine you to contain the virus of MAGA.”

“But you can’t do that to a…a… “

“A superpower? In all your talk about returning to the international stage, you still haven’t apologized.”

“Trump wasn’t one of us,” I point out. “We’re the good guys.”

“The Germans apologized for what the Nazis did.”

She had a point, though I couldn’t concede it. Another lesson from Diplomacy 101: America means never having to say you’re sorry.

The big powers do what they want, and the smaller powers do what they can.

We’ve now rejoined all the U.N. institutions. We’ll pay our arrears (well, a solid portion of them anyway). We’re prepared to take Putin into custody for the International Criminal Court if he ever foolishly sets foot on U.S. soil. But no, we don’t have the political will to actually join the ICC. There are limits to what the American people are willing to do.

“You have to help me here,” I tell the Malaysian diplomat. “If you and your middle-income countries don’t let us out of the corner and show us some respect, the MAGA crowd will capitalize on your public shaming. They’ll win the next election and you’ll get what you most fear. The return of MAGA for a third time will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“We’ll take our chances.”

I smile bewitchingly. “We could lower the price of our oil and gas exports.”

“Solar and wind are cheaper,” she points out.

Time to switch tactics. “Aren’t you the smallest bit worried about China? Might you not need a little help defending your territorial claims in the South China Sea?”

“You’re smiling,” she says. “But this is really a threat.”

“I’m offering to help.”

“No, you’re threatening not to help. Just as the last administration didn’t help Taiwan.”

My smile widens to show my teeth. A final take-away from Diplomacy 101: What you can’t achieve with honey, you can usually accomplish with an aircraft carrier.

“What did I tell you?” I remind her, this time with more grim determination than enthusiasm. “America is back.”

After only six months in office, the Trump regime has lost popular support to an astonishing degree. According to a June Quinnipiac poll of U.S. registered voters, how well is Donald Trump managing his job as president? 54% disapproval. His handling of immigration, 54% disapproval; the economy, 56% disapproval; trade, 57% disapproval; universities, 54% disapproval; Russia-Ukraine war, 57% disapproval.

Despite his dismal ratings, the president is urging the Senate to enact another hugely unpopular proposal (“One Big Beautiful Bill Act”), which would restrict Medicaid, end health insurance for 7 million families, and eliminate food assistance for 40 million low-income people, including 16 million children.

Politically, this is nuts. The president’s popular support is already in “loser” territory and yet he’s pushing to pass a new law that will cost him even more support, just 17 months before an election that will decide control of the House of Representatives. What is going on?

Trump does seem to be running police-state experiments in smaller cities now, perhaps to get us all used to his methods for intimidating and dominating local people.

Leading up to the 2024 election, Trump said many times that, if he won, his supporters would never have to vote again because the system would be “fixed.” He has refused to back down from this strange stance.

Trump has also said several times that he may run for a third term as president, in direct violation of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. “There are methods you could do it,” he told NBC News on March 25, 2025. When asked to reveal more about those “methods,” he responded simply, “No.”

Last week in Los Angeles, we witnessed Trump toying with methods for keeping himself and other Republicans in power indefinitely.

Since taking office in 2017, Trump has tested various crisis proclamations, declaring a “national emergency” 21 times (8 of them in 2025), far more than any president before him.

Using his favorite issue—immigration—last week, Trump provoked a confrontation in Los Angeles to create a crisis: He sent masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into LA without judicial warrants to kidnap hundreds of working people, put them in chains, imprison them in the basement of a federal building without food or water, and deny them contact with family or lawyers. Real police-state stuff.

Then, predictably, hundreds of Angelinos took to the streets in protest. City officials (mayor and chief of police) insisted repeatedly that they had the situation well under control, but Trump insisted on manufacturing an emergency. The president declared that the enormous City of Los Angeles (area: 498 square miles, population: 3.8 million) would be “burned to the ground” and “completely obliterated” if he didn’t act to “liberate” the city from the “Migrant Invasion” of “Illegal Aliens and Criminals.” Next, without consulting the governor or the mayor, he mobilized 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to take over police functions. Then, predictably, street protests intensified.

At a press conference, Kristi Noem, secretary of Homeland Security, contradicted the president. She explained matter-of-factly that the purpose of Trump’s troops was to overthrow local elected leaders, or, as she put it, to “liberate” Los Angeles from its “socialist” leaders, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson reported June 9 that, as popular opinion has turned against Trump, he has become decidedly more authoritarian: “There is no doubt that as their other initiatives have stalled and public opinion is turning against the administration on every issue, the Trump regime is trying to establish a police state,” Richardson wrote.

This raises a question: Does Trump have the resources to send ICE into cities all across the country to create “emergencies” that then “require” the president to send in the military, to take over the basic functions of local and state governments?

This brings us full circle, back to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (“The BBB”), that Trump and his Republican friends are so eager to enact into law.

The BBB provides more than a $100 billion of new money for immigration crackdowns like the one in Los Angeles: $75 billion in supplemental funding for ICE to expand enforcement in the nation’s interior; another $45 billion for expanding adult immigration detention; an additional $14.4 billion for ICE transportation and removal operations; $10 billion more to hire more ICE agents; plus $2.4 billion to reward local law enforcement for participating in ICE activities—a total of $146.8 billion in new money for ICE to repeat its invasion of Los Angeles in dozens more cities simultaneously.

Writing in The Atlantic, David Frum argues that events in Los Angeles were Trump’s dress rehearsal for creating a police state, which could unfold in three steps before the midterm election in November 2026:

Step 1: Use federal powers in ways to provoke some kind of made-for-TV disturbance—flames, smoke, loud noises, waving of foreign flags.

Step 2: Invoke the disturbance to declare a state of emergency and deploy federal troops.

Step 3: Seize control of local operations of government—policing in June 2025; voting in November 2026.

“If Trump can incite disturbances in blue states before the midterm elections, he can assert emergency powers to impose federal control over the voting process, which is to say his control,” Frum writes.

Trump does seem to be running police-state experiments in smaller cities now, perhaps to get us all used to his methods for intimidating and dominating local people.

On June 11, Washington Post reporter Catherine Rampell described the arrival of six unidentified masked men into Great Barrington, Massachusetts (population: 7,245), with “guns hanging all over them.” The burly men were “dressed as though they had parachuted into a war zone,” claiming to be ICE agents. They arrived in unmarked cars, some with out-of-state plates. When asked by local businesspeople to identify themselves, they refused to offer identification, or arrest warrants, or the names of any criminals they were supposedly hunting. Instead, they accused their questioners of promoting lawlessness. The men then snatched up a gardener, stuffed him into the back seat of a car, and drove away. The kidnapped gardener is rumored to be imprisoned in an ICE detention facility near Boston, but Rampell has tried to locate him without success.

No one knows whether the six kidnappers in Great Barrington were actually ICE agents. They may have been some other brand of federal secret police, or they may have been “a ragtag vigilante group arbitrarily snatching brown-looking people off the street,” Rampell writes. In any case, they served to terrify local people and send the message that no town is safe from Trump’s new Los-Angeles-style tactics.

After enough experiments have shown Trump that he or his vigilantes can dominate any city he chooses, what comes next? A full-blown nationwide police state? To make America great again, establish martial law, suspend civil liberties, enhance state surveillance, further weaken judicial oversight, and suppress dissent by force?

These would be surefire “methods” for getting an unpopular president “elected” a third time, the Constitution be damned.

At the United Nations 77th Commemoration of the Nakba convened May 15 and 16 in New York, nothing was said about the upcoming Two-State Solution Conference planned at the U.N. from June 17-20, until, at the very end of the event, Riyad Mansour, the beleaguered permanent representative of the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine lifted the shroud of avoidance by expressing support for the conference based on the framework laid out in France and Saudi Arabia's Two-State Solution Concept Note, intended to define the outcome of the conference. Nick Mottern, of the Weaponized Drone Ban Treaty Campaign, hearing his response, expressed apprehension that France and Saudi Arabia, the conveners of the conference, along with the Palestine Authority, were setting the Palestinian people up for "an ambush."

Also concerned that the Two-State Solution Conference would result in further concessions by the Fatah Party-led Palestinian leadership, 43 Palestinian civil society organizations issued a "Unified Call to Action" on June 13 demanding that the conference focus on 77 years of international law pertaining to the status and borders of Palestine, rather than a vague gathering at which the State of Palestine would not be even recognized.

Given the disastrous outcome of the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995, after which nearly half a million settlers flooded into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, there is trepidation that the Palestine Authority will walk away from the negotiations hoodwinked and empty-handed, with no resolution pertaining to the status of Jerusalem, right of return of refugees, or progress made in the payment of reparations as provided for by U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) Resolutions 181 (1947) and 194 (1948).

Moreover, what should be discerned is the viability of a Two-State Solution, given that Israel's settler colonial enterprise has rendered that possibility dead in the water.

On June 12, ahead of the conference planned for June 17-20—now postponed following Israel's unprovoked military attack on Iran—the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy in Ramallah issued the clarion call reaffirming demands for a just and lawful resolution grounded in the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. French President Emmanuel Macron said that the conference was postponed due to the inability of the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to travel given the military escalation in the region. This extended window of opportunity gives Palestinian civil society at home and in exile, along with their allies, necessary time to reassert and gain support for their demands.

According to the Unified Call to Action:

The upcoming conference could serve as a turning point—but only if it is re-centered on its legal foundation: U.N. General Assembly Resolution ES-10/24, built on decades of existing international law obligations. This resolution welcomed the July 2024 International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion, which called on Israel to comply with international law, including ending its unlawful occupation, realizing the Palestinian people's rights to self-determination and return, and requiring third states to adopt concrete sanctions and accountability measures to uphold international law.

The Unified Call to Action implores all states, institution, and actors engaging with the Two-State Solution Conference to ground all solutions in the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

Within this context, the language of France and Saudi Arabia's Concept Note falls short in meeting Palestinian civil society demands. It refers to the conference as geared to implement "the" Two-State Solution, while actually framing negotiations as "a" Two-State Solution. This represents an unauthorized manipulation and flouting of international law pertaining to the established borders of the Occupied Palestinian Territories including East Jerusalem as enshrined in U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), and 2334 (2016).

Moreover, what should be discerned is the viability of a Two-State Solution, given that Israel's settler colonial enterprise has rendered that possibility dead in the water. Israel has usurped more than 80% of the historic land of Palestine; 21% of Israel is Palestinian; and thorny issues and U.N. Resolutions pertaining to the status of Jerusalem, the right of return of refugees, and reparations remain flouted by Israel and unaddressed for 77 years. In accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whether a two-state, one-state, or other configuration, the government(s) of the land between the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea must provide for the full human rights and dignity of all.

Further, the Concept Note is flawed pertaining to implementation, putting the onus of the conference's success or failure equally on the Palestinian Authority and Israel, where it states: "It is clear that the primary responsibility for solving the conflict lies with the parties." It continues, "The events of the last few years prove that without strong international resolve and involvement in ensuring they move towards the internationally recognized endgame, the conflict will escalate further and peace will be more elusive than ever." (Note: the words "conflict" and "endgame" are inappropriate in this context.) To state that the primary responsibility for solving the conflict lies with the parties, is to equate a battered woman as having the same power and agency as her brutal husband and his gang of weaponized thugs. If there is no peace in the home, she cannot be held responsible for that.

What is needed now, according to the Palestinian civil society organizations, is to "demand that the UNGA suspend Israel's membership for violating its membership conditions, including non-compliance with Resolution 194" of 1948. Israel is in flagrant violation of hundreds of U.N. General Assembly, Security Council, and Human Rights Council Resolutions, and the time has come for the GA to "support the mandate of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel, including by pressuring Israel to grant access to Palestine for independent investigations."

As stated in the demands of the Unified Call to Action, the conference should be based on UNGA Res. ES-10/23 of May 2024 pertaining to International Court of Justice advisory rulings, and UNGA Res. ES-10/24 of September 2024 calling for Israel to, within 12 months, completely withdraw its occupying forces from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Res. ES-10/24 also opens the door for the possible invocation of Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter against Israel, which could lead to sanctions, suspension from the U.N., the creation of a U.N. peacekeeping mission to protect the Palestinians and ensure the flow of humanitarian aid, etc.

Furthermore, France and Saudi Arabia's Concept Note does not reference the genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, crimes against humanity, starvation, etc. being suffered by the Palestinian people. It uses only generalized language such as, on Page 2: "Since the initial moments of the current wave of violence..." Also, on Page 2, Egypt and Qatar, along with the United States, are erroneously credited with having "a major role in negotiating a cease-fire in Gaza." Yet, on June 4, the U.S. used its veto power at the U.N. Security Council to block, for the fifth time, a resolution calling for a cease-fire.

At an emergency session of the U.N. General Assembly on June 12th, a resolution demanding an immediate, unconditional, and lasting cease-fire in Gaza was overwhelmingly adopted. Only 12 countries including the U.S. voted against it. Moreover, the few cease-fires that have occurred ended when the release of the designated number of hostages was secured. On June 11th, President Donald Trump slammed the Two-State Solution Conference warning of consequences for countries "that take anti-Israel actions."

Most concerning is that the conference does not set out to address the dire need to stop the imminent perishing by starvation of 2 million Gazans, nor the ongoing forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of the people of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In addition, it could potentially generate new U.N. resolutions that shrink Palestine's internationally recognized borders, effectively negating and overriding Security Council Res. 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) borders as well as General Assembly Res. 181 (1947) and 194 (1948) establishing Jerusalem as an international city and enshrining the Palestinian right of return and compensation.

In its press release of May 27, 2025, UNICEF addressed the elephant in the room:

Since the end of the cease-fire on 18 March, 1,309 children have reportedly been killed and 3,738 injured. In total, more than 50,000 children have reportedly been killed or injured since October 2023. How many more dead girls and boys will it take? What level of horror must be livestreamed before the international community fully steps up, uses its influence, and takes bold, decisive action to force the end of this ruthless killing of children?

In the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha on X, "Only an international military intervention should stop this mass killing of starved people."

According to Leo Gabriel of the World Social Forum and representative of the Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine Coalition, "What is needed now is for the U.N. Security Council to invoke Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter to send an emergency Blue Helmets peacekeeping mission to Gaza, as it has done in other parts of the world 72 times since 1948. As the Security Council will be deadlocked by the U.S. veto, it is incumbent upon the General Assembly to invoke GA Resolution 377, also known as the 'Uniting for Peace' option, to establish peace in in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and stop the genocide in Gaza." (The Uniting for Peace option was used by the General Assembly with the deployment of peacekeeping forces to the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip to end the1956 Suez Canal crisis.) "Stopping the imminent starvation to death of 2 million besieged Gazans by operationalizing 'Uniting for Peace' is the last gasp of life and hope in the utility of the U.N. to fulfill its mission," he added.

In addition to foundational problems with the U.N. Two-State Solution Conference, now touted as the "International Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine," France and Saudi Arabia have been criticized as lacking the credentials to convene the high-level negotiations. Saudi Arabia is well-known for its abysmal human rights record, decimating Yemen militarily and bringing it to the brink of famine, and violent suppression of dissent such as the assassination and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. France, with its extensive legacy as a colonial and neocolonial power, is not an impartial arbiter. It has not recognized Palestine as a state, has implemented sweeping bans on pro-Palestinian protests, sells weapons to Israel, and continuously enables the delivery of military equipment to Israel by air and by sea.

Given the circumstances, postponement of the so-called U.N. Two-State Conference may be best, certainly in the eyes of Palestinian civil society.

A few months after the Democrats’ bitter defeat in the 2024 elections, the party convened an Executive Committee meeting. Instead of taking a long hard look at the reasons for their poor performance, the meeting devolved into an orgy of self-congratulations. “We had the best convention ever.” “We raised more money than ever.” “We had the best team and the best cooperation between the White House, the Harris campaign, and the party.”

When one esteemed party leader raised her hand reminding everyone that “we lost” and suggested that the party needed an autopsy to understand what went wrong, her idea was met with indignation. “What do you mean an ‘autopsy’? We’re not dead!”

True, the party isn’t dead, but its 2024 performance was poor. It lost the White House and the Senate. And polls now show Democrats with their lowest favorability ratings in recent history.

Despite denying the need for an autopsy, during the past few months press reports have included advice from “Democratic party operatives” as to what the party should do moving forward and reports of studies commissioned by one or another party entity analyzing the 2024 defeat. The consensus view that has emerged is that Democrats need to move to the “center” and forego radical or “leftist” political ideas. The problem with this assessment is twofold. First, most of the operatives speaking out or the groups commissioned to conduct the studies (reportedly costing $30 million) are the same consultants who dug the hole Democrats now find themselves in. They do not understand the voters they lost or what needs to be done to win them back. Second, their definitions of “centrist” and “leftist” are inventions to suit their own biases. It’s not enough to say “We need to stop being so ‘woke,’ and instead focus on what voters care about,” especially when they don’t really know what voters do care about.

For years, these same consultants have argued that Democrats need to move to “the center” of American politics, which they define as an amalgam of conservative-leaning fiscal/economic policies and more liberal-leaning on some (but not all) social issues. There was no overall theme to this mish-mash of ideas, and candidates who listened to the consultants often tied themselves in knots trying to appeal to voters without a coherent message.

While pre-Trump, Republicans would focus on the Reagan mantra of lower taxes and smaller government, when one asked Democrats what they stood for, they would read off a litany of issues (abortion, social justice, environment, immigration, guns, etc.) leaving it up to voters to find the forest from the trees. Because Republicans’ “smaller government, lower taxes” only increased income inequality and threatened the economic well-being of most voters, they avoided the details on these matters and instead sought to divert voters’ attention by elevating and exaggerating one or another of the Democrats’ stances on social issues. “Democrats want open borders.” “Democrats are soft on crime.” “Democrats want to abolish police.” “Democrats want transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.”

Each time Republicans would lay these traps, Democrats would take the bait, focusing on these issues instead of developing an overarching message that would reach a majority of voters.

Twenty-five years ago, I co-authored a book with my brother John Zogby—“What Ethnic Americans Really Think.” It was based on polling John’s firm had done measuring the political attitudes of voters from several US ethnic groups: Italians, Arabs, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, and Africans. Despite the deep differences that existed amongst the communities included in the study, what came through was that their views converged on several issues. Strong majorities in all groups were proud of and had an emotional tie to their heritages and were attached to their hometowns and their family connections. This was true for those who immigrated to and those born in the US.

Contrary to the consultants’ “wisdom,” all of these communities supported what can be seen as progressive economic/fiscal policies. For example, overwhelming majorities, from the mid-80% range to mid-90%, wanted the federal government to: help underwrite health insurance; raise the minimum wage; impose penalties on polluters; oppose a regressive taxation system; strengthen Social Security and Medicare, and support public education. Large majorities also wanted: campaign finance reform; gun control; and a US unilateral ban on nuclear weapons testing.

On social issues, the views of the voters from each of these ethnic groups reflected a more nuanced approach. Smaller majorities, but still majorities, supported the death penalty, limits on abortion, school vouchers and opposition to racial preferences in hiring.

So in reality, the “center” is not being more moderate on economic issues and more liberal on social issues because the economic and fiscal issues have the support of almost 9 in 10 voters and are the foundation for building a majoritarian party. At the same time, instead locking out, demeaning, and refusing to engage with voters with divergent views on social issues, Democrats need to respectfully discuss these issues within the party,.

The lesson that Democrats need to learn is that “the left” is not primarily defined by where you stand on social issues. Instead, unlike Republicans, Democrats must define themselves as the party that understands the government’s positive role in creating an economy and programs that create jobs and opportunities for working and middle class families—Black, Asian, Latino, and White ethnics. When they don’t embrace these concerns, they cede this ground to Republicans, who despite their horribly regressive policies now claim to represent the working class while charging that Democrats only represent elites.

This doesn’t mean that Democrats should ever abandon their commitment to the range of social and cultural issues party leaders have long embraced as critical for our diverse democratic society. But these issues can’t define the party. For Democrats to win, they must reclaim their history as the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and, yes, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. That they are the party that believes that government has a role to play in lifting up those who need a helping hand, and providing for the working classes and middle classes of all ethnic and racial communities.

Republicans want to stop subsidizing Americans who benefit from government-funded health programs. But by far the greatest American subsidies go to the millionaires, the 10% of Americans who own 93 percent of the stock market.

That's in part because of the so-called tax expenditures, which include mortgage deductions, interest and dividend exclusions, and reduced rates on capital gains, and which go almost entirely to the 13.7% of Americans who report enough income to itemize their taxes. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "the cost of all federal income tax expenditures was higher than..the combined cost of Medicare and Medicaid."

A 2015 NBER study found that 70 percent of federal spending on housing was in the form of tax-based deductions that largely benefit the rich. Families with expensive homes can take a tax break of up to a half-million dollars when they decide to sell. And the wealthiest among us can take a mortgage interest deduction for a second home, which might even be a yacht.

Yet while the millionaires subsidize their estates, the proposed Republican budget would make drastic cuts to low-income housing programs.

Daddy-Made Millionaires

It gets worse. The tax designers have figured out how to gift their heirs with billions in redirected tax revenue. In a massive subsidy for the super-rich, the tax code includes a so-called stepped-up provision which allows the super-rich to leave much of their multi-trillion-dollar stock market fortunes to their children with all the accumulated gains magically erased, and thus, in many instances, without a single dollar in taxes coming due.

If daddy and mommy's stock has grown from $10 to $100 over the years, the kids won't pay any taxes on that $90 gain, and society's potential revenue is wiped out. As baby boomers age and pass away, more and more privileged children will become accidental millionaires.

Yet while the kids of millionaires skip out on taxes, Republicans want to take food stamp benefits away from millions of poor kids.

Subsidies on American Lives

With regard to big business subsidies, economist Dean Baker says: "These government-granted monopolies likely transfer more than $1 trillion a year ($8,000 per household) from the rest of us to [those] in a position to benefit from them. In 1980 we were spending about 0.4 percent of GDP...on prescription drugs and other pharmaceutical products. Currently we spend more than 2.3 percent of GDP."

Big Pharma welfare forces us to pay much more than other countries for our medicine. According to The National Library of Medicine, "In 2022, U.S. prices across all drugs (brands and generics) were nearly three times as high as prices in 33 OECD comparison countries....In 2022, U.S. prices for insulin products were nearly ten times as high as prices in 33 OECD comparison countries."

And taking the pain to an absurd extreme, Forbes reports that "Sovaldi (a breakthrough treatment for hepatitis C) cost $84,000 for a 12-week course when it was initially launched in the U.S. In contrast, the same treatment is available in other countries, such as India, for less than $1,000."

Yet while medication for the elderly becomes evermore expensive, Republicans have proposed the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, taking health insurance away from millions of Americans.

Republicans: It's Good to Lose Your Medicaid

House Speaker Mike Johnson said, "Work is good for you. You find dignity in work." Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said, "It’s not kicking people off Medicaid..It’s transitioning from Medicaid to employer-provided health care."

Condescending enough?

Republicans say they only want to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. To do this they're wasting lives, defrauding their constituents, and abusing the privilege of leadership.

Editor's Note: The following prepared remarks were delivered at the Courthouse at the Square in Bloomington, Indiana on Saturday, June 14, 2025, as part of the “No Kings” demonstration organized by Bloomington Indivisible, Bloomington 50501, and the Monroe County Democrats.

Good afternoon.

My name is Jeff Isaac.

I’ve lived here in Bloomington, and taught political science here at IUB, for almost forty years.

I believe I’ve spoken before a crowd at the Courthouse only one other time: in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 when, as a founding member of Bloomington United, I spoke to a frightened and anxious group of fellow Bloomingtonians about the need to refuse easy answers, and to avoid demonizing or persecuting those among us who might be different but who are not therefore dangerous. I spoke then in the name of a simple democratic truth: as Bloomingtonians, we share a common place and a common fate, as citizens and residents, and are responsible, together, to address the challenges, and dangers, that confront us, and to do so with decency and a respect for the rule of law and the rights of others.

In those days, people were afraid because our country had been attacked by an obscure group of foreigners based somewhere else.

Today we are again afraid, but the attacker is not obscure, and the threat is not in any sense “external.”

Today we are threatened—our freedom and our democracy are threatened—by Donald Trump, the President of the United States, who is based not in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan, but in our nation’s capital, in the White House.

The events taking place all across the country today are taking place under the banner of “No Kings” for a simple reason: because Trump, with the aid of an exceptionally partisan administration, is today acting like a king, by organizing a massive celebration of his birthday and himself, a celebration that features an unprecedented display of military force on the streets of the Capitol, at the very same moment that he has unleashed the National Guard, and the U.S. Marines, on the streets of Los Angeles, and threatened to do the same in cities across the country.

Trump is a megalomaniac who exults in dominating others.

Trump regards the government, and the entire country, as his private property to be controlled and used to bring wealth to him and his family and friends.

In many ways Trump seems truly to believe the classic motto of that iconic absolute monarch, French King Louis XIV: “l,etat c’est moi.” The state is me. I am the state.

“Only I can save us,” he has said.

“I was saved by God to Make America Great,” he has said.

Trump acts like a King.

And we are here to say, loudly and clearly: “No Kings!”

But in my brief remarks here I want to remind us all that Trump is not a king.

And while he inherited much wealth, he did not inherit the political power he now wields, with such cruelty and contempt, to threaten the people and the things we hold dear.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Trump is the elected President of the United States.

Well over 77 million citizens voted for him, after experiencing his Covid response, and his two impeachments, and his civil and criminal convictions, and his failed administration.

After all that, those millions of our fellow citizens elected him to the highest and most powerful office in the country for a second time.

[It’s okay to boo! It is awful that he was elected, and more awful that we are subject to him!]

It is important, I believe, for us to draw two important conclusions from the fact of his election.

The first is that while monarchs can be dangerous, Trump is much more dangerous than any monarch, precisely becausehe was elected after a multi-year campaign that consisted of angry rhetoric and violent incitement and very clear promises to do exactly what he is now doing.

Trump successfully treated the presidential election like an American Idol television show. And the viewing audience voted him the winner.

Trump is an authoritarian populist, a master manipulator of mass media, digital media, and public opinion, someone who claims the legacy of the American Revolution—remember, the insurrectionists of January 6, 2021 insisted that this was their “1776 moment” and their “July 4.” Trump claims to act, above and beyond the law itself, as the tribune and the leader and the avenger of those supposedly “real Americans” who believe in his MAGA lies. He is their “retribution.” Against the rest of us and against our constitutional democracy.

Trump is a populist in the same way that Mussolini was a populist and Hitler was a populist.

And, like these mid-20th century fascist leaders, Trump is a fascist because he preys on fear; promotes xenophobia and racism; and incites violence.

He has used his popularity to take over the Republican party, to purge all dissenters from that party and from the federal government—which is not his private property!–and to create a cult of personality.

He has begun to bring media institutions to heel, and universities to heel. He has begun using the Justice Department to threaten and investigate political critics. He has unleashed ICE, and in the past week subjected the country to something frighteningly close to martial law.

And he has done all of this with very substantial popular support.

We are here together. We ought to be proud to be here, together, determined to walk the talk of democracy. But we must recognize that most Americans are not out on the street today chanting “No Kings!”

Contending with Trump means contending with him and his coterie, but also with the MAGA Republican Party everywhere across the country, and also with his base voters everywhere—we know this here in Bloomington, Indiana, a relatively liberal island in a blood red sea of reaction. It also means contending with a mass public that is tired, cynical, and angry, and with many millions of voters who are in denial or who simply do not care.

The danger is thus enormous, and our challenge especially great, because winning real popular support for an alternative to Trumpism is today an uphill battle.

But this brings me to my second point: Trump is a despotic demagogue who has not—yet!—vanquished constitutional democracy.

Our “democracy” is no doubt plagued by numerous injustices; it is corrupt, in tatters, and besieged.

But it is not dead. Yet.

Trump has attacked the courts. But they persist in their independence, at least in some places.

Trump and his allies have attacked the universities and the media. And they have cowed a great many prominent media and university institutions—including our own Indiana University—a once great institution that the Whitten administration is transforming into a MAGA demonstration project. But independent media and educational institutions persist. Academic freedom and press freedom are not dead—yet.

Trump and his allies would love to utterly destroy the Democratic party–in many ways a sad shell of what was once a serious mainstream party, but still the only substantial source of political opposition. But they have not succeeded.

Trump and his allies still face opposition, in Congress, in civil society, and in the streets. And their party, much to their chagrin, is required by law to face elections in 2026, and again in 2028.

(To be clear, I am not saying that because the law requires free and fair elections, the law will be respected by the MAGA movement. But I am saying that the law has force, and it will be hard even for Trump to simply suspend it. In short, Trumpism can and must be electorally contested in 2026 and 2028—and we must make sure that it is so contested.)

The recent demonstrations against ICE, today’s “No Kings” demonstrations—such things are taking place, all across the country, because we still have certain freedoms and rights, and there are still spaces of dissent and opposition, and forms of solidarity and resistance, that are available to us.

There are democratic means–fragile, limited, and vulnerable to further Trump attacks—that are still available to us.

It is up to us to seize hold of these democratic means, and to use them to say NO to kings and despotic demagogues, and YES to democracy.

Think. Write. Speak. Listen.

Organize. Assemble. Reassemble.

Petition. Demand. Vote.

Act.

Only we can save us.

This is a good start. Let it not be the end.

Thank you.

Scores of countries across the world have issued a sharp condemnation of Israel's attacks on Iran. So what? There have also been sharp condemnations all along by members of the so-called international community of Israel's criminal actions against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Do such condemnations amount to anything?

Apparently not, as political scientist, political economist, author, and journalist C. J. Polychroniou alludes to in the interview that follows with independent French-Greek journalist Alexandra Boutri, when Israel enjoys the full support of the biggest bully in the world (a.k.a. the United States of America). Nonetheless, Israel's latest adventure by the Netanyahu government is unambiguously criminal, says C. J. Polychroniou, and may ultimately change the strategic reality of the Middle East.

Alexandra Boutri: Fears of a broader conflict in the Middle East are rising fast following Israel's large-scale military attacks on Iran, which targeted key nuclear and missile sites and resulted in the deaths of Iran's top military officials and several of that nation's nuclear scientists. Why is the West silent over Israel's engagement in state-sponsored terrorism and its genocidal campaign against Palestinians? Why are there no efforts to isolate Israel diplomatically?

C. J. Polychroniou: Israel is a powerful nation and the closest ally of the United States, while its economy is fully integrated into the global economy. Due to the backing of the U.S., Israel feels that it is immune to any measure of international accountability. Indeed, as the Israeli dissident and genocide expert Raz Segal has explained, Israelis feel they are above the law. So, Israel can act like a rogue state with no fear of punishment. Western governments won't engage in any course of action to isolate Israel diplomatically, even when they know that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is committing genocide in Gaza and engaging in state-sponsored terrorism, because that would mean going up against the United States. Needless to say, that makes all Western governments, including mainstream Western media, complicit in Israeli crimes. But what is even more infuriating and morally reprehensible is that "the more Israel kills, the more the West portrays it as a victim."

It's more than likely that what Netanyahu is after with Israel's surprise attack on Iran is the toppling of the Iranian regime itself.

Alexandra Boutri: Is there evidence that Iran was close to developing nuclear weapons? In either case, can Israel's assault on Iran be justified?

C. J. Polychroniou: There is a long history behind Iran's nuclear program. With assistance from the United States and Europe, Iran had launched an ambitious nuclear project under the Shah. But the Islamic revolution in 1979 and the subsequent war between Iran and Iraq put a halt to that project. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Iran started working on a covert project to develop nuclear weapons called the Amad Plan. But the Amad Plan was abandoned in late 2003, perhaps due to the U.S. invasion of Iraq that same year. But Iran's nuclear program went on, and the official position of the Iranian government has been all along that it is solely for peaceful energy purposes. The country's nuclear facilities have been operating under the monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed, even on the eve of Israel's bombardment of Tehran, that Iran was not building nuclear weapons.

With that in mind, the Israeli claim that Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons is nothing new. Israeli leaders have been making such assertions for many years because, from the time of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, they have seen Iran as an "existential threat." And as iconic Israeli journalist Gideon Levy recently said, Netanyahu has long expressed a desire to wage war against Iran. In the meantime, no one talks about Israel's possession of nuclear weapons. Israel is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has not accepted IAEA safeguards. Of course, if it did so, and abided by the rules of international law, it would mean that Israel might be compelled not to act like a rogue state. Apparently, however, it prefers the latter status than being a normal state. Israel's attack on Iran was completely unprovoked and constitutes an act of calculated aggression. It is unambiguously criminal. As such, Iran has every right to defend itself.

Alexandra Boutri: Is Netanyahu's endgame regime change in Tehran? Could the U.S. and Gulf States be drawn into the Israel-Iran war? Also, what about the reports that there are deep political divisions to Iran's theocracy?

C. J. Polychroniou: It's more than likely that what Netanyahu is after with Israel's surprise attack on Iran is the toppling of the Iranian regime itself. Netanyahu's agenda is not confined to the liquidation of Palestinians in Gaza, the annexation of parts of the West Bank, and opposition to Palestinian sovereignty. It is based on the idea of "changing the strategic reality in the Middle East." And this means eliminating any perceived or real threats to Israel by whatever means necessary. Indeed, the Middle East will not be the same if the current regime in Tehran falls. The Gulf countries have unanimously condemned Israel's strikes on Iran even though their rulers have treated Iran in the recent past more of an enemy than Israel itself. But I think the Gulf countries are just as much anxious now about being drawn into the Israel-Iran war as they are about Israel's plans under Netanyahu to restructure the Middle East. By now, their rulers have probably also come to the realization that U.S. President Donald Trump is either incapable or unwilling to constrain Netanyahu's neoconservative foreign policy objectives.

It's true that there are deep political divisions facing the Iranian regime. This is a repressive regime by any account, although it is not accurate to describe Iranian rule as a theocracy. The Islamic Republic is structured around a constitutional framework, although it is surely not a democracy. The regime oppresses women and has crushed leftist groups. I suspect there is a strong anti-regime sentiment across Iranian society, and some groups may see Israel's attacks as the opportunity needed to bring down the regime. Little wonder why Netanyahu has urged Iranians to overthrow their government.

For nearly 30 years, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has driven the Middle East into war and destruction. The man is a powder keg of violence. Throughout all the wars that he has championed, Netanyahu has always dreamed of the big one: to defeat and overthrow the Iranian Government. His long-sought war, just launched, might just get us all killed in a nuclear Armageddon, unless Netanyahu is stopped.

Netanyahu’s fixation on war goes back to his extremist mentors, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Yitzhak Shamir, and Menachem Begin. The older generation believed that Zionists should use whatever violence–wars, assassinations, terror–is needed to achieve their aims of eliminating any Palestinian claim to a homeland.

The founders of Netanyahu’s political movement, the Likud, called for exclusive Zionist control over all of what had been British Mandatory Palestine. At the start of the British Mandate in the early 1920s, the Muslim and Christian Arabs constituted roughly 87% of the population and owned ten times more land than the Jewish population. As of 1948, the Arabs still outnumbered the Jews roughly two to one. Nonetheless, the founding charter of Likud (1977) declared that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” The now infamous chant, “from the River to the Sea,” which is characterized as anti-Semitic, turns out to be the anti-Palestinian rallying call of the Likud.

Israel’s war on Iran is the final move in a decades-old strategy. We are witnessing the culmination of decades of extremist Zionist manipulation of US foreign policy.

The challenge for Likud was how to pursue its maximalist aims despite their blatant illegality under international law and morality, both of which call for a two-state solution.

In 1996, Netanyahu and his American advisors devised a “Clean Break” strategy. They advocated that Israel would not withdraw from the Palestinian lands captured in the 1967 war in exchange for regional peace. Instead, Israel would reshape the Middle East to its liking. Crucially, the strategy envisioned the US as the main force to achieve these aims—waging wars in the region to dismantle governments opposed to Israel’s dominance over Palestine. The US was called upon to fight wars on Israel’s behalf.

The Clean Break strategy was effectively carried out by the US and Israel after 9/11. As NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark revealed, soon after 9/11, the US planned to “attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years—starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.”

The first of the wars, in early 2003, was to topple the Iraqi government. Plans for further wars were delayed as the US became mired in Iraq. Still, the US supported Sudan’s split in 2005, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006, and Ethiopia’s incursion into Somalia that same year. In 2011, the Obama administration launched CIA operation Timber Sycamore against Syria and, with the UK and France, overthrew Libya’s government through a 2011 bombing campaign. Today, these countries lie in ruins, and many are now embroiled in civil wars.

Netanyahu was a cheerleader of these wars of choice–either in public or behind the scenes–together with his neocon allies in the U.S. Government including Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, and others.

Testifying in the U.S. Congress in 2002, Netanyahu pitched for the disastrous war in Iraq, declaring “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.” He continued, “And I think that people sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.” He also falsely told Congress, “There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards to the development of nuclear weapons.”

The slogan to remake a “New Middle East” provides the slogan for these wars. Initially stated in 1996 through “Clean Break,” it was popularized by Secretary Condoleezza Rice in 2006. As Israel was brutally bombarded Lebanon, Rice stated:

“What we're seeing here, in a sense, is the growing -- the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East not going back to the old one.”

In September 2023, Netanyahu presented at UN General Assembly a map of the “New Middle East” completely erasing a Palestinian state. In September 2024, he elaborated on this plan by showing two maps: one part of the Middle East a “blessing,” and the other–including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran–a curse, as he advocated regime change in the latter countries.

Israel’s war on Iran is the final move in a decades-old strategy. We are witnessing the culmination of decades of extremist Zionist manipulation of US foreign policy.

The premise of Israel’s attack on Iran is the claim that Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Such a claim is fatuous since Iran has repeatedly called for negotiations precisely to remove the nuclear option in return for an end to the decades of US sanctions.

Since 1992, Netanyahu and his supporters have claimed that Iran will become a nuclear power “in a few years." In 1995, Israeli officials and their US backers declared a 5-year timeline. In 2003, Israel’s Director of Military Intelligence said that Iran will be a nuclear power “by the summer of 2004.” In 2005, the head of Mossad said that Iran could build the bomb in less than 3 years. In 2012, Netanyahu claimed at the United Nations that “it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.” And on and on.

This 30-year-plus pattern of shifting deadlines has marked a deliberate strategy, not a failure in prophecy. The claims are propaganda; there is always an “existential threat.” More importantly, there is Netanyahu’s phony claim that negotiations with Iran are useless.

Iran has repeatedly said that it does not want a nuclear weapon and that it has long been prepared to negotiate. In October 2003, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production and use of nuclear arms—a ruling later officially cited by Iran at an IAEA meeting in Vienna in August 2005 and referenced since as a religious and legal barrier to pursuing nuclear weapons.

Even for those skeptical of Iran’s intentions, Iran has consistently advocated for a negotiated agreement supported by independent international verification. In contrast, the Zionist lobby has opposed any such settlements, urging the US to maintain sanctions and reject deals that would allow strict IAEA monitoring in exchange for lifting sanctions.

In 2016, the Obama Administration, together with the UK, France, Germany, China, and Russia, reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran—a landmark agreement to strictly monitor Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Yet, under relentless pressure from Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby, President Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018. Predictably, when Iran responded by expanding its uranium enrichment, it was blamed for violating an agreement that the US itself had abandoned. The double-standard and propaganda is hard to miss.

On April 11, 2021, Israel’s Mossad attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz. Following the attack, on April 16, Iran announced that it would increase its uranium enrichment further, as bargaining leverage, while repeatedly appealing for renewed negotiations on a deal like the JCPOA. The Biden Administration rejected all such negotiations.

At the start of his second term, Trump agreed to open a new negotiation with Iran. Iran pledged to renounce nuclear arms and to be subject to IAEA inspections but reserved the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. The Trump Administration appeared to agree to this point but then reversed itself. Since then, there have been five rounds of negotiations, with both sides reporting progress on each occasion.

The sixth round was ostensibly to take place on Sunday, June 15. Instead, Israel launched a preemptive war on Iran on June 12. Trump confirmed that the US knew of the attack in advance, even as the administration was speaking publicly of the upcoming negotiations.

Israel’s attack was made not only in the midst of negotiations that were making progress, but days before a scheduled UN Conference on Palestine that would have advanced the cause of the two-state solution. That conference has now been postponed.

Israel’s attack on Iran now threatens to escalate to a full-fledged war that draws in the US and Europe on the side of Israel and Russia and perhaps Pakistan on the side of Iran. We could soon see several nuclear powers pitted against each other and dragging the world closer to nuclear annihilation. The Doomsday Clock is at 89 seconds to midnight, the closest to nuclear Armageddon since the clock was launched in 1947.

Over the past 30 years, Netanyahu and his US backers have destroyed or destabilized a 4,000-km swath of countries stretching across North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Western Asia. Their aim has been to block a Palestinian State by overthrowing governments supporting the Palestinian cause. The world deserves better than this extremism. More than 180 countries in the UN have called for the two-state solution and regional stability. That makes more sense than Israel bringing the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon in pursuit of its illegal and extremist aims.

The images coming from Los Angeles in June 2025 are not without precedent. But the precedents are not American. They are global, and they are troubling. Military convoys rolling into a city over the objections of its elected leaders. Peaceful protest recast as a public threat. Immigrant communities targeted with sweeping enforcement actions and then blamed for resisting. What unfolded in Los Angeles this summer looked less like the United States of 1992 and more like Beijing in 1989 or Paris under curfew in 1961. These were moments when governments exploited protest as pretext and used the language of order to justify repression. What makes Los Angeles so alarming is not just the imagery of troops on domestic streets, but the quiet dismantling of legal guardrails that once kept that imagery exceptional.

This is not just a story about immigration raids. It is about the redefinition of dissent as rebellion and the deployment of military force to enforce that fiction. For the first time in modern U.S. history, active-duty federal troops were sent into a state not to uphold civil rights or restore public safety, but to enforce domestic policy over the objection of state leaders. There was no invocation of the Insurrection Act. Instead, the Trump administration relied on a lesser-known statute, 10 U.S.C. §12406, and vague assertions of inherent executive power to federalize California’s National Guard and deploy 700 Marines across Los Angeles. Governor Gavin Newsom objected. The Pentagon bypassed him.

For the first time in modern U.S. history, active-duty federal troops were sent into a state not to uphold civil rights or restore public safety, but to enforce domestic policy over the objection of state leaders.

The White House framed the move as necessary to restore order. But there was no large-scale disorder. There were protests, including vigils outside detention centers, marches through working-class neighborhoods, and union leaders acting as legal observers. There were curfew violations and some scattered vandalism. But there was no insurrection. The destabilizing force was not public protest. It was the decision to respond to it with troops.

Defenders of the administration reached quickly for precedent, citing the Rodney King riots in 1992 and the civil rights showdowns of Little Rock and Selma. But these comparisons obscure more than they clarify. In 1992, California’s governor requested help after riots erupted. In 1957 and 1965, Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson used the military to enforce federal court orders and protect constitutional rights that states had refused to uphold. In all of those cases, the goal was the expansion of rights. In Los Angeles in 2025, troops were sent not to defend civil liberties but to suppress protest against their erosion.

If the domestic record fails to explain this moment, the international one does. In Beijing in 1989, peaceful student demonstrators were labeled counterrevolutionaries. Martial law was declared. Troops rolled in. Thousands were killed or disappeared. In the years since, the Chinese state has denied, distorted, and buried the events of Tiananmen Square. The repression was not only physical. It was historical. Dissent itself was erased.

In Paris in 1961, Algerian immigrants marched peacefully against a discriminatory curfew. Police responded with overwhelming violence. More than a hundred were killed, many beaten and dumped into the Seine. The government minimized the incident for decades, calling it a minor clash. Only in recent years has the truth surfaced, slowly and incompletely, with no accountability.

In Myanmar in 2017, a stateless Muslim minority, the Rohingya, was framed as a terrorist threat after a small-scale insurgent attack. The state launched what it called a clearance campaign. Entire villages were destroyed. More than 700,000 people were forced into exile. The military denied responsibility and described the operation as a legitimate anti-terror response. The world called it ethnic cleansing. The government called it counterinsurgency.

What these cases share is a structure. A marginalized population asserts its presence, through protest, through migration, through visibility. The state reframes that assertion as rebellion. Force follows. Then comes denial or strategic ambiguity, and often historical erasure. Violence becomes policy. Policy becomes precedent.

What happened in Los Angeles has not reached that level of brutality. But the logic is already in place. Peaceful resistance was framed as a rebellion. The deployment of troops was not a last resort. It was a political maneuver. The administration used the machinery of national defense to discipline domestic opposition, and to do so under legal theories that dissolve long-held constraints on federal power.

Critics may call this comparison alarmist. They argue that America is not China, not Myanmar, not an authoritarian regime. We have elections, courts, and a free press. But the danger is not that the United States has already crossed the threshold into authoritarianism. It is that we are normalizing the tools that allow such a shift to happen incrementally and under cover of law.

Authoritarianism does not begin with the mass suspension of rights. It begins with the narrowing of who those rights apply to. It begins with the quiet reclassification of dissent as danger. It begins with language: radicals, illegals, rebels. It begins with the claim that protest is disorder, and that order must be restored by force if necessary. And it gains ground not only through coercion, but through public fatigue. If the streets are quiet, if the media coverage fades, if the courts stall, the logic settles into the baseline of governance.

That is why this moment matters. The deployment in Los Angeles is not just provocative. It is precedent-setting. It redefines the legal thresholds for domestic military use. It challenges the role of states in checking federal authority. And it reframes protest against government action not as a civic right, but as a federal security risk.

We have seen, around the world, how easily protest can be recast as provocation. How immigrants, minorities, and political dissidents can be treated not as citizens, but as threats. How democratic states can adopt authoritarian tools, first in exceptional cases, then in ordinary ones.

We are not there yet. But we are closer than we think.

This is not just about Los Angeles. It is about whether a president can override a state to deploy troops in support of domestic policy. It is about whether dissent is still protected in practice, not just in principle. It is about whether the line between order and oppression has already begun to blur, and whether we will recognize it in time.

Democrats can't stop President Donald Trump from deploying Marines in Los Angeles. They won't stop backing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while he bombs his way out of corruption charges. But watch how hard they'll work to destroy Zohran Mamdani if he wins in New York City.

Right now, Israel's attacking Iran. Trump's got troops on American streets. The world's on fire, and New York Democrats are desperately trying to resurrect Andrew Cuomo—a man who resigned as governor due to piling sexual assault allegations.

The Democratic establishment needs Zohran to fail more than they need to stop fascism. Because if he succeeds—if he proves government can build things and improve lives—voters might start asking what's their excuse for 30 years of managed decline?

Every crisis we face—from troops in our streets to endless wars to families who can't afford basics—comes from the same source: a political system that serves power instead of people. Zohran represents a chance to try something different.

They're not stopping war criminals because that doesn't threaten their business model. But a mayor who proves Democrats can deliver for working people instead of donors? That's existential.

Zohran Mamdani won't be perfect. He's not some savior. He's a 33-year-old Queens assemblyman who has been a force in Albany. He represents something different and distinct from the average Democrat that might be mayor of New York. He talks of using government to build housing, transit, and childcare centers. Not financial engineering. Not real estate shuffling. Building things.

The latest polls show him ahead. AOC endorsed him. The momentum's real. And that terrifies them more than authoritarianism ever could.

Only 21% of voters think Democrats in Congress are doing good work. That's 10 points worse than Republicans. Their brand is screwed. But they'd rather protect that failed brand than let someone show a different way is possible. Because if Zohran's approach works, they lose their excuse for being Republican-lite.

The real fight starts after he wins. Albany will become a fortress against him. The governor, state legislature, Wall Street, police unions, New York Post—they'll all work to make him fail. Not because his ideas are bad, but because his success would expose their complicity.

If buses run on time, if parents get free childcare, if the city becomes livable for regular people—then what? Latino voters, Black voters, working families start realizing they don't need Wall Street's permission to have nice things. The whole corrupt machine becomes obsolete.

This isn't about New York City. This is about whether Democrats have any future beyond managed decline. Whether they'll fight for working people or keep serving donors while democracy crumbles.

We've forgotten how to build things together—not just manufacturing, but basic collective capacity. Zohran gets that. He represents politicians who create instead of extract. Who build power for regular people instead of managing their desperation.

The purist left will attack him for not creating an instant communist utopia. Wall Street will attack him for existing. The question is whether Bernie, AOC, and everyone who endorsed him and votes for him will fight when it matters. Not tweets. Real political warfare. Recruiting candidates statewide and building a bench that can take this beyond one city.

Delivering is everything. Faith that the government can improve U.S. lives is near an all-time low at 22%. Decades of Democrats enriching donors while communities die will do that. But if Zohran delivers—if he shows what's possible—that faith can return.

The media's already writing their narratives. If Cuomo wins, it's proof Democrats reject progressivism. If Zohran wins, they'll dismiss it as "just liberal NYC." We know better. This is the test case for whether Democrats can be anything more than controlled opposition.

Every crisis we face—from troops in our streets to endless wars to families who can't afford basics—comes from the same source: a political system that serves power instead of people. Zohran represents a chance to try something different.

That's why his potential success terrifies them more than Trump's authoritarianism. Fascists don't threaten their consulting contracts. Politicians who might actually deliver for working people do.

All politics is local. All change starts somewhere. This is where we find out if Democrats will transform or keep managing democracy's decline while the world burns.

The clock's ticking. The question is whether Democrats are ready to fight for something better than Republican-lite with funnier tweets.

The huge decentralized turnout for No Kings Day has shown that grassroots power can be a major force against the momentum of the Trump regime. The protests were auspicious, with 5 million people participating in 2,100 gatherings nationwide. Activists are doing what the national Democratic Party leadership has failed to do – organize effectively and inspire mass action.

What we don’t need now is for newly activated people to catch a ride on plodding Democratic donkeys. The party’s top leadership and a large majority of its elected officials are just too conformist and traditional to creatively confront the magnitude of the unprecedented Trumpist threat to what remains of democracy in the United States.

Two key realities are contradictions that fully coexist in the real world: The Democratic Party, led by the likes of Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, is in well-earned disrepute, having scant credibility even with most people who detest Trump. And yet, Democratic Party candidates will be the only way possible to end Republican control of Congress via midterm elections next year.

Few congressional Democrats have been able to articulate and fight for a truly progressive populist agenda – to directly challenge the pseudo-populism of MAGA Republicans. Instead, what implicitly comes across is a chorus of calls for a return to the incremental politics of the Biden era.

Awash in corporate cash and milquetoast rhetoric, most Democratic incumbents sound inauthentic while posturing as champions of the working class. For activists to simply cheer them on is hardly the best way to end GOP rule.

The Democratic establishment keeps insisting that the way to get out of the current terrible situation is the same way that we got into it in the first place – with the party catering to corporate America while fueling wars with an ever-bigger military budget and refusing to really fight for people being crushed by modern capitalism.

With top-ranking Democrats in Washington exuding mediocrity if not hackery, more and more progressive organizers are taking matters into their own creative hands, mindful that vocal reframing of public discourse can go a long way toward transforming public consciousness and the electoral terrain. The Occupy movement did it early in the 2010s. The Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns did it later in the decade. The Black Lives Matter movement did it several years ago.

In contrast, playing follow-the-leader by deferring to the party hierarchy is a trip on a political train to further disaster. The kind of leadership now exemplified by Schumer and Jeffries amounts to the kind of often-devious partisan maneuvering that dragged this country into its current abyss, after protracted mendacity claiming that President Biden was fit to run for re-election.

Today, realism tells us that the future will get worse before it might get better – and it can only get better if we reject fatalism and get on with organizing. Republicans are sure to maintain control over the federal government’s executive branch for another 43 months and to retain full control over Congress for the next year and a half. While lawsuits and the like are vital tools, people who anticipate that the court system will rescue democracy are mistaken.

The current siege against democracy by Trump forces will be prolonged, and a united front against them will be essential to mitigate the damage as much as possible. The need is to engage in day-to-day pushback against those forces, while doing methodical groundwork to oust Trump’s party from the congressional majority in 2026 and then the White House in 2028.

But the need for a united front against Trump should not blind us to the political character of aspiring politicians. Widely touted as the Democratic Party’s next presidential nominee, Gov. Gavin Newsom is a cautionary case in point. Outside of California, few are aware that he has repeatedly vetoed state legislation that would have helped domestic workers, farm workers, undocumented immigrants and striking workers.

Last weekend, under the breathless headline “Newsom Becomes a Fighter, and Democrats Beyond California Are Cheering,” The Hill senior political correspondent Amie Parnes wrote that he “is meeting the moment, Democrats say” – “he’s punching back, and he’s going on offense.” Newsom provided clarity when he said in a June 10 speech, “If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant – based only on suspicion or skin color – then none of us are safe. Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves, but they do not stop there.”

Yet touting Newsom as a working-class hero would be a tough sell. He signaled his elitist proclivities months ago when he sent prepaid phones to 100 heads of major corporations along with notes inviting them to use the speed-dial programming to reach him directly. “If you ever need anything, I’m a phone call away,” Newsom wrote to a tech firm CEO. No such solicitude has gone to advocates for the millions of Californians in desperate economic straits while he pushes to slash the state’s social safety net.

The Democratic Party will need a very different orientation to regain support from the millions of working-class voters whose non-voting or defection to Trump last fall put him back in the White House.

Progressive populist agendas – such as enhanced Medicare for all, increases in Social Security benefits, higher taxes on the wealthy, free public college tuition, and measures against price-gouging – appeal to big majorities of working people and retirees. But the Democratic Party is mostly run by people who want to remain on the neoliberal pathway that led to Trump’s electoral triumphs. The same approach still dominates in mass-media debates over how the party might revive itself.

In effect, the Democratic establishment keeps insisting that the way to get out of the current terrible situation is the same way that we got into it in the first place – with the party catering to corporate America while fueling wars with an ever-bigger military budget and refusing to really fight for people being crushed by modern capitalism.

But people can unite to lead so that leaders will follow, and justice can prevail. The imperative is to work together and make such possibilities come true.

For a while, at least, Donald Trump talked a good game about diplomacy, including negotiations with Iran and Israel. But Israel is America’s id. We can’t restrain Israel because Israel is the skull beneath the American mask.

The “id” was Sigmund Freud’s term for the hidden reservoir of passions and desires that fuels the personality. The ego—“what we call reason and sanity,” as Freud phrased it—tries to restrain those passions by riding them “like a man on horseback.”

The horse has thrown its rider once again.

Read the newspaper today. Watch cable news tonight. See if they mention the plain fact that Israel’s attack is a violation of international law.

“Monsters from the id!” That's what Dr. Morbius shouts at the end of the 1956 science-fiction movie Forbidden Planet, as he tries to shut down the all-powerful alien engines he’s learned to control with his thoughts. His subconscious urges and desires have begun to destroy his deep-space paradise, and he’s powerless to stop them. The vast machinery is serving his true self, not the civilized veneer he presents to himself and others.

So it is with military might. Just as Israel is the American id, America is the id for a financialized planet driven by greed and exploitation. American war machinery is global lust made manifest: lust for power, lust for wealth, lust for more.

Donald Trump, like Joe Biden before him, was unable to restrain Israel from genocide, lawlessness, and slaughter. Both presidents aided and abetted snuff-movie violence on a massive scale, because that violence reflects the shadow self of the nation they represent.

If “the sleep of reason produces monsters,” we’ve been in a coma for a long time.

John F. Kennedy may have been an imperfect vessel for change, but he spoke often and well about the need for international law and world institutions. “We must create even as we destroy (nuclear arms),” he said, “creating worldwide law and law enforcement as we outlaw worldwide war and weapons.”

Read the newspaper today. Watch cable news tonight. See if they mention the plain fact that Israel’s attack is a violation of international law. The mass assassination of another country’s leaders and the under-reported deaths of civilians will be debated in tactical terms, while moral and legal questions receive little (if any) attention.

These attacks may temporarily serve Israeli and U.S. interests, but their benefits won’t last. Iran isn’t Gaza, impoverished and defenseless and populated primarily by women and children. Iran is home to 91 million people and possesses considerable resources. Trump was already forced to back down from a confrontation with the Iran-allied Ansar Allah (the Houthis) in the Red Sea, and they’re essentially desert fighters. This attack may weaken Iran, but what will happen if, and when, it regroups and retaliates?

The Israeli state isn’t acting rationally; neither is the American national security state. But how could it be otherwise?

Like the passions of Dr. Morbius, the drive to kill inevitably becomes self-destructive. “In 20 of the 24 countries surveyed,” Pew Research reports, “around half of adults or more have an unfavorable view of Israel.” That’s from a poll published June 3. Those figures may well be even lower now. Pew continues, “Around three-quarters or more hold this view in Australia, Greece, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey.”

In the United States, the percentage of adults with a negative view of Israel has risen 11 points since March 2022; 53% of Americans polled now hold “a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of Israel.”

This trend represents an existential threat to both the Jewish state and the American military empire. The political consensus in Washington, however, remains unchanged.

The Israeli state isn’t acting rationally; neither is the American national security state. But how could it be otherwise? They are the manifestation of our own cravings. Our warlike impulses are leading us down the path of conflict and confrontation, seemingly oblivious to peaceful alternatives. By refusing to cooperate with China and the rising nations, we are surrendering our future to them.

That is, if we even have a future.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency tried to remind the world that “armed attacks on nuclear facilities could result in radioactive releases with grave consequences within and beyond the boundaries of the State which has been attacked.”

The world didn’t seem very interested.

Evangelical Christians—some of them, at least—are undoubtedly thrilled. With this development From the Bible (Matthew 24:6-7):

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places.

Meanwhile, Americans have forgotten the words of their fallen president. “Mankind must put an end to war,” said John Kennedy, “or war will put an end to mankind.”

Some Americans consider Matthew’s prophecy a harbinger of deliverance—for them, not for the rest of us. They’re counting on eventual, if selective, salvation through rapture.

The rest of us, believers and nonbelievers alike, will have to conclude with the verse that follows:

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

The New Hampshire state and U.S. federal budgets are disasters for families, working people, and, frankly, anyone who isn’t independently wealthy.

President Donald Trump’s bill cuts Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and funding for infrastructure, public schools, and renewable energy—just to name a few. In New Hampshire, our state budget bills (HB1 and HB2) make similar cuts to healthcare, public schools, renewable energy, and housing. When we zoom in on what these bills do want to fund, however, the image is devastating: abundant funding for detention centers, border patrol, and immigration enforcement.

We’ve seen the videos and reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) encounters all over the country: Masked ICE agents grab people off the street, only for the government to admit later in court that they grabbed the wrong person. Legal immigrants kidnapped and sent to foreign countries, without due process or evidence of threat. International students persecuted for exercising their rights to free speech and protest. In Los Angeles, the military is being deployed against peaceful protestors who were trying to protect their neighbors from ICE raids.

Refusing refugees and detaining immigrants while fueling the climate crisis is a disgrace.

Our neighbors are disappearing around us, and our tax dollars are paying for their inhumane treatment. The Federal budget bill adds $160 billion to immigration enforcement operations. The current New Hampshire state budget for 2024-2025 allocated $1.4 million for the Northern Border Alliance to monitor the 58-mile border between New Hampshire and Canada, despite the fact that in October 2022 through December 2023, there were only 21 apprehensions by Border Patrol.

We’re seeing the devastating impacts of bloated budgets for ICE here and now. In recent months New Hampshire residents have had to watch their town’s police sign up one by one to partner with ICE to kidnap and terrorize their neighbors—including immigrants and refugees who are here legally, contributing to our communities after fleeing war zones or domestic violence. In New Hampshire, ICE operates in the Strafford County jail, where some of our neighbors are being held without due process. Government funding from ICE operations is set to expand the prison in Berlin, New Hampshire, where conditions are notoriously inhumane and immigrants are unlikely to be treated with dignity. Merrimack County and Hillsborough County have both requested to detain immigrants for ICE. My friends and I do not want this to be what our taxes pay for.

Instead, I’d rather have my tax money going to fund climate action: clean energy, resilient green housing, healthcare to care for people impacted by pollution and climate disasters like heatwaves. If we redirected just a fraction of the money we are wasting on ICE to transition our energy grid to clean energy, we could save billions of dollars in healthcare and disaster recovery costs every year. If we stopped spending money to imprison our immigrant neighbors, we could cover the costs of cleaning up the pollution at every fossil fuel facility in the country. If we stopped giving government handouts to billionaire fossil fuel CEOs, we could transition all the dirty fossil fuel facilities to clean energy and battery storage.

The United States contributes approximately 12% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions despite being only 4.2% of the world’s population. Those greenhouse gasses are fueling climate disasters around the world—creating climate refugees. People living along the coasts of countries around the world are being forced inland. People living in places more susceptible to drought or other climate fueled crises are making hard decisions to uproot their family and move someplace more resilient.

Refusing refugees and detaining immigrants while fueling the climate crisis is a disgrace. The United States is actively contributing to climate change by increasing our use of dirty fossil fuels, ignoring climate scientists, and eliminating environmental justice programs. By ignoring this issue we are costing our communities billions of dollars from storm cleanup and pollution impacts. The health costs of pollution and climate change alone cost more than $800 billion per year in medical bills and other downstream health costs—and that doesn’t include the billions of dollars it takes to clean up in a community after a hurricane or tornado. Yet when advocates for climate justice ask for more investments in clean, renewable energy, we are asked where that money will come from.

Our federal and state budgets have their priorities backwards. If we redirected our focus and tax dollars, we could solve an actual crisis that is hurting our economy and our health: climate change. It would be a much more useful avenue for our tax dollars than vilifying our neighbors who, by the way, also contribute taxes to the government.

Someone should have told Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that President Donald Trump’s mishandling of the last pandemic probably cost him the presidency in 2020.

Building on his longstanding anti-vaxxing crusade, Kennedy has followed a three-step program that will worsen the next outbreak.

Step 1: Reduce vaccine availability. Three weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—one of Kennedy’s HHS agencies—announced that for healthy Americans under 65, Covid-19 vaccines will not be approved until they pass large scale and time-consuming clinical trials. That is a daunting obstacle.

Kennedy said that the firings were necessary to restore public trust in vaccines. They do the opposite.

Step 2: Reduce vaccine eligibility. The following week, Kennedy announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would no longer recommend the Covid-19 vaccine for children and pregnant women. Within days, the CDC had to walk it back somewhat, stating that whether to vaccinate a child should be the product of “shared decision-making” involving parents and physicians. But pregnant women remain in the limbo world of “no recommendation.” In any event, the negative impact on overall public health will be enormous.

Step 3: Eliminate vaccine expertise. On June 9, Kennedy fired the entire CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—all 17 of them. This committee of outside experts reviews the most recent data on all vaccines to assess safety, efficacy, and clinical need. It develops a recommended guidance schedule for all vaccines, including seasonal flu shots and Covid-19 boosters. Physicians rely on that guidance in counseling patients, and insurance companies and government programs use it to determine the vaccines they will cover. Committee members received their termination notices via email sent two hours after Kennedy announced their firing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

With Kennedy’s selection of his first eight replacements on June 11, we’re getting a sense of the disaster that will accompany Step 4.

Action Based on Lies

Kennedy’s stated justifications for terminating every member of the vaccine advisory committee are a combination of lies, half-truths, and misinformation.

Fact: Committee members are screened for major conflicts of interest. They cannot hold stock or serve on advisory boards or bureaus affiliated with vaccine manufacturers. If members have a conflict of interest, they disclose it and recuse themselves from related votes.

Lie: But Kennedy asserted falsely that most members of the committee had received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies. “The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine,” he said falsely.

Fact: Individual working groups may meet in private, but committee meetings and members’ materials are public. Over several days of meetings, they review safety and effectiveness data, debate policy, hear from experts, and entertain public comment.

Lie: Kennedy asserted falsely that the committee worked secretly “behind closed doors.”

Misinformation/half-truth: According to The New York Times, “Kennedy claimed that 97% of financial disclosure forms from committee members had omissions. But the statistic came from an inspector general’s report in 2009, which found that 97% of the forms had errors, such as missing dates or information in the wrong section, not significant financial conflicts.”

Kennedy said that the firings were necessary to restore public trust in vaccines. They do the opposite. Thanks in large measure to Kennedy’s years of anti-vaxxing leadership, support for vaccinating children is eroding. Now he can stack the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee—the key medical and scientific body responsible for determining which vaccines protect and promote public health.

Seen Enough Yet, Sen. Cassidy?

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the physician who reluctantly provided the key vote that resulted in Kennedy’s Senate confirmation, sees the mess. He was instrumental in creating it. Cassidy could have killed Kennedy’s nomination and thought seriously about doing so.

But like almost all Republicans in the Senate, his spine failed him. Before voting on Kennedy’s nomination, Sen. Cassidy took the Senate floor to explain his decision. He said that Kennedy had assured him that, if confirmed, he would “maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes.”

Reacting to Kennedy’s mass firings, Sen. Cassidy posted on X:

“Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion…”

Two days later, Sen. Cassidy’s fears came to life.

On June 11, Kennedy named eight replacements. Among them are anti-vaccine activists, conspiracy theorists, vaccine misinformation promoters, a co-author of and a signatory to the pandemic-era Great Barrington Declaration that recommended widespread exposure to Covid-19 as strategy for dealing with the outbreak (instead of widespread vaccination), and individuals who lack the expertise required for the board’s task. One new member testified as an expert witness in a case against Merck over its Gardasil vaccine (for HPV)—mass tort litigation that Kennedy played a key role in organizing.

Steps 5, 6,…

Kennedy included 4 of the 8 new members in the dedication of his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci. Dr. Theodore Dalrymple, a physician and scientist who reviewed it for the Claremont Review of Books, observed, “When I looked up at random five of the medical papers Kennedy cites, I found that he had misrepresented all of them… He asserts things that are simply not true.”

Kennedy is at it again. Announcing his selections on X, he wrote, “The slate includes highly credentialed scientists, leading public-health experts, and some of America’s most accomplished physicians.”

Do you agree, Sen. Cassidy?

Kennedy’s vaccine advisory committee meets on June 25-27. We should all fear the outcome.

“Uruguay aims to ‘bring some young Palestinians from the West Bank’ to train them in agriculture through a FAO program, said Lubetkin” (Channel 12, Uruguay, June 6, 2025)

On Monday, May 12, 1919, the British Minister of War, future Prime Minister and hero of World War II Winston Churchill, referring to his own practice of gassing Arab protesters and rebels, wrote:

I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare… I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: Gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror…

Of the Hindus, he said they were animals who worshipped elephants. Consistent with this, he was directly and knowingly responsible for the famine that killed millions in Bengal in 1943, shortly before he signed an alliance agreement with Stalin in Iran to fight against Nazism.

These words from the British hero and defender of freedom and human rights, these supremacist ideas and actions were not new at the time and did not provoke any scandal. Supremacist and messianic racism, like the “Manifest Destiny” of John O’Sullivan and “The White Man’s Burden” of Rudyard Kipling, which in the 19th century justified and promoted the slaughter of “uncivilized peoples” and “inferior races,” were the precursors to Hitler and Nazism. Hitler plagiarized entire paragraphs from Madison Grant for Mein Kampf and thanked him for the inspiration. The popularity of Nazism in countries like England and the United States was deep and widespread, especially among wealthy businessmen and powerful politicians, until they began to lose World War II, and suddenly the Nazi criminals were just a handful of lunatics, not a complicit and cowardly mass of beautiful and superior civilized people with sudden amnesia.

A hundred years later, the history of suppressing the uncivilized, inferior races and peoples cursed by God is a thousand times worse, and, as then, it seems like it’s not such a big deal. But the real-time information available is also a thousand times greater, so the responsibility and shame (or shamelessness) are multiplied a thousandfold.

Beyond the murky conscience of Uruguay’s Foreign Ministry, many do not understand or imagine that in Palestine there are thousands of bilingual professionals and academics whose schools and universities were bombed to rubble.

Currently, Uruguay is one of those examples that do not quite reach the level of tragedy solely due to its military and propagandistic inability to do much harm. Not because we are a superior people, as our government so kindly insists on making clear with its own example. Which does not exempt us from the shame of the cowardice of denial or moral wavering in the face of the most tragic events of contemporary history. Cowardice and denial from which are exempted those Uruguayans who do not bow tremblingly before the fascists of the moment—those fascists who terrorize with total impunity from right to left—in that order.

After Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi refused his party’s (the left-wing coalition Frente Amplio) request to define the massacres in Gaza as genocide, he defended himself by saying that his focus is on actions, not words, and that he prefers not to talk about “the war” and instead offer “concrete solutions,” such as sending powdered milk and rice to Gaza… The Israeli Embassy in Uruguay labeled the Frente Amplio’s criticism of the genocide in Gaza as “expressions of disguised hatred” and warned of “dangerous consequences.” B’nai B’rith called the FA’s brief statement a “grave moral failure.”

Due to prior criticism from artists and left-wing activists regarding the wavering of their own government, the president once again tried to put out the fire with more fuel. In a new statement to the newspapers, he said he condemned the “military escalation” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offensive “fuels antisemitism” and generates “weariness” in “important sectors” of the Israeli people.

It is quite obvious that the Zionist genocide can fuel, among other things, antisemitism, as it has always been the Zionists themselves who, for political, geopolitical, and ideological reasons, have strategically confused and identified Zionism with Judaism (like identifying the KKK with Christianity), which is why even the hundreds of thousands of Jews who actively oppose the massacres of Palestinians and apartheid in Israel can end up being blamed for something they condemn.

But what about the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians massacred, mutilated, traumatized, and starved? Are they not the direct victims of the hatred and violence that insists that “in Gaza there are no innocents, not even children,” which justifies exterminating them before they become “terrorists”? Could it be that the European settlers who claim to be descendants of a man named Abraham who lived 4,000 years ago in what is now Iraq are the real antisemites? A man who first had a child with his slave at the request of his infertile wife. But the son of Abraham and the slave produced the lineage of the Arabs. When something went wrong, Sarah had her son at the age of 90 by a miracle of the Lord, the one who produced the lineage of the Israelites (according to the same tradition that identifies those Israelites from 3,000 years ago with the current ones) as an improved version of his brother’s race. But let’s leave this surreal line of reasoning, which is only obvious to fanatics in perpetual trance.

The mere idea of sending milk and rice to Gaza under the slogan of “actions, not words” hides a profound ignorance of what happens with humanitarian aid in Palestine or, more likely, denialism and a well-known fear of criticizing the powerful who are committing genocide—let’s say massacre, so as not to offend the sensitivity of the killers and their apologists.

Of course, if you mention it, the automatic argument is “I haven’t seen you condemn the October 7th attack.” Which is false and paradoxical, since it is always said by those who have never condemned and will never condemn the repeated massacres and systematic violation of human rights against Palestinians and other neighbors since World War II, when the same Zionists proudly identified themselves as terrorists.

Uruguayan Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin (former director of institutional communication for Food and Agriculture Organization in Latin America) has come out to put out the fire (now a blaze) of criticism from his political base by announcing plans to allow “some young Palestinians from the West Bank” to come to the country to train in sustainable agriculture. In another radio program, he stated that the Palestinian youth could “think about the day after” by becoming entrepreneurs and starting their own start-ups.

The day after what? Why do we, the Western masters, have to tell them what they must do to civilize themselves, how to indoctrinate themselves and adapt to progress and submission to Anglo-Saxon capitalism? Of course, to exile them again, far from their land and their own sovereign decisions as individuals and as a people.

Beyond the murky conscience of Uruguay’s Foreign Ministry, many do not understand or imagine that in Palestine there are thousands of bilingual professionals and academics whose schools and universities were bombed to rubble. In Israel, they are considered beasts of burden, and in the West, they believe they can teach them how to plant olive trees.

At the beginning of 2024, I met with the International Affairs officers at my university in the United States to propose the creation of “humanitarian scholarships” for students affected by armed conflicts. While the idea was very well received, it sank into the apathy of donors. But what a great idea, that of taking Palestinians out of Palestine to teach them how to cultivate other lands! How had it not occurred to them before? It’s not about giving scholarships to the youth who lost everything under the bombs so they can prepare and wage an international struggle for the sovereignty of their people, but so they can learn to cultivate the land, other lands that have nothing to do with their own, which they know like the back of their hand and have cultivated for thousands of years in a more than sustainable way.

Where is the mantra we Western professors hear with toxic frequency about the need to “train global leaders”? Every time I criticize this colonialist slogan in a meeting, many struggle to understand me.

Displacing Palestinian youth to learn “sustainable agriculture” in Uruguay is such a good idea that it resembles the “Final Solution,” which members of Netanyahu’s cabinet—and the majority of Israelis—talk about so much; according to a survey by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, 82% of the population supports the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

At this point, I don’t know what’s worse, having a Trump in Argentina or a Biden in Uruguay.

We’re now living in an early-stage police state.

After California Sen. Alex Padilla was assaulted for saying, “I’m Senator Alex Padilla and I have question for the Secretary,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary and notorious puppy murderer Kristi Noem went on Fox “News” and lied to the American people, saying that he hadn’t identified himself, she didn’t know who he was, and that he was “lunging into the room.”

The violence inflicted on Padilla was the point. And it’s being celebrated in real time by MAGA, Fox, and the Trump administration.

After all, dictators can’t be dictators without first cowing the people, terrifying even elected officials, and asserting their absolute and unlimited power to use violence any where, any time, and under any circumstances they choose.

“We are not going away,” Noem said in a snarling comment that provoked the question from Padilla. “We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor [Gavin Newsom] and that this mayor [Karen Bass] have placed on this country.”

For the record, the job of the federal government is not to “liberate“ cities from the leaders they themselves have elected. That’s what Russian President Vladimir Putin did when he forced all the elected governors of the Russian states (oblasts) to resign and replaced them with men he had appointed. Even suggesting it is deeply and profoundly un-American.

This is the Trump administration once again nakedly asserting that they are above the law, are committed to acting without ethical or moral restraint, and that they have no obligation to honor the constitutionally-defined oversight role of members of Congress. That they are intent on running a dictatorship here in America, not a democratic republic.

They have arrested and are prosecuting a member of the House of Representatives who was simply doing her job at an immigration detention center. They are ignoring explicit orders by federal judges and the Supreme Court. They are literally disappearing people, including American citizens, off the streets of our cities. And now they’ve taken an United States senator to the ground.

This is not what the people who fought and died to create and sustain this country had in mind.

The genius of the Founders was Montesquieu’s idea of three branches of government with checks on each other’s power. It’s essential to democracy.

President Donald Trump (second branch) has been trashing judges (third branch) and has now violently attacked a congresswoman and a U.S. senator (first branch). He’s spitting on the graves of the Framers of our Constitution.

And to emphasize their ignoring the Constitution and its requirement that both Congress and the courts can exercise oversight of the president, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said:

The courts should have no role here. There is a troubling and dangerous trend of unelected judges inserting themselves into the presidential decision-making process.

Similarly, they refuse to respect the right of American citizens to protest that’s laid out in the First Amendment, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Trump came right out and said that if anybody in Washington, D.C. tries to protest his birthday parade, he will meet them with violence:

For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force. Very big force!

That wasn’t a threat against vandals or even people who might try to disrupt Dear Leader’s birthday celebration: It was a threat against people who may “protest.”

This echoes the behavior of Hitler’s goons in the early 1930s as they set out to violently intimidate anybody—particularly members of Parliament—who may challenge him. Or Bull Connor as he bloodied protestors in Birmingham in the 1950s and 1960s.

Under Trump and Noem, federal agents have been given carte blanche to use violence against nonwhite people (it’s probably no coincidence that Sen. Padilla is a brown-skinned son of Mexican immigrants), including kidnapping them in broad daylight and sending them to foreign concentration camps with no access to due process whatsoever.

Noem could easily have taken the senator’s question, or just said, “I’m happy to meet with you after this press conference.“ Instead, she chose escalation and violence, which is why Democrats are calling on her to resign.

Right now the only people who can stop America’s descent into tyranny are the Republicans in the House and Senate. If just a small handful grow a spine, Trump could be stopped in his tracks.

Now, in response to the violence Noem and the FBI directed against a U.S. senator, the professional propagandists at Fox “News” are peddling rationalizations and repeating Noem’s lie that she didn’t know who Padilla was. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino issued a statement “thanking” the men who beat Padilla to the ground. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) implied Padilla was trying to inflict violence on Noem and called for him to be censured by the Senate.

It appears that Republicans are circling the wagons, defending the assault on Padilla, Trump’s illegal infliction of armed troops on the streets of Los Angeles over the objections of the governor and mayor, and his and Noem’s efforts to stir up trouble in California that they can then exploit Reichstag Fire-style.

Are there any John McCain Republicans left? Any patriots who revere the Constitution and respect the rule of law? Any who are willing to call out Trump’s brutal dictator-inspired corruption and excesses?

The question is an urgent one, because right now the only people who can stop America’s descent into tyranny are the Republicans in the House and Senate. If just a small handful grow a spine, Trump could be stopped in his tracks.

Will it happen? History suggests that massive public opinion holds the answer to that question. It ended, for example, both the presidency of Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War.

As Abraham Lincoln famously said in his debate with Stephen Douglas:

In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions.

Saturday will be this era’s most visible expression of public opinion. Stay tuned and stay peacefully active.

In Los Angeles, protesters are standing between Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and families. In Chicago and New York, all around the country, they're refusing to let children be torn from their communities. They're risking arrest to protect their neighbors, doing what humans have always done: refusing to give up on each other.

These protesters understand something that Trump's administration, and Elon Musk, fundamentally don't: We are not monsters. When President Donald Trump releases lists of "killers, rapists, and drug dealers" to justify mass deportations and disappearances of our beloved community members, when politicians paint entire communities as threats to our survival, they're selling us an ancient lie about who we are. And everyone taking to the streets knows it's a lie.

What the Protesters Understand

The protesters know that Trump's attack on immigrants isn't just inhuman, authoritarian policy, it's also outdated and genuinely bad science that contradicts the very reason our species continues to exist. They understand that when one of us is under attack, we all are.

The lie Trump tells goes like this: Humans are fundamentally selfish, competitive creatures living in a "dog eat dog world" where survival means stepping on others. It's a story that despots have told throughout history because it makes their cruelest policies seem inevitable. If we're all potential monsters, then we need strong leaders to protect us from each other. If compassion is naive, then brutality becomes wisdom.

Every despot in history has had to first convince people that other humans aren't worthy of moral consideration.

Elon Musk made this explicit recently when he called empathy "civilizational suicidal" and claimed that empathy is "the fundamental weakness of Western civilization." The tech mogul and unelected government official described caring for others as a "bug" that's being "exploited" and "weaponized." Musk is attempting to reframe our greatest evolutionary strength as our fatal flaw.

But if this were true, you wouldn't be reading this right now and I would not be writing these words. Our species would have gone extinct long ago. The protesters know this instinctively, and science proves them right.

We Are the Descendants of Carers, Not Killers

What do the protesters understand that Trump doesn't? They know the real story of human evolution isn't about the strongest or most ruthless individuals surviving. Instead, our story is about cooperation and empathy. Early humans knew that we cannot tear ourselves apart because our strength comes from being in community with one another. The humans who shared food during famines, who cared for the sick, who worked together to solve problems, they are our ancestors. Influential early psychologist Sigmund Freud could not be more wrong when he said that we are the descendants of murderers. No, you and I, all of us, are the descendants of carers.

Our caring nature is something we have been able to gather empirical facts about, confirming this across multiple scientific disciplines. Anthropologist Kristen Hawkes has shown how grandmothers caring for offspring allowed for more descendants and drove longevity in our species. Primatologist Frans de Waal has documented empathy and fairness in our closest evolutionary relatives. Even among nonhuman species, generosity is the norm: vampire bats share blood with unrelated bats to prevent starvation, and sparrow-like pied flycatchers will risk their lives to help drive away predators from non-relative birds.

We don't have to look to the past or to other species to see the evidence of our inherent compassionate nature being our strength, not our weakness. We can look at our own children. Toddlers as young as 14 months will spontaneously help others—handing objects to people who can't reach them, picking up dropped items, sharing resources equally even when they could keep more for themselves. This happens before any cultural conditioning, before they're taught to be "good." Research shows that 18-month-olds will help unfamiliar adults regardless of parental presence or encouragement; these fascinating studies suggest that this instinct to help is intrinsic to who we are.

This is our default mode. Cooperation isn't something we have to learn, it isn't a weakness, it isn't destroying civilization. Cooperation and solidarity led to our evolution and are our greatest strengths.

When We Believe We're Monsters, Monsters Win

So why do we keep hearing a different story about our human nature from people like Trump and Elon? Because the lie serves those who hoard wealth and power. When they want to justify policies that violate our moral instincts, they first have to convince us that morality itself is naïve, that empathy is a weakness.

Trump's rhetoric about immigrants is more than dangerous white supremacy in action, it's strategically designed to make us forget who we are. By flooding the media with dehumanizing language about people "poisoning the blood" of America, by claiming immigrants are "not humans" but "animals," by deploying Marines against protesters in Los Angeles, his administration is trying to override our natural empathy and tendency toward care for one another with manufactured fear.

The protesters in Los Angeles and around the country are refusing to dehumanize themselves by allowing anyone in our community to be dehumanized.

Trump's approach is not new, and criticisms of it are not either. As labor organizer Emma Goldman wrote over a century ago, "The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature." Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are charlatans selling us a lie about people in our communities being inherently dangerous. Just like Hitler, who used similar language about "blood poisoning" to justify his atrocities. Every despot in history has had to first convince people that other humans aren't worthy of moral consideration.

The current administration's approach follows historical patterns predictably. First, criminalize an entire population with selective statistics and inflammatory rhetoric. Then, when people naturally recoil from the cruelty of family separations and mass deportations, send in troops to suppress that moral instinct. Finally, frame any resistance as evidence that society is breaking down and needs even harsher measures. Trump has been orchestrating the chaos he needs to justify martial law.

Why This Matters Now

The protesters in Los Angeles and around the country are refusing to dehumanize themselves by allowing anyone in our community to be dehumanized. They are standing up for immigrants, refusing to let children be abducted from schools, because they understand that a society that abandons empathy for some will eventually abandon empathy for all. They know that when we allow the dehumanization of any group, we weaken the very bonds that make civilization possible.

Resisting the lies Trump tells us about human nature is urgent. If we believe the lie that humans are fundamentally selfish, we may become passive in the face of policies that violate our deepest values. We accept mass deportations and disappearances because we're told those who are being removed are monsters. We support militarized responses to peaceful protests because we're convinced our neighbors are our enemies.

But those are all lies. We have to hold on to the truth of who we are. We see that policies based on fear and division make us less safe, not more. We understand that our liberation truly is bound together. We see that people protesting the disappearances of beloved community members are fighting for all of our freedoms and rights. They represent the truth of who we are.

We are not a species of monsters barely held in check. We are not doomed to destroy each other when resources get scarce or when we encounter people who look different from us. We are the species that figured out how to care for each other across genetic lines, how to cooperate with strangers, how to build civilizations based on shared values rather than shared DNA. We have 14-month-olds who instinctively help others, brains that reward us for fairness, and genes that predispose us toward generosity. Moving toward collective liberation is our true nature.

This is what our true nature looks like in action. Not Musk's "bug" to be eliminated, not Trump's weakness to be exploited, but our species' greatest strength. When we stand up for each other, refuse to dehumanize anyone in our communities, and build futures where everyone can thrive, we're not being "suicidally empathetic." We are being magnificently, dangerously, revolutionarily human.

And every act of solidarity proves what despots fear most: that true power is our commitment to one another, our refusal to dehumanize and discard anyone in our community. This is the power that topples empires. Not by denying humanity as they do, but through the simple, revolutionary act of affirming it for everyone.

This week President Donald Trump sent the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles to control what he preposterously called a “violent occupation.”

Sending U.S. troops to act against citizens exercising their right to free speech is a chilling betrayal of American democracy. The rebellion Trump claims to be fighting is simply nonexistent.

In fact, reporters and on-site observers have documented that the protests in Los Angeles—and those spreading now to other cities—are, for the most part, nonviolent. The violence that has occurred was likely intensified by the arrival of the military.

This spectacle is looking less like a tribute to our military and more like a pageant to honor “Dear Leader.”

Late Thursday, a federal court ruled that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in California was illegal and unconstitutional and ordered Trump to relinquish control of the California National Guard back to Governor Gavin Newsom. That ruling has been temporarily blocked by an Appeals Court and the deployment will be allowed to continue at least into next week.

Also on Thursday, In another show of authoritarian force, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was forcibly removed and handcuffed after identifying himself and attempting to ask a question of Secretary Kristi Noem at her Homeland Security press conference in Los Angeles.

Trump’s disgraceful, authoritarian move in Los Angeles over the past few days is the first, but likely not the last, effort by Trump to use the country’s military against its own citizens.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Congress on Tuesday that Trump is already prepared to send the National Guard and Reserves into other cities as part of Trump’s effort to, in Hegseth’s words, “secure [the] homeland.”

Using a fig-leaf justification, Trump is steamrolling over the spirit, if not the letter, of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This act restricts the military from being used in domestic law enforcement within the United States.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman got it right when she said that Trump “wants to demonstrate absolute power.”

As historian Timothy Snyder puts it: “Tyranny is terror management.”

That is what we are seeing in myriad actions by Trump and his cronies over the past four months and especially now as he works to stoke fear without regard for constitutional rights or the rule of law.

In an address given at Fort Bragg on Tuesday, Trump absurdly (and falsely) claimed that the Los Angeles protesters were part of a “foreign invasion” and that Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass “paid troublemakers, agitators, and insurrectionists [in a] willful attempt to nullify federal law and aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders.”

(Trump’s words must always be considered in the context of the more than 30,000 false and misleading statements he reportedly made in his first term. His serial falsehoods continue to grow in his second term.)

Trump doesn’t even try to hide his desire to have the absolute powers of a king and seems to revel in being the Commander in Chief.

Trump is staging a military parade on Saturday that’s expected to cost taxpayers $45 million. The parade is ostensibly to celebrate the Army’s birthday, but Saturday also just happens to be Trump’s 79th birthday as well. This spectacle is looking less like a tribute to our military and more like a pageant to honor “Dear Leader.”

And, in true “Dear Leader” fashion, Trump has warned that protesters at his birthday party “will be met with very big force.”

Peaceful protest is a fundamental First Amendment right, a constitutional right apparently alien to the president. This threat is yet one more attempt by Trump to intimidate and spread fear.

Protesters, however, won’t be in Washington, D.C. Instead, more than 2,000 protests around the country on Saturday will bring hundreds of thousands of Americans together to stand up against Trump and his authoritarian regime.

The “No Kings” protests, led by Indivisible, represent no disrespect to the Army. They are all about telling President Trump, who wants to be a king, that he isn’t one and never will be.

Those protesters are not alone. Some 70% of U.S. veterans oppose Trump’s vainglorious use of the military to celebrate his birthday. Last week in Washington, D.C., thousands of veterans protested the drastic cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the programs that support those who served.

They have good reason to wonder why Trump can afford a $45 million birthday parade and $134 million to send the military into Los Angeles for a political stunt, when funding for the VA and other core programs that benefit veterans are on the chopping block.

The VA has indicated that department staff will be cut by 15%, comprising some 72,000 employees, many of them veterans.

Veterans will also be seriously affected by proposed cuts to Medicaid and food programs in the pending reconciliation bill. One out of four veterans, according to 2023 data, lived in a household receiving food assistance or health coverage from Medicaid.

In the United States, the people rule.

As President Lincoln reminded us in his Gettysburg Address, we are a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” Trump isn’t going to change that no matter how hard he tries.

This was adapted from a piece that appeared in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a weekly Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s and recent newsletters here. And, subscribe for free here to receive your copy each week via email.