The United States and Israel are both revelling in inflicting the maximum possible death and suffering on Iran. After the genocide in Gaza, on a far larger field in Iran, those in power in Israel and the USA have a lust to kill and they revel in impunity.

The Epstein files reveal the same dynamic. We live in a society where those who obtain power wish to exercise it in the cruellest possible ways against the most defenceless. It appears to be a feature of late Western capitalist society, where sociopathic tendencies are essential to obtaining power, in a society which rejects altruism and cooperation as concepts and promotes competition, self-love and ruthlessness.

Iran is showing commendable fighting spirit, but as my last article stated, American military power should not be underestimated. They have the ability to destroy Iran from the air, to obliterate the institutions of the state and all of the key civilian infrastructure. Electricity, water, healthcare, education, administration, policing all can be knocked out just as they were systematically in Gaza and – on a scale insufficiently recalled – in Iraq.

Trump is already asking Congress for $50 billion to fund the operation and replenish stocks. The scale of destruction Netanyahu envisages will cost at least half a trillion dollars from the US Treasury. But there is nothing that can stop them.

I witnessed close up over five months the 80 to 100,000 homes destroyed in Lebanon by Israel in the last three years. We have all seen what they did to Gaza. The notion they cannot do this to Iran is simply wrong. It requires a colossal effort of will, a mania for killing, a vast amount of money and the depletion of the US arsenal. But they can do it.

Only political action by the peoples of the West against their leaders can stop it.

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#world