We are witnessing a joint Israeli-US attack on Iran. Claims by the Trump administration that it is not involved are false.

Israel’s far right government and the Trump administration are joined at the hip. Particularly so in air power. On my last visit to the Pentagon, I saw uniformed Israeli Air Force officers embedded with the US Air Force.

The claim that the US has nothing to do with the air war against Iran is laughable. Ever since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the US has been providing Israel with precise satellite targeting and electronic intelligence (ELINT) that has given Israel a huge advantage. The US also provides a great deal of targeting and ELINT to Ukraine. Both Ukraine and Israel have been able to launch devastating attacks thanks to US intelligence. Israel’s recent success in badly damaging Iran is due to US intelligence, its own top drawer intelligence service Mossad and the ineptitude of its enemies.

Israel claims Iran is working on nuclear weapons. Iran denies this charge but admits to enriching uranium to 60% purity, but only, Tehran says, for civilians’ purposes. Our best guess is that Tehran has gone this far as a bargaining ploy after Trump, an ardent Zionist, broke off nuclear negotiations with Iran in 2015.

Let’s be frank. Iran only began limited work on nuclear weapons because it is threatened by an Israeli nuclear attack. Israel has close to 100 nuclear warheads that can be delivered by missiles, aircraft and, thanks to German help, submarines. In living memory, Iran has been invaded by Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Iran’s government was overthrown by Britain, then again by CIA in 1953. In 1979, the US convinced Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to invade Iran. In the ensuing war, Iran lost some one million soldiers.

In 2001 I discovered in Baghdad Iraq British scientists who were developing germ weapons for use on Iranian forces. The toxic precursors for these illegal weapons had come from the US. Yet all the while Washington accused Iraq of secretly making nuclear weapons. This became the US’s casus belli for attacking Iraq and killing some million Iraqis.

Now we hear the same song again. Trump, who detests Muslims unless they have oil fields, was looking for an excuse to destroy Iran’s nuclear industry. Netanyahu was eager to attack Iran, both to destroy its nuclear industry and also to fabricate a war that would keep him out of court and in power. A very limited conflict with Iran also takes world attention away from the horrifying massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, 50,000 of whom have died to date from US-supplied bombs and shells.

Israel is hoping for ‘regime change’ in Tehran. Iran is the most vocal and active supporter of the embattled Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

The US and its Mideast satraps have been at war with Iran since its 1979 revolution. They hope to return Iran to its pre-revolutionary status where the US gave marching orders to its former shah and used Israel’s Mossad to keep the corrupt royal regime in power.

The reason why Trump abruptly quit the summit meeting in Banff and rushed back to Washington may have been due to Israeli threats to use some of their nuclear weapons against Tehran. The Iranians must be desperate. Their nuclear industry has been damaged, their air force and air defenses destroyed, and now the G7 nations have turned against them.

Iran, as this column has long been predicting, turned out to be a paper tiger, crippled by a western boycott of its military forces. Israel holds all the military cards, thanks to billions in US support.

Now is the time when Iran could really use some nuclear weapons. North Korea has learned this lesson. Now is the time for Russia or China to step in and help Iran.