On today’s show, host Sara Gabler speaks with Stephen Zunes and Negin Owliaei about the rapidly developing situation in Iran. On June 13 Israel launched an unprovoked attack on Tehran and only days ago President Trump ordered the bombing of three locations in Iran. Even if (as of this morning) the nations have reached a possible ceasefire, Israel and the US’s escalation of force will have long consequences for Iranian civilians and so much more. 

Zunes describes the situation and how decades of US meddling in Iran got us here. He’s confident the ceasefire will hold, but reminds listeners that the US’s actions were unnecessary in the first place. Owliaei says that the US’s actions were never about nuclear proliferation and that no country is more closely surveilled in regards to developing nuclear capability than Iran. In fact, it’s the US and Israel who are the countries with the capacity to drop nuclear bombs. Both call the US’s bombing of Iran an act of US hegemony.

They also discuss the media’s role in manufacturing consent for the US’s attacks, from calling Israel’s attack’s “preemptive” and in “self-defense” and refusing to call them unprovoked. The mainstream media is also quiet about the civilian impacts of the US’s bombing and misrepresent the targets as only nuclear sites, when government buildings, media stations, and other locations with civilian people were targeted. Owliaei urges people to pay closer attention to the influence of Christian Zionism and religious rhetoric in the US. Her recent article for Truthout analyzes the potential (or lack thereof) for legal repercussions for Trump’s actions.

Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he served as founding director of the program in Middle Eastern Studies. 

Negin Owliaei is Truthout’s editor-in-chief. An award-winning journalist, she previously worked at Al Jazeera’s flagship daily news podcast, The Take. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Featured image: the skyline of Tehran via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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