And then, the Lion was Torn Apart

Israel's reckless Operation Rising Lion might attain ends that are the reverse of its intentions: Iran might hastily build a nuclear weapon

- Vijay Prashad

ON June 13, Israel unleashed an unprovoked attack on Iran called Operation Rising Lion. The scale of the assault carried an echo on the lines of Amos in the Jewish Torah—the first five books of the Hebrew Bible—The lion has roared, who will not fear? Israel hit sites across the country, including the Natanz Nuclear Facility— located 150 km south-west of the religious city of Qom—and government buildings and civilian neighbourhoods in Tehran. Iran responded with missile and drone attacks that struck Tel Aviv, Israel's capital. Israel has an ‘ambiguous’ nuclear weapons programme, with no public scrutiny, but it possesses about a 100 nuclear warheads in violation of international law.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in English to the Iranian people that they must overthrow their government and that the Israeli bombings were ‘clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom’. Disregarding Netanyahu’s strange speech, a cross-section of Iranians took to the streets and demanded that their government procure nuclear weapons to defend themselves against the madness of Israel's assault. As Israel continued to pummel Iran, the majlis—or the Iranian Parliament—prepared a bill for it to withdraw from the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), under whose rules Iran built a nuclear energy programme and pledged not to build a nuclear weapon. In 2003, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei published a fatwa (law) that forbids the use of nuclear weapons: “We consider the use of such weapons as haram (forbidden) and believe that it is everyone's duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster.” Khamenei has been the Supreme Leader since 1989, but given the prevailing climate, he might reverse his fatwa.