US plans to evacuate Americans in Israel
The US ambassador to Israel on Wednesday announced plans for evacuating Americans by air and sea as the Israel-Iran conflict raged for a sixth day.
The embassy is "working on evacuation flights & cruise ship departures" for "American citizens wanting to leave Israel," ambassador Mike Huckabee posted on X.
No plans have been announced to evacuate Americans in Iran.
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Middle East Eye
an hour ago
- Middle East Eye
As Trump weighs bombing Iran's Fordow, 'mission creep' lurks behind US attack
US President Donald Trump believes he is only weighing military strikes on Iran's Fordow nuclear plant, but the history of Middle East "mission creep" lurks behind his deliberations. Mission creep is when a military campaign's objectives start to shift and devolve into a longer, unforeseen commitment, and has often characterised US military adventures around the world. "If the US does join the war in Iran - and right now I think it won't - it will go in planning only to do some limited bombing. But as we all know, once you're in a war, there can be a lot of surprises. It is much easier to get into a war than to get out of one,' Tom E Ricks, the author of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, told Middle East Eye. On Thursday evening, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump approved a US attack plan on Iran but is waiting to see if he can get Iran to renounce its nuclear programme. The New York Times also followed that with a report saying Iran was willing to accept Trump's offer to meet. But history shows that the US may struggle to stop at Fordow, even if Trump wants to. His deliberation on whether to attack Iran is being compared to the 2003 decision to invade Iraq, but that might be a false comparison. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The story of the US's involvement in Iraq is one of incremental involvement. In 1991, the US implemented a no-fly zone to protect Iraq's Kurdish minority. Then, in 1998, the US and UK launched widespread strikes on Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein failed to allow weapons inspectors access to his country. The decision to invade fully came in 2003 after the US falsely claimed the country had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda militant group. Even then, experts say there are key differences from now. Although Israel lobbied the US for many years to invade Iraq, that war was US-led. US joins 'Israel-led war' Now, Trump is on the cusp of joining Israel in what is the zenith of its long campaign to rewrite the balance of power in the Middle East since the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023. That attack set off a region-wide war with Israeli ground troops occupying the Gaza Strip. Israel degraded Hezbollah in Lebanon and has repeatedly launched strikes in Syria, both while Bashar al-Assad's government was in power there and after his overthrow in December 2024. 'Iraq was a US war,' Paul Salem, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told MEE. 'What we have seen since 7 October [2023] is something different; Israeli-led and designed wars with Israeli objectives and the US coming along.' If Trump does launch strikes on Iran, he will do so under justifications that echo 2003, but it's still not an apples-to-apples comparison. Then, the US falsely claimed that Iraq's Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. But there are key differences now. 'What makes this precipice of intervention unique is that the US was engaged in direct negotiations with Iran,' Fawaz Gerges, author of What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East, told MEE. 'What makes this precipice of intervention unique is that the US was engaged in direct negotiations with Iran' - Fawaz Gerges, academic and author Indeed, just before the Israeli attack, Iran and the US were set to meet in Oman for the sixth round of nuclear talks aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear programme. And the reality is that this agreement would just be a follow-up deal to the nuclear deal that Iran and the US signed during President Barack Obama's tenure, which Trump unilaterally exited from during his first tenure. However, in 2003, Hussein ultimately rejected requests for inspectors to enter Iraq. The Bush administration then used false intelligence to justify its attack. Trump's own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said in March that Iran was not seeking to build a nuclear weapon. Trump disregarded her assessment. 'I don't care what she said,' Trump said on Tuesday about the assessment. 'I think they were very close to having a weapon.' As of Thursday, Trump was still vacillating between striking Iran and appearing to use Israel's pummelling of the Islamic Republic as a negotiating card to achieve what he says his aim is - Iran renouncing all enrichment of uranium. "I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do," Trump said in the Oval Office. He earlier called for Iran's 'unconditional surrender'. Arab officials whose countries have been trying to mediate between Iran and the US told MEE earlier that they believe Trump is more likely than not to order US strikes on Iran. The expected target of American strikes is Fordow, the Iranian enrichment facility buried half a kilometre underground. Israel needs the US's 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs and B-2 aircraft to have a chance at destroying the plant through conventional strikes. Mission creep The US has conducted limited bombing campaigns elsewhere in the Middle East, but has rarely avoided being drawn into a deeper commitment. One example where it did so was 1986 in Libya, when the Reagan administration bombed Muammar Gaddafi's regime in retaliation for the bombing of a disco in West Berlin that killed two US service members. Ethan Chorin, a former US diplomat and author, said the closest parallel to today is the Obama administration's 2011 decision to lead a Nato bombing campaign on Libya during the Arab Spring. 'Initially, US intervention in Libya was ostensibly to protect civilians in Benghazi,' Chorin said, author of Exit the Colonel: The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution. But Chorin said the comparisons stop there. 'Libya was seen as a 'safer bet' for intervention during the Arab Spring. No one thinks Iran is marginal. There is a big difference. But the concern about mission creep is there.' Diego Garcia: The Indian Ocean base the US can use to target Iran Read More » 'Assume you destroy Fordow and have an agitated regime that is still in power. What lessons will they (the regime) have learned?' he added. The Trump administration has not stated that its goal is regime change in Iran, but Trump didn't rule it out, saying on Truth Social that the US knows where he is but has decided not to take him out, "at least not for now". But Israel has made no secret that a positive outcome for them of the attacks on Iran's senior chain of command, energy infrastructure and military capabilities could collapse the government. 'It could certainly be the result, because Iran is very weak,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News on Monday. 'The decision to act, to rise up, at this time, is the decision of the Iranian people.' If Trump does enter the war with Israel, suggesting its goals are regime change, it would be a major pivot for a US president who visited the Gulf in May and excoriated 'interventionists' and 'nation-builders'. Libya, a predominantly Sunni Muslim country of just seven million people, is a bad comparison. The spark for the protests against Gaddafi was organic, coming as part of the wider Arab Spring movement. It then descended into a civil war, fuelled in part by Gulf states backing rival militias. Even Iraq, where the US carried out De-Ba'athification after ousting Hussein's secular government, does not compare to Iran, Gerges told MEE. 'There is a delusion of raw power here,' he told MEE. 'The objectives have changed, but here the goal seems to be to destroy as much as possible in the military infrastructure and see if, as a side effect, you bring about regime change or just chaos.'
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
Will he, won't he? The world waits as Trump considers attacking Iran
In a speech while visiting Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump attacked America's foreign policy record in the Middle East, saying the neocons who had tried to 'nation build' had wrecked far more countries than they had constructed. 'The interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand,' he told the Arab Islamic American Summit. The President's remarks found a receptive audience from Arab observers, who hope America's future ties to the Middle East will be based primarily on investment partnerships rather than destabilising military entanglements. But barely one month later, Mr Trump appears poised to let loose America's dogs of war and intervene in a complex society, by joining Israel as it strikes Iran. For now, Mr Trump is maintaining a degree of strategic ambiguity, saying he ' may or may not ' strike Iran. But he has dropped some very heavy hints that the US will be helping Israel as it strikes suspected Iranian nuclear sites. On Tuesday, he demanded the ' unconditional surrender ' of Tehran's government and said the US could kill supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – but prefers not to, 'for now'. Mr Trump has consistently said that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, but his increasingly bellicose tone marks a departure from his previous insistence that a deal could be reached with Tehran over its nuclear programme. On Wednesday, he said it was 'very late to be talking' and seemed to rebuff what he claimed was an Iranian attempt to restart talks. The vibe in Washington definitely feels more war-war than jaw-jaw. Iran denied it had asked to 'grovel at the gates of the White House', and the Ayatollah has called Mr Trump's remarks 'unacceptable'. Much has been made of another potential restraining factor ahead of a war announcement, namely Mr Trump's Make America Great Again base, which has long insisted the US must not enter another costly overseas conflict. Maga maven Marjorie Taylor Greene said this week that anyone wishing for war with Iran was ' disgusting ' and lamented America's previous military engagements in the Middle East. 'Anyone slobbering for the US to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/Maga,' she wrote on X. 'Wishing for murder of innocent people is disgusting. We are sick and tired of foreign wars. All of them.' Although he has said he wants to be remembered as a unifier and peacemaker, Mr Trump seems to be leaning into joining Israel's war – and to an extent already has. The Pentagon has assets positioned across the Middle East and is helping to defend Israeli skies from Iranian missiles. And as we saw during his military parade at the weekend, which depending on your viewpoint was either a badly attended embarrassment or a patriotic triumph of military might, he loves looking at American materiel in action. 'Nobody does it better than the good ol' USA,' he said on Tuesday when extolling American military gear, saying that 'we' had complete control of Iranian skies, hinting at close co-ordination with Israel as it bombs Tehran. When asked whether he was concerned a new war would alienate his Maga base, Mr Trump shrugged it off, rightly surmising that there is very little he can do to upset his true believers. 'My supporters are more in love with me today, and I'm in love with them more than they were even at election time,' he said. Some members of Congress have also begun to assert that they should have a say in whether America goes to war, with bipartisan legislation being introduced to force a vote on military action. But any prospect of the rubber-stamp Republicans opposing in a meaningful way is remote. For now, it appears Republican hawks and Israel have more of the President's ear than the Maga wing of his party. 'I'm not looking to fight. But if it's a choice between fighting and having a nuclear weapon, you have to do what you have to do," he said in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Middle East Eye
3 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Trump promised not to go to war. His most ardent supporters want him to keep his word
"This war isn't about Iran's nuclear weapons for Israel, it is about one thing: regime change. Hear me now: this is not going to stop at some bombing campaigns around Iran's nuclear programme. That's just the appetiser, not the entree... Does America really want to be Israel's dance partner to this siren song?" If those words sound like they came from a progressive, Bernie Sanders-aligned, anti-imperial voice, they did not. Those are the words of former congressman, Matt Gaetz, one of the most loyal supporters of US President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement since its inception. Gaetz - since resigning from the House of Representatives after a slew of ethics violations - now has his own show on the far-right TV channel One America Network. "When you call someone a modern-day Hitler, it is a permission structure to kill them," Gaetz went on to say after playing a clip of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling ABC News that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a "modern-day Hitler". New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Gaetz then went on to interview his former colleague, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, another vocal and often controversial "America Firster". "Matt, I see it just as you do, and you laid that out so well," she said. "We've watched for decades propaganda news. I'll call out Fox News and The New York Post. They're known to be the neocon[servative] network news... the American people have been brainwashed into believing that America has to engage in these foreign wars in order for us to survive. And it's absolutely not true." Greene has been urging the Trump administration to stay out of Israel's attacks on Iran since they began last Friday. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump told senior aides he had approved plans to attack Iran but had not yet given the final order to carry them out. A new paradigm? The questions and posture that challenge the American establishment's penchant for war have not, in recent memory, been as organised, as targeted, or as influential as the voices of MAGA's most well-known cast of characters. Take Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News pundit, who appeared on Steve Bannon's War Room show on YouTube earlier this week. Bannon himself is a former White House strategist from Trump's first term in office, and remains one of the most influential people in the MAGA circuit. "I grew up in a world that espoused violence. That's what the US government does," Carlson told Bannon. "If you think - and I said this to an Israeli official - if you think I'm anti-Israel, man, you have lost the plot," he said of the anti-war stance he's adopted. "Let's have a rational conversation about what our aims are here. And maybe you can convince me that we need to support a regime change war in Iran. Tell me how that plays out in a country of 90 million people. Have you thought it through? Do you even care? And the answer is no," Carlson said. State Department pushes 'peace' narrative as Trump threatens Iran Read More » "You may have a plan for regime change, it's fine, but you got to bring the American people on," Bannon agreed. As of Wednesday, that clip had some 7,000 views. Carlson then interviewed Bannon on his show on YouTube, and the one-hour and 18-minute conversation generated one million views in less than 24 hours. Bannon outlined the three pillars on which he says Trump was elected: "Stop the forever wars, seal the border and deport the illegal aliens - the illegal invaders - and redo the commercial relationships in the world around trade deals." Reneging on one of them would potentially undo the others, Bannon said, with a stark warning. "I'm a big supporter of Israel, yes. And I'm telling people, hey, if we get sucked into this war - which inexorably looks like it's going to happen on the combat side - it's... going to thwart what we're doing with the most important thing, which is the deportation of the illegal alien invaders that are here. If we don't do that, we don't have a country," he said of Trump's plan to deport at least one million undocumented immigrants every year, as well as foreigners who may have civil or criminal violations. Bannon also cautioned that joining and expanding the war on Iran could mean "the end of Israel, because of the way these decisions have been made". Carlson, expressing remorse for supporting the invasion of Iraq in 2003, said optics and public opinion should be critical to guiding the White House's decisions. "[Abraham] Lincoln told us, what you need is popular opinion to have your back. And we don't do enough about educating the American people on what reality is," he said. Much like the allegation that Iraq had a weapon of mass destruction, Bannon said Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who was handpicked by Trump, confirmed to lawmakers in a public hearing in March that Iran was not assessed to be close to building a nuclear bomb. "They don't have a programme. They haven't had a programme," Bannon emphasised. Trump takes on his base In a new interview with Texas Senator and longtime war hawk Ted Cruz, posted on Wednesday on YouTube, Carlson repeatedly challenged him on Iran's population, its makeup, and precisely how the Bible says that Christians must support Israel (which Cruz cites as his reasoning). "I was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed. And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things," Cruz, a Republican who did not support Trump until he became president in 2017, told Carlson on his show. Carlson asked him where in the Bible it said that, and Cruz said he doesn't remember. "You don't have context for it. You don't know where in the Bible it is, but that's like your theology? I'm confused. What does that even mean... We are commanded, as Christians, to support the government of Israel?" "We are commanded to support Israel," Cruz responded, as the two continuously cut each other off. "God is talking about the nation of Israel." "Is that the current borders, the current leadership?" Carlson asked. US Senator Ted Cruz faces backlash for not knowing basic facts about Iran Read More » "Yes, nations exists, and he's discussing a nation," Cruz said. The Iran hawks in Congress, all of whom are also staunch supporters of Israel, have been lobbying the White House to join Israel's war. Many of them take cues from pro-Israel lobbying groups, which have also dispatched members of proxy think tanks like the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) to go on channels like Fox News and advocate for full US military engagement. As the debate rages, Trump himself was on the defensive in an interview with The Atlantic. "For those people who say they want peace - you can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don't want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon - that's not peace," he said. "Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, very simple. Regardless - Israel or not Israel - Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb," he added. On Monday, he took aim directly at Carlson. 'I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen,' Trump told reporters, implying that Carlson no longer had the viewership and reach he had as a mainstream media broadcaster. And as of Sunday, the US was not yet operationally engaged in the war, Trump told ABC News. "We're not involved in it. It's possible we could get involved. But we are not at this moment involved," the president said. But that's not what Cruz appeared to let slip in his discussion with Carlson. Iran is "trying to murder Donald Trump," Cruz said. "We're carrying out military strikes today." "You said Israel was?" Carlson asked. "I've said we - Israel is leading them, but we're supporting them," Cruz responded. "Well this is you breaking news here," Carlson responded, alluding to a White House spokesperson who denied US operational involvement in a post on X. "We're not bombing them, Israel's bombing them," Cruz said. "You just said we were." "We are supporting Israel," Cruz said. The US president has been cryptic in his messaging on what course of action he will take next in Iran, giving mixed signals regarding being open to talks but saying it's too late to talk and then also saying that the US may strike, but they may not. Trump's MAGA base, however, has not yet given up in trying to dissuade the American president from what they think will become another costly entanglement in the Middle East - and a potential fracture in the Republican Party's voter base.
