On June 13, just two days before the sixth round of negotiations between Iran and the United States, the Israeli state began launching direct attacks on Iranian territory.

In a previous article by me, it was argued that the Israeli state is a military base more than a state. It also argued that “the reaction of Iran is not among the determining factors in an attack on Iran.” Sadly enough, that anticipation has come true. Since Friday, a combination of assassinations, direct air attacks, and sabotage has been directed against Iranians by this military base. The current lines are written under the stress of the unanswered messages of the author’s family members in Iran, the ongoing news of bombardments, fear, nail-biting, and tears.

As the missiles and airplanes soar over the skies of Iran, paid for by the American taxpayers, so does the popularity of Prime Minister Netanyahu soar in Israel, but also among many European countries. As a military base, the genocidal state of Israel has succeeded in indoctrinating the mindset of the majority of its Jewish citizens with a ghastly compass. According to this compass, betterment means more and more carnage, and more and more military achievements. The dissident voices, which have recently been heard more loudly, are in the minority.

The principal cause of the current attack is claimed to be preventive defense. Judicially speaking, however, preventive defense does not exist. The defense is when one is attacked—Israel was not attacked! Two goals are stated regarding this cause.

The first acclaimed goal is that Israel wants to prevent Iran from having access to the atomic bomb. In this way, with the removal of the hitherto existing brakes imposed by the previous American presidents, Netanyahu has the occasion to realize his dream at an unleashed pace. The very claim is, however, blatantly baseless. According to many experts and politicians, Iran is between three to five years away from producing an atomic bomb. Furthermore, the declared issue has never been making an atomic bomb, but enriching the uranium beyond a certain limit. In this regard, orchestrated with Israel’s yearning for blood, the International Atomic Energy Agency has lost its impartiality and also its credibility in issuing a biased statement which has played a legitimizing part in another bloodshed implemented by Israel, this time against the Iranian people. The bias becomes clear when we realize that the agency has absolutely no lever to force Israel to confess, let alone to monitor, its atomic activities. This is while the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation estimates that it possesses about 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads and has produced enough plutonium for 100-200 weapons.

Another acclaimed purpose of the attacks is “regime change” to save the Iranian people. The formula is identical: they have to bombard the Iranians to save them. Although this was not outspokenly articulated at the beginning of these attacks, it is increasingly heard now. This is reiterated by Israeli authorities as well as by some Iranian dissidents, mainly the ones close to the toppled royal family, who see this as the proper moment to form an alternative. Furthermore, regime change as an ultimate goal does not correspond with the previous acts of Israel. The fall of Assad’s regime did not stop the attacks by the genocidal state of Israel; on the contrary, it was lionized to go further. The practical demolition of Hezbollah and a new anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Prime Minister did not satisfy the state of Israel; it found a golden opportunity to occupy parts of the territory of Lebanon. And let’s not talk about the current genocide going on in Gaza, whose victims are heard less and less with the new aggressive actions of Israel. Territorial expansion, then, seems to be the real hidden goal beyond the regime change.

How about the future of the ongoing horrendous circumstances? One thing seems to be clear: There will be no regional conflict, if by that we mean the possibility of mutual multiple-sided forces. While the United States has its allies, military bases, and forces around Iran, this is not the case with Iran. Russia is already paralyzed with its war against Ukraine; China has more important issues to take care of; moreover, it has a strong tradition of avoiding military engagement unless it is absolutely necessary; the Syrian government of Assad is already toppled; Hezbollah and Hamas are far from competent forces to fight for the Iranian government; and the Houthis’ role will not go far beyond creating nuance in global economic trade.

Weakened by decades of sanctions, corruption, and mismanagement, the Iranian government in general and its military competence in particular are too frail to confront the ensemble of adversaries orchestrated directly or indirectly against it. Sooner or later, the missiles will come to an end. Undoubtedly, then, the bell tolls for the Iranian authorities, but more so for the ordinary people, suffering for decades from European and American sanctions. But, in the long run, it goes further than that. The recently elected Canadian Prime Minister is undoubtedly right in saying, in his inaugural speech at the G7 on June 16, that the meeting happens at “one of those turning points in history”. Unlike what Mr. Carney thinks, however, that turning point casts serious doubt on the legitimacy of the dominant occidental and colonizing capitalist hegemony, the result of the double criterion of reclaiming law on the one hand and applying force on the other hand. The demonstration of more than 5,000 people on the twentieth month of the beginning of the ongoing Gaza genocide in Montreal, along with the demonstrators in thousands of other cities in the world on June 14, is just one manifestation of this. These demonstrations are occurring while thousands of people from 80 countries try to reach Egypt to walk to Gaza, among whom 10 Canadians are arrested. It is ultimately to that hegemony that the bells toll.

Born and raised in Iran, Kaveh Boveiri is the author of Marxian Totality: Inverting Hegel to Expound Worldly Matters (BRILL, 2024) and is a lecturer at the department of sociology of Université de Montréal.