You might be bullied in the workplace for being fastidious and conscientious, showing up your daft colleagues, or reputationally attacked by a member of the establishment keen to conceal his corrupt practices. When contemplating retaliation, the self-appointed middle ground types will call upon you to “de-escalate” the situation, insisting that you appeal to the better side of your bruised nature. After all, you know it was your fault.

The joining of the United States in the war against Iran made Washington a co-conspirator to soiling international law and profaning its salient provisions. The US was in no immediate danger, nor was there any imminent threat, existential or otherwise, to its interests vis-à-vis Tehran. Yet President Donald Trump, having had the poison of persuasion poured into his ear by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had succumbed. His will annexed to that of the Israeli premier, Trump ordered the US Air Force on June 22 to conduct bombing raids on three Iranian nuclear facilities: Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow. They were recipients of that hefty example of phallocratic lethality known as the bunker buster, the GBU-57A Massive Ordnance Penetrator. With his usual unwavering confidence, Trump declared in an address to the nation that all the country’s “nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”

In violating international law and desecrating that important canon injuncting states from committing crimes against peace, Israel and the United States are not the ones being told to restrain their violence and acknowledge breaching the United Nations Charter, risking yet another conflagration in the Middle East. It is their targeted state, the Republic of Iran, whose officials must “de-escalate” and play nice before the diplomatic table, abandoning a nuclear program, civil or military. “Iran, the bully of the Middle East,” Trump directs, “must now make peace.”

With suddenness, the advocates and publicists for international law vanished across the broadly described West. In Europe, Canada, the US and Australia, the mores and customs observed by states could be conveniently forgotten and retired. In its place reigned the logic of brute force and unquestioned violence. Provided such violence is exercised by that rogue combine of Amerisrael, deference and dispensation will be afforded. The same could never be said for such countries as China and Russia, abominated for not accepting the “rules-based order” imposed by Western weaponry and force.

The lamentable, plaintiff responses from Brussels to Canberra tell a sorry tale: pre-emptive war waged against a country’s nuclear and oil facilities is just the sort of thing that one is allowed to do, since the rotter in question is a theocratic state of haughty disposition and regional ambition. You can get away with murdering scientists in their sleep, along with their families, liquidating the upper echelons of their military leadership and killing journalists along the way.

The approved formula behind these responses is as follows. From the outset, mention that Iran must never acquire a nuclear weapon. If possible, underline any relevant qualities that render it ineligible to any other state that has nuclear weapons. Instruct Tehran that diplomacy is imperative, and retaliation terrible. Behave and exercise restraint.

Here is Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of the UK, speaking from his Chequers country retreat: it was “clear Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon”, which was “why our focus has been on de-escalating, getting people back around to negotiate what is a very real threat in relation to the nuclear program.” If one was left in any doubt who the guilty party was, UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds helped dispel it, calling Iran “a threat to this country, not in an abstract way, not in a speculative way”.

The German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, after convening his security cabinet on the morning of June 22, conveyed his views through German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius: “Friedrich Merz reiterated his call for Iran to immediately begin negotiations with the US and Israel and to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict.”

French President Emmanuel Macron similarly got on the de-escalation bandwagon with gusto, giving a teacherly warning to Iran to “exercise the greatest restraint” and dedicate itself to renouncing nuclear weapons. It was the only credible path to peace and security for all. The president conveniently skipped past the huge elephant in the room: Israel’s illicit possession of nuclear weapons, undeclared, unmonitored and extra-legal, as a factor that severely compromises the issue of stability in the Middle East.

From the European Union, the attackers and the attacked were given equal billing. “I urge all sides to step back, return to the negotiating table and prevent further escalation,” urged Kaja Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission. The obligatory “Iran must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, as it would be a threat to international security” followed. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also thought it perfectly sensible to matronly instruct the Iranians on the next step: “Now is the moment for Iran to engage in a credible diplomatic solution. The negotiating table is the only way to end this crisis.”

All these comments are deliciously rich given that Israel has never entertained negotiations on any level with Iran, dismissive of its nuclear energy needs, while the first Trump administration sabotaged the diplomatically brokered Joint Plan of Comprehensive Action that successfully diverted Tehran away from a military nuclear program in favour of a lifting of sanctions. Talk from Amerisrael and their allies would seem to be heavily discounted, if not counterfeit. The glaring, coruscating message to Iran: retaliation bad; de-escalation good.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

“ICAN is gravely concerned at the escalation of hostilities between India and Pakistan, particularly last night’s missile strikes by India on Pakistani-adminstered Kashmir and Pakistan, and Pakistan’s previous threats to use nuclear weapons.

A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would cause millions of immediate deaths in the region and have global consequences. As the Nature Food study by Xia, Robock et al from 2022 shows, even a "limited" nuclear war between the two countries could trigger a nuclear winter, drastically disrupting global agriculture leading to famine that could kill up to two billion people. No country would be spared. No government can protect its people from the consequences.

This is exactly why nuclear weapons must be eliminated. ICAN calls on both governments to show restraint and de-escalate, and calls on the international community to redouble efforts toward disarmament through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The only way to guarantee these weapons are never used is to ban and eliminate them.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Photo by Maria Oswalt

Ukraine, the United States, and NATO have condemned what they correctly called Russian President Putin’s “dangerous and irresponsible” plan to soon deploy nuclear weapons to neighboring Belarus.

On June 9, Mr. Putin announced that Moscow would deploy its nuclear weapons next month, reporting that work on new facilities for housing the weapons in Belarus would be complete by July 7-8.

Mr. Putin had said on March 25 that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s right: He says we’re your closest allies. Why do the Americans deploy their nuclear weapons to their allies, on their territory, train the crews, and pilots how to use this type of weapon if needed? We agreed that we will do the same.

Indeed, the United States has transferred more than 100 of its 50- and 170-kiloton nuclear gravity bombs known as B61s to bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Turkey, where allied pilots rehearse nuclear weapons attacks using their allied fighter jets. Case in point, NATO’s “Air Defender 2023”, a nine-day German-led, international war game involving 24 countries live-flying all across Germany, just began Monday June 12, in the midst of the hot war in Ukraine.

Point of information: The Associated Press keeps calling the nuclear weapons in question “tactical,” so it must be recalled that the city-busting Hiroshima bomb was a 15-kiloton device far less destructive than today’s B61 “tactical” H-bombs.

Now Putin and Lukashenko intend to copy U.S. practice and violate the terms of the 1970 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in the same way that the United States has. Any such transfer constitutes not just a violation of the NPT’s Articles I, II and VI, but a hair-raising escalation of the quagmire powder keg in Ukraine.

Last May 15, ICAN, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, confronted the increasingly globalized war in Ukraine by sending a set of four demands to the G7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., all of which are actively arming Ukraine — noting that every one of the them employ nuclear weapons “either as nuclear-armed states or as host or umbrella states.” ICAN’s four demands included a clear denunciation of current nuclear sharing, as practiced by the U.S. and NATO, noting:

“Following Russia announcing plans to place nuclear weapons in Belarus, the G7 leaders must agree an end to all nuclear-armed states stationing their weapons in other countries and engage Russia to cancel its plans to do so. Several G7 members are currently involved in nuclear sharing arrangements of their own, and can demonstrate their opposition to Russia’s recent deployment announcement by commencing negotiations of new Standing of Forces Agreements between the U.S. and Germany and the U.S. and Italy, to remove the weapons currently stationed in those countries.”

This important call for an end to the stationing of U.S. nuclear weapons in other countries, and its direct reference to the U.S. and its allies, helps clear the air around Russia’s threatened escalation. The only practically workable way to move Putin to reverse his planned deployment, is to offer to reverse the Pentagon’s deployment. Call it a Cuban Missile Crisis Redux. That terrible confrontation was resolved when President Kennedy offered to, and then did, withdraw U.S. nuclear-armed missiles from Turkey. De-escalation works, and it can lead to further breakthroughs.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John Laforge.