Vanuatu investigative journalist Dan McGarry . . . "He was beloved because he truly cared about the mission and the people he worked with." Image: OCCRP
OBITUARY: By Aubrey Belford, Australia and South Pacific regional editor of OCCRP
The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is deeply saddened to announce the passing of Dan McGarry, the organisation’s Pacific editor, who died yesterday in Brisbane, Australia, at the age of 62.
A veteran journalist and a pillar of the Pacific media community, Dan was instrumental in establishing and leading OCCRP’s investigative efforts across the region.
Dan joined OCCRP in late 2021 to help spearhead its first dedicated Pacific programme. A Canadian by birth, he spent more than two decades in the Pacific, eventually becoming a citizen of Vanuatu.
His deep love for the region was matched by an unparalleled knowledge of its political and social landscape, making him an essential voice for transparency and accountability.
“Words cannot convey how devastated we are by this loss,” said OCCRP editor-in-chief Miranda Patrucic. “Dan was so much more than an editor who worked with local journalists and helped build our reporting teams, including our media member centres Inside PNG and In-depth Solomons.
“He was beloved because he truly cared about the mission and the people he worked with. He possessed a bottomless well of patience and is irreplaceable as a mentor and leader.”
Dan’s life was defined by a multifaceted set of talents. Beyond his rigorous investigative work, he was a dramatic actor in theatre and television and a self-described “tech geek” who pioneered new ways to integrate technology into journalism.
When I moved back to Australia to start OCCRP’s Pacific programme, Dan’s name was the one everyone mentioned first. He had years of what was often a lonely experience fighting for press freedom and the public good in the region and he was instrumental in every single investigation OCCRP has done in the region.
He was formerly media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post.
He is mourned not just by his family, but also by the second family he built among the Pacific’s journalists.
Dan fell ill several weeks ago while on a work assignment in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. He was evacuated by jet ambulance to Australia for specialised medical care. Despite the best efforts of medical teams, he passed away peacefully with family by his side.
OCCRP remains committed to honoring Dan’s legacy by continuing the vital investigative work he championed and by providing ongoing support to his family.
Westerners are about to start paying a lot more attention to the war in Iran as massive US-Israeli escalations point to a coming energy crisis set to impact on the whole world.
Now that a major red line for Tehran has been crossed, retaliatory strikes have already begun pummeling the energy infrastructure of US allies in the region, with Qatar reporting that its primary gas facility has sustained “significant damage” from an attack after Iran issued evacuation warnings for energy facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Fuel prices are already surging. If Middle Eastern energy infrastructure starts taking extensive damage on top of the already hugely significant Iranian blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, this war could end up affecting virtually every corner of human civilisation in one way or another.
Westerners are largely apathetic about US military explosives landing on populations on other continents. But once it starts having a direct impact on their personal bank accounts, you can expect them to get a lot more interested in US foreign policy.
This war has been a bit odd for me because as an anti-imperialist peacemonger I’m not yet entirely sure what my role is in my commentary here.
Normally I’d be begging Westerners to care about another horrific act by the US war machine, but as things stand it looks like Westerners are going to be forced to care about this one whether they want to or not.
Normally I’d be writing furiously about how people should not support this war, but the war has exceptionally low public support already.
Normally I’d be trying to help everyone open their eyes and recognise the US warmongers for the psychopaths that they are, but the Trumpanyahu administration is openly waging an unprovoked war of aggression while constantly thumping its chest and boasting about how it’s showing the Iranians “no quarter, no mercy” and saying it can kill whoever it wants with impunity.
Normally I’d be writing about how the mass media are churning out war propaganda to manufacture consent for more US military butchery, but the mass media keep putting out stories about how the US government is lying about a war that should never have happened while Trump administration figures have public tantrums about how the media isn’t churning out war propaganda for them.
President Trump is on social media babbling about how news outlets “should be brought up on Charges for TREASON” for not reporting on an embarrassing story about a US aircraft carrier fire the way he wants, while Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave one of his fire-and-brimstone podium sermons bitching about how “an actual patriotic press” would be framing this war in a more positive light.
Do you see what I mean? What am I supposed to do with this? Where does that leave dissident fringesters like myself? All I can do is clear my throat and sheepishly go “Uh, yeah, I uh . . . agree with CNN.”
With Ukraine the mass media fell all over themselves to hide the West’s role in provoking the conflict, framing Putin as an evil maniacal Hitler figure who just spontaneously flipped out and invaded a country on Russia’s border because he hates freedom.
With Gaza the Western press gave nonstop narrative cover to Israel’s genocidal atrocities, constantly dragging public attention into an endless conversation about antisemitism and Jewish feelings whenever opposition to the slaughter got too hot.
That’s just not happening with Iran. It’s the first US war I’ve ever seen where a big chunk of the imperial power structure just refuses to get on board. The media’s not playing along, US allies are telling Trump to get stuffed when he asks for military assistance with the Strait of Hormuz, and the public’s not buying the lies.
This is a frightening time to be alive — but you can’t say we’re in a period of stasis. Things are moving faster and faster.
They might get a whole lot worse. They might get a whole lot better. They might get a whole lot worse and then get a whole lot better. But it seems a safe bet that the situation won’t remain the same.
When the Strait of Hormuz closes, you don’t need to be a military analyst to understand what just happened. You only need to understand what the world runs on.
Oil. Gas. Shipping lanes. Insurance rates. Container schedules. Energy prices that decide whether factories hum or go dark, whether households heat or freeze, whether governments fall or survive.
This is why serious analysts have been saying for years that Hormuz is not a “threat” Iran invented for propaganda; it is a structural red line that the US and its allies kept treating like a bluff because they could not imagine a regional actor actually pulling the lever that exposes a vulnerability — dependence.
And this is why what we are watching now is a massive US miscalculation that will be studied later the way the Iraq invasion is studied today, with the same disbelief that decision-makers could be so arrogant, so blind, and so certain that the other side would fold.
Because Washington didn’t only miscalculate Iran’s will. It miscalculated geography, logistics, and blowback. It miscalculated the fact that the US empire in the Middle East is not a fortress; it is a web of exposed arteries: bases scattered across Gulf monarchies, troops housed in predictable locations, air defenses that are expensive and finite, radars and communications nodes that can be degraded, and a regional order that can be shaken with one choke point.
You can see the arrogance in the assumptions. For years, Iran warned that if its survival is threatened — if the US and Israel push the conflict into an existential zone — Hormuz becomes part of the battlefield. Washington heard that and filed it under “Iranian theatrics,” because the American political class is addicted to the idea that their enemies always bluff, while they alone possess the right to act.
But Iran was not bluffing. Iran was describing the rules of an environment where deterrence is the only language that keeps you alive.
Hormuz was always the red line
The Strait of Hormuz is the world economy’s pressure point, and the fact that it remained open for years was not proof of Western strength. It was proof that Iran understood escalation control, because keeping Hormuz open — even while under sanctions, sabotage, assassinations, and constant threats — was Iran’s way of signaling restraint.
The West interpreted that restraint as weakness.
That’s the miscalculation.
Washington assumed Iran would keep absorbing blows, keep taking “limited strikes,” keep responding in contained ways, because Washington has lived for decades inside a fantasy where escalation is something the US controls.
But in a real war environment, you don’t get to decide the boundaries alone. The other side gets a vote. And Iran’s vote is written in the geography of the Gulf.
Iran’s ‘Samson option’
I used the phrase “Samson option” not to be dramatic, but to describe the logic of a state pushed into a corner: if the enemy wants you neutralised, disarmed, and humiliated, you don’t respond only with missiles; you respond with the full spectrum of leverage you possess — military, diplomatic, economic, and psychological.
Iran’s leverage is not limited to striking targets. It includes making the war economically unbearable for everyone who enabled it. It includes turning a regional conflict into a global cost spiral. It includes demonstrating that the “free flow of energy” is not a natural law; it is a contingent privilege that can evaporate when a state is pushed past its red lines.
This is what the West still struggles to internalise. It thinks deterrence is only about bombs and bases. Iran thinks deterrence is about making aggression unaffordable.
And Hormuz is how you make it unaffordable.
The three “solutions” don’t solve anything
Once Hormuz becomes the choke point, you immediately hear the same three proposals recycled through Western media.
First: “military escorts”: The idea that you can escort tankers through the most militarised, most surveilled, most missile-saturated corridor on earth as if this is a piracy problem. But escorts do not remove risk; they merely concentrate it.
They turn commercial shipping into military convoys, and that increases the probability of a clash that escalates further. You can escort 10 ships. Can you escort everything, every day, indefinitely, under constant threat? And at what cost in interceptors, drones, naval assets, and insurance panic?
Second: “ceasefire”: The idea that Washington can call a pause and re-freeze the conflict after crossing lines that Iran considers existential. But a ceasefire is not a magic reset button; it is a negotiation outcome.
And Iran is no longer interested in ceasefires that reproduce the same cycle: war, negotiations, pause, then war again. Iran has learned — painfully — that diplomacy has been weaponised against it.
Third: “capitulation”: The fantasy that Iran will disarm itself and accept a future where it is strategically naked. This is the most delusional solution of all, because it assumes Iranians are incapable of reading the regional record.
Iraq disarmed and was invaded. Libya dismantled its programme and was destroyed. Syria gave up its chemical file and was still ripped apart. In that record, capitulation is not peace. Capitulation is an invitation.
So no, none of the three “solutions” solves the crisis. They only reveal the empire’s problem: it assumed it could impose costs without paying them.
Even The New York Times admits miscalculation
One of the most interesting developments is how even mainstream reporting — carefully framed, carefully sourced — has begun to concede what was obvious from day one: the Trump administration and its advisers miscalculated Iran’s response.
The New York Times, in the sections I cited, points to something the propaganda refuses to admit: Iran is not acting like a decapitated regime. Iran is adapting. It is learning. It is targeting vulnerabilities, not staging symbolic retaliation.
It is degrading key radar and air defence systems, hitting communications infrastructure, and shifting the battlefield away from the tidy “Israel–Iran” framing into a wider map that includes US assets and allies across the Gulf.
That matters because for years the West comforted itself with the idea that the Iranian response would be predictable and containable. The NYT reporting suggests the opposite: Iran is adjusting its tactics as the campaign evolves, hitting systems that matter to US coordination and defence, and doing so without the old “ample warning” pattern that allowed the US to frame everything as controlled.
In other words, Iran is making the environment less manageable for the US, which is exactly what deterrence looks like when you cannot match the empire symmetrically.
The miscalculation wasn’t only military
There is another layer that people avoid saying out loud, but it’s central: the US and Israel did not only miscalculate Iran’s missiles; they miscalculated Iran’s society.
Even Iranians who dislike the Islamic nature of their political system can still connect a basic dot: wherever America and Israel intervene, the country becomes worse.
People don’t need to love their government to recognise a foreign assault on their nation. This is why the fantasy of “decapitation + instant uprising” is so dangerous: it projects Western wishful thinking onto a society that is being attacked and then expects the society to celebrate its attacker.
That is not how national psychology works under bombardment.
‘They want Iran’s energy’ is the quiet part out loud
Now we come to the part that explains the deeper imperial logic behind all this: energy.
I referenced the mindset openly circulating among the empire-adjacent influencer class: the idea that “we need Iran’s energy for AI projects,” that the AI race with China will be decided by securing energy inputs, and that therefore this war is not only Israel’s war, but “our war”.
This is imperial logic in its purest form. It doesn’t even bother to hide behind democracy or human rights. It says: we need your resources for our future, and if you will not give them to us under cooperative terms, we will take them under coercive terms.
And here is the thing these people cannot understand, because their mindset is trapped in a 19th-century colonial reflex: cooperation is possible.
China shows that cooperation is possible. China buys resources, builds infrastructure, creates contracts, offers development pathways, and yes, does it for its own interests, but it does it through exchange, not through looting. The US model, by contrast, is too often: bully, sanction, destabilise, bomb, then pretend it’s about “order”.
So when I say this war has gone “too wrong” for Washington even to benefit from Iranian energy later, I mean something very simple: you do not kill people, destroy families, and then expect business as usual. You don’t kill children and then expect Iranian society to say, “Sure, let’s partner with you.”
This is where imperial arrogance collides with a proud, dignified Iranian society.
How Trump miscalculated Video: Syriana Analysis
Iran’s demands are not cosmetic
Now the crucial point: why Iran won’t stop now.
Iran is not continuing this because it “loves war”. It is continuing because the war created leverage, and Iran’s leadership understands that if you stop now, you waste the leverage you paid for in blood and risk.
This is why Iran’s demands are emerging with clarity.
First: deterrence restored. Not just for Iran, but for the wider deterrence ecosystem that includes Hezbollah. Iran wants to punish its enemy to a degree that makes future attacks psychologically and strategically unthinkable.
Second: US bases constrained or removed. Iran is not naïve; it knows it may not expel the US from the region overnight. But it can force a new reality where US installations become purely defensive or are reconfigured in ways that reduce their offensive utility against Iran.
In plain language: if Gulf monarchies host bases that are used to strike Iran, those bases become part of the battlefield, and Iran is signaling it wants to break that model permanently.
This is why the Iranian foreign minister’s tone matters, and why voices like professor Marandi’s matter: the message is no longer “we can negotiate and return to normal.” The message is “normal is what created this war, and we need a new security architecture.”
‘Deterrence or nothing’ framework
This is where Amal Saad’s analysis captures the logic cleanly: deterrence or nothing; total war or total ceasefire.
Her point is that the old conflict-resolution framework doesn’t apply, because Iran is not seeking a temporary suspension of hostilities; it is seeking to alter the bargaining space itself. Tehran rejects the framework in which negotiations are essentially arms control over Iran, and insists instead that the real issue is US-Israeli aggression and the regional order that enables it.
That is why Iran refuses a ceasefire that simply resets the cycle.
And that is why the US miscalculation is so profound: Washington thought it could strike under a cover of “diplomacy,” then return to negotiation as if diplomacy were a neutral channel. Iran now treats that as subterfuge, and it wants to make the weaponisation of diplomacy costly enough that it cannot be repeated.
Why Iran won’t stop now
So we return to the simple truth: Iran won’t stop now because stopping now would mean relinquishing the leverage it has finally acquired — militarily, economically, psychologically — at the very moment when the US and Europe are feeling pain they cannot hide.
Trump was elected on promises of prosperity. Now energy prices surge, markets shake, global supply lines tighten, and allies panic. From Tehran’s point of view, this is the rare moment when the empire is vulnerable enough that Iran can increase its demands instead of being forced to accept humiliating ones.
And when you understand that, you understand why this isn’t ending with a tidy “ceasefire” press release. Iran believes that if it accepts another temporary arrangement, it will simply be attacked again when the West finds a better moment.
So the choice Iran is presenting is brutal but clear: a settlement that restores deterrence and rewires the regional security order, or continued pressure through the one lever that forces the world to pay attention.
Hormuz.
Washington assumed it was a bluff.
Now the world is learning what happens when a red line is real.
Kevork Almassian is a Syrian geopolitical analyst and the founder of Syriana Analysis. This article was first published on his Substack Kevork’s Newsletter and shared via Collective Evolution.
Former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas W Freeman . . . "Israel and the United States have given an opening to Iran to pursue its long-term objective, which is to remove the American presence from the Gulf." Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle
The United States and Israel have, for decades, pursued the destruction of Iran as a sovereign state.
We are now in the opening days of what may be the final, decisive war to determine either the survival of the Iranian state or the expulsion of the US from the Arab lands and the creation of an entirely new security architecture for West Asia.
Sounds implausible? We live in truly unprecedented times and many scenarios are possible.
There are signals as to what may come next and to help identify them I spoke with US Ambassador (ret) Chas W. Freeman.
Whether intended or unintended, the US and Israel are in the process of severely damaging the economies of the Gulf States. By attacking Iran, they knew full well what the Iranians would do in response — after all, Iran had warned that any further attack on it would lead to a regional war.
Are we witnessing a brazen plan to destroy both Iran and seriously weaken the Gulf States, using Iran as a weapon to do the latter? Could this be a Machiavellian plan to throw a cluster bomb into The Great Muslim Reconciliation between the Sunni states and Shia Iran?
Will the war halt or accelerate the project to create an Islamic NATO which is based around last year’s Saudi-Pakistani defence pact? The Saudis have the dollars; the Pakistanis have the nukes and the troops.
Two women protesters with a “Hands off Iran” placard at today’s Auckland rally. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Permanent isolation of Iran
The permanent isolation of Iran was the centrepiece of the US-promoted Abraham Accords — designed to bring the Israeli regime into the circle of love and keep Iran out in the cold.
Anything that runs counter to this is a threat. The war comes at a time when Iran and the Gulf States had taken major steps to mend fences after decades of hostility.
The murder of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on orders of Donald Trump in 2020 was supposed to kill off a diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Soleimani and other officials were killed in a US missile strike at Baghdad airport without the permission of or notification to the Iraqi government. He was, according to Iranian, Saudi and Iraqi sources, including Iraqi PM Adil Abdul-Mahdi, heading for a meeting with his Saudi counterpart to broker a peace deal.
The assassination was successful but the US attempt to kill off the peace process failed.
US sabotages diplomacy
A week before the US and Israel launched their latest attack, Egypt and Iran announced that they had agreed to fully restore diplomatic relations and exchange ambassadors. It was the latest in a series of such moves to bring Iran in from the cold.
As the Middle East Institute pointed out shortly after, “Within days of the Israeli strike, [Pakistan’s] Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Doha in a show of solidarity. Seizing the crisis as an opportunity to elevate Pakistan’s strategic presence in the Gulf and the wider Middle East, its government voiced support for the proposed formation of a joint Arab-Islamic security force.”
The quickly signed Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA) got a lot of attention in West Asia and was soon dubbed an “Islamic NATO” — an alliance that could one day replace American boots on the ground.
The Gulf States were also slowly coming to the realisation that America was unreliable, Israel was a genuine threat and Iran might be useful as a counterbalance to the US and Israel. A Pakistani nuclear shield and conventional military backup was being discussed as far away as Ankara; there were even whispers Iran might be invited to join.
Now, back to that question of whether the US is, through its war on Iran, deliberately weakening the Gulf States as part of a strategy to keep the Muslim world divided. I asked US Ambassador (ret) Chas W. Freeman and he replied, “I think you give far too much credit to the United States, and more particularly, to Israel, in terms of devious planning to do these things in the Gulf,” Freeman said.
“We’re actually pretty stupid and clumsy at what we do. Look at what we’re doing with the Peshmerga and the Kurds. How stupid do you have to be to do that?”
Ambassador Freeman is highlighting what has been a recurring cycle in US foreign policy – strategic betrayal — in which it uses groups like the Kurdish Peshmerga or the freshly-minted Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan (CPFIK) to attack US enemies only to throw them under the bus the moment they have served their purpose.
Luring Iranian Kurds
The CIA and the White House have tried to lure the Iranian Kurds into the current battle, Trump blurting out how “wonderful” it would be and how the map of Iran would be redrawn. This will only fuel Iranian nationalism.
Ambassador Freeman is numbered among those who believe that the US-Israeli defence shield is running low on interceptors and Iran could strike back hard in the coming weeks. He also surmises that the Iranians will have secretly signalled to the Gulf States that a condition of the war ending — if Iran gets to set the terms — will be the removal of all US military from the Gulf States.
None of us can say with certainty what the respective breaking points for the belligerents are but I certainly believe Iran is very far from out of the fight that the US and Israel has forced on them.
“Prior to the US-Israeli attack, the Gulf Arabs were moving — in their usual incoherent and inchoate way — toward some kind of coalition with Iran to balance Israeli military hegemony in the region,” Ambassador Freeman told me.
“Now Israel and the United States have given an opening to Iran to pursue its long term objective, which is to remove the American presence from the Gulf. Iran has turned a vicious attack on it into a strategic opportunity to force the Gulf States to do a cost-benefit analysis.”
Chas Freeman is probably right: the US didn’t intend to shatter the Gulf States as one of its war aims. That leaves the more plausible explanation: the Americans and Israelis are simply demented and war-crazed.
Either way, the US-Israeli war machine must be stopped for the sake of humanity.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand, and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. This article was first published on his website www.solidarity.co.nz
A "Hands Off Iran" placard at today's rally in Auckland protesting against the Gaza genocide and the US-Israeli war on Iran. Image: Asia Pacific Report
By David Robie, Asia Pacific Report
A peace advocate urged people in New Zealand today to get behind a “Stop Wars Aotearoa” campaign to oppose the illegal and unprovoked US-Israeli war on Iran and expand beyond solidarity with Palestine.
In the 127th week of protest against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and occupied West Bank, socialist trade union organiser Joe Carolan called on protesters to redouble their efforts.
Speaking in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square, he praised a public meeting in Mt Eden this week that heralded the start of a rolling peace movement that echoed the efforts in a bid to halt the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq — “a war based on a lie” about non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
Carolan drew comparisons between his native Ireland and the colonisation of New Zealand.
Apart from Christianity, the colonisers “needed another pretext to civilise great unwashed”. Militarism.
He paid tribute to “anyone who ran the gauntlet outside the public meeting on Wednesday that we held at the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall where we remember the price of wars — in fact working class lives — both here and abroad”.
“And we should remember the dead and not go to war again — that’s the whole point of a war memorial hall.
‘Ran the gauntlet’
“But those of us who ran the gauntlet of the people waving Israeli flags and lecturing us about human rights, waving the American flags and lecturing us about women’s rights when the place is run by rapists and pedophiles obviously – know it’s Operation Epstein Fury now.
“An operation so [US President Donald] Trump and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu can both avoid what is coming to them which is a long time in prison until they die.”
Union organiser Joe Carolan . . . “Many people didn’t . . . condemn the murder of 170 school students – young women.” Image: Asia Pacific Report
Netanyahu is wanted on an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and Israel is on trial for genocide with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a case brought by South Africa and 14 other countries.
“Many people didn’t show shock at all in the West, and condemn the murder of 170 school students — young women — that you guys purport that you want to liberate.
“You killed them. You liberated them from their lives and their blood is on the hands of those [US and Israeli] forces.
“And also Iran is a gigantic country of 90 to 100 million people. Of course, it’s not a monolithic country, there are people with many different views.
“I’ll give you two words in Irish, you might have heard them before, about who should determine Iran’s future, and that’s Sinn Féin — ‘Ourselves Alone’.
Tayyaba Khan . . . marking the 2019 mosque massacre in Christchurch. Image: Asia Pacific Report
‘Run own revolution’
“Nobody has the right to determine the future of any nation, except the people who live in that nation themselves, including whether how they run their own revolution or how they run their own democracy.”
Sinn Féin is also an Irish republican political party, founded in 1905, striving for self-determination and ending British rule in Northern Ireland.
Tomorrow Te Komititanga Square is hosting an Irish cultural festival to mark the lead up to St Patrick’s Day on March 17.
Tayyaba Khan of Palestine Solidarity Network (PSNA) spoke about the mosque massacre in Christchurch on 15 March 2019 when a lone Australian gunman murdered 51 Muslims at Friday prayers in New Zealand’s worst case of terrorism. The gunman is serving a life sentence for his crimes.
Khan also remembered the survivors and their struggle to rebuild their lives.
Other speakers today highlighted how the rally was reminding the New Zealand government and the public that many in the country were totally opposed to the continuing genocide in Palestine.
“There is no ceasefire in Gaza and the US and Israeli Zionists continue to drive the Palestinian people out of their ancestral homes and land to colonise the region,” said a protest flyer.
“To everyone in the square today we invite you to join with us and the many peoples around the world in condemning the unlawful US and Israeli military assault on Iran.”
According to the Al Jazeera death toll live tracker, 1444 people have been killed in Iran, at least 15 in Israel, 11 US soldiers and 19 dead in Gulf states.
“We stand in solidarity with all the people of Iran and across the Middle East, particularly Palestine, including Gaza and Lebanon,” said rally MC Leeann Wahanui-Peters.
Two women protesters with a “Hands off Iran” placard at today’s Auckland rally. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Al-Quds Day marked
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people around the world marked Al-Quds Day yesterday. This is marked annually to show support for Palestine and oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
Reporting from the huge Tehran rally, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said Iranians hoped to both show their support for Palestinians and express “defiance and resilience” amid the US-Israeli attacks.
“They think that by killing us, we will be afraid, that by dropping bombs on our heads, we will be afraid. No, we stand by our country,” a woman demonstrator told Al Jazeera.
Another protester said Iranians had shown in their confrontation with the US and Israel that “the wall of oppression can be broken”.
“Today, with their presence in different squares, the people showed that it is possible to overcome injustice and break the wall of oppression,” he told Al Jazeera.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian was also seen at the rally in the Iranian capital — shaking hands with people and posing for selfies — along with other Iranian officials, including Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
West Papuan diaspora, academics, students and community activists warmly applauded the screening of the new investigative documentary, Pesta Babi (Pig Feast): Colonialism in our Time, in its pre-launch international premiere in New Zealand on Saturday night.
It was shown for the first time back in West Papua at the southeastern town of Merauke, which is centred in the vast denuded rainforest area featured in the film, and also in the capital Jayapura on Friday.
Dramatic footage of scenes of village resisters against the massive destruction of rainforest in one of the three largest “lungs of the world”, shipping of barge-loads of heavy machinery, vast swathes of forest scoured out for rice and palm oil plantations, and of a traditional “pig feast” — the first in a decade — gripped the audience from the opening minute.
Village resisters against the massive destruction of rainforest as portrayed in the new West Papuan documentary Pesta Babi – Pig Feast. Image: Jubi Media screenshot APR
This is the largest forest conversion project in modern history — turning 2.5 million ha of tropical forest into industrial plantations under the guise of “food security” and the “energy transition”.
“It is a powerful film, rich with data and stories drawn from the lived experiences of masyarakat adat [Indigenous people],” comments Dr Veronika Kanem, a New Zealand-based Papuan academic and researcher, who was at the premiere with a group of her students.
“The film is also grounded in research conducted by Yayasan Pusaka, along with other national and local organisations.” She is pleased that her home village Muyu is featured in the film.
The storytelling focuses on the experiences of five Papuans and their communities. Image: Stefan Armbruster
The audience was also treated to Q&A session with the film director, Dandhy Dwi Laksono and producer Victor Mambor, an award-winning investigative journalist and founder of Jubi Media, who first visited New Zealand in 2014.
Documented collusion
Investigative filmmaker Laksono gained a reputation for his 2019 documentary Sexy Killers, released just before the Indonesian general election year and documented the collusion between the political establishment and the destructive coal mining industry.
He was arrested later that year over tweets he posted about state violence in Papua.
Laksono and Mambor, along with co-director Cipri Dale, make up a formidable investigative team.
The storytelling focuses on the experiences of five Papuans and their communities:
Yasinta Moiwend was startled when, on a quiet morning, a massive ship docked at her village pier. The vessel carried hundreds of excavators and was escorted by military forces.
It was the first convoy of 2000 heavy machines to arrive in Papua under a National Strategic Project for food production, palm-based biodiesel, and sugarcane bioethanol.
Yasinta, a Marind Anim woman in Merauke, never realised that her village had been chosen as the ground zero for what would become the largest forest conversion project in modern history.
Vincen Kwipalo, from the Yei community, was likewise shocked when his clan’s land was suddenly marked with a sign reading: “Property of the Indonesian Army.” Only later did he learn that the land had been seized for the construction of a military battalion headquarters, at the very moment when a sugarcane plantation company was also encroaching on his ancestral forest.
Red Cross Movement Threatened by the same project, Franky Woro and the Awyu community in Boven Digoel erected giant crosses and indigenous ritual markers on their land.
Known as the Red Cross Movement, this form of resistance has spread among Indigenous groups across South Papua.
More than 1800 red crosses have been planted to confront corporations and the military—both physically and spiritually. Though a Christian symbol is central to the movement, local Church pastors condemned it as not part of the church.
Film director Dandhy Dwi Laksono (right) and producer Victor Mambor talk to the audience at the Academy Cinema in Auckland on Saturday night. Image: Stefan Armbruster
Dr Kanem says the film could have explored why the Awyu and Marind people chose to use the red cross, a symbol strongly associated with Christian values?
“Why did they not use their own cultural attributes or symbols instead?” she adds.
Laksono says: “Pig Feast combines detailed field recordings with in-depth research to examine the power structures behind the operation.
“It exposes how government and corporate entities — collaborating with military and religious groups — advance international and national goals of ‘food security’ and ‘energy transition’ at the expense of Indigenous communities and landscapes.”
Multinational corporations
The documentary illustrates the networks of Indonesian elites, oligarchs, and multinational corporations that benefit from the project, providing a vivid depiction of the political ecology of Indonesian governance in Papua.
Pig Feast reveals how the system of colonialism remains intact today.
Asked at the screening how dangerous was the film making, Mambor described the hardships their small crew faced to “find the truth” under the noses of the Indonesian military.
He said they walked up to 17 km a day at times to get the exclusive footage obtained for the documentary.
International journalists are banned from West Papua and a 2019 resolution by the Pacific Islands Forum calling for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua to investigate allegations of human rights abuses has been ignored by Jakarta.
The film reveals how 10 companies — all owned by one family — gained the backing of three presidents.
The Jhonlin Group, owned by oligarch Andi Syamsuddin Arsyad (aka Haji Isam), ordered about 2000 excavators from Chinese company SANY, considered one of the largest orders of its kind in the world, to clear one million hectares.
A Pig Feast montage with the producer (top right) Victor Mambor and director Dandhy Laksono. Image: Asia Pacific Report
‘Second thoughts’ on Gaza
Q&A moderator Dr David Robie, deputy chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), notes the massive military involved in the operations in West Papua — as shown in the film — and how Israel has been counting on Indonesia forming “the backbone” of the planned “International Stabilisation Force” for the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza with about 8000 troops because of its experience in “suppressing rebellion”.
“However, since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran it seems that Jakarta has now had second thoughts,” he said.
Indonesia has suspended all discussions on the so-called “Board of Peace” initiative launched by US President Donald Trump, citing the military escalation in the Middle East, reports Anadolu Ajansi.
Critics had argued that joining a council led by the Trump administration could undermine Indonesia’s longstanding support for the “free Palestinian” cause.
Indonesia’s Ulema Council, the country’s top Islamic scholar body, had also called for an immediate withdrawal from the Trump initiative.
West Papua youth leader and Pusaka environmental activist Dorthea Wabiser and international law researcher Kerry Tabuni. Image: Asia Pacific Report
The filmmakers and documentary will now go to Australia for screenings in Sydney, Melbourne and hopefully Brisbane.
West Papua updates
Earlier in the day, at a two-day West Papua Solidarity Forum at the University of Auckland, several speakers gave updates and an analysis on political and social developments in the repressed Melanesian region.
Among speakers were Papuan environmental campaigner for Pusaka Dorthea Wabiser, longtime Aotearoa and West Papua human rights campaigner Maire Leadbeater, Papuan cultural advocate Ronny Kareni , Hawai’ian academic Dr Emalani Case, Ngaruahine researcher Dr Arama Rata, PNG academic at Waikato University Nathan Rew, West Papuan scholar Kerry Tabuni, Green Party Pacific peoples and foreign affairs spokesperson Teanau Tuiono, and forum organiser Catherine Delahunty of the West Papua Action Tāmaki Makaurau and West Papua Action Aotearoa.
Catherine Delahunty introduces Viktor Yeimo in a video link message. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Viktor Yeimo, international spokesperson of the KNPB (National Committee for West Papua) and PRP (Papuan People’s Petition), and several Papuan community spokespeople shared messages by video link.
Yeimo spoke about how many students, activists, journalists, church leaders and communities of faith in West Papua faced risks when they spoke about justice and political rights.
“To ignite a large log, one must first find many small pieces [kindling],” he said. “Each piece alone cannot produce a great fire, but together they create enough heat to ignite something much larger.”
He said one pathway involved meaningful political reform within Indonesia, including stronger protection of Indigenous rights and genuine regional autonomy.
Another pathway involved inclusive political dialogue between the Indonesian government and legitimate representatives of Papuan society, like ULMWP (United Liberation Movement of West Papua).
A third pathway existed within international law, “it is the possibility of a self-determination process supervised by an international institution [such as the United Nations].”
He pointed to the progress of the self-determination processes of Bougainville and Kanak New Caledonia for example.
Yeimo said Papuans wanted to build a Pacific future “grounded in justice and solidarity”.
A Papuan rapper spoke on screen saying he wasn’t afraid of the repression of authorities, “but they seem to be afraid of me and my music.”
West Papua Solidarity Forum organiser Catherine Delahunty and Green Party Pacific peoples and foreign affairs spokesperson Teanau Tuiono . . . only politician to front up, but he has long been a supporter of the West Papua cause. Image: Asia Pacific Report
A new documentary film on the devastating “ecocide” happening in West Papua will be screened as a world premiere at a weekend solidarity forum in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau this weekend.
The 90min feature film, Pesta Babi (“Pig Feast”) — Colonialism In Our Time, produced by award-winning Papuan journalist Victor Mambor and directed by Dandhy Dwi Laksono, tells a story about the impact of the Indonesian government and military on the lives of thousands of Papuans trying to protect their rainforests from destruction.
It also relates the plight of thousands of internal refugees in the Melanesian region.
The peaceful resistance of local communities is revealed in the documentary as they face up to 54,000 Indonesian troops and large corporate entities make big profits at the expense of an ancient culture.
Dorthea Wabiser of the environmental and human rights group Pusaka, will speak on the deforestation and displacement of communities in the south-eastern district of Merauke where Indonesia is destroying 2.5 million ha of rainforest for palm oil, sugar cane, biodiesel, rice and other crops.
Military force is deployed to silence any dissent from communities.
Pesta Babi (Pig Feast). Trailer: Jubi Media
“Kōrero with Victor Mambor” . . . media forum open to the public, Monday, March 9. Poster: APMN
Solidarity group hosts
The solidarity group West Papua Action Aotearoa with West Papua Action Tāmaki are hosting the two-day public forum on March 7 and 8 with the speakers from West Papua including environmental champions and filmmakers who operate in militarised zones at considerable risk to their personal safety.
Also, a media talanoa featuring Jubi Media founder Victor Mambor and others will be hosted by the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) at the Whānau Community Centre and Hub on March 9.
“The forum is an important event with a number of speakers and filmmakers from West Papua telling the hidden stories of the Indonesian occupation of their country,” said organiser Catherine Delahunty.
West Papuan journalist and filmmaker Victor Mambor. Image: APMN
The climate impact of their destruction was incredibly serious as was the use of the military to enforce an end to traditional life, food sources, and forests, she said in a statement.
“These people are our Pacific neighbours with a devastating story to tell that our government and others across the world have chosen to ignore,” she said.
“They have a right to come here and to be heard despite the media bans in Indonesia and the desire of successive New Zealand governments to ignore structural genocide in our region.
Other speakers at the forum include veteran activist and writer Maire Leadbeater, Green MP Teanau Tuiono, Hawai’an academic Dr Emalani Case, journalist and author Dr David Robie, Dr Arama Rata of Te Kuaka, and PNG academic Dr Nathan Rew.
Forum Day One (public sessons), Saturday, March 7: Old Choral Hall, University of Auckland, 7 Symonds St, 9am–4pm.
World Premiere of “Pesta Babi” (The Pig Feast) documentary with Q&A – The Academy Cinema, Lorne St, CBD (below the Auckland Public Library), March 7, 6-8.30pm.
Forum Day Two (solidarity development), Sunday, March 8: The Taro Patch, 9 Dunnotar Rd, Papatoetoe.
Media Talanoa, Monday, March 9: “Kōrero with Victor Mambor: West Papua: Journalism as Resistance” – Whānau Community Centre and Hub, 165 Stoddard Rd, Mt Roskill (Next to Harvey Norman), 6-8pm.
Further information: Catherine Delahunty, West Papua Action Tāmaki and West Papua Action Aotearoa. Tel: 021 2421967
It’s only Day Five of the war, but surely the epic stupidity of Australia so cravenly backing the US-Israeli invasion of Iran is evident by now. Michael WestMedia reports.
COMMENTARY:By Michael West
We are led by fools and sycophants. The illegal, unprovoked invasion of Iran is not just garden-variety stupidity. This is stupidity on a grandiose, stratospheric scale.
The Israeli propaganda narrative that Iranians would sprinkle rose petals at the feet of their invaders has not come to pass. It has already been demolished in fact.
Instead of bringing freedom and democracy — “regime change” — we have brought chaos, possibly a world war, and definitely the destruction of the Middle East.
The world economy is being hit hard as we write; oil prices spiralling, energy prices about to soar, and the inexorable spectre of inflation and recession.
And it didn’t have to happen.
This was a war of choice. Even without the “Epstein Coalition” — as the Iranian media so aptly dubs their invaders — murdering 165 Iranian school girls on day one, “peace through strength” was never going to happen.
Graves of the murdered Iranian schoolgirls. Image: X/MWM
Quite the contrary. The illegal and unprovoked invasion of Iran has hardened the resolve of Iranians, who are massing in their hundreds of thousands across the country to mourn their dead and chant “Death to America”, to back their regime.
Where was the advice? The Epstein Coalition killed the Ayatollah, who was actually against nuclear power; he was a moderate.
Did Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong not seek advice from Foreign Affairs that attacking Iran was folly, that the anti-regime protesters were a minority, that the pre-invasion protests were a Mossad and CIA psyop, that Iran might attack US proxy states in the region, that invasion would be a Brobigdadgian mistake?
Or did they ignore the advice in favour of a Washington regime compromised by the Epstein pedophile scandal?
And now, we see the feeble, hypocritical whining by Israel and its supporters about Iran attacking the Gulf states. Is that our only moral defence?
Decades of supporting these regimes: Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — US proxy states all — regimes now unravelling, the oil price is soaring, inflation and recession are beckoning globally.
Images are emerging from Bahrain of locals cheering on the Iranian missiles. Were DFAT and our politicians unaware of popular angst in the Gulf states against American imperialism?
And what did they expect Iran to do in the face of this existential threat? Not blow up American bases and infrastructure while the US attacked them; after the US betrayed them at the very negotiating table when they were offering significant concessions on nuclear enrichment, all to avoid war? This war.
War drums over Tehran. Video: The West Report
Australia, the US flunkies Yet here was Australia, Saturday night, first out of the blocks worldwide to throw its support behind Donald Trump and his preposterous “Operation Epic Fury”, a probable pedophile being blackmailed and led around by the genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu like a pony at the fairground show.
“Operation Epstein Fury”, it was fast labelled. The soaring, craven stupidity is hard to grasp. Both major parties backing it.
Albo first, then Angus Taylor rushing to tow the Donald’s line. Then, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, too, who even congratulated and praised Netanyahu. We are led by fools and sycophants.
The flawed defence of atrocity To address the empty rhetoric of the pro-war lobby, criticism of this war does not equate to support for the regime in Iran. Defenders of the US-Israel atrocity are busy with their swarms of social media bots peddling the argument that “you are an Islamist terror supporter” if you criticise the invasion.
This is the 2026 version of “You are a Hamas supporter” if you argue against genocide in Gaza.
The cold facts of this debacle are that regime change does not work, that Iran did not want this war, that Iran appears to be exceptionally well prepared, that the Epstein Coalition, which Australia supports, is daily backing war crimes: blowing up hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure.
This is a war which has already been lost.
The obvious reality is that regime change wars are a demonstrable failure. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Iraq — a million dead, irretrievable regional stability. In Afghanistan, 20 years, trillions of dollars spent, four US presidents, six Australian PMs — all to replace the Taliban . . . with the Taliban.
And here we are, the world’s busybodies, doing it again.
Countries bombed by the US since 1945. Graphic: World Visualised/MWM
Who would ever negotiate with the US in good faith again, or Israel for that matter? Iran did not want this war. Iran has not attacked another country in 300 years.
The US lured them to the negotiating table, then, without warning, murdered their leadership. This echoes last year’s 12-day war, where Israel and the US lured them in on the premise of good faith talks, then murdered them and now play the victim.
What did they expect Iran to do in the face of this existential threat?
The record speaks for itself. The US is the biggest invader of other countries in history. Israel has, last year alone, attacked Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Palestine, Qatar, Tunisia, Malta, and Greece.
Countries the US has attacked in the 21st century . . . and the presidents who authorised the strikes. Image: X/MWM
Six illegal attacks of sovereign nations, as well as three illegal attacks in international waters equals nine all up. In one year.
And now they are invading Lebanon again, seizing more territory as their puppets, America, fight their campaign against Iran.
Albo, what are you doing? We know who the warmongers are. We are the warmongers. Yet, in his bizarre statement of support, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the fastest out of the blocks of all the allies on the weekend, issuing a false statement.
Australia stands with the brave people of Iran in their struggle against oppression.
For decades, the Iranian regime has been a destabilising force, through its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, support for armed proxies, and brutal acts of violence and intimidation.
The claim, echoed by the usual warmongers of the Lib-Lab establishment, is that Iran is guilty of attacks on Australian soil, referencing alleged attacks on a deli in Bondi.
The nuclear furphy Then there is the age-old claim that Iran is about to produce nuclear weapons. The US and Israel’s nuclear risk claims have been so roundly discredited it’s a joke.
Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to instigate a war against Iran for 30 years — claiming Iran is days away, weeks away, months away from nuclear missiles.
And they were at the negotiating table again when the Epstein forces murdered them.
The propaganda We are now seeing mainstream media decry the “illegal attacks” on Israel and the Gulf states. Yet the ‘victim card” is tapped out.
Around the world, outside the legacy media propaganda, there is little sympathy for Israel having razed Gaza and slaughtered between 72,000 and 700,000 Palestinians while stealing more land in the West Bank daily.
It will continue. The media and political classes have failed so majestically that they can only try to salvage their authority with more propaganda.
The deplorable coverage of the murdered schoolgirls in Iran is a case in point. The “40 beheaded babies” and the “mass rapes” of Hamas filled the headlines in the West on October 8, 2023. Yet real murders — 165 murdered schoolgirls — have hardly rated a mention. Yes, a mention perhaps, but a side story, buried, no headlines of outrage.
Can’t handle the truth? Is the truth too hard to handle? Is it not evident to everybody except the most brainwashed advocate of the Epstein lobby that Israel — the government, the state — is the problem here?
Netanyahu has won his ambition to drag America into a war against Iran, and if you follow the money, while world stock markets teeter, the stock market in Tel Aviv is surging, replete with weapons companies as it is.
Meanwhile, the ASX is tanking, ergo our savings. Oil prices are surging, ergo higher energy prices and inflation. The Houthis, Iran’s allies, are shooting again in the Red Sea while, on the other side of the Arabian peninsula, Iran has blocked the Straits of Hormuz, choking off a large chunk of the world’s oil supply.
Higher prices in India and China will mean higher prices for imports and inflation around the world.
The lessons of history have not been learnt; in fact, they have been discarded in spectacular fashion.
> 70 years ago, Iran looked just like any Western country.
> Short skirts, rock’n’roll, open universities.
> It’s 1953. Iran elects a secular socialist: Mohammad Mossadegh.
> He nationalizes oil. That pisses off BP.
> Cold War excuse.
> CIA and MI6 stage a coup. Operation Ajax.
>… pic.twitter.com/ZNWaLdBlCN
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.
The West is in turmoil over countries’ top legal minds declaring the US-Israel attack on Iran to be illegal, as China did.
But Israel-friendly Western politicians, including Starmer, von der Leyen, Albanese, and others are desperately blocking their ears as they try to justify actual war crimes.
1. The European Journal of International Law is very clear that “this use of force by the US and Israel is manifestly illegal. It is as plain a violation of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter as one could possibly have.”
2. Other top European bodies have agreed. “Trump’s strikes on Iran are an illegal war of choice—and Europeans should say so,” said a report published by the European Council of Foreign Relations.
It said leaders must “communicate clearly that this is a war of choice by America, in contravention of the same UN charter the Europeans have themselves invoked to condemn Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and insist on Greenland’s sovereignty.”
3. Arguably even more telling was a statement from the former legal chief at US Central Command, literally the people who are carrying out the bombings on Iran:
“Not only does this violate international law in numerous respects, it clearly violates the US Constitution and the War Powers Resolution,” said retired Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Rachel Van Landingham.
Her entire career has been about establishing the difference between legal and illegal attacks by US Centcom, the people doing the attacking.
4. “Trump and Netanyahu’s attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression” was the title of an essay by Kenneth Roth in the UK Guardian: “Their actions are no different from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine…”
This is interesting as Roth is best known as the former head of Human Rights Watch, a US foreign policy tool thinly disguised as an NGO (evidence for that is in a separate report).
5. The same argument, with arguably even more fire, is erupting in the UK. Unpopular Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, known for his pro-Trump and pro-Israel positions, is being taken to task by people speaking for the British people, who tend to be anti-war and are generally not fans of Trump.
“Peace and diplomacy was possible,” he added. “Instead, Israel and the United States chose war. This is the behaviour of rogue states — and they have jeopardised the safety of humankind around the world with this catastrophic act of aggression.”
War on Iran – how dangerous is this for Israel? Video: Al Jazeera
6. Even people on Starmer’s own team were clear. Labour MP Emily Thornberry, chairperson of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Press Association: “There is no legal basis for this attack.”
Israel loyalist Starmer pointedly chose not to repeat this point.
7. Patrick Harvie, Scottish parliamentarian, said: “It is part of a pattern of reckless and destructive behaviour from a White House that has shown total contempt for human rights, international law and negotiations… From arming Israel’s genocide against Palestinians to his illegal and immoral coup in Venezuela and his threats against Europe, Trump has acted like a gangster on the world stage.”
8. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, a strong backer of the Israeli government, is also in trouble.
Legal experts in Australia have been pointing out the illegality of the attacks on Iran since last year. “Why the US strikes on Iran are illegal and can set a troubling precedent,” was the title of a report by Professor Donald Rothwell of the ANU College of Law, after earlier attacks on Iran.
Many Australians are anti-war, but prominent politicians and the media are pushing a strongly pro-war line.
9. “Israel said the strikes were ‘preventive’, meaning they were to prevent Iran from developing a capacity to be a threat. But preventive war has no legal basis under international law,” said a statement from two political specialists at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Shannon Brincat and Juan Zahir Naranjo Caceres.
“The American-Israeli Strikes on Iran are (Again) Manifestly Illegal,” writes EJIL analyst. Image: EJIL screenshot APR
Marko Milanovic, editor of the European Journal of International Law (mentioned above), made the same point. “Even if the broadest possible understanding of anticipatory self-defence was taken as correct, Israel’s use of force against Iran would be illegal,” he said.
10. The point is echoed by multiple experts. “The possibility of acting in self-defence in view of an attack that might be coming is illegal in international law and we’re all very, very clear about that,” said Maria Gavouneli, a professor of international law at Athens University, in an interview with Al Jazeera.
11. Even in the US, lawmakers on both sides have criticised the attack on Iran as being against the law. Senator Ed Markey called the actions “illegal and unconstitutional”.
12. Former US Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes declared the attack to be an illegal war, ‘A war that has no domestic or international legal basis. A war that Americans do not support. A war in response to no imminent threat. A pointless war,’ he wrote on X.
Conclusion Immediately after the US-Israel attack began, China’s Foreign Ministry said it was “a grave violation of Iran’s sovereignty and security”.
Legal experts across the Western nations agree.
There is no doubt that the US-Israel attacks on Iran are illegal, as numerous voices from around the world are saying.
Equally, there is also no doubt that the pro-Israel Western elite, who dominate politics and the media, will try to cover up this fact: Trump, von der Leyen, Starmer, Merz, and others.
Trouble is brewing in the West, as people realise just how controlled their rulers are.
Nury Vittachi is a Sri Lankan-born author based in Hong Kong and an independent writer. This article was first published on his X page.
Minab school "The terrible news that the Americans and Israelis had killed more than 165 children this week in an elementary school in Minab in Southern Iran took me back to a wonderful day I spent in Isfahan in 2018." Image: Eugene Doyle
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle
When I heard the terrible news that the Americans and Israelis had killed more than 165 children this week in an elementary school in Minab in Southern Iran it took me back to a wonderful day I spent in Isfahan in 2018.
I met lots of Iranian school children and their teachers that day. They were keen to practise their English and ask lots of questions. I want to share that day with you because it was filled with hope, with promise for a better world.
My wife and I were visiting Iran, both for the second time.
Right at the end of our time there we spent a day in Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan. It is a massive square that could enclose a dozen football fields.
Built by Shah Abbas I in the 17th Century, during the Safavid period, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site with markets, palaces and other cultural sites framing its four sides. At one end is the magnificent Imam Mosque where a string of memorable moments happened to me.
I even saw a most astonishing one-woman demonstration.
We were just approaching the Imam Mosque when I noticed a young woman removing her head scarf. A mass of black hair fell down to her waist and then she began dancing.
‘Is this a protest?’
Rhythmically she swirled her upper body in a circular motion that sent her hair out horizontally around her. I was gob-smacked.
After a minute or two she stopped and started talking to her male companion who had been photographing her. I approached.
“Is this a protest?” I asked, somewhat gormlessly. Yes, against the clothing restrictions.
Today the courage and determination of such people has, to a degree, paid off. Those restrictions, particularly in the cities, have effectively been lightened. I have seen lots of footage of Iranian women without any head covering.
I salute their courage and determination and know their struggle will continue.
“I also salute the courage and determination of the millions of Iranians who have turned out this week to support their government against the violent assault on the sovereignty of Iran.” Image: Eugene Doyle/Solidarity
I also salute the courage and determination of the millions of Iranians who have turned out this week to support their government against the violent assault on the sovereignty of Iran by the racist, fascist genocidal Israeli state and its powerful vassal the USA.
Following the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, I saw remarkable footage of that same vast square in Isfahan filled to the four corners with what must have been hundreds of thousands of people. As with millions around the country, they were defying the missiles to protest the violation of their sovereignty.
The inconvenient truth
The scale of the pro-government demonstrations is virtually never shown in the Western media but to understand the contested political landscape that is Iran you need to understand that inconvenient truth.
Iranian politics in the Western view has been reduced to a cartoon, to a Manichean world of black and white — which partly explains why Westerners, most particularly the leaders, fail to grasp the fierce nationalism that has seen millions of Iranians rally round their government as their state comes under an existential threat.
That day in 2018 in that square I chatted with pro-government and anti-government people; all incredibly nice and open and welcoming. Everyone was keen to discuss Iran and the wider world.
“Iranians are remarkably hospitable, cultured and kind. For me, they are the finest people in the Middle East.” Image: Eugene Doyle/Solidarity
There were lots of school parties and both the teachers and their students were keen to speak with us. It was an unalloyed pleasure for us. Iranians are remarkably hospitable, cultured and kind. For me, they are the finest people in the Middle East.
The Western empire has a long history of killing children. I recently referenced Madeleine Albright’s infamous comment on the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children being “a price worth paying”.
This is just standard modus operandi for the West.
Protected by Mossad
Israeli football hooligans travel through Europe chanting “Why is school out in Gaza? Because there are no kids left!” They are protected by Mossad, local police and politicians like British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Australian PM Anthony Albanese recently welcomed Isaac Herzog, the President of Israel, who in October 2023 said: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.”
This is as clear a statement of genocidal intent as you could get and Israel made good on it.
Israel, the killer of tens of thousands of school kids, presents itself as a liberator for Iran? You don’t have to be an A-grade student to spot that lie.
Many people around the Western world want to commit the children of Iran into the hands of the President of the United States.
According to US Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA), Vice-Chair of the House Democratic Caucus: “In the Epstein files, there’s highly disturbing allegations of Donald Trump raping children, of Donald Trump threatening to kill children.”
Lieu, one of the architects of the Epstein Files Transparency Act is also one of those legislators who has had access to some of the files still kept out of the public record.
Iranian children have as much right to grow up in safety as our own children.
“Iranian children have as much right to grow up in safety as our own children.” Image: Eugene/Doyle
infamous bro-talk
We should all also recall Trump’s infamous bro-talk with the vile radio host Howard Stern. Stern asked if he could refer to Ivanka Trump as a “piece of ass,” and Donald Trump salivated back at him: “Yeah.”
While they were joking about this “piece of ass”, Trump said he would try to date Ivanka if she wasn’t his daughter. It is a relevant anecdote because we live in the age of American Geopolitical Epsteinism — a world of predators seeking to violate those weaker than them.
You don’t have to like the Iranian government to support the UN Charter and the insistence on the sovereign equality of nations.
Nothing in the Charter says it is okay for powerful white countries to attack other countries. The West needs to bring its leaders to justice for the crime of genocide not launch yet another war on innocents.
Hands off Iran, Netanyahu. Hands off the children of Iran, Trump.
Eugene Doyle is a community organiser based in Wellington, publisher of Solidarity and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam war. This article was first published by Solidarity on 2 March 2026.
