Understanding the USA-Israel Aggression against Iran (By Lalit)

If a 4-year-old’s mother asks where he got a hundred Rupee note, she knows he is lying when one moment he says, “I found it by the steps to my pre-school”, the next moment, “An uncle gave it to me as he was going by”, and when you roll your eyes, he says, “I opened my bwat kondane and there it was,” and then when his mother is at her wit’s end, he tries, “God gave it to me.” Soon, the mother checks and finds one hundred Rupees missing from the kitchen money box for little emergencies. The mother explains what is wrong with lying, that society is built on trust, and you tell the truth to others as you hope they do to you. You add that it is in your advantage, too, because, as the saying goes, it is often true too, that “Scratch a liar, find a thief.” Your reputation goes, when you are known to tell lies.

Trump and Netanyahu are the same about why they murdered the Iranian Head of State the Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, and did this to launch a war. They did this in the middle of negotiations with his Government’s representatives in Geneva. Again. A second time. While in the process of public peace negotiations with the Iranian team, the USA did another sneak attack. That is called “perfidy”. They also did it to try to murder the Hamas negotiators in Qatar last year in September. On a tip-off, the Hamas leadership avoided the trap. That trap, too, was perfidy. More later on perfidy.

The USA and Israel offer the following explanations for their murder and war: Their aggression was to prevent Iran making an atom bomb. Then, war was declared, even though Trump had announced a hundred times that on 22 June last year the USA had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear production, so as to prevent Iran so much as enriching uranium even in the future and even for medical purposes. Then it was to prevent Iran getting long-distance missiles. Then it was to prevent Iran having allies like Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah. Trump chooses not just his own friends, but Iran’s friends, too? Then, after the USA-Israeli attack, the “reasons” continued their process of metastasis. The war was because Iran was about to strike the USA or Israel, so the “victims” had to attack in anticipation! Then, it was because Israel was about to murder Ayatollah Khamenei, then Iran would counter-attack against Israel and the USA, so the USA had to attack first. And in-between, there is a refrain to the effect that the real reason is “regime change”. This means it is the USA and Israel’s right, as hegemons in the world and in the region respectively, to change the Head of State of an independent country, change it from the outside, while fomenting disorder by crashing the Iranian currency, and paying agents inside Iran to gun down policemen.

Trump also tried to explain the USA’s act of aggression as some kind of “revenge” for the fact that the Iranian revolutionary movement took over the US Embassy in Teheran, Iran’s capital forty-seven years ago, in 1979, and then Iranian students took 52 American citizens hostage for over a year, demanding simply the return for a trial of the dictator Shah Pahlavi of Iran that had gone and hidden in the USA. This dictator, for the record, for the USA’s criminal record, had been installed by the USA-UK some 25 years earlier, in 1953 to be precise, after notoriously perpetrating a coup d’état to replace the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, on the specious grounds that he had had the “audacity” to nationalize UK-USA oil wells, ending the colonial pillage so that the natural resources of the country could be used for the people of this huge nation. And just like the 4-year-old’s fall-back on “God” when cornered by his Mom, the USA’s Ambassador to Israel, says the same thing in his interview with Tucker Carlson to justify the aggression against Iran. When asked about the Israeli’s “Greater Israel Project” aiming for Israel to take all the land that God supposedly gave to Israel “from the Nile to the Euphrates” as if the phrase from Genesis, the first book of the Bible, were a “kontra later” or “deed of the sale of land”. He, too, just like the cornered 4-year-old relies on “God” in the final analysis. Asked if the land was all Israel’s between the Nile and the Euphrates, he replied, “It would be fine if they took it all”. That is the official USA line right now. Though he did add, “Israel is not currently pursuing that.” Note, “currently”. And note, no US communiqué has denied the phrase, “It would be fine if they took it all”. This long-term, often-expressed Israeli war aim, would be “fine” by the USA, he says. That means Israel will be trying to annex not just Palestine, that is to say the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, but also part of Egypt, as well as the Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and parts of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey!

So, the reasons that Trump and Netanyahu give for their aggression are so varied, and so preposterous, that they can only be lies. Yes, both the USA and Israel are telling lies. Straight to our faces.

But it is worse. As the saying goes, “Scratch a liar, find a thief.”

When someone lies, it is not a lone sin. It is to cover something else. Or to cover up something else. So, society needs to bear in mind what exactly that something else is. The hint is in why the USA-UK organized a coup-d’état in Iran in 1953 and put a dictator in place of the elected leader. It was then openly and blatantly for the Western private companies and their Governments to regain control as imperial powers of the world’s third-biggest stock of oil under the ground, which happens to belong to Iran.

And that is the USA’s aim now.

Israel shares this aim, but goes further, and this is the importance of the Zionist lobby (Jewish billionaires and Christian evangelicals) that forces the USA to go goose-step with the Israeli plan: Israel wants to break up all big countries near to Israel, by invasions, by fomenting communalism and other ethnic biz-biz, and to destabilize these neighbours. Remember what we, in LALIT, often quote from the USA’s General Wesley Clark? A year ago, this is what we wrote on our website: “In 2007, former US General Wesley Clark explained something important. It is in the news again. Here is why. He said on Amy Goodman’s show in 2007 that, about ten days after the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, around 20 September 2001, a top US General had informed him that ‘we are going to war with Iraq’. A few weeks later, he added, when we were already bombing Afghanistan, the same General told him he had just got another Memo from the then Secretary of Defense that ‘describes how we are going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off with Iran’. Well the time line was [over] 20 years longer than in the Memo, and the order not exact, but now, in [March 2026], the only country left on the list, after the USA ‘took out’ Syria, is Iran. All are left in different degrees of ruin after having ‘regime change’ forced upon them by the US Empire, on a list that may have been drawn up by Israel, who knows.”

All this to say that the USA and Israel are the aggressors.

Now, according to modern international law, quoting one of its founding documents, the judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946, the crime of aggression is “the supreme international crime.” It is also one of the four crimes that the ICC prosecutes for.

Perfidy

“Perfidy” is traditionally and legally considered a crime. It means using subterfuge to lure an enemy into a position of trust so as to allow a sneak attack. The USA has done this repeatedly, pretending to negotiate when it has already agreed with Israel to conduct a sneak attack on Iran (or Hamas).

Murder

It is against all the principles of international law for one State to go murder the sovereign head of another State. It is pure barbarism. It implies there is no way to get beyond the state of war, because the negotiator-in-chief has been murdered. The USA and Israel have just performed such an extra-judicial killing against a Head of State. Israel is an expert in extra-judicial killings since its inception in 1948. The USA has resorted to extra-judicial killings from Georges Bush’s era when he passed an executive Order empowering the CIA to conduct such murders. Congress later passed a law allowing it. Under the Obama administration extra-judicial killings were used systematically, and have been ever since. It is criminal behavior, the conduct of a pariah State. Indeed, while Israel has always been a rogue State, the USA has increasingly become one.

So, to conclude the article, what we are witnessing today is that the USA and Israel are committing the supreme international crime of conducting an illegal war of aggression.

And we, the people of Mauritius, have not yet loudly enough raised our voices against our country being part of this USA-Israeli aggression. Our territory, after all, Diego Garcia (what Trump calls “that stupid Island”) is used, inter alia, for the commission of these crimes, including the “supreme international crime” of aggression against another country.

A dignified stand from Mauritius is vital.

The present Government has instead put out a wishy-washy communiqué on the war (see below), without even naming the USA and Israel as the aggressors, as if Mauritius is merely “neutral” relative to the “supreme international crime” committed before its very eyes by the USA and Israel. The Government does not even present condolences to the people of Iran for the 153 people, mainly little schoolgirls killed by US-Israeli bombs dropped on their primary school. And the British right-wing press still, despite the Mauritian Government’s obsequiousness, calls our Government all manner of names for not cow-towing even more abjectly to the imperial master in New York. The British extreme right seems not to notice that Trump’s despotic attitude is as arrogant towards the British as towards Mauritians, and he insults Britain’s Prime Minister Starmer for his “stupidity” in “giving away” Diego Garcia (“that stupid Island”) to Mauritius!

But, the Mauritian working people show their difference from the Government.

The trade unions and other organizations have come together with LALIT in a powerful unified, strongly worded petition against allowing the USA for its use of our land for its military base on Diego Garcia. As I write, I have learnt that there are more organizations signing up now, after war has been declared.

You will notice the following organizations have now been added: Noor Denmamode for Plateforme Mauricienne pour La Palestine (PMP), Arvin Bhojun for Federation of Education unions (FEU) and Ram Nookadee for Development Practitioners in Network(DPiN).

Here is the list of all organizations making this “historic landmark” by opposing the presence of the military base on our land.

Name of signatories and their organizations:

Reeaz Chuttoo, President Confederation des Travailleurs des Secteurs Publique et Privé (CTSPP)

Haniff Peerun, President Mauritius Labour Congress (MLC)

Deepak Benydin, President Federation of Parastatal Bodies and Other union (FPBOU)

Atma Shanto, President Federation des Travailleurs Unis (FTU)

Clency Bibi, President General Workers Federation (GWF)

Narendranath Gopee, President National Trade union Confederation (NTUC)

Randheer Bundoo, Treasurer Governmant Teachers union (GTU)

Dain Jahajeeah, Secretary union of Private Secondary Education Employees (UPSEE)

Jocelin Louis, for Rodrigues Private Industries and Allied Workers union (RPIAWU)

Avinash Bundhun, Telecommunications Workers union

Ram Nowzadick, President Nursing Association

Russhid Golamaully, for Senior and Other Nursing Staff union

Lindsey Collen, Ledikasyon pu Travayer (LPT)

Bhollah Salaahud Diin, Students for Palestine

Norman Tambanivoul, for Dr. Idrice Goomany Treatment Centre

Danielle Turner, for Leve Fam!

Rajni Lallah, for Muvman Liberasyon Fam(MLF)

Marousia Bouvery, for ABAIM

Tania Haberland, for Never Again-Olive Resistance

Alain Ah Vee, for LALIT

Noor Denmamode for Plateforme Mauricienne pour La Palestine (PMP)

Arvin Bhojun for Federation of Education unions (FEU)

Ram Nookadee for Development Practitioners in Network (DPiN).

It is on the basis of this kind of shared understanding, expressed in the petition, that we can move forward and oppose this totally illegal war by two nuclear powers, one of which is actually a non-signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, teaming up together against one non-nuclear power that is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Finally, through our organizations, we can now easily convince all our members, not just most of our members, of the danger of Mauritius hosting a USA military base on our territory. As well as being immoral and servile, it also obviously exposes Mauritius to danger. This is now clearly seen. Having a military base on one’s territory means that, for victims of US aggression, like Iran right now, to be able to defend themselves, they can only act against these encircling bases that are being used for constant aggression. So, the UAE, Bharain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Iraq and Oman have all had American interests on their land attacked by Iran’s defensive drones and missiles coming on to their territory i.e. on to the US bases themselves as well as on to US embassies and other places like hotels where the USA has evacuated its CIA special forces and other military men when the bases came under attack. So, now everyone can see that by hosting a US military base, Mauritius, like the Gulf countries, is colluding with a power that has again and again invaded countries, going way outside all international norms, conventions and laws, as today it, the USA, attacks Iran, with all its signal perfidy, and with all its murderous, bloody intent.

We must, through continued international struggle, get all the 800 USA military bases closed down. We have an objective ally in this aim: the USA is bankrupting itself even further, its economy is falling and failing, its political system fails, too, and the revelations of the rot at the heart of the State of the USA in the Epstein Files have given Trump’s war a nickname, as he often hands out nicknames: Instead of “Epic Fury”, the USA-Israel attack on Iran is now called “Epstein Fury”. The USA will finally be forced to retreat from Diego Garcia, and from all its bases, by our collective struggles, and also helped on by the logic of the USA’s own economic bankruptcy playing out.

Lindsey Collen, for LALIT.

* Note: Official Government Communiqué of 3 March 2026.

The Inter-Ministerial Committee regarding the Chagos Archipelago chaired by the Prime Minister and comprising the Deputy Prime Minister, the Attorney-General and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade met this afternoon to discuss the delay in the coming into force of the Treaty signed on 22 May 2025 and the crisis in the Middle East.

The Inter-Ministerial Committee notes with concern:
(a) the opinion expressed by various international lawyers that the attacks by the United States of America and Israel against Iran and Iran’s retaliatory attacks against States not initially involved in the conflict, have no legal underpinning under international law;

(b) the controversies that have arisen from the use of various military bases in this conflict and the intensification of the conflict in the region.

Mauritius, mindful of its commitment to the international rules-based order, calls for an immediate ceasefire and recourse to peaceful means of resolving disputes between the States concerned.

The Inter-Ministerial Committee also notes with concern:

(a) that, although the Agreement concerning the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia, was signed as far back as 22 May 2025 and despite the common will of the parties to bring the Agreement into force expeditiously, it has not yet entered into force and there is no visibility as to when this would occur;

(b) the presence of unauthorised individuals on one of the islands of the Chagos Archipelago, contrary to the common intention of the parties to the Agreement concerning the Chagos Archipelago for an orderly resettlement of some of the islands of the Chagos Archipelago in due course;

(c) that a number of wealthy individuals, as well as certain politicians, are complicit in bringing about such illegal presence on one of the islands of the Chagos Archipelago.

As is normally the case, in matters concerning the indisputable sovereignty of Mauritius over the Chagos Archipelago, representatives of the Chagossian community in Mauritius led by Olivier Bancoult and comprising of Messrs Harris Elysee, Roger Alexis and Mrs Madeline Yardin, have today been consulted and apprised of the matters addressed above by the Inter-Ministerial Committee.