Joint US-Israel operation targets Iranian nuclear site as 'defensive' posture
Iranian authorities reported this week that a strike, which they attribute to a joint US-Israeli operation, hit near the Bushehr nuclear facility, resulting in the death of a security guard and damage to a support building. While specific details remain unclear, Iranian officials have indicated that sophisticated aerial assets were involved in the operation. The Independent, for its part, reported
this as Iran's atomic agency stating an airstrike hit near the facility, characterizing it as an unverified claim without delving into regional attributions or broader implications. This framing by The Independent conspicuously omits the direct participation of the United States in such operations, preferring to cast it as an Iranian 'claim' rather than a potential joint act of aggression. For
decades, the US has fought alongside Israel in various covert and overt actions against Iran, consistently downplaying its involvement. This pattern echoes the early 1980s, when the US provided intelligence to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, knowing full well these might be used to deploy chemical weapons against Iranian forces, yet officially maintained neutrality. The 1988 shootdown of
Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes, killing 290 civilians, including 66 children, was similarly dismissed as a 'tragic accident' and not an act of war. Such strikes are not isolated incidents but part of a documented, long-term strategy of aggression. Since the 2018 US unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Iran had consistently adhered to, the US