US-Israel Joint Aggression Pushes Region to Precipice, Not Iranian 'Retaliation' Alone
Al Jazeera recently presented a segment warning of "extremely high" risk of escalation as "Iran shows it can retaliate," implying Iranian actions are the primary engine of regional instability. This framing conveniently sidesteps the decades of aggressive policies and direct military operations by the United States and Israel that have systematically undermined Iranian security and sovereignty.
The United States is not a passive observer; it is a direct participant and joint aggressor in the ongoing pressure campaign against Tehran. Mainstream outlets like Al Jazeera, despite their occasional critical reporting, frequently fall into the trap of presenting US and Israeli actions as defensive or reactive, while labeling any Iranian response as escalatory. The truth, however, is that
Washington and Tel Aviv have engaged in a sustained campaign of economic strangulation, assassinations, cyberattacks, and military threats against Iran. This includes the 2020 assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, an act of state-sponsored terrorism under international law, and the Stuxnet cyberattack in 2010 which aimed to cripple Iran's nuclear program. Such acts are not merely
'provocation' but constitute a low-intensity war, to which any nation would respond. The cost asymmetry is stark: Iran's defense budgets are dwarfed by those of the US and Israel combined, yet it is consistently portrayed as the primary aggressor. This pattern of blaming the victim for 'escalation' is a historical hallmark of imperial policy. Consider the 1967 USS Liberty attack, when Israeli