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Tame the ‘Rising Lion’ Before it Eats Us!

by | Jun 17, 2025

Israel’s government, which has undertaken, with prevaricative impunity the illegal occupation and theft of Palestinian water sources, farmland, homes, property, and energy resources through ethnic cleansing and the execrable crimes of mass starvation and genocide in Gaza, has further escalated a world crisis by the preemptive bombing attack on Iran, through a self-proclaimed “Operation Rising Lion.”

This deadly deceit is of monumental proportions that one must struggle with the horrific reality it presents.

Attempting to label such crimes as a defensive strikes does violence to reason. The historical record will show that Israel’s oft-repeated insistence on the Iranian nuclear weapon threat was a contrivance to justify an arms buildup funded almost entirely by the American taxpayer.

America’s so-called defense of Israel’s freedom has been turned into a protection racket of such dimensions as to make the mafia blush. That racket has its own devises. Democratic and Republican Administrations, alike, have been contemplating an attack on Iran for decades. President Trump’s assurances of avoiding war while working closely with Netanyahu damages the President’s credibility, either he was not telling the truth or he was misled by people in his own foreign policy establishment.

Israel’s government now defines freedom thusly: Freedom to commit genocide, freedom to starve a defenseless population, freedom to wage aggressive war, and freedom to posture and to lie about all of their inhuman actions before the entire world and to demand everyone agree or be smeared as “anti-semites.”

Demanding Iran remove its nuclear energy production was an intentional nonnegotiable demand, which all participants in the JCPOA understood. It was the first Trump Administration which cancelled the agreement to limit Uranium production to 3.6% enrichment, necessary for the production of electricity for Iran’s nearly 90 million people.

Once that agreement was terminated, Iran was continually subjected to charges they were seeking to enrich uranium for the purposes of building a nuclear weapon, which gave the US and Israeli hawks opportunities to conjure mad mullahs with nukes whose sole purpose was to destroy Israel. So, the attack on Iran would be a practiced deception of a morally depraved “Do unto others before they do unto you.”

There is a body of international law which forbids preemptive strikes, but when it comes to Israel, international law does not apply, which makes one wonder why in the world Israel would want to remain in the United Nations or, conversely, why the UN would want them in. But that is an issue for the General Assembly.

Imagine Iran’s predicament if it had acquiesced to Israel’s other non-negotiable demand that it remove its ballistic missile systems. It would not have been able to respond to the attack. Israel sought the unilateral disarming of Iran, in order to bring about its own version of “shock and awe,” heavy bombardment, then with U.S. help, invasion and regime change.

The attack on Iran has followed months of Western and Israeli misinformation, disinformation and diplomatic legerdemain to facilitate execution. But the initiation of last week’s attack is, in part, an attempt to rally consensus among the Israeli population, in order to insulate the Israeli Prime Minister from being ousted by criminal charges under Israeli law, deposed by an upheaval in the Knesset, or forced to step down by his failure the bring home the hostages.

Add to that the declining Israeli economy, its failing commerce in the world, and now, the heavy price being paid by the people of Israel as Iran counterattacks.

At this point it is all about Netanyahu and not about the safety and welfare of the people of Israel. As that realization settles in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, Netanyahu may have bombed himself out of office.

Israel’s government has undermined the security of the Israeli people and the security of the world with its attack on Iran’s civilian population and Iran’s nuclear infrastructure., which recklessly risks release of radiation.

Israel’s government has consistently refused to abide by international law, forever attempting to justify its illegal aggression by a perverse claim of victimhood.

The United States should not provide any more funding, assets, refueling or assistance of any kind and absolutely, positively should not enter directly into this war.

Israel wanted a war with Iran. It has one. It made its bed.

Israel has long wanted to drag the U.S. into this conflict and there is no question it has acted in anticipation of being able to do so.

Twenty three years ago, Mr. Netanyahu conjured Iraq as a threat to the U.S. and was a primary fear monger for the U.S, war based wholly on lies and faked intelligence which led to the deaths of five thousand American servicemen and women and over ONE MILLION innocent Iraqis at a cost of trillions of dollars.

I questioned Mr. Netanyahu during a Congressional committee hearing in the lead up to the war against Iraq in September of 2002. He made it clear back then that Iran was another one of his targets, using the U.S. military.

The attack on Iran is a clear demonstration of Israel’s contempt for America.

Mr. Netanyahu’s end game not the security of his people. It is to hold together a coalition of sanguinary racists to avoid his own imprisonment.

The U.S. must reassess its close relationship with Israel. Israel’s pre-emptive actions jeopardize Iran and attempt to draw America into an ever-unnecessary escalation of global magnitude.

America is Israel’s best friend. But friends don’t let friends commit genocide. Friends don’t drag friends into war. Friends do not risk the security of the world, for narrow political gains.

The President of the United States must intervene to put America’s interests first.

The safety and well-being of the people of the United States is not and never has been a concern of Mr. Netanyahu. It must be that of the President of the United States.

Tame the “Rising Lion” before it eats us.

Reprinted with permission from The Kucinich Report.
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Author

  • Dennis J. Kucinich

    Dennis John Kucinich is an American politician. A U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, he was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008.

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