It’s time for regime change in the United States and Israel to restore international law

A global regime-change campaign against lesser violators rings hollow without confronting the architects of global impunity—the United States and Israel.

By Fareed Khan 

A version of this can be found on Substack.

In the pantheon of post-World War Two violators of international norms, no two states rival the United States and Israel in the scale, frequency, or the sheer impunity of their actions. As Noam Chomsky has powerfully documented in works such as Hegemony or Survival and his essay The Dangerous Rogue States Operating in the Mideast, these nations function as twin rogue powers, freely resorting to aggression, terror, and systematic violations of the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Genocide Convention.

While other states, like Russia and China, have undoubtedly committed grave offenc

es, some on multiple occasions, none approach the breadth of America's and Israel's combined record—illegal wars, prolonged occupations, orchestrated coups, false-flag operations, and destabilizing interventions spanning continents. If a genuine global campaign is ever needed to enforce accountability through regime change, it must begin with Washington and Tel Aviv.

This is not hyperbole but the logical extension of analyses by Chomsky, William Blum in Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War Two, Ilan Pappé in The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, and Norman Finkelstein in Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. Their scholarship lays bare a pattern that demands action to address the problem at the source.

Since 1948, when it was created on stolen Palestinian land, Israel’s violations form a continuous arc of territorial conquest and collective punishment. It has occupied and bombed every nation on its borders—Egypt in 1956 and 1967, Jordan in 1967, Syria repeatedly (seizing the Golan Heights in 1967 and annexing it illegally in 1981, in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 497), and Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 2006, and beyond. Palestinian lands have remained under constant and brutal occupation for almost six decades, violating the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibitions on settlement and collective punishment, as well as UN resolutions 242 and 338 demanding withdrawal. Pappé meticulously chronicles this as incremental ethnic cleansing, while Finkelstein demonstrates how Gaza’s siege and repeated assaults meet the Genocide Convention’s criteria of intent to destroy a group in whole or in part.

The International Court of Justice’s ongoing proceedings and UN experts’ findings underscore these breaches. Israel’s actions have displaced millions, killed more than 680,000 in Gaza alone according to one study, and flouted the Universal Declaration’s guarantees of self-determination and freedom from arbitrary deprivation of life. No other state since 1945 has maintained such prolonged, illegal occupations while rejecting UN authority with US protection and complicity.

The US ledger is even longer and more global. Blum’s Killing Hope catalogues over fifty CIA-orchestrated coups, invasions, and destabilizations—the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected government (Operation Ajax); installing the Shah as his replacement and sowing seeds for decades of resentment; the 1954 coup in Guatemala that unleashed genocidal civil war; the 1973 coup against Chile’s Salvador Allende, ushering in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet; interventions in Africa in Congo, Ghana, Angola and Mozambique; Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia); and Latin America (Nicaragua’s Contras, Grenada in 1983, and Panama in 1989). These are just a few of the operations that routinely violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter banning threats or use of force against territorial integrity or political independence.

The 2003 Iraq War stands as a textbook case of an illegal and unjust war. Launched on fabricated claims about weapons of mass destruction—blatant lies exposed by the Downing Street Memo—without Security Council authorization, it resulted in more than a million Iraqis killed, destabilized the region, and birthing extremist groups like ISIS. Chomsky labels this the hallmark of a “failed state” that exempts itself from the rules it imposes on others.

Both nations have weaponized false flags and covert coups to rationalize their criminal actions. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, later admitted as fabricated, propelled US escalation in the Vietnam War, costing millions of innocent lives. Proposed but unexecuted schemes like Operation Northwoods (1962) relating to Cuba, reveal a pattern of manufacturing pretexts to achieve geopolitical objectives. Israel’s history includes alleged provocations in border conflicts, while joint US-Israeli intelligence has fuelled coups from Tehran to Santiago.

These tactics erode sovereignty, as Blum details—sovereign governments toppled not for security or in response to aggression but for resource control and ideological conformity. The destabilizing fallout has been catastrophic, resulting in civil wars, refugee crises impacting millions, and economic collapse. The war in Iraq fragmented the Middle East, Latin American coups entrenched inequality, African interventions prolonged proxy conflicts. Such chaos, orchestrated by these two rogue nations, repeatedly violated the UN Charter’s core purpose—maintaining international peace and security.

Today, this pattern continues in the unprovoked US-Israeli assault on Iran, launched February 28, 2026. What began as airstrikes under “Operation Epic Fury” and “Roaring Lion” has resulted in the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, targeted nuclear research and missile sites, civilian infrastructure, all in pursuit of regime change. Experts at the UN have condemned it as “flagrant violation of international law” and an “act of aggression,” executed while the US was in diplomatic negotiations with Iran, where progress was being made. Legal scholars and analysts describe their actions as illegal under the UN Charter, lacking Security Council approval or a credible self-defence claim. Iranian retaliation followed, yet the initiators’ stated goal—overthrowing a sovereign government—mirrors the very interventions Blum and Chomsky have chronicled for decades.

This war, with civilian deaths mounting, including strikes on schools and hospitals, exemplifies the hypocrisy often displayed by both the US and Israel—powers that lecture on nuclear non-proliferation while violating it themselves through nuclear ambiguity (Israel) and pre-emptive force (both).

Critics rightly note that other states also have blood on their hands, but none approach the quantitative and qualitative dominance and aggression of the US-Israeli axis.  The US maintains over 800 overseas bases in 70 countries, projects power globally, and has vetoed UN resolutions dozens of times to shield Israel from being held accountable for its criminal actions.

Israel, as Chomsky observes, acts with impunity and with US support, rejecting International Atomic Energy Association inspections while demanding them of Iran. Their combined interventions have reshaped the destiny of nations around the globe, through coups (Iran, Guatemala, Chile), illegal wars (Iraq, Vietnam), and occupations (Golan, West Bank, Gaza blockade). The Genocide Convention, invoked against others, applies here also. Finkelstein’s inquest into Gaza and Pappé’s settler-colonial framework reveal systematic intent. The Universal Declaration’s rights to life, self-determination, freedom from torture are trampled daily at the hands of the leaders of these two nations. No rival tally is comparable.  China’s or Russia’s actions, while serious and at times egregious (Russia's war with Georgia and China's crackdown on democracy protests over the decades), lack this post-1945 breadth of extraterritorial subversion.

A global regime-change campaign against lesser violators rings hollow without confronting the two top architects of global impunity. Chomsky urges recognizing US exceptionalism as the obstacle to peace, while Blum demands dismantling the intervention machine. Pappé and Finkelstein join them with calls to end Israeli apartheid and occupation, with external force if needed. Extending their logic, the world must mobilize and apply universal sanctions, arms embargoes, ICC prosecutions for American and Israeli leaders, support domestic movements to rebuild democratic institutions, and amplify BDS-style isolation for the two nations. Regime change here will mean empowering peoples to reclaim sovereignty—through non-violent pressure where possible, and other means where necessary. Only then can the UN Charter regain meaning, the Genocide Convention deter future atrocities, and human rights become universal rather than selective. The alternative is a world trapped in perpetual hypocrisy—one where the most powerful nations proclaim universal rules while brazenly violating them, sowing the seeds of endless conflict and instability.  

 

Through decades of meticulous scholarship and irrefutable evidence, thinkers such as Chomsky, Blum, Pappé, and Finkelstein have demonstrated beyond doubt that no other states since 1945 have matched the United States and Israel in the sheer scale, duration, and audacity of their violations of international law, human rights, and the foundations of global order, all but making the case for regime change in these two nations.

 

True justice demands that we finally turn the lens inward. Rather than selectively punishing lesser violators while shielding the architects of impunity The international community must summon the resolve to launch a sustained, principled global campaign aimed at regime change in Washington and Tel Aviv, the very epicentre of systemic global lawlessness. Nothing less will restore credibility to the United Nations Charter, halt the cycle of aggression, and secure the survival of a rules-based international order worthy of the name.

© The View From Here. © Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

US attack on Iran, on Israel's behalf, would destabilize the Middle-East and lead to a wider war

At the heart of current Iranian regime change attempt lie decades of effort by the US and Israel to destabilize the Islamic Republic.

 

By Fareed Khan 
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

As the world watches to see if Donald Trump will make good on his threats against Iran, Western audiences must grasp a crucial reality: Tehran remains the Middle East’s last significant counterweight to Israeli dominance, largely thanks to its unyielding commitment to the Palestinian cause. While many Muslim-majority governments in the region have softened their stance, Iran has offered resolute support to groups resisting Israel’s long-standing occupation, embedding the fight against Israeli expansion as a foundational element of its foreign policy. This defiance squarely confronts Israel's aspirations for regional hegemony, casting Iran as an enduring obstacle in Jerusalem’s strategic playbook. Amid Israel’s growing clout—bolstered by normalization deals with select Arab states and targeted military operations against adversaries—the push for regime change in Tehran, led by the United States and Israel, has only gained momentum.



To understand the geopolitics of the conflict between Iran on one side and Israel and the US on the other, let’s examine the political and historical context which will reveal that Israel functions as the true terrorist state in the region through state-sponsored violence, assassinations, and disproportionate military campaigns against weaker nations and peoples, while the US and Israel combined represent the most dangerous actors in the Middle East, repeatedly destabilizing the region with interventions based on geopolitical ambitions and fabricated pretexts.

The Palestinian struggle remains central to understanding Iran’s isolation and Israel’s animosity towards that nation. Tehran has long provided financial, military, and political support to groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, framing this aid as an “axis of resistance” to Israeli actions in Gaza and the broader occupation in territories where Palestinians want to establish a state. This support contrasts sharply with the shifting stances of Arab nations. Countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Kuwait—oil-rich powers with significant financial leverage—have increasingly normalized relations with Israel, effectively abandoning their strong historical support for Palestinians.

The Abraham Accords of 2020 normalized relations between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, bypassing Palestinian statehood, which these nations had as a condition of normalization for decades prior to the agreement. These treaties have prioritized economic and security issues over Palestinian rights, as evidenced by the apathetic response by these nations to Israel’s genocidal crimes in Gaza since October 2023.

For more than 28 months, as Israel has inflicted unimaginable terror on Palestinians in Gaza, there have been no broad-based sanctions imposed by any Arab nations against Israel despite massive demonstrations by their citizens calling for such action. Diplomatic ties remain intact, unlike actions by some European nations—Spain, Ireland, Norway, Slovenia—which have downgraded diplomatic and economic relations, while several Latin American nations—Bolivia, Belize, Colombia, Chile, Honduras—have severed diplomatic ties or recalled their ambassadors. Moreover, no Arab states have forcefully committed to enforcing International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants against Israeli leaders for alleged war crimes. This shift underscores a realignment where Middle East Arab capitals view Israel as a counterweight to Iranian influence, rather than an adversary, as has been the case historically. The result is a region where Palestinian freedom and rights are sidelined, allowing Israel freer rein to pursue its hegemonic agenda.

The ongoing efforts to destabilize Iran’s government stem from decades of US and Israeli pressure aimed at weakening the Islamic Republic. Nationwide protests that erupted in late December 2025—sparked by runaway inflation and severe economic hardship exacerbated by long-standing U.S.-led sanctions—quickly escalated into widespread demands for political change.

Iranian authorities have consistently blamed the unrest on foreign interference, accusing the CIA and Israel’s Mossad of orchestrating and arming demonstrators to sow chaos. Tehran has pointed to reported Israeli intelligence operations that have targeted and degraded Iranian-backed militias across the Middle East in recent years as evidence of broader destabilization efforts.

Compounding these tensions, the Trump administration has significantly bolstered US military presence in the region since early 2026, deploying two aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and other assets while issuing threats of targeted strikes. This buildup aligns closely with Israel’s long-standing objective of confronting Iran’s government more decisively, raising the spectre of coordinated action that could result in the downfall of the current Iranian leadership.

The US push for confrontation with Iran stems largely from decades of sustained Israeli influence via powerful pro-Israel lobby groups. Organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), have long shaped US policy toward Iran, portraying it as an existential threat to steer decisions in Israel’s favour. Critics argue this lobby diverts US foreign policy from pursuing America’s own national interests, as seen in the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the imposition of broad based sanctions, which Israel had called for, even though the agreement was effectively controlling Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Despite claims by pro-Israel voices that war would benefit both nations, history suggests otherwise. A military conflict with Iran could mirror the Iraq War’s aftermath, which resulted in widespread destabilization, sectarian violence, and the rise of extremist groups hostile to the US. The 2003 US invasion of Iraq, launched on fabricated claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, unleashed widespread chaos across the Middle East, claiming hundreds of thousands of innocent lives and costing trillions of dollars.

This catastrophic precedent casts a long shadow over any prospective US attack on Iran, which risks igniting proxy conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and beyond, further fracturing an already fragile region. The current rhetoric mirrors the pretexts used for launching the Iraq war—manufactured threats used to justify American aggression in violation of the UN Charter and international law. Today, Israeli and American narratives cast Iran as an imminent nuclear danger, despite its adherence to rigorous international inspections under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA—Iran nuclear deal), until the US unilaterally withdrew from it due to pressure from Israel.

Such portrayals invert the true dynamics of regional threats. Far from the aggressor depicted by the US and Israel, Iran has acted predominantly in self-defence, responding to external encroachments rather than launching them. Tehran has not invaded a neighbouring nation in over two centuries—unlike Israel, which has initiated multiple wars against its neighbours since it was created in 1948. Iran’s backing of proxies in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria stems from a perceived encirclement by the US military and Israeli belligerence and provocation.

By contrast, the US and Israel have a documented history of attacking other nations based on false pretenses. Prime examples include the 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh to protect the interests of Western oil companies, installing the Shah and planting seeds of enduring anti-American resentment, and Israel’s 1956 attack on Egypt, in conjunction with the UK and France, which caused the Suez Crisis and nearly brought the US and the Soviet Union into direct nuclear conflict.

For decades, US and Israeli military and covert operations have served as primary drivers of instability across the Middle East and beyond. The US invasions of Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, and the “war on terror” fuelled sectarian violence, empowered extremist groups like ISIS, resulted in over four million of deaths, and drained trillions from the US treasury. Subsequent interventions in Libya in 2011 and support for Syrian rebels in the Syrian Civil War fragmented states, resulted in power vacuums exploited by radical elements, and created failed states.

Israel has similarly escalated tensions and created regional instability through acts such as the 1967 pre-emptive strikes in the Six Day War that seized territories from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria; the 1982 invasion and years-long occupation of southern Lebanon that gave rise to Hezbollah; and repeated attacks on Gaza, including Cast Lead (2008-2009) and Protective Edge (2014), and now the current genocidal campaign, which have caused tens of thousands of deaths and deepened Palestinian hardship. These military operations have displaced millions of Palestinians, inflamed anti-Western and anti-Israel sentiments, and sustained cycles of violence. In this context, it is Israel that emerges as the one employing terrorism—through settler violence, targeted assassinations of Palestinian leaders, and disproportionate military force. In comparison, Iran’s action are responses to Israeli and American aggression, and remain overwhelmingly reactive.

This pattern of hostility towards Iran has unfolded through sustained economic sabotage, targeted assassinations, and cyber warfare. During the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, US intelligence enabled Iraq’s chemical attacks on Iranian forces, prolonging the conflict and causing more than 600,000 Iranian casualties. In 2010, the US and Israel deployed the Stuxnet virus to destroy Iranian nuclear centrifuges and delay the program. Israel has repeatedly assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists, including the 2025 strikes that killed prominent figures like Fereydoun Abbasi. Additionally, the 2020 US drone strike that eliminated General Qasem Soleimani was perceived in Tehran as an act of war, as did Israeli airstrikes in Syria that targetted the Iranian consulate in Damascus.

These acts of Israeli aggression have destabilized the Middle East far more profoundly than Iran’s defensive measures ever have. A direct US attack on Iran would compound these risks, and potentially trigger broad proxy wars, massive refugee crises, disruptions to global oil supplies resulting in economic chaos, and accelerate the rise of nuclear proliferation risks.

Compounding this aggression is the stark nuclear disparity that exposes the hypocrisy at the heart of the threats against Iran. The US, a declared nuclear superpower with a vast arsenal, stands alongside Israel, which maintains an undeclared stockpile estimated at around 90 warheads (with fissile material sufficient for potentially another 300 more weapons), while refusing international inspections or transparency. Yet these two nuclear-armed states fabricate pretexts to attack non-nuclear Iran, which has historically complied with rigorous international inspections under the JCPOA—until the US withdrawal from the agreement undermined it and escalated tensions. Israel’s policy of refusing to cooperate with the International Nuclear Energy Agency, combined with the overwhelming American stockpile, creates a profound imbalance that poses a far greater risk to global peace than Iran’s nuclear program, which was in response to the threat from Israel, and has never produced a functional nuclear warhead.

Decades of crushing US sanctions have further deepened Iran’s economic turmoil, employing a familiar playbook to weaken Iran and pave the way for potential change. Reimposed in 2018, these measures have frozen Iran’s oil revenues, seized assets, and driven inflation above 40%, with food prices surging over 57% in recent periods—exacerbating shortages and hardship for ordinary Iranians. These policies have eroded Iran’s middle class by an average of 17 percentage points annually in earlier sanction waves (2012–2019), undoing decades of social and economic progress and pushing millions into vulnerability. While the late 2025 protests across the country stemmed from genuine domestic grievances against the theocratic government—fuelled by economic collapse, currency devaluation, and governance failures—Iranian officials have alleged involvement by external actors (Mossad and the CIA) arming demonstrators, with claims of capturing over 3,000 agents and seizing 60,000 weapons as evidence of orchestrated foreign interference.

Additionally, Israel’s persistent espionage against the United States, going back to the 1960s, further erodes any pretense of an unblemished alliance between the two nations. Despite receiving tens of billions of dollars in US aid Israel has engaged in aggressive spying against the US, more than any other ally. High-profile cases, such as the Apollo Affair involving theft of nuclear material, and Jonathan Pollard’s theft of classified nuclear documents, underscore this pattern of betrayal. When combined with Israel’s history of promoting actions based on fabricated and exaggerated intelligence—like its pivotal role in advancing the false 2003 Iraq WMD claims—these actions reinforce the view that the US and Israel, rather than Iran, are the primary forces destabilizing the Middle East.

In contrast, Iran’s authoritarianism and misogynistic policies notwithstanding, its foreign policy has been reactive. It has never attacked or occupied neighbours’ territories, focussing instead on deterrence against invasions, like the 1980-88 Iraq War which led by the US. Additionally, recent escalations, such as the 2025 unprovoked Israeli and US attack on Iran, show Iran’s restraint to avoid full war, given geographic and strategic constraints. In this scenario, pursuing regime change risks unleashing chaos akin to post-Saddam Iraq, empowering radicals.

Ultimately, the relentless push for confrontation with Iran primarily advances Israeli strategic goals while imposing heavy costs on the United States—perpetuating a vicious cycle of violence, economic drain, and regional chaos that threatens the lives of millions across the Middle East.

If any powers truly endanger peace in the region and beyond, it is the United States and Israel, whose repeated interventions, covert operations, and aggressive postures have fuelled discord across the Middle East for years. Genuine stability demands confronting the core injustice that fuels anti-Israel and anti-American sentiments—the denial of Palestinian rights and self-determination—rather than manufacturing existential threats to rationalize further military action.

History has repeatedly shown that military interventions in the Middle East—particularly those involving the United States and Israel—tend to generate deeper resentment and instability, undermine long-term security for all parties, and inflict devastating suffering on civilian populations.

Any American and Israeli military action against Iran now carries the grave risk of igniting a prolonged regional war that could pull in adjacent Arab nations. Such a conflict could rapidly expand through proxy battles across multiple fronts, trigger severe disruptions to global energy markets, unleash massive waves of refugees, and heighten the dangers of nuclear proliferation—ultimately exacting a human and strategic toll far exceeding any short-term tactical advantages the U.S. and Israel might hope to achieve.

In the end, the pursuit of dominance through force risks not victory, but a legacy of enduring instability and destruction that could haunt the region—and the world—for generations.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.