So, the whole Iran war, like so much of life, has turned out to be exactly the opposite of what you thought: You initiate a regime change war against Iran. You kill its elderly cleric head of state. You blow up a girls’ school. You sink its ships. You decapitate its “Air Force,” whatever that was.

You unleash the full fury of the largest military in human history on this country and, in the end, almost inevitably, that country becomes stronger and the countries that attack it become weaker.

Again, only in real life do ironies like this exist, but they are everywhere. In fact, that is the story of life. The opposite happens.

• READ MORE: Trump says Iran MoU signed electronically, Hormuz to open fully on
• Tucker Carlson and John Mearsheimer react over Iran
• As deal is agreed with US, not all in Iran are convinced that peace is here
• Other Gaza genocide and Iran war reports

Who could have called this? Well, certainly almost no one in Washington saw this coming, because they’ve been talking about this war with Iran and the need to decapitate Iran and the need to do something about Iran: “America’s biggest problem is Iran, and their proxies, and the Houthis and Hezbollah and Hamas.”

Whenever they gather in Washington to talk about the world, Iran is at the top of the list of problems we must solve.

And in almost none of these gatherings has anyone piped up to say, “Well, wait a second, if we do that, the opposite will happen. Iran will become more powerful, and we will become less powerful.”

Almost nobody said that in Washington. Literally almost nobody. And if there is somebody, who is that person? There wasn’t one.

At least one realist
But there was at least one person outside of Washington who said this. His name is John Mearsheimer. He’s been a professor at the University of Chicago since 1982, for over 40 years.

And he studies international relations, the way that countries get along with each other, the balances of power regionally and globally. And he’s smart and he’s erudite, but above all, he is wise.

He draws obvious conclusions from longitudinal data sets. He looks at what happens over time and tries to understand what this tells us about the way nations behave and about the way people behave, about human nature, which is constant, it doesn’t change.

And because he is one of the very few people in the field of international relations who has this ability, married to personal bravery, he’s willing to say things that are unpopular, which is the rarest of all qualities in academia.

Because he has these two qualities, he has been maybe the only guy, or one of the very few guys, to call it right.

Back in 2007, he and a friend of his from Harvard called Stephen Walt wrote a book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, on the so-called Jewish lobby, AIPAC, and the whole constellation of non-profits in Washington that seek to steer the US Congress and the executive of the White House to giving Israel more money and more military aid, to changing the inherent priorities of American foreign policy, which are to protect and enhance the United States and to do things that are good for the population of America, to change that priority to protect Israel, to do what Israel wants.

The two of them wrote this fairly famous book about it back in 2007 and were immediately attacked, can you guess, as Nazis and anti-Semites. Well, turns out neither of them was a Nazi or an anti-Semite, just the opposite.

Normal liberals
They’re kind of normal liberals, not racist in any sense.

The charge itself is ludicrous. You notice what AIPAC is doing, so you’re an anti-Semite? It doesn’t make any sense; it’s a slur.

It’s slander designed to make you be quiet. And in most cases it works, which is why they keep doing it.

But in this one specific case, it didn’t work. Professor John Mearsheimer, who had tenure at Chicago, did not lose his job. And not only did he keep speaking, he upped the volume of his speaking and kept telling the world, though most people didn’t listen, what he had personally seen and how he interpreted that.

Why does the United States military go to war?

Mearsheimer, through close observation, concluded, well, in the modern era, mostly it goes to war, big wars, on behalf of Israel.

Tucker Carlson is an American conservative political commentator who hosts The Tucker Carlson Show.

Professor John Mearsheimer on genocide in Gaza and the looming defeat in Iran — recorded just before the peace deal.        Video: The Tucker Carlson Show

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has reaffirmed the Trump administration’s defence commitments to America’s Pacific territories of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands and that any attack on them would be an attack on the mainland.

Hegseth touched down in Guam from Hawai’i on Thursday as part of an Indo-Pacific tour, his first as Defence Secretary, in which he is seeking to shore up traditional alliances to counter China.

Geostrategic competition between the US and China in the Pacific has seen Guam and neighboring CNMI become increasingly significant in supporting American naval and air operations, especially in the event of a conflict over Taiwan or in the South China Sea.

• READ MORE: Other Micronesia defence reports

Both territories are also within range of Chinese and North Korean ballistic missiles and the US tested a defence system in Guam in December.

Any attack on Guam and the Commonwealth Northern Marianas Islands would be met with “appropriate response,” Hegseth said during his brief visit, emphasising both territories were central to the US defence posture focused on containing China.

“We’re defending our homeland,” Hegseth said. “Guam and CNMI are vital parts of America, and I want to be very clear — to everyone in this room, to the cameras — any attack against these islands is an attack against the US.”

“We’re going to continue to stay committed to our presence here,” Hegseth said. “It’s important to emphasise: we are not seeking war with Communist China. But it is our job to ensure that we are ready.”

Key US strategic asset
Located closer to Beijing than Hawai’i, Guam serves as a key US strategic asset, known as the “tip of the spear,” with 10,000 military personnel, an air base for F-35 fighters and B-2 bombers, and home port for Virginia-class nuclear submarines.

The pledge from Hegseth comes as debate on Guam’s future as a US territory has intensified, with competing calls by some residents for full statehood and UN-mandated decolonisation, led by the Indigenous Chamorro people.

Defending Guam and CNMI, Hegseth said, aligns with President Donald Trump’s “goal to achieve peace through strength by putting America first”.

He delivered remarks at Andersen Air Force Base and took an aerial tour of the island before meeting with Lou Leon Guerrero and Arnold Palacios, governors of Guam and Northern Marianas, respectively.

Guerrero appealed to Hegseth about the “great impact” the US military buildup on Guam had had on the island’s residents.

“We welcome you, and we welcome the position and the posture that President Trump has,” Guerrero told Hegseth, during opening statements before their closed-door meeting.

“We are the centre of gravity here. We are the second island chain of defence,” she said. “We want to be a partner in the readiness effort but national security cannot happen without human health security.”

Funding for hospital
Guerrero sought funding for a new hospital, estimated to cost US$600 million.

“Our island needs a regional hospital capable of handling mass casualties — whether from conflict or natural disasters,” she told Hegseth.

“We are working very closely in partnership with the military, and one of our asks is to be a partner in the financing of that hospital.”

Afterwards Guerrero told reporters she did not have time to discuss the housing crisis caused by the US military buildup.

Earlier this month, Guerrero warned in her “state of the island” address of US neglect of Guam’s 160,000 residents, where one-in-five are estimated to live below the poverty line.

“Let us be clear about this: Guam cannot be the linchpin of American security in the Asian-Pacific if nearly 14,000 of our residents are without shelter, because housing aid to Guam is cut, or if 36,000 of our people lose access to Medicaid and Medicare coverage keeping them healthy, alive and out of poverty,” Guerrero said.

At the end of his visit to Guam, Hegseth announced in a statement he had also reached an “understanding” with President Wesley Simina of the Federated States of Micronesia to begin planning and construction of US$400 million in military infrastructure projects in the State of Yap.

Territorial background
Simina’s office would not confirm to BenarNews he had met with Hegseth in Guam, saying only he was “off island.”

As a territory, Guam residents are American citizens but they cannot vote for the US president and their lone delegate to the Congress has no voting power.

The US acquired Guam in 1898 after winning the Spanish-American War, and CNMI from Japan in 1945 after its defeat in the Second World War. Both remain unincorporated territories to this day.

The Defence Department holds about 25 percent of Guam’s land and is preparing to spend billions to upgrade the island’s military infrastructure as another 5000 American marines relocate from Japan’s Okinawa islands.

On Tuesday, Hegseth was in Hawai’i meeting officials of the US Indo-Pacific Command. Speaking with the media in Honolulu, he said his Asia-Pacific visit was to show strength to allies and “reestablish deterrence.”

Hegseth’s week-long tour comes against a backdrop of growing Chinese assertiveness. Its coast guard vessels have recently encroached into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea and around the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

His visit will be closely watched in the Pacific for signs of the Trump administration’s commitment to traditional allies following a rift between Washington and Europe that has tested the transatlantic alliance.

The trip also threatens to be overshadowed by the fallout from revelations that he and other national security officials discussed attack plans against Yemen’s Houthis on the messaging app Signal with a journalist present.

Flagrant violation
Critics are calling it a flagrant violation of information security protocols.

During his first term, Trump revived Washington’s engagements in the Pacific island region after long years of neglect paved the way for China’s initiatives.

He hosted leaders of the US freely associated states of Palau, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia at the White House in 2019.

The Biden administration followed through, doubling the engagement with an increased presence and complementing the military buildup with economic assistance that sought to outdo China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The new Trump administration, however, cut the cord, dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and along with it, the millions of dollars pledged to Pacific island nations.

The abolition of about 80 percent of USAID programmes sent mixed signals to the island nations and security experts have warned that China would fill the void it has created.

From Guam, Hegseth has travelled to Philippines and Japan, where he will participate in a ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima and will later meet with Japanese leaders and US military forces.

Republished from BenarNews with permission. Stefan Armbruster in Brisbane contributed to this story.

New Zealand’s National-led coalition government’s policy on Gaza seems caught between a desire for a two-state diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and closer alignment with the US, which supports a Netanyahu government strongly opposed to a Palestinian state

In the last 17 months, Gaza has been the scene of what Thomas Merton once called the unspeakable — human wrongdoing on a scale and a depth that seems to go beyond the capacity of words to adequately describe.

The latest Gaza conflict began with a horrific Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 that prompted a relentless Israel ground and air offensive in Gaza with full financial, logistical and diplomatic backing from the Biden administration.

• READ MORE: US promises to use ‘overwhelming lethal force’ on Yemen’s Houthis – Israeli blockade ‘sadism’ condemned
• Other fragile Gaza ceasefire reports

During this period, around 50,000 people – 48,903 Palestinians and 1706 Israelis – have been reported killed in the Gaza conflict, according to the official figures of the Gaza Health Ministry, as well as 166 journalists and media workers, 120 academics,and more than 224 humanitarian aid workers.

Moreover, a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, signed in mid-January, seems to be hanging by a thread.

Israel has resumed its blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza and cut off electricity after Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal to extend phase 1 of the ceasefire deal (to release more Israeli hostages) without any commitment to implement phase 2 (that envisaged ending the conflict in Gaza and Israel withdrawing its troops from the territory).

Hamas insists on negotiating phase 2 as signed by both parties in the January ceasefire agreement

Over the weekend, Israel reportedly launched air-strikes in Gaza and the Trump administration unleashed a wave of attacks on Houthi rebel positions in Yemen after the Houthis warned Israel not to restart the war in Gaza.

New Zealand and the Gaza conflict
Although distant in geographic terms, the Gaza crisis represents a major moral and legal challenge to New Zealand’s self-image and its worldview based on the strengthening of an international rules-based order.

New Zealand’s founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, emphasised partnership and cooperation between indigenous Māori and European settlers in nation-building.

While the aspirations of the Treaty have yet to be fully realised, the credibility of its vision of reconciliation at home depends on New Zealand’s willingness to uphold respect for human rights and the rule of law in the international arena, particularly in states like Israel where tensions persist between the settler population and Palestinians in occupied territories like the West Bank.

New Zealand’s declaratory stance towards Gaza
In 2023 and 2024, New Zealand consistently backed calls in the UN General Assembly for humanitarian truces or ceasefires in Gaza. It also joined Australia and Canada in February and July last year to demand an end to hostilities.

The New Zealand Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, told the General Assembly in April 2024 that the Security Council had failed in its responsibility “to maintain international peace and security”.

He was right. The Biden administration used its UN Security Council veto four times to perpetuate this brutal onslaught in Gaza for nearly 15 months.

In addition, Peters has repeatedly said there can be no military resolution of a political problem in Gaza that can only be resolved through affirming the Palestinian right to self-determination within the framework of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

The limitations of New Zealand’s Gaza approach
Despite considerable disagreement with Netanyahu’s policy of “mighty vengeance” in Gaza, the National-led coalition government had few qualms about sending a small Defence Force deployment to the Red Sea in January 2024 as part of a US-led coalition effort to counter Houthi rebel attacks on commercial shipping there.

While such attacks are clearly illegal, they are basically part of the fallout from a prolonged international failure to stop the US-enabled carnage in Gaza.

In particular, the NZDF’s Red Sea deployment did not sit comfortably with New Zealand’s acceptance in September 2024 of the ICJ’s ruling that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza) was “unlawful”.

At the same time, the National-led coalition government’s silence on US President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to “own” Gaza, displace two million Palestinian residents and make the territory the “Riviera” of the Middle East was deafening.

Furthermore, while Wellington announced travel bans on violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank in February 2024, it has had little to say publicly about the Netanyahu government’s plans to annex the West Bank in 2025. Such a development would gravely undermine the two-state solution, violate international law, and further fuel regional tensions.

New Zealand’s low-key policy
On balance, the National-led coalition government’s policy towards Gaza appears to be ambivalent and lacking moral and legal clarity in a context in which war crimes have been regularly committed since October 7.

Peters was absolutely correct to condemn the UNSC for failing to deliver the ceasefire that New Zealand and the overwhelming majority of states in the UN General Assembly had wanted from the first month of this crisis.

But the New Zealand government has had no words of criticism for the US, which used its power of veto in the UNSC for more than a year to thwart the prospect of a ceasefire and provided blanket support for an Israeli military campaign that killed huge numbers of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

By cooperating with the Biden administration against Houthi rebels and adopting a quietly-quietly approach to Trump’s provocative comments on Gaza and his apparent willingness to do whatever it takes to help Israel “to get the job done’, New Zealand has revealed a selective approach to upholding international law and human rights in the desperate conditions facing Gaza

Professor Robert G. Patman is an Inaugural Sesquicentennial Distinguished Chair and his research interests concern international relations, global security, US foreign policy, great powers, and the Horn of Africa. This article was first published by The Spinoff and is republished here with the author’s permission.

A former US diplomat, Nabeel Khoury, says President Donald Trump’s decision to launch attacks against the Houthis is misguided, and this will not subdue them.

“For our president who came in wanting to avoid war and wanting to be a man of peace, he’s going about it the wrong way,” he said.

“There are many paths that can be used before you resort to war.” Khoury told Al Jazeera.

• READ MORE: US bombs Yemen, killing 31, after Houthis threaten Israel over Gaza
• Other Gaza genocide reports

The danger to shipping in the Red Sea was “a justifiable reason for concern”, Khoury told Al Jazeera in an interview, but added that it was a problem that could be resolved through diplomacy.

Ansar Allah (Houthi) media sources said that at least four areas had been razed by the US warplanes that targeted, in particular, a residential area north of the capital, Sanaa, killing 31 people.

The Houthis, who had been “bombed severely all over their territory” in the past, were not likely to be subdued through “a few weeks of bombing”, Khoury said.

“If you think that Hamas, living and fighting on a very small piece of land, totally surrounded by land, air and sea, and yet, 17 months of bombardment by the Israelis did not get rid of them.

‘More rugged space’
“The Houthis live in a much more rugged space, mountainous regions — it would be virtually impossible to eradicate them,” Khoury said.

“So there is no military logic to what’s happening, and there is no political logic either.”

Providing background, Patty Culhane reported from Washington that there were several factual errors in the justification President Trump had given for his order.

“It’s important to point out that the Houthi attacks have stopped since the ceasefire in Gaza [on January 19], although the Houthis were threatening to strike again,” she said.

“His other justification is saying that no US-flagged vessel has transited the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden safely in more than a year.

“And then he says another reason is because Houthis attacked a US military warship.

“That happened when Trump was not president.”

Is the world waiting for hundreds of thousands of people to die of hunger in Gaza to do something to save them ? pic.twitter.com/xMFJBNzJNY

— Ahmed Hassan أحمد حسن زيد (@Ahmed_hassan_za) March 14, 2025

Down to 10,000 ships
She said the White House was now putting out more of a communique, “saying that before the attacks, there were 25,000 ships that transited the Red Sea annually. Now it’s down to 10,000 so, obviously, sort of shooting down the president’s concept that nobody is actually transiting the region.

“And it did list the number of attacks. The US commercial ships have been attacked 145 times since 2023 in their list.”

Meanwhile, at least nine people, including three journalists, have been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli drone attack on relief aid workers at Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, according to Palestinian media.

The attack reportedly targeted a relief team that was accompanied by journalists and photographers. At least three local journalists were among the dead.

The Palestinian Journalists’ Protection Centre said in a statement that Israel had killed “three journalists in an airstrike on a media team documenting relief efforts in northern Gaza”, reports

“The journalists were documenting humanitarian relief efforts for those affected by Israel’s genocidal war,” the statement added, according to Anadolu.

In a statement, the Israeli military claimed it struck “two terrorists . . .  operating a drone that posed a threat” to Israeli soldiers in the area of Beit Lahiya.

“Later, a number of additional terrorists collected the drone operating equipment and entered a vehicle. The [Israeli military] struck the terrorists,” it added, without providing any evidence about its claims.

‘Liberation’ poetry
In Auckland on Saturday, protesters at the Aotearoa New Zealand’s weekly “free Palestine” rallies gave a tribute to poet Mahmoud Darwish — the “liberation voice of Palestine” — by reciting peace and justice poetry and marked the sixth anniversary of the Christchurch mosque massacre when a lone white terrorist gunned down 51 people at Friday prayers.

This was one of more than 20 Palestinian solidarity events happening across the motu this weekend.

“It looks like Hiroshima. It looks like Germany at the end of World War Two,” says an Israeli-American historian and professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University about the horrifying reality of Gaza.

Professor Omer Bartov, has described Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza as an “act of annihilation” of the Palestinian people, reports Middle East Eye.

Dr Bartov said that not only had Israeli forces been moving displaced Palestinians around the Gaza Strip but they had also been strategically bombing mosques, museums, hospitals, and anything that served the health or culture of a people — in an attempt to cleanse the entire area of Palestinians.

• READ MORE: Israeli attacks kill 21 Palestinians in Gaza in past 24 hours
• Other war on Gaza reports

Al Jazeera reports that an Israeli drone attack on the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza targeted a group of people gathered at a phone charging and internet distribution point, killing three people.

According to a witness, this was the only point in the refugee camp where people trapped in the area charge their phones and connect to the internet to be in touch with family members who are displaced in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip.

This was not the first time that the Israeli military has carried out deliberate attacks on such connectivity points.

Houthis ballistic missile wounds 14
Meanwhile, a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis from Yemen has broken through Israeli defences above and below the Earth’s atmosphere before slamming into Tel Aviv, reports Israel’s public broadcaster Kan.

It said interceptors from the Arrow missile defence system were launched into the upper atmosphere after detecting the missile, but missed the target and failed to stop it before it entered Israeli territory.

As captured in numerous videos, two more interceptors were then fired in the lower atmosphere, also failing to shoot down the missile.

At least 14 people were wounded after a failed interception of the ballistic missile.

This was the third incident of its kind just this week. The Israeli army says it was now investigating why it was not intercepted and why this was such a significant failure.

Since the start of the war, the Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles, and more than 170 drones in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. The Houthis have said they would continue the attacks until Israel ends its war in the besieged enclave.

In July, there was a drone that evaded all Israeli air defences, no siren sounded, and it was able to detonate in the middle of Tel Aviv and kill one person.

This time, it was just one minute from the time the sirens rang until the moment of impact.

About 200 protesters marched through the heart of Auckland’s tourist suburb of Devonport today to the Royal New Zealand Navy base, accusing the government of backing genocide in the Middle East.

Demanding a “ceasefire now” in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza that has killed almost 27,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — so far, the peaceful protesters called on the New Zealand government to scrap its support for the US-led Red Sea maritime security operation against Yemen’s Houthis.

Speakers contrasted New Zealand’s “proud independent foreign policy” and nuclear-free years under former Labour prime ministers Norman Kirk and David Lange with the “gutless” approach of current Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

• READ MORE: Response to ‘massacres’ by Israel — Group claims deadly attack on US forces
• Amnesty chief calls UNRWA funding cuts ‘heartless’, ‘sickening’
• Palestinian agency condemns funding cuts as ‘ collective punishment’
• Israel’s war on Gaza live: Aid cuts are ‘collective punishment’ – UNRWA
• More countries pause funds for UN Palestinian agency

Among many placards condemning the New Zealand government’s stance, one read: “We need a leader not a follower — grow some balls Luxon”. Others declared “It is shameful for NZ troops to aid genocide”, “Hands off Yemen” and “Blood on your hands”.

Led by the foreign affairs activist group Te Kūaka, Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) and Palestinian Youth Aotearoa (PYA), the march was organised in reaction to Luxon’s announcement last week that New Zealand would deploy six NZ Defence Force officers to the Middle East in support of the US-led attacks on Yemen.

“We are appalled our government is dragging New Zealand into a new war in the Middle East instead of supporting diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza,” Te Kūaka spokesperson Dr Arama Rata said.

‘Unpopular, dangerous move’
“This is an unpopular, undemocratic, and dangerous move, taken without a parliamentary mandate, or authorisation from the United Nations Security Council, which could further inflame regional tensions.”

PSNA secretary Neil Scott branded the New Zealand stance as preferring “trade over humanity!”

He said that in South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) the ruling indicated “plausible genocide” by Israel in its war on Gaza and that state was now on trial with an order to comply with six emergency measures and report back to The Hague within one month.

“This is something that has been obvious to all of us for months based on Israel’s actions on the ground in Gaza and Israeli politicians’ stated intent,” Scott said.

“Yet [our] government refuses to call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It refuses to take any action to oppose that genocide.”

Referring to the Houthis (as Ansarallah are known in the West) and their blockade of the Red Sea, Scott said: “Ships and containers heading to Israel — no other ships to be impacted.

“They [Houthis] state that they are carrying out an obligation to oppose genocide under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention. They will end their blockade when Israel ends the genocide.

‘Oppose Israeli genocide’
“This is something every country in the world is meant to do. Oppose Israeli genocide — that includes Aotearoa.

“So what does Prime Minister Luxon, Minister of Foreign Affairs [Winston] Peters and Minister of Defence [Judith] Collins do? They decide to send our sailors to the Red Sea to defend ships — getting our Navy to be complicit in defending Israeli genocide.”

His comments were greeted with loud cries of “Shame”.

Scott declared that the protesters were calling on the government to “acknowledge New Zealand’s obligations” under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention; expel the Israeli ambassador until the genocide ends, and to “immediately rescind the order to send our sailors” to join the US forces “defending Israeli genocide”.

The protesters also called on New Zealand’s Defence Force chief Air Marshal Kevin Short and Navy chief Rear Admiral David Proctor to stand by the legal obligations of the Genocide Convention to oppose Israeli genocide.

Pointing to the HMNZS Philomel base as Navy officers and a police guard looked on, Green Party MP Steve Abel referenced New Zealand’s “proud episode 50 years ago” when the late Prime Minister Norman Kirk dispatched the frigate HMNZS Otago (and later the Canterbury) to Moruroa atoll in 1973 to protest against French nuclear tests.

He also highlighted Prime Minister David Lange’s championing of nuclear-free New Zealand and the nuclear-free Pacific Rarotonga Treaty “a decade later” in the 1980s.

Abel called for a return to the “courageous” independent foreign policies that New Zealanders had fought for in the past.

Today’s Devonport naval base protest followed a series of demonstrations and a social gathering in Cornwall Park over the holiday weekend in the wake of the “first step” success against impunity by South Africa’s legal team at The Hague last Friday. Other solidarity protests have taken place at some 17 locations across New Zealand.

RNZ News

New Zealand’s defence minister has defended a decision to send six NZ Defence Force staff to the Middle East to help “take out” Houthis fighters as they are “essentially holding the world to ransom”.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins confirmed the plan at the first Cabinet meeting for the year.

The deployment, which could run until the end of July, will support the military efforts led by the United States to protect commercial and merchant vessels.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘They are essentially holding the world to ransom’ – Defence Minister Judith Collins
• NZDF mission in Red Sea has ‘shades of Iraq’ – Labour
• ‘Abhorrent’ attacks must stop after 12 killed killed at Gaza civilian shelter – UN

No NZ military staff would be entering Yemen.

The Houthis attacks are disrupting supply lines, and forcing ships to voyage thousands of kilometres further around Africa in protest against the Israeli war on Gaza.

But opposition parties have condemned the government’s plan, saying it had “shades of Iraq”.

‘Firmly on side of Western backers of Israel’
A security analyst also said the US-requested deployment could be interpreted as New Zealand “planting its flag firmly on the side of the Western backers of Israel”.

Speaking to RNZ Morning Report, Defence Minister Judith Collins denied it showed New Zealand being in support of Israel over the war on Gaza.

She said it was a “very difficult situation”, but not what the deployment was about.

“It’s about the ability to get our goods to market . . .  we’re talking about unarmed merchant vessels moving through the Red Sea no longer able to do so without being attacked.”

Collins said New Zealand had been involved in the Middle East for a “very long time” and it needed to assist where possible to remain a good international partner and to make sure military targets were “taken out”.

Houthis had been given a number of serious warnings, Collins said, and its actions were “outrageous”.

“They are essentially holding the world to ransom.”

NZ would not allow ‘pirates’
New Zealand was part of the world community and would not stand by and allow “pirates to take over our ships or anyone’s ships”.

Collins said she was not expecting there to be any extension or expansion of the deployment which would end on July 31.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been attacking ships in the Red Sea, which they say are linked to Israel, since the start of the Israel-Gaza conflict. In response, US and British forces have been carrying out strikes at different locations in Yemen, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands, according to a joint statement signed by the six countries.

The opposition Labour Party is condemning the coalition government’s deployment of Defence Force troops to the Middle East, saying it has “shades of Iraq”.

Labour foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker made clear his party’s opposition to the deployment.

“We don’t think we should become embroiled in that conflict . . .  which is part of a longer term civil war in Yemen and we think that New Zealand should stay out of this, there’s no UN resolution in favour of it . . . we don’t think we should get involved in a conflict in the Middle East.”

‘Deeply disturbing’, say Greens
The Green Party’s co-leaders have also expressed their unhappiness with the deployment, describing it as “deeply disturbing”.

In a statement, Marama Davidson and James Shaw said they were “horrified at this government’s decision to further inflame tensions in the Middle East”.

“The international community has an obligation to protect peace and human rights. Right now, what we are witnessing in the Middle East is a regional power play between different state and non-state groups. This decision is only likely to inflame tensions.”

Davidson and Shaw indicated they would call for an urgent debate on the deployment when Parliament resumes next week.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

“How dare we have a conversation about trade when there are children right now being treated without anaesthetic?”

British journalist Myriam Francois on the Houthis blockade of shipments in the Red sea amid Israel’s war on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Yg9RV2ek4p

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) January 24, 2024

A group of foreign policy critics alarmed at the Aotearoa New Zealand government’s “undemocratic decision” to step up support for US-led strikes against Yemen have warned against “inflaming” the Red Sea maritime crisis.

They have urgently called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza as they say the Israeli war that has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians is the root cause of the crisis.

The foreign policy group, Te Kuaka, said in a statement that the government’s decision to deploy a six-member NZ Defence Force team to the Middle East was “deeply alarming”.

• READ MORE: New Zealand to deploy Defence Force to Red Sea
• Back SA over genocide case, ‘don’t yield to pressure’, Hania tells NZ
• ABC staff ‘have lost confidence’ in boss in defending public trust in Israel row

The government announcement came this afternoon at a post-Cabinet media conference.

Group co-director Dr Arama Rata said: “New Zealand’s involvement in the Red Sea will just inflame regional instability and cause more civilian deaths without addressing the root cause of the Houthi actions, which is ending the genocide in Gaza.”

Dr Rata said it was deeply alarming that this decision was made without a Parliamentary mandate, particularly given the incredibly high stakes of the crisis.

“There has been no explicit authorisation of military action in self defence against Yemen by the UN Security Council either,” she said.

‘Frightening precedent’
“This sets a frightening precedent for how foreign policy decisions are made.

“There are huge risks to not just the Middle East, but New Zealand directly, when we take the side of the US and the UK, nations that have a long history of oppressive intervention in the Global South.”

Co-director Dr Marco de Jong said: “We know that public opinion and a Parliamentary mandate would have swayed any foreign policy decisions in the direction of calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

“Public polls and weekly protests for Palestine, since October 7, have shown this to be the case.”

Thousands took to Queen Street in the heart of Auckland for the 15th consecutive week to protest over the war and to call for a ceasefire and an end to genocide. One of the Palestinian speakers addressing the crowd reminded them millions of citizen protesters were demonstrating all over the world.

The protesters condemned Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for failing to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

At today’s, post-cabinet media conference Luxon claimed the Houthi attacks were hurting New Zealand exporters.

Global trade
“Nearly 15 percent of global trade goes through the Red Sea, and the Houthi attacks are driving costs higher for New Zealanders and causing delays to shipments,” Luxon said.

However, Dr de Jong said: “By pre-empting these criticisms [such as by critics and protesters] in its own announcement, the government is wrongly suggesting that our intervention in the Middle East will not be viewed in the context of genocide in Gaza and highlighting NZ’s previous involvement in US-led misadventures — which have been similarly deadly and destructive.”

Dr Rata added: “We need to have an honest reflection about our positioning alongside the US and the UK.

“Instead of colluding with these colonial powers, we should be standing with countries like Brazil and South Africa, which are challenging old colonial regimes, and represent the majority of the international community.”

The Biden administration has officially re-designated Ansarallah – the dominant force in Yemen also known as the Houthis – as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.

The White House claims the designation is an appropriate response to the group’s attacks on US military vessels and commercial ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, saying those attacks “fit the textbook definition of terrorism”.

Ansarallah claims its actions “adhere to the provisions of Article 1 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” since it is only enforcing a blockade geared toward ceasing the ongoing Israeli destruction of Gaza.

• READ MORE: US redesignates Yemen’s Houthis as ‘global terrorists’

One of the most heinous acts committed by the Trump administration was its designation of Ansarallah as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), both of which imposed sanctions that critics warned would plunge Yemen’s aid-dependent population into even greater levels of starvation than they were already experiencing by restricting the aid that would be allowed in.

One of the Biden administration’s only decent foreign policy decisions has been the reversal of that sadistic move, and now that reversal is being partially rolled back, though thankfully only with the SDGT listing and not the more deadly and consequential FTO designation.

US Re-Designates Houthis as ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorists’
The designation will hamper aid deliveries and could complicate a peace deal between the Saudis and Houthis
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Yemen #Houthis #SaudiArabia #RedSea #Gaza https://t.co/6bXDM0MdiU pic.twitter.com/K8mj2itz2f

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) January 17, 2024

In a new article for Antiwar about this latest development, Dave Decamp explains that as much as the Biden White House goes to great lengths insisting that it’s going to issue exemptions to ensure that its sanctions don’t harm the already struggling Yemeni people,

“history has shown that sanctions scare away international companies and banks from doing business with the targeted nations or entities and cause shortages of medicine, food, and other basic goods.”

DeCamp also notes that US and British airstrikes on Yemen have already forced some aid groups to suspend services to the country.

Still trying to recover
So the US empire is going to be imposing sanctions on a nation that is still trying to recover from the devastation caused by the US-backed Saudi blockade that contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths between 2015 and 2022. All in response to the de facto government of that very same country imposing its own blockade with the goal of preventing a genocide.

That’s right: when Yemen sets up a blockade to try and stop an active genocide, that’s terrorism, but when the US empire imposes a blockade to secure its geostrategic interests in the Middle East, why that’s just the rules-based international order in action.

Today, in response to these continuing threats and attacks, the United States announced the designation of Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist – Jake Sullivan, U.S. National Security Advisorhttps://t.co/D5d8MylujK pic.twitter.com/pSFUzCR7qk

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) January 17, 2024

It just says so much about how the US empire sees itself that it can impose blockades and starvation sanctions at will upon nations like Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria and North Korea for refusing to bow to its dictates, but when Yemen imposes a blockade for infinitely more worthy and noble reasons it gets branded an act of terrorism.

The managers of the globe-spanning empire loosely centralised around Washington literally believe the world is theirs to rule as they will, and that anyone who opposes its rulings is an outlaw.

Based on power
“What this shows us is that the “rules-based international order” the US and its allies claim to uphold is not based on rules at all; it’s based on power, which is the ability to control and impose your will on other people.

The “rules” apply only to the enemies of the empire because they are not rules at all: they are narratives used to justify efforts to bend the global population to its will.

We are ruled by murderous tyrants. By nuclear-armed thugs who would rather starve civilians to protect the continuation of an active genocide than allow peace to get a word in edgewise.

Our world can never know health as long as these monsters remain in charge.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

The US has carried out another air raid on Yemen, with targets reportedly including the international airport in the capital city of Sanaa. This comes a day after US and UK airstrikes on Yemen in retaliation for Houthi attacks on Red Sea commercial vessels.

For weeks Yemen’s Houthi forces have been greatly inconveniencing commercial shipping with their blockade, with reports last month saying Israel’s Eilat Port has seen an 85 percent drop in activity since the attacks began.

This entirely bloodless inconvenience was all it took for Washington to attack Yemen, the war-ravaged nation in which the US and its allies have spent recent years helping Saudi Arabia murder hundreds of thousands of people with its own maritime blockades.

• READ MORE: This genocide is being live-streamed. We can’t say we didn’t know
• How the US, UK bombing of Yemen might help the Houthis
• What is South Africa’s five-point ICJ genocide argument against Israel?

Yemen has issued defiant statements in response to these attacks, saying they will not go “unanswered or unpunished”.

The U.S. can have a multi-decade long blockade on Cuba and it’s normalized.

Israel can have a decade and a half long total air, land, and sea blockade on Gaza and it’s normalized.

But Yemenis block some ships to stop a genocide and all the sudden it’s indefensible.

— James Ray (@GoodVibePolitik) January 13, 2024

The Biden administration’s dramatic escalation toward yet another horrific war in the Middle East has been hotly criticised by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who argue that the attacks were illicit because they took place without congressional approval.

This impotent congressional whining will never go anywhere, since, as Glenn Greenwald has observed, the US Congress never actually does anything to hold presidents to account for carrying out acts of war without their approval.

But there are some worthwhile ideas going around.

After the second round of strikes, a Democratic representative from Georgia named Hank Johnson tweeted the following:

“I have what some may consider a dumb idea, but here it is: stop the bombing of Gaza, then the attacks on commercial shipping will end. Why not try that approach?”

By golly, that’s just crazy enough to work. In fact, anti-interventionists have been screaming it at the top of their lungs since the standoff with Yemen began.

All the way back in mid-October Responsible Statecraft’s Trita Parsi was already writing urgently about the need for a ceasefire in Gaza to prevent it from exploding into a wider war in the region, a position Parsi has continued pushing ever since.

“Huge Miscalculation”: Biden’s Refusal to Push for Gaza Ceasefire Could Drag U.S. into Middle East War https://t.co/eJuzswi2BJ

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) January 8, 2024

As we discussed previously, Israel’s US-backed assault on Gaza is threatening to bleed over into conflicts with the Houthis in Yemen, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, with Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria, and even potentially with Iran itself – any of which could easily see the US and its allies committing themselves to a full-scale war.

Peace in Gaza takes these completely unnecessary gambles off the table.

And it is absolutely within Washington’s power to force a ceasefire in Gaza. Biden could end all this with one phone call, as US presidents have done in the past. As Parsi wrote for The Nation earlier this month:

“In 1982, President Ronald Reagan was ‘disgusted’ by Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. He stopped the transfer of cluster munitions to Israel and told Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a phone call that ‘this is a holocaust.’ Reagan demanded that Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Begin caved. Twenty minutes after their phone call, Begin ordered a halt on attacks.

“Indeed, it is absurd to claim that Biden has no leverage, particularly given the massive amounts of arms he has shipped to Israel. In fact, Israeli officials openly admit it. ‘All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US,’ retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brick conceded in November of last year. ‘The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability.… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.’ ”

In the end, you get peace by pursuing peace. That’s how it happens. You don’t get it by pursuing impossible imaginary ideals like the total elimination of Hamas while butchering tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.

You don’t get it by trying to bludgeon the Middle East into passively accepting an active genocide. You get it by negotiation, de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.

The path to peace is right there. The door’s not locked. It’s not even closed. The fact that they don’t take it tells you what these imperialist bastards are really interested in.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.