More than a century after driving out their Chinese residents, cities across the West are saying sorry, with parks, plaques, and proclamations. But it’s seldom clear who they’re talking to—or what the...

<article data-history-node-id="424459" about="https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israels-attack-iran-violent-new-world-being-born-going-horrify-you" class="live-blog-update default clearfix"> <h2> <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israels-attack-iran-violent-new-world-being-born-going-horrify-you" rel="bookmark"> <span class="field field-title">Israel's attack on Iran: The violent new world being born is going to horrify you</span> </a> </h2> <div class="content"> <div class="field field-field-text"><p>Twenty years ago, the US warned prematurely of the 'birth pangs' of a new Middle East. Now they have arrived in full force - and they will not end in Iran.</p> <p>Ultimately this is about more than redrawing the map of the Middle East. And it is about more than toppling the rulers in Tehran.&nbsp;</p> <p>Just as Israel needed to take out Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria before it could consider clearing a path to Iran’s destruction, the US and its western allies needs the axis of resistance eradicated, as well as Russia bogged down in an interminable war in Ukraine, before it can consider taking on China.&nbsp;</p> <p>Or as the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/germanys-merz-says-israel-is-doing-the-dirty-work-for-all-of-us-by-countering-iran/" target="_blank">&nbsp;noted</a>&nbsp;this week, in one of those quiet-part-out-loud moments: "This [the attack on Iran] is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us."</p> <p>This is a key moment in the Pentagon’s 20-year plan for “global full-spectrum dominance”: a unipolar world in which the US is unconstrained by military rivals or the imposition of international law. A world in which a tiny, unaccountable elite, enriched by wars, dictate terms to the rest of us.&nbsp;</p> <p>If all this sounds like a sociopath’s approach to foreign relations, that is because it is. Years of impunity for Israel and the US have brought us to this point. Both feel entitled to destroy what remains of an international order that does not let them get precisely what they want.</p> <p>The current birth pangs will grow. If you believe in human rights, in limits on the power of government, in the use of diplomacy before military aggression, in the freedoms you grew up with, the new world being born is going to horrify you.</p> <p>You can read more&nbsp;<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israels-attack-iran-violent-new-world-being-born-going-horrify-you">here</a>.</p> </div> </div> </article>