Economist Jeffrey Sachs: U.S.-Israeli "War of Choice," Assault on U.N. Charter Could Lead to WWIII

AMY GOODMAN, The War and Peace Report, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Ambilante Film Festival, check our website at democracynow.org. And we're joined by Democracy Now!'s Juan González in Chicago. Earlier this week, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution condemning Iran for its, quote, egregious attacks against its Gulf neighbors, calling out specifically attacks on residential areas and civilians, as well as its closure of the Strait of Hormuz, threatening global energy supplies.

Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan are specifically mentioned in the resolution, which had 140 cosponsors. Of the 15 Security Council members, 13 voted in favor, with none against. China and Russia abstained. Bahrain's U.N. ambassador, Jamal Fares Al-Rawaiy, said the vote reflected the collective conscience of the world.

JAMAL FARES AL-RAWAIY, Bahrain Ambassador to the United Nations for Security Council of the United States of the world.

This overwhelming support from the international community reflects a collective awareness of the danger posed by the unjust Iranian attack against our countries, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the GCC, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, over the past 12 days. The adoption by the Council of this resolution today confirms that the international community is united in addressing and confronting these hostile acts. The stability and safety of the region is part and parcel of the security and peace

architecture.

Russia's representative to the U.N. called the past resolution biased for not acknowledging Israel and the United States as instigators of the war. Russia introduced a second resolution that called for an immediate halt to all hostilities in the Middle East without naming any parties involved. That resolution failed to pass. This is the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz.

Once again, Russia is acting here at the Security Council to protect its partner, Iran. We reject Russia's attempt to conflate lawful U.S. actions taken in line with Article 51 of the UN Charter, to conflate those actions with Iran's pattern of bloodshed and brutality to its own people and around the world, And with its recent deliberate and at scale targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure across the Gulf and the Middle East, the United States will continue to work here at this Council and beyond to hold the Iranian regime to account and to bring to light its destabilizing and unlawful

actions. Russia's attempts to prevent this council from acting in line with its core principles will not deter us.

For more, we're joined by the economist Jeffrey Sachs. He's the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He also serves as advisor to three U.N. secretaries general. He recently wrote an article headlined, This Illegal U.S.-Israeli Attack on Iran is Also an Assault on the United Nations," unquote.

In an open letter to the U.N. Security Council in February, Professor Sachs said it was the U.S. and not Iran that had walked away from negotiations and that U.S. threats against Iran violated international law. He said, quote, the issue facing the U.N. Security Council in these perilous days is whether any member state, by force or threat of force, may place itself above the United Nations Charter that governs

us all. At stake is the integrity of the U.N.-based international system," unquote. Professor Sachs today joins us from Rome, Italy. Thanks so much for being with us, Professor Sachs. Why don't you elaborate on this letter and your statements about the U.N. international order and what is happening today with the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran and Iran's retaliatory attacks?

Thank you very much, Amy. And what a chilling show to hear Gideon Levy, to hear your report from Beirut. We have a war of blatant aggression that is going to put the entire world into a disaster. This is a war of aggression and a war of choice by Israel and the United States. It is in the most blatant, frank violation of the U.N. Charter and the core of the U.N. Charter, its purpose, which says that nations shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any

state, period." That is Article 2, paragraph 4 of the U.N. Charter. Walz, the U.S. ambassador, says, oh, we're acting under Article 51. That is the article on self-defense. The United States is not acting in self-defense. Israel is not acting on self-defense. The United States is not acting in self-defense. Israel is not acting in self-defense.

These two countries are committing flagrant aggression. And they've done it twice now in the context of negotiations, which makes it all the more pernicious. Twice, the United States claimed it was negotiating with Iran, and twice it killed Iranian leaders in the midst of the so-called negotiations. This is the most blatant and brazen assault on U.N.—the U.N. charter and international law since it was founded in 1945. Even in the Iraq war and other U.S. war and Israeli wars of choice, they faked it, at

least. Here, they don't even fake it. They just are blatant aggressors with no justification at all. Our U.N. ambassador is Green Beret. They have militarized everything about our society, Amy and Juan. We are in a security state, not a constitutional order.

No one asked the American people about whether to go to war or not. And our Congress doesn't want to have anything to do with this. So when they're asked, they say, don't ask us. This is—we give it to Mr. Trump and to Mr. Netanyahu. So I think this is the most brazen fascism that we have seen since the fascist era. And it is absolutely extraordinary. And it's going to put us, I think, probably into World War III.

And if it doesn't do that, it's going to put us into an economic calamity worldwide.

And, Jeffrey Sachs, I wanted to ask you this narrative now that the Trump administration has been pushing in all of their pronouncements, that this is actually attempting to end the war that Iran launched against the United States decades ago. And they make it seem like everything that's happened has been around, aggressing against the United States, forgetting, obviously, that the role of our country in goading and supplying Iraq and its war against Iran in the 1980s and the various other attacks

by Israel and the United States against Iran in the past?

Look, every word that Donald Trump says is vile and ignorant, so we can almost say for sure that every word he posts every day is a vile lie. But when it comes to the United States and Iran, yes, this does go back a long way. In 1953, when Iran had a fully functioning democracy, the CIA and MI6 overthrew the government of Mossadegh, Prime Minister Mossadegh. We installed a police state.

We installed a police state that lasted from 1953 to 1979. When the Iranian people took back their country, we immediately armed Iraq, as you said, Juan, to go to war with Iran and to kill hundreds of thousands of people. When that war ended in 1988, the United States continued, through the CIA and other means, to do everything possible to destabilize the Iranian government, to crush the economy, to impose U.S. measures, sanctions and so

on, to destroy the well with you, the United States rejected at almost every stage, with one exception, which is that in the Obama presidency, the, China, Russia, Germany, the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, the P5-plus-1, as it was called, negotiated an agreement with Iran that put Iran under strict U.N. supervision, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to ensure that what Iran said was actually carried out, which is that Iran did not want a nuclear weapon and the IAEA would inspect.

And for three years, the IAEA inspected hundreds and hundreds of times, and Iran was in full compliance. And then what happened? Netanyahu and Trump ripped up the agreement and went back to war, a hybrid war with Iran. Everything Trump says, which is despicable, because he is absolutely leading us to ruin and leading the world to World War III. Everything he says is a lie, because he says, I'm stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. is rip up the agreement that already existed to ensure that, kill, assassinate Iranian

leaders repeatedly, kill the Iranian religious leader who for decades had said that a nuclear weapon would be against Islamic law, kill that person, invade or bomb the country with carpet bombing now, and is presiding over what is now already a regional war, with Israel behaving as usual in its completely fascistic way of genociding Gaza, locking up the West Bank, as Gideon Levy just told us, and invading Lebanon and displacing already a million people, bombing the universities, bombing the hospitals, bombing the schools.

This is so out of control, without any logic, any rationality, even not any humane, moral, legal justification whatsoever. We have not seen anything like this since the fascists of World War II. And it is extraordinarily dangerous, what's happening. It will lead to world war the way we're going, because we have two malignant narcissists, Netanyahu and Trump, that are leading us to disaster. And you listen to Netanyahu's words. He explains this has nothing to do with the U.N. charter.

He says, we're not waiting. We are initiating. Well, that, Mr. Netanyahu, is against the UN Charter. You're not allowed to initiate war under the UN Charter. You've explained it very clearly. You are making a war of aggression.

And you, too, Mr. Trump, you are making a war of aggression, and you're threatening the entire world. It's really as simple as that.

Professor Sachs, we have less than a minute. President Trump yesterday suggested skyrocketing fuel costs are a good thing. You're an economist. Trump wrote, the United States is the largest oil producer in the world by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. This contradicted what he said at the State of the Union, saying oil prices were lower

than under President Biden, and he was very proud of that. Thirty seconds. Your response?

He may put money into the hands of a few oil companies, which pay his bills, which are corrupt, which pay his campaigns, but he's going to impoverish Americans, and he's throwing the entire world into a profound economic crisis. And the world's going to remember, and it's going to know very soon, Israel and the United States have put the entire world into a profound economic crisis. Again, the first thing you know, anything Trump writes is a combination of ignorance,

malevolence and lies, including that statement, Amy.

Jeffrey Sachs, we want to thank you so much for being with us, world-renowned economics professor, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network, has served as adviser to three U.N. secretaries general, now a Sustainable Development Solutions advocate under Secretary General Antonio Guterres. We'll link to your articles at democracynow.org.

As we end this show, a very fond farewell to our video fellow, Safwat Nassar. You will forever be in our DNA, Democracy Now! alum. And thank you for your creativity, your humor and your intelligence. Tonight I'm heading to Mexico City for two screenings of Steal the Story, Please! at the Ambulante Film Festival.

Tonight it's in Ateca Nacional. Check out democracynow.org. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González. a video. And for more of our audience-supported journalism, go to democracynow.org, where you can download our news app, sign up for our newsletter, subscribe to the Daily Podcast and so much our news app, sign up for our newsletter, subscribe to the Daily Podcast and so much

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