Kingston Peace Council/CND condemns the attacks by the US and Israel on Iran

We express our concern that these reckless attacks have now cost lives across the Middle East and more lives will be lost as the situation escalates and gives rise to the next generation of hatred. /span>

Negotiations should have been allowed to continue. Iran has been participating in the ongoing UN Conference on establishing a Middle-East Zone free from Nuclear Weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction. Israel, on the other hand, refuses to negotiate on its own possession of nuclear weapons.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, in working with President Trump, is given a veneer of respectability even as he continues his genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.

We can never know how different Iran might have looked today if the democratically elected and popular Prime Minister Mossadegh had not been overthrown by the UK and US in 1953, mainly for wanting to nationalise his country's oil reserves. But our politicians seem slow at learning the lessons of history.

We deplore the approval given by the British Government for British bases to be used to support this illegal, immoral and reckless military action.

Our thoughts are with those who have been killed, injured or displaced as a result of this ill-advised and unprovoked onslaught.

We echo the words of US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

Violence begets violence. We learned this lesson in Iraq. We learned this lesson in Afghanistan. And we are about to learn it in Iran. Bombs have yet to create enduring democracies in the region and this will be no different.

This war is unlawful. It is unnecessary. And it will be catastrophic.