(Dobbs) “Days turned into weeks, which turned into months, which turned into years.”

Parallels between Ukraine and Iran are chilling.

Mar 9

When you think about what Russia has done to Ukraine for four years now, and what the U.S. and Israel are doing to Iran, how different are they, really?

Sure, Ukraine is an innocent victim that never hurt anybody, while the Islamic Republic has hurt Westerners and even its own citizens for almost fifty years. But that doesn’t change one fact: Putin has hammered innocent Ukrainians, and Trump and Netanyahu have hammered innocent Iranians.

Start with Iran’s oil industry. The United States secretary of energy Chris Wright told CNN yesterday, “The U.S. is targeting zero energy infrastructure. There are no plans to target Iran’s oil industry, their natural gas industry, or anything about their energy industry.”

That’s all well and good, but Israel has targeted them and this weekend hit them hard. Oil depots, warehouses, and refineries all around Tehran have been attacked.

One Tehran resident told Time Magazine, “The rain is black. I can’t believe it, I’m seeing black rain.”

Since Israel’s weapons primarily come from the United States and reportedly can’t be used without permission, presumably the White House has given it the green light. Strategically this might help bring down Iran’s government, but how different is it from what Vladimir Putin has been doing for four years, knocking out the industrial and power framework all over Ukraine? At the expense of the poor innocent citizens of the nation.

Then go to infrastructure. Parts of Iran, where the desert does not supply enough water to support the population, depend on desalinizing sea water to turn it into drinking water. Such plants are a lifeline in a place like that. As The Associated Press reported yesterday, “Oil built the Persian Gulf. Desalinated water keeps it alive.”

Saturday, an Iranian desalination plant was attacked.

How different is this from what Russia has been doing to the infrastructure all over Ukraine? Again, at the expense of the poor innocent citizens of the nation.

Finally there’s the fabric of cities themselves: the places where people buy food, the places where people work, the places where people live. No one in Ukraine has been safe. For a while, Putin spared Kiev, the capital, but now Kiev is on the receiving end of the worst of his savage attacks. Buildings arbitrarily are blown to kingdom come.

How different is this from what the U.S. and Israel have done this past week in Iran? Photos and videos show several blocks at a time taking missiles or bombs and reduced to rubble. This is carpet-bombing, not precision bombing. Because inevitably the victims are innocent citizens, that is wrong.

President Trump said in a post on his website Saturday, “Today Iran will be hit very hard! Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death.”

The tragedy is, it is certain death not only for the forces of the Islamic regime, it is certain death for everyone in the places that are pulverized.

The recent Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times, Anton Troianovski, wrote a piece yesterday with the title, “How Trump’s War in Iran Has Echoes of Putin and Ukraine.” It wasn’t about the parallels between physical attacks ordered by both leaders, it was about parallels in their rhetoric and their reasoning…. including the words of Trump’s loyal lieutenants.

Examples:

• Vladimir Putin said in 2022, the year his army invaded, “We didn’t start the so-called war in Ukraine. Rather, we are trying to finish it.” Defense Secretary Hegseth said a week ago, the U.S. “didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.”

• On the first night of his invasion of Ukraine, Putin said he had “no other choice.” President Trump said at the White House last week, “It was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”

• President Putin ordered everyone to call his war “a special military operation,” not a war. Citizens who actually used the word “war” could be arrested. A few days after the first attacks in Iran, House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked if he thought this was a war. His answer? “I think this is an operation.”

• Putin said five months into his war, “We haven’t even yet started anything in earnest.” President Trump told CNN last week, “We haven’t even started hitting them hard.”

[Salon] “Days turned into weeks, which turned into months, which turned into years.”

(Dobbs) “Days turned into weeks, which turned into months, which turned into years.”

Parallels between Ukraine and Iran are chilling.