Ear­ly last Sat­ur­day morn­ing, the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca (US) and Is­rael launched a se­ries of pre­emp­tive strikes against Iran, de­ploy­ing stealth bombers, fight­er jets, elec­tron­ic war­fare air­craft, re­con­nais­sance drones, kamikaze drones (LU­CAS), Tom­a­hawk cruise mis­siles, HI­MARS (high mo­bil­i­ty ar­tillery rock­et sys­tem) rock­ets, and naval strike plat­forms.

In an eight-minute video on Sat­ur­day morn­ing on his Truth So­cial so­cial me­dia plat­form, US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump ex­plained that his coun­try had start­ed ma­jor com­bat op­er­a­tions in Iran.

“Our ob­jec­tive is to de­fend the Amer­i­can peo­ple by elim­i­nat­ing im­mi­nent threats from the Iran­ian regime, a vi­cious group of very hard, ter­ri­ble peo­ple. Its men­ac­ing ac­tiv­i­ties di­rect­ly en­dan­ger the Unit­ed States, our troops, our bases over­seas, and our al­lies through­out the world...

“It has al­ways been the pol­i­cy of the Unit­ed States, in par­tic­u­lar my ad­min­is­tra­tion, that this ter­ror­ist regime can nev­er have a nu­clear weapon. I’ll say it again, they can nev­er have a nu­clear weapon. That is why in Op­er­a­tion Mid­night Ham­mer last June, we oblit­er­at­ed the regime’s nu­clear pro­gramme at For­do, Natanz, and Is­fa­han. Af­ter that at­tack, we warned them nev­er to re­sume their ma­li­cious pur­suit of nu­clear weapons, and we sought re­peat­ed­ly to make a deal...

“They’ve re­ject­ed every op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­nounce their nu­clear am­bi­tions, and we can’t take it any­more. In­stead, they at­tempt­ed to re­build their nu­clear pro­gram and to con­tin­ue de­vel­op­ing long-range mis­siles that can now threat­en our very good friends and al­lies in Eu­rope, our troops sta­tioned over­seas, and could soon reach the Amer­i­can home­land.” Mr Trump said.

Those at­tacks oc­curred dur­ing in­di­rect ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the US and Iran, me­di­at­ed by of­fi­cials from the Mid­dle East­ern state of Oman, in Gene­va, Switzer­land. Up to Feb­ru­ary 26, there had been three rounds of ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“We have fin­ished the day af­ter sig­nif­i­cant progress in the ne­go­ti­a­tion be­tween the Unit­ed States and Iran. We will re­sume soon af­ter con­sul­ta­tion in the re­spec­tive cap­i­tals,” said Oman’s For­eign Min­is­ter Badr bin Hamad Al­bu­sai­di on Thurs­day last.

“This round of talks was the most in­tense so far. It con­clud­ed with the mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing that we will con­tin­ue to en­gage in a more de­tailed man­ner on mat­ters that are es­sen­tial to any deal -- in­clud­ing sanc­tions ter­mi­na­tion and nu­clear-re­lat­ed steps,” said Iran’s For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi.

So the US and Is­rael com­menced the bomb­ing on Iran two days af­ter the con­clu­sion of ac­tive and on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions. In those ne­go­ti­a­tions, the US was de­mand­ing the end of Iran’s bal­lis­tic mis­sile pro­gramme, the per­ma­nent de­com­mis­sion­ing of Iran’s nu­clear fa­cil­i­ties and that the coun­try should de­sist from sup­port­ing its re­gion­al prox­ies, in­clud­ing the Houthis of Yemen and Lebanon’s Hezbol­lah.

Last Sat­ur­day was not the first time the US and Is­raeli forces dis­con­tin­ued ne­go­ti­a­tions to launch pre­emp­tive at­tacks on Iran. On June 13, 2025—which was the day on which that round of nu­clear ne­go­ti­a­tions was due to end—Is­rael launched ma­jor airstrikes on Iran­ian nu­clear and mil­i­tary sites. The US on­ly start­ed bomb­ing Iran on June 21, 2025, ac­cord­ing to con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous me­dia re­ports.

In a speech on June 21, 2025, Pres­i­dent Trump said, “Tonight, I can re­port to the world that the strikes were a spec­tac­u­lar mil­i­tary suc­cess. Iran’s key nu­clear en­rich­ment fa­cil­i­ties have been com­plete­ly and to­tal­ly oblit­er­at­ed. Iran, the bul­ly of the Mid­dle East, must now make peace. If they do not. Fu­ture at­tacks would be far greater and a lot eas­i­er.”

Ques­tions:

* Un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law, is it le­gal for two na­tions to launch a pre­emp­tive at­tack on a third na­tion be­cause it pos­es an im­mi­nent threat that needs to be elim­i­nat­ed?

* Does Iran’s pos­ses­sion of a long-range bal­lis­tic mis­sile pro­gramme—which it has had for decades—val­i­date a pre­emp­tive strike?

* Hav­ing oblit­er­at­ed Iran’s nu­clear pro­gramme in June 2025, what was the dan­ger to the US and Is­rael of Iran at­tempt­ing to re­build its nu­clear pro­gramme, pre­sum­ably from scrath? How many years would Iran have need­ed to re­build its nu­clear pro­gramme af­ter its oblit­er­a­tion?

* Are there mod­ern-day, as in post-World War II, prece­dents for na­tions ad­journ­ing a round of ne­go­ti­a­tions, which one pre­sumes were in good faith, and then with­in two days, one of those na­tions launch­es a full-scale, pre­emp­tive at­tack on the oth­er?

* Can the na­tions of this world trust a coun­try that ab­jures ne­go­ti­a­tions in favour of war?

These ques­tions lead to the fact that the Gov­ern­ment of T&T chose to re­spond to the at­tacks by the US and Is­rael on Iran and the na­ture of the T&T re­sponse.

In a state­ment on Feb­ru­ary 28, just hours af­ter the launch of the at­tacks on Iran, the T&T Gov­ern­ment said:

“The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs wish­es to ex­press its sup­port for the con­tin­ued ac­tions of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca aimed at pre­vent­ing op­pres­sive regimes from ac­quir­ing nu­clear weapons ca­pa­bil­i­ties that would jeop­ar­dise in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty. The pro­lif­er­a­tion of such weapons is a grave threat to the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty.

“The Min­istry ex­press­es sym­pa­thy for all loss of life due to events oc­cur­ring in the Mid­dle East and reaf­firms our sup­port for the peace­ful ex­is­tence of all per­sons.

“The Min­istry stands in firm sol­i­dar­i­ty with our broth­ers and sis­ters in the Gulf, in­clud­ing those in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, King­dom of Bahrain and State of Qatar who have come un­der at­tack and con­demns in the strongest pos­si­ble terms any acts of ag­gres­sion that threat­en their sov­er­eign­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, and sta­bil­i­ty.

“The safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als in af­fect­ed coun­tries re­main a para­mount pri­or­i­ty for the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs...”

Ac­cord­ing to a Sun­day, March 1 re­port from the Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC), on­ly three Cari­com mem­ber states had re­spond­ed to the at­tacks by the US and Is­rael on Iran by then.

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da said its gov­ern­ment was “deeply con­cerned by the rapid and dan­ger­ous es­ca­la­tion of hos­til­i­ties in the Mid­dle East” and that it al­so “con­demns at­tacks against the ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty of states that are not di­rect par­ties to a con­flict.” It said such ac­tions con­sti­tute a se­ri­ous breach of in­ter­na­tion­al law and height­en the risk of widen­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty across an al­ready frag­ile re­gion.

“We echo the sen­ti­ment ex­pressed by mem­bers of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that the Iran­ian lead­er­ship must un­der­stand that it has no oth­er op­tion but to en­gage in good-faith ne­go­ti­a­tions to ad­dress se­ri­ous is­sues of re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty. This course of ac­tion is es­sen­tial to re­duce ten­sions and re­store sta­bil­i­ty.”

The Guyana gov­ern­ment said it “re­it­er­ates the need for the sus­tained pur­suit of last­ing peace and sta­bil­i­ty for the Mid­dle East.

“The un­pro­voked at­tack by Iran on the King­dom of Bahrain, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Qatar, and Kuwait is un­jus­ti­fied and in breach of in­ter­na­tion­al law. The Gov­ern­ment of Guyana con­demns the at­tacks on these sov­er­eign states and calls up­on all par­ties to de-es­ca­late in the in­ter­est of peace and sta­bil­i­ty in the re­gion,” the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and In­ter­na­tion­al Co­op­er­a­tion said in a brief state­ment.

“Guyana ex­press­es full sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of the King­dom of Bahrain, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Qatar and Kuwait, and con­demns all ac­tions by Iran in at­tack­ing these coun­tries,” it added.

Ques­tions:

i) Why would T&T be the on­ly one of the three Cari­com mem­ber states, re­spond­ing to the at­tacks, that chose “to ex­press its sup­port for the con­tin­ued ac­tions of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca aimed at pre­vent­ing op­pres­sive regimes from ac­quir­ing nu­clear weapons ca­pa­bil­i­ties that would jeop­ar­dise in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty?”

ii) Why did the T&T Gov­ern­ment think that its ex­pres­sion of sup­port for the US ac­tions was nec­es­sary, when none of the oth­er 13 sov­er­eign mem­bers of Cari­com held that view?

iii) Why would the T&T Gov­ern­ment ex­press its sup­port for the US ac­tions, with­out even a scin­til­la of con­cern about the le­gal­i­ty of the at­tack?

iv) Why would the T&T Gov­ern­ment re­fer to US ac­tions “aimed at pre­vent­ing op­pres­sive regimes from ac­quir­ing nu­clear weapons ca­pa­bil­i­ties that would jeop­ar­dise in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty,” when Pres­i­dent Trump spoke about the US oblit­er­at­ing Iran’s nu­clear weapon ca­pa­bil­i­ties in June 2025?

v) Does T&T strive to have a ‘spe­cial re­la­tion­ship’ with the US in the way that Great Britain has?

vi) Is the T&T Gov­ern­ment aware of the re­buke of the UK Prime Min­is­ter, Sir Keir Starmer, by Pres­i­dent Trump, who said, “This is not Win­ston Churchill that we’re deal­ing with,” over the for­mer’s ini­tial hes­i­ta­tion to grant the US mil­i­tary ac­cess to British bases? Sir Keir quick­ly re­versed his hes­i­ta­tion.