US attack on Iran, a new step of imperialism going rogue

Trumpism faced with the complexity of the Middle East theatre

Italian version

The US bombing on Iran is one more chapter in the history of the world's leading power going rogue. It is further proof of the umbilical cord between the Zionist state and US imperialism, whatever the political colour of the US administration and the Israeli government. Nothing the Zionist state has done and does would be possible without the long-standing fundamental support of US (and other) imperialism. This is a truth that must nevr be forgotten.

The formal and public justifications for the Zionist/American aggression against Iran are in themselves revealing of their boundless arrogance and hypocrisy. An imperialist power that possesses more than 5,000 nuclear warheads, and a Zionist colonial state that possesses about 200, claim to forbid a sovereign state in the Middle East from building one. And, interestingly enough, they can bomb Iran for the very fact that this country does not possess nuclear weapons (unlike North Korea, which incidentally no one today would dream of threatening).
The fact that Israel, unlike Iran, is not a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and has managed its nuclear weaponry in the utmost secrecy and out of all control, makes its denunciation of 'Iranian violations' all the more grotesque and provocative.
The fact that all the imperialist powers (not only Western imperialist countries but even Russia and China) declare with one voice that "Iran cannot have the bomb" is the measure of the depth of their common connivance with the Zionist state, beyond their different diplomatic poses in the face of war.

Donald Trump wanted to jump on the Zionist war bandwagon against Iran. It is unclear if and when he plans to get off. What is certain is that his choice of war once again disproves all the nonsense spread with both hands in recent months, especially by the 'campist' left, about the pacifist inclination of the new US administration. The greatest imperialist power on the planet is not and cannot, by its very nature, be a force of peace. The whole history of US imperialism proves this, including Donald Trump's new budget for the US military industry.

The real strategic and fundamental problem of US imperialism is how to manage its policy of robbery in the face of its own decline and the rise of Chinese imperialism. The line with which the second Trump administration seems to be addressing this problem is indeed a new one. It is the proposal addressed to Russia and China of a negotiated partition of the world on the basis of continental areas of influence: America to the Americans (including Latin America, Central America, Canada and even Greenland); Ukraine to Russia; Asia to China (with helpful offers on Taiwan?).
Trump's resounding openness to Putin and his possible global role, America's evident drop of Ukraine (after a robbery deal on its mineral resources), the humiliating marginalisation of European imperialist 'allies' on every chessboard of world politics, the same relative US disengagement from the Old continent, all this is an outcome of the new US line. Not a 'peace' line, but a line of dividing the spoils between imperialist bandits. We don't know if it will succeed, but we do know that this is its nature.


THE DIFFICULTY OF THE TRUMPIAN LINE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The Middle East is a difficult spot on the Trumpian line. But it is also a forced path of exercise and experimentation. The crisis of US hegemony in the region is the result of a long chain of disasters and defeats, from Iraq to Afghanistan. In the last decade, Russian imperialism had been the main beneficiary of the US crisis, through the consolidation of the axis with Assad, the landing in Libya, the pact with the Arab Emirates, the alliance with the Iranian regime and its support network (in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen). But in the last two years, the genocidal action of Zionism in Palestine has again upset the scenario – collapse of Assad, defeat of Hezbollah, weakening of Iran and its proxys. Therefore, the new Zionist war against Iran is (also) the result of the new power relations in the region, and at the same time the crowning achievement of Israeli expansionist drive (occupation of Gaza, annexation of the West Bank, manu militari expulsion of the Palestinian population, enlargement in the Golan Heights, subordination of Lebanon to the new Zionist order). It is the Greater Israel project.

But to what extent does Greater Israel fit in with Trump's global imperialist design? The question is open. Trump aims to extend the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia as the new cornerstone of Middle Eastern stability – that would provide guarantee in the region, allowing him to engage in the strategic challenge with China on the Pacific area.
But can the Saudi government venture into a historic accord with Israel at the very moment of the Gaza carnage? Can the Gulf monarchies do so, defying the hatred of the Arab population? In their eyes, the resizing of their historic rival is in itself welcome, beyond formally dissociation from the war. But would they equally welcome an unrestrained expansionism of the Zionist state in the region?

Donald Trump's swings in the affair are emblematic. First a separate negotiation (even) with Hamas, to free a US prisoner, then a negotiation with the Houthis, to secure American ships, then a negotiation with Iran, on the nuclear issue. All of this bypassing Netanyahu, and even ignoring him during his last tour of Arab Gulf countries. In this context, Netanyahu's attack on Iran has all the air of having been aimed (also) at disrupt Trump's negotiations: a way of confronting the US with a fait accompli and force him to align with Israel.
Trump, 'warned' but not involved on the attack, at first had to put up with it. Then he proposed Russia as a mediator to defuse the conflict in the name of de-escalation, hinting at a trade-off between an Iranian capitulation under pressure from Putin, and a further safe conduct to Putin's war in Ukraine. He then praised the «spectacular military success» of Israel. Finally, he chose to share this success with his own bombers. Until when and for what? To aim for regime change in Iran under the pressure of war, perhaps counting on possible defections of part of the Pasadaran? Or to try to resume the disrupted negotiation with Iran, after having proven its loyalty to Israel in the war, and thus with the hope (we do not know if well-founded) of greater room for manoeuvre? The Trump's open to Russian imperialism can hardly be reconciled with the war on Iran, which is Russia's ally. The Iranian president's meeting in Moscow with Putin is a message for Trump.


THE DEFENCE OF IRAN FROM ISRAEL AND THE USA.
WITH A PROGRAMME OF REVOLUTION

The coming days will tell. The fundamental fact remains – all the plots of war and 'peace' in the Middle East between the various imperialist thugs and the Zionist state take place off the backs of the oppressed peoples of the region. First and foremost of the Palestinian population, but more generally of the entire Arab and Persian population.

The Zionist state had the brazenness to appeal to the anti-Khamenei rebellion at the very moment it is bombing Iranian cities. But 'Woman, life, liberty' will never be an Israeli war chant, because it is the cry of the Iranian revolution. Only the workers, the working women, the poor people of Iran have the right to present the bill to the hateful regime that oppresses them. The Zionist bombers don't have this right. The genocidal colonial state that has been slaughtering the people of Palestine in the eyes of the world for two years doesn't have this right.

We unconditionally defend Iran and its sovereignty from the onslaught of the Zionist/American monster, and at the same time we fight for the solution of a workers and farmers government in Iran. This is by no means contradictory, nor does it requires different stages in the fight. They are two parallel and complementary tenets of a revolutionary Marxist stance. The same stance we took during the imperialist war against the butcher Saddam Hussein in 2003. The same stance we took during the British imperialist war against General Galtieri's Argentina back in 1982.

Against imperialism and Zionism, always and unconditionally. With a programme of socialist revolution – the only programme that can give the oppressed a true and just peace.