For the same reasons, Trump quickly became unpopular in his first term, and lost, even to the dreadful Biden, in 2020, and, has become even more unpopular in his second term, even more quickly, as all of the reality of his policies of economic nationalism, of tariffs and so on, have been quickly revealed. Tariffs are a tax on consumption, and those consumption taxes always hit the poorest, and least affluent, first and hardest. The poorest and least affluent, are always the lower reaches of the petty-bourgeoisie and peasantry, as well as those on fixed incomes such as the unemployed, and pensioners. It is those sections that were drawn behind the petty-bourgeois nationalist agenda of Trump, as well as of Farage/Brexit.
In the last week, that fracturing of the MAGA movement has become obvious. Not only was it seen in the inevitable split between Trump and Musk, as Trump proceeds to increase US debt even more disastrously, but it has been seen in the open warfare launched against Trump by the likes of his former ideologues and propagandists such as Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. It is clear that Trump's regime is, now, following the same agenda, in relation to the Middle-East, as that pursued by the previous Biden regime. Forget all the stuff, about Trump being a US dog wagged by the Zionist tail of Netanyahu. Zionism is just a useful tool for US imperialism to use, as the means of implementing its agenda in the Middle-East, as German Chancellor Merz, let slip, in the last week, admitting that the Zionist state was “doing their dirty work for them”. That agenda is driven by the emerging third imperialist world war, and the conflicting interests of US imperialism, Chinese/Eurasian imperialism, and European imperialism.
US imperialism, seeks to put an end to the increasing importance of Chinese/Eurasian imperialism in the Middle-East, symbolised, some time ago, by the role of China in brokering a rapprochement between Saudi-Arabia and Iran, but whose real, material basis is the growing economic power of Chinese capital, as manifest in its wide-ranging overseas, direct investments, and its growing trade relations, strung together across Eurasia, and the Middle-East, by its “Belt and Road Initiative”. Forget about any US concern about China having strategic control over Gulf oil supplies, because the US is self-sufficient in oil, and, as seen, when it pressured the EU to boycott Russian oil and gas, and made sure by blowing up the Nordstream pipelines, it directly benefits when those oil and gas prices rise. For the same reason, Iran is unlikely to block the Straits of Hormuz, even if it could, because that would damage the interests of its Chinese/Eurasian allies, as well as of the other oil exporters in the region, whose support, Iran is going to seek, now, more easily, in presenting the picture of a western/Zionist Crusader army, again seeking to subjugate it.
The only difference, here, between the approach of the Trump regime, and that of the previous Biden regime, is one of subtlety, and intellectual capacity. US imperialism, under Obama had negotiated the JCPOA, because it was not eager to begin a shooting war with Iran. The JCPOA understood, based on CIA intelligence, going back to 2003, that Iran was not seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb, and that, although the enrichment programme, had little or nothing to do with its requirements for a civilian nuclear energy programme, what it was about was providing Iran's leaders with a bargaining chip. It basically, said, remove the sanctions you have put on us, since the 1979 Revolution, and we will agree to limit the degree of uranium enrichment, and we will allow a full regime of international inspection by the IAEA to monitor it.
Even before the bunker buster strike on Fordow, a number of scientists and engineers had question how effective it could be. It depends on going straight down for 200 feet, before exploding. But, Fordow's facilities were said to be at least 300 feet down. Moreover, it is build under a mountain, whose surface is very uneven, comprising numerous natural, pyramidal structures, which act to deflect the bombs sideways, rather than going straight down. This is similar to the way that bullet proof vests work, or that varied structures in the armour of tanks, work to deflect shells, so as to minimise their effects. That kind of deflection of the bombs, sideways, is consistent with the released images of a lot of devastation on the surface, rather than at depth. According to the leaked US Intelligence assessments, that is also what seems to be the case, contradicting the narrative of Trump, and saying that the the Iranian nuclear programme has been put back only a matter of a few months.
That is besides the fact that much of the already enriched uranium had been removed, and stored elsewhere. All that this crude response has done, compared to the permanent solution offered by the JCPOA, is to strengthen the hand of Iranian hardliners, and to illustrate the importance of following the example of the Zionist regime and others, of developing in secret, keeping out the IAEA, and actually developing your own nukes so as to deter aggression! That, now, seems to be the course that Iran is set upon.
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