US/NATO Is At War With Iran and Russia

The US and its subordinates within the NATO imperialist bloc is already at war with Iran and Russia. As Von Clausewitz noted, “war is the continuation of politics by other means.” This is, also, another means of saying that, war, like everything in the real world, has a birth, maturity and death, and is not just some single event, occurring at a given moment, even if we could define what a moment is. Every such “moment”, is, itself, a process. Just ask a Mother, about the “moment” of birth, for example, which can last for hours of painful labour.

The current genocidal war being undertaken by the Zionist state, in Israel, against the Palestinians and other Arab populations in Lebanon and Syria, can only be viewed as either that Zionist state being the tail that wags the US imperialist dog, or else that the US imperialist dog is wagging the Zionist tail, whilst pretending that the tail has a mind of its own. The former version of events, is, of course, the familiar, anti-Semitic trope that, somehow, a small number of Jews, control the levers of power across the globe. It is nonsense, and has always been nonsense.

For one thing, when Ronald Reagan was President, and the Zionist state invaded Lebanon, a single phone call from Reagan to the Zionist Prime Minister, the former terrorist, Menachem Begin, telling him to stop, was enough to have the Zionist state end its operations within 24 hours. Of course, on that occasion, it was not some pang of moral conscience that led Reagan to act, but was the fact that, the Saudi King had, in turn, rang him to say that he needed to end it, as the pictures appearing on screens of Arab civilians in the refugee camps being slaughtered by the Zionists, was leading to their own populations rising up, and demanding they act. That was at a time when the US, and its imperialist allies were still highly dependent on the oil flowing from the Gulf, and the memory of what happened in 1973, when that flow was stopped.

What is different this time, is that no such calls are coming from Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, and the US, as with other imperialist states is much less dependent on that oil, anyway. Technology has massively increased the efficiency of energy use, so that oil plays a much smaller role in relation to the growth of economies; the US has, also, again as a result of technology, increased its own oil production, to again become an oil exporter. So, the Gulf states have less leverage over the US, even if they wanted to use it, which, they do not seem to want to do, anyway. But, more importantly, and connected to the last point, as I have set out before, the reality is that the Zionist state is acting, in this current war, as the instrument of US/NATO strategic policy.

The idea that the US/NATO has not sanctioned, and helped plan, the current genocide in Gaza, and its extension into the West Bank, and, now, into Lebanon is laughable. At each stage, every time the Zionist state has breached the supposed “red lines”, set out purely for public consumption, by Biden, the response has been not only to retrospectively sanction and support those actions, but to further endorse them by providing the Zionist war machine with even more weapons to “get the job done”, as Trump so honestly and openly described it. When the “international community”, and so called “rules based order”, in the form of the United Nations, and its courts, the ICJ and ICC, ruled against the actions of the Zionist state, and its genocide, the response of US/NATO imperialism was not to back it up with a demand that its rulings be upheld, but was, instead, to attack the UN, the ICC, and ICJ, and, indeed to impose sanctions upon them, and their judges!

The Zionist state, in its genocide in Gaza, is implementing, directly, the wishes of US/NATO imperialism, and no other rational conclusion can be drawn, given the dependence of the Zionist state on US imperialism. To argue otherwise is simply to repeat those old anti-Semitic tropes, about a mysterious power of Jews to control the US.

One argument that has been used is that, even if the US did stop its arms supplies to the Zionist state, it has a large stockpile, and its own arms industry. Even were that a legitimate argument, it is no reason for the US not having, then, stopped those supplies months ago, when its publicly pronounced red lines were breached. The very fact, of announcing the ending of such supplies would have sent a powerful message to the Zionists. Indeed, even the pathetic, token suspension of just 8% of UK military supplies to the Zionist state, was enough to have the Zionists protesting vociferously, even though the UK supplies only a small proportion, compared to the US.

Moreover, the argument is false, anyway, because the US has had to continually increase its supplies to the Zionist state, over the last year, as it has been rapidly depleting its stocks, and, although it does have its own advanced arms industry, that still relies on the supplies of components and so on. Finally, that argument is false, when considered from the standpoint that, if the US really wanted to uphold international law, in the way it claimed to do, when it intervened in Serbia, Iraq, Syria and Libya, it would, also, have put military teeth into the UN resolutions, rather than itself vetoing the resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire, and so on. In fact, so far from doing that is it that it will not allow the Lebanese state to have its own air defence systems to defend itself, let alone allow the Palestinian state any such means of defence against Zionist aggression. So much for its much vaunted two bourgeois states solution.

The Zionist state has continually been prodding Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran with the support of US/NATO imperialism standing behind it, as part of a conscious strategic plan. In all these countries, Iran has proxies such as Hezbollah. The strategic plan of US imperialism, implemented by its Zionist proxy is to force Iran itself to engage in a direct attack on the Zionist state in Israel, which will provide the justification for an all-out war between the Zionist state and Iran, which will provide, also, the justification for US/NATO imperialism to attack Iran openly. It is the same strategy used in Serbia/Kosovo, where the US used channels, via its, then, ally Osama Bin Laden, to promote the criminal gang of the KLA into an insurgent group stirring up ethnic violence between Serb and Albanian Kosovans, so as to force Serbia to intervene, which then gave the pretext for the US/NATO to attack Serbia.

It is the same strategy used in Eastern Europe, and, now, also in Ukraine, and through which US/NATO imperialism, in the words of former NATO Secretary-General, George Robertson, goaded Russia into invading Ukraine, just as it had previously done, in 2008, in Georgia, with its attacks on ethnic Russians in South Ossetia, as part of the continual expansion of NATO Eastwards, in order to surround Russia. Another current example, is the use of Taiwan by the US/NATO against China.  The strategy is, again, the same. Either Russia responded to the goading, or it allowed itself to be surrounded by the hostile forces of US/NATO imperialism, opening it up, immediately, to further interventions, amongst its own ethnic minorities, to destabilise it, and stir up separatist tendencies, and communalism, and, in the longer-term, to its salami slicing and dismemberment.

Similarly, the Zionists have continually stepped up their goading of Iran, attempting to draw it into a significant attack on Israel that would justify a qualitative increase in the conflict into a regional war, and justification for overt US/NATO intervention. But, at each stage, Iran has limited its responses to Zionist aggression, such as its bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, with very measured attacks.

The US/NATO/Zionist strategy is salami slicing the Iranian proxies in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon and Syria away from it, goading it into coming to their support, and a significant strike on Israel itself. If it does not come to the defence of its proxies, it will appear weak, and will, indeed, become weaker, but, nor will it save itself either. At some point, no matter how much Iran sits on its hands, the US/NATO and its Zionist proxy is coming for it. They will engineer some event, real or as a false flag operation, that they will pin on Iran, and use it as justification. One reason for that, now, is not only that set out previously, of the need to eliminate the Palestinians to establish a Greater Israel, but is, also, the fact that Iran seeing the current developments, is likely to step up its nuclear programme, and may test a nuclear weapon in the next three months. At that point, all plans for invading Iran are off.

A Measure of Justice

Joe Biden has described the murder of Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah, by the Zionist state as “A Measure of Justice” for the many people killed by Hezbollah. These four words are extremely revealing. It again, illustrates the thoroughly hollow and sham nature of bourgeois-democracy, and its commitment to the rule of law, and an international rules based system. It required, perhaps, the US, as a society that, itself, arose on the back of religious intolerance on the part of the Pilgrim Fathers, and progressed by violence against Native Americans, and the stealing of their land, and which for much of its history has been based on gun law, and which, today, still routinely murders its own citizens by legal execution, to be so forthright.

But, let us set aside the US's penchant for murdering its own citizens, via legalised execution – a barbaric practice, long since abandoned by most civilised societies in Europe – which, of course, results in a disproportionate number of its poorer citizens, and black and Latino citizens, being executed, because, not only do they not have access to the fancy, expensive lawyers that the rich do, but also that their conditions of life are far more likely to place them in the kinds of violent situation, and desperation that will leave them sitting in the dock in the first place. Yet, even if we set aside this barbaric practice of legalised murder by the state, bourgeois-democracy, and the rule of law requires the idea of “innocent until proved guilty”, at least in legal systems based upon English Law, such as exists in the US.

Biden seems to be confusing “Retribution”, the concept of “an eye for an eye”, contained in the Old Testament, with “Justice”, the concept that everyone should have their day in court, and be proved to have committed a crime. Of course, the notion of “Justice”, of “The Rule of Law”, is itself a sham, even if we, also, set aside the points above, about the fact that it is always disproportionately the poor and oppressed that are placed in the position of breaking the law, and so on.

A look, for example, at the way the law worked in Britain, in the 19th century, showed a clear class bias, even in the way it was framed. Take the contract of employment. If an employer broke such a contract, this was treated as a civil matter, requiring the worker to take the employer to court, and sue for breach of contract. If the worker broke the contract, this was treated as a crime, and the worker was prosecuted by the state, and sent to jail! This kind of class bias is contained in the operation and formulation of the law in every bourgeois society, and legal system.

And, of course, although, in theory, bourgeois democracy, and its rule of law, claims to operate on this basis that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and is entitled to their day in court, so that justice can be seen to be done, that never happens, in practice either. The most obvious example of that is the many poor people, often black and ethnic minority people, who are routinely treated as being guilty until proven innocent. Just look at the way bourgeois society and politicians deals with the question of immigration, for example. Not only does the narrative in support of immigration controls, place all immigrants in the condition of, in some way, being a problem, who must, therefore, be kept out of the country, rather than, the reality, which is that immigrants are a fundamental means of societies meeting their needs for labour, and who also, enrich the cultural development of the society, but, also, this same narrative, then, makes all those in the society, who look like “immigrants”, the target of suspicion.

That is codified in laws, which lead to disproportionately larger numbers of black and ethnic minority citizens, being subject to repeated stop and search by the police, for example. And, of course, at its worst and most blatant, it means that large numbers of black people and other ethnic minorities are simply shot dead by the police, guilty or innocent, without any trial, any concept of justice, or of being innocent until proven guilty, any concept of the right to a fair trial. That is rampant across the US, but it is also seen in Britain, as with the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, for example. But, Britain was also guilty of implementing such policies of state murder on a systematic basis, against members of the Provisional IRA, for example, despite claiming that the IRA were simply criminals, rather than that they were engaged in a war.

In the period since then, especially as drone technology has developed, both the US and UK, have routinely murdered their political and military opponents, without any recourse to the idea of a fair trial, even a fake, bourgeois fair trial, or the idea of being innocent until proven guilty. When Russia does that, by using poisoned umbrellas, and so on, it is, of course, branded as barbarous, and flouting the norms of the international order, which just shows the extent to which both are guilty of the same crimes, and yet, in the West, those crimes are justified, as being, somehow, “a measure of justice”!!

When the British state murdered those members of the IRA, it did so up close and personal. That is not the case when the US and UK, or its proxies, such as the Zionist state, in Israel, now, carry out such actions. The use of drones to murder opponents, let alone the use of high-powered bombs and missiles, do not target and kill just those they are aimed at. Biden's claim that the murder of Nasrallah, which involved the widespread bombing and destruction of large swathes of not just Beirut, but also other cities such as Tyre, by its Zionist proxy, is like Britain had gone after Martin McGuinness, by dropping huge amounts of bombs on Belfast, and justified it by claiming it had intelligence that he was there, and that, taking him out brought “a measure of justice” to those killed by the IRA!

What is the corollary of that? Well, if we look at what actually happened both in Northern Ireland, and in Lebanon, its instructive. Before 1969, when Britain sent in its troops to the streets of Northern Ireland, the Provisional IRA was an insignificant force. Its predecessor, the Official IRA, had abandoned armed struggle, in favour of bourgeois-democratic politics. When, that same bourgeois-democratic politics, undertaken in the form of the Civil Rights Movement, demanded equal political rights for Catholics, something that should not even have to be demanded given the basis of bourgeois-democracy, the Protestant community, which had been given privileges by Britain, in order for it to act as its own agent in Ireland, much as Britain envisaged the role of Zionism in the Middle East, when it set out The Balfour Declaration, rebelled, violently.

The British troops on the ground, in 1969, were supposed to be there to prevent that violence, and were welcomed by Catholic communities, in that light. But, it did not take long for the real purpose of their presence to be felt, which was to suppress the Catholic community itself, and its demands for equal political rights. It was that, emphasised by events such as Bloody Sunday, of again, the cold blooded murder of unarmed Catholics by the British Army, which soon drove Catholics into the arms of the petty-bourgeois nationalists of PIRA, which they saw as their defenders, and whom they provided support for within their communities. 

This of course, is the inevitable consequence of nationalist ideology, and national struggles, as against class struggle. A national struggle, be it one to establish some new bourgeois nation state, fought against some existing oppressor nation state, or a straight forward war between two opposing nation states, inevitably, breeds even greater nationalism, and nationalist antagonism between the masses of the two opposing states. It is why Lenin, argued that, as Marxists, we are opposed to such struggles for the creation of new bourgeois states, we are generally, opposed to the idea of national self-determination, and rather in favour of the abolition of national borders, as part of our struggle for the self-determination of the working-class, and its maximum class unity across borders.

"As the party of the proletariat, the Social-Democratic Party considers it to be its positive and principal task to further the self-determination of the proletariat in each nationality rather than that of peoples or nations. We must always and unreservedly work for the very closest unity of the proletariat of all nationalities, and it is only in isolated and exceptional cases that we can advance and actively support demands conducive to the establishment of a new class state or to the substitution of a looser federal unity, etc., for the complete political unity of a state."

The same is seen with Hezbollah, and Zionism. The narrative being given by Zionism and its imperialist sponsors is that the Zionist state was led to invade Lebanon, because of the role of Hezbollah, much as later, Britain, claimed that its military occupation of Northern Ireland, its use of concentration (internment) camps, where people were imprisoned, for years without trial, was in response to the actions of PIRA, whereas, PIRA only grew, because of the actions of the British Army in Ireland after 1969. The reality is that, prior to the invasion of Lebanon by the Zionist state in 1982, when it intervened in the Lebanese Civil War, in order to try to install a right-wing, Maronite-Christian, regime, Hezbollah did not exist. It was created, in a similar manner to the PIRA, in response to the external invasion, and as a means of defence of a local community.

As Marxists, we neither support the petty-bourgeois nationalism of groups like Hezbollah or PIRA, but nor do we give any ground or support to the forces of imperialism and Zionism in their hypocritical attacks on them, because it is the actions of that same imperialism, and of Zionism that creates the conditions in which those petty-bourgeois nationalist organisations spring up in response to them, and their brutal oppression of the communities who turn, in desperation, to such groups.

Of course, the further hypocrisy of US imperialism is that its own history is one in which it resorted to the same terroristic methods, in its struggle for independence from British Colonialism, in the 18th century. And, even more obviously, and recently, the Zionist state, itself, was created by the terrorists of the Irgun and Stern Gang. Irgun terrorist, Menachem Begin, as Prime Minister of Israel, was the one that organised the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, that led to the siege of Beirut, which was only turned back a a result of the creation of Hezbollah, as a resistance movement to it.

Similarly, prominent Stern Gang terrorist, Yitzhak Shamir, was Prime Minister of Israel, between 1983-4 and 1986-92. US imperialism, as with British imperialism has no problem with terrorists, so long as they are “their” terrorists, or, as in the case of people like Nelson Mandela, after they have ceased being a part of the threat to imperialism, and have been absorbed by it.

Whilst Marxists have no reason to support petty-bourgeois nationalism, or terroristic acts by such organisations, which are generally counter-productive, ineffective, and also act to drive divisions between workers, we do understand, why, in the absence of large, revolutionary workers parties, to lead such struggles, the natural response of oppressed peoples is to lash out by whatever means, and to be driven into the hands of these reactionaries. In considering, our sense of justice, we do not at all equate the violence of the oppressor, particularly the violence of a huge well armed oppressor such as the Zionist state, with its even bigger sponsor US imperialism standing behind it, with the violence of the oppressed that responds to it.

But, if we take Biden's words, what might we then conclude. To murder Nasrallah, US imperialism, using its Zionist proxy has flattened a large swathe of Beirut, and is continuing with that slaughter across Lebanon, as it has done in Gaza. In Gaza, the official figures show more than 40,000 people killed, whilst the real figure, even before we consider those about to die from disease, famine and so on, is more like 100,000. No serious person is in any doubt that the vast majority of those killed are innocent civilians, with the figures themselves showing around 70% are women and children.

The same kinds of figures are being seen in the attacks on Beirut, by the Zionist state. So, what, then, could Biden say, if the families of those innocent civilians in Beirut, and in Gaza, were to look at the murder of their relations at the hands of Zionist state terror, backed by and made possible by US, UK and EU imperialism that provides the bombs, missiles and planes, and were to draw the same conclusion. What Biden's statement means, is that those Palestinian and Lebanese families could look at any assassination of Netanyahu, Biden/Harris/Trump, Starmer and so on, and conclude that, at least, it gave them too, “a measure of justice”. That is what the sham of bourgeois-democracy, and of its rules based order really comes down to, not order and justice at all, but simply an application of mafia-style vendetta.

War on Lebanon, No Reason For Surprise

No one should be surprised that the Zionist state, in Israel, is now stepping up its war on Lebanon. I said, a year ago, that it was inevitable. The nature of Zionism is not just ethno-nationalism, but, also, settler-colonialism, combined with imperialism.  The mouthpieces of the Zionist butchers, whether its Netanyahu, Mencer or Hagari, must know, by now, that no one believes a word that comes from their mouths, any more than they believe the lies of Biden, Harris, Blinken, Starmer, Lammy and the rest that enable them, so visibly at variance are they with the reality that the whole world can see.  But, that simply means that they no longer even bother to try to make those lies convincing, just telling an ever bigger lie each time, as they drive ever deeper into the rabbit hole, themselves facilitated by the huge propaganda machine of the global 24 hour, all-pervasive media that is a central element of their rule.

For the last 80 years, Zionism has proceeded by stealing Palestinian lands, occupying them, forcibly driving the existing Arab communities from them, and then, erecting their own Zionist settler communities. It was in this way that large numbers of Palestinians were turned into refugees in their own land, and driven into Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. On each occasion, the Zionists have used such pogroms against the Palestinians to expand their territory, and, when such pogroms are responded to by neighbouring Arab states, in support of Palestinians, the Zionists have used that response, as justification for the pogroms that provoked it, and to, also, then, further annex territory, as they did, for example, in the Sinai, Golan Heights, and Lebanon.

There is a simple reason for that, which does not come down to a simple subjective drive of the Zionists to expand their territory, by stealing it from others. The reality is that without the economic support given to the Zionist state by the US, and its allies, Israel would collapse. It is too small to be viable, even today, after 75 years of such externally financed and supported, economic and technological development. Without that US and other imperialist support, it would not have had access to the capital, technology, and weapons required for that development. Its not coincidence that the Zionists, in seeking to establish their totalitarian, ethno-nationalist state, looked for external support for that from like minded regimes in Nazi Germany, and fascist Italy, and later from the USSR.

But, it was the US, as world hegemon, after WWII, that was the real sugar-daddy for the Zionist state, which became its main proxy in the region, effectively a vassal state, contrary to all of the nonsense from anti-Semites that proclaim that the Israeli-Jewish tail wags the US imperialist dog, and also makes a nonsense of the idea that, today, the US is powerless in preventing the Zionist state from continuing the genocide against Palestinians, or against its war on Lebanon, which is part of an attempt to, again, provoke a response from the neighbouring Arab states, as on all previous occasions, which, then, facilitates a wider regional war against those states, and a further annexation of their territory by the Zionists, backed by US imperialism.

Israel is too small to survive in the age of imperialism, where the nation-state has become absolutely reactionary, a fetter on the further rational development of capital. The same applies, even more, of course, to Palestine, which is one of the reasons why the bourgeois Two State Solution was not just a utopian fantasy, but also, a reactionary fantasy, only imaginable as the creation of imperialism itself, which, given the backing for the Zionist state from the US and its allies, was never going to be brought about, especially as the reality of that, led, over decades, to the Palestinians, violently, but ineffectively resisting the Zionist juggernaut, and reaching out, in that hopelessness to the kinds of reactionaries, which provided both the Zionists, and US imperialism with the propaganda to use against them. That is part of the reactionary dead-end to which nationalist ideology, as against proletarian ideology, leads.

I set out several months ago, the rationale for the current developments. Israel is too small, and the solution requires a much larger single market, in the region. US imperialism uses Zionism as its proxy, in the region, as a Senator Joe Biden once said, “If Israel did not exist, we would have to create it, to represent out interests in the Middle-East”. US imperialism, also has other client states in the Middle-East, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf Monarchies, but, they are not dependent upon US imperialism, as Israel is. Egypt as well as Syria and Iraq, in the past, looked to the USSR, and, today, Syria and Iraq, look to Iran, which, in turn, is allied to Russia and China. Even Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states, have begun to turn towards China, as the most dynamic economic power, when it comes to investment of real industrial capital, as against the proclivity of western imperialism, over the last 40 years, only to promote financial and property speculation, and consequent blowing up of asset price bubbles that subsequently burst leaving nothing tangible behind them.

As I set out, in that post, six months ago, those, like Owen Jones, that have accepted the idea that somehow, the Zionists have lost, because they have not defeated Hamas, or recovered the hostages, do so, because they are unable to allow themselves to accept the logic of their own analysis, which leads to the conclusion that the Zionists never were concerned, primarily, with defeating Hamas, nor returning the hostages, but were engaged in genocide against the Palestinians, requiring their physical destruction, or their ethnic cleansing from the region, at least into yet more refugee camps in the surrounding areas, or further afield if possible. Why is Zionism engaged in such a venture, not just out of pure evil intent, but for very specific reasons, of its need to expand its own territory and power, in the region, and to clear away the Palestinians who, for as long as they exist, will continue to rebel, and to provoke the sympathy from the Arab masses, in the region, to which the Arab ruling classes have to respond.

The strategy was set out by imperialism in The Abraham Accords. That strategy has been iced, as a result of the Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023, and the response to it by the Zionist state, and its imperialist sponsors. Donald Trump simply said out loud what the response of US imperialism has been, but left unspoken, which is to allow the Zionist state to finish the job, i.e. to exterminate the Palestinians. The Zionists said a year ago what they were going to do, and no one can have any excuse for not knowing in advance, what they have indeed done since then. Every red line crossed, with no consequence, for the simple reason that US imperialism has given sanction to the Zionist regime to do precisely that. This is not Netanyahu defying Biden, but Biden giving Netanyahu the green light, and the means to act, but simply saying, don't let my fingerprints on the job be too visible. Sunak, Starmer, Scholz, Von Der Leyen and the rest have done the same.

Only when Gaza is physically flattened, do they, now, call for a ceasefire there! Of course, the reason, even for that, is given primarily to recover the hostages – or sausages as Starmer referred to them in a Freudian slip in his Conference speech – not to prevent the further genocide against the Palestinians. The day after day pogroms, rape, murder and torture of Palestinian men, women and children, in the West Bank, of course, also continues, without even any such comment from US imperialism, or Starmer or the EU, because of course, the hostages are not held there.

US imperialism and its UK and EU subordinates also tried to wash their hands of the Zionist attacks on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, but, were quick to accept the Zionist narrative on it, as well as demanding that Iran did not respond to it. When, of course, Iran did respond, rather mildly, the US, UK and EU, as well as some of their client states in the region had already beefed up their own military resources in the area, ready to take down those Iranian drones and missiles that the Iron Dome did not itself take care of.

Again, we had Owen Jones, who has done a lot of good work highlighting the genocide in Gaza, and the role of Biden, Sunak, Starmer et al, in facilitating it, interviewing people who argue that the Zionist regime could not attack Lebanon in the same way it has done with Gaza, and who point to the example of previous such land invasions. But, this is basically the triumph of hope over reason, again driven by a moralistic approach. The Zionists said that they would flatten Beirut in the same way they have done with Gaza, and they are already starting to do so. It, also, shows the nonsense of those that try to distinguish between offensive and defensive weapons, a distinction used by the apologists of imperialism, and its arms supplies, both in Ukraine, and to Israel. The much vaunted Lebanese rockets have also simply been shot down by the Iron Dome, rocket launchers and so on taken out by Israeli jets and missiles.  It leaves Israel free to launch attacks without any concern for effective responses.

So, it is no surprise that the Zionist regime showed no timidity or caution when it launched its strikes inside Iran itself, used its cyber warfare capabilities to recklessly, and indiscriminately explode pagers and walky-talkies in crowded areas in Beirut, followed by outright and devastating missile and aircraft attacks on buildings in Beirut. The idea it is doing this without the tacit support of US/NATO imperialism is laughable. If the latter wanted to stop it they could with a single phone call, threatening to stop the supply of arms and other support. Not only have they not done so, but they have sent even more of their own forces to the region to act to back up the Zionist regime, and provide further cover against any response. 

The earlier attacks on Damascus etc. were intended to provoke a retaliation from Iran that never came. At each stage, the Zionist regime has had to step up the level of its attacks, as each one has failed to bring the kind of even proportionate response that would justify a rapid intensification into a regional war, giving US/NATO imperialism the grounds for its own more overt, direct involvement.

A look at the cross-border attacks between Israel and Lebanon, over the last year, shows the number of attacks by the Zionist regime, as against those from Hezbollah, is far, far higher, disproving the claims about the Zionist regime simply responding to attacks. We now see that Britain has sent 700 marines to Cyprus ready for an intervention into Beirut itself, under cover of the excuse of evacuating Britons, who currently, could be leaving by simply getting on a commercial flight out of Beirut Airport. This has a familiar ring from previous times, for example, the sending of warships to Nanking.

The continued statements out of the mouths of the likes of Biden and Starmer about wanting peace, whilst all the time sending even more weapons to the Zionists, backed up with an increasing amount of their own military hardware sitting on the sidelines, should be treated with the same contempt as Starmer and Reeves claims not to introducing austerity whilst in the same breath cutting benefits, removing Winter Fuel Payments from a million poor pensioners, and maintaining the Two Child Benefit Cap, as well as refusing to commit to the kind of taxation of the rich that would close their fiscal deficit.

A regional war is coming, and US/NATO imperialism is four-square behind it. Starmer et al may not be able to keep pensioners warm, but they can send billions in arms to the corrupt Zelensky regime, and to the genocidal Zionist regime.

Zionist State Extends Its War of Annexation

The Zionist state, in Israel/Palestine, has extended its war of annexation, as I said it would. Zionism, as a reactionary nationalist, racist and colonialist ideology, of itself is forced to continually seek to expand the territory over which it exercises its remit, much as European colonialism did in the Mercantilist period from the 17th to the end of the 19th century. But, the Zionist state, in Israel/Palestine, is not just such a reactionary nationalist/colonialist state, it is, also, an imperialist state, based upon large-scale monopoly capitalism, closely tied to the state, and to global imperialism, primarily US imperialism. It serves a similar purpose, for US imperialism, in the Middle East, that the Ukrainian imperialist state serves in Eastern Europe.

In both cases, the interests of EU imperialism coincide with that of US imperialism, and yet, also, differ from those of US imperialism. US imperialism is concerned with its global strategic hegemony, exercised via its huge military machine that dwarfs every other military on the planet, and via its NATO imperialist alliance, through which it, also, exercises its domination over those subordinate imperialist allies in Britain, the EU, Japan and elsewhere. It is concerned to limit and control the expansion of Chinese imperialism, and its imperialist alliance with Russia, and the other imperialist and sub-imperialist powers within BRICS+.

The Ukrainian imperialist state enables US imperialism to fulfil that function in Eastern Europe, using it as an unsinkable aircraft carrier, with an endless supply of Ukrainian workers blood, to keep Russia tied up on its western border. Its aim, though one it has not been successful in achieving, was to undermine Putin, and open the door to further insurgencies, within the Russian Federation itself, to break it apart, and, thereby, to put in place its own client regimes, much as it thought it had done with Yeltsin, so as to have access to the vast resources of Russia.

The Zionist imperialist state in Israel/Palestine, is used by US imperialism to check the growing influence of Chinese imperialism in the Gulf, and to an extent in North Africa, as well as the influence of Russian imperialism, with its historic links to Iran, Syria, and the role it is playing via the Wagner group in Sudan, Mali and elsewhere.

The interests of EU imperialism are somewhat different. EU imperialism is primarily concerned with creating, a large single market, which is why it created the EU in the first place. It seeks to continually expand the size of that single market, to meet the needs of capital in the EU, which must operate on an ever larger scale, to compete with the mammoth imperialist capitals in the US and China. But, a single market requires the states within it to all operate on the basis of common laws and so on, which requires them to be free of the kinds of corruption that many states in Europe suffer. Before, being allowed to join, states in Europe have had to go through a probationary period in which they became more aligned with the EU. It means that the EU could have closer relations with a range of states on its periphery, without them being EU members, and yet, from which EU imperialism gained advantages, as with its deals with Russia, for the supply of cheap oil and gas.

EU imperialism has gradually expanded its single market Eastwards, with Ukraine being the next state to be drawn into its orbit, though, as with Turkiye, it was never likely to gain membership of the EU any time soon, given its huge levels of corruption. The EU had the potential to continue that course of imperialist expansion via increased trade and cooperation, including with Russia, but such an expansion would not have been in the interests of US imperialism. It would have strengthened both EU imperialism and Russian imperialism, at the expense of US imperialism, and would have weakened the ties and subordination of EU imperialism to US imperialism. It is EU imperialism that has borne the cost of the imperialist war in Ukraine, not only via the huge costs of arms and other aid supplied to Ukraine, but also as a result of its reduced trade with Russia, and a huge rise in its energy and food costs resulting from its boycott and sanctions against Russia.

The effect of that on European workers, with social-democratic parties, and even sections of a social-imperialist “Left” backing such imperialist war, has provided the material conditions for a further expansion of the far-right, whose forces had already grown as a consequence of the 50% growth of the petty-bourgeoisie over recent decades.

The EU had, also, developed similar economic relations with the economies of MENA that they had done with the economies of Central Europe, following the collapse of Stalinism. That created a corresponding path of economic development, and eventual expansion of the single market into the Middle East and North Africa. It is again clear why such a development would not be in the interests of US imperialism, as it further strengthens EU imperialism, and establishes closer ties with those oil rich states that the US had dragged away from the old European colonial powers, after WWII.

The Iraq War, fought on the basis of an obvious lie about WMD, was fought by US and UK imperialism, and opposed by most of the EU, to the ire of the US. It led to chaos in Iraq, and rise of the jihadists, which spread into Libya and Syria, destabilising the region and its economic development, and along with it the relation to the EU. As with the war in Ukraine, it was the EU that bore the cost, not the US, as not only did it result in this economic dislocation, but large numbers of refugees found their way into EU countries, providing yet another bit of grist to the mill of the far-right.

But, as I wrote, some time ago, the interests of both US and EU imperialism coincide in seeing the need for the Zionist state in Israel/Palestine to deal once and for all with what it sees as the Palestinian problem. The EU, in order to get back to those kinds of relations it sought to develop prior to the Iraq War, and the chaos it spread across the Middle East and North Africa, needs Israel to establish “normal” relations with its Arab neighbours, as the basis of forming some form of common market. US imperialism, also, seeks such a development, because, with its client state, Israel, being the most powerful, and dominant state in any such common market, and with closer ties to the EU, it draws those states away from the growing influence of China and Russia.

The fact that the Zionist state has been able to cross every red-line supposedly put down by the Biden regime, with impunity, that it laughs in the face of “the international community”, and its “rules based order”, not only ignoring the rulings of that “community's” courts, the ICJ and ICC, but has done so with US backing, which has similarly supported the ridiculous claims that the courts rulings were a result of it being “anti-Semitic”, shows just how much the genocide being committed by the Zionist state is being done with the full support of US and EU imperialism. Its no wonder that when the reactionary nationalist regime of Starmer and Blue Labour, found itself losing Muslim members and voters, as a result of its own support for that genocide, it responded, in typically racist and colonialist fashion, by describing it as simply “shaking off fleas”!!!

The genocide being committed, in Gaza most visibly, but also underway in the rest of Palestine, exposes the sham nature and hypocrisy of the calls for a two-state solution. The reality is that two states have existed in Israel and Palestine, but it provided no solution. The Palestinian state is recognised by 145 countries, representing 75% of UN members. What those who talk about a two-state solution mean is actually, US recognition of that state of Palestine, and of course, although US imperialism, itself, continually talks about such a solution being the only way forward, it continually prevents such a solution, by voting against recognition, and by continuing to support the Zionist state in refusing to accept the existence of such a state.

Palestine is a state, and another state, the Zionist state in Israel, has simply acted to impose itself on it, via its military might, a military might made possible by, and supported by, US and EU imperialism. The existence of a state, can no more provide a solution for Palestinians than could the existence of a state for Poland prevent Hitler's armies invading it, and annexing it! To believe otherwise, in the age of imperialism, is to believe in bourgeois-liberal fairytales. As Marx put it,

“They forget, however, that club-law too is law, and that the law of the stronger, only in a different form, still survives even in their “constitutional State.””

(A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy)

The Zionist state, with the full support of US, UK and EU imperialism, has carried out genocide in Gaza, it rapes and tortures Palestinians across the whole of Palestine, and publicly defends such rape and torture, and it backs and promotes Zionist settlers in annexing further Palestinian land in the West Bank, as it also, rapes and murders Palestinians to drive them from that land. As I wrote previously, it is carrying out a similar process of extermination of Palestinians to that conducted by European colonialists in the Americas, and Australasia. But, that is only the start of the planned annexations by the Zionist state, as I also noted. It is already beginning the process of expanding that war of annexation into Lebanon, and Syria.

For months, it has been attempting to provoke Hezbollah into a more overt attack, but without success. Its bombing of Beirut, which signifies a qualitative stepping up in those attempts, and the assassination, thereby, of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, was justified on the basis of a claim that Hezbollah had launched a missile strike on Majdal Hams, in the Israeli occupied, Golan Heights, which killed twelve people. There are a number of points to raise about that. Firstly, as the Syrian representative to the UK noted, the Golan Heights are Syrian, not Israeli territory. The Zionist state illegally occupies that territory, just as it has illegally occupied Palestinian territory. As an occupying force, the Zionist state has no right of self-defence.

Secondly, those killed, not only were not Israeli citizens, but Syrians, they also, were not Jewish citizens, but Druze Christians. In fact, when Netanyahu turned up in Majdal Shams, those Druze residents heckled him, and gave him a hostile reception, because they see him, and the Zionist state as the occupiers, and responsible for their plight. 

Hezbollah have also, from the start, rejected the Zionist claim hat they fired the rocket, and its not clear why they would do so. It has, however, given the Zionist regime a pretext to hugely expand its war in the region. Similarly, its assassination of Ismail Haniyeh while he was in Tehran for the inauguration of the new Iranian President, not only breaks international law, but also shows that the Zionist regime backed by US imperialism has no intention of negotiating a ceasefire, as it continues its genocide.

The Zionists are seeking to expand the war, and provoke a response from Hezbollah and Iran, in order to step up the scale of the war, and draw in US imperialism, which, as well as UK imperialism, has already been drawn into active military involvement, as well as providing the weapons required by the Zionist regime. Those claiming that US imperialism does not want such an escalation have not been paying attention. At every stage, they have claimed not to want an escalation of the war in Gaza, and yet, each red line crossed by the Zionist regime has resulted only in further backing, further arms, further justification of its actions, and more US and British war ships being sent to the region ready to back it further when such escalation occurs.

Why The Zionist State Bombed The Iranian Consulate In Damascus

The Zionist state has bombed the Iranian Consulate (part of the Iranian Embassy, and so sovereign Iranian territory), in Damascus.  As it stands right next to the Canadian Embassy in Damascus, this represented a significant risk, had its bombs gone astray.  The superficial reason for the strike was to take out a senior figure in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, stationed in the Consulate.  The Revolutionary Guard are part of the Iranian military, and state, and so legitimately stationed in the Embassy.  The action by the Zionist state is, then, clearly an act of war, as defined by international law.  However, as set out in other posts, international law is something that imperialist states, attached to the US, continually flout with impunity, illustrating the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy, and its rule of law.

The real reason for the strike, however, is quite different to that being proclaimed.  The US questioned about whether it had been given advance notice of the strike, conducted using US F-35 jets, a new batch of which have just been delivered to the genocidal Zionist regime, refused to comment.  They first said that they were opposed to any escalation in the region, but, then quickly denied that the Zionist strike did represent an escalation!

But, escalation is precisely what US imperialism, and its Zionist proxy requires, and is what the strike was intended to achieve.  US imperialism/Zionism has been frustrated by the fact that, despite previous bombings of Damascus, and other parts of Syria, drone attacks on Iranian military personnel, and increasing attacks on Lebanon, as well as into Iraq, they have not provoked any response from Iran or Syria.

Zionism has, for decades, ignored the decisions of the UN Security Council, and other global institutions, with impunity, because of its backing from US imperialism, and its European subordinates.  It will almost certainly be found guilty of committing genocide, in Gaza, but nothing will come of it, even compared to the actions being undertaken by the US and "the international community", i.e. US allies, against Russia, for its war in Eastern Ukraine, which most certainly cannot be classed as genocide, however, reactionary it may be.

Moreover, as noted in the previous post, however much liberals might want to see it happen, the imperialists in the US, UK, and Europe that are also guilty of genocide and war crimes, by supplying the weapons and munitions to the Zionists to undertake their slaughter against civilians, will also not face any such retribution, either, because they control the state, and the state is a bourgeois, imperialist state.  Nor, indeed, will the imperialist opposition politicians, such as Starmer, or the social-imperialists that have justified the genocidal actions of the Zionists, by lyingly bleating about the right of self-defence of the Zionist imperialist state, face any such retribution.

But, that does not mean that there is no consequence.  Day after day, the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy, and its claims about the rule of law, of an international rule based system, are exposed to billions of people across the globe, including, despite the role of the bourgeois media in acting as the propaganda arm of the imperialist states, in the US, UK, and Europe.  The functioning of bourgeois-democracy depends upon the majority being conned by the sham nature of that democracy, of them not seeing through its corrupt and corrupting nature.  But the dissonance between its claims and the reality seen by billions, each day, is now so great that the lie is falling apart.

At the very least, for the billions in the "global South", already disillusioned with western imperialism, and its history of colonial oppression, and exploitation, that acts as a pole of attraction to the rival imperialist camp of Russia/China/BRICS.  US imperialism/Zionism needs a distraction, and a further justification of its genocide against the Palestinians, and, as in the past, an attack on it by other Arab states would provide such a distraction, and justification.  Far from being opposed to an escalation of the war, in the region, that is precisely what the US and its subordinates requires, as the heat from its own masses intensifies upon it.

Any sizeable response from Iran, Syria, or Lebanon to the increasing attacks by the Zionist regime on them, would give US imperialism precisely the cover it is looking for to step up its own attacks on those Arab states, much as it has already done in attacking the Houthis, and its own strikes in Syria and Iraq.  If they have any strategic nous, the regimes in Iran, Lebanon and Syria will not allow themselves to be drawn in to that trap.  The masses in those countries should certainly oppose any such engagement, and instead, turn their attention to dealing with their own exploitation and oppression by their own ruling classes.  That class struggle, leading towards the Arab socialist revolution, holds the key to resolving the problems of the Middle-East.