America’s Iran War

Out of its 250 years of existence, the United States has been at war for about 230 years.  There has not been an American president in the recent history who has not waged a war against some country or the other.  Trump is no exception to this tradition.  It may appear befuddling as to how someone who ran his presidential campaign on being a peace president is now so war-hungry.  How is it that the US presidents completely reverse their positions after getting into office?  Is that all of them are pathological liars?  Or, is it all by design?  To clear this fog, we need to remember what Lenin said about imperialism – Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism in which the finance capital has completely overtaken the industrial capital, and to expand finance capital further, there is no other way but to wage wars against other countries and seek total global dominance.  The policies are already there; the US president simply becomes a figure head who has no choice but to implement those policies.  The continuity of policy can be seen through Bush, Obama, Biden and Trump.  US General Wesley Clark in an interview to Al Jazeera in 2007 had said that Pentagon informed him that the plan was to take out seven countries in five years.  The countries included were Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.  If one sees the trajectory of US intervention in last few years, the continuity of agenda becomes clear.  After Syria fell, which stood as a bulwark against US imperialism in the region, the next target was Iran.

The policies of world domination are made through think tanks like Brookings Institute, funded by bourgeois oligarchy who plan decades ahead how to shape the world in their image.  Only those people, politicians are allowed to rise to the level of US President and secretaries, who are ideologically aligned and are willing to implement the policies of world domination.  Relevant to the topic at hand is the policy paper, “Path to Persia” from Brookings Institute that came out in 2009.  It clearly lays out how to reach to Iran after capturing Syria and using Israel as cannon fodder, using it as front to absorb all damages, to take blame for war, to finally weaken Iran.  Weakening of Iran directly couples with weakening of China, whose major energy imports come from Iran and Gulf states.  US is already trying to weaken Russia through Ukraine war.  US is involved in multi-pronged, multi-front war to eliminate the competition emerging from Russia, China and Iran.  Iran is a stepping stone to take out China – that has emerged as a great power in the 21^st century.  How far they will succeed is yet to be seen.  Will the American empire stretch thin in this multi-front engagement or will it emerge successful in re-establishing a unipolar world is for now an open question.

After escalating the war in Ukraine against Russia, threatening to annexing Canada, threatening to take over Greenland, capturing President Maduro of sovereign Venezuela, Trump finally attacked Iran.  Canada, Greenland, Venezuela are all energy-rich and mineral-rich locations.  Trump attacked Iran when the nuclear deal was almost reached in Geneva early this year.  Iran had agreed to stop enriching Uranium to a high level when the attack was carried out.  The attack was carried out by first killing the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and then bombing a kindergarten school for girls that left more than 170 young girls dead.  And then after, there has been a bombing exchange between Iran and US-Israel axis.  While US-Israel death-cult bombed civilian targets, including residential buildings, schools, hospitals, heritage sites, science centers in their usual display of barbarity, Iran in return mostly targeted military sites spread over in Israel and the client Gulf states, who all host US military bases.  The Gulf states paid the price of hosting American bases on their soil, realizing the hard way that the bases were not to protect them but to protect Israel and eventually attack Iran.

Historically, Zionists, who rule Israel have always offered their services to being attack dogs of the reigning power in the world, to British, to Nazi Germany to now the US.  Israel is a depraved society with nearly 80% of the population gleefully supporting genocide of Palestinians and Arabs, and have elected Netanyahu for six consecutive terms.  They danced and celebrated when Gaza was flattened into a rubble, with nearly 680,000 killed, in which half of them were children.  Fantasy of Netanyahu to establish Greater Israel, combined with religious Torah nonsense of being the “chosen people” and commit religiously sanctioned genocide of Arabs who don’t kneel to them greatly serves the bourgeois capitalist class of the US.  Taking advantage of this genocidal state, exploiting religious beliefs both inside the US and in Israel, the bourgeoisie in the US has been able to maintain iron-clad control in the gulf region through Israel.

However, with retaliation of Iran, that iron-grip seems to be loosening.  Neither Trump and his security state, nor Netanyahu and his killer agency Mossad expected that Iran would be able to inflict such heavy blows and go for an eye for an eye.  But the genie has escaped the bottle, it is an all-out war now, a war of survival for Iran, which can end only in complete and humiliating defeat of the United States.  Its navy, air-force, bases, embassies, military installations have all been hit by Iran with its shocking multitude of drone and missile attack.  Iran becomes the first country to down the invincible F-35s and push Abraham Lincoln and Gerlad Ford aircraft carriers to more than 1000 kilometers away from Persian Gulf.  The scale of destruction that Iranian missiles have caused in Israel was unthinkable for the war-planners, their hubris suffered a big setback.  The myth of iron dome is completely shattered and cities like Tel Aviv, Haifa, Dimon, Arad have been pummeled by Iranian hypersonic missiles.  For Iran and also the rest of the world, the state of Israel needs to cease to exist – it will serve a massive blow to US imperialism.  It’s a cancer on the planet, gravest threat to international peace and security, and an outpost of American empire in West Asia to keep the region destabilized.

To end the war, Iran has demanded removal of American bases from the Gulf region for good, lifting of all sanctions against its country and reparations for all damages.  These demands will not be acceptable to the US as it will cause significant erosion of US hegemony, but then it is going to be locked in an unwinnable war.  And this time it will not be poor peasants of Vietnam to grind through, but an advanced army with 21^st century weapons, who prepared for this imminent war over three decades and backed by millennia of civilization.  Iran is no Iraq either; a far bigger country, with mountainous terrain, impossible to occupy, and a far cohesive, highly-educated and resilient population.  They have come out on streets every day of the war expressing complete support for their government and IRGC.  While Iran is in for a do or die war, the US empire is in for an economic chaos and decline if it continues this war. 

It is unravelling US imperialism and its junior NATO partners who have refused to join the war directly.  After Trump called the NATO allies “cowards” and threatened them to stop helping them in Ukraine, only then a couple of them, especially UK have sent their nuclear submarine in the Arabian Sea.  As Mao in 1946 famously called US imperialism including NATO alliance a paper tiger, it is now for the whole world to see.  When faced with a formidable adversary like Iran, they are not willing to fight.  US has constantly sought ceasefire and a way out of this war.  But Iran is refusing, it wants total and permanent peace in the region.  It is a moment in history which represents as Lenin said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen."  If US imperialism supported by its NATO allies falls in West Asia, then other regions of the world will follow the course.  The multipolar world seems to be announcing its entry on world stage. 

No other country is as genocidal as Israel in twenty-first century.  An artificial state founded by Balfour declaration for British interest, established itself over Palestinian lands after the first Nakba in 1948, when it ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians.  It seems the time has come to pay for the horrific and barbaric crimes they committed in Gaza with their own blood and devastation.  Iran has not only always stood with Palestine and supported its freedom struggle but now they have openly said that Palestinians should not feel they are alone.  In the words of Iranian military spokesman, “We pledge to remain steadfast until beloved Palestine returns free and proud to its rightful owners.”   

The world now stands divided between fascists and anti-fascists.  Some say, it is now Zionism and anti-Zionism; as modern-day Zionism represents fascism, settler-colonialism and racism all together.  US and Israel lead the Zionist forces and Iran anti-Zionism.  The world needs to choose where it stands, history is doing its book-keeping.  Role of India has been utterly shameful as Modi sold and surrendered India’s interests to US and Israel along with his cronies Adani and Ambani.  The Modi government has chosen to stand with settler-colonial powers and genocidaires for Modi’s personal preferences and compulsions.  India, traditionally being non-aligned has lost all its influence, dignity and soft power in the world.  Its natural place geographically, historically and racially is with Global South and oppressed nations, and not with settler-colonial powers of North.

The war is still escalating, as the US does not lose much by escalation.  It can very well allow West Asia and Gulf region to burn, as it is nearly energy independent and far from any attack on its own soil.  It may lose dollar tribute from Gulf states and petro-dollar dominance but it seems the American ruling elite is willing to take that risk (they do not care about average Americans).  The dollar is gaining strength as a currency as the war wages on.  It is the most dangerous time after second world war as both parties in the war are in for the end-game, and in the process can wreck the global economy.  It can cause untold miseries to the global population.  But as in the second world war, the US may still come out to be as the final winner even though much declined, as its economy, its land and its people may still remain relatively unaffected from the brunt of this war.  That fact alone makes it very dangerous.