US President Donald Trump has declared his intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population. Trump outlined his genocidal vision during a grotesque press conference, standing alongside a smirking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has overseen the massacre of at least 50,000 people in Gaza, and who has an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued against him for war crimes.
Trump justified his calls for the annihilation of the Palestinian people from their homeland by describing the complete devastation that has been wrought on Gaza—devastation caused by the man grinning next to him, and by the US itself which has supplied Israel with the weaponry to destroy Gaza’s homes, hospitals, schools and all other civilian infrastructure.
As if ethnic cleansing wasn’t bad enough, Trump added his own billionaire-parasite twist, declaring that the US would “own” Gaza, and that he would turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East”. Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace put it succinctly: “Let’s turn Gaza into Mar-a-Lago”. 
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has kept his knee bent before the hard-right US president by refusing to condemn these open calls for genocide. Albanese said he “would not give a daily commentary on statements by the US President”. Even spineless world leaders who have been lining up to kiss Trump’s arse, like the UK’s Keir Starmer, have at least verbally rebuked his calls for ethnic cleansing. Not so Albanese, who is setting new standards for pathetic capitulation to the far right. 
Trump’s open support for the total removal of Palestinians from Gaza puts much of the political and media establishment in Australia and around the world in a bit of a quandary. They continued to support Israel through sixteen months of its genocide in Gaza, no matter how many children were massacred. They have dehumanised the Palestinian people and engaged in an escalating campaign of slandering, sacking and repressing those who speak up for the Palestinians, from journalists and academics to students and protest organisers. But most of this has happened under the official pretence that Israel was “defending itself”, accompanied by weasel words from former US President Joe Biden and Albanese pretending that they wanted peace and a two-state solution, and a compliant media who presented this fairytale as though it were real. Netanyahu knows this game well; he knows that to get away with genocide it’s best to deny that is what you’re doing.
Trump has shattered that pretence. He has said out loud what has been Israel and the US’s policy all along, obvious to anyone who wanted to see, yet officially denied: wiping out the Palestinian people. That’s what the last sixteen months have been about, and the US and Australia have provided the arms to do it.
The media’s reaction has been mixed, reflecting this quandary of how to deal with a US president who makes it harder to justify the rotten system we live in. Rupert Murdoch’s Daily Telegraph ran an opinion piece titled “Can Trump’s plan to level Gaza finally bring peace?”. Pondering about whether genocide equals peace was a bridge too far for most, though, who have instead tried to reassure us that Trump’s statements are “outlandish” and unrealisable. 
But the genocide in Gaza is not outlandish. It has been happening. And Trump’s statements have effectively ripped up the ceasefire deal and given Netanyahu the green light to resume the slaughter in coming months. They must be stopped.

Josh Lees

Trump spells out plan for ethnic cleansing in Gaza

Donald Trump and his far-right coterie have assumed the reins of the US government. 
But, arguably, the returning president’s most significant victory is that his far-right sensibilities seemingly have become an accepted part of the political furniture: hyper-nationalism, mass deportations, dramatic increases in fossil fuel exploitation, a war on women’s autonomy and transfers of wealth from workers to the already wealthy through tax cuts for billionaires and their companies. 
The New York tycoon wrote in his 1987 memoir The Art of the Deal that attention “creates value”. The adage has proven transferable. Politically, Trump generates outrage cycles to his advantage. Whatever the issue, at the end of the day—and often for weeks—Trump manages to get everyone talking about precisely what he wants talked about, thereby setting the tone and shaping the political narrative. 
Through his attention-seeking, and unlike anyone this century, he has shifted political consciousness to the right—at least in terms of redefining what tens of millions of people consider to be “acceptable” in a leader: narcissism, punching down at almost every opportunity, reheating canards previously the property of fringe fascism, finding scapegoats for every failure while claiming credit for other people’s efforts.
Yet the tectonic plates of global politics and economics are moving under the pressure of forces far greater than those generated by one obnoxious New York billionaire carrying out what some consider to be a hostile takeover of the US government.
Well before Trump arrived on the political scene, the capitalist class in the US and around the world had concentrated obscene amounts of wealth in its hands. Traditional “centre-left” and “centre-right” ruling parties’ public support had eroded. And the 21st century’s two great powers, China and the US, were marching towards confrontation. 
So Trump is perhaps better understood not simply as an individual but as the personification of four converging forces: his own vanity and self-absorption, an arrogant and exploitative US capitalist class, the resurgent and ultra-nationalist far right and a wounded yet increasingly paranoid and aggressive US imperialism.
“My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward”, Trump wrote in 1987. “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after. Sometimes I settle for less than I sought, but in most cases I still end up with what I want.”
This quintessentially capitalist bullishness is one reason that Trump easily slots in at the apex of US power. But his vulgarity, brashness and scepticism of science are the perfect expressions of a world no longer capable of concealing the naked self-interest and a “might makes right” calculus of politics and geopolitics.
Unlike his predecessors, Trump doesn’t bother with bromides about defending “freedom” or “democracy” abroad, which have been cornerstone talking points in US foreign policy for decades. Anti-China rhetoric had already retreated from philosophical and political “values” to legalistic appeals to “rules” and “order” in international commerce. 
However, with Trump, it’s just about winning or losing; the only rationale for winning being that doing anything else makes one a loser. Here, the “new” nationalism aligns with real imperial anxieties that question whether the US has what it takes to defeat China economically and militarily.
It would be easy to scoff at an incoming president who muses about turning Canada into a US state and refuses to rule out militarily annexing Greenland. Yet, despite their seeming outlandishness, such wild threats signal to Trump’s supporters and foes that “Make America Great Again” nationalism is a project for America’s international supremacy. Like the last, the new administration is attempting an economic reordering to fortify the foundations of a war economy. 
Politically, he and his team are also trying to create a populace that is more accepting of the indecencies and callousness required to prevail in a major conflict.
No-one is scoffing at Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda. Yet, while the immediate targets are millions of undocumented migrants, the spectacle of it all will matter just as much. The goal, already partly achieved according to opinion polls, is to normalise the idea that some people ought to have fewer rights than others and to win support for persecuting non-citizens. 
Should people learn to live in such an atmosphere and with abuses directed against their neighbours and workmates, the right-wing hope is that they will become inoculated against impulses to oppose the abuses resulting from a struggle for supremacy against a foreign country.
The war against women’s right to abortion and the campaign against trans people no doubt are led as much by “traditional” conservatives as by the new far right. Yet, similar to the deportation agenda, there is another goal. In this case, it’s reinforcing an “unfree” orthodoxy: subordination to a purportedly natural hierarchy and order. 
In fact, pick any agenda item of the new government—be it “drill, baby, drill”, the veneration of wealth accumulation, the war on “woke”, the return of machismo and so on. Whether new or aggressively recycled, each should be understood as part of an integrated agenda: increasing business profitability and prestige, reversing previous social, cultural and political advances, and bolstering US global supremacy.
The more this agenda is established, and the fewer freedoms oppressed people enjoy, the greater the disempowerment of the working class and the more likely it will drift with, or even embrace, the reactionary political winds.
The key question in the US over the next four years is whether enough people march against the storm.

Trump’s new era of reaction

Over the last year, we have obtained a clearer picture of what the AUKUS agreement between Australia, the UK and the US will mean for Western Australia. The first big announcement came in March—the federal government will <a href="https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/naval/11609-western-australia-to-house-upgraded-aukus-submarine-base">spend $8 billion to expand the HMAS Stirling naval base</a> on Garden Island so that it can dock Australia’s first nuclear-powered submarines from the early 2030s. It will also host regular rotations of US and UK nuclear-powered submarines.
The next major announcement came in July. HMAS Stirling, only five kilometres from the residential suburb of Rockingham, will be a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-19/nuclear-waste-facility-at-hmas-stirling-rockingham/104114228">dumping ground for radioactive waste</a> generated by the nuclear submarines. While the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) has made standard assurances of the planned facility’s safety, nearby residents have raised concerns. 
Speaking to the ABC, James Mumme, a local science teacher and Greens candidate, said: “I’m concerned about radiation leaks. Accidents, they do happen, and [there’s the] threat of Cockburn Sound being made a target and the 130,000 people who live in Rockingham being incinerated”. 
Another resident, adjunct professor of psychology George Burns, raised the potential for waste leakage to harm nearby species, explaining, “We have three endangered marine species in this area”. While ARPANSA received 165 submissions from a 30-day community consultation, it has not made them available to the public.
The most recent announcement was made in October. Henderson Shipyard, just a few kilometres from residential areas such as Beeliar, Hamilton Hill and the popular Coogee Beach, will become the location of a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-16/new-aukus-submarine-servicing-base-at-hmas-stirling/104478192">new AUKUS submarine servicing and shipbuilding precinct</a>. It will be the maintenance hub for the submarines and a manufacturing facility for Australian army landing craft and naval frigates. 
Of course, while workers are told to tighten their belts, there is plenty of funding to go around for the military. Defence Minister Richard Marles has not provided an exact cost for the hub’s development. But, according to the ABC, industry sources expect a range of between $12 billion and $20 billion. 
These are huge projects, and they will drastically shape WA’s economic and political landscape in a militarist direction. As Marles put it, “This represents the most significant defence industry offering to Western Australia since federation”. According to Premier Roger Cook, “This particular industry will rival the resources industry as one of our main areas for economic growth, for economic activity and for employment”. 
The argument most often cited in favour of these developments is “job creation”. But jobs can and should be created by investing in projects that meet social needs. How many jobs could be created if these billions of dollars were instead spent building schools, hospitals and social housing?
Another announcement made last year on the topic of housing was that 550 new homes will be built to house the US and UK soldiers involved in submarine visits. This is during a housing crisis in which Perth rentals have become among the most expensive in the country! It is an outrage that the government can suddenly build hundreds of new homes for US and UK soldiers, but not for the desperate people waiting on social housing lists. 
Western Australia is rapidly becoming a major military hub in the build-up to war between the US and China. Working-class people have nothing to gain from any of it. While WA politicians celebrate the federal cash splash, for the rest of us it is nuclear waste, dilapidating schools and overrun hospitals, never-ending social housing wait lists and the prospect of becoming a target in nuclear war.

Erin Russell

Western Australia’s south coast to become a major military hub

US President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed trade war, his proposals to increase military spending and the stacking of his cabinet with China hawks have made it clear that the US will continue preparing for war with China. Australia’s military alliance with the United States means that Canberra has practically signed up the country for such a war if it breaks out.
For the Australian political establishment, Trump’s election victory was an opportunity to express unwavering commitment to the US alliance. PM Anthony Albanese was one of the first world leaders to phone Trump and congratulate him on his election victory. Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who considers himself an Australian version of Trump, said the relationship with the US “will strengthen, and we will make sure that we work very closely with the incoming administration”.
The US alliance—and new agreements such as the AUKUS military pact between Australia, the US and the United Kingdom—have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/24/us-military-base-australia-china/">transformed</a>
Australia into a central <a href="https://youtu.be/a3HhPU9DGsQ?si=msq1o2NhLzPADK3x">base of operations</a>
for the <a href="https://youtu.be/CW1TYDVBSmI?si=iKjpIQ1cbsoksrgA">US military</a>
in recent years. 
Northern Australia is now routinely used by the US Marines and Air Force. The Tindal air base near Darwin has been expanded to accommodate nuclear-capable B-52 bombers. The construction of giant fuel storage tanks on Darwin’s RAAF base means that both now act as a stationing and refuelling point for US aircraft, enabling the US to conduct more flights to and from the NT.
Western Australia will soon host <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/about/locations-property/infrastructure-projects/submarine-rotational-force-west-infrastructure-project#:~:text=Overview,West%20(SRF-West).">rotational deployments</a> of US nuclear submarines and a <a href="https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2024-10-16/new-defence-precinct-henderson-deliver-continuous-naval-shipbuilding-and-nuclear-powered-submarine-maintenance">naval industry</a> that WA Premier Roger Cook claims will rival the state’s massive resources sector.
The joint US-Australian “<a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/is-gweo-on-target/">guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise</a>” aims to transform Australia’s weapons manufacturing industry to produce large enough quantities of precision-guided missiles to support deployed US forces across the Indo-Pacific. Spy and communications bases—such as the <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/pine-gap-australias-secret-and-deadly">Pine Gap</a> satellite surveillance facility near Alice Springs, which covers the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East—are vital elements of US strategic command, control, communications and satellite systems for launching attacks against China. Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles recently bragged that the US military is now operating in Australia across “all domains ... land, sea, air, cyber and space”.
What explains this slavish support for the US alliance—shared by Australia’s main political parties, the security establishment, business elites and mass media—no matter who occupies the White House?
The answer given by the political establishment is that the alliance protects the Australian population and deters threats from “our enemies”. Chief among these threats, we are told, is China. Yet the Australian government’s own strategic planning documents admit that an invasion of this island continent, by China or anyone else, remains a remote possibility. The risk of a Chinese attack on Australia arises only because Australia serves as a base for US military capabilities and because Australia’s own defence forces have pledged their commitment to joining a US war against China in the Indo-Pacific. 
Most critics of AUKUS and the US alliance answer that Australia is a puppet of the United States: our leaders are nothing but spineless dupes grovelling at the feet of US presidents. Proponents of this view—from the <a href="https://greens.org.au/platform/world">Greens</a> to former Labor PM <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/08/13/paul-keating-aukus-australia-us-alliance/">Paul Keating</a>—argue that Australia should pursue a foreign policy that is “more independent” from the United States.
But the Australian state jumps at the opportunity to stir imperialist tensions more often than not. This can be seen in it joining or supporting every US war since World War Two with little to no prompting.
The Australian political establishment backs the US not because it is too weak to resist US bullying but because the alliance enhances the power of the Australian ruling class and increases its capacity to dominate the Pacific region.
Australia is an imperialist power in its own right, with the thirteenth-largest economy in the world and the strongest military in South-East Asia. However, as a middle-ranking power, it has always relied on a “<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/node-6557">great and powerful friend</a>” to help safeguard its regional interests, first through an alliance with Britain and since the Second World War with the United States.
Chief among those interests is the security of the sea approaches to the island continent: Australian capitalism is dependent on international shipping to buy and sell commodities in Asian markets, to import oil from the Middle East and to access deliveries of weapons, machinery and equipment from the United States. Only the US Navy can control the wide arc of maritime territory from the Indian Ocean off north-western Australia to the South Pacific. 
In addition, Australian capitalists have long regarded the country’s neighbours—in particular Papua New Guinea, East Timor and the Pacific island states—as Australia’s “<a href="https://redflag.org.au/node/7150">backyard</a>”, with Australian companies dominating their economies.
Australia also lacks the industrial base to field a modern military without the support of a larger ally. Without the backing of the US, Australia would need to triple or quadruple its military spending. Instead, through AUKUS and the US alliance, the Australian capitalist class can piggyback on the US military. And this allows Australia to access the latest US military technology—not just nuclear submarines, but advanced jet aircraft, missiles, naval combat systems and more. 
This is why the US alliance remains an article of faith for both ALP and Liberal governments. Any party that is serious about governing Australian capitalism must sign up to the alliance—the alternative is to face destabilisation by the capitalists and the military top brass.
Australia’s dependence on its “great and powerful friend” means that the ruling class goes out of its way to keep its “friend” firmly anchored in the Indo-Pacific. This helps thwart the emergence of a rival imperial power or nationalist forces that might obstruct the country’s sea lanes or disrupt its investments. One example is the Menzies government aggressively lobbying the Johnson administration in 1964 to commit more US troops to the Vietnam War. 
The AUKUS agreement fits within this general orientation: it is an aggressive alliance designed to maintain US imperialist domination of the Indo-Pacific region. But it also strengthens the power of the Australian state as a junior partner of US imperialism. Rory Medcalf, the head of ANU’s National Security College and a leading China hawk, has <a href="https://nsc.anu.edu.au/content-centre/article/opinion/australian-way-war-and-peace">hailed</a>
AUKUS as Australian imperialism’s “coming of age as a truly Indo-Pacific power”.
The price paid for US military protection is that Australia contributes to almost all US wars and occupations. From Vietnam in the 1960s, Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s to staking itself as China’s most aggressive antagonist in the region today, the Australian government embraces these opportunities to remind the US of Australia’s value to its broader imperial project. 
China is indeed challenging US domination of Asia and hence Australia’s own imperialist project, which is closely identified with the US. China’s growing ambitions threaten Australia’s informal empire in PNG, East Timor and the Pacific island states, as well as its trade routes and, potentially, its influence in Indonesia, a critical power to Australia’s north.
China’s state capitalist model of economic development is also viewed as a threat to the US-dominated liberal economic order that Australian capitalists have greatly benefited from.
Trump’s first administration was an <a href="https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/the-trump-presidency-us-imperialism-and-the-future-of-the-neoliberal-order/">aggressive</a>
response to the rise of China (although he only generalised what Barack Obama before him acknowledged with his “<a href="https://isreview.org/issue/88/us-imperialisms-pivot-asia/index.html">pivot to Asia</a>”). His program to “Make America Great Again” used tariffs and increased military spending to increase US military-industrial might. Nonetheless, by alienating US allies and destabilising American politics, the Trump administration created opportunities for China to expand its influence, thereby undermining America’s ability to contain its new imperialist rival. 
Rather than mark a break with Trump, the <a href="https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/bidens-plan-for-the-us-empire/">Biden administration</a> continued and intensified the China pivot, continuing the focus on rebuilding domestic manufacturing capability and infrastructure alongside an <a href="https://pacforum.org/publications/pacnet-85-countering-complaints-about-bidens-china-strategy-lessons-from-the-us-asia-first-policy/">escalation</a>
of military pressure in the South China Sea and Taiwan. 
Where Biden did depart from Trump was in his multilateral approach to building <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/has-biden-checkmated-china">alliances</a>
and his ability to sell war as peace. Indeed, Biden and Albanese (the so-called “progressive” wing of the establishment) have overseen the biggest destabilisation of the Indo-Pacific region and acceleration toward war with China of any recent governments: they have carried out Trump’s program with gusto.
Trump has made it clear that his main priority during his second presidency will be great power <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/has-biden-checkmated-china">confrontation</a>
with China. This includes a proposed 60 percent tariff on imports from China and a promise to raise the military budget from 3 percent to 5 percent of GDP (US$1.5 trillion) annually. His appointment of aggressive <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-nsc-china-hawks">China hawks</a>
to key positions in his new administration fits with this general strategy. <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3286448/what-does-trumps-pick-pentagon-chief-mean-us-china-military-ties">Peter Hegseth</a>, the proposed defence secretary responsible for the Pentagon, recently bemoaned: “China has a full spectrum long-term view of not just regional but global domination and we have our heads up our arses”.
Contrary to what much of the liberal commentariat says about him, Trump is not an isolationist, nor does he propose a withdrawal of US global power. Trump is an economic nationalist who sets out to make deals with both friends and foes alike; unlike liberals such as Biden, he does not hide the fact that it must be to the advantage of the United States and its corporations. It is this transactional nationalism that leads Trump to downgrade participation in geopolitical alliances or withdraw from them completely. In place of alliances and multilateral pacts, Trump prefers bilateral deals with US allies. 
While Trump’s strategy is to restore US imperial dominance, it will most likely, just as it did in his first term, accelerate its relative decline. This means other imperial powers as well as regional ones becoming more assertive, which will intensify conflicts between states over a failing capitalist system.
What this means for AUKUS and the US alliance is unclear. Trump’s demand that US allies “pay their own way” already fits with a general consensus among Australian ruling circles that they must do more to <a href="https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/australias-defence-strategic-review-forging-partnerships-and-self-reliance/">increase</a>
their self-reliance as part of the US alliance. The AUKUS pact is a prime example of a junior partner that “pays its own way”.
What is clear is that the Australian political establishment is frantically preparing to use the second Trump presidency to further enhance the power of Australian imperialism. Their main orientation so far has been to accept Trump’s argument that US allies must do more to foot their own defence bills. For example, John Blaxland, former head of ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies, recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/07/the-prospect-of-australias-defence-being-dependent-on-the-whim-of-donald-trump-points-to-a-need-to-muscle-up-on-our-own">argued</a>:
“The prospect of Australia’s defence being dependent on a presidential whim points to the need for Australia to muscle up on its own, including with as much US-sourced technology as can be accessed, without waiting for another white knight or great white fleet to come to the rescue.” 
In other words, Canberra must prepare to further increase military spending (probably funded by cuts to working-class living standards) and pick up the slack among US allies in preparation for the diplomatic dysfunction that is likely to emanate from Washington under a second Trump presidency.
For the Australian ruling class, the lie that the US alliance is about protecting the Australian population helps legitimise increased military spending and the drive to war. AUKUS and the US alliance have been much easier to sell to (and hide from) the Australian public with Biden and not Trump leading in Washington. Under Trump, larger numbers of people might see the alliance for what it really is: boosting Australian imperial power to protect US domination of the region.

Robert Narai

Trump, AUKUS and the US alliance

Trump’s victory has sent shock waves through global politics. His far-right government-in-waiting has promised to deport millions of immigrants, block action on climate change, slash and burn social services, further empower the police and more. His administration will be chock filled with billionaires and bigots, and their mission will be to recast the machinery of the US state in their image.
Trump’s foreign policy agenda is less clear. He is without question a champion of US power on the world stage. But he also presents himself as an outsider and a free agent. He likes to dress up his admiration of and dealings with various dictators as an example of peaceful coexistence. He also used his opposition to the Iraq war to attack Hillary Clinton and the Washington establishment back in his first successful presidential run in 2016. 
Trump tried to play the same game with Israel’s war on Gaza. Though a long-time supporter of Israel, he insisted that the current slaughter would never have happened with him in charge. He appealed to those who were rightly furious with the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel’s genocide and declared himself a peacemaker. “The Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan and across the country want a stop to the endless wars and a return to peace in the Middle East”, Trump said in a stump speech aimed at Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan. He also repeatedly attacked Harris for her association with the Cheney family, who were central to the so-called “war on terror” that devastated Iraq and Afghanistan for decades. 
This rhetoric resonated with sections of the Arab and Muslim political class. After being invited to join the stage at a Trump campaign event in Michigan, Imam Belal Alzuhairi of the Islamic Center of Detroit explained his support for Trump in simple if deluded terms: “We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace”. The Yemeni mayor of Hamtramck, the first city in the US to elect an all-Muslim city council and a Muslim mayor, also endorsed Trump. (Others in the Arab and Muslim community, as well as the Palestine Solidarity movement, chose instead to campaign for a boycott or for the Greens’ candidate Jill Stein.)
It is too early to know whether Trump was successful in relating to the small minority of voters motivated by Gaza. On the one hand, the Council on American-Islamic Relations released a set of exit polls that indicated Muslims saw through his cynical appeals. According to <a href="https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-exit-poll-of-muslim-voters-reveals-surge-in-support-for-jill-stein-and-donald-trump-steep-decline-for-harris/">this survey</a>, 21 percent of Muslims voted for Trump versus 20 percent for Harris, down from 69 percent who backed Biden in 2020. If their polling is accurate then the story isn’t the small shift of Muslim voters to Trump, but a collapse in their loyalty to the Democratic Party and a concomitant surge in support for Stein, who according to this poll won a staggering 59 percent of Muslim voters. 
Unfortunately, these positive findings are contradicted by other data points. The Associated Press’ VoteCast exit poll found that 63 percent of Muslims voted for Harris, essentially a status quo outcome. Yet the Arab American Institute conducted pre-polling that showed a split of 41 to 40 for Trump and Harris among Arab Americans, a significant shift given that they have typically backed Democratic presidential nominees by substantial margins. The election results from Dearborn, Michigan, the largest majority Arab American city in the US, signalled an even more dramatic shift. There, Trump won 42 percent of the vote compared to 36 for Harris and 18 for Stein, a radical shift from Biden’s 74 to 24 smashing victory over Trump in 2020.
We may never find out just how many Palestine supporters bought Trump’s absurd claim to be a peace candidate, how many voted for him simply to punish the Democrats for their stance on Gaza and how many backed him for other reasons. The issues aren’t easy to disentangle. 
But regardless, the truth is that Trump is just as committed to US imperialism and to Israel as his Democratic predecessors. This has become increasingly clear as he has begun constructing his administration, a who’s who of war hawks, Zionists and far-right freaks. Trump’s Middle East team is arguably even more extreme in its support for Israeli aggression against the people of Palestine, Lebanon and beyond. 
The headline pick is Mike Huckabee as the nominee for US ambassador to Israel. This is a guy who once declared that “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian”, before conceding a few years later that if these non-existent people insisted on having a country, then it should be constructed on existing Arab territory. He opposes any Palestinian control over land in historic Palestine.
Trump’s proposed defense secretary is Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host and a current white nationalist. He has built his career by defending US soldiers accused of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hegseth has also advocated the construction of a Jewish temple on the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque—a position so extreme that even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not support it.
His pick for United Nations ambassador is MAGA hatchet woman Elise Stefanik, who has championed the repression against Palestine solidarity activists across America. Like most supporters of Israel, Stefanik relies heavily on the spurious claim that opposing Israel’s crimes is inherently antisemitic, accusing both student protesters and their targets in university management of this crime. In a recent speech to the pro-Israeli think tank Endowment for Middle East Truth, she declared her task would be to represent Israel’s interests in the “den of antisemitism” that is the UN.
In many cases, these despicable figures will simply be continuing the genocidal policies already established by the Biden administration. For instance, Stefanik’s Democratic predecessor Linda Thomas-Greenfield vetoed four separate motions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. And while Trump has criticised Biden for not supplying the Israelis with sufficient weaponry, this is purely for show. A <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2023/2024/Costs%20of%20War_US%20Support%20Since%20Oct%207%20FINAL%20v2.pdf">paper</a>
by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs estimates that the Israeli war effort has benefited from an unprecedented $22 billion in US aid and related military expenditure in the last fourteen months, supplemented by an additional 100 arms deals too small to require congressional reporting. Through these measures, the Democrats have granted a state carrying out a well-documented genocide the largest military aid package since World War Two.
But this is no reason to shrug our shoulders at the prospect of Trump. The presence of far-right and ultra-Zionist figures in the Trump administration could lead to dramatic new developments and allow Israel even more scope for aggression. During his last administration, Trump led a number of countries in recognising all of Jerusalem as Israeli territory and moved the US embassy to that city for the first time. Like many of Trump’s worst decisions, the construction of a new US embassy on stolen Palestinian land in Jerusalem was upheld by the Biden administration. 
Trump secured peace deals between Israel and a range of regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. While this was a primarily symbolic move by states that in practice had never seriously sought to confront Israel, these deals, grouped under the umbrella of the Abraham Accords, were a substantial diplomatic victory for the Israelis. Trump and his allies now have their sights set on convincing the Saudis to sign on, a move which would largely complete the political isolation of the Palestinian people, further insulating Israel from anything approaching regional opposition.
While nobody who backs Palestine should mourn the defeat of Harris and the Democrats, we cannot be complacent about the incoming Trump administration. Trump and his monstrous cabinet are primed to enable the Israeli far right’s most violent and expansionist policies. We cannot yet know what horrors they will unleash on the people of Palestine, but we know from the past year that the Democratic Party will be no opposition. It will be up to us. 
As well, there will be opportunities to build new alliances with other groups targeted by Trump’s reactionary agenda and relate to the general instability his leadership will generate. Activists and organisers need to be ready to respond and use the widespread revulsion at the monsters taking over the White House to strengthen the movement for justice, peace and liberation in Palestine.

Omar Hassan

Trump lied about peace, but will deliver only misery in Palestine

Joel Geier has been a socialist activist in the US since the civil rights movement in the late 1950s. He has written extensively on US imperialism, politics and economics. He spoke to Red Flag’s Robert Narai. The interview has been edited for length.
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How would you characterise the position of US imperialism today?
The US is still the world’s dominant economic, political and military superpower. But it now faces competition from a newly emerging superpower, China, and its allies. This introduces a new, more dangerous phase of imperialism, which has its roots in preceding phases.
There have been three previous phases of imperialism over the last century or so. First was the struggle for the world market and an international economy that led to World War One, the Great Depression and World War Two, the latter of which the US emerged from on top. It was the strength of US industrial capacity that, converted to war production, produced the planes, ships, tanks, trucks, guns and ammunition that were vital to the Allied victory.
After World War Two, there was superpower competition between the victors of that war: the US and the Soviet Union. This was a political and military struggle without economic rivalry, as the Soviet Union could not compete on the world market. 
The third phase begins at the end of the 1980s. After the collapse and disintegration of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world’s only superpower. It used this phase to organise its globalised order under US auspices.
During this time, the US made its greatest strategic gamble and, ultimately, mistake. To gain access to cheaper labour and greater profits, it outsourced its industrial capacity and manufacturing to China and others. The US thought it could incorporate China into the economic world that it controlled. Instead, the US has found itself in the ironic position that it is dependent upon the decisions of the Chinese Communist Party for some of its industrial goods, and even its military is dependent upon parts and supplies from China. The US currently lacks the industrial-military capacity to engage in a major conflict with China. 
There is now an attempt by the US to restore its industrial-military capacity. This requires a major struggle for the world market, raw materials and the military preparations necessary for world domination. This is a new phase of imperialism that has been accelerated by three recent events.
First, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted US industrial supply chains that were dependent upon China. Manufacturing parts didn’t arrive from China and so sections of manufacturing ground to a halt. Supplies of pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies were dependent upon China. This highlighted to the US ruling class that it could not remain dependent upon China; it was necessary to restore self-reliance to ensure its continued control over the world. 
Second, the Russian invasion of Ukraine convinced sections of the American ruling class that they must control Middle Eastern oil and should not pivot away from this commodity that the US’s allies and rivals depend on.
Third, Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza and Israel’s advance against Iran and its allies in the Middle East—all of which is dependent upon US support—have strengthened the US’s position in the region.
These events have restored or reinforced alliances and the formation of blocs and coalitions over the last few years. The US has used the war in Ukraine to restore its military dominance over NATO and Europe. In Asia, the US has created AUKUS and restored its alliances with the Philippines and cemented ties with South Korea and Japan against China. On the other side, Russia and China have formed an alliance. Both now have ties with Iran, which is supplying military goods to Russia, and North Korea is sending troops to support Russians fighting in Ukraine.
What were US imperial interests in the Middle East prior to the war in Gaza?
The US’s strategic objective for more than 80 years has been to control world oil and to use this leverage over other countries because no modern capitalist economy or military can function without oil. 
During the first half of the twentieth century, the US was the leading oil producer in the world and supplied oil to the Allies that contributed to their victory in World War Two. During the war, the US made an alliance with Saudi Arabia. It created the modern Saudi state and military in order for US oil policy to be supported by Saudi Arabia. And with the decline of British and French imperialism after the war, the US came to dominate the Middle East and Middle Eastern oil. 
The US fought wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to extend its control over Middle Eastern oil. These wars were won militarily but were a disaster from the vantage point of US imperial interests. They cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of deaths of US soldiers and many tens of thousands of injuries. These were endless wars: they could not control and maintain the occupations they were involved in. This weakened the US’s ability to confront China and so they were determined to pivot away from the Middle East, starting with Obama.
Obama was also the fracking president. He restored oil production in the US, which is now again the leading oil producer in the world. The US no longer depends on oil imports from the Middle East: it is now a net exporter of oil. Biden continued this policy by pulling the last troops out of Afghanistan and scaling down the troops in Iraq to a few thousand.
The US withdrawal from the Middle East created a vacuum that was mainly filled by Iran, which has set up allies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. This shifted the balance of forces in the Middle East and created a clash between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others against Iran. These Arab states wanted the US back in the region as protectors against Iran.
The US also changed its attitude towards the Middle East after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Germany and other EU countries were dependent upon oil and gas from Russia, which made it difficult for the US to organise Europe and NATO against Russia until that question was solved. However, the US and its Arab allies were now in a position to supply oil and natural gas to Germany and others in Europe. 
The war in Ukraine convinced the US that if they are moving towards a conflict with Russia and China, they have to control Middle Eastern oil. They therefore came up with various plans to reorganise the Middle East, the most important of which was an alliance of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and so on with Israel against Iran and their allies, under US military auspices. This is what was being proposed prior to the war in Gaza. One of the reasons Hamas gave for taking on Israel militarily on 7 October was they wanted to prevent this alliance from taking place. 
How have Israel’s wars against Gaza and Lebanon, as well as their repeated confrontations with Iran, changed the US plans for the Middle East?
The war in Gaza has altered US plans for the Middle East. Although its Arab allies are for an Israeli victory, they cannot openly ally with Israel while the genocide of the Palestinians is taking place, out of fear of how unpopular it would be with their own populations. These plans are either postponed or have to be readjusted when the war ends.
Israel is a close ally of the US: the Israeli military, intelligence services, technology etc. are heavily intertwined with their American equivalents. This has been true for decades. Israel does the dirty work for American imperialism in one country after another throughout the world. When the US do not want to get their hands dirty, they often have the Israelis do it for them.
Israel’s current war could not exist without US-supplied arms, intelligence, technology and so on. The US want an Israeli victory but not a generalised regional war. 
The ongoing support by the US for Israel in this war is not because Netanyahu is smarter than them, or that Biden is a lifelong Zionist, or any of the other reasons the liberal press give that cover up the real nature of US imperialism, which many of them support. They do not want to present the truth: the US is also genocidal, not just Israel. Israel has killed 43,000 people in Gaza. In Vietnam, the US killed between 2 and 3 million civilians. In Iraq, the US killed half a million people, of whom over 200,000 were civilians. It is the US that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is the US that firebombed Tokyo, Hamburg and Dresden during World War Two. This is what it takes to become the global superpower.
At the same time, the US does not want the fallout from a genocide against the Palestinians. Politically, it has been a disaster for Israel and the US in parts of the world. And so the US issues press releases to quiet liberal opinion about how terrible it is, that Israel should be giving more humanitarian aid, protecting civilians and so on. At the same time, the US provides Israel with all the support needed to carry out these atrocities. 
Meanwhile, the US has supported Israel’s expansion of the war into Lebanon against Hezbollah and confrontations with Iran.
The US enables Israel—but just as important, Israel is enabling a victory for the US. Unless there is dramatic change in the war, this is becoming the biggest Israeli victory in the Middle East since the 1967 war against the Arab states. It is the biggest US military victory in decades.
Israel enables the US to change the balance of power in the Middle East to the detriment of Iran, which has been rising in importance in the Middle East for the better part of a decade now. This is an enormous shift. It is one that is vital to the US if it is to restore its control over Middle Eastern oil in preparation for bigger conflicts with China and Russia. If the US can control the Middle East, it can control the oil supply from the Middle East to China (even though Russia can provide a large amount of oil for China). This is the long-term goal of US imperialism. 
Israel, with the full support and backing of the US, has inflicted a huge blow against Iran’s allies in Hamas and Hezbollah. It is probably the US that took out the air defences in Syria and Iraq that allowed Israel to get to Iran. Israel has used air power to take out the Iranian air defences. There is total cooperation between the US and Israeli intelligence and military services in carrying out these attacks.
The US has totally decided what Israel could do in terms of Iran. It has protected Israel by providing them with the THAAD defences against Iranian missiles. The US bombed Yemen to send a signal to Iran that the US will take part if they continue to fire missiles at Israel.
The US has told Israel that it would not go to war against Iran and has refused to allow Israel to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. The US refused to provide Israel with the necessary equipment: bunker buster bombs necessary to take out their nuclear facilities or the B-52 bombers that deliver them. It has not allowed Israel to target Iran’s oil infrastructure. Iran said if Israel takes out Iranian oil, Iran will take out oil in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 
The US also leaked the Israeli war plans to Iran. This is something that is not usually done among allies. The US have also been negotiating with the Iranians publicly and behind closed doors. If the US was for Israel bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities and oil infrastructure, it would have happened. 
At this point, the US attitude has been, We will protect and support our ally Israel, but we will not allow this to become a war against Iran. 
The US demanded and got compliance from Israel that US national interests were to be decisive—not Israeli war ones—in the confrontation with Iran.
Israel might do some things that make it difficult for the US to carry out their political objectives for the region. But this is a fight among friends. Despite whatever headaches the Israelis might give them, this is providing the US with the biggest military victory that it has had in decades after winning militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan but losing the occupation.
This has been a cheap war for the US so far. The US spent US$2-4 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and from the strategic vantage point of US imperialism, they were a disaster. The US has spent US$20 billion on Israel in the past year and achieved its biggest military victory in the region in decades by pushing back Iran and its allies. 
There were several thousand American soldiers killed in those wars and many tens of thousands injured. This victory is taking place without one American soldier being killed or injured and no political blow-back at home for these causalities. It is a very cheap victory for the US.
As this war has shifted from Gaza to include Lebanon and Iran, the left is finally starting to wake up to the idea that the US may be doing more than just enabling Israel. Israel is enabling a victory for the US to restore its power in the Middle East. This victory also pushes back China and Russia, which are allied with Iran. 
What implications does the election of Donald Trump have?
The new Trump presidency will not be a repeat of his first administration. The new phase of imperialism we have entered will accelerate even more with Trump in power. We are in a very different world because of the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, supply chains that must be uncoupled, of the new alliances and bloc formations taking shape.
The foreign policy of the US will not be the ruling-class foreign-policy establishment political strategy pursued by Biden, of managing the status quo of a US-dominated world order. Trump and Republican imperialist foreign policy is to change the world order. It is divided about how to pursue that.
The Trump administration includes both wings of the Republican Party. The traditional Republican hawks generally supported Biden’s foreign policy of restoring American alliances, but criticised him for not being aggressive enough: the US provided weapons to Ukraine but didn’t deliver the weapons that it needed and did not allow Ukraine to use them against Russia. These Republican hawks also criticise the US for holding back Israel against Iran. 
But the greater section of the China hawks—Trump and his associates who now dominate the Republican Party—argue that the US does not have the resources to effectively intervene everywhere in the world: they have to concentrate on China. Despite what Trump and the liberal media say, they are not going to dissolve NATO. Europe is militarily dependent on the US, and NATO is a key pillar of US domination over Europe. Instead, Trump argues that the Europeans have to deal with Russia and make it their responsibility. And he wants to end the Ukraine war and its costs to US imperialism. Trump doesn’t step back in terms of the Middle East because Israel is restoring US power in the Middle East against Iran. 
Trump’s strategy is “make America great again”, to rebuild American economic industrial and military power so that it is capable of preparing for competition and war with China.
Trump has presented this mainly in terms of a trade war against China and if necessary whole sections of the world in order to restore US competitiveness and industry. This is part of what the stock rally was about when he got elected. The capitalist class expects there to be an enormous boom under Trump, who will do away with as many regulations as possible.
The other aspect of Trump’s policy is to quickly raise the war budget from 3 percent of GDP to 5 percent to US$1-1.5 trillion annually. 
Deregulation and lower corporate taxes will be used to try to unleash a new trickle-down scheme that aims to convince US corporations to rebuild the military-industrial complex. 
Biden made a small gesture in that regard with infrastructure and the subsidies for electric vehicles. Trump will make more moves to re-shore production to the US mainland.
Trump’s strategy has been primarily that of a trade war than can threaten the entire world economy through economic nationalism and economic warfare. 
We are in a world in which imperialism threatens not just war but total economic instability. We are entering a whole new period that can produce crises. Both of wars like Gaza and Ukraine. There can be even bigger ones coming. And alongside it there is the threat of economic instability as the US and China attempt to separate and become self-reliant. As these great powers attempt to uncouple from each other, we are back in a world that existed before World War Two. 
What are the tasks for socialists in this new era of imperialism?
Revolutionary socialists, like everyone else, have to face reality, draw conclusions and act on them. We have to understand that the decades of globalisation and one superpower, however bad that was, are now over, and that we are in transition to a more unstable, volatile, dangerous world. A world that threatens economic warfare that impacts on people’s daily living standards, as well as more wars that could culminate in a struggle between the superpowers for world domination. 
Imperialism and war radicalised generations throughout the twentieth century. They created an international movement and led to revolutions—from Russia in 1905 to Portugal in 1975. This new phase of imperialism has the potential to do that again. During previous decades, consciousness of imperialism, war and revolution practically disappeared, even in most sections of the left. We are starting again almost from scratch. In the twentieth century, imperialism and war also created vicious, right-wing and fascist movements. A more aggressive far-right, nationalist movement is under way internationally. 
In the last year, the war in Gaza has produced a new international movement in support of Palestine. It is centred on a new generation of young people opposed to war and its horrors who, like all newly radicalised people, do not have consciousness of imperialism or revolution, but who are suspicious, if not outright hostile, to their rulers, who have excused and supported genocide. Like all new generations, it will take time and experience of struggle for this consciousness to reach radical and revolutionary conclusions. But it is the key question: how to raise the consciousness of people who have been moved by war in the last year to the road of the socialist struggle against imperialism; how to raise their consciousness through struggles, battles, including ideological ones, to win them to the conclusions of the socialist struggle against imperialism and war. We have to win them to internationalism, to support all the struggles of workers, students and the oppressed against all the ruling classes in the world, that the struggle against imperialism and war have to be connected to the struggles against exploitation and oppression. It is a long struggle in front of us. But it is essential we build a much larger and stronger revolutionary organisation committed to this goal.

US imperialism and the war for the Middle East

Simone McDonnell

Israel’s war on Lebanon: ‘a mortal threat to the whole region’

The United States has sent Israel at least US$17.9 billion worth of military support since October 2023, according to a <a>report</a> from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University in the US.
The report outlines the known arms deliveries to Israel between 7 October 2023 and September 2024. These include: 20,000 M4A1 rifles, 14,100 2,000-pound bombs, 3,000 laser-guided Hellfire missiles and over 4 million kilograms of jet fuel. This list is likely longer—many of the details of US military exports are not public.
It’s safe to assume these weapons are not sitting in warehouses gathering dust. They were provided with the full knowledge that they would be used to murder Palestinians.
This staggering amount of material support makes the 2024 fiscal year the biggest on record for US military aid to Israel.
Also noted in the report is US$20.3 billion in newly approved weapons sales, reaffirming US backing of Israel in the form of F-15 fighter jets, tank cartridges and mortar rounds.
The US is not only acting as a patron. It directly intervened in April and October to shoot down Iranian missiles bound for Israel, and since January has been striking Houthi targets in Yemen. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the US secretly expanded its intelligence sharing with Israel after 7 October.
This reality is at odds with the narrative in the mainstream media that the US is trying, or at least threatening, to hold Israel back.
On 13 October, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent Israel’s defence minister and minister of strategic affairs a letter giving Israel 30 days to increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza. If Israel doesn’t comply, the letter implies that unwavering US support for the genocide may be reconsidered.
The letter was described as an “ultimatum” by the <a>ABC</a>, <a>Telegraph</a> and <a>Politico</a>. This is at best misleading, and at worst a lie.
Far from threatening a “halt to arms transfers” as the <a>Guardian</a> reported, the letter merely says that a failure on Israel’s part to improve the catastrophic conditions in Gaza “may have implications for US policy” with regard to weapons supplies. America is asking Israel to be a bit nicer while it commits genocide, and if it doesn’t comply then the US might consider not helping so much—hardly an ultimatum.
In April, <a>Reuters</a> reported on an “ultimatum” US President Joe Biden issued to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza or risk losing US support. Nineteen days later, the US Department of Defense <a>announced</a>
that Congress had signed off on US$14.1 billion of military aid to Israel, despite there being no evidence that Israel had made any provisions to avoid civilian deaths.
On 13 October, the same day that Blinken’s most recent “ultimatum” was sent to Israel, the Pentagon <a>announced</a>
that it would send a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence battery to Israel, along with almost 100 soldiers to operate it. 
The liberal media’s spin absolves the US (and its allies like Australia) of Israel’s crimes, washing clean the hands of the so-called “free world” from the blood of the Palestinians shot, bombed, incinerated and starved by Israel.
Make no mistake, the US-Israel alliance is rock solid. Israel needs American weapons, and America needs its attack dog in the Middle East. Without Israel on its side, the US would have a much harder time keeping the region—with its oil reserves and vital trade routes—under its own influence and not that of its rivals.
That the US is willing to sacrifice the lives of tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of people to maintain its dominance should come as no surprise. Poverty contributes to hundreds of thousands of American deaths each year, making it the fourth biggest killer, according to a recent American Medical Association study. More than 300 lives were lost to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, after little was done to mitigate the environmental risk. The US government doesn’t care about its own civilians, let alone those on the other side of the world.
As Israel expands its campaign of terror into Lebanon and Iran, the US has very possibly realised that this is an opportune moment. It’s certainly not mad that a severe blow has been inflicted on Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia allied with Iran—a long-term US foe. Israel crushing, or at least weakening, these enemies could help to entrench US hegemony in the region.
The US is arming Israel because it is in its perverse interest to do so. The idea that Biden is pulling out all the stops to end Netanyahu’s genocide could not be further from the truth—the weapons speak for themselves.

Danica Rachel

The US is spending billions to fuel Israel’s genocide

Israel’s US-sponsored genocide in Palestine has now brought the Middle East to the brink of regional catastrophe. But if you open up a newspaper in the West, you’ll read that the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East is the victim of aggression from its neighbours, including one it has just invaded for the fourth time. And while Israel is doing nothing but “defending itself”, its regional rival Iran is being painted as enemy number one. 
The irony is that Iran was once a vital US ally in the Middle East. The post-WW2 period was a golden age of US influence in Iran, during which control over the spigot of Iranian oil was transferred from the British to the US empire. 
In 1953, the US sponsored a coup against progressive nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh to prevent the nationalisation of Iranian oilfields. In the following decade, Iran became increasingly authoritarian. The anti-communist and pro-Western king, or shah, was a welcome friend to the US in an era when pan-Arab nationalism was threatening US interests in the Arab states. 
In 1979, a revolution swept aside the hated shah. The revolution, which had opened up the possibility of liberation for workers, women and oppressed minorities, was ultimately hijacked by the clerics, who implemented a new authoritarian state, the Islamic Republic. Unlike the previous autocracy, this regime did not ally with US imperialism, instead presenting itself as intractably hostile to US influence in the Middle East. 
Iran’s anti-Western posture has given a measure of popularity to an otherwise despised regime. And no wonder, given the US has long been the greatest purveyor of violence and instability in the Middle East. 
As a rival capitalist power, Iran has benefited from anti-US feeling and from the US’s strategic failures in the region, particularly during the “War on Terror”. Iran’s major rival, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, was removed from power by the US in 2003, and Iran was able to take advantage of the power vacuum created when the US proved unable to establish a pro-Western government. 
Iran’s regional influence was also boosted by the defeat of Israel in Lebanon by Hezbollah, an independent militia strategically allied to Iran, following Israel’s invasion in 2006. In the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011, Iran also carried out military interventions to prop up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad with the support of Hezbollah, and sponsored the Houthis in Yemen against local forces and a Saudi-led coalition of Gulf states. 
Renewed Iranian influence has presented a strategic dilemma for US imperialism. In the last 15 years, there has been debate in the US ruling class about whether confrontation or containment is the best approach. The Obama-era Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015 represented a pragmatic response to the failure of US occupations in the Middle East. The deal sought to balance overwhelming US military superiority and deterrence with a partial loosening of sanctions on Iran in exchange for a commitment to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The motivation for the deal was hardly peacenik: Obama was attempting to tie up loose ends in the Middle East the better to carry out a “pivot to Asia” and prepare for war with China. 
In the intervening years, Trump tore up the nuclear deal and carried out the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020. Aside from plying their ally Israel with weapons and levelling ever greater sanctions on Iran’s economy, the US has not had a coherent strategy for confronting or containing Iran. 
There is no shortage of anti-Iranian hawks in the US today. When asked in an interview with 60 Minutes what country represents the “greatest adversary” to the US, Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris claimed that Iran was the “obvious” answer. At a campaign event in North Carolina, Donald Trump encouraged Israel to strike Iranian territory to “hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later”.
And while there are no doubt differences of opinion in the US elite about Israeli strikes on Iran—whether to avoid hitting oil infrastructure, which would risk destabilising oil prices, and whether to avoid attacks on nuclear facilities, for example—if Israel decides to strike, the US will back it. 
It is absurd to suggest today, as so many in Israel and the West do, that Iran is an existential threat to Israel. The opposite is true. Israel has never been more secure. The Gulf states have all but normalised relations, Egypt maintains the barbaric blockade on the Rafah crossing into Gaza, and Jordan shoots down Iranian rockets to defend Israel. Israel, on the other hand, poses an existential threat to any neighbour that finds itself at odds with US imperialism. 
A comparison of their military capacities and security alliances shows a stark gulf between them. Israel is a rich, nuclear-armed power with the backing of US imperialism and spends nearly three times Iran’s annual military budget. Iran is a relatively weak power, strained under the weight of crippling US sanctions. This is not the clashing of two comparable powers but an attempt to assert full spectrum US and Israeli dominance in the Middle East, which should be resolutely opposed. If war emerges between Israel, backed by the US, and Iran, socialists should be for Israel’s defeat.
Iran’s government is an authoritarian capitalist regime that brutally oppresses its own population. Animosity from the US and Israel does not make it progressive. The anti-government protests and strikes that accompanied the Women, Life, Freedom movement in 2022 were a positive development that required solidarity. Opposition to an attack on Iran, and the desire to see Israel roundly defeated, does not reflect political support for the Iranian regime, just as opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not imply support for Saddam Hussein. 
Now as then, anti-war activists in the West have a responsibility to reject the lies and expose the hypocrisy of Israel and the West’s wars—current and threatened—in the Middle East.

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Trump, AUKUS and the US alliance

Trump lied about peace, but will deliver only misery in Palestine

US imperialism and the war for the Middle East

Israel’s war on Lebanon: ‘a mortal threat to the whole region’

The US is spending billions to fuel Israel’s genocide

How Iran became Western enemy number one

What’s driving Israel’s wars?

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