By CARLOS SAPIR

Nearly a month into the horrific U.S.-Israel assault against Iran, the ensuing military, political and economic crises appear to be spiraling out of the imperialists’ control. With Iran still controlling vital maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and imperialist forces continuing escalations of attacks against oil refineries and other civilian energy and water infrastructure, the global economy is reeling. Meanwhile, Iran continues to fire long-range missiles at a steady pace against Israeli, U.S., and British targets, even as its short-range drones take center stage in the battle over the Gulf.

Given the chaos, the idea that the invasion was due to either the unique stupidity of Trump, or that Trump was “tricked” by Israeli operatives into taking this course of action, is seductive for a large swath of people. But what these conspiracy theories miss is that, blunders included, the invasion of Iran has been fully consistent with decades of U.S. imperialist policy.

The bipartisan consensus behind imperialism

While the Democratic Party has criticized the conduct of the current war, its leaders nevertheless support the principle of attacking Iran. Since the abbreviated attack on Iran in June, DP leadership has egged Trump on toward confrontation with Iran, using playground-style nicknames in an apparent attempt to get under Trump’s paper-thin skin. But the imperialist agreement on Iran runs much deeper than just that, and its reflection in Europe can also be seen in the EU, British, French, and German governments cheerleading the initial strikes against Iran.

Dating all the way back to the coup against Mossadegh in 1953, imperialist states have worked together to frustrate and attack all attempts for Iran to assert its political or economic independence. While the Pahlavi-dynasty Shahs were willing accomplices for U.S. and British imperialism, these imperialists saw the 1979 Revolution and the regime that emerged from it as an obstacle and an enemy to their hegemony over the Middle East.

Though occasionally pivoting to tools of diplomacy rather than outright war, such as under Obama (and still nominally favored by the leaders of the EU), this approach was not a policy of peace but a continuation of war by other means, a proposal to integrate Iran directly into the framework of their imperialist economic hegemony, while unilaterally insisting on invasive checks and surveillance of its military capacity. While nuclear disarmament on a global scale would be laudable, that is not the goal of demanding that Iran concede its military capabilities while Israel, Britain, and the U.S. (the only country to have actually used a nuclear bomb at war)  are allowed to militarize freely.

This is not to say that the U.S. has perfectly executed its war plans. It has made many obvious blunders in its attempt to subjugate Iran, including friendly fire incidents at the tactical level, failing to account for economic impacts at the strategic level, Trump making erratic comments, and the government generally failing to present a coherent propaganda line of what is happening. Some of this bungling has drawn criticism and denunciations from the allies and enemies of imperialism alike. But the military logic of the U.S.-led effort to isolate and dominate Iran has been a steady march toward war, with the main questions for the U.S. government being how and when, not if.

How Israel and Joe Kent serve U.S. interests

While the Democrats and conservatives fed up with Trump can try to salvage their own reputations by blaming this catastrophe of a war on Trump and his advisors’ stupidity, the MAGA crowd needs another scapegoat, and Israel is both a perfect fit and an eager participant in this capacity.

Israel’s conduct toward Iran has been no less despicable than that of the U.S., and it is rightfully a pariah in the eyes of the world for the waves of occupation, dispossession, and genocide that it has unleashed against Palestinians. But while the Israeli government and Trump’s government may have a different calculus for their ability to tolerate economic pain, popular discontent, and other pressures stemming from a given war, it is the longstanding policy of U.S. imperialism to bolster Israeli hegemony across the Middle East in order to further its own interests.

The Israeli air force continues to be entirely logistically dependent on U.S. industrial support, not to mention the broader economic and diplomatic support that the U.S. has continually lent Israel since the 1970s. For decades, U.S. presidents have recognized Israel’s role as “an unsinkable aircraft carrier” and a counter-revolutionary attack dog ready and willing to strike against any threat to the continued expansion of U.S. and European hegemony across the region.

The fact that Israel will go ahead and launch attacks that the U.S. is not quite ready to carry out itself (at the moment, including an ongoing invasion of southern Lebanon) is a feature, not a bug. It lets the U.S. offload the blame for the most unconscionable acts of violence carried out to secure its hegemony.

This process involves officials like former Counter-Terrorism Director Joe Kent publicly denouncing the Israeli role, absolving the U.S. of wrongdoing in the process. The antisemitic implication that Israelis have secretly taken hold of the U.S. government is a further bonus for the far-right crowd that Kent is trying to sway; never mind that Kent himself has had much more direct control over U.S. (and by extension, Israeli) policy and practice than 99.9% of the Jewish population.

Israel, of course, has committed and continues to commit terrible crimes, and is rightfully condemned by people who oppose racism and imperialism everywhere. But the fact that it leads the charge of imperialism’s wars is not a sign that it secretly controls the U.S. government; it’s a consequence of the fact that the U.S. and other imperialist states intentionally cultivate relationships with racist, militarist states precisely because they are entrenched in a military logic that favors constant confrontation with forces that might oppose imperialism.

The U.S. government stands by Israel for the same reason that it stood by apartheid South Africa, by dictatorships across Latin America from Guatemala to Chile, and even by the Pahlavi Shahs in Iran. Defeating all of these regimes means stopping imperialism writ large, which is a struggle that must ultimately also be carried out inside the heart of imperialism itself.

By building a mass movement against imperialist war in the U.S. today, we can stop the heart of the machine that spreads racism and destruction throughout the world. Our goal is not just to replace the president with someone more “competent,” or to remove some imaginary cabal of Illuminati that’s secretly controlling everything. We need to build working-class opposition and political power that can uproot the imperialist war economy and rebuild from the bottom up.

Money for jobs and education, not for wars and deportation!

Hands off Iran! Hands off Lebanon! Free Palestine!

Photo: Bomb damage in Tehran. The Red Crescent reports that over 8000 civilian sites have been bombed by the U.S. and Israel in the war. (Majod Sheedi / Getty Images)

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