End the war in Iran!

With his bombing of Iran, Trump has definitively made a bid to rise in the ranks of the war criminals who have occupied the White House. Executing such imperial violence is, of course, a precondition of the office. In fact, there are reports that the Biden Administration had last year engaged in joint war games in preparation for precisely this type of attack.

But these bombings, at this moment, combine uniquely Trumpian hubris, a level of policy incoherence, and a mobster’s sense of political expediency. All of which is backed by the most vile stew of “America First” chauvinism, Islamophobic racism and Christian millenarianism. Unfortunately, we will all reap the whirlwind, most especially the people of Iran, the Palestinians in Gaza, and the Middle East more generally.

Any U.S. pretense to a negotiated “settlement” of the Iranian state’s nuclear program was shown to be a lie as Trump cemented the coalition of génocidaires in attacking Iran. In fact, both the U.S. (under Biden and Trump) and Israel used the ongoing war on Gaza to provide cover to attack Iranian allies and to set the stage for the current escalation.

The flimsiness of the official justification for the attack stands out. Israel has been making the claim that Iran is a rogue state on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons for at least the last 20 years. Recent U.S. intelligence reports reject the claim that Iran is close to making a weapon. Needless to say, the parallels with the U.S. government’s lies told to justify the war on Iraq are pretty obvious. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons, and the U.S. is the only country in the world that has used them. Staying true to form, they are also two of the biggest violators of international law.

In urging the attack that was to come on June 21, U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee held out hope for Trump to be “the most consequential president…maybe ever,” expressing assurances that in choosing to bomb Iran, Trump would “hear from heaven.”And in a similarly messianic vein, in the aftermath of the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu vehemently thanked Trump and “the forces of civilization.”

Both Netanyahu and Trump have been driven by narrow political calculations in choosing this moment to pursue this murderous campaign. For Trump, changing the narratives –  of his disastrous birthday military parade met by mass protests, and the broad disapproval of both his “One Big Beautiful Bill” and  authoritarian immigration policies and unprecedented provocations in major U.S. cities – were no doubt behind the timing. As one outlet put it, Trump is pivoting to distractions.

At the moment, it is not at all clear that the stated policy objectives of the attacks—the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program— have succeeded. While the Zionists remain hopeful that Trump will fully commit to regime change in Iran, at least for the moment, the Trump administration is downplaying this threat. Vice-President J.D. Vance has even had the audacity to deny the U.S. is at war.

This stepping back may have something to do with Trump’s own ambivalences and the tensions within the MAGA coalition. While the right has initially rallied around Trump, in the aftermath of the attacks there are divisions that may yet come into play within sections of his base whose support for Trump rested, at least in part, on his ostensible rejection of neo-conservative adventurism in Iraq. Nonetheless, as he himself has told us, it is Trump who decides what MAGA means and his administration has clearly demonstrated its belief that this bombing campaign is what it means to “make America great again.”

As we have learned over this century’s “adventures” of U.S. imperialism, the repercussions of this “greatness” are never fully anticipated but have generally led to a weakening of U.S. imperial power and have always led to more bloodshed. The stakes this time remain enormously high and therefore the political basis on which we build our opposition to Trump, and his reckless adventures, matter.

Yet in the necessary outcry in the aftermath of these attacks, and regardless of the depth or scope of any divisions within the Trump coalition, the Left should not make any mistakes about the historical role of the Democratic Party “opposition” when it comes to questions of empire and Zionism, in particular. It was their policies that lay the ground for precisely this bloody vision of imperial rule. (A fact that at one time was not lost on Donald Trump.)

Nor should there be any confusion about the Democratic Party’s current role. In the run up to the bombings, many  prominent Democrats were leading the charge and repeating talking points from AIPAC and the Israeli government. Senate Majority Leader, New York Senator Chuck Schumer, just last week released a statement, proclaiming that the U.S. “commitment to Israel’s security and defense must be ironclad…The Iranian regime’s stated policy has long been to destroy Israel and Jewish communities around the world.” This is the opposite of anti-war politics, let alone anti-imperialism. At best, the Democrats have couched their opposition in terms of the constitutionality of Trump’s actions.  The party leadership apparently want a return to the status quo ante: multilateral genocide.

As the resistance has started to reemerge in mass form, it is crucial for the Left that our politics of anti-imperialism and solidarity be front and center as we build a movement to fight the right, stop these wars, and make possible a better future.

End the War on Iran!

Defeat U.S. Imperialism!

Stop all Aid to Israel!

Solidarity with the people of Iran!

Free Palestine!

Featured Image credit: Miller; modified by Tempest.