Iran/US Ceasefire as Israel Violates it and Bombs Lebanon

Iranians form chain to protect infrastructure and the West is worried about gas prices.

Richard Mellor

04/08-26

 

This is a good article from Middle East Eye but I have consistently rejected the idea that the tail wags the dog in this Israel/US relationship as the author suggests. And it is not based on the manipulative powers of Netanyahu either.

 

Trump is a narcissist and a con man, possessing many other offensive habits, sexually assaulting and ra*ing women, or portraying the Obama’s as apes among them. So yes, he can easily be manipulated if the bait is right. According to witnesses that were present during previous negotiations with Iran, Trump was described as being dragged in to a war he was trying to get out of by his two main negotiators, the ardent Zionists, and real estate pimps Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. 

 

Trump is not a smart man, he’s a con man and the idea that you have to be smart to get rich is a fabrication; let’s remind ourselves of one of Marx’s most important statements that the class that controls the manufacturing of goods in society also control the means of the manufacture of ideas; the dominant ideology in any society is that of the class that governs and the idea that being rich equals being smart originates there. It wasn’t the European peasant that promoted the idea that the King was King by Divine Right.

 

It is also true, as the article points out, that most Americans oppose the Iran war, over 60%, and most want Trump gone (only one in four registered voters voted for him) which is one reason for the massive turnout for the No Kings protests. However, the organizers that founded Indivisible, one of the main organizations behind the protests are former Democratic interns or Congressional staffers and their goal is to Vote Blue (Democratic) in the primaries and return the Democrats to power; a return to the status quo. But the status quo has been a disaster for millions of Americans as living standards and public services have been savaged over the past period. So the 8 million is not an homogenous bloc by any means and regardless of what happens, the war on US workers from both parties will continue. A defeat for US imperialism abroad, is a victory for the US working class at home. 

 

Because most Americans want something doesn’t mean we get it. According to a 2024 Gallup survey, 62 percent of Americans said that the federal government should ensure that all Americans have health coverage. Another 2020 report from the McHarg Center found that nearly four times as many voters support increasing public transportation funding as support reducing, it yet mass transit in the US is abysmal.  According to Transportation for America,  70 percent of respondents agree that “providing people with more transportation options is better for our health, safety, and economy than building more highways.” 

 

And according to a 2023 survey by Pew, Two-thirds of Americans prioritize developing alternative energy sources, like wind and solar and  About three-quarters of Americans support a U.S. role in global efforts to address climate change. And 82% of Americans want the government to make housing more affordable PEW.

 

I could go on and on but despite these findings, nothing changes. Wait, I stand corrected, conditions continue to deteriorate and that is one of the reasons Sixty-three percent of U.S. adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do “such a poor job” of representing the American people that “a third major party is needed.”  Gallup

 

Millions of Americans have opted out of the electoral process altogether completely disgusted with the political system and the entire US body politic. They have drawn the incorrect conclusion that the US Congress is utterly corrupt and this is at the root of the problem; it is a flaw of personality, people are just greedy. This argument is backed up by religious authority rather than explaining that the root cause of the problem is that the two parties of capital do not represent the interests of the working and middle classes. The capitalist system is in crisis and it is their role to bail it out and that means making workers pay. There is no guns and butter in this scenario. The politicians are backed in this endeavour by the bureaucracy atop organized labor who are committed to capitalism and that the market has the answer to all things.

 

The reality is, as I have always argued, is that the US settler colony is the only reliable ally US imperialism has in this important region of the world. The Arab regimes, as unstable as they are, and we witnessed how rapidly these despotic regimes, all backed by the US, could fall in the Arab Spring of 2011, cannot be relied upon to defend US interests there. The potential power of the Arab working class is too great for these regimes to be trusted. Settler colonies, and in the case of Israel, a European settler state amid a sea of Arabism as one official once put it, has filled that role.

 

There is no doubt that the activities of the crazed Zionist Apartheid regime-----its genocide, torture and mass mu*der of children----- beyond fueling anti-semitism throughout the Middle East and the world, has weakened the US/Israel link and undermined support for the Zionists and Zionism in the US, particularly among young Jews. 

But there has always been and is still support still in the US Congress. There are Christian Zionists, sections of the energy and tech bourgeois for example who are troubled by Israel’s behaviour but are not breaking ranks by any means. The likely leader in the race for the White House among Democrats is California governor Gavin Newsom  who recently stated that he, “reveres Israel” and refused to call it an Apartheid state.

 

As I write and in the wake of a ceasefire agreed to between Iran and the US that included Lebanon where the Israeli’s are carrying out a Gaza style bombing of civilian infrastructure is weakening the US/Israel alliance. Despite Lebanon being included in the ceasefire, Netanyahu has said there will be no halting of the destruction the Zionist regime is waging in Lebanon. Netanyahu has admitted they are doing a “Ga*a style action in Lebanon. This is a humiliation for the US for sure. Iran has stated, according to Iran New 24 @IRanMediaco, that if Israel violates the ceasefire by bombing Lebanon, Iran will bomb Tel Aviv.

 

So there is no doubt that the tail of the dog is out of control and that is putting some pressure on the tail’s owner, but that is different than the implication that Israel is in charge here in my mind. How this will develop and to what degree the relationship between the US and its proxy will decline is hard to say. The Iranian resolve in the face of US aggression has changed the Middle East for good. And with the collapse of the US, and likely Trumps misnamed Board of Peace, we are in a new historical era and the multi-polar world that both Russia and China talk of.

 

I know that, as the author of the ME article says, South African Apartheid wasn’t allowed to exist. Na*i Germany wasn’t allowed to exists and Israel as it is should not be allowed to exist. Jews, along with Christian have lived in Palestine for millennia and when Palestinian’s have talked of Israel having no right to exist they refer to the colonial expansionist state. Jews have always been there and they have a right to be there. Zionism and settler colonialism is different.