Iran War and the Democrats. What Would A real Opposition Party Do?

Richard Mellor
7-20-26

Not every political analyst in the United States is a Trump apologist or another corporate media personality building a career by echoing the conventional wisdom. Professor John Mearsheimer has earned a reputation as one of the country's foremost realist scholars of international relations. Whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, he has consistently presented his views as he sees them, even when doing so has invited intense criticism. That was certainly the case when he co-authored a controversial book examining the influence of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy.

My own view is that his assessment of the events of the past week—including the U.S. bombing of Iranian infrastructure and Trump's renewed threats of annihilation against Iran—is probably a fair one. Mearsheimer analyzes international affairs through the lens of great-power competition and national interests. What he does not offer, however, is a way out of the recurring crises that define relations between the United States and Iran, or the broader conflicts engulfing West Asia.

In my opinion, that limitation reflects the political framework within which he operates. Mearsheimer is ultimately a theorist of the capitalist state. While he can explain how capitalist powers pursue their interests, he cannot offer a solution because no lasting solution exists within capitalism itself. A system driven by competition for markets, resources, strategic advantage and profit cannot resolve crises that are rooted in its own economic and political foundations.

I am no academic or foreign policy specialist. I am simply a worker with opinions formed through experience and observation like most workers. But ordinary working people are just as capable of understanding political realities as many of the experts who dominate television panels or university departments. These institution operate within assumptions that accept capitalism as both natural and permanent. The debate usually concerns how best to manage the system, not whether the system itself is responsible for the crises it continually produces.

That brings us to American politics.

The Democratic Party is presented as the only realistic alternative to Trump and the Republican Party. Much of the liberal political establishment is focused on regaining control of Congress in the coming elections, and movements such as "No Kings" reflect that objective.

Yet it has become increasingly clear that the Democratic Party is not an opposition party in any fundamental sense. It is one of the two major parties of American capitalism. It represents the interests of capital before labor, bosses before workers. Every political party has a class character, and the Democratic Party is no exception.

This helps explain why tens of millions of Americans simply do not vote in national elections. They see little meaningful difference between two parties that compete fiercely for office while agreeing on many of the basic assumptions of American economic and foreign policy. Trump was elected with the support of only a minority of eligible voters, a reflection not simply of his appeal, but of widespread political alienation.

Imagine, however, if the Democratic Party genuinely claimed to represent working people instead of speaking vaguely in the name of "all Americans," placing workers, billionaires, and corporate executives in the same political category. Imagine if it had deep roots in working-class communities, trade unions, and grass root organizations like renters rights groups instead of relying primarily on election campaigns every two or four years.

Such a party could enter office with a clear program of action. On its first day it could pledge to:

• End the U.S. war against Iran, withdraw military involvement, and acknowledge that the American people were never consulted about another war.
• Establish a universal, publicly funded Medicare for All health care system.
• Launch a national affordable housing program.
• Build a modern, affordable public transportation network.
• Abolish ICE and dismantle other institutions that terrorize immigrant communities.
• Invest massively in infrastructure while guaranteeing union wages, benefits, and labor rights.
• Redirect public investment from fossil fuels toward renewable sources such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric power.
• Bring the 500 largest corporations under democratic public ownership, compensating only those individuals whose retirement security genuinely depends on such investments rather than rewarding billionaire owners.
• Reduce military spending by at least 50 percent and redirect those resources toward meeting human needs.

None of these proposals should be regarded as extreme. They reflect the priorities of a society organized around human need instead of private profit.

Nor should we hesitate to challenge the enormous concentration of wealth in the hands of the capitalist class, whether through taxation, legislation, or public ownership. Billionaires and big capitalists in general, have never hesitated to close factories, destroy communities, or throw working people into poverty when doing so increased their profits. They also benefit from public resources being devoted to wars and military expansion without the meaningful consent of the people who pay for them. Within seventy miles of where I write there are roughly eighty billionaires, and California alone is home to more than two hundred.

I recognize, of course, that today's Democratic Party has no intention of pursuing such a program. That is precisely the point. Working people need a political party of our own. More importantly, we need a movement grounded in the understanding that capitalism cannot be made genuinely humane or environmentally sustainable. It is not simply a matter of electing better politicians; it is a matter of replacing a system whose priorities inevitably produce inequality, war, and environmental destruction.

I do not claim to have all the answers. No individual does. But I have become convinced that only a democratic socialist federation of nations, cooperating instead of competing, offers humanity a realistic path forward. If we avoid nuclear war, the defining challenge of this century will be the climate crisis. Capitalism has shown itself incapable of addressing that crisis because doing so would require subordinating profit to human need. Unless we move beyond that system, the future will be shaped not by the possibilities of human progress but by the catastrophes capitalism continues to produce.

Leak: Rubio’s WMD Scandal Is “Far-Left Terrorism”

 Leak: Rubio’s WMD Scandal Is “Far-Left Terrorism”

U.S. targets "anti-tech," "pro-Iranian" & "antisemitic networks" with new three-letter designation.

Ken Klippenstein July 15th 2026

Little Marco sits atop his throne

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Tomorrow, Marco Rubio will open a summit unveiling a new designation branding his political opponents as terrorists, documents leaked to me reveal.

The unveil will happen on the opening day of the 60-nation summit — which I reported on here — titled, “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism.” 

That this summit is happening at a time when the Iran war is literally exploding, and while so much else in the world seems to be on fire, is a baffling way for the Secretary of State (and National Security Advisor!) to spend his precious time.

Welcome to the War on FLT, short for “Far-Left Terrorism,” a new acronym appearing in State Department documents about the summit and which I obtained. 

A three-letter acronym for an imagined threat that could be radioactive to a politician’s presidential ambitions. Sound familiar? It’s this generation’s WMD. And it’s going to haunt him.

Rubio, who fancies himself a deep thinker and is already being anointed as the experienced middle-of-the-road alternative to JD Vance, is revealing his true stripes: Trump flunkey, oblivious, and lost in the sauce of the bureaucracy’s ideological hotbox.

Far-left is hard enough to define (who decides what’s “far”?) but to add terrorism takes it to another level of crazy. Not that Rubio cares. The summit will introduce a new visa policy under which State targets “far-left terrorist and other aligned groups” not just for violence against actual people but also “economic sabotage including against public and private property” — a phrase broad enough to cover a broken window or a boycott. 

Rubio has spent a decade cultivating the image of the responsible statesman — fourteen years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the grown-up steadying a chaotic administration. The FLT designation is a good place to watch that image dissolve. The State Department is being turned into another clown car, and Rubio seems happy to be the driver.

State’s talking points drop any pretense that this is a politically neutral endeavor. Officials are instructed to rely on the following talking points (per the leaked documents):

• “We go where the threat is. Political terrorism is resurgent, and far-left terrorism specifically poses a unique and distinctive threat today. Addressing and defeating that is the focus of the Ministerial.”

• “The United States has observed a concerning convergence between violent far-left and anarchist networks and other violent extremist actors, including violent pro-Iranian and antisemitic networks, as well as militant anti-tech and eco-terrorist movements. This is a trend we are monitoring closely and engaging partners to address.”

• “The Ministerial will focus world attention on the resurgence of political terrorism and bring together the United States and foreign partners to address the terrorist actors, particularly far-left terrorist networks, operating across Europe, Asia, the Western Hemisphere, and beyond. It focuses on improving coordination, information sharing, and practical law enforcement cooperation to counter political terrorism, including violent far-left attacks on law enforcement, critical infrastructure, political figures, and state institutions.”

• “Political terrorism is resurgent, particularly among far-left terrorist networks that have grown more sophisticated. They leverage decentralized cell structures, encrypted communications, and transnational coordination to carry out attacks on rail, energy, and telecommunications infrastructure, as well as targeted violence against political figures and their families. In 2024 alone, there were 21 far-left and anarchist terrorist attacks in the EU — nearly matching the number of jihadist attacks that year.”

• “These are not isolated incidents, but are part of a sustained, transnational campaign of political terrorism that is growing in sophistication and lethality, aimed at dismantling the foundations of self-governing societies.”

• “The Department of State is committed to confronting organized political violence, including from far-left terrorist and other aligned groups that engage in or support terrorist or criminal activities, economic sabotage, or support far-left terrorist-led violent actions.”

• “In support of this effort, the Department of State is announcing a new visa restriction policy that targets members of far-left terrorist and other aligned groups who have supported or incited acts of terrorism; supported violent criminal activity; participated in economic sabotage including against public and private property; financed, recruited, or provided logistical support for violent or criminal actions committed by far-left terrorist and other aligned groups; and/or facilitated the convergence of far left terrorist and other aligned networks for the purposes of economic sabotage.”

• “…this policy will protect U.S. citizens and safeguard the American homeland by restricting entry of foreign nationals who finance, recruit, incite, or otherwise enable terrorist, violent, and criminal far-left terrorist networks — closing the visa pathways that far-left terrorists and other aligned groups could exploit to threaten American lives, undermine economic stability, and coordinate violent actions on U.S. soil.”

Consider who Rubio is comfortable putting in charge of the summit, names I gleaned from an internal State Department roster detailing the event.

Tera Dahl, a senior advisor in State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, is a Michael Flynn colleague from the first Trump administration who was pushed out of the National Security Council by H.R. McMaster. Before that, she wrote for Steve Bannon’s Breitbart, co-founded the now-defunct Council on Global Security — a think tank devoted to warning about the dangers of Islam. There, she worked with Katharine Gorka, wife of current Trump terrorism czar Sebastian Gorka, authoring a string of pieces praising Egypt’s strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for “leading Egypt towards democracy” as he jailed his critics.

Dahl got her start as a staffer for then-Representative Michele Bachmann — which is its own kind of full circle. In 2012, Bachmann and four House colleagues sent letters to federal inspectors general alleging that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the U.S. government, singling out longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The claim was baseless enough that John McCain went to the Senate floor to rebuke a member of his own party.

Then there’s Monica Jacobsen, another senior official at State’s Counterrorism Bureau, a holy warrior who prioritizes the defense of Global Christians. She testified to Congress this year that her agency would “hold governments’ feet to the fire when they fail to address terrorist threats that undermine religious freedom.”

Then there’s Brent Munyon, Senior Adviser to the Deputy Secretary of Management and Resources. A few years ago, he was a partisan dirt digger for the Republican National Committee. Finally, there’s Oscar Buynevich, Special Advisor for the Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, another Breitbart commentator whose career amounted to shoveling culture war slop.

It’s a rogues’ gallery befitting the imaginary Iraqi WMD fiasco, the main contributor to the mess we are still in more than 20 years later. Think Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle.

Welcome to Rubio 2028.

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Ken Klippenstein:Lindsey Graham's Death and Iran

Lindsey Graham's Death and Iran

Diva down as FBI grabs spotlight

Ken Klippenstein July 12, 2026 

RIP

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Senator Lindsey Graham died last night at age 71, ending a three-decade career in Congress that started in 1995.

Washington is shocked. But 71 is roughly the life expectancy for a man in South Carolina, the state he represented.

Graham becomes the sixth “senior” member of Congress to die in office this term alone (assuming Mitch McConnell isn’t already dead), the other five listed below. But fear not: 78-year-old 13-term congressman Joe Wilson is reportedly interested in running for Graham’s seat.

• Rep. David Scott (D‑GA) died at age 80 on April 22, 2026;

• Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D‑AZ) died at age 77 on March 13, 2025;

• Rep. Gerry Connolly (D‑VA), age 75 on May 21, 2025;

• Rep. Sylvester Turner (D‑TX) died at age 70 on March 4, 2025;

• Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R‑CA), died at age 65 on January 6, 2026

One might think this would prompt a debate about gerontocracy, but the FBI wants you instead to worry about national security.

“The FBI is assisting local authorities and has made every necessary resource available,” Director Kash Patel said in a statement after Graham’s death. Patel’s strange intervention has prompted the conspiracy-minded to go wild.

Laura Loomer, a prominent conservative activist and confidant of President Trump’s, cited Patel’s statement as evidence of foul play in Graham’s death. (There’s zero evidence for this.)

“It’s more likely that Russia or Iran poisoned Senator Graham, which is probably why the FBI is now investigating his sudden death upon returning from Ukraine,” Loomer said in a post on X/Twitter, where she has 2 million followers. 

It’s a theme Loomer is hammering on, demanding that “the FBI should provide security to those who the Iranian regime is now promising to assassinate.” Loomer, an outspoken critic of Iran, thinks that she herself is a target of the regime as well. 

Given her popularity among conservatives online, you can expect to hear a lot of similar talk soon. 

Her fears echo messaging by the FBI that America faces a domestic threat from Iran — a line the media has amplified with its breathless coverage of every supposed Iran-backed assassination attempt on U.S. officials, no matter how harebrained or implausible they are.

As a senior Pentagon official once told me, the “intelligence” on any alleged Iran-backed assassination plans to kill Donald Trump amounts to far less than many imagine.

But Loomer and many others seem to genuinely believe this stuff, which is directly tied to the FBI’s constant invoking of threats to “national security.” Not only are we forbidden from knowing the factual basis for such claims, the rules of normal anything go out the window when it comes to national security. From UFOs to Graham’s death, the result is predictable conspiracy-mongering and panic. 

And lest you think this is just some obsession of Loomer’s, Fox News also referenced Kash Patel’s statement in a TV news segment. “The FBI are at Senator Graham’s residence,” the segment said, adding that “FBI Director Kash Patel said that the FBI would assist local authorities and make every resource available.”

The FBI under Kash Patel seems to take its orders directly from the White House, which wants to turn everything — from Graham’s death to public protest to journalism — into some kind of sprawling threat to the country.

This week, the Justice Department subpoenaed several New York Times reporters for revealing that the Qatari jet Trump wants to use as Air Force One lacks certain protective features. This was already pretty well known. But the Justice Department says the story spilled secrets that imperil national security. That’s how a straightforward corruption story gets transmuted into a state security story.

National security might not be good at forecasting events or winning wars or making us safer, but it is very good at manufacturing threats that confuse and disempower people and, perhaps worst of all, forego discussion of more important issues. 

Like, say, gerontocracy.

In fairness to Graham, I feel compelled to credit him for being a Senator more willing than almost any other to take phone calls from reporters of all stripes (including outsiders like me). In our age of media-shy members of Congress, I have to respect that. And though he'll be remembered as a Trump loyalist, he was willing to break with the president when he believed it mattered — on Ukraine, for example — while so many of his colleagues just went along.

Oh, and unlike so many of his male colleagues, no woman has ever accused Graham of sexual misconduct.

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Opinion: Marco Rubio embarrasses himself — and America — on Iran

Marco Rubio embarrasses himself — and America — on Iran

Lim Tean *

06-23-26

On Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/PeoplesVoiceSingapore

 

The US Secretary of State has just told the world that Iran’s foreign policy is driven by “pure theology” and that “no one has ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran.”

 

Both claims are demonstrably false. Both reveal a man profoundly unqualified for the office he holds.

 

Abbas Araghchi is one of the finest diplomatic minds operating in the world today. A career diplomat of thirty years, he was the technical architect of the JCPOA — mastering every clause, every verification mechanism, every sanctions schedule across eighteen months of gruelling negotiation with the world’s major powers. He does not need briefing notes. He is the briefing note.

 

When Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner sit across the table from him to negotiate, the contrast is almost painful to witness. Here is a man who has spent three decades studying the granular architecture of nuclear nonproliferation, sanctions law, and regional security arrangements — facing two real estate developers from New York who cannot tell a centrifuge from a footnote. 

 

Araghchi has every detail at his fingertips: the technical specifications, the legal precedents, the diplomatic history, the red lines and their rationale. His American counterparts are essentially improvising.

 

This is not negotiation. This is a doctoral examiner sitting down with students who have not read the syllabus.

 

Iran has concluded deals — repeatedly. The 2015 JCPOA was negotiated with five permanent Security Council members plus Germany. It was verified by the IAEA. It worked. It was America that tore it up.

 

And then there is Rubio himself. Anyone who has watched him testify before Congress will know exactly what I mean. What you witness is not statecraft. It is a man who has made a career of spouting propaganda and ideological talking points — recycling neoconservative slogans in place of analysis, substituting bluster for knowledge, and confusing belligerence with strength. He has never demonstrated a serious understanding of Iran’s political structure, its factional dynamics, its strategic doctrine, or its negotiating history. 

 

The words in that image are not merely wrong — they are terrifying in what they reveal about the man now simultaneously occupying the offices of Secretary of State and National Security Adviser. That such extraordinary concentration of foreign policy power should rest in hands this ignorant is one of the most alarming facts about American governance today.

 

What Rubio is actually revealing is not Iranian irrationality. He is revealing Washington’s own incapacity — its inability to honour commitments, sustain agreements, or treat adversaries as strategic actors deserving of serious engagement.

 

The most dangerous diplomats are not the radical ones. They are the ignorant ones — those who mistake their own ideological blinkers for geopolitical insight.

 

In my assessment, Rubio is the most ignorant and incompetent Secretary of State the United States has produced since the Second World War. That is not hyperbole. It is a considered judgment from someone who has studied American foreign policy across eight decades.

 

The world deserves better. So, frankly, does America. 

Lim Tean is Secretary General and founder of the People's Voice Party of Singapore

Ken Klippenstein Exclusive: New Intel Agency Eyes AI Data Center Critics

Exclusive: New Intel Agency Eyes AI Data Center Critics

Congress has its own CIA and it’s sounding the alarm about anti-AI grievances

Dan Boguslaw and Ken Klippenstein

May 28 2026

The intelligence report this story is based on comes courtesy of freelancer Daniel Boguslaw. If you’d like to see more like this, please become a paid subscriber so we can hire him! — Ken

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As rage about artificial intelligence and the data centers powering it grows, Congress is taking notice — not with any legislation or law, but by spying on public opposition.

A newly created intelligence agency of the Congress (yes, it has its own now) is warning that legislators are in danger from an angry public. The U.S. Capitol Police Intelligence Services Bureau, created after January 6 and in parallel to the 18-member Executive Branch intelligence community, laid out the warning in an internal intelligence report produced in April.

“ISB has prepared this Intelligence Note to provide the US Capitol Police and law enforcement personnel with information related to recent threats and attacks likely linked to grievances concerning data centers,” the report says.

	Data Center Intelligence Note 420KB ∙ PDF file
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There’s only one problem: the report admits that there is no evidence of any actual threat to Congress.

“The US Capitol Police is not investigating any data center-motivated threats to Members of Congress,” the report says. 

Nonetheless, it goes on to warn that artificial intelligence “related policies introduced on the Hill and in local communities are likely to continue drawing opposition, increasing potential concerns for public officials.”

The Congressional intelligence office that authored the report was formed in the aftermath of January 6th and justified to bring the congressional police force “in line” with federal intelligence agencies and thereby gain more access to the massive existing intelligence community. The “intelligence note” was also distributed to police organizations and state-level fusion centers across the country.

“We now have a world class intelligence operation,” then-Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police Thomas Manger said last May. “We are significant players in the intelligence community in the Washington, D.C., region and, frankly, all over the country … Whereas before, we were basically just — we were consumers of information. The FBI would give us intelligence, other agencies would give us intelligence. Now we are gathering our own."

The motivation for the report appears to be an attack on the home of Indianapolis city councilman Ron Gibson. Gibson, a supporter of a local data center project, reported to police that someone had fired 13 gunshots through his door and left a note on his porch that read “No data centers.” No suspect has yet been arrested.

The intelligence report reveals that the Intelligence Services Bureau is monitoring social media content critical of data centers, looking for potential threats.

“You can be damn sure there are thousands more rounds where this comes from, and if you keep voting for data centers, we will all begin returning to the early days of American freedom and express ourselves via violence over words,” one user posted.

“Threatening the politicians who actually make decisions is actually logical,” another social media user posts. “I would rather shooters shoot up the senate than a high school [sic].”

Neither of these comments represents an actionable threat, the Capitol Police notes.

The report also summarizes crimes associated with data centers, including one committed over five years ago.

One example is that of Seth Pendley, who was arrested five years ago in 2021 and charged with attempting to blow up a data center in Northern Virginia. The Capitol Police connect him to Congress by noting that at some point he claimed to have “brought a sawed-off assault rifle into DC but left the weapon in his car, before proceeding to the US Capitol building but not entering it on January 6, 2021.” Pendley is incarcerated 600 miles away from D.C. in Terre Haute, Indiana.

What is clear is that data centers have become an overwhelmingly unpopular issue for American voters. A Gallup poll from this month found that seven in ten Americans oppose the local construction of data centers for AI. Their concerns range from the environmental pollution to the increased utility prices generated by data center water and electricity use.

The Intelligence Services Bureau report briefly touches on these concerns and more, identifying “possible government use of AI to spy on Americans,” “environmental impacts,” “rising energy costs,” and “loss of jobs in certain industries” as reasons why Americans oppose their construction. The report does not examine why activism regarding AI and data centers is anything other than free speech.

Grasping for evidence of increased criminal dangers, the report dedicates a full page to threats made against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who is neither an elected official, nor within the purview of the Capitol Police.

Altman blamed the attack on “incendiary” news media coverage, writing in his blog that “I have underestimated the power of words and narratives.” In other words, AI leaders like Altman see the problem as one of controlling what the public says.

Congress, now in the intelligence business, is responding by focusing on the threat of the American public rather than the threat to the American public.

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The US Ruling Class is a Little Overconfident. And That's Going to Cost Them

They Are Not Going Backwards

Richard Mellor

Watch Gary Chambers speak and understand something: this is what defiance looks like. Standing against the deliberate redrawing of electoral maps designed to dilute Black voting power in Louisiana, he is not intimidated and he will not be silenced. And he is not alone.

A few days ago I posted a TikTok video making a simple point that the corporate media works hard to obscure — the American working class is not the monolithic conservative bloc they want you to believe it is. When Black Lives Matter took to the streets, the cameras and the commentators worked to frame it as a Black movement, full stop. That was a lie of omission. It was a multiracial movement. BLM had many allies particularly among the youth mired in student debt and other members of the community confronting the state in the streets. That truth matters because it points toward something they fear more than any single protest — the possibility of a united working class that knows its own power.

We cannot manufacture that movement from the top down. It will be built from below, as it always has been, and it will come. What is happening right now in Minneapolis, where communities are organizing direct resistance to ICE operations, is not an isolated incident. It is a glimpse of what is coming. Real political education happens in struggle, not in lecture halls.

Gary Chambers comes from a community that has fought one of the longest and most brutal battles in American history, against a system of racial oppression that stretches back centuries. That community is not going backwards. Not now. Not ever.

There are times when those in power get a little too cocky, when confidence becomes arrogance and they underestimate the anger their policies generate in society.  We are living in such times. The American working class currently lacks the organized leadership and political party it needs and the movement against the capitalist offensive has not yet raised its head above the parapet. And as I was reminded more than once in my political education, consciousness tends to lag behind events and this is more so when it has been decades since a major mass movement has taken to the streets.

But what we are seeing with Gary Chambers, what we saw in Minneapolis, will multiply a hundredfold. A ruling class that is losing its grip on the global stage, that failed in Iraq, failed in Afghanistan, and is flailing across the Middle East, is forced to turns its aggression inward, against its own workers.

Trump's rise was not inevitable. It was made possible by the dismal failures of the Democratic Party to offer a serious alternative  but in in large part, by the absence of an organized, united working class movement and a party of our own. That vacuum was filled by the ugliest currents in American life — white supremacists, Christian nationalists, the settler mentality dressed up in electoral politics, fascist mobs given permission to come out into the open. That is the honest account of how we got here.

But here is what is equally true. American history is a history of resistance. The Native peoples were never fully defeated. Enslaved Africans broke their chains and remade this country in the process. The millions of Europe's poor, shipped here to work the mines and textile mills, built a labor movement from nothing. Racism has been the ruling class's most effective weapon in its long war against working class unity — but it has never been a permanent solution, only a postponement.

It will not be easy for them up ahead. They have reason to be worried. We have reason to keep going.