Boy George Misses A Golden Opportunity to Remain Silent

 

Richard Mellor

 

I know next to nothing about Boy George except he sang a song titled, Do you Really Want to Hurt Me, or that was a chorus lyric in one of his hits, that’s why, under normal circumstances, I would not bother to comment on him. 

 

But as he’s penned a song sharing his views about Apartheid Israel’s barbaric assault on the Palestinians in Gaza that has been accepted by numerous human rights organizations as well as G*nocide historians, Jewish and non Jewish alike, as a “G*nocide, I feel compelled to say something.

 

In the song that is titled, “We Will Dance Again” we have lyrics like:

“You say genocide, I say war/ When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for/ Does it get ugly? You bet it does/ When I know you wanna kill every last one of us.”. In addition to justifying Israel’s G*encode by describing it as a war, he also attacks the pro-Palestinian movement describing those opposing a crime against humanity as, like “sheep”.

 

Celebrities whose world is a parallel universe detached from the experiences of the vast majority of human beings, would do better to keep their mouths shut. And unfortunately many of them who oppose Israel's G*nocide have,  for fear of retribution, this is particularly the case with actors.

 

It’s hard to imagine that almost three years after the hundreds, perhaps thousands of Palestinians broke out of the confines of what has been described as the largest outdoor concentration camp in the world, under siege since 2007, that anyone can refer to the conflict as a “war”. 

 

Israel has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, backed and funded by the United States and other western allies. The Palestinian people, constantly under guard, have no navy, no air force, no army.

 

In response, to the October 7^th attack, the Israel has destroyed Gaza completely and it is impossible to know how many thousands of innocent people lie beneath the rubble. Some estimates put the death toll as high as 500,000 including more than 60,000 children, though it is impossible to tell and the Israeli’s are still killing off the witnesses and refuse to allow independent journalists it to Gaza. The Zionists have now moved in to neighboring Lebanon and are razing villages there displacing over one million people.

 

The non-Jewish population of Israel, in the occupied territories, Israel proper or Gaza, have been attacked for seven decades. Much of the population of Gaza are refugees or children of refugees from villages the Zionist regime destroyed not miles from the camp’s fence and the resident driven in to the strip.

 

Boy George, whose real name is George Alan O’Dowd, is quite offended at the backlash that his song has generated among the wider public and has responded in a statement given to Britain’s Sun newspaper and published in the Independent.

 

“The suggestion that I feel no compassion for Palestinians is both untrue and absurd. I am devastated for the loss of the innocent lives on both sides of this war and I call for peace.”, he writes.

 

He was very disturbed by the attack on the music festival causing him to feel “deep emotions”,  “I could have been there and we know that there were people from more than 40 countries who were,”

 

Has Boy George wondered for one minute who on earth would attend a rock concert a couple of miles from a concentration camp, and what sort of people and country would allow it. 

 

George vomits out the Zionist line again and again arguing that the motive behind the resistance that broke out of Gaza and attacked their captors that day were motivated by a hatred of Jews. This has been the narrative from the beginning but Israel’s brutality has undermined it significantly. Even Piers Morgan, who spouted this line in the early days can’t avoid the obvious, Israel is committing a genocide.

 

The conflict in Palestine is not a religious war any more than the conflict in Northern Ireland, is. The Palestinians are an occupied people in their own land and have every right to resist occupation. Boy George is of Irish ancestry he should understand that better than most. The colonial people that fought the British in Kenya, Malaya, India, Ireland or any of the colonial possessions were not driven by a hatred of the English or British people; they were fighting their oppressors, the colonizers.

 

“I understand that is uncomfortable to defend your friends when a war like this is raging but the woman who sells me bagels is not to blame, neither is my doctor or publicist, manager, ex-boyfriend or my thousands of Jewish friends. This song is for them.”

 

It’s staggering that three years on and witnessing the prominent role young Jews in particular are playing in the movement against the G*nocide and for Palestinians’ right to self-determination, he can have the opinions he does.

 

The lyrics in his song, he writes,   “…doesn’t mean that I don’t have compassion for Palestinians, it doesn’t mean that I agree with what's going on in Israel, but I am always going to defend the people that I love,” 

 

As I re-read his statement I almost feel sorry for him. You love Zionists? 

 

“I am a Jew loving, trans hugging queer hippy and my mother would be proud of me.”. he writes. 

 

If he cared for Jews he would oppose Zionism and its g*nocidal policies that are a danger to Jews throughout the world and fodder for anti-Semites.

Capitalism in Crisis Throws Democracy Out the Window

By Mike Craig

Northern Ireland

I really wish the general public would pay attention to this.

 

We do not live in a democracy. Within the capitalist system democracy is always limited, but because global capitalism is teetering on the brink of collapse, those who own and control it will go to even greater lengths to try and save it at the expense of democracy and international law. 

 

Part of this battle is the attempt to take over the Middle East and remove all threats to Western hegemony. Israel is a key part of this project, and contrary to the idea that Israel controls western governments, the reality is actually the other way around. 

 

The USA, the UK and the EU need Israel as the attack dog against the perceived enemy - any country which doesn't lie down and accept western control, or any country which would threaten the primacy of the petrodollar in global trade. The West's attack dog is a settler colony which suffers from a serious case of siege mentality, the longer the colony continues to exist the more deeply imbedded this mentality becomes. 

 

The g*nocidal tendencies of this have reached a point where even the supporting western governments have become embarrassed by it, nevertheless they still continue to arm the g*nocide and cover for it.

 

Over the last few years we have seen George Orwell's predictions becoming a reality, nowhere more so than in the Middle East, where truth has been turned on its head. 

 

Israel is in breach of several international laws and countries who support it, like the UK, are also in breach of international laws for continuing to support its actions rather than carry out their duty which is to hold it to account.

 

In the UK too, truth has been completely turned on its head. The Government is a collective criminal, it's lapdog media and its leading judiciary are guilty too, yet they compound this by criminalising any protest against their delinquency.

 

This isn't just about Palestine Action, it is an assault on democracy and the real rule of law. 

 

Our Governments and their institutions are arch criminals who hold no value for human life. 

 

We are now entering the period of barbarism which we were warned about by Rosa Luxembourg. 

"The Anti-Zionist Left Must Lead the Fight Against Anti-Semitism"

By John Clarke

Toronto

Gail Asper, a noted ‘philanthropist,’ is ‘pausing funding’ to the Canadian human rights museum in an effort to undermine its Palestinian Nakba exhibit. This needs to be denounced and I've already done so but I’ve seen horrible responses from leftists on social media that go over to KKK like notions of ‘Jew money.’ This leads me to once again, address the issue of antisemitism. 

 

I want to focus on the role that antisemitism plays on both the political right and the left and to argue that ignoring it is entirely wrong. I define antisemitism as animosity towards Jewish people because they are Jewish and not as hostility to the political ideology of Zionism. 

 

The racism that developed out of European colonialism held that the colonized were on the low rungs of a hierarchy in the value of human life. When it came to Jews, however, the focus was on malevolence rather than supposedly stunted development. Notions of biologically determined treacherous qualities drew on religiously based myths about the Jewish ‘Christ killer.’

 

Fascist movements used antisemitism because it offered them a conspiring, unduly influential and dangerously powerful ‘enemy within.’ The Great Replacement theory that alleges that Jews are working to flood ‘white nations’ with Black and Brown immigrants is a striking manifestation of this.

 

Virulent antisemitism is by no means incompatible with support for Zionism. This was true of Arthur Balfour and Donald Trump still personifies it. That’s why vicious white supremacists disingenuously accuse the left of Jew hated, while Zionist organizations ignore displays of antisemitism that come from politicians who arm Israel to the teeth.

 

The MAGA movement is experiencing a rift on this issue, with racist isolationists and antisemites like Tucker Carlson arguing that US support for Israel should be curtailed. On the other side, the defenders of an imperialist role for the US value Israel as a garrison state that upholds Western interests, while getting rid of as many Jews as possible. This disagreement is playing out inside a racist movement within which antisemitism occupies an important place.

 

Leftists are hostile to exploitative and powerful elites and the depiction of Jews as such a formation is at the heart of right-wing racist constructions. Sadly, particularly at a time when the left is significantly weaker and less clear-minded than it has been, such illusions can resonate within it.

 

A powerful Zionist lobby, presented as the spokesperson for a supposedly monolithic ‘Jewish community,’ enables Israel’s crimes and exerts very serious influence in the West. Those who don’t properly understand the connection between imperialist interests and the support that is given to Israel can very easily fall prey to conspiratorial disorientation.

 

This leads to distorted ideas, particularly with regard to the question of Palestine. The most obvious of these is the conclusion that the tail wags the dog. Left social media spaces are full of assertions that Western governments are the dupes of a mysteriously influential Israel. 

 

The Zionist project has always been at the heart of an agenda of US led regional domination. Certainly, a settler colonial project is underway that is based on a supremacist ideology and some level of divergence between Western interests and Zionist aspirations occurs but Israel is utterly reliant on its sponsors and the tail doesn’t wag the dog.

 

Once the manipulative power of Israel’s leaders and supporters is seen as the driving force behind Western support, the next step is to focus on collective Jewish guilt. A section of the left has become almost obsessive on this question. Opinion polls are scoured for evidence of Jewish complicity. The fact that leading Jewish institutions, just like all the major institutions of the Canadian establishment, back Israel to the hilt is presented as the most damning evidence. 

 

Those who adopt such views are certain to reject any suggestion that we should challenge antisemitism. Yet there it is an historically rooted prejudice and there are virulently antisemitic and fascistic currents at work in this society. Threats and violence against Jewish people do happen. The notion that responding to them undermines Palestine solidarity is utterly incorrect in my view.

 

I fully understand that, unlike the period before WW2, Jews in Canada today don’t face the kind of discrimination or disadvantage that Black or Indigenous people experience. The threat of violence that hangs over Muslims is much greater than that which confronts Jews. I also realize that a realistic assessment of the scale of antisemitism is hampered by the use of the false conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Jewish prejudice. 

 

Despite these considerations, I reject the notion that challenging real manifestations of antisemitism ‘gives comfort to the enemy.’ Actually, one of the great vulnerabilities of the Zionists is their dogged refusal to deal with real antisemitism. They pretended that Elon Musk’s infamous Nazi salute was an ‘awkward gesture’ and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) peddled incredibly softly as the fascist led ‘Freedom Convoy’ displayed swastikas. 

 

This disgusting selectivity can be more effectively challenged by opposing real antisemitism than by maintaining that it doesn’t exist or that, if it does, ‘The Jews’ have brought it on themselves. Let’s shake off notions of the malevolent Jewish soul and take up a serious, principled and far more effective opposition to all forms of bigotry and hatred, including antisemitism. 

With Karim Khan's dismissal, the elimination of the war crimes court is near-complete

Millions of people around the world will now find themselves even more exposed to the criminal actions of predatory states. Unlike Khan's accuser, they are unlikely to ever get their day in court.

Johnathan Cook July 30 2026.

Johnathan Cook on Substack

The most important question we should be asking after Karim Khan’s dismissal last week as chief prosecutor of the ICC – the international war crimes court in The Hague – is not whether he is guilty of “sexual misconduct” against another staff member, identified as “Sarah”.

That can only be decided through a legal process – one, let us note, that has already taken place. A fact-finding body carried out a lengthy investigation of Sarah’s allegations over more than a year; its thousands of pages of evidence were then evaluated in detail by three senior judges.

Though you would not know it from the media coverage, they concluded that there was no evidence to suggest any kind of misconduct by Khan, sexual or otherwise.

Strangely, that determination was largely confirmed by an extraordinarily deferential “exclusive” CNN interview with Sarah, aired earlier this month.

She declined to give any meaningful details of what Khan had allegedly subjected her to, and celebrity interviewer Christiane Amanpour delicately avoided pressing her for any clarification.

No matter. The purpose of the CNN interview was never about excavating facts. It was designed to offer face-saving cover as an entirely political body called the Assembly of States Parties, comprising diplomatic representatives of the 125 states signed up to the ICC, entirely ignored the legal findings and dismissed Khan.

Paradoxically, it was the Assembly of States Parties that appointed the judges who had concluded that there was no evidence of misconduct or breach of duty by Khan. That inconvenient judgment was simply reversed, despite the Assembly members being in no position to weigh the evidence themselves. 

We should not forget that many of these states have an investment in weakening the only international court that can bring their own senior officials to trial for war crimes. 

In May 2024 – shortly before Sarah made her allegations – the ICC demonstrated that it was finally ready to prosecute western leaders for war crimes, not just those from the Global South or from the West’s official enemies, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Khan finally issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant. Both are accused of crimes against humanity for starving the people of Gaza through a prolonged blockade of food, water and power.

Were Netanyahu ever to face trial – and found guilty, as he almost certainly would be – a lot of other leaders would have good reason to fear they might be found culpable next, not least for their complicity in Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. 

The question that needs answering now is not whether Khan is guilty of misconduct – that has been decided at a political level, not a legal one. No, we need an answer to an equally political, and far more troubling, question.

“Cui bono?” Or “Who benefits?”

The evidence is hiding in plain sight. The evidence is revealed both in the deeply politicised process that led to Khan’s downfall, and in what that process means for the future of the court.

Covert war

Khan is not the first ICC chief prosecutor to face extreme pressures – and, as with Khan, those pressures surfaced at the very moment Khan’s predecessor tried to take on Israel over its war crimes.

Fatou Bensouda faced a “covert war” waged against her by Israel for the best part of a decade, according to an investigation by the Guardian in May 2024, just as Khan issued his arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

The Guardian’s report, published nearly three years after Bensouda had completed her nine-year term at the ICC, revealed that, during that time, she had faced threats to herself and her family, the monitoring of her communications, and an intimidating visit to her home. 

More recently, Bensouda has confirmed these accounts in an interview with Al Jazeera. Bensouda notes that she repeatedly reported Israel’s campaign of intimidation to the Dutch authorities, but they did nothing to investigate the threats or protect her. 

She also says certain “authorities” – she does not name them – warned her that she was going too far in investigating Israeli crimes and that “you could be harmed or you could be killed, or family members could be harmed in some way.”

The campaign of threats – instigated by Yossi Cohen, then the director of Israel’s spy agency, Mossad – intensified as Bensouda considered whether to open a formal investigation into Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, we should remember, predate – by decades – Hamas’ attack on 7 October 2023. In fact, though no one is supposed to mention it, Israel’s sustained crimes of occupation are the self-evident cause of that Hamas attack.

An Israeli source told the Guardian that “the Mossad’s objective was to compromise the prosecutor or enlist her as someone who would cooperate with Israel’s demands”– that is, scrap the ICC’s investigation into Israeli crimes. Another source admitted that Cohen was acting on Netanyahu’s instructions.

During one contact, Cohen reportedly issued a Mafia-style threat to Bensouda: “You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”

The Guardian reported that the Mossad “took a keen interest in Bensouda’s family members and obtained transcripts of secret recordings of her husband, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation. Israeli officials then attempted to use the material to discredit the prosecutor”.

The paper also noted that there were fears among senior ICC officials that “Israel had cultivated sources within the court’s prosecution division” – the division Khan would inherit from Bensouda.

Cohen was described as “stalking” Bensouda, and personally “ambushed” her in a hotel room in New York in 2018. Afterwards he repeatedly phoned her, in a threatening manner that was said to have escalated over time. When Bensouda asked Cohen how he had obtained her phone number, he reportedly replied: “Did you forget what I do for a living?”

According to the Guardian: 

On one occasion, Cohen is said to have shown Bensouda copies of photographs of her husband, which were taken covertly when the couple were visiting London. On another, according to sources, Cohen suggested to the prosecutor that a decision to open a full investigation would be detrimental to her career.

Between 2019 and 2020, the Mossad had been actively seeking compromising information on the prosecutor and took an interest in her family members.

The spy agency obtained a cache of material, including transcripts of an apparent sting operation against her husband.

Israel used the materials to mount a “smear campaign” against her, but one that ultimately proved unsuccessful.

Concerted backlash

When Khan took up the role of ICC chief prosecutor in June 2021, he proved reluctant to pick up where Bensouda had left off on the Palestine case. Presumably, he was only too aware of the retaliation from Israel against her.

Bensouda had announced in December 2019 that she had grounds to open a full criminal investigation into allegations of war crimes in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

However, in the face of a concerted backlash from western states, she delayed opening the investigation. She first sought a ruling from a pre-trial chamber of ICC judges – presumably in the hope that it would serve as some kind of insurance policy – on whether the court had jurisdiction over the occupied Palestinian territories.

By February 2021 the judges confirmed what was already self-evident. The court did have such jurisdiction because Palestine had been signed up to the court since 2015.

Bensouda stepped down a few months later.

The door was now open for Khan to prosecute Israeli officials for war crimes. However, the new chief prosecutor gave every appearance – perhaps understandably – of preferring to sit on his hands.

It was not just Israel that had been fearsomely opposed to its officials being tried for war crimes. Washington was equally incensed at the prospect – sometimes, it seemed, more so than over the possibility that US officials might also face arrest warrants for crimes committed by the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Between 2019 and 2020, during Trump’s first presidency, the US imposed severe visa restrictions and financial sanctions on Bensouda. Mike Pompeo, then US secretary of state, linked the sanctions to the Palestine case: “It’s clear the ICC is only putting Israel in [its] crosshairs for nakedly political purposes.” 

Khan might well have avoided pursuing Israel indefinitely had it not been for the events that followed October 7 2023.

Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, its devastation of the enclave’s homes and infrastructure, and its starvation of the entire population were actions so criminally abhorrent that UN agencies, major human rights groups and Holocaust scholars were soon all in agreement that they amounted to genocide.

In May 2024, Khan announced arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders subsequently killed by Israel.

Tsunami of threats

Shortly before Khan made that announcement, 12 senior US Senators had sent a threatening letter to the ICC: “Target Israel and we will target you.” The letter ended: “You have been warned.” 

Describing Israeli and US sovereignty as inseparable, the senators reminded Khan that Washington had demonstrated “the lengths to which we will go to protect [our] sovereignty.”

A 2002 law, popularly known as “The Hague Invasion Act”, authorises the US president “to use all means necessary and appropriate” to bring about the release US persons and any allies imprisoned or detained by the ICC. Those allies, it goes without saying, include Israeli leaders. 

Such threats, it should be noted, are a violation of Article 70 of the Rome Statute.

Following the issuing of the arrest warrants, there followed a tsunami of similar threats – and presumably more that have yet to become public – against Khan and the ICC.

A British-Israeli lawyer within the ICC – one known to have ties to Netanyahu’s legal adviser – warned Khan "they will destroy you and they will destroy the court" if the warrants were not rescinded. He urged Khan to “climb down the tree" and drop the case.

The UK’s foreign secretary of the time, David Cameron, phoned Khan to tell him Britain would defund the court and withdraw from the Rome Statute that founded the ICC if Khan did not back down.

Cameron warned Khan that he was “on the brink of making a huge mistake” and urged him to “take a step back and consider things”. He added that applying for arrest warrants for Israeli officials was tantamount to “dropping a hydrogen bomb”.

Meanwhile, Trump issued an executive order imposing aggressive financial sanctions against Khan and other ICC officials, including several of its judges.

Khan himself received warnings that Israel’s Mossad was continuing its operations in The Hague, where the ICC is located, to monitor and compromise the court’s investigators as they compiled evidence on Israel – just as it had done earlier under Bensouda. 

Khan publicly stated that retaliatory threats and intimidation were explicitly targeting members of his own family.

Untouchable criminals

What conclusions should we draw from all of this?

Quite aside from the matter of whether Sarah’s allegations of “sexual misconduct” are true or not, it is clear that Israel and the US have been digging for dirt – and apparently ready to fabricate such dirt – on any chief prosecutor who tries to hold them to account for their crimes.

Both have indicated that they are ready to manipulate legal and political processes to ensure the outcome they desire: that they remain untouchable .

We have a template for how this plays out. Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks, published details in 2010 of US and British war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost immediately he found himself entangled in accusations of sexual misdemeanours – in his case in Sweden – that were similarly amplified by an uncritical western media. 

Assange faced years in various forms of confinement while the US and UK pressured Sweden to keep alive an investigation against him Swedish prosecutors at least twice sought to drop for lack of credible evidence. 

In fact, the US and UK never wanted the evidence tested – they were quite happy with a permanent, unresolved “investigation” – precisely because they knew it would have been unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny. 

The point was simply to generate constant headlines about “rape”, turning Assange into a pariah, justifying his effective disappearance from public life, severely weakening Wikileaks as a whistleblowing platform, deflecting attention from the all-too-real crimes committed by the US and Britain, and paving the way to a political show trial to extradite him to the US on entirely confected “espionage” charges. 

This has been repeated in the case of Khan and the ICC. In Khan’s case, the evidence was tested and found inadequate. So the legal process has been replaced by a flagrantly political one. 

Khan has been turned into a legal pariah, even stripped of his right to work as a lawyer in the UK by the British Bar Association. 

The ICC has been further weakened, just as Israel and the US have expressly stated they wanted it to be. Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state, has recently launched an official campaign to dismantle the ICC “brick by brick”. 

He says: “Now they [the ICC] are going to see the consequences”. Consequences of what? Of seeking to enforce international law against a key US client state. 

Meanwhile, accountability for the all-too-real crimes being committed by Israel in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank – and actively supported by western states like the US, Germany and Britain – recedes yet further into the background. 

Subscribed

As each brick protecting the ICC is dismantled, a brick is added to the wall of protection around Netanyahu and Israel’s genocidal war machine. 

Israel, meanwhile, is barely concealing that it has been masterminding the effort to destroy the ICC. 

According to Guy Azriel, the diplomatic correspondent for i24 News, Israeli foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar “oversaw a dedicated task force and employed intensive diplomatic efforts aimed at securing Khan’s removal from office”.

Hillel Neuer, director of the Israel apologist group United Nations Watch, cheered what he called “our campaign to remove” Khan, and warned Francesca Albanese, the UN’s legal expert on the occupied Palestinian territories, “you’re next”. 

Like Khan, Albanese has been searching for practical, legal ways – not just rhetoric – to hold Israel and its western allies to account for the crimes in Gaza. 

Predatory states

The ICC claims its work will not be affected by Khan’s removal and that the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant will still be pursued under new stewardship. That seems doubtful. 

Israel and the US are cranking up the intimidation of the ICC, which has no tools to enforce its rulings or protect itself from the hostility of a rogue superpower.

Currently the court appears paralysed, allowing Israel to muddy the waters with interminable, and vexatious, appeals against the arrest warrants. 

Any lawyer who takes up the post of ICC chief prosecutor will be only too aware of the fate that befell Khan and the campaign of intimidation against Bensouda as soon as each tried to enforce accountability on Israel and its western patrons. 

It will take a very brave individual indeed to renew that task. Khan’s successor will understand that, in any further confrontation with Israel and Washington, the US will not hesitate to crush the ICC and, with it, remove the only effective restraint on criminality by powerful states. 

More likely, however, the Assembly of States Parties – the political body that ousted Khan – will privately require from his successor reassurances that the new chief prosecutor reliably defer to the principle of Israeli and western impunity. Only someone less willing to ruffle feathers stands any chance of being appointed. 

That was the clearest of messages sent by the Assembly when a majority of member states voted to be rid of Khan. The short-lived experiment in creating a mechanism for enforcing international law is over. We are back to the law of the jungle. 

Hundred of thousands of people around the world – more likely millions – will now find themselves even more exposed to the criminal actions of predatory states. Unlike Khan’s accuser, they are unlikely to ever get their day in court 

The Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing Proves the Democrats Don't Oppose the Iran War.

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired.
7-22-26 

As I pointed out yesterday, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, was questioned during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. The administration is seeking another $87.6 billion in military funding, arguing that increased spending is necessary to sustain the U.S. war against Iran.

The administration appears to have expected that its campaign of air strikes and the assassination of senior Iranian officials would quickly weaken the Iranian government and force it to capitulate. Instead, the conflict has intensified. As of July 21, U.S. forces had conducted air strikes for ten consecutive nights, while Iran had retaliated by attacking a U.S. military installation in Jordan.

The war is becoming increasingly unpopular at home as its financial costs and economic consequences are felt by American families. According to an Ipsos poll, 71% of Americans think their country should not be involved in the Iran war and this rises to 79% for those aged 18-34.”. Globally, results are similar. Naturally one of the few countries that support it is Israel.

This growing public dissatisfaction is creating tensions within the Republican Party and providing political ammunition for Democrats ahead of the November elections.

Watching the committee hearing, however, it becomes clear that Democratic Senators Gary Peters and Jon Ossoff are not challenging the war itself. Their criticism is directed at what they regard as the Trump administration's failure to prosecute it effectively. Again and again, the focus is not whether the war should have been launched, but whether there is a coherent strategy for winning it.

Both senators begin by praising General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and expressing condolences for the three U.S. service members killed when Iran retaliated against American bombing raids. Neither senator questions the legality of the war itself, argues that it was unnecessary, or calls for an end to it and an apology to Iran. They don’t even call for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations. Nor do they challenge Hegseth's claim that Iran is the principal sponsor of global terrorism a long time US foreign policy strategy when the US  and the CIA is seen by millions of people around the world as the leader in that category.

In my view, this is the conclusion we need to draw from the hearing. The disagreements between the administration and its Democratic critics concern tactics and competence rather than the broader objectives of U.S. foreign policy. The debate is over how the war should be conducted, or managed, not whether it should continue. It’s basically more propaganda.

Peters, who frequently speaks about the importance of his Christian faith, and Ossoff, who has spoken publicly about his Jewish faith, express sympathy for American casualties but none for the suffering endured by ordinary Iranians. Whatever their religious convictions, humanitarian concern appears to stop at America's borders. 

 

A conservative Christian friend of mine recently remarked that politicians are simply corrupt. Many trade union members express similar frustration with union leaders that they believe have become detached from the workers they represent and claim the reason is corruption, that they are in bed with the boss or receive bribes. While I understand that sentiment, I believe the problem runs deeper than individual corruption. It’s connected to their world view.

As far as the Democratic and Republican parties go, they represent different wings of the same economic system. Their disagreements usually concern how American capitalism should be managed rather than whether its underlying priorities should be challenged. Foreign policy is perhaps the clearest example. Peters, often described as a centrist Democrat, and Ossoff, generally regarded as more progressive, ultimately support the same strategic framework as Republicans, even while criticizing the administration's execution of it.

This point became especially clear during Peters' exchange with Hegseth. Peters praised the professionalism of American service members before criticizing the administration's handling of the war. Hegseth responded that such criticism undermined those risking their lives, insisting that the military operation was necessary to ensure Iran never acquired a nuclear weapon.

Whether one accepts that justification or not, the exchange illustrated the narrow limits of debate within Washington. The central assumptions of American foreign policy are not confronted; not even questioned.

It is this consensus that helps explain why so many Americans have become cynical about politics. Public dissatisfaction is often described simply as anger over corruption, but the deeper issue is that the political system rarely permits a fundamental discussion about whose interests government serves. During presidential campaigns, the debate is almost always confined to competing visions of how best to manage capitalism. The system itself is off limits.

Whoever occupies the White House after November, working people will continue to bear the costs of economic inequality, military spending, and foreign wars. Figures such as Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in law, are wealthy real estate speculators and Zionists negotiating on behalf of the American people. Let’s think for a minute that characters like these are quite prepared to invest in Gaza and build a fancy resort over the bones of perhaps hundreds of thousands of mur*dered innocent men women and children

I live in the richest and most powerful country in modern history. The American working class possesses enormous potential power, yet it also faces growing economic and political pressures. As capital operates increasingly through global institutions, working people will need institutions of our own that are independent of the two major parties and capable of acting across national boundaries. The US working class can play a major role in that but first we must settle accounts with our own rogue regime.

Time is running out.

Iran/US Talks: The Negotiator Who Expected the Room to Explode

A good piece from Bruce Fanger. I am sure I am not alone in often wondering what it has been like for Iranian government officials or negotiators sitting across the negotiating table from US representatives, in this case, two real estate speculators and committed Zionists, knowing that the US and Israel have a policy of assassinating those it engages in talks. This is so-called Western Values in full swing. Bribery, intimidation, coercion, and if that fails, assassination and destruction. 

As far as retreating. It is the US that has the responsibility to retereat from an unprovoked act of aggression that included mur*ering a head of state and numerous government officials.  Richard Mellor.

Abbas Araghchi

The Negotiator Who Expected the Room to Explode 

White Rose

July 20, 2026

 

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi used an interview with Mehr News Agency on July 19 to describe negotiations with the United States as something conducted under the shadow of assassination, war, and regime change. 

 

His account was not a diplomatic progress report. It was an explanation of why Washington’s usual combination of military threats, economic incentives, and personal pressure had failed to produce an Iranian surrender.

 

Araghchi recalled asking President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, whether he had ever attended a negotiating session while believing the entire meeting could be bombed at any moment. He asked whether Witkoff had ever spoken on the telephone while wondering whether he might be killed before the call ended, or contacted his family fearing it could be their final conversation.

 

“They just stared at me blankly,” Araghchi said, according to English-language reports of the interview.

 

His point was blunt. American negotiators were approaching Iran as though fear alone would eventually force compliance. Araghchi argued that threats lose much of their leverage when directed at officials who already believe they may be killed.

 

“We have experienced these things and we stood our ground,” he said. “You have to talk to us differently. You can’t threaten us, and you can’t bribe us.”

 

Araghchi claimed the United States had offered to build power plants and other infrastructure in exchange for Iranian concessions. He rejected those proposals as attempted bribery rather than ordinary diplomatic bargaining. That characterization is Araghchi’s and has not been independently substantiated by the American government.

 

The central dispute, according to Araghchi, concerned Washington’s demand that Iran accept zero uranium enrichment. He called that demand illegal and unreasonable and said Iran refused to concede it during negotiations. He then accused the United States and Israel of beginning the war after diplomacy failed to deliver the result they wanted.

 

 

 That is Iran’s account of the breakdown, not an uncontested history. American and Israeli officials have consistently presented Iranian enrichment and the broader nuclear program as security threats. Araghchi’s interview was intended to establish the opposite narrative: that negotiations were used to demand capitulation and that military force followed when capitulation was refused.

 

His most striking comparison concerned Venezuela.

 

“This isn’t Venezuela where you take one person and everyone else gets scared and backs down,” Araghchi said.

 

The remark referred to the January American operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and transported him to New York. Araghchi was arguing that Iran could not be decapitated in the same manner. Removing one leader, even the most senior leader, would not necessarily cause the Iranian state, military establishment, or clerical system to collapse.

 

That claim is closely connected to another part of Araghchi’s account: Iran had prepared succession and continuity plans before the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iranian officials reportedly had predetermined procedures for replacing senior figures and continuing government operations if the leadership was attacked.

 

Araghchi therefore described two American and Israeli miscalculations. The first was the belief that Iran would accept zero enrichment when confronted with escalating pressure. The second was the belief that a short military campaign and the removal of senior leaders would fracture the state and turn the population against the government.

 

According to Araghchi, neither occurred. He claimed Iran resisted during the earlier twelve-day conflict and that Israel had been unprepared for a prolonged confrontation. He further claimed that the Iranian public did not abandon the state in the manner anticipated by its enemies.

 

Those statements must be treated as claims from a government official during wartime. Iran tightly controls domestic media, suppresses opposition, and has powerful reasons to exaggerate national unity. A population’s refusal to welcome foreign bombardment is also not the same thing as support for the Islamic Republic. Governments frequently confuse the two.

 

Still, the interview reveals something important about the negotiations. Washington appears to have treated fear, isolation, economic reward, and leadership removal as parts of the same pressure campaign. Araghchi’s response was that Iran had already priced death into the negotiation.

 

That does not make Iran invulnerable. It makes coercive diplomacy less predictable.

 

The American assumption seems to have been that sufficient pressure would eventually produce a frightened official prepared to sign whatever was placed before him. Araghchi described the Iranian side as believing that signing under threat would not necessarily save them anyway.

 

Once negotiations reach that condition, infrastructure offers sound like inducements, military warnings sound like confirmation, and compromise begins to resemble preparation for surrender.

 

Araghchi’s interview did not offer a route out of the war. It offered a warning about why the existing route had failed. The United States approached Iran expecting intimidation to create flexibility. Iran interpreted intimidation as proof that Washington wanted submission rather than agreement.

 

Both sides may believe they have demonstrated resolve. What they have actually demonstrated is that neither has yet found a way to retreat without calling it defeat.