Of course, Trump has made similar types of promises repeatedly ever since the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran on February 28. At the start of the Memorial Day weekend, for example, Trump had promised that the U.S. and Iran had made a deal—only for Trump to order the U.S. military to start bombing Iran two days later. In retaliation, the Iranian regime launched a missile against a U.S. base in Kuwait.
Obviously, all of Trump’s false promises are aimed at placating an American public that strongly opposes the war. Even much of Trump’s and the Republicans’ own voting base opposes the war. Prices were supposed to come down, instead of spiking up. And instead of ending the forever wars, Trump has started another one.
And it’s a doozy!
This war has fueled so much opposition and disgust against Trump and the Republican Party, it could spell big Republican losses in the midterm elections at all levels of government if the war lasts much longer. And that could hurt Trump, also. Trump himself has admitted many times that if the Democrats gain a majority in Congress, he expects to be impeached… for the fourth time, at least!
So, Trump has wanted to stop the fighting, get the Hormuz Strait unblocked from its earliest days. If he succeeds in cobbling together some kind of short-term deal from the Iranian government, it perhaps will give Trump enough time to get through the midterms, relatively unscathed.
But even if a short-term deal is reached, it doesn’t mean the war is over, not by a long shot.
This isn’t just Trump’s war. The U.S. has been at war against the Iranian regime of the mullahs for 47 years, that is, since the Shah of Iran was overthrown. Of course, the U.S. didn’t oppose the regime of the mullahs because it was a dictatorship run by a bunch of religious fanatics. Just look at all the other fundamentalist regimes and dictatorships that the U.S. arms and supports throughout the entire Middle East. No, the U.S. opposed the mullahs because they didn’t always follow U.S. dictates and were allied with China and Russia, two of the U.S.’s main rivals. So, decade after decade, the U.S. has sponsored bloody proxy wars and imposed harsh economic sanctions against Iran.
Today, the problem for the U.S. superpower is not that the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran for 40 days, wiping out much of its infrastructure, decimating its economy and killing and wounding tens of thousands of people. No, the problem is that the war backfired on Trump and the U.S. superpower.
Instead of weakening the Iranian regime, it strengthened its hold over the population. Instead of further isolating the Iranian government, it allowed the Iranian military to grab hold and gain control over the Strait of Hormuz, making it into a gigantic regional power with a potential stranglehold over the world economy. As many experts have pointed out, control over the Strait of Hormuz gains the mullahs much greater power and weight than a few nuclear bombs could ever bring it.
To retain its dominance over the world, the U.S. superpower cannot and will not let this stand. The U.S. superpower will attack Iran in order to dislodge its economic stranglehold over the global economy. And that means more war at a time when big governments and medium-sized governments are arming themselves to the teeth.
Thus, workers and young people are going to be driven to fight each other by their respective governments and ruling classes. That’s the future this capitalist system has in store for the working class, until workers finally overthrow it.
>> The article above is reprinted from The Spark newspaper.
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