R. Nesbitt | Red Phoenix guest contributor | Maryland —

Between Feb. 2 and Feb. 3 the US Air Force launched several airstrikes against militant groups supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The operation was conducted with retaliatory intent after a drone strike by pro-Iranian militias and the Revolutionary Guard of Iran killed three American Marines in Jordan. The National Security Council has stressed that efforts were made to minimize civilian casualties and one affiliated militia, Kataib Hezbollah, has announced it will be suspending attacks on American forces. Other groups, however, have issued no such resolution and reaffirmed their militancy as champions of the cause of Palestine in the wake of the renewed war by Israel into Gaza. 

The timing of the strikes is tremendously conspicuous. We have just entered an election year, and here there is a president who, according to Statista, maintains a 41% approval rating as of January 2024. It cannot be forgotten that in the winter of 2019-20, then-President Trump launched similarly retaliatory attacks against Iranian proxies and personnel after the US Embassy in Baghdad was stormed by the aforementioned Kataib Hezbollah, after which Major General Qasem Soleimani of the Iranian military was assassinated via drone strike. A winter of saber-rattling and the threat of war between the United States and its allies against Iran issued until the deepening of the 2019 recession and the COVID-19 pandemic sapped all attention, resources, and public support for such a conflict by March of 2020. Trump was no stranger to slapping paint on his foreign policy blunders and touted the American response to the storming of the Embassy in Iraq: “As President, my highest and most solemn duty is the defense of our nation and its citizens. Last night, at my direction, the United States military successfully executed a flawless precision strike that killed the number-one terrorist anywhere in the world, Qasem Soleimani.” This in itself is not true, or at least it wasn’t when the United States collaborated with Soleimani to defeat ISIS. 

Hostility between the US and Iran is nothing new, however with the recent strikes, in combination with Biden’s disapproval rating, the geostrategic context of Israel’s genocidal crusade into Gaza, and 2024 being an election year, the broad offensives must be viewed with the highest suspicion. This weakening and isolation of jihadist forces in West Asia strategically strengthens Israel’s hand of pursuing its “war” with lesser risk of terrorist attacks in the immediate future, which is very important for the Knesset at a time when government ministers are being chased out of hospitals by the victims of Hamas’ attacks in outrage of their aggressive policies towards Palestine. The Biden administration in general needs the sheer political weight of successful, surgical operations against “hostile forces” to increase favor amongst the people who compose the “middle class” in the United States. Gaining popular confidence is sorely needed for Biden after the disastrous conduct of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the peak of the Russo-Ukrainian War, and growing divisions within the EU-NA imperialist bloc. 

As far as political leverage goes, this may yet backfire for President Biden. According to a recent poll by the University of Amherst, Massachusetts, nearly half of Americans consider Israel’s endeavors to constitute genocide, and in the Democratic Primary of New Hampshire (a Republican bastion in progressive New England) last month, over 1,500 voters wrote in “ceasefire” on their ballots in protest of the failure of the Biden administration to coordinate an end to Israel’s terror in Palestine. For such a maneuver in a deeply conservative state, never mind the massive and persistent protests in solidarity with Palestine these last four months, the President’s plan of indirect support for Israel and a show of force in Western Asia may backfire horrifically among students, workers, and the youth.

Even liberal mouthpieces like Bloomberg have criticized the efficacy of the recent airstrikes to intimidate jihadist militias or Iran, as we have already seen with only one militia disavowing attacks on American targets in the future. Building upon American surgical strikes, Israel bombed a Hezbollah target in Lebanon, killing several civilians, to which Hezbollah promised an escalation of violence, launching several strikes earlier this week including ten missile bombardments in one day. America, softening targets for its Israeli vassal, is encouraging a path of increased violence, killing countless innocent civilians and cementing Israel’s place as the bleeding imperialist ulcer of West Asia. 

The reformist wing of the capitalist vanguard in America is gambling with war, genocide, and the incitement of terror to accrue political capital in a tense election season. It is asserting the empire’s interests after years of blunders and drawbacks, and if this genocide in Gaza persists — if there is no ceasefire, if war should come between the United States and Iran — Biden will be waving good-bye to the White House with blood-soaked hands. 

No war but the class war!
Ceasefire now!
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Categories: International

Tags: Imperialism, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine