US Imperialism Increasingly Isolated; Israeli Fascists Increasingly Deadly
May 14 – Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have taken part in mass protests, since March 31, on the border of this barren strip of land where they are imprisoned by Egyptian and Israeli soldiers who block the movement of people and goods. They are fighting to return to the homes and towns that Israeli bosses stole from them. Workers in Gaza and the West Bank responded to Israel’s fascist massacre with a general strike.
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May 15 – It was the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Nakba (“catastrophe”): the founding of the State of Israel and the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes and villages.
Top Israeli and US officials celebrated moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Palestinians protested their incarceration in the Gaza Strip, the world’s largest open-air prison. Outrageously, the Israeli army responded with live fire, killing at least 60 and wounding thousands.
Just a week earlier, Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear treaty. This international agreement severely restricted Iran’s nuclear arms program in exchange for removing most trade sanctions.
Maybe Trump thought he was reasserting US power in the Middle East. Maybe Netanyahu thought the Gaza massacre was a show of strength. Neither is true.
“A cornered rat will bite a cat,” says a Japanese proverb. In the Middle East, the US is the most desperate rat.
After World War II, US imperialism’s military, diplomatic and economic power enabled it to dominate the Middle East. But, as a US official admitted recently, “Great-power competition has returned.”
The Russian imperialists are the new power-brokers. They can’t stop deadly skirmishes between Iran and Israel in Syria, where Assad is gaining ground. But they can mediate between them while playing them off against each other.
The Russian bosses have a stake in preventing these fights from spiraling out of control. The US, in contrast, deliberately destabilizes the region to limit its rivals’ ability to construct energy pipelines and make further inroads.
Russian trade with Israel jumped 25% last year and continues to grow. They are resuming negotiations on a free-trade agreement through the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAU), which includes Iran.
Israel’s Netanyahu was honored in Moscow at the May 9 commemoration of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany. The muted Russian response to Israel’s airstrikes on Iranian targets inside Syria the next day suggested that Netanyahu might have given Putin advance notice As the liberal Israeli journal Haaretz reported, “Israel realizes that in Syria, there is no longer a war between the superpowers in which satellite states tag along behind ‘their’ superpower. This front belongs to a single superpower and anyone who wants to operate there has to play by its rules.”
Russia, in turn, uses Israel to rein in Iran’s ambition to market its oil and gas independently of Russia.
So, Trump’s courtship of both Netanyahu and Putin can be seen either as a last-ditch effort to shore up US influence – or as a betrayal of US imperialism’s core interests in the region.
Chinese Imperialists Seek Expanded Role
China has mostly stayed out of the Syrian fighting. It supported Russia and Assad diplomatically, while investing heavily in rebuilding Syria. Southwest Asia is geographically key to China’s “Belt and Road” infrastructure project.
Israel has sold weapons to China since 1981. Now civilian trade has skyrocketed to well over $11 billion annually. Chinese investments in Israel are growing at the expense of US and European companies. Israel and China, too, are working on a free-trade agreement.
US Alone in Rejecting Iran Nuclear Treaty
Not only Russia and China but also the German, French and British imperialists are working together to save the Iran treaty.
European companies have billions at stake as the US threatens to impose sanctions on them if they don’t cut ties with Iran. They probably won’t want to risk losing their business with the US.
However, the European Union is looking at ways to block those sanctions. Trump’s move clearly sharpened contradictions with some of its closest allies.
Other developments in the region also undermine US imperialism. These include the recent electoral wins of Moktada al-Sadr in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Renewed US economic sanctions against Iran have further alienated Turkey. Qatar, site of the largest US military base in the region, is increasingly dependent on Iran due to a US-supported blockade.
Workers of the World, Unite – For Communism!
Increasingly isolated US rulers will try harder and harder to use patriotism – alongside racism, sexism and other fascist ideas — to win mass support.
The inner logic of capitalism itself forces them to squeeze maximum profits out of workers in the US as well as elsewhere. It will also force them to mobilize an increasingly miserable working class for war.
Deadly competition – up to and including world war — is built into the very nature of global capitalism.
In contrast, the heart of global communism is cooperation. In communism, there won’t be “trade.” There won’t be borders. Instead, we will share with our worldwide family.
There won’t be “war.” Instead, there will be revolutionary armed struggle until every corner of the earth is freed from capitalist wage slavery.
All the imperialist and other capitalist rats have sharp teeth. Their bites hurt. Their wars kill. But we working-class cats will claw them to pieces.
May Day 2018 Lebanon
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