The United States, whose military has killed more than a million people in illegal wars in the Middle East for a quarter of a century, is using Israel’s attacks on Palestinians to provoke a broader war in the region.
The United States sent troops, ships, and warplanes. At least 10,000 sailors, soldiers, and airmen have been deployed to the region, and an unspecified number of troops, possibly tens of thousands, have been told to prepare for deployment.
The Biden Administration has given its full support to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians, which occurs through the widespread bombing of civilians, killing between 300 and 400 people per day and subjecting the population to starvation and dehydration..
At the same time, it provided the weapons with which Israel simultaneously carried out attacks against Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.
Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians, using American weapons and with US political, military and logistical support, is just one part of US military escalation in the entire region.
On Saturday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced steps to “strengthen” the “US military posture in the region,” citing “Iranian escalations.” Austin said he had put U.S. anti-missile systems across the region on high alert and placed an “additional number of forces ready for deployment.”
The US military admitted that last week troops stationed in Iraq were attacked by what it said were Iranian-backed forces.
“Iran closely monitors these events and, in some cases, actively facilitates these attacks and encourages others who want to exploit the conflict for themselves or for Iran, ” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Monday.
In an interview on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We anticipate the possibility of an advance of forces backed by Iran against our forces, aimed against our personnel.” We are taking steps to ensure we can effectively protect our people and respond decisively when necessary.”
Blinken insisted: “This is not what we want, this is not what we are looking for. “We don’t want progress.” He added: “We have also deployed very important assets in the region, two aircraft carrier battle groups, not to provoke, but to deter.”
Blinkken, as always, lies. The development is matched by the United States, which is flooding the Middle East with troops and weapons.
The United States, through its sponsored force, Israel, is bombing Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria in a deliberate effort to provoke Iran. It surrounded Iran with warships and aircraft and threatened that any suspected attack on them would be used as a pretext to attack Iran.
The United States maintains thousands of troops in Iraq after its brutal and illegal invasion of that country in 2003. Similarly, there are American troops illegally deployed in Syria, opposing the Syrian government. All these troops are ready to attack Iran at any moment.
Israeli officials continue to threaten Lebanon. During a visit by troops to the Lebanese border on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of “devastating consequences for Hezbollah and the State of Lebanon,” adding: “We will strike them hard which they cannot imagine.” Israel has ordered the evacuation of more than 200,000 people from its northern border.
On Sunday, Nir Barkat, Israel’s economy minister, threatened that if the war spreads to Lebanon, “we will not only retaliate in the fields, but we will go to the head of the snake, which is Iran.”
Meanwhile, the US media and other imperialist powers are clamoring for direct military confrontation with Iran. In an opinion article on The Economist, David Schenker, former US Undersecretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, openly called for a military conflict with Iran. “Although more effective than financial tools is military power … Unfortunately, to prevent the escalation of the war in Gaza, Washington may have no choice but to join the military.”
In his Thursday prime-time speech, Biden presented a messianic vision of American global dominance, asserting that America’s military and economic dominance is the world’s unifying principle. “American leadership is what holds the world together,” Biden said.
He was clearer at a campaign event the next day, saying: “We’ve been in a post-war period for 50 years that’s worked well, but it’s a bit tired. A new arrangement in the world is necessary in a sense, as if that period is a world order.”
To say that the “post-war era” is over is to effectively declare a new phase of world war. The Biden administration has escalated the war in the Middle East and threatened to attack Iran directly as part of what it sees as a global conflict for global hegemony, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and the Pacific. American imperialism, faced with the rise of China’s economy and the global decline of America’s economy, sees war as a way to assert world domination.
The United States has provoked war in Ukraine with the aim of trapping Moscow in a proxy conflict aimed at “bleeding Russia.” But two years later, the latest offensive in Ukraine has failed and the United States is desperate to escalate the conflict to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia. At the same time, Washington instigated a conflict with China over Taiwan and tried to economically strangle China by blocking its access to advanced information technology.
Biden’s call last week for an additional $105 billion in military spending for all of these fronts marks a significant step forward in what is, in fact, the beginning stages. in the third world war.
The United States is facing Russia and China, which are nuclear-armed powers. Israel also has nuclear weapons, and at least one member of the Israeli Parliament, Revital “Tally” Gotliv, has called for the use of the “ultimate weapon” in the current conflict. Washington’s growing military violence threatens all of human civilization.
But US imperialism’s instigation of a world war faced widespread opposition. Over the weekend, millions of people demonstrated on every inhabited continent in opposition to the US-Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. In London, 300,000 people took part in the largest anti-war demonstration in the city since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
This growing anti-war movement must deepen and expand. The growing anti-war movement must join the global strike movement of workers fighting to defend their jobs, wages and living standards. This required the establishment of a socialist leadership of the working class, which combined the fight against war with the opposition to the capitalist system of profit.
