This is a moment of unfathomable peril, maybe more dangerous than any other time in history; but it provides us with a crucial lesson. It shows that if we want to survive, and win the fight for humanity’s future, we’ll need to understand there’s no appeasing the enemy we face. That any requests for the enemy’s mercy will only make it attack with more viciousness. The only language it understands is the language of the counter-attack, and the only way to be free from its violence is by making sure it can no longer operate. This applies to the geopolitical fight; to the national liberation struggle waged by the Palestinians and others; and to the broader class war. We all must internalize that there’s no compromise with a force which isn’t interested in peace; the sole way forward is to commit to the fight, whatever the costs. Because for as severe as the price of resistance may be, it can never be as big as the price of giving the enemy no consequences.
This is the reality that Russia is facing with the USA’s deciding to use long-range missiles for attacks inside Russian territory. When the U.S. used Ukraine to strike into Russia, the best way for Russia to prevent nuclear confrontation was by carrying out a massive strike upon Ukraine. That’s the view of inspector Scott Ritter, who’s said that he normally doesn’t favor violent solutions, but in this case sees such an action as the best method for avoiding nuclear war. “NATO only acts on weakness, the perception of weakness,” Ritter has observed.
A major non-nuclear strike has been Russia’s only sensible option because if Washington isn’t shown that Russia’s threats are serious, then it will launch ever-bigger attacks against Russia, which will force Russia to retaliate on a proportional scale. That would make a nuclear exchange all the more likely. Russia acting earlier on is the scenario where the deaths get minimized. And today, Russia did just that; it launched its new Oreshnik medium-range missile at Ukraine, conveying the essential message of warning. Whether that warning is enough to stop the aggressors from pursuing bigger attacks, we have yet to find out. The danger has not gone away; U.S. media headlines have falsely called the Oreshnik missile an “intercontinental ballistic missile,” a psyop that’s clearly meant to manufacture support for new escalations. But Russia has shown the political will to retaliate when the circumstances call for this.
This action wasn’t unexpected from the perspective of the United States; by escalating, Washington was hoping to ensure that the war would continue, locking the Trump administration the conflict and keeping Europe on Washington’s side. The joke is on the imperialists, though, because the war lasting longer is not going to make them win the war. It will only further exacerbate the imperial system’s collapse, as the rest of the conflict has done. Even when Russia does what Washington hopes for it to do, Russia wins; as long as a counter-attack is measured, rather than flailing or indecisive, progress gets made towards bringing about imperialism’s final defeat. If Russia had reacted to this provocation by becoming paralyzed, and refusing to take any action, that would have all but ensured our doom; but instead it’s replied to Washington by saying “okay, I’ll play.” And it will without any doubt win this game.
These events almost exactly mirror the situation Iran has found itself in amid the Zionist entity’s strike against an Iranian nuclear facility, which happened almost a month ago. This was supposed to be Iran’s red line; that was communicated by the anti-imperialist political element within Iran’s government. But Iran still hasn’t retaliated, either for this crime or for last month’s other Zionist aggressions, because Iran’s capitulationist forces have too much control. These U.S.-friendly reformers have lost the cultural debate; their “ceasefire deal” with Netanyahu was fully exposed as fraudulent when the enemy murdered Nasrallah. Iran’s people have increasingly been turning against the reformers, and supporting Khamenei in his efforts to steer the country towards serious resistance. But the reformers maintain enough influence to hold back progress.
By perpetuating this inaction, and starting on an effort to make friends with the new Trump administration, the reformers are sending the message that Iran’s enemies can aggress against it with impunity. The only thing the aggressors understand is force, so in the absence of that force, they’re now likely wondering how big of an attack they can get away with. Unless the Trump team intends to keep Netanyahu on a leash, which all signs show it doesn’t, its plan is in all likelihood to create a faux-reconciliation deal; one that gives an opening for unprecedented assaults upon Iran’s infrastructure, research centers, and civilians.
The reformers are such a stubborn problem largely because of the country’s class relations. Iran’s economy hasn’t yet been nationalized enough for the power balance to fully shift in favor of the proletariat, and therefore in favor of the hardliners. As of now, Iran doesn’t have a war economy, since neoliberal policies have been able to undo many of the Islamic revolution’s worker gains. The proletariat doesn’t have enough leverage, so those who seek to appease the U.S. empire and the “Israeli” Nazi entity can operate as if their position is the pragmatic one.
Russia’s story shows that there’s hope for Iran’s anti-imperialist struggle; post-Soviet Russia was once a U.S. client state with a fully neoliberalized economy. Then Putin’s government came into being, and realized that unless it started acting in the people’s interests, the existing state wouldn’t be able to sustain itself. To survive, the bourgeois government needed to act more like the Soviet Union. Russia hasn’t become socialist again, but it’s increasingly been on the path back to socialism, and this has greatly weakened U.S. power.
When Putin gave the following statement about the Oreshnik missile launch, he spoke to the Russian people’s desire for defeating imperialism and fascism; which was what pushed Putin to start the Ukraine operation in the first place:
We are testing the Oreshnik missile system in combat conditions in response to the aggressive actions of NATO countries against Russia. The question of further deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles will be decided by us depending on the actions of the United States and its satellites. The targets to be hit during further tests of our newest missile systems will be determined by us based on threats to the security of the Russian Federation. We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow Ukraine to use their weapons against our facilities, and in the event of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond just as decisively and in a mirror image. I recommend that the ruling elites of those countries that have plans to use their military contingents against Russia also think about this seriously.
Russia’s philosophy of self-defense hasn’t come to dominate on all fronts of the global anti-imperialist struggle. Those in Iran who understand what Russia does have yet to fully defeat the liberal appeasers; and there are plenty of ostensibly “communist” or “anti-imperialist” organizations that do the equivalent of what these appeasers do. Opportunism, reformism, illusions about being able to avoid state repression through compromises; these illnesses pervade so much of “socialist” politics. We all must take example from Russia’s anti-imperialists, who’ve chosen the only path that lets you defeat a determined foe.
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