Above: the new mural in Tehran that reads “The next slap will be harsher”
Following the blowback from the War on Terror, and an unprecedented decline in American power, several years ago a great new trend of anti-imperialist resistance started. Russia’s operation to demilitarize the U.S.-installed Ukrainian fascist regime represented the moment when the forces challenging Washington collectively became bolder than they had ever been. That NATO couldn’t beat Russia showed the world how strategically vulnerable the hegemon had become, a fact which has catalyzed numerous additional counter-attacks by anti-imperialist armies. Some of these actions have been inspired by Russia’s operation, others have come about simply due to the circumstances of a weakened Washington. The consistent thing about them is that they’ve proven wrong all pro-imperialist voices which have sought to portray their decisions as rash. In every case, they’ve succeeded at weakening the hegemon, and therefore been a success.
In addition to Russia’s victories in both the military and economic wars, there’s been the anti-colonial revolution in Africa’s Sahel region, carried out by mass movements that are intensely pro-Russian. There’s been Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which accelerated the decline of the Zionist state by overcoming its defenses and bringing it into a conflict it can’t win. There’s been the picket line that the Houthis have established in response to the Gaza genocide, wherein they’ve blocked the U.S. empire’s usual trade path for as long as the murder continues. Now there’s been the retaliatory strike by Iran against “Israel,” which is of a nature and role that’s further advanced the hegemon’s demise. As the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Central media department has reported on Telegram, the PFLP interprets this development to be a confirmation of perilous vulnerabilities for Zionism, and for Washington’s foreign policy designs:
The Iranian response to the zionist entity is a pivotal event that will establish new rules of engagement in the region…The Front confirmed that the legitimate Iranian response broke the prestige of the zionist entity, revealing its fragility and inability to defend itself or restore its deterrence power. At the same time, it confirmed the ability of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the resistance factions to deliver painful strikes to the zionist entity, deepening its internal crisis due to its inability to achieve any of its goals in eliminating the resistance in the Gaza Strip, or stopping the strikes directed at it by the resistance in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq…The Front concluded its statement by affirming that the unprecedented Iranian strikes, the first of their kind in history against the zionist entity, represent an important turning point in the battle of the Al-Aqsa Flood and in favor of the resistance factions. The repercussions of this strike will have pressing effects on the zionist entity to stop its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, after the American administration and its allies realized that any escalation in the region would lead to a regional war where their bases and interests will not be safe, nor will the zionist entity be able to defend itself after the collapse of its deterrence power and its humiliating defeat in front of the resistance in Gaza and other fronts.
How exactly this next phase of the empire’s collapse goes depends on whether “Israel” responds with the unrestrained aggression that would be in Netanyahu’s career interests, or with the limited force that U.S. officials prefer for “Israel” to use. We know that the White House’s urging of Netanyahu to act cautiously isn’t posturing because after all the losses Washington has been experiencing, the imperialists are genuinely frightened of provoking their enemies too much. They know they wouldn’t be able to handle a wider conflict in the region, like they wouldn’t be able to win a direct war with Russia and China. The U.S. hasn’t even been able to put together a coalition to counter the Houthi blockade, because the great majority of the Arab nations are either hostile towards “Israel” or trying not to align with it too substantially.
Even the governments of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, which have sided with “Israel” during Iran’s strike, are now having to worry about further losing credibility among both the Arab world and their own people. Every act of aid towards the empire comes with a price, which gets greater as the transition to multipolarity continues. The outcome is that the empire increasingly must choose between surrendering more of its influence, and getting itself into a confrontation which breaks it. This is true in Ukraine, in Taiwan, in Venezuela, and in the other places where Washington wishes so badly it could simply use its armed forces.
Now that Hamas, Iran, and the anti-Zionist Axis of Resistance have confronted the hegemon with its limitations in southwest Asia, the moment when the USA’s people triumph against their imperialist deep state is getting closer. With every defeat abroad, our imperialist system is made more vulnerable to internal collapse. The survival of the deep state—i.e. the political policing system which monopoly finance capital uses to ensure its imperialist wars get carried out—depends on the success of U.S. foreign policy designs. Which means the elements of the U.S. masses that oppose the deep state are compatible with international solidarity, where the peoples of all countries come together to support each other’s struggles against capital.
This shared interest in defeating the USA’s imperialist deep state can break down the ideological barriers the imperialists have created between the people, both domestically and globally. It shows that within this power struggle, the many Americans who are against the deep state depend on the success of Hamas, Iran, Russia, China, and all the other anti-imperialist forces we’re told to hate. We’ll see how many of these Americans turn against the Zionist, pro-cold war agenda that Trump represents, and embrace the alternative of investing oneself in an anti-imperialist united front. In every revolutionary project, though, the state’s defeat doesn’t rely upon every person with revolutionary potential fully giving up their preexisting ideas and habits. It relies upon the ones involved in the revolutionary project correctly navigating their conditions, and nurturing revolutionary impulses wherever they exist among the people.
That’s what we have to do in response to these victories by imperialism’s enemies abroad: educate the people within the core who share an interest in monopoly capital’s defeat. Provide them with the context to see that Iran, and the other global forces the TV news vilifies, are not the American people’s enemies. Through this effort to change the consciousness, we’ll be able to guide the people’s anti-establishment energy in a direction that’s capable of subduing the capitalist state.
This is why in my rhetoric, I emphasize the phrase “deep state,” even though the deep state is really just an instrument for the functionings of the wider capitalist state structure. The deep state, with its threat towards the freedoms the U.S. is supposed to represent, is something antiwar Americans on both the “right” and the “left” have lately been focusing on. For this reason, the Libertarian Party and the People’s Party are planning a rally that’s centered around defeating the deep state. To make this event more effective, communists can work to shift the discourse around the deep state towards anti-imperialism in particular. Towards a way of thinking that lets Americans recognize how their fight against the deep state, and the fight being waged by Washington’s adversaries, are part of the same struggle.
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