U.S./Israel-Iran War: The Issue Is Palestine. The Issue Is Zionism.

 U.S./Israel-Iran War

The Issue Is Palestine. The Issue Is Zionism.

Jim Kavanagh

https://x.com/KashifMD/status/1934065000815231259

On the one hand, I feel the need to say something about the US/Israel-Iran war; On the other hand, I saw it coming and said it right after October 7^th, 2023, in “Israel’s Solution to Gaza: War on Iran.” And I'm really tired and depressed to see it happening  as was inevitable.

The most important thing here is for everyone to understand what this conflict is, and is not, about.

In a short clip I urge everyone to watch, Seyed Mohammad Marandi says it quite well: “The real issue is not Iran's nuclear program. The real issue for the United States is Iran's support for the Palestinian people. That is it…The issue for the United States is Palestine.”

The issue is not nuclear weapons, and we have to stop giving credence to any attempt to fix the public focus on that. The issue is Palestine—or, in other words, Zionism.

It is about Zionism. It is about forcing Iran—the remaining powerful nation-state in the region that has not—to once and for all accept the Zionist colonizing project of expelling and exterminating the Palestinian people, which is underway in Gaza and the West Bank.

Per Marandi:

[The United States] wants Iran to end its support for Palestine. It wants Iran to be something like Turkey …or the Emirates, or Egypt, or Jordan, or Morocco, or it doesn't matter, [to], say, criticize the Israeli regime, but at the end of the day do nothing in reality to oppose its hegemony and domination.

It is indeed a regime-change operation against Iran, and its entire point—the only thing about the regime that has to change—Is for Iran to accept the Zionist project, which means, abandoning support for Palestinian liberation,  accepting Israel as the unchallenged regional hegemon, and ridding itself of any military capacity that would allow effective resistance to any aggression, including against the Palestinians, that Israel might wish to undertake.

Understand: the only thing. If Ayatollah Khamenei announces tomorrow that Iran is capitulating to acceptance of the Zionist project and changes nothing else, sanctions will be lifted and relations with Iran will be normalized. The United States will not care if Iran is Islamist or secular, theocratic or democratic, if women have to wear hijabs or burqas or miniskirts. All the blather about democracy, women’s rights, and secular liberalism will disappear. Even civilian nuclear power would be permitted.

Understand also: If Iran were to capitulate on the nuclear issue and announce that it will forgo all nuclear enrichment, it will still be attacked. If and only if Iran capitulates on accepting the Zionist project and abandoning the Palestinians to whatever fate Israel wants to inflict on them (extermination and expulsion, as we all see), will the attack on Iran stop.

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It’s convenient for the U. S. and Israel to present the nuclear issue to the public as the main problem, but it is only relevant to them as a lesser included aspect of the principal issue of capitulation to the Zionist project—“lesser” because, as they know, as the DNI has declared (“I don’t care what she says”),  Iran has no nuclear weapons, but has other weapons and assets that presently do threaten the Zionist project.

Sure, Israel—which is not so much targeting Iran’s nuclear sites, please note—wants the U.S., the only country with the means to possibly damage it, to attack the Fordo site. Zionist hawks, knowing how opposed the American people are to war on Iran, are pushing the idea that it can be a one-and-done action that will solve the problem and won’t get the US totally involved in the war. But, as everybody knows, if the U.S. directly attacks Fordo (or anywhere else in Iran), the Iranians will of course strike back at U.S. military assets—which is exactly what Israel wants. Israeli and American Zionists want the U.S. to attack Iran’s nuclear sites not because they are afraid of some imminent nuclear weapon coming from them, but because they want the U.S. to be hit by Iran and become thoroughly and inextricably involved in the real difficult problem—the regime-change war. That’s why we have to refuse the constant framing that nuclear weapons are the real issue. 

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Democracy? The cry to attack Iran is not the voice of America. Where, oh where, could it be coming from?

In order to keep war-averse Americans from realizing what a difficult fight this will be, the media discussion carefully avoids clarifying the unreasonable, total submission being demanded of Iran, but the expansive demands of Israel and the U.S. are on the record.

As Benjamin Netanyahu says: “We want three central results: eliminating the nuclear programme, eliminating the ability to produce ballistic missiles and eliminating the axis of terror. We will obviously do what we must to achieve these objectives, and we have been coordinating well with the United States.”  And, indeed, Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) echoes those three Israeli demands, that “Iran should be denied a nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missiles; Iran’s terrorist network should be neutralized; and Iran’s aggressive development of missiles, as well as other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities, should be countered.”

The U.S. and Israel are not trying to get Iran to end a nuclear weapons program it doesn’t have; they are demanding that Iran give up its highly developed missile and military capabilities and its support of Palestinian resistance groups (“terrorist network”). They are demanding that Iran abandon its principled opposition to Zionist colonialism and support of the Palestinian people, disarm itself to the point of being defenseless against any Israeli attack, and adopt a comprehensively submissive posture—bend the knee—to Israel.

USrael is seeking that level of submission because Israel feels it’s necessary to protect its genocidal ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and secure the future of the Zionist project. But, as Seyed Mohammad Marandi says. “Iran won't do that. Iran is not going to trade its support for the Palestinian people” in order to get acceptance by the Zionist U.S. and West—a faction of the world community that is in decline and has little to offer anyway.

The fight is now on. Israel and the United States are  all in—fully committed to a military assault on Iran to force its submission. If it is going to maintain its principled stance of anti Zionist, pro Palestinian resistance, Iran must weather the onslaught, which will include nuclear attack, and prevail militarily and politically. Iran must be able and willing to inflict massive damage on Israel and Israelis.

Let's have no illusions about any of this.

1.      The United States is and always has been involved in Israel’s military action. American participation in the war on Iran that it's been planning with Israel since at least 2017 is now unfolding In politically convenient stages. . The U.S. will, forthwith, engage directly with any level of force the Israelis want, at any cost in lives and treasure to the U.S. 

And, please, this does not depend on what’s percolating in Donald Trump’s head. It is an imperative of the U.S. Zionist Deep State, which gets what it wants. As Douglas Macgregor says: “Netanyahu controls more of the Senate than Donald Trump.” 

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It is not a matter of dragging the United States into a war on Iran; it’s a matter of dragging the United States out of the war it’s already in. One can only hope there are enough anti-war forces in this country to mobilize a political rebellion and drag us out of this ultimate, unconstitutional, self-destructive, Israel-first war before it further demolishes the world and our country. 

It’s shameful for those of us on the left that the stirrings of such a revolt come from elements of the MAGA base who are bristling about Trump’s betrayal of “America First,” “No More Regime Change Wars” promises, and/or from Pentagon generals giving a realistic assessment of the military situation. (Certainly not from the Democrats.) It was Tucker Carlson and  “senior Pentagon officials” who led him to call off the attack on Iran he ordered in 2019.  But this time, with Israel having gone all in and under fire, I do not believe Trump, who’s already smacked down “kooky” Tucker, will resist the Zionist pressure he has built up around him since then. To paraphrase Macgregor: Netanyahu controls more of Donald Trump than does the MAGA base. 

2.      One party will prevail. If the fight ends, or even indefinitely pauses, with Iran making no concessions on nuclear enrichment, missiles, or support for Palestinian resistance, Israel and the United States will have suffered a significant defeat, and Zionism will be in strategic retreat. If it ends with Iran conceding on any of those things—and conceding “just” on the nuclear-enrichment pretext will only prime the concession pump—then Iran will have been defeated, will have been forced to accept Israeli hegemony, and will be on a path toward political dissolution. 

Per Trita Parsi:

If the nuclear program is destroyed, Israel will turn to Iran's missile program. It will not accept Iran having missiles that can wreak havoc on Israel … Without missiles, an air force, and a nuclear deterrent, Iran will be completely exposed and defenseless. Once that is achieved, the Israelis will push for regime change or regime collapse. And after that… they will push to destroy the rest of Iran's conventional military so that Iran won't be able to challenge Israel's emerging regional military hegemony for decades to come. Iran's territorial integrity will also be put at risk 

Given the costs of this battle to both, it is unlikely that either party will stop fighting without inflicting a clear defeat on the other. “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” is Trump’s and Israel’s goal, and they will not be negotiated out of it. Iran best be fighting that kind of battle. This is a fight that will end either the anti-Zionist Islamic Republic of Iran or the Zionist Greater Israel project. 

3.      Zionist USrael understands this, is all in on it, and will use every weapon and every level of force to prevail. The U.S. will pull in every military asset, even transferring indispensable weapons from Ukraine. (Zelensky is learning what it means to be a side piece. Israel is always the America’s main squeeze.)  Anti-Zionist Iran had better be as unequivocally all in. There’s no exit but victory.

The parties have different military, political, and economic assets and weaknesses, and it is impossible to know who will win. Iran has a large, populous, mountainous, industrially, scientifically, and militarily developed country that cannot be invaded and occupied, and can outlast in any attritional battle. The USrael camp cannot sustain casualties or time.

USrael has formidable military power, including nuclear weapons, that will be used to try and quickly decapitate command-and-control and massively devastate Iranian cities (and, more performatively, nuclear processing facilities), in hopes of precipitating political collapse and capitulation.

USrael also has networks of proxies, including Western-aligned Iranian elites and dissidents—not to mention possible Kurdish and takfiri “moderate rebels” and such—that will be mobilized to instigate chaos.

I repeat. It cannot be avoided: Because of all the USraeli weakness stated above, USrael will use nuclear weapons against Iran. These are the only weapons the U.S. and Israel think could force quick-enough Iranian capitulation. There is no possibility that USrael will allow itself to be defeated (or dragged into an attritional conflict, which would be a defeat) without using every weapon in its arsenal. To pretend otherwise is wishful thinking.

If Iran is going to prevail, it must be prepared to take nuclear hits. If it doesn’t have the political and military ability to take those hits and persevere, or if it thinks it can finesse this conflict in ways that will avoid them, it will lose.

All is at risk, and nobody knows how this will end. Each party is in the Mike Tyson predicament: "Everyone has a game plan until they get smacked in the face." 

USrael’s “shock and awe” plan will go swimmingly until American ships get sunk and soldiers killed, the Strait of Hormuz is closed and oil is $10 a barrel, US streets and congressional offices are filled with angry protestors, and would-be Jewish-supremacists are heading back en masse to the East Bank (of the Hudson), breaking out of the Zionist concentration camp for Jews that Israel is already becoming:: 'It’s important to clarify,” Israel’s Transportation Minister declares, “that, at this stage, we will not allow Israeli citizens to leave the country. Only those who came to Israel as tourists, businesspeople, or diplomats…will be allowed to leave.” 

Can Iran’s plan for maintaining its principled anti-Zionist support of Palestinian resistance survive if Khamenei is assassinated, Qom and Tehran are nuked, and its own population is facing a devastation like Gaza’s?  Iran will get help from Ansarallah, but that’s not enough. Where is Hezbollah? What can Iraqi resistance groups contribute? The coordinated offensive of regional resistance groups that was always a necessary part of the plan has clearly been hobbled by assassination. Will Pakistan send or intervene with nukes? Any country that does will get nuked by Israel. That’s what its nukes are for! The Arab nations, the UN, or the “international community” will not come to the rescue. Russia and/or China will provide diplomatic support and may provide weapons, which would be a great help. But they, too, have their own populations and problems, and are more likely to counsel concessional compromise than to risk a military confrontation with two nuclear powers (at least one utterly fanatical) to preserve an anti-Zionist, adamantly pro-Palestinian Iran. 

The horrible predicament of the Palestinian people is that no country in the world is willing to risk everything, to make its own people pay any price, to defeat Zionism, while the United States is willing to do all of that to protect the Zionist project. We are about to find out if Iran is the exception. 

We just do not know how this is going to end up, who is going to win, or how much of the world it will devastate. 

The victory we do know about and have to recognize, which Trump’s reckless, unpopular, and unconstitutional military intervention demonstrates—as did Bush’s and Obama’s and Biden’s and every one on Wesley Clark’s list—is the unconditional surrender of the United States to the Zionist project, the conquest and degradation of the United State by the parasite of Zionism  We can only hope that this self-insult is so obvious and dangerous and shameful as to inspire the necessary revolt against it , and that the cure will come in time for Iran and the Palestinian people.

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