This War Will End When Zionism Does

 This War Will End When Zionism Does

Jim Kavanagh

Iranian strike on the Bazan oil refinery in Haifa, Israel’s largest oil hub, March 30^th

We’re now into the second month of the USraeli war on Iran—a war in which, I have said, we must “stand, and work, for the defeat of USrael.” We cannot celebrate a victory that is not yet won, and the extent of which we cannot be certain. At this point, however, I've seen enough to be hopeful that USrael’s defeat is the outcome in progress.

We should not forget that the ostensible, announced purposes of this war, centered on Iran’s capabilities, especially those confusedly articulated by the U.S. administration, are not the real, larger purpose, set by Israel—which is the defense and extension of the Zionist project in the region. That requires, per the Yinon Plan, that  Israel must  “become an imperial regional power, and …effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states”—and, of course, Iran. For Israel, the destruction of the Iranian state is a key, but only one, element in the buttressing of the Zionist project, which is both advancing and under threat as never before.  

Though I join many others in thinking that failure to destroy the Iranian polity would fatally weaken Israel and the Zionist project, it is not impossible that Israel could retreat on the Iranian front, recompose, and continue to ravage the region for an indefinite time. Especially if it continues to have American support. The loss of American support—and I mean the U.S. polity breaking with and renouncing Zionism as it did South African apartheid—would be more devastating to Israel than any particular result in Iran, though such an outcome would be made more likely by a failure in Iran that was costly to the U.S.

This is a war for and over Zionism (under the protection of U.S. imperialism) through Iran. Iran is acting as the principal protagonist of and impediment to   of Zionism at this moment.

We cannot forget that USrael has neutered most Arab states into explicit or implicit Abraham-accord puppies of Zionism; that Israel is still controlling Syria; that it has destroyed and is occupying and continuing to devastate Gaza; that it is carrying out an accelerated pogrom of the West Bank; and that it has initiated a new Nakba in Lebanon, displacing a million people who “will not be allowed to return any time soon” (i.e., ever) and is indiscriminately bombing residential areas of Beirut (under the Dahiyeh Doctrine, “do[ing] what we did in Gaza"), with no challenge—indeed, hardly any notice—from the “international community.” Per the head of the Knesset Committee on Internal Affairs and the Environment, Israel has "no other choice but to expel and clear the entire territory up to the Litani River, to cleanse it of Lebanese civilians... Sovereignty and settlement."

Apart from Iran, then, Israel’s drive to expand and dominate the region continues relentlessly, and with the customary international impunity. Zionism requires.

https://x.com/DaniMayakovski/status/2034808904040030376?s=20

This is all one big war for Zionism now—not just USrael vs. Iran, but Zionism vs. the World, the First Zionist World War. USrael will not be defeated until Zionism is—until Israeli troops are forced to leave Gaza and Lebanon in order to take a last, losing stand for Zionism on and for the territory of Green-Line Israel.

It’s not the only source of conflict, but, as I think is becoming clearer to more people every day, there will be no peace in the Middle East (and therefore the world) until and unless Zionism is defeated and deleted.

However well Iran does in re-setting the world stage, then, stay in your seats. There’s going to be a lot more commotion before the fat lady sings.

Nonetheless, given the material, military, economic, political, and ideological conditions under which this war started and has been progressing for the past month, certain very hopeful trends that seem impossible to reverse have become clear.

First, and crucially important, the Islamic Republic regime (and I don't use that word in a pejorative sense, but to denote a political and cultural apparatus wider than “the government”) is standing firm. Not only has it not collapsed after the assassination of Ali Khameni, Larijani, et. al., as some USsraeli fools expected, it has become stronger, more unified, more militant, and backed by wider, more adamant popular support. That’s precisely as a result of the assassinations and of USraeli attacks on civilians, like the vicious double-tap murder, via thermobaric incineration, of over 160 school children.

I think it was the US faction of USraeli fools who most expected the regime to collapse. Most of the Israeli faction knew that it would not and/or did not care. Sure, they would have loved an easy victory, but they were not counting on it, as the clueless Americans were, and it also serves the Israeli’s purpose to have an angrier, more militant Iranian government and people who will fight harder. All the better to persuade Israel’s American fools that unrestrained “death and destruction,” including ultimately with nuclear weapons, must be visited upon Iran. Israel was never seeking to change the Iranian regime; it was and is seeking to destroy the Iranian polity.

I should say, too, that I’m uneasy with the response that sloughs these murders off, or romanticizes them, because "martyrs." Sure, killing these leaders won't destroy, and in the context of Shia culture will likely harden, Iranian resistance. But good leaders—especially, in a war context, exceptional military leaders like Ali Larijani—are not a dime a dozen, not interchangeable. These assassinations are real hits, and Iran has to get better at preventing them, if not directly retaliating on equivalent USraeli personnel (without levelling whole apartment blocks). We need victors, not martyrs.

At any rate, after a month of assassinations of its leaders and  “death and destruction from the sky all day long,” the Islamic Republic of Iran stands and fights, harder and smarter every day. The idea that it’s going to be “toppled” like Saddam’s statue in Firdos square (named after the Persian word for “paradise”) by some USrael “shock and awe” and/or by a CIA-Mossad-armed revolution led by Pahlavi and the Shahs of Sunset is gone, baby, gone—belied by the hundreds of drones and missiles hitting Israeli towns and US bases and comprador Arab support infrastructure, and the millions of Iranians in the streets demanding revenge and victory, every day. That fact alone constitutes victory for Iran, means that Iran has already won a victory that will every day become harder for USrael to reverse.