Image by Jon Tyson.

Donald Trump’s forging of a political alliance with Russia’s Vladimir Putin at the expense of Ukraine’s struggle for self-determination may not be totally unexpected, but its speed and extent represent a dramatic transformation of world politics.

Nothing more sharply—and crudely—signals this transformation than Trump and J.D. Vance’s public browbeating of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28 at what was supposed to be a brief session to take questions from the press prior to a private meeting to discuss conditions for ending the war. In a breathtaking display of imperial arrogance, Trump and Vance turned the session into a shouting match as they insulted and threatened Zelensky for stating the obvious—that Putin cannot be trusted, and that any peace deal requires security guarantees for Ukraine. Trump then cancelled further talks with Zelensky and ordered him to immediately leave the country. This brazen take-down and humiliation of a democratically elected head of state for not totally submitting to U.S. dictates is unprecedented. It is as ominous as Trump’s inauguration five weeks earlier.  Ukraine will be left to feel the full wrath of Putin’s murderous war machine just as Palestine is being left to face Netanyahu’s fascistic effort to annihilate its very existence.

This is hardly the first time a major imperialist power has suddenly forged an alliance with a longstanding adversary. One can recall war criminal Richard Nixon’s sudden opening to China in the early 1970s, which led to a rapprochement that ended up extending the Vietnam War by several years (Mao reduced aid to North Vietnam to curry favor with the U.S. and Nixon used his entente with him to demand greater concessions from Hanoi). But an even more striking antecedent is the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. This may sound like an exaggeration—after all, the alliance between fascist Germany and Stalinist Russia gave the green light to World War II, and no one is suggesting a third world war is imminent-—although the risks of it are ever-present. Nonetheless, the 1939 Pact is worth recalling since it produced a shift in world politics that had crucial ideological ramifications, as many leftists supported it in the name of opposing Western imperialism while others denounced it as a betrayal of the principles of socialism. Today’s U.S.-Putin alliance likewise has profound ideological ramifications, as seen in how leftists opposed to Ukraine’s struggle for self-determination now find their position being shared by MAGA Republicans, while others on the Left are searching for revolutionary new beginnings opposed to all forms of occupation and colonialism, from Gaza to Ukraine.

The Betrayal of Ukraine

The Trump-Putin alliance was forged with the convening of direct talks on February 18 between representatives of U.S. and Russian imperialism in Saudi Arabia, a meeting that excluded both the Ukrainians and the U.S.’s European allies, some of whom were not even informed of it beforehand. These were not negotiations: Trump simply adopted virtually all of the Kremlin’s talking points without so much as suggesting a single concession from Putin. The Russian delegates could hardly conceal their shock and glee at what Trump gave away at zero cost to themselves.

On February 24, following the talks in Saudi Arabia, the Trump administration voted against a Resolution of the UN General Assembly condemning Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine—the first time it did so, joining Russia, China, Belarus, North Korea, and Israel, as well as 12 other Moscow-friendly countries (93 other countries voted yes, 65 abstained). Brandishing the lie that Ukraine, not Russia, started the war, Trump clearly allied the U.S. with Putin.

Not a peep of opposition to this was heard from a single Republican member of Congress—even though many of them spent years bashing Russia and voting aid to Ukraine. Many Democrats expressed outrage but seem lost as to what to do next. So much for the claim that the U.S. ruling class has a vested interest in helping Ukraine!

Trump insists that Ukraine cannot recover twenty percent of the country that Russia occupied since 2014 and 2022, and that no U.S. troops will be used to patrol a ceasefire which is to be imposed largely on Russian terms. Nor can it join NATO, until now the inter-imperialist alliance of the U.S. and Western Europe.

Most revealing, Trump demanded that the Ukrainian government repay $500 billion to the U.S. (at least four times as much as the value of all the military and economic aid it received under Biden) by surrendering 50% of the proceeds from its sale of national resources, such as minerals, oil and gas, and port fees. Ukraine was moreover expected to repay the U.S. twice the value of any future U.S. aid (it does not indicate whether this would include any military assistance). This amounts to paying $100 percent interest on top of the total principle of a “loan.” Taken as a whole, this would entail that a higher percentage of Ukraine’s GDP become turned over to the U.S. than the allies demanded in the form of reparations from defeated Germany after World War I.

That would clearly amount to turning what is left of Ukraine (Putin is demanding annexation of parts of it he does not now control) into an outright economic colony of U.S. imperialism. If this mis-named “peace plan” were to go forward, the U.S. would reap profits at Ukraine’s expense and Russia could secure the conquest of parts of its territory while building up its diminished military apparatus (Russian forces are nearing exhaustion due to heavy losses, especially in soldiers and heavy weapons like tanks and artillery) in order to ready itself to launch a renewed assault in a few years.

Not surprisingly, Zelensky initially balked at Trump’s demands, insisting that any concessions to the U.S. contain security guarantees that could prevent the overthrow of the government or a renewal of the war. It remains to be seen if the Europeans will provide them. They too were taken aback by the recent turn of events and are unsure how to respond: most of the leaders of the European states have lived so long under the protective umbrella of the U.S. that they cannot imagine how to exist otherwise.

Zelensky has been under tremendous pressure to capitulate to U.S. demands. On February 26 a tentative agreement between Trump and Zelensky was announced that placed slightly less onerous conditions on the amount the U.S. would get from the sale of Ukraine’s natural resources. Zelensky reluctantly agreed, even though the proposal provided no security guarantees for Ukraine. Trump ruled out sending any U.S. peacekeeping forces and says the burden for providing them would fall to the Europeans—which Russia insists it will never accept. On February 26, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov referred to any deployment of such peacekeepers as “empty talk.”

Trump claimed that the presence of U.S. companies on the ground in Ukraine to extract its mineral resources would “provide automatic security” (Ukraine does not currently have the ability to extract more than a small amount of its mineral wealth). But as many in Ukraine have pointed out, the presence of U.S. companies in eastern Ukraine did nothing to stop Putin from invading and occupying those areas. Moreover, over half of Ukraine’s mineral resources are located in the eastern part of the country which is currently occupied by Russia. Trump is surely eyeing those resources as well—which Putin would be glad to provide him with so long as Ukraine is severely weakened and demilitarized.

Meanwhile, discussions among European members of NATO about increasing military aid to Ukraine are hardly reassuring. It could take years for them to make up for Ukraine’s loss of U.S. military assistance. For example, the entire British army currently has fewer artillery pieces than one brigade possessed in the 1990s. Russia could rest and rebuild for a few years (or less) and then renew its longstanding aim to take over all of Ukraine.

Setting the Record Straight

The ideological fallout from the Trump-Putin alliance is already evident from the way Putin’s false claims about Ukraine are being normalized—and not alone by Trump.

Foremost among these is the claim that Ukraine started the war by provoking Russia through its repression of Russian-language speakers in eastern Ukraine and its desire to join NATO. This overlooks the fact that the war actually began in 2014, when Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and Crimea in response to a mass democratic movement on the streets of Kiev which ousted its pro-Moscow leader, Viktor Yanukovych. As he had done earlier in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and elsewhere, Putin sent in troops (often in the guise of residents) to stoke separatist sentiment. The response of the U.S. and NATO at the time was meek: it slapped limited sanctions on Russia but did little else. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the U.S. initially told Zelensky to flee the country on the grounds that there was no chance of holding off the Russian military. The Ukrainians then succeeded in doing so to the shock and surprise of both the U.S. and Putin. Only then did the pipeline of military and economic aid begin to flow from the U.S./NATO to Ukraine.

As I stated at the time of Russia’s 2022 invasion, the claim that the U.S./NATO were itching for a fight with Russia and jumped at the chance when Putin invaded gets it all wrong. Intra-imperialist conflicts are often driven by economic factors, such as the drive to accumulate capital on an ever-expanding scale at the expense of rivals. But this does not apply to the conflict between the U.S. and Russia, since the latter’s economy is too weak to pose a threat to U.S. economic dominance. As Russian sociologist Ilya Matveev puts it, “Post-Soviet Russia’s economic clout has always been far too limited to threaten the centers of capital accumulation in the Global North… In fact, the Kremlin’s decisions in 2014 and 2022 were the product of a specific ideological vision that overemphasizes Russia’s vulnerabilities and calls for preventive military action under the slogan of ‘offense is the best defense.’ Russia’s conflict with the West, unlike the U.S.-China rivalry, is rooted less in structural, particularly economic, causes and more in ideological (mis)perceptions.”

This explains why the U.S. and NATO provided enough support for Ukraine to hold off Russia but not enough to enable it to inflict a major victory. I wrote in July 2024, “That the U.S.’s conflict with Russia is not structurally rooted in the dynamics of global capital accumulation does not make it less dangerous. But it does suggest that a change of government in the U.S. in the coming months can easily lead to a rapprochement between Western imperialism and Putin’s Russia.” That has now occurred, capped off by Trump’s claim that Ukraine is responsible for starting the war.

Putin also claimed that Zelensky is an illegitimate leader of a regime stocked with “Nazis.” In fact, he was voted in through a democratic election with over 70% of the votes while the neo-fascist far-Right (which surely exists in Ukraine, as it does in virtually every European country as well as the U.S.) got 2%. Trump responded to Zelensky’s objection to being excluded from the discussions over the future of Ukraine by denouncing him as a “dictator” who has the support of only 4% of the populace. In fact, as of the end of 2024 his support was 52%, but following Trump’s reversal of U.S. policy in favor of Russia, it shot up to 63%. Many of his most prominent critics, such as Valery Zaluzhny, former Commander-in-Chief of the Army who was dismissed by Zelensky one year ago, now say they intend to vote for him once the war is over (Ukraine’s Constitution prohibits an election from being held during wartime).

Meanwhile, Putin’s effort to break apart the Western alliance, which has long been his goal, is being codified by Trump as he treats his NATO allies as an after-thought—except when it comes to prodding them to ramp up military spending so as to free the U.S. from being responsible for Europe’s security. The U.S.’s European allies are completely flummoxed by Trump’s threat to cut off military aid to Ukraine and lift sanctions on Russia: they have been thrown into a new world that their neoliberal mindset never prepared them for.

Redrawing the Political Map

What we are witnessing today is a redrawing of the political map, as the U.S. is now transitioning from its decades-long pursuit of single world dominance under the illusory claim of supporting democracy to forging a united front of reactionary and neo-fascist powers intent on pursuing national and regional interests.

This is not isolationism—neither Trump, Putin, nor Xi Jinping fit into that category. It is rather an effort to respond to the U.S.’s failure to secure single world domination (as seen from its defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan) by reverting to a twenty-first-century form of annexationist territorial imperialism. This was initiated by Putin’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, and it is now embraced by Trump as he threatens to annex Greenland, Panama, Canada, and even Gaza as he promotes Israel’s effort to expel its entire Palestinian populace. This is why Trump finds so much in common with Putin—they share a similar view of the world, in which even the pretense of international law and norms must be cast aside. This should not be written off as a mere quirk of his personality or reduced solely to his business interests (though they both play a big part): they are a reflection of a world gradually being divided up into regional power blocs based on naked national self-interest. As Peter McLaren put it, “Trump and Putin do not seek peace—they seek a pact. A deal that cements Russia’s aggression as legitimate and Ukraine’s sovereignty as expendable. A deal that undermines not only Ukraine but the very idea that nations have the right to exist beyond the will of imperial masters.”

Of course, it is not alone foreign affairs that binds Trump to Putin—at least for now (one thing about neo-fascists is that they rarely have an easy time getting along with their co-conspirators). What most of all connects them is their disdain for the advances made by women, workers, national minorities, and LGBTQ people over the past decades. The far Right sees in Putin the exemplar of the white-racist attack on democracy that they adore. As Putin stated a few years ago, “The U.S. continues to receive more and more immigrants, and, as far as I understand, the white, Christian population is already outnumbered…. We have to preserve [white Christians] to remain a significant center in the world.”

This is why those who concede even the slightest ground to Trump’s narrative on Ukraine make a big mistake when they presume it can be somehow separated from his attacks on immigrants, women, workers, and people of color in the U.S.—or separated from his unwavering support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians. One example is Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, who in a recent article entitled “Trump Gives Peace a Chance in Ukraine,” wrote: “On both sides of the Atlantic, Trump’s initiative [on Ukraine] is a game changer. Those of us anxious to see peace in Ukraine should applaud Trump’s initiative…. If Trump can reject the political arguments that have fueled three years of war in Ukraine and apply compassion and common sense to end that war, then he can surely do the same in the Middle East.” But the last thing that motivates Trump is compassion and common sense when it comes to Ukraine (or anywhere else)—which is why to expect him to “do the same in the Middle East” is an invitation for ethnic cleansing and genocide. He cares not a whit about the Ukrainians, and even less about “peace.” He is concerned with extracting as many resources from as many places as he can while forging a united front with like-minded authoritarians to crush what is left of democratic norms and institutions.

This is why Ukraine remains a touchstone of global politics. If Trump and Putin can succeed in curtailing its fight for self-determination, it will make it all the harder to advance freedom struggles elsewhere. Stating that fact does not entail supporting Zelensky or the current Ukrainian government, which clearly governs under a neoliberal agenda, any more than it entails supporting NATO (whose very existence we have long opposed). But as Trotsky noted in his writings on fascism, the truth is concrete: and the concrete truth is that to remain neutral in the face of occupation and colonial domination is to become its accomplice.

Oleg Shein argues, “While Putin is President—and he will be a president as long as he lives—this war will continue. The reason lies within Russia: Putin does not have a positive program, for the country. External conflict is the basis of his power. It is a way to consolidate the elite and govern the people. Perhaps the war against Ukraine will enter a phase of smoldering. But as long as Putin rules in Russia, the history of external conflict will continue.”

Solidarizing with Ukraine – and the Larger Struggle

Ukraine is facing a difficult situation. The ground war has not been going well for it over the last year, and a cut-off of U.S. aid is sure to make the problem worse. So far, it has received half of its armaments and aid from the EU, and a number of states (such as France and Poland) promise to contribute more. It is unclear how much of a difference that will make. But what cannot be denied is the tenacity of the Ukrainians: despite some Russian advances over the past six months, they have taken far less territory than what most analysts anticipated. Zelensky will be under continuous pressure to agree to some kind of rotten compromise, but while the Ukrainian people desperately want peace, the vast majority do not want what they call “a peace of the grave,” that would deny their right to exist as a nation and a culture. It is thus likely the struggle will go on, perhaps in the form of guerilla warfare, even if a dishonorable “peace” is imposed by the great powers behind their backs.

This too carries risks: it is possible that the far Right will grow in power in Ukraine the more desperate the situation becomes. The Ukrainian Marxist writer Hanna Perekhoda addresses this as follows: “The argument that the presence of the far right in Ukraine justifies a refusal to send arms is based on a rather blatant error of logic…. There are far-right movements in France and Germany that are infinitely more influential than in Ukraine, yet no one would dispute their right to self-defense in the event of aggression…. This argument is all the more hypocritical given that many of these same voices on the left do not hesitate to support resistance movements that include actors who are more than problematic. Why demand a purity from Ukraine that no other society is required to show when it has to defend itself? What is undeniable is that the war, which has lasted for more than ten years, has already helped to strengthen and trivialize nationalist symbols and discourse that were previously marginal. Wars do not make any society better. However, the relationship between the delivery of arms and the strengthening of the far right in Ukraine is inversely proportional. The weapons sent to Ukraine are used first and foremost to defend society as a whole against an invading army. Ukraine’s victory guarantees the very existence of a state in which citizens can freely and democratically choose their future. Conversely, nothing strengthens extreme right-wing movements or terrorist organizations more than military occupation and the systematic oppression that goes with it.”

This is not the time to refrain from solidarizing with Ukraine—it is more important than ever. It is vital not just for their sake but for ours, as we become increasingly subjected to fascistic repression inside the U.S., the extent of which has only just begun to be seen.

This piece first appeared on New Politics.

The post The Trump-Putin Axis and Its Impact on Global Politics appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Peter Hudis.

Until November 26, 2024, Israel was failing in almost every way. Even after enduring more than a year of genocide against the civilian population of Gaza, Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza remained as effective a force as ever, despite its reliance on weapons made in its own underground workshops from recycled and captured Israeli ordnance and other materials. In fact, the genocide assured a constant flow of volunteers to its doors, a supply of materials for its workshops, and a network of eyes and ears throughout Gaza.

The result was a guerrilla war of attrition for which the Israeli military, built and structured to deliver rapid, overwhelming blows to destroy its adversaries, was not prepared, nor to which it adapted. Losses were not huge, but they were more than Israel had previously suffered, and it seemed without end, including both soldiers and major ground equipment, such as tanks, armored personnel carriers and lightly armored bulldozers. Furthermore, Israel was simultaneously engaged in a second protracted armed conflict with a well-armed, well-trained and battled-hardened (in Syria) Hezbollah force in Lebanon, which had driven out the Jewish settler population in the north of Israel and had struck numerous military and intelligence gathering targets in the same area and beyond, with considerable effect.

In the meantime, Yemeni Ansarallah “Houthi” forces interdicted shipping from Asia through the Red Sea to the Israeli port of Eilat, and attacked the port with missiles, forcing it to close, and the ships to go around Africa and back through the Mediterranean, restricting and delaying the supply of goods and spare parts and making them more costly – or making them unprofitable to ship at all.

Much of the rest of the world also lost its taste for trade with Israel due to the stigma of its genocide in Gaza. The relatively important tourist industry dried up, as did investment. Even the arms industry slackened. A blank check from the US allowed Israel to keep its citizens supplied with paychecks and with sufficient products and services to buy, but at least 48,000 businesses closed, including agriculture in the north and in the Gaza “envelope”.

The toll on Israel was the greatest and longest in its history of warfare. Israel keeps most of its casualty figures hidden, but it admits to more than 27,000 removed from combat due to wounds suffered. Including deaths on all fronts, the casualty total is, therefore, necessarily above 30,000, almost all military, while Israel’s targets in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are overwhelmingly civilian and more than half women and children. The Israeli military has complained that it is 20% short of the number of combat troops needed, and increasing numbers of exhausted reservists are refusing to serve. Although Gaza has lost an estimated 10% of its population to genocide, Israel has lost a similar proportion to emigration since October 8, 2023.

This was the state of Israel on November 25, 2024. Would Israel still exist after another year of this? There was reason to doubt its stamina. But the following day a truce was declared with Lebanon. There is no doubt that both Hezbollah and the Israeli military were exhausted and heavily damaged. The truce was not directly with Hezbollah but rather with the Lebanese government, because Hezbollah, in addition to its role as a defender against its aggressive neighbor to the south, participates in what is in practice a loosely consensus government, and it wants to be seen as respecting the will of all the parties.

Initially, the truce only stanched the blood on both sides of the border, and allowed both sides to halt their losses. Unfortunately, its true purpose had been determined months and even years earlier, by Turkiye, the US, Israel and their mercenary and mostly takfiri proxies in Syria. It was to make way for resumption of the war against the Syrian government, which started in 2011 but had been largely on hold since 2020. As we know now, the takfiri mercenaries, backed by Turkiye, US/NATO and Israel and furnished with the latest electronic and drone technology, quickly overwhelmed the Syrian forces, which had been weakened by years of debilitating economic sanctions and the flight of largely economic refugees, such that only half of its original population of 23 million remained. There are some reports that the operation was planned for the spring of 2025 but had been moved forward because of the losses being suffered by Israel, both economically and on the battlefield, and its internal political turmoil, as well as abandonment by a significant proportion of Zionist supporters, both through departure from Israel and from the international Jewish community.

Each of the participants in the plan had its own objectives, which are now coming to fruition in greater or lesser measure. For the takfiri forces, subsidized, trained and armed by Turkiye, the CIA, the Pentagon, and to a lesser extent Ukrainian military advisors, the Israeli military, Mossad, and radical Islamist groups in the Arabian and other countries, the objective was to conquer Syria and create a regime based on a radical and racist version of Islam shunned by most of the Muslim world. They had been recruited from at least 82 countries around the world, with the largest number from central Asia and the Arab world, including Syria, where they and their families formed a radical militant minority of 5-10% of the Syrian population allied with the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda and its affiliates and offshoots, such as ISIS/ISIL, that had been attempting for decades to establish a regime in Damascus that would enforce its Draconian laws on the rest of the population. In the areas of Syria that they had captured off and on since 2011, they showed what such rule might be like, by slaughtering and enslaving much of the non-Muslim, non-Sunni and more secularized Muslim population. Some of that has recommenced in the newly “liberated” territory during the last two weeks, despite attempts in the Western media to make them appear more tolerant. It remains to be seen how useful their sponsors will consider them to be now that their main role has been completed.

In the case of Turkiye, one of the major sponsors, the goals are to resettle its 3.5 million Syrian refugee population back in Syria, to capture the northern portion of Syrian territory for itself, and to reward the Turkmen and Uyghur fighters, which it recruited from central Asia, with land inside Syria, displacing the existing population with one loyal to Turkiye. In addition, Turkiye seeks to crush and displace the Syrian Kurdish population along the northern and northeastern Syrian frontier, which it considers to be terrorists in league with Turkiye’s own suppressed Kurdish population. Turkiye already is calling Aleppo its 82nd province and taking military action against the Syrian Kurds, especially in the western Kurdish communities.

Syria’s Kurdish population is itself a complex participant in the fighting. Although it has maintained a largely autonomous enclave in the northeast portion of Syria under the protection of US occupying forces, it has had nonbelligerent relations with the Assad government, which asked the Kurds to help defend Syria in the early years, and on at least one occasion offered to defend them against Turkish and takfiri forces that were invading Kurdish areas. The aim of the US sponsors of the Kurds, on the other hand, was to deny Syria sovereignty over its petroleum fields and wheat production area, in order to destroy the economy and ultimately replace the government with a compliant puppet regime. In their otherwise desperate situation, the Kurds could hardly turn away the US offer of support. The US has tried to restrain the Kurds from attacks against Turkiye, a NATO ally, but not entirely successfully, and the Kurdish leaders are drawn more from the recent immigrants/refugees from Turkiye rather than the more established population, which had stronger ties to the Assad government. Unfortunately for the Kurds, the US government now has somewhat less reason to support them after the fall of the Assad government, since that was the main reason was for their backing. Nevertheless, the larger neighboring Kurdish community in Iraq is a strong ally of the US and NATO, which may be reason enough for the US to continue support. In addition, the US may consider the Syrian Kurds to be a useful tool in restraining Turkiye’s obvious regional ambitions under Erdogan.

There is no doubt that Israel and its US patron gained the most from the fall of Syria, which had been an objective for many decades, and which was a very high priority for Israel, as described at the beginning of this piece. It arguably rescued Israel from total collapse. Besides removing the major remaining frontline belligerent state with Israel, the loss of Syria severed the supply line between Iran and Iraq on the east from Lebanon and the Mediterranean on the west. This means that troops and supplies can no longer easily pass from Iran to Hezbollah. Although Hezbollah retains much of its still unused formidable capability for the time being, it is likely to degrade over time, enabling Israel to reinstate the security of its border with Lebanon and making it safe for the refugees from the northern settlements, currently living in temporary housing, mostly in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, to return to their homes, as soon as they are repaired and rebuilt.

The takfiri seizure of Syria has also enabled Israel to destroy most of Syria’s stored weaponry and munitions in a massive aerial bombing campaign, using the vast quantity of bunker-buster and other bombs and missiles supplied by the US during the last 14 months. The Syrian stores are not only a supply that Hezbollah might have been able to use, but also one that the unpredictable takfiris might eventually decide to use against Israeli forces, should they be so inclined. It has also been an opportunity for Israel to capture additional territory, including the “disputed” Lebanese Shebaa farms region along the border of Lebanon, as well as much of the hitherto unoccupied portion of the Golan Heights, with strategic Mt. Hermon (Jabal al-Sheikh), the highest peak in the region, that has remained under Syrian control until now.

From Israel’s point of view, the disappearance of a very strategic member of the Axis of Resistance and the weakening of Hezbollah also means that Israel regains control of its northern border and will not have to devote as many troops to its defense. This in turn means that the refugee Israeli population that had to abandon its homes along the frontier can now return, although many of them will have to be repaired or rebuilt.

These developments are also likely to reduce or stop the flight from Israel, and perhaps restore confidence in Israel’s leadership and its aims. Foremost among these is the depopulation of the Gaza Strip, using some of the military forces released from the northern frontier, and its repopulation with Israeli settlers. Although Israel’s genocidal policies have alienated much of the world, as well as a growing portion of the Jewish diaspora, Israel retains a hardcore Zionist faithful who encourage and approve of its actions, and its network of sayanim and influencers in the US and other societies and governments, coordinated by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, continues to be enormously effective in delivering to Israel whatever it may need to accomplish its goals, regardless of the views of the electorate in these countries, which are in any case heavily influenced by pro-Zionist media and censorship.

There is, finally, yet another potential benefit to Israel in the not-so-distant future. In 1967, General Moshe Dayan proclaimed at the end of the June war that Israel had achieved all of its [immediate] territorial aims – except in Lebanon. This objective, and especially southern Lebanon, had been a coveted Zionist territory since before the founding of Israel in 1948, not least because of its access to the Litani river, the largest in the eastern Mediterranean. At least four times since then, Israel has invaded the region, emptying it of most of its population of more than a million inhabitants. Each time, the resistance in Lebanon eventually repelled and defeated the incursion. With the fall of Syria, however, and the probable reduction of strength of Hezbollah, this objective now becomes more realistic and more likely in the coming years.

For the United States, the fall of Syria means a major realignment of power in West Asia, a highly important part of the globe, both strategically and for its energy production. It empowers Turkiye, Israel and other US allies in the region. It disempowers Russia, Hezbollah and Iran, and it opens the possibility of assuring that the Gulf monarchies remain in its stable, while discouraging resistance. It also potentially allows the US to reduce its forces in the region and to send them to East Asia, where it has been postponing its planned confrontation with China. For Yemen and the Ansarallah movement, little changes immediately. Its partnership with Iran will undoubtedly remain, but over time its support of the Palestinian resistance may be affected if and when that resistance weakens.

The loss of Syria is therefore a major victory for Zionism and imperialism in West Asia, and a major defeat for the Axis of Resistance and the independence, self-determination and sovereignty of nation states, both in the region and potentially across the globe.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Larudee.

Despite being appalled at my government, I winced as a New Zealander to hear my country described as part of the “Axis of Genocide”. With increasing frequency I hear commentators on West Asia/Middle East news sites hold the collective West responsible for the genocide.

It’s a big come-down from the Global Labrador Puppy status New Zealand enjoyed recently.

Australia too has a record of being viewed as a country with soft-power influence, albeit while a stalwart deputy to the US in this part of the world. That is over.

• READ MORE: Israeli air strikes kill more than 100 across Gaza, Lebanon
• All in all, Trump’s election is a calamity in he making – Paul Buchanan
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

Professor Mohammad Seyed Marandi talks to Piers Morgan Uncensored. Video: Middle East Eye

Regrettably, Australia and New Zealand have sent troops to support US-Israel in the Red Sea (killing Yemeni people), failed to join the International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against Israel, shared intelligence with the Israelis, trained with their forces, provided R&R to soldiers fresh from the killing fields of Gaza while blocking Palestinian refugees, and extended valuable diplomatic support to Israel at the UN.

British planes overfly Gaza to provide data, a German freighter arrived in Alexandria this week laden with hundreds of thousands of kilograms of explosives to kill yet more Palestinian civilians.

Genocide is a collective effort of the Collective West.

Australia and New Zealand, along with the rest of the West, “will stand by the Israeli regime until they exterminate the last Palestinian”, says Professor Mohammad Seyed Marandi, an American-Iranian academic. What our governments do is at best “light condemnation” he says, but when it counts they will be silent.

‘They will allow extermination’
“They will allow the extermination of the people of Gaza. And then if the Israelis go after the West Bank, they will allow for that to happen as well. Under no circumstances do I see the West blocking extermination,” Marandi says.

Looking at our performance over the past seven decades and what is happening today, it is an assessment I would not argue against.

But why should we listen to someone from the Islamic Republic of Iran, you might ask. Who are they to preach at us?

I see things differently. In our dystopian, tightly-curated mainstream mediascape it is rare to hear an Iranian voice. We need to listen to more people, not fewer.

I’m definitely not a cheerleader for Iran or any state and I most certainly don’t agree with everything Professor Marandi says but he gives me richer insights than me just drowning in the endless propaganda of Tier One war criminals like Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, Antony Blinken and their spokespeople.

Dr Marandi, professor of English literature and orientalism at the University of Tehran, is a former member of Iran’s negotiating team that brokered the break-through JCPOA nuclear agreement (later reneged on by the Trump and Biden administrations).

He is no shrinking violet. He has that fierceness of someone who has been shot at multiple times. A veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, Marandi was wounded four times, including twice with chemical weapons, key components of which were likely supplied by the US to their erstwhile ally Saddam Hussein.

Killed people he knew
Dr Marandi was in South Beirut a few weeks ago when the US-Israelis dropped dozens of bombs on residential buildings killing hundreds of civilians to get at the leader of Hezbollah (a textbook war crime that will never be prosecuted). It killed people he knew. To a BBC reporter who said, yes, but they were targeting Hezbollah, he replied:

“That’s like saying of 7/7 [the terror bombings in London]: ‘They bombed a British regime stronghold.’ How would that sound to people in the UK?”

Part of what people find discomforting about Dr Marandi is that he tears down the thin curtain that separates the centres of power from the major news outlets that repeat their talking points (“Israel has a legitimate right to self-defence” etc).

The more our leaders and media prattle on about Israel’s right to defend itself, the more we sound like the Germany that terrorised Europe in the 1930s and 40s. And the rest of the world has noticed.

As TS Eliot said: “Nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself.”

Not a man to mince words when it comes to war crimes.

To his credit, Piers Morgan is one of the few who have invited Dr Marandi to do an extended interview. They had a verbal cage fight that went viral.

Masterful over pointing out racism
Dr Marandi has been masterful at pointing out the racism inherent in the Western worldview, the chauvinism that allows Western minds to treasure white lives but discount as worthless hundreds of thousands of Muslim lives taken in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.

“There is no reason to expect that a declining and desperate empire will conduct itself in a civilised manner. Iran is prepared for the worst,” he says.

“In this great moral struggle, in the world that we live in today — meaning the holocaust in Gaza — who is defending the people of Gaza and who is supporting the holocaust? Iran with its small group of allies is alone against the West,” he told Nima Alkhorshid from Dialogue Works recently.

The Collective West shares collective responsibility.

Dr Marandi draws a sharp distinction between our governments and our populations. He is entirely right in pointing out that the younger people are, in countries like Australia and New Zealand, the more likely they are to oppose the genocide — as do growing numbers of young Jewish Americans who have rejected the Zionist project.

“All people within the whole of Palestine must be equal — Jews, Muslims and Christians. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Zionist regime to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza.”

I heard Mohammad Seyed Marandi extend an interesting invitation to us all in a recent interview. He said the “Axis of Resistance” should be thought of as open to all people who oppose the genocide in Gaza and who are opposed to continued Western militarism in West Asia.

I would never sign up to the policies of Iran, especially on issues like women’s rights, but I do find the invitation to a broad coalition clarifying: the Axis of Genocide versus The Axis of Resistance. Whose side are you on?

Eugene Doyle is a community organiser and activist in Wellington, New Zealand. He received an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian award in 2023 for community service. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at his public policy website Solidarity and is republished here with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

However, this seemingly great opportunity to restart the ‘new revolution’ in Iran did not last long. On the morning of 7 October 2024, the American aspiration of a feminist and democratic revolution or regime change in Iran, which was also shared by its Western allies and West Asian client regimes, was transformed into a nightmare when a few hundred Palestinians carried out the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation in the occupied Palestine. The political landscape of West Asia has been altered by this military operation in such a way that American political projects, such as the Iranian regime change and the Abraham Accords, have faded away. To the surprise of the United States and its Western allies, such as Norway, and thanks to the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, 8 October 2023 became the day of the revival of the ideals of the 1979 revolution, such as freedom and independence from Western Imperialism. The liberation of Palestine from occupation was one of the particular ideals of the Iranian revolution and the political system it generated. As the Iranian revolutionaries of 1979 comprehended Palestine until its liberation in a state of revolution, they coined the slogan “Wake up people, Iran has become Palestine” which became one of the most popular slogans of the revolution. Several days before the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation,  Western media outlet were reporting on the latest developments of the Abraham Accord and the excitement of the leaders of the slave-states of the Persian Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirate, for signing the Accord. However, the leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, cautioned the leaders of these Arab regimes about the futility of their efforts to normalize relations with the apartheid regime of Israel. He described their efforts as “betting on a losing horse” because, in his opinion, the Palestinians were more capable than ever in their struggle for liberation from occupation.

In preparation for the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to give the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi, a political activist with zero political influence in Iran, Norway organized a large gathering of Norwegian academics/imperialist agents and Iranian academics in diaspora who functioned as native informers. The Norwegian hosts were evidently interested in evaluating the degree to which the American regime change project coincided with the ‘new revolution’ in Iran. The conference persuaded the Norwegian Nobel Committee that Narges Mohammadi would be an ideal candidate for the Nobel Prize, as it would position her as a potential leader of the “new feminist and democratic” revolution in Iran. Because she is prone to repeating statements from Western masters about almost everything and remaining silent when they want her to be silent. The fact that she did not speak out regarding the Israeli genocide in Palestine explains, to a certain extent, why she was selected by the Nobel Committee as the winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize. Norway’s desire to play a role in the American regime change project in Iran was not a thoughtless decision, but a continuation of its effort in enhancing its own position in the American foreign policy strategy in the West Asia formulated in its foreign policy strategy document published in 2008. The document reveals that Norway’s foreign policy is merely an adjunct to the American foreign policy in West Asia and elsewhere. In accordance with the Norwegian foreign policy document and in the name of humanitarian intervention, Norway took an active role in the bombing of Libya in 2011. Many years later, as late as 2018, the Head of the Middle East Studies at the University of Oslo, who has been so dedicated to this foreign policy document, signs an open letter to the UN asking for humanitarian intervention in Syria. The letter to the United Nations states that Syrian sovereignty should not be viewed as a hindrance to protecting the Syrian people, as Kofi Anan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, stated in one of his reports. According to Kofi Anan, “no legal principles — even sovereignty — can ever shield crimes against humanity.”

The Norwegian political elite was under the impression that by giving the Nobel Prize to a nobody of Iranian politics, they could either contribute to a regime change in accordance with the American plan or transform Iran into a new Syria and a target for humanitarian intervention. However, I doubt that any European academic would have the courage to ask the United Nations for humanitarian intervention in Palestine after the Israeli genocidal response to the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation. The unconditional support of the United States and other Western governments for the Israeli genocide against the defenseless Palestinian civilians for a year and now against Lebanese civilians has led people in the Global South to realize that the real meaning of democracy, human rights, and women’s rights that Westerners have been trying to bring them was genocide. After the 7th of October 2023, people from the Global South became aware that Israel, the state that Westerners have attempted to portray as the sole democracy in West Asia, is in fact a genocidal, racist and apartheid regime. They have discovered that the sole democracy in West Asia is a remnant of the colonial settler regimes of the past. This is the reason why its conduct cannot be distinguished from the avaricious and ruthless colonial powers of the past, and its survival and future depend on the persistence of American global dominance. The al-Aqsa Flood Operation not only succeeded in bringing to the attention of global public opinion the appeal of the oppressed and ethnically cleansed Palestinians, but also in defeating the American regime change project in Iran. Furthermore, the al-Aqsa Flood Operation revealed that Iran and the Axis of Resistance were the only forces that supported the Palestinian struggle for liberation from the Israeli occupation, as part of their own struggle against Western imperialism and in defense of their national sovereignty and independence in the region. The question is: How have Iran and its allies, in the Axis of Resistance, been able to liberate or protect themselves from the ideological deceptions and political traps, introduced and created by Western imperialism and their native informers, which would divide them and put them against each other?

Divide to Conquer and Rule

The methods Western governments use to promote their political and economic interests in the West Asia region are rarely examined by scholars and journalists who are specialized in the region. The scholars and journalists who work in the region are interested in the ethnic, religious, social and political dividing lines, cleavages or fault lines within the states and societies to enable Western governments led by the United States to exploit these dividing lines, cleavages and fault lines to their advantage. Recently, the Middle East Eye published a critical article on the preoccupation of Western governments, media, and academia with such dividing lines, whereas this publication has been preoccupied with such fault lines since its inception. While Saudi Arabia, in collaboration with the United States and Britain, was bombing noncombatant population and civilian infrastructure in Yemen for many years, the Middle East Eye was saying that the Iranian-backed Shia Houthi positions were the targets of the bombings. This publication would happily report that the Palestinian Hamas movement issued a statement supporting the ‘constitutional legitimacy’ of the Saudi collaborator, Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. According to the Middle East Eye: “This statement is considered Hamas’s first tacit message of support for an ongoing Saudi-led military campaign against the Shiite Houthi group in Yemen, even as the Palestinian group did not clearly mention the campaign in its statement.” The Middle East Eye and outlets similar to it are the culmination of the American-Western declared plans for promoting democracy, human rights, stability and peace in West Asia. They are specialized in causing internal divisions and conflicts in the region. These media outlets typically exhibit empathy for the suffering of Palestinians and advocate for justice in the face of Israeli brutality. However, they hold Iran and the Axis of Resistance as the primary causes of instability in the region. This is why its editors, correspondents, and contributors hold an anti-Iranian position, while Iran has demonstrated that it is the only state in the entire world that sincerely supports the Palestinian struggle for liberation from the Israeli occupation. They downplay, dismiss, or criticize the Iranian position on the Palestinian issue. To create division within the Axis of Resistance, Middle East Eye spread lies about the Iranian Commander of the Qods Force’s role in the assassination of Seyed Hassan Nasrollah, the leader of Hezbollah. Qods Force is, in fact, the principal architect of the Axis of Resistance against Western imperialism and Israel in West Asia.

There are thousands of educated individuals from the West Asia region who have been working as native informers or imperialist propagandists for the United States and its Western allies since the early 1990s. These native informers and imperialist propagandists have been recruited as academics, NGOs, or political activists. While native informers have been elaborating on social, religious, ethnic, political, and cultural divisions within the region, imperialist propagandists have been attempting to turn these divisions into actual conflicts. However, the fact that a highly respected scholar of the West Asia region told the world that the 2023 fascist riots in Iran were a revolution against internal colonization demonstrated that native informers can easily turn into imperialist propagandists when the imperialist employer says so. “Woman, Life, Freedom is a movement of liberation from this internal colonization. It is a movement to reclaim life. Its language is secular, wholly devoid of religion. Its peculiarity lies in its feminist facet.”  A decade ago, this scholar argued that the security and economic interests of Western imperialism in West Asia were compatible with the political democratization of the region and considered the so-called Arab Spring to be the expression of the union between Western governments and Arab, Iranian and Turkish democrats under the leadership of Turkey. But since he has not learned anything from the failure of the Arab Spring, he has turned from being a native informer into an imperialist propagandist who refuses to learn from his logical inconsistencies and experiences. This is the reason why, years after the failure of the “Arab Spring” and months after the morally and politically justifiable suppression of the fascist riots in Iran, this native informer-imperialist propagandist cautions those he believes to be the genuine agents of the revolutionary movement that if they are unwilling or unable to assume power, others will. In his view, it was the unwillingness of the revolutionaries or those who had initiated and carried the uprisings forward in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen to assume power that allowed the free-riders, counterrevolutionaries, and others to assume power in the “Arab Spring”.

Before addressing the question of who are the protagonists and free riders of the “Arab Spring” in these countries, it is worth noting that the Bahraini Uprising, which was by far the most genuine uprising among the so-called “Arab Spring” uprisings, has been omitted from the narratives about the uprisings. Almost simultaneously with the brutal suppression of the Bahraini uprising by the Saudi Arabian and Emirati military, the terrorist campaigns against the Syrian government commenced. While Saudi Arabia and Qatar provided funding for the terrorist campaigns in Syria, Turkey provided logistical support for the terrorist campaign, and Western governments provided political cover by tying it to the Arab Spring. Western governments, their academia, and media, which were totally uncaring about the bloody suppression and murdering of Bahraini political activists, stood firm behind the terrorist organizations active in Syria as the only advocates of democracy and human rights. Contrary to the claims of this native informer and imperialist propagandist, almost nothing happened in Iraq and Lebanon during the ‘Arab Spring.’ After the anti-corruption demonstrations in these countries in 2019-2020 were hijacked by pro-Western and anti-Iran and anti-Hezbollah forces with the active support of American embassies, these two countries were added to the ‘Arab Spring.’

The Arab Spring 2 was an attempt to weaken and marginalize the Axis of Resistance, which included Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, the Iraqi Popular Mobilization forces, and the Yemeni Ansarullah. In fact, the same political forces and states that supported the Israeli war against Hezbollah in 2006, the ISIS and the Saudi-Emirati war against Yemen lauded the Arab Spring 2. Arab Spring failed because the United States and its Western allies did not recognize the sovereignty of the very nations whose democratic aspiration they claimed to support. By the term “democracy,” the United States and its allies refer to political regimes in the region that adhere to their directives and follow their advice irrespective of their national interests or deliberations. The political regimes that follow the American order in the region share one thing in common: their opposition to and animosity toward the Axis of Resistance. This has paralyzed them to express their opinion of their people and condemn the Israeli genocide in the region. Since the stability of these regimes depends on how useful they are for the Axis of Western Domination led by the United States in the region, they cannot do otherwise. Nevertheless, a significant fracture has emerged among the educated Arabs, Iranians, and Turks who have come to the realization that the true essence of the entire Western discourse on democracy, human rights, and women’s rights is genocide. The fact that Israel has been committing genocide against the Palestinian people with the direct assistance of Western governments and their media, in violation of the Genocide Convention, makes the latter an accomplice in the Israeli genocide. As per article III of the Genocide Convention, both the act of committing and complicity in genocide are punishable offenses. According to article IV: “Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.”

With Israeli genocide and the unconditional support of all the members of the Axis of Western Domination led by the United States in West Asia, this Axis has been turned into an Axis of Genocide. It is noteworthy that all members of this supported the ‘new revolution’ in Iran. Israel was the most prominent sponsor of the fascist riots, with which Norway had the illusion of competing through the 2023 Nobel Prize. From 2001 to 2011, the Axis of Western Domination bombed any state or nation that hesitated to accept their submission peacefully, provided they were defenseless. They bombed and invaded Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya because they realized that these states and nations were defenseless. Due to the failure of the Axis of Western Domination in the region to subjugate Hezbollah, Syria, and Ansarullah through the Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006, the terrorist campaigns against Syria since 2011, and the Saudi-Emirati war against Yemen since 2015, the Axis of the Resistance has been formed. The Iraqi Popular Mobilization, whose main components emerged as a response to the American occupation of Iraq in 2003, joined the Axis of Resistance to fight the Western-Israeli phenomenon known as ISIS in Iraq and Syria. ISIS succeeded in controlling large parts of these two countries in 2014 through acts of genocide against all those they deemed to be unbelievers, especially Shia Muslims. Western governments and Israel hoped that an ISIS Khalifat in Syria and Iraq would end Iranian political influence in these two countries, which they viewed as a bridge to Hezbollah in Lebanon. It is the same story with Ansarullah, who were ruling the 80% of the Yemeni population. Saudi Arabia and its Western and regional backers accused Ansarullah of being an Iranian proxy but failed to defeat it after a decade. The Western backed Saudi-Emirati war against the Ansarullah movement made the movement stronger and its ties with Iran friendlier because Iran was the only state that supported them against foreign powers politically, economically and militarily. Hamas and Islamic Jihad joined the Axis of Resistance because they realized that the Axis was the only political and military force they could rely on to free Palestine from Israeli occupation. What is common between the Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi and Syrian and Yemeni and Palestinian experience is that they had to defend their sovereignty against states and terrorist organizations that were supported by the United States, other Western governments and Israel. The Axis of Resistance is not a result of the decisions made by governments, but rather a result of the convergence of states and movements that have been fighting for their sovereignty and independence from the former Axis of Western Domination and the current Axis of Genocide in the region for several decades. Iran learned from its experience fighting alone against an enemy who had the support of Western powers in the 1980s that it was important to form an alliance against Western intervention in the West Asia region. This is why, while trapped in a devastating war, Iran helped the formation of Hezbollah, which has become the most effective resistance organization against the Israeli occupation of Lebanon since the 1980s. Iran went on to support Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which started their Armed Struggle in the 1980s and 1990s, and at the same time supported Islamic and anti-imperialist forces in Iraq and Yemen, which are now known as the Yemeni Ansarullah and Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.

Each member of the Axis of Resistance has experienced the impacts of the Axis of Western Domination in their own country and in the region, and their actual resistance against such impacts has qualified them as constituting components of the Axis of Resistance. This is why each member of the Resistance raises the universalizing character of the Axis. If the slogan “one for all and all for one” has any meaning, it can be found in the practice and experiences of solidarity of the Axis of Resistance. While the Axis of Resistance was forming against the forces of Western Domination in the region, including Israel, not only Arab autocracies and Turkey, but also an army of native informers posing as academics and journalists argued that the people of the region could escape from the suffering of imperialist injustice if they are accustomed to it and contributed to its continuity. The terms of acceptance of imperialist injustice in the region and of contributing to its continuity were democracy, human rights, and women’s rights or moderation.

While Turkey represented democracy, human rights, and women’s rights for a while, especially during the Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia represented moderation. Therefore, the entire discourse regarding the politics of West Asia oscillated between moderation and democracy.

Although numerous scholars promoted Turkey while advocating for the objective of ‘Making Islam Democratic,’ the responsibility of promoting Saudi Arabia was delegated to Thomas Friedman and his like-minded people. The result was a fierce competition between the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Turkey for the consolidation of American hegemony in the region and for the normalization of Israeli apartheid in occupied Palestine. These leaders believed that their contribution to the imperialist injustice in the region and their collaboration with the Axis of Western Domination would safeguard them from harsh treatment in the ongoing injustice.

The efforts to make themselves a darling of the imperialist dominance in the region might explain the animosity of the imperialist clients against Iran and the Axis of Resistance expressed in their countless English and Arabic media outlets. A glance at the seemingly progressive and reliable outlets such as Aljazeera and Jadaliyya, Middle East Eye, and TRT will reveal the extent of their anti-resistance and anti-Iranian posture, not to mention the media owned by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The majority of regional analysts appearing in these media outlets appear to be pro-Palestinian. Convinced of the enduring nature of the dominance of Western imperialism, led by the United States in the region, they refer to the members of the Axis of Resistance as the “proxies of the Iranian regime” to remind their audience of the temporary nature of the Iranian state. It appears that these analysts are unaware of the fact that all small and large Western governments constitute the primary obstacle to Palestinian liberation in any meaningful manner. These outlets do not mention that Iran has been subject to murderous economic sanctions for several decades because of its loyalty to its allies in the Axis of Resistance. While the Saudi-Emirati war against Ansarullah was supported by all Western governments, Iran was the only state to support the Ansarullah movement. Iran has provided support to the Yemeni Ansarullah, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Force, the Palestinian freedom fighters such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the Syrian government, as they all represent forces of sovereignty who defend their independence and freedom from Western dominance.

The United States and its Western allies have imposed economic sanctions on Iran due to their assertion that it has committed three unforgivable sins. They claim that Iran interferes with the affairs of other countries in the region, which implies that Iran does not accept the rulers imposed by the United States on the region. Thus, it supports forces that resist American interference in the region. According to American rules in the region, Palestinians must be prevented from fighting for their rights and for their liberation from Israeli bondage, and that Israel must preserve its military and technological supremacy regardless of the costs for other states and nations in the region. Iran not only regards Israel as an illegal state in the region that needs to be dismantled, but it also seeks to end American omnipotence and tyrannical power in the region, since it is the United States and its allies that allow Israel to commit genocide against the Palestinian and Lebanese people with impunity. According to American rule, Saudi Arabia on behalf of the United States should determine who should govern in Yemen, something Iran rejects and says that every state and nation must be the master of its own destiny. The second reason Iran is the target of American and Western sanctions is its advancing military technology, especially its advanced missile program, which the United States and other Western powers want to be dismantled. The real meaning of this Western demand is that Iran ceases its missile program and disarms itself so that it would not be able to reach enemy targets beyond its borders. This makes it easier for the United States and its allies to wage war against it. Iran not only succeeded in developing its military technology and accomplishing advanced missile and drone programs to secure its territorial integrity and national sovereignty against American threats, but it also succeeded in boosting the military technology of its allies in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestinians to be more effective against the Axis of Western Domination and Genocide in the region. Ultimately, Iran has been subjected to demonization and economic sanctions and has become a target of Israeli terrorism due to its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. The United States wants Iran to prove that it is not seeking nuclear weapons in return for easing economic sanctions against it. According to this American logic, it is not the accuser who must demonstrate through the presentation of evidence that the accused has committed a wrong, but rather the accused who must demonstrate against evidence that is not present that he or she has not committed the wrong. To satisfy the American demand and demonstrate that Iran has no intention of making nuclear weapons, Iran must dismantle its entire nuclear program and refrain from developing nuclear technology. Iran does not accept this because it is a violation of its national sovereignty. Furthermore, Iran does not wish to be deprived of all options whenever it encounters an existential threat from either Israel or the United States. Therefore, it possesses all the necessary technology to produce nuclear weapons; however, it refrains from producing such weapons as it is not currently confronting an existential threat. Recently, Iranians are reminding Western powers that if they create a threatening condition for Iran, Iranians may reconsider their nuclear policy in a matter of days.

The rationale behind the economic sanctions, media war and regime change projects against Iran was that such measures would either install a Western friendly regime or convince Iran to change its behavior and give up its sovereignty. The United States and its allies were hoping that, even if all regime-change attempts and attempts to change Iran’s behavior fail, it would become so fragile that it could not hold the Axis of Resistance together and assist its allies in the region when they needed it most. Despite economic sanctions and technological embargo imposed by the Axis of Domination and Genocide in the region on Iran, Iran has proved to be more economically prosperous, technologically advanced, ideologically and politically influential, and militarily stronger than anticipated. Iran not only helped the Axis of Resistance economically and militarily, but also helped them achieve a high degree of technological sophistication and military self-sufficiency that no power could take from them, despite its own economic difficulties. Every member of the Axis was convinced by this that Iran believes in their talent and strength and wants them to be strong, self-sufficient, dignified, sovereign and equal members of the Axis. It suffices to compare the reverence of the Iranian leaders to that of Seyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, with the contemptuous treatment of Saad Hariri, the former Prime-Minister of Lebanon, by the leaders of Saudi Arabia. Iran and Saudi Arabia have treated these two Lebanese political leaders differently, demonstrating who is considered a sovereign ally and who is a dependent proxy.

Iran comprehends that in the event that the Axis of Domination and Genocide defeats the apparent weaker links within the Axis, it will not be content with anything less than Iran’s complete surrender. Imperial agents and their native informers interpreted almost every Western aggression or any Western political project as a means of regime change in Iran. This included the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Israeli War on Lebanon, the Arab Spring, and finally the fascist riots in Iran. The fascist riots in Iran, entitled Woman, Life, Freedom, were the last misinformation and disinformation attempt by the imperialist agents and their native informers. They created the illusion for Western governments, as their employers, that Iran was on the brink of collapse and would be forced to submit to American conditions in the region. These imperialist agents and their native informers, who have been functioning as academics, journalists, political activists, and NGO activists, have failed miserably in their last attempt. All the efforts carried out by these imperialist agents and native informers who have constructed religious, political, ethnic, and gender divisions in West Asia have been guided by the principle of divide and rule. They explained that political and economic underdevelopment, conflicts, and wars in the region were related to these divisions. These epistemological assumptions serve as a guideline for Western media and pro-Western media in the West and the region, but they also serve as a point of departure for social scientists and historians in the region. What follows from the knowledge produced based on these epistemological assumptions requires the active intervention of Western governments in the region. Western governments thus finance, initiate, and establish organizations which call themselves non-governmental organizations as instruments of interference in the social and political affairs of various societies in the region. Without the financial support of their government, Western NGOs in the region will disappear. This indicates that non-governmental organizations serve to divert the local populace from the fact that Western imperialism and Western elite are the main responsible for the social, religious, and political divisions and conflicts in the region.

Since unity, solidarity, and fraternity in the region challenge American imperialism regionally and globally, movements that promise unity, solidarity, and fraternity in the region are designed as Iranian proxies that conspire against peace and stability in the region. The imperialist agents and native informers who accuse Iran of interfering in Iraqi affairs never mention the fact that the United States has taken Iraq’s entire oil revenue hostage to impose its will on the Iraqi state. The United States and its Western allies use every political means, terrorism, mass murder and even genocide to reshape the region according to their insatiable interests. Naturally, the imperialist agents and their native informers become preoccupied with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, expansion, and influence, as well as its proxies, as the main causes of political disputes and social conflicts in the region. The anti-government and anti-corruption demonstrations in Iraq and Lebanon during the period of 2019-2020 were referred to as the Arab Spring 2 by the imperialist agents and their native informers, as they turned anti-Iran and anti-Hezbollah.

The Struggle for Sovereignty

Iran managed to build and strengthen a regional front known as the Axis of Resistance against the alliance of the Axis of Domination and Genocide, while every regional analyst believed that the collective West and Israel were going to shape the West Asia region according to their own security and economic interests. In his last speech, Iran’s leader said that the only reason the U.S. and other Western powers support the Israeli apartheid regime is because it lets them control the natural resources of the region. He explained that by controlling the region’s resources, the West, led by the United States, would be more confident in their future conflicts with other world powers such as China and Russia. Western powers have become the accomplices of the Israeli genocide because not only their security and economic interests, but their supremacist attitude toward non-Westerners is indistinguishable from those of the Israeli regime, according to Iran’s leader. This is the reason why, rather than focusing on the racist and genocidal nature of the Israeli regime, the Western media places emphasis on its military might and portrays it as the most powerful entity in the region. According to the leader of Iran, the combination of Israel’s fictitious military might with the American aspiration of transforming this regime of apartheid and genocide into a hub for both energy export from the region to the West and for importing Western products and technology to the region prompted several regimes in the region to normalize their relations with this regime. But the Palestinians and other members of the Axis of Resistance are fighting for their freedom and independence from Israeli and American dominance in the region, which has turned this Western dream into a nightmare.

Iran was, in fact, the first member of this resistance and was able to anticipate its formation since the 1979 revolution. The Iranian revolution transformed the country from a client of American imperialism into a sovereign and self-governing state. According to the section on foreign policy of the constitution of this sovereign state specified in articles 152, 153, and 154, Iranian governments have a duty to reject any forms of imperialist domination or interference in Iranian internal politics. Moreover, it obligates the Iranian governments to demonstrate active solidarity with all nations that oppose imperialist dominance and interference in their internal affairs. Here, the key concept is the sovereign right of nations and states to shape their societies according to their own will, aspirations, ideas, deliberations, and decisions. According to Article 152 of the Iranian constitution, The Islamic Republic of Iran is mandated to reject any form of foreign dominance within its territory, to preserve its independence and territorial integrity, and to defend the rights of all Muslims and the oppressed peoples of the world against superpowers. Article 153 prohibits any agreements that give any form of foreign control over the Iranian natural resources, economy, army, or culture. Finally, according to the Article 154, “The ideal of the Islamic Republic of Iran is independence, justice, truth, and felicity among all people of the world. Accordingly, it[the Islamic Republic] supports the just struggles of the Mustad’afun (oppressed) against the Mustakbirun (oppressors) in every corner of the globe.” During the first year of the revolution in Iran, there was a universal consensus among all revolutionary tendencies on these ideals declared by the Iranian Constitution. These articles of the Iranian constitutions are the guiding lines of the Iranian struggle to defend its state sovereignty and to support other nations in their struggles for sovereignty and independence from imperialist powers. Iran has supported the Palestinian struggle for liberation from Israeli apartheid for the same reason it supported South African struggles against apartheid. Iran stands in solidarity with Hezbollah, the Syrian government, Yemeni Ansarullah, and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces as they fight for the same independence and sovereignty that it enjoys itself. Iranian independence and sovereignty prevent it from joining the Axis of Western Domination and Genocide in the region. Iran is aware that without aiding and defending the sovereignty of others, it is unable to safeguard its own sovereignty. For a long time, the imperialist agents and their native informers have argued that the Iranian nation does not endorse Iran’s interventions in Western imperialist affairs in the region. However, recent opinion polls conducted by imperialist agents and their native informers indicate that, the majority of Iranians “are invested in the idea of providing military support to Iran’s proxy groups in the Middle East, the so-called “Axis of Resistance” (Jebhe Moqavemat). Sixty percent are in favor of this policy and 31 percent are against it.”  Western governments’ academic and media mouthpieces accuse Iran for two contradictory reasons. They blame Iran for using its financial resources to assist and empower its proxies who cause instability in the region instead of using those resources to elevate the prosperity of its own people or accuse it of using other members of the Axis of Resistance for its own interests. While the first claim assumes Iran to be a nefarious but a rational and pragmatic player in the region, the latter claim assumes Iran to be an ideological, fanatic and dogmatic actor. Iran must be contained, moderated, or subject to constant demonization, economic sanctions, terrorism, and regime change since it is the cause of instability in both cases. However, despite the numerous criminal plots against the Iranian state and nation since the revolution, Iran has steadfastly upheld the revolutionary principles of sovereignty and independence against Western imperialism and demonstrated genuine solidarity with the oppressed people who fight for their own sovereignty and independence.

Even though the Soviet Union collapsed, which made the United States the global sovereign or consolidated its global hegemony, supported and facilitated by its various Western allies and regional clients, and to which Russia and other members of the former socialist block in Europe and Central Asia surrendered, Iran did not relinquish its sovereignty and independence. Iran faced two choices: either surrender to American global hegemony and its “new world order” or face American wrath in the form of regime change or land invasion, as it happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, Libya and Syria. Iran realized that it was impossible to protect its own sovereignty without promoting the principle of sovereignty and practicing a genuine practice of solidarity with all forces that resisted American domination and Israeli aggression in West Asia.

This is how the Axis of Resistance as we know it today came into being.  Iranians had to resist not only the military, economic, and political consequences of American global dominance in the region, but also the circulation of its ideology by contemporary political philosophers, historians, political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists, who theorize, justify, and normalize the American order. The Aristotelian theory of rulership and governance is at the heart of the new world order. According to this theory, the soul, composed of the rational and expedient components of the world, is destined to reign over the physical, passionate, and natural components of the world. The American world order ideology assumes that the West, led by the U.S., represents the former and the rest of the world represents the latter in the contemporary world. This theory argues that the United States and its allies represent the human elements that must rule the animal elements of the world because both men and animals are better off when animals are tamed and ruled by men. This theory assumes that, since it is always the superior who discovers this principle of ruling, he must make sure that the inferiors understand this principle. This theory makes the inferior believe that he is a slave who must obey the superior as his master and execute his orders unquestionably. According to this principle of rulership, while the task of the slave is the administration of things and production of the necessities of life, the task of the master is the administration of the slaves. Russia, which consented to being administered by the West, led by the United States, attempted to fulfill the duties of a slave and fulfill the master’s demands, however, it was unsuccessful. However, China, which has achieved great success in the administration of things and production of necessities of life, has come to the realization that as a nation, they have high expectations and desire to safeguard their sovereignty and independence. At the same time, Russia realized that their success in the administration of things and the production of the necessities of life depended on them protecting their sovereignty and independence from Western interventions in the affairs of their nation. Aristotle advised superior men to do philosophy and politics because they were the kind of science that enable the superior to command the slave who produces the necessities of life. Modern imperialism, from an Aristotelian perspective, would not be possible without modern philosophy, social sciences and humanities that have persuaded the rest of the world of their inferiority. As Aristotle argued that plants exist for the sake of animals, and animals exist for the sake of men, and the slave exist for the sake of the master, modern human and social sciences argue that non-Westerners exist for the sake of Westerners. Imperial agents and their native informers are practitioners of the social and human sciences, whose failure to convince the inferior people of their inferiority could result in the inferior people refusing to be governed by their superiors. When this occurs, the Americans and their Western allies attempt to coerce the inferior populace into submission by means of economic sanctions, intimidation, and threats. Whenever these measures fail, and the superior Westerners find the inferior people defenseless, they turn into wild beasts by indiscriminate killing of civilians, murdering babies, women, and elderly people, and destroying their homes. The Israeli Genocide of Palestinian and Lebanese people is the last example of such crimes.  While the United States, with the help of its Western allies, attempts to dominate the world by demonstrating Western superiority and the inferiority of the rest of the world, Israel fails to dominate West Asia despite all the political, economic and military help it receives from America and Europe. In 2006, Israel attempted to replicate what the United States and its Western allies accomplished in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, but it fell short. Since the so-called Arab Spring, the United States and Israel have worked together to kill as many Libyan, Syrian, Yemeni people as they can and destroy as much of their infrastructure as they can because according to the imperialist principle, the superiors can either subjugate the inferiors or destroy them. However, Iranian revolutionary foreign policy has rejected this Western superiority complex and has tried to minimize its political consequences in the region. Iran has been trying to convince the people of the region that their struggle for sovereignty and independence from imperialist domination is impossible without the formation of a united front to resist American and Western intervention in the region. From an Iranian perspective, the resistance against the imperialist dominance in the region is intrinsically linked to the Palestinian struggle for liberation from the Israeli occupation. Iran supports the Palestinian struggle for sovereignty and independence, as an unfree Palestine would make the future of its own sovereignty and independence uncertain. Because an unfree Palestine means supremacy of the Western Axis of Domination and Genocide in the region. This may explain the moral high ground held by Iran when it comes to the Israeli genocide and its Western and regional accomplices.

According to Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, book VIII, it is with friends that men are more able to think and to act because the impacts of friendship are so significant that it can hold states together. Whereas men with friends do not have a need for justice, just men need friendship because justice has a friendly quality. But true friendship is about reciprocal goodwill, since friends wish what is good for one another for their own sake. It is the mutual recognition of goodwill between people that makes them friends. According to Aristotle, there are people who love each other for their utility and in virtue of some good which they get from each other. There are also those who love for the sake of pleasure because they find each other pleasant. Hence, those who love others for the purpose of their utility, do so for the sake of their own well-being, whereas those who love for the sake of pleasure do so for the sake of their own pleasure. If the parties don’t stay what they are to each other, their friendship will be easily broken up. For instance, when an individual ceases to be pleasant or useful to the other, the latter ceases to love them. Friendship is perfect when men are good and equal because they wish well for their friends for their own sake. Such friendships last as long as the parties remain good, and goodness is a lasting thing. Friendships such as these are not instrumental because they are not based on how useful friends are to each other. Since true friendship is rare and infrequent, it requires time and familiarity. The imperialist agents and their native informers fail to understand that Iran and the Axis of Resistance are the only true friends in Asia because they founded their friendship on mutual recognition of their sovereignty, equality, and struggle for justice. The familiarity with such virtues in each other took time, but the time was not wasted. The time was used to discover what is good in each other.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Yadullah Shahibzadeh.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt are urging Israel and Hamas to hold a new round of negotiations to finalize a ceasefire deal in Gaza. However, Hamas is urging mediators to enforce the ceasefire terms proposed by President Biden in May that Hamas already agreed to and that Israel rejected. Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project and a former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin, says U.S.-led efforts for a ceasefire are likely to fail as long as the Biden administration remains unwilling to pressure Israel. “It’s quite clear Netanyahu does not want a ceasefire deal,” says Levy, who adds that the Washington playbook of unlimited support for Israel and threats to keep other regional actors in line could pull the U.S. into a wider Middle East war. “America is playing the role as a member of the axis of Zionist extremism.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

He misses the point as usual. The warrants have nothing to do with that. They are about bringing those wanted for the most grievous war crimes to justice.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak then said that the move was “deeply unhelpful”, adding: “There is no moral equivalence between a democratic state exercising its lawful right to self defence and the terrorist group Hamas.”

Even Biden was singing off the same hymn-sheet saying there is “no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas” and that what’s happening in Gaza is not genocide…. a hymn of praise for Israel almost.

Of course there is no moral equivalence. As the world has witnessed, Israel’s crimes are a thousand times greater than Hamas’s and are allowed to continue without let-up, courtesy of the US and UK who dutifully carry on supplying the ordnance and weaponry. It still hasn’t penetrated enough Washington and Whitehall skulls that it is the Palestinian resistance who are exercising their lawful right to self-defence – using “armed struggle” if necessary – against Israel’s illegal military occupation, brutal 17-year blockade and decades-long murderous oppression (UN Resolutions 37/43 and 3246).

Furthermore Hamas are just as legitimate as any Israeli administration having been democratically elected under the scrutiny of international observers, a result immediately rejected at the time by the UK, Israel and the US because it didn’t happen to suit their evil purpose in the Middle East.

And why are Hamas proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK? Only because a group of Israel’s pimps and stooges among Westminster’s political elite say so. It would be interesting to take a vote on what the people who put them there actually think, now they know the horrendous situation in Gaza and the West Bank and the long history leading up to it. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to proscribe Likud, Netyanyahu’s terrorist party?

Cameron also claims it’s a mistake to draw moral equivalence because Palestine is not regarded as a state. Again, he isn’t paying attention. 146 of the 193 UN member states recognise Palestine, including Ireland, Norway and Spain who announced recognition just a few days ago. 11 of these are EU states, so what is Cameron drivelling about?

Fortunately, a cross-party group of 105 MPs and Lords has called on the UK Government “to do all it can to support the International Criminal Court” after Prime Minister Sunak’s remark that its decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders was “deeply unhelpful”. In a letter addressed to Foreign Secretary Cameron they say “there is mounting evidence that Israel has committed clear and obvious violations of international law in Gaza and we strongly believe that those responsible must be held to account”. They call on the Government “to take a clear stance against any attempts to intimidate an independent and impartial international court…. The Court, its Prosecutor, and all its staff must be free to pursue justice without fear or favour”.

One of the organisers, MP Richard Burgon, said: “At every stage, our Government has failed to fulfil its moral duty to do everything it can to help save lives and prevent suffering in Gaza. It must not fail again. It must back the ICC in ensuring that there is no impunity for war crimes and it must stand up to those seeking to impede justice.”

Almost straightaway Sunak, in a surprise move, called a general election for 4 July. This means that MPs immediately cease being MPs but ministers continue in office until a new government is formed. For the next 6 weeks, then, Sunak’s crew continue to rule without being accountable to the House of Commons and could do a lot of damage. So this is a doubly dangerous time for our nation.

Meanwhile Cameron and his ignorant friends seem to think the Gaza war only started as recently as October 7. He plays up the release of 134 Israeli hostages when, on October 6 Israel was holding 5,200 Palestinians captive, including at least 170 children, and since then has abducted some 7,350 more. Why do we never hear from Cameron about the Palestinian hostages/prisoners?

And how many Palestinians had Israel killed before October 7? Answer: 10,651 slaughtered by Israel in the 23 years up to Oct 7, including 2,270 children and 656 women (Israel’s B’Tselem figures). That’s 460 a year. In that period Israel was exterminating Palestinians at the rate of 8:1 and children at the rate of 16:1.

Israel’s friends in the West like to think of Netanyahu as the leader of a Western style democracy that shares our values. Actually he’s the head of a nasty little ethnocracy with vicious apartheid policies and a 76-year record of terrorism, pursuing an extended military campaign aimed at occupying and annexing another people’s lands and resources, and showing no respect whatsoever for British values or international norms of behaviour.

So, putting aside for a moment our dislike of Hamas’s methods, shouldn’t we be asking our politicians to explain why exactly Hamas must be eliminated and the Palestinians’ homeland pulverised in the process, seeing as it is they who are under illegally military occupation and they who have the ultimate right of self-defence?

It’s easy to see where Cameron is coming from. After 3 months of genocide in Gaza, he denied Israel had broken international law. He also said it was “nonsense” to suggest that Israel intended to commit genocide. Asked if he thought Israel had a case to answer at the ICJ, he said: “No, I absolutely don’t. I think the South African action is wrong, I think it is unhelpful, I think it shouldn’t be happening…. I take the view that Israel is acting in self-defence after the appalling attack on October 7. But even if you take a different view to my view, to look at Israel, a democracy, a country with the rule of law, a country with armed forces that are committed to obeying the rule of law, to say that that country, that leadership, that armed forces, that they have intent to commit genocide, I think that is nonsense, I think that is wrong.”

So says this self-declared zionist and key stooge for Israel, one of many at Westminster who are desperate to maintain the shady US/UK-Israel alliance. Do Sunak, Cameron & co really want victory for the genocidists? It seems they do. Because they’ve pledged their undying adoration and support for that rotten apartheid regime and now the world has seen it for what it really is and their position is turning sour.

On the face of it the Hamas trio — Haniyeh, Sinwar and Dief — with competent legal representation seem likely to survive the legal process. And although many are questioning why arrest warrants are being considered for them at the same time as the mega-maniac Netanyahu there is reason to hope that, if they do come to trial, a lot of bad stuff about Israel, the US and the UK will come out. The world will then be much wiser and the ‘axis of evil’ behind it all will collapse under the weight of its own lunacy.

The UK general election will likely rid us of Sunak, Cameron and the rest of the Tory nitwits. But sitting in the waiting room is Labour’s Keir Starmer, another Israel stooge. Yes, the zionists have all angles covered.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

As the Pentagon launched airstrikes in Syria and Iraq against Iran-backed militants and carried out new attacks on Houthi forces in Yemen over the weekend, we speak with Narges Bajoghli, professor of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University. She is an expert on the Axis of Resistance, the informal coalition loosely led by Iran that consists of the Iranian and Syrian governments, the Houthi movement in Yemen, militant groups in Iraq, Hezbollah, Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza and the West Bank. She lays out how, despite their different ideologies, the groups are united in their goal of opposing Western influence and control in the region and moving understanding of the Palestinian liberation struggle “out of the narrative terrain of the 'global war on terror'” and “into a language of hegemony and colonialism.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Intercepted.

We look at how Israel’s war on Gaza has inflamed tensions in the Middle East and threatens to pull other countries into the fighting, including the United States. The Pentagon says it has intercepted a number of drones and missiles launched by Yemen’s Houthi forces — known as Ansar Allah — in the Red Sea aimed at disrupting international shipping, with the group vowing to continue the attacks on ships in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The U.S. and Israel have also exchanged fire with groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, and violence continues to increase in the occupied West Bank. The growth of forces openly fighting against Israel and the U.S. is a major development in the Middle East that most Western commentators do not fully understand, says Rami Khouri, a veteran Palestinian American journalist and a senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut. This “axis of resistance” is largely motivated by outrage over the treatment of Palestinians, he says. “The U.S. and Israel at some point need to acknowledge that the Palestinian people have rights that are equal to the Israeli people.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Simona Foltyn.

The post Axis Of War: The Japan-Korea-US Alliance appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Simone Chun.

The International Criminal Court should uphold an objective and impartial stance, respect the jurisdictional immunity enjoyed by the head of state in accordance with international law, exercise its functions and powers prudently by the law, interpret and apply international law in good faith, and avoid politicization and double standards.

— Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin

This commentary really should be part two from the piece I wrote last week in the run-up to the anti-war mobilization that took place March 18 which commemorated the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. In that article I made a similar argument about why the U.S. should be seen as the greatest threat to the survival of collective humanity on our planet.

That point, however, needs to be reinforced because in typical arrogance, on the eve of that mobilization and the official March 20th date of the U.S. invasion, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Russia President Vladimir Putin while Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Barack Obama, responsible for horrific crimes against humanity and literally millions of deaths combined in Serbia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria, walk around as free individuals.

It would be comical if it was not so deadly serious and absurd. Just a couple of years ago when the ICC signaled under the leadership of the Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that it wanted to conduct an investigation into possible crimes in Afghanistan by the U.S. state, the Trump Administration told the court in no uncertain terms that the Court would be subjected to the full wrath of the U.S. government and the Court quietly demurred in favor of a national probe that everyone knew was a sham.

This is just part of the infuriating double standards that Chinese spokesperson Wang Wenbin refers to. For many in the global South, the “neutral” international mechanisms and structures created to uphold international law have lost significant credibility.

The politicization of the ICC on the Ukrainian war and the unprincipled participation of the United Nations that provided political cover for the invasion and occupation of Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010 are just two examples of how international structures ostensibly committed to upholding international law and the UN Charter are now seen as corrupt instruments of a dying U.S. and Western colonial empire.

How did we get here?

It is not a mere historical coincidence that the world became a much more dangerous place with the escalation of conflicts that threatened international peace in the 1990s. Without the countervailing force of the Soviet Union, the delusional white supremacists making U.S. policy believed that the next century was going to be a century of unrestrained U.S. domination.

And who would be dominated? Largely the nations of the global South but also Europe with an accelerated integration plan in 1993 that the U.S. supported because it was seen as a more efficient mechanism for deploying U.S. capital and further solidifying trade relations with the huge and lucrative European Market.

Central to the assertion of U.S. global power, however, was the judicious use of military force. “Full Spectrum Dominance” was the strategic objective that would ensure the realization of the “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC). There was just one challenge that had to be overcome. The U.S. population still suffered from the affliction labeled the “Vietnam syndrome.” Traumatized by the defeat in Vietnam the population was still reticent about giving its full support to foreign engagements that could develop into possible military confrontations.

How was this challenge overcome? Human rights.

“Humanitarian interventionism,” with its corollary the “responsibility to protect” would emerge in the late 90s as one of the most innovative propaganda tools ever created. Produced by Western human rights community and championed by psychopaths like Samantha Power, the humanitarianism of the benevolent empire became the ideological instrument that allowed the U.S. to fully commit itself to military options to advance the interests of U.S. corporate and financial interests globally while being fully supported by the U.S. population.

With this new ideological tool, the Clinton Administration bombed Serbia for 78 days in 1999 without any legal basis but with the moral imperative of the “responsibility to protect.” By the early 2000s it was obvious that the U.S. was not going to be bound by international law. Operating through NATO and with the formulation of a “rules-based order” in which the U.S. and its Western European allies would make the rules and enforce the order, the world has been plunged into unending wars, illegal sanctions, political subversion and the corruption of international structures that were supposed to instrumentalize the legal, liberal international order.

But white supremacist colonial hubris resulted in the empire overextending itself.

Twenty years after the illegal and immoral attack on Iraq where it is estimated that over a million people perished and twelve years after the racist attack on Libya where NATO dropped over 26,000 bombs and murdered up to 50,000 people, the U.S.-EU-NATO Axis of Domination is in irreversible decline but the U.S. hegemon, like a wounded wild beast is still dangerous and is proving to be even more reckless then just a few years ago. 

The disastrous decision to provoke what the U.S. thought would be a limited proxy war with Russia that would allow it to impose sanctions on the Russian Federation will be recorded in history, along with the invasion of Iraq, as the two pivotal decisions that greatly precipitated the decline of the U.S. empire.

However, with over eight hundred U.S. bases globally, a military budget close to a trillion dollars and a doctrine that prioritizes a “military-first strategy,” the coming defeat in Ukraine might translate into even more irresponsible and counterproductive moves against the Chinese over Taiwan in the Pacific and more aggressive actions to maintain U.S. hegemony in the Americas through SOUTHCOM and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Global polls of international opinion continue to reflect that the peoples’ of our planet see the U.S. as the greatest threat to international peace. They are correct.

The commemoration of the attacks on the peoples of Iraq and Libya is an act of solidarity not only with the peoples of those nations, but with the peoples and nations suffering from the malign policies of this dying empire today. It is a time of rededication to peace and to justice, two elements that are inextricable. In the Black Alliance for Peace, we say that peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the achievement by popular struggle and self-defense of a world liberated from global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.

This understanding is the foundation for why we are launching with our partners, an effort to revive the call to make the Americas a Zone of Peace on April the 4th, the day the state murdered Dr. King and the date that the Black Alliance for Peace was launched in 2017.

For Africans and other colonized peoples, the task is clear. The U.S.-EU-NATO Axis of Domination embodies the anti-life structures of colonial/capitalist oppression and must be seen as the primary contradiction facing global humanity. We recognize that other contradictions exist. We are not naive. But for the exploited and colonized peoples of this planet, until there is a shift in the international balance of forces away from the maniacs in the “collective West,” the future of our planet and collective humanity remains imperiled.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ajamu Baraka.

Photograph Source: U.S. Department of State – Public Domain

“You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity.”

— Philip K. Dick, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” 1968

The United States, leading a coalition of its allies, is fighting a proxy war with Russia over its invasion of beleaguered Ukraine battling for its survival as a democracy. Thousands have died.

Yet extremists of the Republican Party, or what’s left of a onetime respected political institution (it should change its name to something more accurate) invited a virtual dictator to deliver the keynote address at its popular right-wing get-together, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

In some of his more belligerent remarks at the conference at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas last week, the creeping authoritarian focused on a theme of uniting Hungary and the United States by coordinating their militaries and by Americans electing conservatives in the midterm elections in November and Europeans doing the same in the European Union election in 2024.

Beware: It seems as if the Hungarian leader is anxious to save conservatives from a hostile liberal world. With all of the restrictions far-right politicians impose on everyday people, maybe it’s the conservatives who need to be monitored.

“We must take back the institutions in Washington and Brussels . . . we must coordinate the movements of our troops because we face the same challenges” against liberals among Democrats and in the media, he said in his speech in heavily accented English.

“These two locations will define the two fronts in the battle being fought for Western civilization. Today, we hold neither of them. Yet we need both,” Orbán said.

I didn’t know Washington and Budapest share an axis.

Unite American and Hungarian armed forces? Orbán must be dreaming aloud. It’ll never happen so long as a Democrat is in the White House, if he or she can keep it. Putting Donald Trump or his clone would be something else again.

Trump referred to the prime minister as his “friend” when they were together at the former president’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., before the CPAC conference. He also endorsed Orbán for his fourth consecutive term, which he won in April.

“The globalists (read liberals) can go to hell,” the Hungarian strongman blasted. “I have come to Texas.” He tagged Hungary “the Lone Star State of Europe,” obviously meaning his country is different from others on the continent. Just about.

Texas is home to a far-right governor, Greg Abbott, and a senator with similar political views, Rick Scott, a former governor. It has some of the toughest restrictions against abortion and voting rights in the country.

“They hate me and slander me and my country as they hate you and slander you,” Orbán said of liberals’ views of right-wing conservatives.  That’s probably true, not hyperbole.

Orbán is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has been criticized for Hungary being one of the few countries among its neighbors that doesn’t support Ukraine, with which it shares an 85-mile border along a river. It is among the 30 NATO members. Hungary’s population is 9.6 million.

The European Union has had problems with Orbán’s curtailing of democracy in Hungary and has withheld money until it abides by the rules of the 27-member group. Hungary has been a parliamentary republic since 1989. But the Economist Intelligence Unit, an analysis and research division of The Economist magazine, labeled it a “flawed democracy” in 2020.

Hungary was part of the Soviet bloc and its Warsaw Pact military alliance to counter NATO before Moscow’s empire collapsed in 1991. It sided with Nazi Germany during World War II, when 565,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Orbán is perhaps best known for blocking refugees from Hungary as they fled to Europe seeking asylum from their war-ravaged homelands in Syria and Afghanistan during the 2015 migrant crisis. He erected fences to keep them out, even if their intent merely was to pass through Hungary to reach other countries. He rejected 16 pleas for asylum, according to The Guardian.

He recently warned European countries against “race mixing,” a racist slur targeting people of color. He sounds like American white supremacists and nationalists who could fit right in. It did not deter CPAC from inviting Orbán. But Hungary accepted “with open arms” more than 180,000 Ukrainian war refugees, Human Rights Watch reported. Ukrainians are white.

The prime minister and his allies also have suppressed the media, campaigned against gay and transgender rights, Jewish Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros and emphasized law and order. Trump often has been compared to Orbán.

Right-wingers, including Fox “News” host Tucker Carlson, more than once has pointed to Orbán as a model leader for America, an image Jennifer Dresden, a policy advocate for democracy, finds “concerning.”

“The academic and think tank research has been really clear: Hungary has been on this incremental path (toward authoritarianism) for over a decade at this point, and Orbán has followed the playbook very, very closely in ways that everybody should be worried about,” CNN business analyst David Zurawik quoted her as saying.

And this is what right-wingers see as their model for running a government? Are they Americans?

Maybe Orbán is merely the conservative flavor of the year, harmless. CPAC, Carlson and other right-wing admirers of Orbán would be wise to look long and hard at the Hungarian leader before continuing to woo him as a far-flung panacea for solving their own problems.

Otherwise, they may be stepping into political quicksand without an exit strategy, like what our military experienced in getting out of Afghanistan. We have enough problems on our crowded plate, Trump and his die-hard allies to start with.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard C. Gross.