News Flash: As we post this alert, it is being reported that Biden has ordered an advanced missile defense unit be deployed to Israel, along with the 100 U.S. soldiers needed to operate it. The Pentagon said this “Terminal High Altitude Area Defense” battery was being sent to defend Israel from any further missile attacks by Iran. This move puts U.S. forces closer to the front lines of the widening war in the Middle East.¹

Israel is openly warning that it is planning to attack Iran in response to its October 1 missile strikes on Israel (which were in response to a series of Israeli aggressions²). This past week, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, bragged, “Our attack will be deadly, precise and above all, surprising. They will not understand what happened and how it happened. They will see the results.” 

Neither the timing nor the scale and scope of a possible Israeli attack are known at this writing. It has been reported that at some point Israel’s Cabinet will vote on the attack plan. 

In any case, an Israeli attack on Iran would be yet another monstrous act of aggression, one with potentially catastrophic consequences for millions of people, potentially for humanity itself.³

For all the Biden-Harris blather about “protecting civilians” and avoiding escalation, the U.S. has already given its blessing. Right after Iran’s October 1 attack, Biden made clear the U.S. would help Israel “exact severe consequences,” and VP Kamala Harris did likewise. 

This message was reaffirmed this past week when Biden and Harris spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (aka Netan-Nazi) for the first time in two months. They condemned Iran and made clear America’s “ironclad” support for Israel. There was reportedly no talk of ceasefires or complaints about civilian casualties, much less condemnation of Israel’s unending war crimes and genocide.⁴

Instead, the U.S. has sent another 2,000-3,000 troops and several fighter jet squadrons to join its 40,000 troops that were already in the Middle East. Whatever differences the U.S. imperialists may or may not have with Israel about how to attack Iran, this gives Israel back-up and protection for whatever criminal act of aggression they carry out.   

Last week, we cited Bob Avakian’s social media dispatch REVOLUTION #87, and his analysis of the stakes in all this grows more important with each passing day:

In arming and backing the actions of Israel, the U.S. government is not only enabling the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians but is also increasing the possibility of a war with Iran, and perhaps an even wider and more destructive war. At the same time, by massively providing weapons, as well as intelligence and strategic direction to Ukraine, the U.S. government, headed by the Biden/Harris administration, is already indirectly at war with Russia, while also making preparations for military confrontation with China—all of which could lead to world war, between nuclear-armed imperialist powers, with the possibility of wiping out human civilization as we know it.

Stay attuned to developments and to revcom.us and @BobAvakianOfficial.