We, the people of the world, can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. They need to be overthrown as quickly as possible. And it is a scientific fact that we do not have to live this way.

• Bob Avakian, revolutionary leader, author of the new communism

That truth from Bob Avakian has rung out with special insistence over these past weeks and months, as Israel has continued to ratchet up its aggression in the Middle East in a manic fashion. 

On July 31, Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, the chief negotiator for Hamas, as he stayed in a guest house in Iran. This took place on the very day Iran’s new president was being inaugurated, making it an incredible, humiliating punch in the jaw for Iran. 

Since that time, the Israelis have gone on a rampage. They launched massive attacks against the Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim fundamentalist militia Hezbollah, including assassinating its top leader and key members of its top command, and then followed that up with a ground invasion and bombings that have taken at least 1,800 lives, including at least 65 health care workers. 

As revcom.us analyzed, “This whole conflict now poses the very real danger of breaking totally out of control, up to the point of nuclear war.¹

This past week, this conflict intensified and became even more dangerous.

Israel Moves to Assault Iran

Last week, the Washington Post reported that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (aka Netan-Nazi) directly told President Biden that Israel was preparing to attack Iran within the next several weeks, before the U.S. elections on November 5. Netanyahu also reportedly said that Israel would attack military targets, but not Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities. 

The U.S. quickly declared its support for Israel’s plans and deployed a THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system, one of the U.S.’s most advanced systems, to be stationed at an Israeli military base. The U.S. also deployed 100 specially trained soldiers necessary to operate this missile battery. “This action underscores the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel, and to defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks by Iran,” the Pentagon stated.

The deployment of the THAAD battery and 100 troops marks the first significant deployment over the past year of U.S. troops to Israel, and the U.S.’s most direct involvement in Israel’s wars and attacks. 

This itself is a serious escalation—with U.S. forces directly involved in Israel’s military campaigns, from Israeli territory. (U.S. forces did participate in shooting down Iranian missiles aimed at Israel in April and early October, but those forces were not stationed in Israel.) Sending the highly sophisticated THAAD system that can deal with multiple incoming missiles now, may well indicate U.S. knowledge of and preparation for the scale and scope of Israel’s expected strike against Iran and the wider war that it may provoke.

This new deployment comes on top of a massive flood of U.S. weapons that have been sent to Israel following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.² Over the past year, the U.S. had shipped more than 50,000 tons of armaments and equipment to Israel, and spent nearly $23 billion on Israel’s military and operations related to its ongoing wars and military assaults against Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran. The U.S. sees all these forces as obstacles to its domination of the Middle East region, which is crucial to the functioning of its imperialist system, a system resting on the grinding exploitation, torturous deprivation, and merciless oppression of literally billions of people.

These forces are supported and financed by Iran and call themselves the Axis of Resistance. This Axis of Resistance receives substantial political backing and carries out significant trade with Russia and China. So, on one side you have the dominant imperialist force—the U.S.-led bloc which includes Israel as its “regional cop” and junior partner—and on the other you have the up-and-coming wannabe dominators, led by Iran and looking to rival imperialists to the U.S. as their sponsors.  

Neither is a force for liberation; but by far the U.S., with its Israeli attack dog, is the greater oppressor and those within the U.S. have the responsibility to fiercely oppose it and do everything possible to STOP this horror and, now, the extremely dangerous and lunatic escalation of what is already a regional war.

U.S. Bombs Yemen, Sends a Message

In another sign of the U.S.’s increasingly direct participation in this regional war, on October 17, B-2 “Stealth” war planes bombed five different sites in Yemen which the U.S. claimed were underground Houthi weapons facilities. The use of these B-2 bombers is very rare, because they are the only U.S. war planes that can carry the heaviest bombs—including the 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bomb, which the U.S. would have to use to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. 

The Pentagon claimed the goal was to prevent Houthis from attacking shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, but also to send a message to Iran: “The employment of U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrate U.S. global strike capabilities to take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere.”³

Limited and Restrained? No! Dangerous and Aggressive

Israel’s apparent decision not to attack Iran’s nuclear or oil systems is being presented by the U.S. rulers as an act of “restraint,” designed to avoid a wider war.  

It is anything but. First, the U.S. deployment of the THAAD missile defense battery and 100 troops is directly aiding Israel’s coming attack on Iran (by protecting it from retaliation), which could be very large and destructive even without hitting Iran’s oil or nuclear infrastructures. And that in turn could force Iran to escalate further. (One Israeli official said Israel’s assurances not to hit nuclear or energy targets “applied only to its next attack—meaning that it could still pursue more ambitious targets in future rounds of fighting with Iran.⁴)

Further, U.S. troops are now in the direct line of fire, and if any are killed in an Iranian retaliation, Israel could use that as a justification to further escalate and the U.S. could be drawn even more directly into a major war on Iran, a war which could spread beyond the Middle East. 

Who Shot First? Or Who’s Doing the Shooting? 

And all Israeli actions as well as U.S. actions supporting Israel are presented as being “defensive”—done because Hamas, or Hezbollah, or Iran, or whomever struck first. Of course any one of these groups can point to attacks by Israel (or the U.S. for that matter) that “came first,” or preceded Israel’s latest atrocity.

In his social media dispatch REVOLUTION #77 @BobAvakianOfficial, Genocidal Mass Murderers Cannot Be Enlightened ‘Liberators,’” the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (BA) cuts through the lies and smokescreens and gets to the heart of the matter: 

In determining the essential nature of any war, the crucial and decisive question is not “who fired the first shot?” or “who initiated the conflict?” No, the essential factor is: what is the nature of the opposing sides in that war?

And what is the nature of the U.S. and Israel, the side people in this country are being called on to enlist in and defend?

Biden is fully backing Israel because Israel plays a “special role” as a heavily armed bastion of support for U.S. imperialism in a strategically important part of the world (the “Middle East”).

And Israel has been a key force in the commission of atrocities which have helped to maintain the oppressive rule of U.S. imperialism in many other parts of the world.

At This Very Perilous Moment… 

The U.S. imperialists and Israel are nuclear armed powers. They are, once again, increasing the possibility of a major war with Iran—a war that could spread across the Middle East, and draw in other major, nuclear armed powers like Russia and China. This danger is real, and it could literally cost millions, even billions, their lives. 

The U.S. and Israel aren’t risking humanity’s future for some just or noble cause! They’re doing it for the most foul, unjust cause there is: the preservation of the blood-drenched, planet-killing system of U.S. capitalism-imperialism and its Middle East henchman, the genocidal apartheid state of Israel.

There is nothing more meaningful and important that people can do—right now—than engage Bob Avakian’s work and leadership @BobAvakianOfficial—and get with THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity that he’s leading. It’s the only real way out of the apocalyptic madness humanity is hurtling toward. 

Stay tuned to revcom.us for further alerts on this rapidly changing and very dangerous situation.