Last week, Joe Biden traveled to Israel to express firm support for its horrific and sadistic siege of Gaza, and its preparations for what will be an exponentially more destructive invasion of Gaza itself. (See “Israel Prepares High-Stakes Genocidal Assault Against Gaza.”) The deaths of Palestinians—which top 5,000 according to UN figures as we write this—are sure to mount even higher and the misery, trauma and heartbreak of those who survive such an invasion will itself be agonizing and scarring. And yet the Biden who wept for the Israeli dead quickly showed his fangs, hugging fascist Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and signaling firm U.S. backing.

Biden gave Israel new arms from existing U.S. stockpiles, and he had barely arrived home before he spoke to the nation to demand massive new infusions of murderous, high-tech weaponry into Israel. He coupled this with demands for new military aid for the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.¹ So, as Bob Avakian, or BA, has pointed out, Biden condemns Putin as a war criminal for the killing of civilians in Ukraine—while in the very same speech he joins with the whole ruling class of this country to support and provide yet more means for Israel to carry out the genocidal slaughter of Palestinian civilians. 

And what explains this clear contradiction? In the words of Bob Avakian:

What motivates Biden and the rest—what they mean by the “national interests” and the “security interests” of this country—is not concern for the lives or the rights of people, anywhere, but the murderously oppressive interests of the blood-soaked U.S. empire, which they are prepared to enforce with genocidal violence and even with the danger of wiping out human existence.

As Biden himself said in 1983, when he was a senator, “If there weren’t an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” What did he mean? The Middle East region of the world, where Israel has been implanted, is both a strategic crossroads between Africa, Asia and Europe and the home of a high percentage of the world’s oil, which is a strategic material for the functioning of the global economy. The U.S., half a world away, needs a militarily dominant power that can be relied on to make sure that U.S. imperial interests are protected and advanced against other imperialists—like Russia, China, etc.—and against the masses of people of that region. Israel is that power and that—not the “Jewish lobby”—is why Israel has received more U.S. military aid by far than any other power and why the U.S. always “stands up” for it when it carries out some atrocity or other in the protection of the imperialist interests of the U.S. in that region. That is why your government in your name sponsors and backs up this theocratic, settler-colonial, apartheid state—it is a critical linchpin in how the U.S. enforces its domination of the world.

The Clash of Imperial Gangsters

Russia and Iran, acting from their own interests within this imperialist system, are challenging elements of the way that the U.S. has for decades dominated Europe and, on a far more intense and at times extremely bloody and genocidal level, the Middle East.² We have analyzed elsewhere how Russia sees its imperial interests under attack in the increasingly aggressive U.S. moves to influence and control Ukraine in the past 20 years and how it felt forced to attack before Ukraine joined NATO, the U.S.-dominated military alliance in Europe. 

Iran—which less than a year ago brutally suppressed a righteous nationwide uprising against the oppression of women and more generally against the Islamic theocratic dictatorship in power less—aims to become a more dominant power in the Middle East. For years, Israel has seen Iran as its biggest rival in the region and Israel periodically carries out aggression against Iran, especially its nuclear power program (which Israel views as extremely dangerous).³ Iran, in turn, bankrolls and exerts great influence over powerful regional militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as Hamas itself. And increasingly Iran is aligning itself with Russia and China in its aims. (As a reflection of how forces are clashing around Gaza, last week the U.S. launched missiles to intercept what they said were Iranian-supplied missiles from the Houthis in Yemen aimed at Israel.)

Biden—and the larger imperialist class he represents, coming from their own interests—cannot tolerate the challenges from Iran and Russia, and from China looming behind and lending support to them. The wars in Ukraine and now in Israel/Palestine reflect and intensify that conflict. Both sides feel increasingly up against the wall. 

But none of this dangerous and high-stakes maneuvering on any side has anything to do with liberation for the masses. Nor is it just some kind of evil nature on any of their parts. It is the brute basic rule of the capitalist-imperialist system that dictates its root moral code and the behavior of these imperialists: dominate, or be dominated. Win, or go under. 

And it is the people of the entire planet who will pay the price. None of these powers necessarily wants to see this spin out of control; to the contrary. But the very rules of their system drive all of them into a dynamic that is beyond their control.

The Extreme Danger… and the Real Opportunity

How dangerous is this? Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times and a prominent advocate for the liberal, or at least non-fascist, wing of the U.S. imperialist ruling class, wrote this past week in a column he titled “Israel Is About to Make a Terrible Mistake,” that:

The hour is late. I have never written a column this urgent before because I have never been more worried about how this situation could spin out of control in ways that could damage Israel irreparably, damage U.S. interests irreparably... and destabilize the whole world.

Take a minute to pause on that. Friedman, as a cheerleader for U.S. imperialism, fears this invasion could spin out of control in ways to damage U.S. interests “irreparably” and that it could “destabilize the whole world.” And yet Biden, despite the pious advice of Thomas Friedman, steams ahead with a focus and intensity unusual for him. Why? Because in his calculations it would do far more “irreparable damage” to “U.S. interests” to not back up this genocidal invasion, with all the unimaginable butchery it threatens and all the very dire risks it entails.

But those interests that drive Biden’s calculations and actions are not our interests. The desperation that drives the gambles that Friedman so fears reflects the high-stakes rivalry among and risky maneuvering among the imperialists. 

Already, the fascist Republicans are opposing Biden—not over whether to pursue those bloody interests, for they are ALL very united around that—but over how best to do so.⁴ The awful suffering and even greater risks that these wars entail—including the risk of nuclear war—make the continued existence of this system all the more intolerable. The divisions between the rulers on foreign policy aggravate the fact that they can no longer agree on how to rule this system—a fact, which we have explained elsewhere, makes revolution more possible in these times.

There is no meaningful choice for the future here between the Democrats and the fascist Republicans. No. The only meaningful choice is between the certainty of something terrible… or the possibility of something truly emancipating through revolution—nothing less. THAT is the stark choice before us—more horror and more risk of civilization-ending war, environmental disaster, and the persistence of oppressive social relations, whether presided over by Democrats or Republicans—OR revolution to move to a whole better way to live and a fundamentally different system.

Which one will you take? The clock is furiously ticking.