The Laurel and Hardy negotiating team of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, coupled with Trump’s appalling ignorance of world affairs and megalomania, seem set to push the U.S. into yet another debacle in the Middle East, one the Congress has not approved, and the public does not want.
The demands imposed on Iran by the Trump White House are no more acceptable to the regime in Tehran than those imposed on Hamas in Gaza under Trump’s sham peace plan.
Trump’s demand that Iran shut down its nuclear program and give up its missile capabilities in return for no new sanctions is as tone deaf as calling on Hamas to disarm in Gaza.
But since we have long dispensed with diplomats, who are linguistically, politically and culturally literate, who can step into the shoes of their adversaries, we are being led to another war in the Middle East by our newest coterie of buffoons.
The U.S. and Israel foolishly believe they can bomb their way to decapitating the Iranian government and installing a client regime. That this non-reality-based belief system failed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya eludes them.
The promise of no new sanctions will not incentivize Iran to broker an agreement. Iran is already crippled by onerous sanctions that have gutted its economy.
This will do nothing to break the economic stranglehold.
Iran will not give up its nuclear program, which has the potential to be weaponized, or its ballistic missile program, which Israel said it would target in an air attack.
Israel’s reputed nuclear arsenal of some 300 warheads is a powerful incentive for Iran to retain the capacity to build a nuclear arsenal of its own. Iran, like Hamas, is never going to render itself defenseless against those seeking its annihilation.
An aerial attack on Iran will not be like the 12-day assault last June against Iran’s nuclear facilities and state and security facilities.
Then Iran calibrated its response with symbolic strikes on Al Udeid air base in Qatar in the hopes that it would not lead to a wider, protracted conflict.
If an aerial assault is launched, Iran will have nothing to lose. It will understand that appeasing its adversaries is impossible.
Iran is not Iraq. Iran is not Afghanistan. Iran is not Lebanon. Iran is not Libya. Iran is not Syria. Iran is not Yemen.
Iran is the seventeenth largest country in the world, with a land mass equivalent to the size of Western Europe. It has a population of almost 90 million — 10 times greater than Israel — and its military resources, as well as alliances with China and Russia, make it a formidable opponent.
The Strait of Hormuz and the Musandam Peninsula on Dec. 6, 2018. (MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain)
Despite Iran’s relative military weakness, when set against the combined forces of the U.S. and Israel, it can inflict a lot of damage. It will do this as swiftly as possible.
Hundreds of American troops will likely be killed. Iran will certainly shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil chokepoint that facilitates the passage of 20 percent of the world’s oil supply.
This will double or triple the price of oil and devastate the global economy. It will target oil installations along with U.S. ships and military bases in the region.
Mounting losses and a huge spike in oil prices will provide the fodder for Trump, and his vile counterpart in Israel, to ignite a sustained regional war.
This is the cost of being governed by imbeciles. God help us.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”
According to The Washington Post, the US has shifted at least 150 military aircraft to Europe and the Mideast over the past week as it prepares for a potential attack on Iran
Twelve US F-22 Raptor fighter jets that departed the UK on Tuesday have arrived at an Israeli Air Force base in southern Israel, Ynet has reported, as the US continues its massive military buildup in the Middle East to prepare for a potential attack on Iran.
The F-22s arrived in the UK last week, part of the more than 150 US military aircraft that have shifted to Europe and the Middle East since February 17, as tracked by The Washington Post.
An Israeli official speaking to China’s Xinhua news agency about the US F-22 deployment said that the Israeli military is preparing for all possible scenarios, including an “Iranian attack or retaliatory strike.” The US defended Israel from Iranian retaliatory strikes during the 12-Day War in June 2025, though many missiles got through US air defenses.
A US F-22 Raptor fighter jet takes off from the Savannah Air National Guard Base in Georgia on January 23, 2026 (US Air National Guard photo)
The Ynet report said that the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford is still heading east in the Mediterranean Sea and has passed Crete. Once it arrives near Israel’s coast, it will be the second US aircraft carrier positioned in the region to prepare for an attack on Iran, joining the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been operating in the Arabian Sea.
US officials previously told The New York Times that Ford and its three destroyer escorts are likely to be initially deployed near the coast of Israel to defend Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities and towns. The US defended Israel from Iranian counterattacks during the 12-Day War, though many Iranian missiles got through US air defenses, which included US Navy destroyers firing SM-3 missiles.
The Ford was deployed to the Mediterranean after spending several months in the Caribbean, where it supported “Operation Southern Spear,” the US military mission that involved bombing small boats and the attack on Venezuela to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The crew of the Ford has been on an extended deployment and will break the post-Vietnam War US carrier deployment record if it remains at sea through mid-April.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has entrusted Iran‘s top national security official with the survival of the country in the case of attacks or assassination, a report by The New York Times said.
According to the report published on Sunday, several senior officials and members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps told the daily that Khamenei has issued a series of directives aimed at securing Tehran’s governance.
This includes four layers of succession for military and government posts he appointed, alongside instructions given to senior officials to name up to four replacements.
In the case that communication with him is obstructed or he is killed, Khamenei has also delegated responsibilities to a close-knit group of confidants, based on information shared with the Times by senior officials, diplomats and military commanders.
Ali Larijani is named in the article among the handful of close political and military associates who will ensure the survival of Iran in the event of US-Israel attacks or the assassination of Tehran’s top leadership.
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The security chief was appointed in August as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, the body that holds ultimate authority over the country’s security and foreign policy decisions.
During the 12-day war with Israel in June, Khamenei named three candidates who would potentially succeed him.
While Larijani is almost certainly not among the contenders for the title of Supreme Leader, as he is not a senior Shia cleric which is necessary for the role, he is among the top candidates for managing the country if Iran’s upper echelon is wiped out, the report said.
Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker, and former president Hassan Rouhani are also among those listed by sources as possible leaders.
What Larijani’s return as security tsar reveals about Iran
The report also makes mention of contact between Washington and Tehran amid the unrest in Iran.
According to the Times, American envoy to the region Steve Witkoff sought to reach the country’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, following US President Donald Trump’s threats to strike Iran if it killed protesters.
Araghchi then asked President Masoud Pezeshkian for authorisation to communicate back to Witkoff, but was directed by Pezeshkian to get approval from Larijani instead, underscoring his role.
The report indicates that the president appears resigned to deferring authority to Larijani.
Against this backdrop of US-Iran tensions, speculation on Khamenei’s next moves comes amid growing tensions despite diplomatic talks this week between the two countries.
The talks were a last-ditch attempt to avert threatened military action by the US, with Khamenei warning Trump on Tuesday he would not be able to “destroy” the Islamic Republic.
According to AFP, talks were being held discreetly, with diplomatic police blocking the private access road to Oman’s residence in the municipality of Cologny.
USS Gerald R. Ford [Photo: US Navy/Seaman Alyssa Joy]
The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest warship ever built, transited the Strait of Gibraltar on Friday and entered the Mediterranean, placing the United States within days of having the military force in position for a massive illegal assault on Iran.
Two US officials told Reuters on Friday that military planning had reached “an advanced stage,” with options including “targeting individuals” and “pursuing leadership change in Tehran.” Asked whether he was considering a limited strike, US President Donald Trump told reporters: “I guess I can say I am considering that.”
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the buildup had “progressed to the point” that Trump could take military action “as soon as this weekend.” More than 50 fighter jets, two carrier strike groups and dozens of refueling tankers have been deployed. B-2 bombers have been placed on higher alert.
The Wall Street Journal detailed the hardware pouring into the region: F-35 and F-22 stealth fighters, F-15Es, F-16s, EA-18G electronic warfare jets, nine destroyers armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the submarine USS Georgia. The Associated Press called it “the largest force of American warships and aircraft to the Middle East in decades.”
An attack on Iran would constitute a war of aggression—the “supreme international crime”—as defined at the Nuremberg trials. Iran has not attacked the United States. There is no UN Security Council authorization. There is no congressional authorization. Trump has made clear he regards none of this as a constraint. “I don’t need international law,” he told the New York Times in January.
The threat of attack comes as Iran’s government has been desperately appealing to the Trump administration to negotiate. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday that a draft counterproposal would be ready “in the next two, three days” following indirect talks in Geneva this week and that a deal could be achieved “in a very short period of time.”
Iran’s diplomatic efforts will count for nothing, because for the Trump administration “diplomacy” is merely a pretext and cover for murder and extortion. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro sought to negotiate with the Trump administration in the months before the January raid that seized him and his wife, offering as late as the day before to discuss a deal.
The same fraud was carried out against Iran last year. The White House gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum. Five rounds of talks were held. On June 8, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff sat in a war-planning session at Camp David alongside the CIA director and defense secretary. Five days later, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, bombing more than 100 targets and assassinating senior commanders and nuclear scientists. On June 22, seven B-2 bombers launched Operation Midnight Hammer, striking Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Iran’s foreign minister told the UN: “We were attacked in the midst of an ongoing diplomatic process.”
The White House demands total capitulation—no uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, dismantling of the ballistic missile program and abandonment of regional allies. US officials say privately they see no prospect of Iran meeting these terms. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that if Iran refuses to comply after an “initial limited military strike,” “the US would respond with a broad campaign against regime facilities—potentially aimed at toppling the Tehran regime.”
The war against Iran is a component of the eruption of American militarism all over the world. The carrier now entering the Mediterranean to attack Iran was redeployed from the Caribbean, where it took part in the seizure of Venezuelan President Maduro. The attack on Venezuela, the threatened seizure of Greenland and the Panama Canal, and the war against Iran are components of a single strategy: the use of military power to control the world’s critical resources and chokepoints in preparation for conflict with Russia and China.
There is overwhelming opposition to war with Iran. A Quinnipiac poll in January found 70 percent of voters oppose military action. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found 69 percent say the US should not get involved in Middle East military action unless directly threatened.
Despite this public opposition, the Democratic Party has systematically enabled Trump’s war preparations, because it speaks for the same constituency in the capitalist ruling class, which sees the colonial subjugation of the whole world as a means to prop up US global hegemony.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia told MS NOW on February 14: “I think it’s appropriate the president has all the options on the table.”
On Friday, Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey issued a bipartisan statement with Republican Representative Mike Lawler of New York explicitly opposing a resolution by Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna that would prohibit the use of military force against Iran without congressional authorization. “This resolution would restrict the flexibility needed to respond to real and evolving threats and risks signaling weakness at a dangerous moment,” they wrote. “Congress must not limit our ability to protect Americans and our allies.”
Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania declared on Newsmax on February 11 his support for bombing Iran, pledging to vote against any war powers resolution. “I absolutely was fully supportive and was cheering for that Midnight Hammer,” he said. “And, now, if that’s required for a second round, I’ll be the one Democrat to absolutely say that’s entirely appropriate.”
On Friday, as the Ford entered the Mediterranean and the administration announced plans for “leadership change” and “targeting individuals,” neither House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, nor Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, nor the leaders of the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party—Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who last weekend at the Munich Security Conference repeated the administration’s regime change talking points about Iran—issued any statement.
The Democrats have voted to fund every weapon now being assembled for this attack. The $901 billion National Defense Authorization Act passed the House 312-112 in December, with 115 Democrats voting yes. In the Senate, it passed 77-20 with the vast majority of Democrats in favor. In January, 149 House Democrats voted for $839 billion in defense appropriations.
The report said that the base would take up more than 350 acres of land in southern Gaza and is envisioned as a future base for the international force that may deploy to the Strip under President Trump’s plan for the Palestinian territory, though so far, only Indonesia has announced plans to commit troops to the force.
A photograph shows tents at a makeshift camp sheltering displaced Palestinians in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, on February 16, 2026. (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto)
The Guardian said that the plans it reviewed “call for the phased construction of a military outpost that will eventually have a footprint of 1,400 metres by 1,100 metres, ringed by 26 trailer-mounted armored watch towers, a small arms range, bunkers, and a warehouse for military equipment for operations. The entire base will be encircled with barbed wire.”
The contracting document includes protocol for what happens if construction teams come across human remains, since the bodies of at least 8,000 Palestinians are missing under the rubble. “If suspected human remains or cultural artifacts are discovered, all work in the immediate area must cease immediately, the area must be secured, and the Contracting Officer must be notified immediately for direction,” the document says.
It’s unclear how much the base would cost to build, but earlier reports suggested the US was planning to construct a major military facility on the Gaza border at a cost of between $500 million and $600 million.
Trump convened his first “Board of Peace” meeting in Washington on Thursday, which came as Israel continues to violate the ceasefire deal, killing more than 600 Palestinians in the Strip since it was signed. At the event, Trump pledged that the US would contribute $10 billion to the board.
Under Trump’s plan for Gaza, the international force is supposed to replace IDF soldiers, who continue to occupy more than 50% of the Strip. But there’s no timeline on when that would happen, and Israel is threatening to restart its full-scale genocidal war if Hamas doesn’t disarm.
A Trump advisor told Axios that there’s a 90% chance the US launches an attack in the coming weeks, while Israeli sources say it could happen within days
The Trump administration is close to launching a major attack on Iran as it continues a massive buildup of military forces in the Middle East, according to a report from Axios reporter Barak Ravid.
Sources told Ravid that the potential US attack on Iran would likely be a massive multi-week operation, much bigger than the US operation to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. They said it would also be much broader in scope than the 12-day US-Israeli war on Iran that was launched in June 2025. Reuters also recently reported that the US was preparing for a sustained, multi-week attack on Iran.
Israeli officials said that the Israeli government, which is pushing for the US to pursue regime change in Iran, is preparing for the possibility of the attack starting in the coming days, and CNN later reported that the US military is ready to start the war as soon as this weekend. Other sources put the timeline a little later, saying the war would likely start in a few weeks.
An F/A-18F Super Hornet makes an arrested landing on the flight deck ofthe aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea, January 30, 2026 (US Navy photo)
“The boss is getting fed up,” a Trump adviser told Ravid. “Some people around him warn him against going to war with Iran, but I think there is 90% chance we see kinetic action in the next few weeks.”
The Axios report noted that there has been little public debate about the potential war amid the major US military buildup and said that Americans will likely be surprised by the scale of the coming attack.
All signs indicate that if the US bombs Iran, Tehran will not hold back in its response and could target multiple US bases and warships in the region, leaving open the possibility that the war could result in hundreds or thousands of US casualties. The conflict could also have a major impact on the global economy, as Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 31% of seaborne crude oil shipments passed in 2025.
The US and Iran held talks on Tuesday, and while the Iranian side said there was a “clear path” toward a deal, US Vice President JD Vance said that Iran was not acknowledging President Trump’s “red lines.”
Vance claimed the main US demand was that Iran must not pursue a nuclear weapon, but for many months, the administration had insisted the June 2025 US strikes on Iran “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities, and there’s no sign Tehran can enrich uranium at the moment. Iran has also made clear it’s willing to enter a deal that would involve a commitment to low enrichment levels, and Iranian officials maintain they don’t seek a nuclear bomb.
The real goal of any US attack on Iran will likely be regime change or taking out Iran’s ability to fire missiles at Israel. President Trump said back in December, when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-lago resort in Florida, that he would support another Israeli attack on Iran if the Islamic Republic “continued” its missile program.
An empty warehouse is seen in Chester, New York on February 8, 2026. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement proposes a facility at a warehouse roughly two hours from New York City, but many locals and officials have objected to the plan.
(Photo by Matthew Hoen/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours,” wrote talk show host Thom Hartmann recently. “History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting.”
President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda has supercharged opposition in cities where he has deployed federal agents to conduct raids, and communities in states including New York and Missouri are already working to block the next step the Department of Homeland Security plans to take in its push for mass deportations: acquiring massive warehouses across the country to use as immigrant detention centers.
US immigration and Customs Enforcement documents that were provided to Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire—one of the states where ICE aims to acquire a building and retrofit it to house at least 1,000 people at a time—show that the administration plans to spend $38.3 billion on its mass detention plan.
It would buy 16 buildings across the country to use as “regional processing centers” that could hold 1,000-1,500 people. Another eight detention centers would hold as many as 10,000 people at a time, with the detainees awaiting deportation.
The Washington Postreported that a review of state budget data showed that the amount of money the White House intends to pour into the project over the next several months is larger than the total annual spending of 22 US states.
“Thirty-eight billion dollars,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.). “That’s what Trump is spending to turn warehouses into human holding facilities. Not on schools. Not on healthcare. Not on veterans. On warehousing humans.”
Moulton also condemned ICE’s claim that the new network of detention facilities will ensure the “safe and humane civil detention” of immigrants.
At least six people died in ICE detention centers in January, and one of the deaths, that of Geraldo Lunas Campos at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, was ruled a homicide.
Medical neglect and abusive treatment—including some that amounts to torture—has been reported at multiple facilities.
ICE has already spent more than $690 million purchasing at least eight warehouses in Maryland, Arizona, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in recent weeks. Documents posted on Ayotte’s website show the agency is pursuing additional acquisitions in New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Georgia.
Communities are already rallying against the plan and questioning whether the small towns ICE has selected have sufficient water and sewer infrastructure to support thousands of people detained in a warehouse.
In New York, Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) said last week that 25,000 people in his district have signed a petition opposing the use of a local warehouse to house immigrants and pointed to the “major corruption and graft” evident in the plan to purchase and run the warehouses.
“The site in my district that’s proposed is owned by one of Trump’s multibillionaire donors, who would directly financially benefit from this site,” said Ryan, referring to former Trump adviser Carl Icahn.
As Common Dreamsreported Friday, private prison firm GEO Group raked in a record $254 million in profits last year as it secured contracts with the Trump administration to build new ICE facilities across the US.
ICE has attempted to make purchases in Oklahoma City; Kansas City, Missouri; and in Virginia, but those plans have fallen through, with the Kansas City Council passing a five-year ban on new nonmunicipal detention centers after the public learned that DHS was the potential buyer of a warehouse in the city.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has also joined his constituents in speaking out against ICE’s $100 million purchase of a warehouse in his state to house at least 1,000 people at a time.
“This administration is spitting in the face of communities from Minneapolis to Maryland and wasting our tax dollars. We won’t back down,” said Van Hollen late last month.
The details of the administration’s planned conversion of warehouses were reported less than two weeks after Pablo Manríquez of Migrant Insiderrevealed that a US Navy contract originally valued at $10 billion “has ballooned to a staggering $55 billion ceiling to expedite President Donald Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ agenda” and to help build “a sprawling network of migrant detention centers across the US.”
At Common Dreams last week, talk show host and author Thom Hartmannwrote that the warehouses Trump plans to use to hold people—purchased by an agency whose own data shows it has largely been detaining people with no criminal records—are best described as concentration camps like those used in Nazi Germany.
“By the end of his first year, [Adolf] Hitler had around 50,000 people held in his roughly 70 concentration camps, facilities that were often improvised in factories, prisons, castles, and other buildings,” wrote Hartmann. “By comparison, today ICE is holding over 70,000 people in 225 concentration camps across America,” with hopes to “more than double both numbers in the coming months.”
“Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours; both started as facilities for people the government’s leader said were a problem. And that’s exactly what ICE is building now,” he continued. “History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting.”
President Donald Trump listens as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during an arrival at his Mar-a-Lago club, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Florida. [AP Photo/Alex Brandon]
US President Donald Trump held a three-hour war council at the White House Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss plans for a massive military assault on Iran. America’s would-be dictator has repeatedly vowed that a new war would dwarf last June’s 12-day US-Israeli aerial bombardment of Iran, which killed more than a thousand Iranians, the vast majority of them civilians.
The US has surged vast amounts of military personnel and firepower to the region since the beginning of the year, while Trump and his aides have issued a steady drumbeat of bellicose threats.
Led by the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier, an American armada now surrounds Iran’s shores. Warships bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles and F-35 and F-18 fighter jets are deployed in the Arabian Sea, at the Strait of Hormuz and further north in the Persian Gulf off Qatar. Tracking data also indicates a massive influx of Globemaster C-17 US military cargo planes arriving at US military bases across the region, bearing no doubt all manner of weapon systems, missiles and other munitions.
On Tuesday, Trump said he may soon dispatch a second “armada,” that is, a second aircraft carrier battle group to the region. According to reports, the US Navy is now poised to start seizing tankers transporting Iranian oil, ratcheting up Washington’s decades-long campaign to strangle the Iranian economy through sweeping sanctions that are themselves tantamount to an act of war.
The US started seizing tankers off Venezuela shortly before last month’s illegal attack on the South American country, the kidnapping of its president and Trump’s announcement that Washington has seized its vast oil reserves.
The pathological liar Trump claims that he is pursuing “negotiations” with Iran in the hopes of avoiding a military clash. What a monstrous fraud! The talks are a mafia-style “shakedown,” with Tehran being given the choice between capitulation and war.
Following Wednesday’s meeting with Netanyahu, Trump said his “preference” would be for a “deal,” then menacingly added, “Last time Iran decided that they were better off not making a Deal, they were hit with Midnight Hammer (the US military’s name for its June 21-22 attack on Iranian nuclear facilities). That did not work well for them.”
Earlier Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance similarly threatened Iran. At the end of a trip to Iran’s northern neighbours, Armenia andAzerbaijan, Vance told reporters that Trump has “a lot of options” to attack Iran “because we have the most powerful military in the world.”
Driven by predatory imperialist aims, this policy is not just aggressive. It is reckless and could rapidly culminate in a catastrophic war.
The massive deployment of US military power to the region has its own political and military logic. With ships carrying thousands of military personnel and billions of dollars in weaponry deployed to the region, pressure to use them will grow. The most aggressive sections of the financial elite and military-security establishment will argue that failure to act carries its own risks, from a potential preemptive Iranian attack to appearing “weak.”
In the event of Iranian counterstrikes from any action, the resort of a rattled Trump administration to the use of tactical nuclear weapons is entirely possible.
Washington is demanding Iran forsake its sovereign right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to a civil nuclear program; cease all support to Hamas, Hezbollah and the other members of its “Axis of Resistance”; and accept sweeping limits on its ballistic missile program. Acceptance of these demands would leave Iran defenceless and powerless in the face of US and Israeli aggression and reduce it effectively to the status of a semi-colony.
Iran is a historically oppressed country whose development has been indelibly misshaped and thwarted over the past century and a half by its encounter with first British and then US imperialism. It must be defended against imperialist aggression irrespective of the anti-working class character of its Shia clergy-led, bourgeois nationalist regime.
With the support of the Democratic Party and the pliant corporate media, Trump has advanced various pretexts to justify the escalating military aggression against Iran. From stopping nuclear proliferation to “defending” the Iranian people from state repression, each is more grotesque than the last.
Ten years ago, under the UN-backed Iran nuclear accord, Tehran agreed to dismantle most of its civil nuclear program and to subject the remainder to the most intrusive regime of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) surveillance ever devised. Yet in 2018, Trump torpedoed the accord and unilaterally imposed a punishing regime of sanctions, enforced through Washington and Wall Street’s control of the world financial system, with the express aim of crashing Iran’s economy and triggering regime change.
The US ruling class and its political representatives, Democratic and Republican alike, have no more interest in the democratic rights of the workers and rural toilers of Iran than they do those of the Palestinians, or those who live under the Gulf state absolutist monarchies and the blood-soaked dictatorship of Egypt’s General el-Sisi.
Washington has never reconciled itself to its “loss of Iran” as the result of the 1979 anti-imperialist upsurge that toppled the tyrannical regime of the US-installed Shah. For decades it has relentlessly pursued regime-change through sanctions, threats, sabotage and military aggression.
The impending attack on Iran arises directly out of the bipartisan project—initiated under Biden and continued seamlessly under the second Trump administration—to violently fashion a “New Middle East,” using Israel as American imperialism’s attack dog. Since October 2023, Washington and Israel have gone on a rampage across the region, using aggression, war and, in Gaza, outright genocide to establish a Greater Israel within a Middle East under unbridled US domination.
By seizing control of the Middle East, which in addition to being the world’s most important oil-exporting region lies at the juncture of three continents containing more than 90 percent of the world’s population, American imperialism hopes to gain a stranglehold over all its great power rivals, beginning with China.
Terrified of the working class, Iran’s beleaguered bourgeois regime is incapable of making any progressive appeal to the masses of the region, let alone the workers of the world, for a joint struggle against imperialism. When Trump boasts that Tehran is desperate for a deal, he no doubt for once speaks the truth. On Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that the country would open up its nuclear sites for “any verification,” in an apparent attempt to reach some sort of accommodation. Available from Mehring BooksThe struggle against imperialism and for workers’ power in IranA pamphlet by Keith Jones
But the Islamic Republic’s repeated attempts to negotiate a rapprochement with Washington stretching back to the early 1990s have been rebuffed time and again.
American imperialism, meanwhile, has suffered a massive erosion of its global economic power making it only the more desperate and predatory. The gangster Trump is the personification of its harebrained ambition to rule the world.
Based on its publicly stated positions, Tehran views acceptance of Trump’s demands as regime suicide. In the event of an attack, it has vowed to strike back at US bases across the region and at Israel. On Wednesday, the 47th anniversary of the Shah’s overthrow, millions, including many who no doubt have profound grievances with the current regime, took to the streets across Iran to voice their opposition to US imperialist aggression.
The course of events in the next days and weeks remains uncertain. But Trump and US imperialism could at any time set the Middle East ablaze, recklessly initiating a regime-change war against a country of 93 million people that could rapidly engulf the entire region and draw in other great powers.
The Trump administration, moreover, is beset by crisis. It confronts mass opposition to its ICE-led terror campaign against immigrants and, more broadly, its drive to establish a presidential dictatorship, and a growing strike movement involving teachers, health sector and other industrial workers. The Epstein scandal has implicated the entire political and financial elite—and Trump, members of his cabinet and key billionaire supporters directly—in a network of venality and criminality, where obscene wealth provides impunity.
Trump could well see a foreign war against an enemy long vilified by the American media as a means of extricating himself and his administration from its myriad crises. Undoubtedly, he would seize on a war with Iran to intensify his operation dictatorship, including by labeling antiwar protesters treasonous.
War is a well-trodden path for governments and ruling classes facing intractable problems and mounting social opposition. That was the gamble many of Europe’s leaders took in 1914, most famously Nicholas II, the Russian Czar toppled in the first stage of the revolution that brought the working class to power under the Bolsheviks in October 1917.
A jackal is never more vicious and dangerous than when it is wounded. American imperialism and the global capitalist system that it has politically and economically backstopped for most of the past century are visibly rotting on their feet. The same objective processes that are impelling imperialism, led by the United States, to aggression and world war, are fueling a global upsurge of the working class that can and must be infused with a socialist perspective.
Workers in the United States and around the world must come to the defence of the Iranian people, demand the immediate withdrawal of all US military forces from the Middle East and the rescinding of all sanctions on Iran as part of the development of a global movement against war.
The fight against war is a fight against capitalism. It must be based on the revolutionary mobilization of the international working class. Opposition to rearmament and war must be linked to the struggle to defend workers’ living standards and social and democratic rights, oppose oligarchy and dictatorship and for social equality.
“We have a master plan … There is no Plan B,” remarked Jared Kushner last month, during a Board of Peace (BoP) presentation about Gaza reconstruction at the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos. What has become apparent is that no coherent Plan A exists either.
Although Kushner’s father-in-law, US President Donald Trump, was granted the legitimacy to build what he calls the BoP on the back of pledges to implement his “20-point peace plan” and Gaza ceasefire, the BoP’s charter is notably absent of any reference to Gaza.
Furthermore, United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2803, which legally authorized the BoP and was explicitly about the Gaza ceasefire, was deliberately vague on how any concepts proposed in the resolution would be implemented. It deliberately avoided outlining any mechanisms or obligations for reconstruction. Instead, two parallel schemes emerged.
The first was the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust (GREAT Trust) – a 38-page document proposing to pay Palestinians $5,000 each to leave the territory. Crafted by Israeli figures previously involved in the discredited Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the plan, which envisions “AI-powered, smart cities,” was less a roadmap for peace than a blueprint for ethnic cleansing.
That same foundation, backed by US private military contractors (PMCs), had already drawn international condemnation for herding civilians into “aid zones” only to open fire. More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed in those operations.
PowerPoint colonialism
Later, in December, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) exposed that another proposal was put into circulation among US-allied nations in the Arab and Muslim world. The 32-page PowerPoint presentation, titled “Project Sunrise,” was set forth by Kushner and US envoy Steve Witkoff.
Like the preceding proposal, the new vision outlined a similar AI-smart city model, but added even more elements, such as high-speed rail infrastructure. According to the PowerPoint slides, the total cost of this 10-year reconstruction endeavor would amount to $112.1 billion, for which the US would commit to footing 20 percent of the bill.
Back then, Steven Cook, a senior fellow for the Middle East Program at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, told WSJ that “they can make all the slides they want,” adding that “no one in Israel thinks they will move beyond the current situation and everyone is okay with that.” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had even expressed his concerns over how realistic the plan will be, especially when it comes to potential foreign investment.
Then came Kushner’s presentation at Davos, which instantly made headlines and was presented as a brand new proposal called the “master plan.” According to Kushner, the project for a “new Gaza” would now only cost $25 billion.
However, upon further investigation, it is clear that what Kushner was presenting was simply “Project Sunrise,” which was evident as the PowerPoint he used was filled with the same exact slides from December. In other words, nothing particularly new was being placed on the table that had not already been released over a month prior.
“New Gaza” is a lab rat colony
Speaking to The Cradle, Akram, a Gaza resident from Al-Bureij, states that the situation on the ground does not reflect any of the positivity that appears in the media. “The Israelis won’t let us even have mobile homes or proper structures to live in, they still bomb us every day, and then we see AI images of Gaza becoming richer than Israeli cities?” he says, with bitter sarcasm. He added:
“Listen, do you really think they carried out genocide for two years and destroyed all our homes, only to build us a paradise, and that this will all happen if the resistance gives up its weapons? No. They are trying to tease us, like they always did, by saying, ‘if you give up your weapons, you will become Singapore.’ Nobody believes it.”
Shortly after Akram spoke to The Cradle, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech to a special session of the Knesset, in which he made it clear that “the next stage is not reconstruction.” Instead, he asserted that disarmament would characterize Phase 2 of the ceasefire.
These figures are also dated, having been produced in July 2024, so they do not account for over a year of destruction. Israel has not stopped its round-the-clock demolition of Palestinian infrastructure since the so-called ceasefire took effect on 8 October 2025.
A humanitarian NGO official working in Gaza tells The Cradle that even the ceasefire’s Civil Military Coordination Center (CMCC), ostensibly set up to enforce humanitarian standards, now functions as a system of “intimidation” that “violates basic morality.”
On 21 January, Drop Site Newsreported on leaked documents that revealed plans to create an “Israeli Panopticon” city, to be constructed in territory remaining under its control in southern Gaza’s Rafah. The Guardian then reported that the UAE is seeking to bankroll the project. The leaked blueprints described a “case study” city where residents would be monitored around the clock, like lab rats, and forced to submit biometrics to enter.
Rafah as the prototype prison
The UAE has been accused of backing the five ISIS-linked militant groups Israel created to fight Hamas, which it previously intended to rule over a similar style concentration camp city in Rafah. In fact, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had even ordered the construction of such a “community” during the 60-day ceasefire in early 2025. The Israelis have long intended to displace 600,000 Palestinians to such a gated facility.
The Emirati connection in this scheme goes beyond its recent offer to fund such a concentration camp city; it dates all the way back to January 2024, when it officially opened six water desalination plants along the Egyptian side of the Gaza border area, coincidentally capable of supplying 600,000 people with water.
Prior to the ceasefire and the collapse of the privatized aid scheme, the plot was to use the GHF PMCs in order to lure civilians into such a city area. Once they get there, the Palestinians who enter would be under the rule of Israel’s ISIS-linked proxy militias.
According to forensic architecture analysis, Israel is once again preparing land in order to implement such a project. Meanwhile, UG Solutions – the firm that hired the GHF’s PMCs – is again advertising job opportunities in the besieged territory.
Dispossession in disguise
Despite the dizzying array of slogans – BoP, GREAT, Sunrise, Panopticon – the outcome remains the same with no reconstruction, no sovereignty, and no end to occupation. The various schemes are less about peace and more about forcing Palestinians into containment zones policed by Tel Aviv and its regional clients.
From “Gaza Riviera” fantasies to proposals limiting reconstruction to areas under Israeli military control, what’s on offer amounts to PowerPoint projectionism. A revolving door of schemes and slogans has produced nothing substantive. Instead, the Israeli military continues its daily war of erasure on Gaza’s land, people, and future.
Even Kushner’s $25-billion fantasy is just that: a fantasy. In the three months since the UN resolution, all Washington has offered is AI-generated cityscapes and recycled decks. The only real plan on the table remains the one being implemented daily – the destruction of Gaza.
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The government of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced the shipment of 814 tons of milk, meat, beans, rice, and other foodstuffs to Cuba on Sunday, February 8. The move came days after Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel presented a series of emergency measures being adopted by his government to mitigate the impact of the severe fuel shortage facing the island.
Cuba is currently facing a serious crisis, provoked by recent maneuvers from the US government which, emboldened by its massive military build up in the Caribbean and its recent bombing of Caracas, has sought to further tighten the blockade on the island, hoping to finally force the overthrow of the government. On January 29, Trump announced an executive order under which any country that trades hydrocarbons with Havana will see a 10% increase in tariffs on its products exported to the United States. The executive order was said to have targeted Cuba’s main energy suppliers: Venezuela, Mexico, and Russia.
Venezuela was already effectively forced to halt oil shipments to Cuba due to the naval blockade imposed by the US against Venezuela, which already resulted in the illegal seizure of a Cuba-bound Venezuelan oil tanker.
Russia, a country which, due to heavy sanctions, is the most decoupled from the US economy, has declared that it will continue supplying fuel to Cuba. The government has said that “the situation in Cuba is truly critical” and top government spokesperson Dimitry Peskov, said “We are in close contact with our Cuban friends through diplomatic and other channels.”
Mexico, for its part, announced that it was engaged in negotiations with the US over oil shipments. President Claudia Sheinbaum has openly declared her rejection of the Trump measure: “You can’t suffocate people like that. It is very unfair.”
She also promised that Mexico would continue to help Cuba in any way possible: “We will continue to support Cuba and take all necessary diplomatic action to resume oil shipments.” In recent days, after learning of the Trump administration’s “threat”. Mexico, one of the few countries that sent oil to Cuba, said it would consult with Washington to determine the extent of possible retaliation.
According to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, not a single drop of oil has entered the island in 2026, posing a serious threat to a country that depends heavily on fuel for its power grid and to keep transportation, health, education, and other key systems functioning. Government officials and political analysts have claimed that the recent measure seeks to annihilate the Cuban people.
Former Colombian President Ernesto Samper shared this opinion in a post: “SOS for Cuba. The genocide of the Cuban people is being prepared by suffocating their vital conditions for survival. A United Nations humanitarian mission could lead a deployment of humanitarian ships loaded with the fuel that the island needs today, like the oxygen we breathe every day to stay alive.”
Mexican solidarity with Cuba
For his part, the Cuban president said, regarding the Mexican shipment that departed in two ships from the port of Veracruz: “Thank you, Mexico. For your solidarity, affection, and always warm embrace of Cuba.”
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez wrote on X: “We thank the Government of Mexico, under the leadership of President Claudia Sheinbaum, for sending more than 800 tons of aid to Cuba, amid the intensification of the blockade following the recent Executive Order by the US government. While some try to suffocate our population, sister nations extend their hand in solidarity.”
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Photo Credit: The Cradle
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