by Michael Jochum There are moments when diplomacy doesn’t just fail, it exposes itself as the hollow, performative farce it always was. This grotesque little summit in Pakistan, with JD Vance shuttled in like a substitute teacher handed a room full of hostile actors, is exactly that moment. Twenty-plus hours of talks with the Iranian delegation, paraded as “serious engagement,” dressed up with … [Read more...]
The Decline of an Empire
by JOHN CLARKE The debacle in Iran seems certain to go down in history as a turning point for US imperialism. The adventure was the product of an attempt to reverse the decline of US dominance but it has accelerated that process to a major degree and very possibly decisively. The pursuit of a 'Venezuelan option' in Iran met with a determined resistance that, taking advantage of control of a … [Read more...]
Trapped in Iran, Trump can only be stopped by the American people!
By Yorgos Mitralias While, despite the two-week ceasefire, the war continues to rage, claiming thousands of lives and causing widespread destruction in the Middle East (Persian Gulf) and the Near East (Lebanon), everything now indicates that this Trump—battered by the Iranians, raving mad, delusional, trapped by his own hand, and threatened with soon finding himself in a position of… Checkmate … [Read more...]
Opinion: Israel Bombards Lebanon Violating Iran/ US Ceasefire. A Look at All The Players
Richard Mellor considers an article by by Sirantos Fotopoulos 9th April 2026 Richard Mellor I was talking with a Lebanese man I met recently who painted a similar picture that the author describes here with regard to Hezbollah and the Shia population in Lebanon. He was from that community. The Israeli regime fears nothing more than the unity of the various religious groupings in Lebanon, … [Read more...]
Iran/US Ceasefire as Israel Violates it and Bombs Lebanon
From Richard Mellor, 8th April 2026 This is a good article from Middle East Eye but I have consistently rejected the idea that the tail wags the dog in this Israel/US relationship as the author suggests. And it is not based on the manipulative powers of Netanyahu either. Trump is a narcissist and a con man, possessing many other offensive habits, sexually assaulting and ra*ing women, or … [Read more...]
Is Iran the Only Obstacle to the US/Israel Genocidal Wars?
by Theo Horesh Israel’s targeting of over a hundred Beirut sites in under a minute today suggests their attack on Lebanon has now reached genocidal proportions. Given their new name for the assault, Operation Eternal Darkness, and their continual threats to turn Lebanon into Gaza, their genocidal intent should now be clear. Any time a group is committing genocide in one place, we should expect … [Read more...]
The Struggle to end Trump’s war
From The Struggle, 8th April 2026. There is much about modern life that feels surreal. Over the last two decades, since the credit crunch of 2008, international events have taken one bizarre turn after another that prior to 2008 would barely have seemed possible. Had anyone said that Donald Trump would have spent Easter of 2026 threatening Iran, whilst standing with the Easter Bunny, in a style … [Read more...]
Iran: from war of choice to war of necessity
By Greg Oxley - Published in Left Horizons 26/3/26. Every passing day brings a new complicating twist to any attempt to appraise the US-Israeli war on Iran. Warfare by its very nature is chaotic and unpredictable. And the erratic, contradictory, and often nonsensical ramblings of Donald Trump do not help. Nonetheless, we must try to see beyond the confusion of claims and counterclaims and … [Read more...]
Who is driving the war in the Middle East?
BY JOHN CLARKE The attack on Iran has added considerably to the scale on which a current of left opinion has gone over to the notion that Israel is the driving force when it comes to conflict in the Middle East and that the US is being led by the nose. This is a false picture but there is no question that there are elements of the present situation that it is able to draw on. There is actually … [Read more...]
Johnathan Cook: Does the tail wag the dog? How both sides are missing the bigger picture
Binary thinking in the argument over whether the US or Israel is driving the illegal war on Iran obscures far more than it illuminates. The truth is the dog and the tail are wagging each other. Johnathan Cooke, March 27 2026 on Substack The joint US-Israeli war on Iran has thrust back into the spotlight a divisive debate about whether the dog wags the tail, or the tail wags the dog. Who … [Read more...]