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By Varanasi Subrahmanyam

The war led by the United States and Israel has now lasted a month. It has sparked widespread opposition from people around the world, the media, and academics. Why should we oppose this war? There are many reasons, but I believe ten stand out.

1. Illegality Under International Law: A War Without Just Cause

This war goes against the core principles of the UN Charter. Article 2(4) only allows force in self-defense or with Security Council approval, and neither applies here. Calling this ‘preemptive self-defense’ is a big stretch. That doctrine requires a real and immediate threat, not just possible future risks. Given Iran’s current state, it’s hard to see how it could threaten the US anytime soon. After the fighting began in March 2026, Bernie Sanders said: “Launching military strikes without clear authorisation or an imminent threat is a violation of international law and risks dragging the United States into another unlawful and catastrophic conflict.”

2. The Abuse of the Preemptive War Doctrine

The idea of preemptive war was first used to justify the Iraq invasion, and now it’s being used again. But this idea isn’t supported by international law. The US keeps changing its reasons—from nuclear deterrence to regime change—which looks more like making excuses after the fact than following a real legal principle. The saying ‘necessity knows no law’ is being twisted to defend aggression. As Mary Ellen O’Connell puts it: “Preemptive self-defence… is clearly unlawful under international law.” Unless there’s an actual or clearly imminent attack, using force isn’t justified. Expanding this rule would erase the ban on aggression and make exceptions the norm. In reality, imperialism follows its own interests, not laws. As William Blum wrote in Killing Hope, the US has often been the aggressor.

3. Civilian Catastrophe: Disproportionate and Indiscriminate Force

Independent monitors report that the U.S.–Israel war on Iran has caused many civilian deaths and destroyed important infrastructure. This raises serious concerns about possible violations of international humanitarian law, especially the rules about distinguishing between military and civilian targets and using force proportionally. Reports from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) show thousands of civilians killed and tens of thousands injured, mostly from attacks on crowded urban areas. UNICEF and UNESCO are especially worried about the heavy impact on children and schools.

One clear example is the February 28 attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, southern Iran. A U.S.-made Tomahawk missile hit the school in the first hours of the war. According to Iranian authorities, Amnesty International, and the BBC, at least 168 schoolchildren—mostly girls aged 7 to 12—and 14 teachers were killed. Amnesty International called the strike “deadly and unlawful” and demanded accountability, describing it as a possible war crime.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have recorded repeated attacks on hospitals, homes, and other protected civilian sites. Early estimates say the damage to civilian infrastructure is in the tens of billions of dollars, affecting energy, water, and thousands of buildings, and causing major problems for healthcare and basic services. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that killing civilians, especially children, “cannot be justified under any doctrine of security” and could amount to war crimes.

3. Not in the Interest of the American People

Several reliable polls from March 2026 show that most Americans do not support the war. A Pew Research Centre survey found that 59% think the decision to use military force was wrong, and 61% disapprove of how President Trump is handling the conflict. AP-NORC and Reuters/Ipsos polls also found that about 60% of Americans believe the military action has “gone too far.” A Quinnipiac University poll showed 53% of voters oppose the war overall, and 74% are against sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.

People from across the political spectrum oppose the war, saying it goes against the interests of regular Americans. Senator Bernie Sanders has called the war “unconstitutional” and a “violation of international law,” and says it should “end immediately.” He warned that Americans “were lied to about the war in Vietnam… Iraq… and… are being lied to today about the war in Iran.” Sanders points out that while there is plenty of money for wars, American families still struggle with underfunded healthcare, child nutrition, housing, and retirement. Senator Rand Paul has supported War Powers resolutions to stop unauthorized escalation. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and its co-founder, Trita Parsi, have released detailed reports and an “Iran Exit Plan,” arguing that this war is an expensive “war of choice” that repeats the mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan. They say the war is raising energy prices and hurting American consumers, and that it shifts resources away from the U.S. economy to benefit defense contractors and Israel more than American citizens.

The war is extremely expensive. The Pentagon says the first six days alone cost U.S. taxpayers $11.3 billion, or about $890 million to $1 billion each day. Instead of making Americans safer or richer, the war risks dragging the country into another long conflict, causing more casualties, pushing gas prices above $4 per gallon, and putting more financial pressure on working families. So, whose interests does this war really serve?

4. The Military- Industrial Complex: War as Economic Engine

It’s clear that U.S. wars benefit the military-industrial complex. Defense contractors have seen their stock prices and orders rise during this conflict. On March 2, 2026, after major strikes, Northrop Grumman shares went up 6%, RTX (formerly Raytheon) rose 4.7%, Lockheed Martin increased by 3.3%, and L3Harris by 3.8%. Several of these companies reached 52-week highs. From March 2023 to March 2026, RTX rose 110%, Northrop Grumman 60%, and General Dynamics 57%. According to SIPRI, global military spending hit $2.718 trillion in 2024, a 9.4% increase—the biggest jump since the Cold War. The U.S. alone spent $997 billion, almost three times as much as China, and military spending in the Middle East rose 15% to about $243 billion, partly due to rising tensions.

The war in Iran has already cost U.S. taxpayers a lot. The Pentagon told Congress that the first six days cost $11.3 billion, or about $890 million per day, with about 36% spent on munitions and missiles. This has led to urgent requests for extra funding—up to $200 billion—to replace used-up Tomahawk, Patriot, and other precision weapons. The Trump administration wants to increase the annual defense budget from about $901 billion in 2026 to $1.5 trillion by 2027. According to SIPRI’s latest data, global arms trading rose 9.2% between 2016–20 and 2021–25, with U.S. exports up 27% and the Middle East still a major buyer.

War acts as a way for advanced economies to turn public money into private profits for big defense companies. This conflict is speeding up an ongoing arms race.

6. The Israel Lobby’s Policy Capture

Political scientists John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, in their seminal 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, argue that a powerful pro-Israel advocacy networks disproportionately influence U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. They contend that “the thrust of U.S. policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’,” and that no other lobby “has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.”

This influence is being questioned again during the war on Iran. In late March 2026, Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief of Zeteo, said during a major debate on Triggernometry: “There is an Israel lobby that has massive oversized influence on American politics.” This network has led to a very close and uncritical alignment of U.S. policy with Israel’s goals, especially its long-standing push for military action against Iran.

7. Containment of China: A Strategy of Weaponised Interdependence

The war has a broader geopolitical aim: to disrupt China’s energy security by destabilising Iran, a key oil supplier to Beijing. Iran supplied approximately 1.38 million barrels per day (bpd) to China in 2025. It is roughly 13% of China’s total seaborne crude imports. It is over 80–90% of Iran’s exported crude, too. Much of this oil transits the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 37.7% of China’s crude flows.

This conflict is part of Washington’s strategy to keep control over global energy supplies as the U.S.-China rivalry grows, with Iran as a key target. Iran is a major supplier of discounted, sanctioned oil to China, along with Russia and Venezuela, which together have made up about 17–22% of China’s imports in recent years. This fits with long-term U.S. strategies to limit China’s rise by controlling important energy routes and dependencies, not just for regional security. So, this war is not just a Middle Eastern issue—it’s part of a larger global power struggle and raises the stakes in the competition between major powers.

Think tanks like the Atlantic Council, the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, and energy analysts at Columbia University’s Centre on Global Energy Policy highlight the destabilising impact of Iran’s indirect pressure on China’s supply chains. While short-term disruptions may be manageable for China, prolonged instability in the Gulf reinforces the view that energy security serves as an advantage to the U.S. containment strategy.

8. Moral Hypocrisy and Double Standards

The war shows a clear double standard in how international rules are applied. Actions that are condemned in some cases are accepted or ignored when done by the U.S. or its allies. This selective enforcement seriously damages the credibility of international law and weakens the UN’s moral authority.

Consider the nuclear issue. Israel is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, with about 90 warheads according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) as of early 2025. Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or allowed IAEA inspections of its nuclear sites. Yet it faces no sanctions or military threats over its arsenal. Meanwhile, Iran—a long-time NPT member with no nuclear weapons—is targeted with military force to stop it from ever getting them.

In a widely viewed 2018 Head to Head interview on Al Jazeera, Mehdi Hasan pressed former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon on this exact disparity. When asked how many nuclear weapons Israel has, Ayalon first claimed he had “no idea”. He responded dismissively with “So what?” when presented with expert estimates of 80–400 warheads. The exchange perfectly captures the widely acknowledged reality that “we all know” Israel possesses nuclear weapons – a fact treated as irrelevant when justifying aggression against Iran.

The timing adds to the sense of hypocrisy. The major U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran began on February 28, 2026, even though indirect diplomatic talks (including Omani-led negotiations in Geneva) were still ongoing or showing progress toward a new nuclear deal. As Mehdi Hasan recently pointed out, there is a pattern of Israel—and its U.S. partner—launching strikes “every time we’re close to a deal.” This isn’t about fair non-proliferation; it’s about using international rules selectively to serve allied interests, especially Israel’s.

9. Escalation Risks and Regional Destabilisation

This conflict could easily grow into a wider regional war. Since the U.S.-Israeli strikes started on February 28, 2026, Iran has responded with missile and drone attacks in at least 9 countries, including several Gulf states.

War analysts warn that a dangerous chain reaction is underway. Iran has placed mines and attacked ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for about 20% of the world’s oil and much of its LNG. This has slowed shipments to a near halt and caused the biggest supply disruption in recent history. Oil prices have jumped, with Brent crude rising over 50% since late February, reaching $120 per barrel and pushing U.S. gas prices above $4 per gallon.

Israel took this opportunity and began ground operations to occupy parts of South Lebanon across the Litani River. The current aggression on Lebanon has resulted in over 1 million displacements. So far 1320 Lebanese citizens were killed by the Israeli attacks.

The Middle East, already unstable, now faces even more division, damage to infrastructure like energy and desalination plants, and worsening humanitarian crises. Think tanks such as CSIS and the Atlantic Council warn that these ripple effects could push the conflict’s front lines further. Without real efforts to de-escalate, local fighting could lead to even greater instability.

10. Imperial Overreach and the Illusion of MAGA

The war on Iran is part of a larger pattern of U.S. overreach. It reveals the emptiness of slogans like “America First.” Instead of focusing on domestic issues, Trump has pushed for expansion abroad: suggesting the annexation of Canada as the 51st state, demanding control of the Panama Canal, ordering strikes on Venezuela and kidnapping its leaders, claiming Greenland for U.S. security, and threatening military action in Cuba.

MAGA and Trump’s aggressive foreign policy go hand in hand. Unless the U.S. limits China’s rise and finds new markets, it cannot regain its former strength. If America cannot stop China from reclaiming lost markets, its decline will continue. The rise of China as a rival to the U.S. and its allies is a key part of today’s global politics.

The shifting justifications—from regime change to nuclear deterrence- cloak the real strategy. The U.S. cannot keep its global position unless it contains China, and reshapes the world order. Tariff terrorism and the renewed belligerence of the US is part of that.

Trump reiterates Lenin’s theory: “Under capitalism… in its imperialist stage, wars are inevitable for hegemony, for redivision of markets…”

Imperialism means war, and lives on wars, whether it is US, Russian, or Chinese imperialism.

Varanasi Subrahmanyam is an advocate practising at local courts in Guntur and also a Social Activist

3 April 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo

The origins of chess are contested, but few dispute that while the game began in India, it was the Sassanian Persian Empire that refined it into a recognizable strategic system. It was Persia that codified its language, symbolism and intellectual framework: the shah (king), the rokh (rook), and shatranj, the modern chess game.

This is not a trivial historical detail. It is, in many ways, a metaphor that has returned with force.

Since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28, 2026, political discourse—across Western, Israeli and alternative media—has repeatedly invoked the analogy of chess to describe Iran’s conduct.

The comparison is seductive. But it is also incomplete.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu articulated this framing as early as May 2012. Speaking of Iran’s negotiating posture, he said that “it looks as though they see the talks as another opportunity to delay and deceive and buy time… Iran is very good in playing this kind of chess game, and you know sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn to save the king.”

That statement was not merely rhetorical; it revealed a long-standing Israeli interpretation of Iran as a strategic actor operating within a calculated, long-term framework.

More than a decade later, that framing has resurfaced with renewed urgency. Analysts, policymakers and commentators now routinely describe Iran’s actions as deliberate, layered and patient—defined not by immediate gains, but by positional advantage accumulated over time.

Some observers contrast this with what they perceive as a fundamentally different approach in Washington: one driven by immediacy, spectacle and the politics of rapid outcomes.

But such a contrast, while tempting, risks oversimplification.

Iran’s approach is rooted in historical continuity. It understands the current war not as an isolated confrontation, but as the latest phase in a decade-long process of pressure, containment and confrontation.

In this sense, the battlefield is not defined by days or weeks, but by political cycles measured in years—if not generations.

The objective of its adversaries, however, has remained consistent: Shāh Māt—checkmate—the dismantling of the Iranian state as a coherent political entity.

Yet this is precisely where the central miscalculation emerges.

When the Iranian Revolution overthrew the US-backed Shah in 1979, the collapse of the system was swift and decisive. But it was not the result of external pressure. It was the inevitable outcome of a structurally brittle system.

That system was vertical—organized as a rigid hierarchy with power concentrated at the apex and legitimacy flowing downward. When the apex collapsed, the entire structure disintegrated.

If the people are the piyādeh—the pawns—then in that moment, they did not merely encircle the king; they overturned the entire board.

This experience helped shape a strategic doctrine that would later define US and Israeli military thinking: the belief that removing leadership—what is often termed “decapitation”—can trigger systemic collapse.

This doctrine appeared to succeed in Iraq following the 2003 invasion and the eventual execution of Saddam Hussein. It appeared to succeed in Libya after the killing of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

In Latin America, the same doctrine has shaped US intervention across decades—from the 1954 CIA-backed overthrow of Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz to the 1973 coup against Chile’s Salvador Allende and, most recently, the US kidnapping of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in Caracas in January 2026. In each case, the assumption was the same: remove the leadership, and the system would collapse with it.

But this model has repeatedly failed when applied to movements and societies rooted in popular mobilization rather than elite control.

In Gaza, Lebanon and, crucially, Iran, the assumption that political systems function as fragile pyramids has proven fundamentally flawed.

These are not systems sustained solely by leadership. They are sustained by social depth. In other words, they are not pyramids—they are networks.

Their resilience lies in their ability to regenerate from within society itself. Leadership can be removed, but the political energy that sustains it cannot be easily extinguished.

Israel has long recognized, at least implicitly, that assassinating Palestinian leaders does not end Palestinian resistance. Yet it has persisted in such tactics, while simultaneously expanding its strategy.

Increasingly, the focus has shifted toward the population itself—raising the cost of resistance by targeting the social fabric that sustains it.

In Gaza, this strategy has reached its most extreme form: the systematic destruction of civilian life and the open pursuit of mass extermination and mass displacement.

In southern Lebanon, a similar logic is evident. Entire communities have been uprooted, towns devastated, and infrastructure erased—not merely as ‘collateral damage’, but as part of a deliberate strategy.

The aim is unmistakable: decapitate the leadership, then erode the people. Yet in Iran, this logic has encountered its most profound limitation.

Both Washington and Tel Aviv appear to have assumed that internal dissatisfaction could be weaponized—that social grievances would override national cohesion in the face of external pressure.

This assumption reflects a deeper misreading—not only of Iranian society, but of how legitimacy itself functions within it.

Iran is not a monolithic system in the way it is often portrayed. Its political life is dynamic, contested and deeply embedded in society. Legitimacy is not imposed from above; it is continuously negotiated within the public sphere—through electoral participation, protests, and other forms of political engagement.

This dynamism produces a system that is far more resilient than it appears from the outside. The removal of a leader, or even multiple leaders, does not signify collapse. Nor does the symbolic destruction of state power.

The system persists because it is not reducible to individuals. It is reproduced through collective political experience.

This is where the chess analogy becomes truly revealing.

Iran’s strategic strength does not lie in protecting a single “king,” but in its ability to reconfigure the board itself.

In this game, continuity is not tied to any one piece. It is embedded in the relationships between them. The rallies, marches and sustained public mobilization that have continued throughout the war are not incidental. They are central.

They represent, in effect, a collective “Shah”—a form of political sovereignty that cannot be eliminated through assassination or decapitation.

Some may argue that Iran is not merely playing chess, but rewriting its rules. That, perhaps, is the most unsettling realization of all.

For if the rules themselves have changed, then the strategy designed to defeat Iran may already be obsolete.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

Romana Rubeo is an Italian writer and the managing editor of The Palestine Chronicle. Her articles appeared in many online newspapers and academic journals.

26 March 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Abdel Bari Atwan

After repeatedly threatening to launch a devastating carpet bombing campaign against all of Iran’s power plants, and giving it only 48 hours to fully open the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers, US president Donald Trump shamefully backed down from this threat just hours before the deadline. He justified this retreat by claiming that “good and fruitful” talks had taken place with Iran, and that he had therefore ordered an immediate halt to the strikes.

The semi-official Iranian news agency Tasnim quoted a senior Iranian official, who preferred to remain anonymous, denying any negotiations with the US side. The official stated that the message conveyed by the Iranian leadership to various mediators affirmed that “Iran will continue to defend its territory until the necessary deterrence is achieved,” and described Trump’s threats as part of a “psychological war.”

The real reasons that prompted Trump to make this shameful retreat, revealing the state of delirium and collapse he has been experiencing since the beginning of the aggression against Iran, can be summarized in the following points:

First: This retreat, which came less than 48 hours after issuing the ultimatum, is neither new nor surprising. The American president has learned nothing from his “mentor,” Netanyahu, who embroiled him in this aggression against Iran, and before that, in supporting the war of annihilation in the Gaza Strip, except for lying, deception, and exploiting the media to perpetuate them.

Second: Iran’s swift response to these threats came in the form of a pledge to retaliate in kind and bomb all energy facilities and infrastructure in Israel and the Gulf Arab states allied with America.

Third: The missile attack on the oil facilities and refinery in Jaffa three days ago was the first practical application of this response. This was followed by another response to the American aggression against the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility: The bombing of two Israeli cities with two giant hypersonic ballistic missiles, each with a warhead weighing at least a ton. The first city was Dimona, home to the Israeli nuclear reactor, and the second was Arad, where workers and experts at this reactor reside.

Fourth: The immense pressure exerted by the Gulf states on Trump to immediately retract this threat stems from the fact that their oil and gas facilities and desalination plants would be easy and certain targets for any Iranian retaliation, given their geographical proximity. Furthermore, retaliatory attacks on American bases in their territories have continued unabated since the beginning of the war.

Fifth: Trump hasn’t strayed from his background as a businessman and real estate broker. He demonstrates his loyalty to his associates, children, and in-laws who live off brokerage and profit-making by any means, amassing millions and billions in their bank accounts. These threats led to a rise in oil prices by more than $20 and gas prices by 30 percent. It’s certain they reaped substantial profits, perhaps in coordination with him, due to their speculation.

Sixth: The war has entered its 25th day without the aggression achieving any of its objectives: Toppling and dismantling the Iranian regime, and forcing it to retract its decision to control navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 21 million barrels of oil pass daily. The only ones harmed by this closure are the Western world and its economy, and the Gulf oil and gas producing states allied with Washington, most of which haven’t exported a single barrel since the start of the war.

Seventh: The “peace through strength” theory that President Trump boasts about has failed miserably so far and has backfired. To date, two American aircraft carriers have been damaged: The Abraham Lincoln, which was struck by a ballistic missile, and the Gerald R. Ford, which was hit by another missile, causing a fire that forced it to be towed to the Greek island of Crete for repairs. The false pretext given was a fire in the laundry room on board—a justification that even the most gullible people, including those like their leader Trump, wouldn’t be believed.

They wanted a short war with a swift and clean victory, while Iran wanted a long, attritional regional war. Iran has achieved a resounding victory and holds the upper hand, at least so far. The losses of the aggressors, particularly the Israelis and Americans, are now estimated in the billions daily. The scale of destruction we witnessed in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and most recently in Dimona and Arad is the most compelling evidence of this. Even more serious is the moral defeat, with more than seven million Israeli settlers living in shelters and tunnels day and night for the past 24 days of this aggression.

It is striking that the arrogant and foolish Trump found no one but Israel to praise for standing with him in this war after NATO and all European countries, his traditional allies and partners in all previous wars, abandoned him.

Perhaps it is worth reminding Trump, in conclusion, that Israel stood with him because he is fighting its war, not America’s or the Western world’s, and that it was Israel’s leadership that embroiled him in this aggression. Trump has lost his credibility, his war, most of his allies, if not all of them, and the prestige of his country and its global standing as a superpower. The only thing he gained was the satisfaction of “Israel,” or rather, its extremist right-wing terrorist government. Congratulations on this great achievement. We are waiting for his next threat and his shameful retreat from it, and our wait will certainly not be long.

The author is the Editor of the Arabic Al Rai Al Youm website and reprinted crossfirearabia.com

26 March 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Celina della Croce

On the morning of 26 March 2026, two crowds gathered outside of the federal courthouse in Manhattan where President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores sat awaiting their trial, set to begin at 11AM that day. On one side was a group of protestors gathered behind a large yellow banner that read “Free President Maduro and Cilia Flores.” On the other, separated by a metal barrier, was a smaller group, largely of Venezuelans cheering on the prosecution. Nearly the entire press presence was located on the anti-Maduro side: around the time the trial was set to begin and during the two hours leading up to it, there was roughly one journalist for every member of the opposition from outlets such as CNN, AP News, The Guardian, and BBC.

“I wonder how many of those people [supporting Maduro] are actually invested in this issue in the long-term,” The Guardian’s reporter told me after I casually asked who she was reporting for and if she had talked to both sides. When I mentioned that I had returned from 3.5 months in Venezuela the day before, and that I was in Venezuela during the 3 January bombing of Caracas, she promptly told me that she had to “circulate some more” and scurried off to talk to more members of the anti-Maduro side of the protest.

The Rat, Banana, and Right-Wing Violence

Prominently featured in the center of the anti-Maduro protest was an effigy of the president dressed in orange prison clothes, with a chain around his hands and his neck; red, bulging, rat-like eyes; and oversized handswith pointed fingers that appeared almost rodent-like. Stuffed into the effigy’s handcuffs was a banana, not unlike the racist imagery that US President Donald Trump recently usedto degrade former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama. The latter was met by outrage, yet the ape-ish prop adorning Maduro went largely unnoticed—or unreported—by the press.

This sort of symbolism speaks volumes: what Maduro, and Chávez before him, represent to the Venezuelan elite is a process through which the poor and working class stood up to demand not only access to basic human rights such as literacy and health care, but also dignityand a say in the direction of their country. To them, Maduro, a former bus driver, is a banana-holding ape, a less developed species that should have stayed in the barriofrom which he came.

“I’m from Venezuela! They [are] not from Venezuela!” shoutedone man holding the shackled Maduro and banana. Others hitthe effigy in the eyes, strangled its neck, and hung it from a tree as others cheered and laughed. The zealous violence inflicted upon this effigy is not merely symbolic: it is a defining feature of Venezuela’s right wing. In the guarimbas, violent right-wing protests that swept the country in 2004, 2014, and 2017 and were championed by opposition leader María Corina Machado and others, Chavistas—or anyone assumed to be a Chavista if they were dark enough or looked poor enough—were attacked, beheaded, stabbed, shot, and even burned alive. (It is worth noting that Corina Machado’s role leading this violence is among the reasons she was not eligible to run for president). Accountability for such crimes—or even common crimes, if perpetrated by the right wing—are portrayed by the ‘international community’ as authoritarian repression.

William Camacaro, a pro-Maduro Venezuelan activist protesting in front of the courthouse on Thursday, told me about the historic impunity of the elite in Venezuela, and how the justice system had changed over the 26 years of the revolution. Before the revolution, he said, “suspending constitutional rights was a sport… People would be murdered in the street without anyone being held to account”—even when the state killed thousands of Venezuelans in the Caracazo uprising, including three of his cousins. Since Chávez’s election in 1998, he continued, “there have been gross excesses on the part of the opposition. There have been takeovers, arson attacks, people have been burned alive. They have done everything, and yet constitutional guarantees have not been suspended.”

Social Debt

The revolution marked a significant change not only in the long-held impunity of the elite, but in paying the ‘social debt’ owed to the Venezuelan population at large and democratizing society, allowing historically disenfranchised sectors of the population to be the drivers in creating a new, democratic society. Whereas the Venezuelan elite had previously been the primary beneficiaries of the wealth from the country’s oil reserves (the largest in the world), after the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998, 75 percent of national spending was directedtowards social investment for the population at large. A series of social missions focused on lifting the population out of poverty: Mission Robinson taught three million people how to read and write and achieved 100 percent literacy in the country while Mission Sucre graduatedover 600,000 professionals from universities; Mission Vivienda granted over 5 million homesto families across the country; Mission Barrio Adentro built health clinics across the country; and Mission Milagro restored the eyesight of some 300,000 Venezuelans while providing eye surgery to 1 million. Dozens of missions focused on various aspects of well-being that had long been out of reach for the majority of Venezuelans. Beyond the services they provided, missions were also a way for working-class people to take a leading role in building the new vision for their country and the organizational structure to sustain it, such as by sending Venezuelans to Cuba to learn from the country’s hugely successful literacy campaign and lead the campaign back home.

Yet these programs have suffered tremendously since the imposition of US sanctions, when Venezuela experienced a “deep deterioration in health, nutrition, and food security indicators… [that reflected] the largest economic collapse outside of wartime since 1950,” as Venezuelan economist and opposition supporter Francisco Rodríguez reported. By March 2020, former UN Special Rapporteur Alfred de Zayas estimated that 100,000 Venezuelans had died as a result of the sanctions. Outside of the courthouse on 26 March, this hardship was a common point of discussion—but the factors causing it were not. Nor was there any mention of what life was like for the majority before 1998.

That day—as is often the case in discussions about Venezuela within the US—the theme that centered “the Venezuelan perspective” came up again and again. The opposition supporters claimed to speak for all Venezuelans, a narrative that the press eagerly amplified. Yet, in addition to seeming only to interview Venezuelans on one side of the barrier in front of the courthouse, press coverageleft out the voices of Venezuelans in Venezuela. So, what do Venezuelans in Venezuela think? What would they have told the reporters?

Freedom

Over the last three and a half months, I asked Venezuelans across Venezuela what they thought of the diaspora in the United States’s claims that they represent the voice of their country in celebrating freedom after the fall of a dictatorship, as many in front of the courthouse expressed. “If this is a dictatorship”, Andreína Álvarez, a young afro-Venezuelan woman, told me the day of the communal consult on 8 March, “I don’t know what you call the actual dictatorships in the world, which the oppressors and, well, the empire, don’t [say anything about]”. “The dictatorship that those… stateless people talk about, who aren’t even here in our country fighting the fight—it’s a complete fabrication”, Jenifer Lamus, a mother and leader of the Maizal Commune, told me. ”Those of us who are here are working and we’re pouring our heart and soul into every organizational process.”

One taxi driver in Caracas who never voted for Chávez or Maduro, and supported neither, told me with horror what it was like to be woken up at 2 AM with hundreds of helicopters descending upon his city. Anaís Marquez, a mother of three and member of the 5 de Marzo Commune, recounted that ‘When [the bombing] started, I was with my children, and they didn’t know what to do. They asked me, “mom, what’s going on?”. My youngest daughter is seven years old, and she thought it was a tsunami or an earthquake. I hugged them and I told them to be still, to stay calm, and to get dressed to find out what was going on.’

Was it worth it, I asked her? Did she feel that she had been freed, as many Venezuelans abroad were claiming? Her voice shook with anger. “We’re not a repressed people; we are a free and sovereign people, and we are fighting… for our president Nicolás Maduro and for our [first] combatant Cilia Flores… And now, more than ever, [for] Trump to get out of Venezuela.”

What was clear to me was that Venezuelans in Venezuela—both those who support and oppose the revolution and President Maduro—were overwhelmingly horrified by the actions of the United States and want the right to determine their own path, and to sort through their own internal contradictions, without foreign intervention. “Bullets don’t care if you’re a Chavista” was a phrase I heard over and over again.

Venezuelans across the political spectrum each had a story of the collective trauma imposed by the 3 January bombing and kidnapping, from tending to their children who could no longer sleep without being woken by nightmares to the common experience of jumping up at each sound, unsure if it the backfiring of a motorcycle was just that or the dropping of another missile. Despite yearsof foreign intervention—from illegal US sanctions and unliteral coercive measures to an information war and US funding of opposition groups—support for US actions within the country is a marginal phenomenon blown out of proportion by Western media.

Celina della Croce is a writer, editor, and the publications director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

1 April 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Nuvpreet Kalra

In ‘Freedom Park’ (S’kumbuto) outside Pretoria (South Africa), there is a Wall of Names that honors the men and women who died in the fight to liberate South Africa from apartheid. Amongst these are the names of two thousand and seventy Cuban soldiers who died in Angola between 1975 and 1988 for the liberation of southern Africa. It is said, however, that two thousand two hundred and eighty-nine Cubans died in that period in the region. In August 1975, the first group of Cuban military advisors arrived to assist the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against the Angolan forces (mainly UNITA) backed by the South African apartheid state. Their numbers swelled to 375,000 Cuban soldiers and pilots as well as civilians (including doctors and teachers). It was these Cubans, alongside the MPLA troops, that defeated the South African apartheid forces and their UNITA allies at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988. When he was released from prison, the first place outside South Africa that took Nelson Mandela was Cuba. In Havana, in 1991, Mandela said, “Without the defeat of Cuito Cunavale, our organizations would not have been legalized. Cuito Cunavale marks the divide in the struggle for the liberation of southern Africa.”

The Cuban mission in Angola was named Operation Carlota, in homage of the enslaved woman who led a rebellion in Matanzas against slavery during the Year of the Lash (1843-44). When Africa needed help, Cuba answered the call.

Today, Cuba needs solidarity. It has been under an illegal blockade for nearly seventy years and now for several months has been under a genocidal oil blockade. The United States has prevented all energy lifelines from entering Cuba, blocking ships from Venezuela and Mexico and threatening to sanction freight and insurance companies that assist Cuba. Blackouts plague the island nation of ten million people, whose ability to live their bare life has been called into question. This is an emergency. There is no other way to describe it.

Angola is one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil and—at its Luanda Refinery—it produces refined oil products. The oil in Angola is owned by the state company, Sonangol, which has contracts with a range of Western oil firms from TotalEnergies (France), Eni (Italy) and Chevron (United States)—all countries that defended its enemies during the war. Angola’s offshore reserves have made it a key player in global energy markets. Oil revenues have transformed Luanda into a city of obvious contrasts: gleaming skyscrapers alongside informal settlements, with the wealth of the oil unevenly distributed, and the development of the country hamstrung by structural inequalities. The MPLA has governed the country since 1975, although this is not the MPLA that fought alongside the Cubans till 1988. José Eduardo dos Santos, who led the country from 1979 to 2017, abandoned Marxism and shaped the oil industry and privatized lucrative state assets to benefit a small rentier elite (including his family).

Despite the limitations of the situation in Angola, in 2015, the government of Angola erected a large bronze statue at Cuito Cunavale that depicts an Angolan (MPLA) soldier and a Cuban soldier standing across from each other and together holding up a map of Angola. It is a powerful symbol of the reality of how Angola won its sovereignty—with Angolan and Cuban sacrifice and struggle. Without Cuba’s intervention, it is entirely plausible that Angola would have fallen under the control of forces aligned with apartheid South Africa and Western interests, its resources extracted under conditions far less favorable to its people. The oil that Angola now sells on the global market might never have been under Angolan control at all. In this context, the question of Angola providing oil to Cuba is not merely economic, but historical and moral.

Both the MPLA and Angola’s government have condemned the illegal US blockade against Cuba. In September 2025, Angola’s President João Lourenço said that the “unjust and prolonged” blockade which causes serious harm to the Cuban people must be “unconditionally lifted.” Since then, the US has only tightened its grip on the Cuban economy.

A Russian oil tanker, the Anatoly Kolodkin, arrived in Matanzas (Cuba) on 30 March to break the siege. That tanker is named after a famous Soviet jurist who was one of the men who drafted the UN treaty on the Laws of the Seas (1982) and who sat on the International Court of Justice. Perhaps the Russians wanted to send a message about international law when they selected that tanker to carry oil to Cuba against the illegal US blockade. Perhaps President Lourenço can provisionally rename one of the Angolan oil tankers Carlotain honor of the Cuban operation that helped in his country’s liberation. Sonangol would face legal challenges, but so be it: Cuba surmounted any number of threats and challenges to assist Angola, and then left without asking for anything.

History does not move along neat moral lines. It is jagged, contradictory, and often indifferent to the sacrifices made in its name. Yet there are moments when the ledger of history becomes clear enough that we can speak, without hesitation, of obligation—of debts incurred not through coercion, but through solidarity. The relationship between Cuba and Angola is one such moment. It is a relationship forged not in trade agreements or diplomatic formalities, but in blood, in sacrifice, and in a shared commitment to the liberation of Africa from colonial and apartheid domination.

We live in a time when the language of solidarity has been hollowed out, replaced by the technocratic vocabulary of ‘partnerships’ and ‘investments.’ Yet the history of Cuba and Angola reminds us that another kind of relationship is possible—one based not on extraction or profit, but on mutual commitment to human dignity. Cuba did not send its sons and daughters to Angola because it expected oil in return. It did so because it believed that the freedom of Angola was inseparable from its own revolutionary ideals. That belief, whatever one thinks of it, had real consequences. It changed the course of history in southern Africa. Today, Angola can respond—not out of obligation imposed from outside, but out of a recognition of shared history. To provide oil to Cuba would be to say that the sacrifices of the past are not forgotten, that internationalism is not a relic, and that the Global South can still act in ways that defy the narrow logic of profit.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist.“Cuban eye doctors in Jamaica are the only reason why my grandmother didn’t go fully blind in one eye after she got a botched surgery. The work they’ve done for rural and poor Jamaicans is immeasurable”, wrote a Twitter user last week after the first set of Cuban doctors and nurses left Jamaica.

Two weeks ago, hundreds of Jamaicans marched in a “gratitude walk” to thank Cuba for the 50 years of medical solidarity that they have received. Meanwhile, others on the island have been reportedly rushing to get eye treatment at clinics before Cuban doctors were set to depart. A few weeks ago in Honduras, people were in tears as they applauded and thanked Cuban doctors for their years of service, particularly in providing free eye surgeries. If this is clearly contrary to the interests of people, why are all Cuban doctors, nurses, biomedical engineers, and technicians leaving?

They are not leaving because these countries want them to, but because the United States is forcing them to.

Last year, the United States threatened to cancel U.S. visas for leaders of countries that have Cuban doctors working in them, as part of a decades-long campaign of aggression to destroy Cuba’s medical solidarity, which has saved over 12 million lives across the world. In reaction to this coercion, the governments of Jamaica, Honduras, Guatemala, Paraguay, the Bahamas, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Guyana have formally ended the Cuban medical missions after decades. The governments of Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, and Calabria in Italy have committed to gradually reducing Cuban medical missions. The US is forcing countries to end decades-long relationships with Cuba to further isolate the island from the world, all at the expense of the access and quality of healthcare for millions of people.

Cuba has carried out 30 million medical consultations in Honduras, 900,000 surgeries, and 80,000 eye surgeries. Many of the doctors were working in a free ophthalmology clinic in San Jose de Colinas in Santa Barbara as part of the Venezuelan-Cuban Operation Miracle, which provided free eye care to millions. Now, 150 Cuban doctors have left the country after the newly elected right-wing government immediately cancelled the medical mission. In Guyana, 200 doctors have left after 50 years of providing health access for people who otherwise would not have had any. Last week, Cuban doctors began leaving Guatemala after the government ended Cuban medical missions, which began in 1998 following Hurricane Mitch to provide critical health services to indigenous communities underserved by the Guatemalan health system. Now, 412 Cuban health personnel are beginning to end their service following a closing of ties with the government of Guatemala and the United States, and a clear willingness to bow down to coercive measures. The Bahamas has terminated its Cuban brigades, opting for discussions with the United States over building a workforce based in Canada to serve the medical system.

During this time, Cuban doctors cared for more than 8,176,000 patients, undertook 74,302 surgeries, attended the births of 7,170 babies, and saved 90,000 lives. With the end of the Jamaica Cuba eye care programme, after 16 years of solidarity and 25,000 instances of people regaining their sight. Despite initially saying that “I will prefer to lose my visa than to have 60 poor and working people die,” the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines has chosen to let the 60 patients receive dialysis and critical care from Cuban doctors lose their care with the end of the Cuban medical missions to the country.

Not all countries are accepting this attempted coercion and sacrifice of the health of their nation. Trinidad and Tobago and Calabria in Italy have refused to cancel the Cuban medical missions. The Trinidadian President said, “I just came back from California, and if I never go back there again in my life, I will ensure that the sovereignty of Trinidad and Tobago is known to its people and respected by all.”

History of medical solidarity

In 1960, medical aid was sent to Chile after the Valdivia earthquake. But it was 1963 that marked the start of Cuban medical brigades. 58 medical personnel travelled to Algeria to support in rebuilding the health system after the victory of the independence movement in booting out French colonialists. Fidel Castro gave a speech at the opening of a new medical school in Cuba, hours after meeting Ben Bella, Algeria’s President:

“Most of the doctors in Algeria were French, and many have left the country. There are four million more Algerians than Cubans, and colonialism has left them with many diseases, but they have only a third — and even less — of the doctors we have…That’s why I told the students that we needed 50 doctors to volunteer to go to Algeria.

I’m sure there will be no shortage of volunteers…Today we can only send 50, but in 8 or 10 years’ time, who knows how many, and we will be helping our brothers…because the Revolution has the right to reap the rewards it has sown.”

This act of revolutionary solidarity, just four years after the revolution, marked the start of decades of solidarity from Cuba to the world. Since then, more than 600,000 Cuban doctors and health workers have provided healthcare to 165 countries. In fact, there are still Cuban medical brigades operating in 15 Algerian provinces, mainly to reduce maternal and infant mortality.

In 2004, Cuba and Venezuela launched Operación Milagro (Operation Miracle), aimed at providing free eye care and surgeries for people suffering from preventable blindness and other visual impairments. The program restored vision to more than 4 million people across 34 years in just 15 years. This historic program is being forcibly shut down as the US pushes Cuban doctors out of countries today, breaking one of the world’s most remarkable progressions in health provision.

In 2005, following Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impacts in the United States, Cuba created the Henry Reeve International Contingent to respond to natural disasters and health epidemics. While the Bush administration refused Cuban help in responding to Hurricane Katrina, this incredible mission has sent 90 brigades to 55 countries to respond to COVID-19 in Europe and Latin America, Ebola in West Africa, cholera in Haiti, and more. In 2020, the Henry Reeve International Contingent was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2014, Cuba provided the only permanent brigade to support Sierra Leone, Guinea-Conakry, and Liberia in dealing with the Ebola epidemic. No other country or international organisation provided long-term support for the countries. It was Cuban doctors who managed to successfully contain the epidemic.

In March 2020, as COVID was declared by the World Health Organization as a pandemic, Cuban doctors immediately travelled to Lombardy in Italy, the epicenter of the pandemic, Angola, as well as Latin American countries, including Venezuela and Suriname, to provide support. When a COVID-positive cruise ship with over 600 people onboard was refused docking in every Caribbean country, it was Cuba that allowed them to dock in “a shared effort to confront and stop the spread of the pandemic.” As the US blockade prevented Cuba from accessing vaccines, they manufactured their own – and five of them at that. The blockade slowed down the process significantly, given the lack of medical equipment permitted into the island, the limited research laboratories, and the inability to access enough syringes for mass vaccination. It is only because of the resilience and humanity of Cuban doctors and researchers and the international solidarity of organisations, including CODEPINK, in donating syringes, that Cuba managed to not only protect its population from the pandemic but also export them to the world. In fact, the vaccines produced by Cuba did not require refrigeration, unlike most manufactured in the Global North, given the lack of access to facilities, particularly as they were distributed far across the island. This meant that the vaccine could be sent successfully to countries across the Global South with similar lack of access to refrigeration to protect those otherwise shut out of Global North supply chains. In the face of attacks, Cuba’s resilience is a benefit for all humanity.

Campaign of destruction

The United States has sought to interrupt, discredit, and dismantle this enormous feat as part of its attempts to destroy the Cuban revolution. Cuba’s ability to provide medical missions, despite the 66-year-long genocidal blockade, is a testament to the indestructible resolve of the Cuban people and the country’s commitment to humanity.

On February 23 of this year, the State Department sent a sensitive memo to Marco Rubio, which outlined a strategy of coercing countries in Latin America to boot out Cuban medical missions over the next 2-4 years. These attacks on Cuba’s medical missions were an escalation in the US’s war of imperialist aggression on the island for daring to commit to solidarity and peace, rather than welcome greed and destruction. On March 2nd, Congress approved a law to impose sanctions on any country that has Cuban health workers operating in it. Last August, the Trump administration imposed restrictions and revoked visas from countries working with Cuba on medical missions. Since then, countries have been pulling out of medical missions in fear of US retribution.

Under George W Bush’s presidency, the US set up the “Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program,” which aimed at getting Cuban doctors to desert from their mission and get residency in the United States. This ended under Obama’s administration.

This policy has been carried by a vicious propaganda war that has sought to label Cuban medical missions as “forced labour” and Cuban doctors as “slaves”. While this is a frankly offensive and disrespectful attempt to discredit a revolutionary act of solidarity, it is not only a ruse to justify attacks on Cuban doctors but also a fundamental revelation about the US. The descendants of slaveowners can tell Cubans they are slaves for supporting countries made victims of colonialism and imperialism, but refuse to acknowledge that the transatlantic slave trade was the greatest crime of our time.

Cuba’s medical missions, beyond providing critical health services for millions of people, also provide support for the Cuban healthcare system and economy. When doctors are paid in the countries where they work, their money goes into the public healthcare system to pay the doctors, provide support for their families, as well as patients, doctors, and the healthcare system for the entire island. This is a remarkable act of solidarity for Cubans and the world. The Cuban health system works; in fact, it works so well that Cuba has the highest rate of doctors per capita in the entire world. Whereas, in the United States, people survive depending on whether a company decides they can have a medicine, or if they can afford to pay another large corporation thousands of dollars for the privilege of treating an illness. The US dares to lecture Cuba while more than one-third of Americans cannot afford to access healthcare; while 1.3 million diabetic people ration insulin because the price skyrockets year on year as greedy pharma execs decide; and while over 66% of bankruptcies in the US are because of the costs of healthcare.

It is no wonder that healthcare is a significant target of the US empire’s attacks. Cuba maintains that healthcare is a right, whereas the US affords it as a privilege and arena for profits.

Another critical dimension to Cuba’s medical solidarity is its world-renowned Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). Founded in 1999, the school provides tuition-free medical education for students from across the world who might otherwise not have access to medical studies. They gain a free medical degree in Cuba, then return to serve their communities back home to develop medical self-sufficiency and sovereignty for their countries. There are over 250 Palestinian students from Gaza studying medicine in Cuba, completely free of charge, in the hopes they will travel back to Palestine and care for their people. Today, there are more than 31,000 doctors in 120 countries who have been trained at ELAM. This truly extraordinary and selfless act of material solidarity is also met with attacks. The U.S. has told St Lucia to stop sending doctors to Cuba for medical studies, which the Prime Minister has warned would cause a “major problem”.

I visited ELAM last year and spent time speaking with two female medical students from Sri Lanka, who were quite excited to see someone else from South Asia in Cuba! I asked them how they found studying at ELAM, living in Cuba, and being taught medicine for free to go back to their communities. They were ecstatic and told me how much they loved being there, and what a unique opportunity it was to become doctors from backgrounds where they otherwise would not have been able to. Their only issue with Cuba was the lack of spicy food!

Also on this trip to Cuba, I met with doctors working in a local hospital outside of Havana. They each shared with pride the different countries they had served in: Angola, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Italy. A similar situation you might find in the United States, or elsewhere in the Global North, is of someone in the military who might tell you with pride how they served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria. While Cuba’s missions save lives and serve people, U.S. missions massacre people and serve Lockheed Martin.

As more U.S. soldiers are sent to West Asia as part of threats to invade Iran and to kill for the interests of imperialism, it is truly devastating to see Cuban doctors leave hospitals in the Caribbean to the tears of locals who have been helped by them.

The poles could not be more stark. Cuba, the most blockaded country in history, has saved more than 12 million lives with its medical missions. The U.S., a belligerent empire with the biggest economy in the world, has killed as many as 23 million people in 28 countries since the 1950s.

Cuba reveals the unfettered barbarity of the United States. That is why they fear a tiny island 90 miles off the coast of Florida. Cuba shows us that the world does not have to be dominated by one empire that violently exploits people, extracts resources, and imposes its own will through F-35s and 2,000lb bombs. Cuba reveals humanity to people who have been propagandised into believing that every person has to look out for themselves, and there is danger and violence at every corner. Cuba unravels the lies that the United States is based on.

So, every single time the U.S. attacks Cuba, discredits its government, its economy, its people, its society, it is trying to protect itself. This has nothing to do with Cuba and everything to do with the U.S. The only future for humanity is an end to the U.S. empire.

Nuvpreet Kalra is CODEPINK’s digital content producer. She completed a Bachelor’s in politics and sociology at the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Internet Equalities at the University of the Arts London.

2 April 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Vijay Prashad

In ‘Freedom Park’ (S’kumbuto) outside Pretoria (South Africa), there is a Wall of Names that honors the men and women who died in the fight to liberate South Africa from apartheid. Amongst these are the names of two thousand and seventy Cuban soldiers who died in Angola between 1975 and 1988 for the liberation of southern Africa. It is said, however, that two thousand two hundred and eighty-nine Cubans died in that period in the region. In August 1975, the first group of Cuban military advisors arrived to assist the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against the Angolan forces (mainly UNITA) backed by the South African apartheid state. Their numbers swelled to 375,000 Cuban soldiers and pilots as well as civilians (including doctors and teachers). It was these Cubans, alongside the MPLA troops, that defeated the South African apartheid forces and their UNITA allies at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988. When he was released from prison, the first place outside South Africa that took Nelson Mandela was Cuba. In Havana, in 1991, Mandela said, “Without the defeat of Cuito Cunavale, our organizations would not have been legalized. Cuito Cunavale marks the divide in the struggle for the liberation of southern Africa.”

The Cuban mission in Angola was named Operation Carlota, in homage of the enslaved woman who led a rebellion in Matanzas against slavery during the Year of the Lash (1843-44). When Africa needed help, Cuba answered the call.

Today, Cuba needs solidarity. It has been under an illegal blockade for nearly seventy years and now for several months has been under a genocidal oil blockade. The United States has prevented all energy lifelines from entering Cuba, blocking ships from Venezuela and Mexico and threatening to sanction freight and insurance companies that assist Cuba. Blackouts plague the island nation of ten million people, whose ability to live their bare life has been called into question. This is an emergency. There is no other way to describe it.

Angola is one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil and—at its Luanda Refinery—it produces refined oil products. The oil in Angola is owned by the state company, Sonangol, which has contracts with a range of Western oil firms from TotalEnergies (France), Eni (Italy) and Chevron (United States)—all countries that defended its enemies during the war. Angola’s offshore reserves have made it a key player in global energy markets. Oil revenues have transformed Luanda into a city of obvious contrasts: gleaming skyscrapers alongside informal settlements, with the wealth of the oil unevenly distributed, and the development of the country hamstrung by structural inequalities. The MPLA has governed the country since 1975, although this is not the MPLA that fought alongside the Cubans till 1988. José Eduardo dos Santos, who led the country from 1979 to 2017, abandoned Marxism and shaped the oil industry and privatized lucrative state assets to benefit a small rentier elite (including his family).

Despite the limitations of the situation in Angola, in 2015, the government of Angola erected a large bronze statue at Cuito Cunavale that depicts an Angolan (MPLA) soldier and a Cuban soldier standing across from each other and together holding up a map of Angola. It is a powerful symbol of the reality of how Angola won its sovereignty—with Angolan and Cuban sacrifice and struggle. Without Cuba’s intervention, it is entirely plausible that Angola would have fallen under the control of forces aligned with apartheid South Africa and Western interests, its resources extracted under conditions far less favorable to its people. The oil that Angola now sells on the global market might never have been under Angolan control at all. In this context, the question of Angola providing oil to Cuba is not merely economic, but historical and moral.

Both the MPLA and Angola’s government have condemned the illegal US blockade against Cuba. In September 2025, Angola’s President João Lourenço said that the “unjust and prolonged” blockade which causes serious harm to the Cuban people must be “unconditionally lifted.” Since then, the US has only tightened its grip on the Cuban economy.

A Russian oil tanker, the Anatoly Kolodkin, arrived in Matanzas (Cuba) on 30 March to break the siege. That tanker is named after a famous Soviet jurist who was one of the men who drafted the UN treaty on the Laws of the Seas (1982) and who sat on the International Court of Justice. Perhaps the Russians wanted to send a message about international law when they selected that tanker to carry oil to Cuba against the illegal US blockade. Perhaps President Lourenço can provisionally rename one of the Angolan oil tankers Carlotain honor of the Cuban operation that helped in his country’s liberation. Sonangol would face legal challenges, but so be it: Cuba surmounted any number of threats and challenges to assist Angola, and then left without asking for anything.

History does not move along neat moral lines. It is jagged, contradictory, and often indifferent to the sacrifices made in its name. Yet there are moments when the ledger of history becomes clear enough that we can speak, without hesitation, of obligation—of debts incurred not through coercion, but through solidarity. The relationship between Cuba and Angola is one such moment. It is a relationship forged not in trade agreements or diplomatic formalities, but in blood, in sacrifice, and in a shared commitment to the liberation of Africa from colonial and apartheid domination.

We live in a time when the language of solidarity has been hollowed out, replaced by the technocratic vocabulary of ‘partnerships’ and ‘investments.’ Yet the history of Cuba and Angola reminds us that another kind of relationship is possible—one based not on extraction or profit, but on mutual commitment to human dignity. Cuba did not send its sons and daughters to Angola because it expected oil in return. It did so because it believed that the freedom of Angola was inseparable from its own revolutionary ideals. That belief, whatever one thinks of it, had real consequences. It changed the course of history in southern Africa. Today, Angola can respond—not out of obligation imposed from outside, but out of a recognition of shared history. To provide oil to Cuba would be to say that the sacrifices of the past are not forgotten, that internationalism is not a relic, and that the Global South can still act in ways that defy the narrow logic of profit.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist.

1 April 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad

Diplomacy occasionally produces documents that clarify reality; more often, it produces documents that elegantly conceal its absence. The China–Pakistan five-point statement on Iran belongs firmly to the latter category — a text so carefully balanced, so impeccably reasonable, that it quietly exposes how little of consequence it contains. Ceasefire, sovereignty, humanitarian access, shipping security, the United Nations — each clause is correct, each sentiment agreeable, and the cumulative effect strategically weightless. This is not policy. It is performance.
That is not accidental. In moments of genuine geopolitical transition, such statements function as diplomatic camouflage — allowing disagreement to masquerade as consensus and indecision to pass for prudence. Pakistan’s recent activism fits this pattern with almost studied precision. Islamabad is eager — conspicuously eager — to present itself as a central broker: useful to Washington, acceptable to Tehran, indispensable to Beijing. The ambition is expansive. The credibility, however, remains stubbornly absent.

Pakistan’s predicament is simple, almost embarrassingly so. Mediation requires trust; brokerage requires leverage; Pakistan has little of either. Tehran may tolerate messages passing through Islamabad, but tolerance is not confidence. Iran is not about to outsource strategic judgment to a state whose governing establishment has elevated inconsistency into a diplomatic method. Pakistan excels at looking busy. It struggles to demonstrate that it matters.

China, by contrast, appears almost allergic to this kind of self-deception. Beijing’s caution is not passivity; it is discipline. It has no interest in underwriting a “peace framework” that can be undone by the next American escalation or Israeli strike — both of which now resemble routine instruments of policy rather than exceptional events. Washington continues to confuse force with strategy, veering between excess and impatience with little regard for consequence. Israel, meanwhile, has normalized escalation to the point of doctrine, treating regional destabilization as a deliberate tool of policy. The UAE completes the triad with its polished opportunism — projecting efficiency while quietly inserting itself into conflicts it helps complicate. It is a neat division of labor: one destabilizes brazenly, one erratically, and one profitably.

Against this backdrop, the so-called Muslim Quad — Pakistan, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt — resembles less a coalition than a carefully staged photograph. Egypt contributes presence but little initiative. Türkiye seeks influence without committing to its costs. Saudi Arabia wants Iran constrained but not chaos at its doorstep. Pakistan, predictably, wants everything: relevance, prestige, economic dividends, and the flattering illusion of centrality. It is not strategy. It is wishful thinking with a press release.

And by now, the fiction of GCC unity has not merely cracked — it has collapsed in plain sight. This is no longer a matter of interpretation; it is an observable fact. Oman and Qatar have little appetite for performative confrontation with Iran. Saudi Arabia calibrates cautiously beneath its rhetoric. The UAE continues its preferred role as a sleek facilitator of instability. The Gulf is not united. It is a collection of states managing shared anxiety while pursuing divergent interests.

Iran, in contrast, has approached the moment with a level of strategic clarity that its adversaries seem reluctant to acknowledge. It has recognized, with precision, that geography is not merely context — it is leverage. The Strait of Hormuz is not just a maritime corridor; it is a strategic fulcrum embedded in the architecture of global energy flows. Tehran’s maneuvering reflects a calculated effort to translate that reality into durable bargaining power. This is not reactive behavior. It is deliberate, layered statecraft — patient, adaptive, and acutely aware that in geopolitics, position often matters more than posture. Any framework that imagines Iran can be sidelined while its geography remains indispensable was always intellectually unserious.

Pakistan, meanwhile, surveys this shifting landscape and imagines itself at the center of it. In Islamabad’s preferred narrative, pipelines will flow, Gwadar will flourish, corridors will bind continents, and Pakistan will emerge as the indispensable bridge between regions and empires alike. The confidence is remarkable. The evidence is thin. A handful of summits, a few carefully staged handshakes, and an excess of optimistic briefings are taken as proof of strategic trust. It is diplomacy as self-belief — earnest, energetic, and only loosely tethered to reality.

Above it all hovers Washington — still powerful, still interventionist, and still strategically erratic. The United States retains the capacity to disrupt regional arrangements even where it lacks the coherence to construct them. That is why China remains cautious, Iran remains skeptical, and the Gulf monarchies oscillate between caution and compliance. The old order has not disappeared. It has simply become unstable — and instability, in geopolitics, rarely remains contained.

The real story, then, is not that Pakistan has emerged as the architect of a new Gulf order. It is that the region is fragmenting faster than Pakistan can convincingly narrate it. China is measured. Iran is calculating. Saudi Arabia is cautious. The UAE is opportunistic. Pakistan is enthusiastic — but enthusiasm, in geopolitics, is not mistaken for influence.

The Gulf will not be reordered by those who issue polished statements or host well-attended meetings. It will be reordered by those who understand that in an age of imperial drift, access is not influence, proximity is not power, and diplomacy without leverage is often just theater delivered with confidence.

Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Law, Religion, and Global Politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan.

2 April 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Feroze Mithiborwala

The geopolitical architecture of West Asia, long defined by the imposition of US hegemony, established after the Cold War, is undergoing a violent and decisive transformation. What we are witnessing is not merely a regional war, but the final war of liberation of West Asia, the Global South and the World. For decades, the United States utilized a network of bases and the power of the petrodollar to dictate terms to sovereign nations. Today, that structure is crumbling under the weight of a coordinated multi-front campaign led by Iran and the Axis of Resistance.

As the war crosses its first month, the strategic landscape has shifted so fundamentally that even the most seasoned analysts in Washington are struggling to keep pace. From the total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to the retreat of the U.S. Navy’s carrier strike groups, the “unipolar moment” has officially expired. Iran has not only anticipated this confrontation but has successfully withstood the massive firepower of the US-Israel combine, achieving its primary strategic targets within the first thirty days.

The Asymmetric Shield: Missiles, Drones, and the “Swarm” Strategy

The cornerstone of Iran’s defiance lies in its mastery of asymmetric warfare—a strategy designed to turn an adversary’s technological superiority into a liability. Over the last decade, Tehran has built the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in West Asia, transitioning from simple deterrents to high-precision strike capabilities. This “long arm” of the Resistance ensures that no U.S. base or Israeli facility is beyond reach.

Central to this strategy is the drone program, specifically the Shahed and Mohajer families, which have redefined modern attrition. By deploying low-cost, “suicide” loitering munitions in massive swarms, Iran effectively saturates and exhausts expensive Western air defence systems like the Patriot and Iron Dome. In the first 30 days of the current war, these “birds of prey” have systematically dismantled radar installations and command centres across the region. As Scott Ritter notes, the Iranian missile program has evolved into a force that “nullifies the American advantage in conventional air power,” forcing the U.S. to choose between an unwinnable escalation or a humiliating retreat.¹

The New Celestial Guard: BeiDou-3 and GLONASS

One of the most critical factors in the success of the Resistance is the breaking of the Western monopoly on Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT). For years, the U.S. could effectively “blind” regional militaries by degrading or spoofing GPS signals. That era ended with the full operationalization of China’s BeiDou-3 (BDS-3) constellation and Russia’s GLONASS system.

The BeiDou-3 system, comprising 30 satellites in three orbital regimes, offers Iran and its allies a secure, high-precision alternative to GPS. By integrating BDS-3 and GLONASS, Iranian strike systems have achieved a positioning reliability rate of approximately 98%, even under intense Israeli electronic warfare (EW).² This Sino-Russian “celestial shield” allows the Axis of Resistance to conduct surgical strikes with sub-five-meter accuracy, ensuring the “kill chain” remains unbroken by Western jamming. This technological sovereignty is the technical bedrock of the Multi-Polar World Order.

The Fall of the Base Network: From Bahrain to Iraq

The first month of the war saw the systematic neutralization of 13 major U.S. military and airforce bases in the region. Targeted strikes hit facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, UAE, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, sending U.S. personnel scurrying for cover in hardened bunkers. In Iraq, the situation reached a breaking point with a total EU-NATO withdrawal, leaving remnants of U.S. troops hiding in the Kurdish North.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor has frequently warned that U.S. forces in West Asia are “stationed in death traps,” isolated and vulnerable to the overwhelming regional fire superiority of the Axis of Resistance.³ The failure of the U.S. to protect these assets has signalled to regional monarchs that the American security umbrella is effectively shredded. Furthermore, the strategic failure to incite ethnic minorities—Iranian Baluchis and Kurds—has left the U.S. without internal levers of destabilization, as these groups have resolutely refused to cooperate with Washington after witnessing the recent betrayal of the Syrian Kurds.

Lebanon and the Resilience of Hezbollah: A Graveyard of Armour

The Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) has once again discovered that while it can dominate the skies through the bombing of civilian infrastructure, it remains just about average in land wars. Recent battlefield reports provide a staggering look at the attrition faced by Israeli armoured columns. Since hostilities escalated, a grand total of 1,169 Merkava tanks and vehicles have been reported destroyed across the Northern and Southern fronts.

In the Rshaf Sector of South Lebanon, Hezbollah’s anti-tank teams have utilized Al-Mas ATGMs and Kornet-EM missiles to devastating effect, while the Al-Qantara Sector has seen a significant shift toward FPV drone strikes targeting light armour and Hummers. Hezbollah alone is credited with the destruction of 240 units using complex ambushes. Meanwhile, in Gaza, local factions have neutralized 929 Merkava 3 & 4 tanks through the use of Al-Yassin 105 rockets and tandem IEDs during 131 total attacks since the resumption of hostilities.

George Galloway has noted that this tactical discipline has turned the region into a graveyard for Israeli pride. “The IOF is a colonial police force that knows how to kill children from 30,000 feet, but it cannot hold ground against a motivated, indigenous resistance armed with precision asymmetric tools,” Galloway remarked during a recent broadcast.⁴

Yemen’s Strategic Chokehold and the Naval Retreat

Complementing the Iranian and Lebanese fronts, Yemen’s Ansarullah has entered the war with a decisive blockade of the Bab-el-Mandab Strait. Controlling 10–12% of global energy flow, Yemen’s entry has rendered the Red Sea and Suez Canal impassable for ships associated with the aggressors. This maritime pressure, combined with Iran’s takeover of the Strait of Hormuz, has created a dual-chokehold on the global economy.

The U.S. Navy has found itself in a state of redundancy. The withdrawal of the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Gerald Ford mark the first time in history that American carrier strike groups have fled a theatre of war to avoid total destruction. The skyrocketing costs of international insurance for ships and goods are now a silent but deadly weight on Western economies, a factor rarely discussed in mainstream media but felt in every treasury.

Transatlantic Fracture: The NATO Refusal

In a massive blow to U.S. isolation, the EU-NATO bloc has officially refused to join the war on Iran or assist in reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Germany has stated the conflict is “not NATO’s war,” while France and Italy have denied airspace and base access for strikes on Iranian territory.⁵ This unprecedented refusal underscores the total collapse of Western unity. For the first time, the U.S. is heading into a major war with its allies standing firmly on the sidelines, sinking Washington deeper into a strategic abyss.

Rise of the Multipolar Financial Order: Rise of Petroyuan and Decline of Petrodollar Hegemony

While the kinetic war rages, a more significant war is being won in the halls of finance. The hegemony of the petrodollar is being dismantled in real-time. With all regional oil, LNG, and LPG that flows through the Strait of Hormuz now being traded in Petroyuan, the dollar has lost its primary support mechanism.

Journalist Pepe Escobar describes this as the “birth of a multipolar financial order.”⁶ In a move described by critics as “bizarre and laughable,” the Trump administration has been forced to remove sanctions from Russian and Iranian energy to stabilize domestic fuel prices—effectively funding the very resistance that is defeating them. This mockery of Western “sanctions diplomacy” reveals the desperation of a declining empire.

Social Cohesion: Tehran vs. Tel Aviv

The internal dynamics of the warring parties could not be more polarized. In Iran, the people are more united than ever, standing resolutely with their leadership. Every evening, Iranians gather at 7:30 pm in town squares to demonstrate their resilience, while Israelis are forced to hide in bunkers as their air defences fail.

Prof. Mohammad Marandi emphasizes that this unity is the ultimate deterrent. “The West fundamentally misunderstood the Iranian people,” Marandi stated. “The leadership and the army are one with the population. We are not a nation that can be broken by bombing hospitals or schools, as the IOF has attempted in Tehran and Gaza. These atrocities only serve as a sign of their inevitable defeat.”⁷

Conclusion: The Multipolar Dawn

The war is the catalyst for a massive change in West Asia. After this conflict, Iran and its allies will refuse to return to the status quo. There will be no more U.S. bases, and access to the region’s energy will be reserved for those who respect Iranian sovereignty and that of the Axis of Resistance.

The alliance of Iran, Russia, and China is forging a new “central pole” in global politics. As Praveen Sawhney argues, the integration of Iranian hardware and Russian electronic warfare with Chinese economic might represents a “peer competitor” that the U.S. simply cannot defeat.⁸ BRICS+ is no longer just a trade bloc; it is emerging as the central pole in a geostrategic, geoeconomic and geopolitical Multi-Polar World Order, with West Asia at its heart.

References and Citations

1. Scott Ritter, “The Death of the Carrier Strike Group,” The Scott Ritter Extra, October 12, 2024.
2. “Iran turns to China’s BeiDou satellites to outfox Israeli anti-drone electronic warfare defences,” bne IntelliNews, March 10, 2026.
3. Gen. Douglas Macgregor, Interview with Nima Alkhorshid, Dialogue Works, YouTube, October 18, 2024.
4. George Galloway, The MOATS Podcast, Episode 518, January 20, 2026.
5. “European allies refuse US request to help open Strait of Hormuz,” Middle East Eye, March 16, 2026.
6. Pepe Escobar, “Axis of Resistance: from Donbass to Gaza,” The Cradle, February 20, 2024 (Updated March 2026).
7. Prof. Mohammad Marandi, “Resistance will escalate if US-Israeli aggression continues,” Al Mayadeen English, March 16, 2026.
8. Praveen Sawhney, “How the Axis of Resistance neutralized US Electronic Warfare,” The Force Analysis, October 5, 2024.

Feroze Mithiborwala is an expert on West Asian & International Geostrategic issues.

1 April 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Masoud Pezeshkian

Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian has released an open letter, addressing the American people, calling on them to question the motives of the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran.

Below is the full text of his letter.

_________________________________________________

“In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

“To the people of the United States of America, and to all those who, amid a flood of distortions and manufactured narratives, continue to seek the truth and aspire to a better life:

“Iran — by this very name, character, and identity — is one of the oldest continuous civilisations in human history. Despite its historical and geographical advantages at various times, Iran has never, in its modern history, chosen the path of aggression, expansion, colonialism, or domination. Even after enduring occupation, invasion, and sustained pressure from global powers — and despite possessing military superiority over many of its neighbours — Iran has never initiated a war. Yet it has resolutely and bravely repelled those who have attacked it.

“The Iranian people harbour no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighbouring countries. Even in the face of repeated foreign interventions and pressures throughout their proud history, Iranians have consistently drawn a clear distinction between governments and the peoples they govern. This is a deeply rooted principle in Iranian culture and collective consciousness — not a temporary political stance.

“For this reason, portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts. Such a perception is the product of political and economic whims of the powerful — the need to manufacture an enemy in order to justify pressure, maintain military dominance, sustain the arms industry, and control strategic markets. In such an environment, if a threat does not exist, it is invented.

“Within this same framework, the United States has concentrated the largest number of its forces, bases, and military capabilities around Iran — a country that, at least since the founding of the United States, has never initiated a war. Recent American aggressions launched from these very bases have demonstrated how threatening such a military presence truly is. Naturally, no country confronted with such conditions would forgo strengthening its defensive capabilities. What Iran has done — and continues to do — is a measured response grounded in legitimate self-defence, and by no means an initiation of war or aggression.

“Relations between Iran and the United States were not originally hostile, and early interactions between the Iranian and American people were not marred with hostility or tension. The turning point, however, was the 1953 coup d’etat — an illegal American intervention aimed at preventing the nationalisation of Iran’s own resources. That coup disrupted Iran’s democratic process, reinstated dictatorship, and sowed deep distrust among Iranians toward US policies. This distrust deepened further with America’s support for the Shah’s regime, its backing of Saddam Hussein during the imposed war of the 1980s, the imposition of the longest and most comprehensive sanctions in modern history, and ultimately, unprovoked military aggression — twice, in the midst of negotiations —against Iran.

“Yet all these pressures have failed to weaken Iran. On the contrary, the country has grown stronger in many areas: literacy rates have tripled —from roughly 30 per cent before the Islamic Revolution to over 90pc today; higher education has expanded dramatically; significant advances have been achieved in modern technology; healthcare services have improved; and infrastructure has developed at a pace and scale incomparable to the past. These are measurable, observable realities that stand independent of fabricated narratives.

“At the same time, the destructive and inhumane impact of sanctions, war, and aggression on the lives of the resilient Iranian people must not be underestimated. The continuation of military aggression and recent bombings profoundly affect people’s lives, attitudes, and perspectives. This reflects a fundamental human truth: when war inflicts irreparable harm on lives, homes, cities, and futures, people will not remain indifferent toward those responsible.

“This raises a fundamental question: Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war? Was there any objective threat from Iran to justify such behavior? Does the massacre of innocent children, the destruction of cancer-treatment pharmaceutical facilities, or boasting about bombing a country ‘back to the stone ages’ serve any purpose other than further damaging the United States’ global standing?

“Iran pursued negotiations, reached an agreement, and fulfilled all its commitments. The decision to withdraw from that agreement, escalate toward confrontation, and launch two acts of aggression in the midst of negotiations were destructive choices made by the US government —choices that served the delusions of a foreign aggressor.

“Attacking Iran’s vital infrastructure — including energy and industrial facilities — directly targets the Iranian people. Beyond constituting a war crime, such actions carry consequences that extend far beyond Iran’s borders. They generate instability, increase human and economic costs, and perpetuate cycles of tension, planting seeds of resentment that will endure for years. This is not a demonstration of strength; it is a sign of strategic bewilderment and an inability to achieve a sustainable solution.

“Is it not also the case that America has entered this aggression as a proxy for Israel, influenced and manipulated by that regime? Is it not true that Israel, by manufacturing an Iranian threat, seeks to divert global attention away from its crimes toward the Palestinians? Is it not evident that Israel now aims to fight Iran to the last American soldier and the last American taxpayer dollar — shifting the burden of its delusions onto Iran, the region, and the United States itself in pursuit of illegitimate interests?

“Is ‘America First’ truly among the priorities of the US government today?

“I invite you to look beyond the machinery of misinformation — an integral part of this aggression — and instead speak with those who have visited Iran. Observe the many accomplished Iranian immigrants —educated in Iran — who now teach and conduct research at the world’s most prestigious universities, or contribute to the most advanced technology firms in the West. Do these realities align with the distortions you are being told about Iran and its people?

“Today, the world stands at crossroads. Continuing along the path of confrontation is more costly and futile than ever before. The choice between confrontation and engagement is both real and consequential; its outcome will shape the future for generations to come. Throughout its millennia of proud history, Iran has outlasted many aggressors. All that remains of them are tarnished names in history, while Iran endures —resilient, dignified, and proud.”

2 April 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

Trump declared that the “objectives” of the war were “dismantling the regime’s ability to threaten America or project power outside of their borders.” Yet this aim has plainly not been achieved—Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz. The conclusion is that in order to achieve America’s “objectives,” Iran must be totally destroyed. The “Gaza model” is being applied to Iran.

Trump gloated over his murder of Iran’s leaders. “Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders’ death. They’re all dead.” Accept our terms, or suffer the same fate as the leaders we already murdered. Trump calls this “negotiation.” It is the language of the mafia, issued from the White House.

The phrase “bomb them back to the Stone Ages” is associated with Curtis LeMay, the far-right Air Force general who directed the firebombing of Tokyo in World War II—killing over 100,000 people in a single night—and oversaw the bombing of North Korea during the Korean War, when US air power leveled every city in the country. During the Vietnam War, a faction of the US military and political establishment advocated the removal of all restraints on the bombing of Vietnam—a course that risked nuclear war with the Soviet Union or China.

In his 1965 autobiography Mission With LeMay, he laid out what he wanted done to North Vietnam: “My solution to the problem would be to tell them frankly that they’ve got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.” Behind such language was the threat to use nuclear weapons, which American imperialism at the time opted not to do.

This is the mood that now prevails in the White House. War Secretary Pete Hegseth set the tone on March 2 when he announced there would be “no stupid rules of engagement.” Three weeks later, at a Pentagon prayer service, he asked God for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

A criminal underworld is in power. The war against Iran is the product of decades of escalating violence—from the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, through the destruction of Libya and Syria, through the genocide in Gaza—each crime more brazen, each carried out with greater impunity.

Under Trump, however, a qualitatively new stage has been reached, with the abandonment of any even pretense of legal restraint, the proclamation that there are, as they say, no “red lines”—including the use of nuclear weapons—in the pursuit of imperialist domination.

Trump’s pledge to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” was the third time he used this exact language in two days. But his earlier calls were barely mentioned as news items, let alone made the subject of condemnation on the editorial pages. The same newspapers that peddle lurid claims about the Iranian government killing tens of thousands of protesters earlier this year, that gasp in horror at the actions of the Russian government, do not find a call to annihilate a country’s civilization worth mentioning.

In the media commentary that followed Trump’s prime-time address, discussion was dominated by whether he had “made his case,” not that the president of the United States had issued a criminal declaration of intent to carry out mass murder.

Not a single Democratic leader has responded to Trump’s “Stone Age” statements. Five weeks into the bombing, not one committee in either chamber has held a public hearing.

Trump’s genocidal threats are not simply the ravings of one man. He speaks for a capitalist oligarchy—for a ruling class that can no longer defend its interests through democratic forms and legal methods, and that answers deepening crisis with violence abroad and dictatorship at home.

The same day as his address on Iran, Trump told attendees at an Easter lunch at the White House that he had ordered the Office of Management and Budget to cut all federal daycare funding. “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare,” he said, adding: “It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.” Trump added, “We have to take care of one thing, military protection.”

The war against the people of Iran and the war against the working class at home are two sides of the same policy. A government that prepares mass murder abroad prepares social counterrevolution at home: the shredding of what remains of democratic rights and social reforms, the intensification of austerity and the drive to establish a fascistic dictatorship. The crisis now confronting humanity is posed as socialism or barbarism.

2 April 2026

Source: countercurrents.org