Binyamin Netanyahu

Netanyahu is behind Iran war, not Trump – and that makes peace unlikely

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Original article by Paul Rogers republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. 

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu will block peace in Iran however he can | Ronen Zvulun / POOL / AFP via Getty Images

Israel’s strikes on Lebanon are a reminder that Netanyahu will do whatever he can to avoid a peace deal with Iran

Within hours of Donald Trump accepting a two-week ceasefire in Iran, walking back on his dire threat that “a whole civilisation will die”, Binyamin Netanyahu did his best to wreck any prospect of peace.

Israel launched an intense bombardment of Beirut and other Lebanese towns and cities, with 100 attacks in the first ten minutes. More than 300 people were killed and more than a thousand wounded, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) also carried out a series of strikes across Gaza, including a precisely targeted armed drone attack on the car of Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Wishah, the 262nd journalist to be killed by Israel since October 2023.

These massacres serve as a reminder that it was Netanyahu, not Trump, who started the war on Iran and that he continues to pull the strings. For as long as that’s true, the prospects of a lasting peace deal are very low.

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Provided the Strait of Hormuz remains open, Trump can now claim victory – even if that claim is far from the truth – but Netanyahu could not.

Trump wanted to kill Ayatollah Khamenei and cripple the Iranian military, including its nuclear ambitions, so Iran could not threaten its neighbours, especially Israel. Of course, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has not been crippled, but the US president’s self-belief and capacity to lie mean he would likely get away with saying otherwise.

The Israeli PM, however, needed regime change and the irreversible end of theocratic rule. A win over Iran had to be complete, not least to ensure his success at Israel’s general election later in the year.

But the Iranian regime is still intact; the popular Iranian uprising against the theocracy that the US and Israel expected failed to materialise. As such, a peace deal at this point would be a disaster for Netanyahu. If his devastating IDF Lebanon assault fails, he no doubt has more tricks of persuasion up his sleeve.

The extent of Netanyahu’s control of the war agenda, both its origins and its conduct, has been both disguised by Trump’s bombastic attention-seeking and overshadowed by the actions of the IRGC, which has survived intense bombing and developed a clear strategy: attack the eyes and ears of US and Israeli systems.

As Kelly Grieco, a specialist at the Stimson Centre, a Washington-based foreign affairs think tank, puts it, the IRGC is systematically targeting three “distinct functional categories”: radar and communications infrastructure, aerial tankers and airborne early warning.

“Each is a critical enabler of US air operations,” Grieco told Defense News. “That’s not random. That’s a target set derived from an understanding of how US airpower functions and where it is most exposed. The pattern suggests deliberate doctrine, or something close enough to it, not opportunism.”

The IRGC indeed reports that its US targets have included the Bahrain HQ of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet – the US’s primary hub for coordinating its naval operations in the region – a $1.1bn early warning radar in Qatar, and two radar facilities at sites in the UAE. It also successfully attacked the US’s Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, destroying an E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control plane. Two weeks earlier, it hit and damaged five KC-135 Stratotanker refuelling aircraft at the same base.

It is essential to remember that the IRGC was founded in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and expanded in size and power during the Iran-Iraq War between 1980 and 1988, when as many as half a million young Iranians died resisting Saddam Hussein’s opportunistic invasion of Iran.

Back then, the IRGC managed to prevent Hussein from annexing Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province and gaining total control over the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway. It has evolved into an ideological entity rooted in the defence of the revolution and is much stronger than Iran’s conventional armed forces.

The IRGC’s strength continues to lie in asymmetric defensive warfare. It has training, arsenals and weapons suited to survival and the wearing down of its much stronger opponents. The success of this approach against the US and Israel is clear, despite the thousands of Iranians killed or maimed and the billions of dollars of damage inflicted across the country.

Taking control of the Strait of Hormuz has been an obvious move, and even the repeated attacks on neighbouring states have a purpose. They may have shocked and angered leaders in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar, but they sent a clear message: we are facing an existential threat from the US and Israel, and you are either with us or against us.

Iran could now continue the conflict with the US and Israel for weeks, if not months, if it so chooses. Despite the claims of the US president, the IRGC is not running out of missiles and armed drones – far from it.

CNN reports that around half of its missile launchers are still intact, as are thousands of one-way attack drones, while armed drones are being produced in backstreet workshops. Even Israel assesses that Iran still has more than 1,000 missiles capable of reaching it, while Hezbollah’s arsenal in Lebanon includes as many as 10,000 shorter-range rockets, according to military briefings cited by Israeli media last weekend.

Given all of this, can the peace talks succeed? Probably not, meaning the US may embark on a huge bombing campaign against the Iranian infrastructure and its very society, to the relief of Netanyahu.

There are still two avenues for hope, though. One is that Trump or the US public comes to realise that Netanyahu has been pulling the strings all along, which would undoubtedly dent the US president’s ego. The other is through the objection of external agents of influence; superpowers such as China or India could make clear that destroying Iranian society is not acceptable.

Extraordinarily, given its small size, the UK is also an external agent with specific influence. A sustained US bombing campaign of Iran requires the mass use of strategic air power – for the US Air Force, that must include the fleet of B-1B Lancer long-range bombers. Only 21 of those are reported to be “mission ready”, 15 of which are at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, each carrying more than 30 tons of a wide range of ordnance.

The loss of Fairford wouldn’t stop the war, but it would seriously hinder Trump’s plans. No other comparable European bases are available; only Fairford has the necessary and complex equipment to house the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and the easy access to a huge munitions depot, which is located at the nearby RAF Welford. In any case, the UK is likely the only European state that would want a US air base like this right now.

A private word from Keir Starmer that the UK may follow Spain and others in closing its airspace to American war planes would have a direct impact. It would certainly help explain Starmer’s unexpected visit this week to the Middle East.

Original article by Paul Rogers republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. 

Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is defensively bombing Iraq in support of Israel's genocidal expansionism. He explains that while his bombs still kill people that they are especially called defensive for the gullible and to be harder to convict of war crimes.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is defensively bombing Iraq in support of Israel’s genocidal expansionism. He explains that while his bombs still kill people that they are especially called defensive for the gullible and to be harder to convict of war crimes.
Genocide denying former UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government's support for Israel's Gaza genocide and the UK government and military's active participation in genocide.
Genocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
Continue ReadingNetanyahu is behind Iran war, not Trump – and that makes peace unlikely

Keir Starmer’s Labour is a lost cause. But there’s still hope for the left

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Original article by Paul Rogers republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Zack Polanski, Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn offer hope for the British left
 | Ben Montgomery/Stringer / Leon Neal/Staff / Kristian Buus/Contributor / Getty Images / Composition by James Battershill

In choosing big business over ordinary people, the PM has sacrificed the heart of the Labour Party. So what next?

Labour’s political position is increasingly the reverse of the ‘for the many, not the few’ policy pursued under former leader Jeremy Corbyn. The party has embraced corporate capture and the main features of neoliberalism, albeit with incredibly poor timing, as the neoliberal economic model drives runaway wealth that increases dissent across much of the world.

It is no coincidence that, at the same time, when it should be coasting along on a huge parliamentary majority won less than 18 months ago, Labour has been plunged into political disarray and seen its lead disappear in the polls.

By cosying up to big business and failing to offer anything to substantially improve the lives of ordinary people up and down the country, Keir Starmer’s New-New Labour has seen a collapse in its general support and, more significantly, its membership.

The Labour Party has lost 300,000 of the 550,000 members it had in the Corbyn era. While it has been able to recoup the financial support offered by these ordinary members from a few big donors, it has in the process lost the heart of the party.

Many issues demonstrate this, but a few stand out. The government’s repeated refusal (now rumoured to be U-turned on at next month’s Budget) to lift the two-child benefit cap. Its flagship welfare bill (already U-turned on), which would have cut Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments for millions of vulnerable people. The decision, announced in February of this year, to cut the foreign aid programme to increase military spending.

And then came perhaps the biggest problem of all for Starmer’s Labour: Gaza, where the UK government’s continuing support for Israel as it engages in genocide still beggars belief for many. There have been 32 mass demonstrations in London in the past two years, the most recent being one of the largest protests ever held in the UK. That level of political activity will continue, given Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu seems determined to avoid a peaceful outcome, and Starmer is unlikely to stand up to him or, by extension, the US.

Widespread dismay and depression on the backbenches may ebb and flow, but at this point, it feels like even a change of leadership may not be enough for a real change in fortune.

The government’s current predicament is the main reason why Westminster politics is so uncertain. Looking at the UK-wide parties, the far-right Reform UK is leading polls with vote shares that vary but are typically over 30%, having soaked up plenty of support as a substantial protest vote. If that persists through to the next general election in 2029, it will likely put Nigel Farage into Downing Street.

Labour’s support, meanwhile, is hovering at around 20%, the Tories more like 15% and the Liberal Democrats rather less.

And until three months ago, the Greens were still weak in polling terms – despite having made some progress since last year’s election – and millions on the left were still disenfranchised, having been disillusioned with Starmer’s Labour leadership.

Two things have changed; the first being Zack Polanski winning the Green Party leadership at the start of September. He has brought a more radical and left-wing perspective to the party, which has led to a jump in the polls and an 80% increase in new members. The Greens announced this week that its membership now stands at 126,000 – more than either the Conservatives or the Lib Dems.

The second change is in the fortunes of the new Your Party group, fronted by Corbyn and former Labour MP Zarah Sultana. While the party’s initial request for expressions of interest received a massive 800,000 responses – at which point it appeared likely to provide a serious challenge to Starmer’s Labour – it ran into internal disagreements six weeks ago that knocked it right back and led to a period of utter dismay and anger among supporters.

Those feelings have eased somewhat over the past two weeks, as Your Party has published draft versions of its constitution, standing orders and an organisational strategy, all of which are to be discussed and developed before being decided at a large national conference in Liverpool at the end of November. The documents, including a draft political statement, are open to all and will no doubt be subject to intense debate and plenty of disagreement, but they do appear to be a genuine attempt at accountability that is a very long way from the opacity of the Labour Party.

A typical meeting of supporters, of which there are hundreds around the country, still sees some of the anger of a few weeks ago, but now also more determination to see things through. If the new party can recapture the mood of three months ago – and particularly if it and the Greens are willing to work with one another – then there may be some hope for the disenfranchised left.

One of the most interesting aspects of these rapid political changes is the potential for the three figureheads of these two parties to have a substantial impact.

Zarah Sultana, with an often combative style, appeals particularly to younger and frustrated audiences, while Zack Polanski’s normal and measured approach is persistently disarming for Reform’s far-right politicians. Then there is Jeremy Corbyn, who is already a national figure known for a long-term commitment to a progressive agenda and a remarkable personal following.

These are very early days in a time of rapid political change. Reform is still on the up, but compared with just three months ago, there is now a lot more reason for hope on the left.

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Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Continue ReadingKeir Starmer’s Labour is a lost cause. But there’s still hope for the left