Aftermath of assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh

The assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was almost certainly carried out by Israel. Nor is it likely to be any coincidence that they did it before Trump leaves office as the Democrats are more inclined to discouraging the more insane tendencies of Israeli aggression, which they see as harmful to capitalist stability for both US and Israeli imperialism in the region. Not only that, but it’s entirely possible that this act of terrorism was conducted with explicit approval of the tops of the Trump administration.  Note that Secretary of State Pompeo was just recently in the region and had a private meeting with Netanyahu. The fact that Trump & Co. probably approved this terrorist action once again shows how ridiculous is the claim of some on the left that “Trump wants peace”, that he is less of an international danger than are the Democrats. However, Biden, the Democrats in general as well as the entire US capitalist media will back Israel to the hilt if Iran does retaliate for Israel’s terrorist act, an act which in itself is an act of war.

Netanyahu & Co. will also have wanted to try to prevent new negotiations with Iran to obtain or renew the nuclear deal that Trump tore up. Once Biden comes into office. such negotiations were likely. This terrorist act will make such negotiations more difficult.

It’s hard to see how this won’t lead to a wider war as the Iranian regime will be forced to respond and this time not with a slight slap on the wrist as they did after Trump ordered the assassination of Soleimani. A wider war would also serve Trump’s purposes. How far can he go in suppressing internal dissent?

On November 11, in discussing Oaklandsocialist said it was extremely unlikely that Trump would be able to overturn the election results. However, we also commented: “If there were, for example, a terrorist attack against the US in some overseas location, could a national state of emergency be declared and that used as an excuse to delay Biden’s inauguration? Is it possible that mass protests, or even the threat of them, would enable Trump to use the Insurrection Act to put troops on the streets?…. Such a development seems very unlikely, to say the least, but we should keep it in mind, maybe more for the future than the present.”

This is an example of the extreme volatility of the present world situation, with out-of-control non-state and state actors capable of sparking global crises. We will be writing more on this in the coming days, but a possible war between Iran and Israel will upset all Biden’s plans for trying to restabilize US capitalism both at home and abroad. Not to mention the enormous suffering that such a war will cause.

Aftermath of assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh