Drawing by Sonia Mitralia

When Iran Wins by Fully Exploiting the Gaping Flaws of Trump’s War!

By Yorgos Mitralias

What initial assessment can we make of the war in the Persian Gulf, two months after the United States and Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran, even though they were in the midst of negotiations with it? Given that the war continues and its outcome is not yet decided, the assessment—even a provisional one—must first and foremost take into account the impact of this war within the belligerent countries. And this impact is undeniable: while Iran’s ultra-repressive and theocratic regime is capitalizing on the American and Israeli aggression to gain popularity and mobilize the population around the defense of the homeland in danger, the situation is quite different in the United States. Trump’s popularity is in free fall, while the MAGA movement is seeing its cohesion undermined and some of its leading figures and leaders are now turning violently against Trump himself! One need only recall that the U.S. wars of the past 6–7 decades have all been lost by the United States—including, of course, the Vietnam War—not on the battlefield but within the country, within American society, which actively opposed them, to realize just how important—and indeed decisive for the war’s final outcome—is the current collapse in the popularity of Trump, Trumpism, and their war against Iran…

The situation would be entirely different if the Iranian regime had not successfully resisted by exploiting to perfection all the glaring military, diplomatic, and other flaws in the tactical choices of the “great strategist” that Trump aspires to be. In other words, the Iranian regime is winning this war because it has skillfully exploited the shortcomings and weaknesses of its adversary—that is, Trump himself. This is exactly what we had in mind on March 10, when we wrote the following: “We can trust him to do everything possible to sink even deeper into the Iranian trap. An uneducated and totally incompetent megalomaniac, lacking any competent advisors and surrounded by insignificant upstarts whose only merit is their extreme servility, Trump likes to repeat that God himself protects him and has entrusted him with the divine mission of saving America. Just as Hitler liked to repeat that “Providence” protected him and had entrusted him with the mission of saving Germany. Nevertheless, compared to Hitler’s messianism, Trump’s is nothing but a cheap imitation… but just as dangerous and deadly.” (1)

In short, the merit of the Iranian leaders lies in the fact that they have understood very well what most of the international media and the swarm of their so-called “experts,” “analysts,” and “think tankers” ignore—or rather, pretend to ignore: that, like the Emperor in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, King Trump is naked! And that, consequently, it is pointless to look for a needle in a haystack where there is nothing but the delusions of a psychopathic megalomaniac and pathological liar! This makes the situation even more complicated because this “mad” North American tyrant is not only even more unpredictable and dangerous, but also because our era—marked by the dead ends of the capitalist system—is seeing the proliferation of these mad tyrants, no longer in the Third World but at the helm of superpowers! And this is undoubtedly a sign of the times that speaks volumes about the current state of our decadent, perverse, amoral, and highly capitalist world…

That said, there is no doubt that Trump’s United States is currently more diplomatically isolated than ever, which increases Tehran’s room for maneuver in negotiations with the United States. At the same time, the Iran of the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards is receiving military aid from China and Russia, which are undeniably taking advantage of American setbacks to strengthen their economic and diplomatic positions in the Persian Gulf region and far beyond. As for the international left, it is, this time, fulfilling its internationalist duty by fully and rightly supporting Iran, which is under attack by American imperialism and its Israeli ally—a stance that further highlights the persistent refusal of the majority of this left to support another country, Ukraine, which is under attack by another imperialist power, Russia. Could it be because the Ukrainian regime does not shoot and kill thousands of protesters, nor hang hundreds of its dissidents, as the Iranian regime does?…

However, Israel’s current isolation on the international stage is far more serious than that of Trump’s United States, as it poses a grave threat to the future of the Zionist state because it is twofold: on the one hand, it involves allies who until recently were unconditional, but who are now beginning—albeit tentatively—to reconsider their total support first for Netanyahu and then for Israel, under growing pressure from their public opinion, which is shocked, if not moved, by its crimes in Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon. This pressure is even stronger in the United States, where a strong majority of citizens now declare themselves not only opposed to Israel’s policies but also, and above all, in favor of the Palestinians and their right to self-determination! Not to mention the American far right, which is currently dividing the MAGA base of Trumpism by accusing Israel of manipulating Trump, using arguments tinged with the unabashed and traditional anti-Semitism of its neo-Nazi wing. A sign of the times: a growing number of candidates for elected office (senators, representatives, mayors, etc.) who until recently eagerly sought the support and funding of the Israel lobby (AIPAC) now prefer not to have it, as they consider it discredited and therefore counterproductive.

And on the other hand, it concerns the Jewish Diaspora itself, which sees Israel’s strategic stronghold—American Jews—distancing themselves more than ever from Israel, under pressure from an increasingly massive vanguard of young Jews who are fighting alongside the Palestinians, organizing and leading mobilizations against the killing and destruction machine that is the “Jewish state”, and openly declaring themselves anti-Zionist! And it is by no means a coincidence that this vanguard of young American anti-Zionist Jews—which numbered a few hundred activists in its early days in 2017 (2), compared to tens of thousands today—has been able to influence not only its own community but also broad segments of American society as a whole, all while gaining followers outside the United States. And this is how the movement of radicalized youth was born, which brought the Muslim Zohran Mamdani to New York City Hall, whose British “clone,” Zack Polanski, is in the process of transforming the UK Greens not only into the country’s main left-wing force, but also into a mass party with a genuinely left-wing platform—the only one capable of blocking the path of Nigel Farage’s fascists! In short, there is now reason not to despair… 

Oaklandsocialist comments: One qualification is necessary: Polansky has spouted the usual Putin apologist line , lightly condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine but claiming that Russia is not trying to wipe out a civilization. Then he calls for an end to arms to Ukraine and for a “negotiated settlement”. As for Mamdani, he has weighed in on foreign policy issues including Palestine (of course) and even the Armenian genocide. We had hoped that once elected as mayor he would take a clear stance regarding Ukraine, but he has not done so yet. He still might, but so far he has not.

Notes

1. See Trump trapped himself-A macabre dance of vampires in the Persian Gulf!: https://

2. Une nouvelle génération de Juifs américains contre Trump et Netanyahou !: https://www.cadtm.org/Une-