Version imprimable“Go open Hormuz yourselves, you cowards, the US doesn’t need it and has done the heavy lifting”: this is what Trump has said in essence to his “allies”. Well, opening Hormuz is indeed what Japan, France, the Philippines, Great Britain are doing... Not by bombing Iran, not by threatening to take Iranians back “to the stone ages where they belong” (!!). By negotiating with the mullahs, whose bloody regime – this is the height of irony – is emerging strengthened from the ordeal that is supposed to “obliterate”" it. Strengthened externally (control over the Strait is de facto recognized) and internally (the savage Trump-Netanyahu aggression has closed ranks around the ultra wing). Britain is inviting 35 countries to a meeting for a diplomatic solution. The Gulf monarchies are backtracking after the Security Council rejected their resolution, which paved the way for a military solution. From now on, they are asking to normalise their relations with Tehran.
The ground seems to be giving way under Donald J. Trump’s feet. Two US jets were shot down, ruining all his bluster about the “overwhelming victory” of his army – “the strongest in the world, by far”. If the pilots had not been recovered, the humiliation would have been total. The belching of the Secretary of War, Hegseth, who invoked Jesus Christ at a press conference, did not succeed in concealing the failure of “Epic Fury.” In this military and diplomatic context, it is becoming politically increasingly difficult for Trump to carry out his promises of total war to “decapitate, annihilate Iran.” However, he could well take the plunge.
With each passing day, Trump’s successive ultimatums are an expression of his impotence. His threats to destroy all Iranian bridges and power plants – a war crime – and his insults (“bastards, open this strait”) express his rage at having put himself in a bind. If he carried out his threats, it would be at the cost of a catastrophic loss of credibility and influence for US imperialism. Moreover, in this case, Trump would have to act very quickly, before being bypassed and isolated even more seriously by an “alter-imperialist” alliance of “middle countries” challenging US leadership, on the model proposed in Davos by Carney and supported by Macron in Korea recently.
The alternative – to back down, to look for a “deal”, to rely on the help of China, Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey to get out of the predicament without losing face completely – would probably be “less bad”" from the point of view of the US dominant class. But the political price to pay would not be small either. In particular, Iran will not give in without guarantees for its security, which Israel will refuse to accept. In any case, an inward curve of this kind seems difficult to achieve as long as Trump is in charge.
Since his zigzags on tariffs, the President is certainly known to back down in TACO (“Trump always chickens out”) mode. But the geostrategic stakes are so important that it is difficult to see him doing TACO in the Gulf. So, a palace revolution in the White House, in the name of the 25th Amendment (incapacity of the President)? This is not totally excluded (the military hierarchy does not appreciate the purges of which it is a victim; the Republican Party is in panic in the face of the polls for the midterms, the judiciary does not give in to the despot), but unlikely in the short term. The risk of accelerating the criminal headlong rush is therefore very present. Already, health facilities have been massively bombed (the Pasteur Institute in Tehran, in particular, was destroyed).
The situation is all the more volatile and unpredictable because, on the domestic front, too, bad news is piling up for Trump. Nearly 9 million people demonstrated on the theme “No Kings, no ICE, no war”, in a climate of convergence of struggles. The MAGA base is cracked by the Epstein scandal, but also by opposition to the total freedom that Trump wants to leave to the AI oligopolies. The construction of the despot’s pharaonic ballroom is blocked by a Republican judge.
The approval rating for Trump’s stock is barely 32% (more than 60% disapprove of his action). The polls for the midterms, as we have said, are catastrophic. And the Supreme Court (with a reactionary majority!) is preparing to declare that the abolition of the right of birth (any child born in the USA has US nationality) is unconstitutional. In short, nothing is going well!
His success in Venezuela has led Trump to believe that he can get away with anything, including brutally appropriating Iranian oil, reshaping the Middle East to his (and Netanyahu’s) liking, and thus strengthening US hegemony threatened by the economic rise of capitalist China. The calculation was wrong from one end to the other.
This mistake is likely to cost him dearly, and to cost US imperialism dearly. The neo-fascist aspirant to the White House already saw himself as a Roman emperor (like Caligula). Although he has not a shadow of classical culture, Trump intuitively senses that "arx tarpeia Capitoli proxima" (The Tarpeian rock is close to the Capitol – the fall is close to success). The wounded, threatened animal can become even more dangerous. Netanyahu – and Putin! - show what atrocities these people are capable of. Let’s mobilise to stop them.
Imprecor 7 April
