1 October 2026
By Stephen Gowans
The UK government claims to have foiled a planned “terrorist” attack on a USAF air base masquerading as an RAF air base in the English countryside, claiming the thwarted attack was likely orchestrated by Iran.
The Wall Street Journal commented that using “proxies to plot an attack on a U.K. military installation would mark a significant escalation given that Britain isn’t directly at war with Iran”—an acknowledgement that Britain is at war with Iran, even if not directly. It added that “Iran has targeted British bases abroad during the war” “including Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and Akrotiri in Cyprus.” It failed to mention that the bases were used by US forces to attack Iran. It’s incomprehensible that anyone should expect immunity from attack for a party that materially aids an aggressor.
Moreover, how can an alleged planned attack on a UK military facility that has been used by Washington to prosecute a bellum ultro inferre (an unprovoked war of aggression) be characterized as “terrorist” without completely rewriting the definition of terrorism to mean an attack on the military of a foe rather than on its civilians?
Whether you want to call RAF Fairford a concealed US military base, or a shared British-US military facility, three things are clear: One, the base is used by the US military. Two, it has been used to carry out an unprovoked offensive war on Iran. Three, it is, as a consequence, fair game for Iranian retaliation. If you’re going to participate in a war, don’t whine if the enemy plans to strike back.
To be sure, the story of the alleged plot is sufficiently turbid to raise questions about whether there actually ever was a plot to begin with. But if the plot is genuine, and it was orchestrated by Tehran, it is perfectly legitimate.
Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy writes that all Jewish parties in Israel are committed to annihilating Gaza
All leaders of the major Jewish political parties in Israel wish to return to war in Gaza, or more accurately, to resume a genocide by means of massive violence preparatory to the expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza, which means they all favor the total and final annihilation of Palestinian Gaza, or what the Nazis would have called a Vernichtungskrieg, a war of annihilation.
Given that the Israeli orgy of violence started three years ago, and that the aim of resuming it will be to complete the job begun on 8 October 2023, we might call the project the Endlosung, which is to say, the final solution.
I should add that while Israel has inflicted massive violence on the Palestinians, it is not through violence alone that it carries out its genocide. Violence is the means by which Israel has made Gaza uninhabitable. The aim is not to kill all or even a substantial part of the Palestinian population, but to leave Palestinians with no option but to quit Gaza, or die.
Jewish colonizers have been using both violent and non-violent means to efface the Palestinian natives from their territory and to replace them with a Jewish majority for the last century. Genocide does not depend on violence alone, or even require it. Even so, the Jewish colonizers have, since 7 October 2023, discovered a newfound lust for violence, which they have been able to indulge, thanks to the largesse of the United States and Germany, which provide the Zionist Vernichtungskrieg 99 percent of its military aid. The Zionists could not run a settler colonial apartheid state, subjugate the Palestinians, occupy parts of Lebanon and Syria, bomb Iran, assassinate Iranian leaders and scientists, support pogroms in the West Bank, and reduce Gaza to rubble, without the substantial assistance of the United States and Germany. In return, Israel does the West’s “dirty work“, as Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, has pointed out.
Soviet support for the Zionism is racism resolution
On 10 November 1975, the UN General Assembly approved resolution 3379, declaring Zionism to be a form of racism.
It was sponsored by the Arab League and Muslim-majority countries, and backed by the Soviet bloc.
The claim that Zionism is racism was a curious stance for the Soviet bloc to take, since it was inconsistent with Soviet support for the two-state ‘solution,’ which in turn, was inconsistent with Lenin’s championing of decolonization.
In backing the two-state ‘solution,’ the Soviets endorsed the Jewish colonization of Palestinian territory, and by implication supported the very Zionist racism they claimed to oppose. At the same time, they rejected Lenin’s anti-colonialism in promoting a colonialist endeavor in Palestinian territory.
Sadly, the contradictions persist in the communist movement today, where support for the two-state proposal is nearly universal, except among many Trotskyist groups. One can’t be a champion of decolonization while backing the colonization of Palestine. Nor can one be against racism while endorsing a racist Zionist state.
An End to Israel Altogether
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has called for Israel to end its occupation of southern Syria, not because the occupation is predatory and imperialist, but because “it may well push residents of southern Syria into the arms of” what the newspaper calls “the Iranian axis.”
That the occupation may drive occupied people into the arms of a coalition that opposes occupation, evinces clearly what “the axis” is: an anti-imperialist resistance against the predations of the US-backed Jewish supremacist state in the Levant.
The axis comprises Iran, Hezbollah, Ansar Allah (the Houthis), a branch of the Iraqi PMF, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Marxist PFLP. Before its overthrow by rebranded US-backed Al Qaeda forces, Baathist Syria was also a member. The thread that connects these groups is not Islam (for how would we explain the inclusion of the Marxist PFLP and secular Arab nationalist Syria?) Nor is it Twelver Shia Islam (for neither Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or Ansar Allah fit this category.)
The occupation of southern Syria, which is said by Haaretz to represent a tragedy in embryo, is no different, but in its recency, from the US-backed Zionist occupations of Syria’s Golan, southern Lebanon, Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Palestinian territory known as 4 June 1967 Israel (the first territory the Zionists occupied, representing the 78 percent of Palestine supporters of the two-state proposal believe should be reserved for an ethno-supremacist Jewish state. Miko Peled asks why it is that two-state supporters think Zionist colonizers should get over three-quarters of Palestine, while the Palestinians are relegated to less that one quarter of their country. This makes little sense, considering that there are as many Palestinians living in historic Palestine as Jews. We might call the two-state solution a proposal to carve up Palestine into one big state for Jewish colonizers and a reservation for the natives.)
While I agree with Haaretz that Israel should exit southern Syria, I part company with the newspaper on the reasons for calling for the occupation’s end (because it is predatory, and not because it will strengthen the resistance, which is desirable) and also on the scope of what ought to be called for. If one settler colonial occupation is indefensible, so too is every other. Rather than calling for an end to Israel’s occupation in Syria, one ought to be calling for an end to Israel altogether, the decolonization of the Levant, and the demise of the US imperialist project in the region.
The big enemy and the smaller one
While Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and the settler colonial regime he represents are execrable, and while it was encouraging to have witnessed scores of UN delegations walking out on the genocide-leader’s address to the UN General Assembly, Donald Trump and the imperialist regime he leads are doubly repugnant, and yet only two delegations (Iran’s and Cuba’s) walked out on Trump’s belligerent, self-serving, gasconade before the UN.
Worse, even Trump’s threat to inflict a Vernichtungskrieg on Iran—in the grand hall of an organization ostensibly dedicated to saving humanity from the scourge of war—failed to offend the conscience of UN delegates sufficiently to induce them to walk out. Apparently, a man who is carrying out a genocide of a Palestinian population of 7 million offends the conscience of UN delegations more than his enabler who has repeatedly threatened to carry out a genocide of 90 million Iranians.
The United States ought to arouse, not less indignation than Israel, and not as much, but far more, considering that not only is it the principal patron, armorer, defender, and promoter of the Jewish supremacist state in Palestine, but its own conduct, apart from its support of Israel, is even more repugnant.
Consider, for example, the unprovoked war of aggression on Iran; the thuggish kidnapping of the Venezuelan president; the effort to conquer Cuba, and to do so by reducing the entire population to misery; the ICE-led fascist pogroms against immigrants and the cold-blooded murder of our comrades Rene Good and Alex Pretti; and on and on ad nauseam.
On top of these offences, Washington makes every one of Israel’s crimes—from racism, to apartheid, to colonization, to genocide—possible.
That makes the United States worse than Israel.
To treat Netanyahu and the US-backed Jewish supremacists in Palestine as outliers while blithely accepting the Zionist state’s chief sponsor—and the world’s most predatory country—as a state worthy of respect, is insupportable and evidence of a widespread failure to order our political enemies from greater to lesser.
Of course, the reason why Trump received a polite reception and Netanyahu did not, is because Trump has the power to punish nearly every country, and Netanyahu does not.
So, delegations are careful about how they express their indignation, and whether they express it at all. It depends on the power of the one who provokes it. Which from the perspective of Washington is just fine. Oderint dum metuant. Let them hate so long as they fear.
On the responsibility of citizens to condemn their own country’s imperialism
In a Washington Post op-ed, NHL Hall of Fame goalie Dominik Hasek wrote that the Washington Capital’s star Alexander Ovechkin, a Russian citizen, must condemn “Russia’s imperialist war in Ukraine and the horrific crimes associated with it,” otherwise he acts as “a walking advertisement for” his government’s actions.
Here’s what Hasek wrote:
“Every citizen acts as a representative of their country and serves as a walking advertisement for its actions — unless, of course, they publicly condemn those actions. At present, this means that every Russian citizen, and especially every supporter of President Vladimir Putin, serves as an advertisement for Russia’s imperialist war in Ukraine and the horrific crimes associated with it, including the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. This applies to all Russian citizens.”
Hasek’s argument might be more compelling if he applied the same logic to the support of US citizens for comparable US crimes. Were Hasek to do so, his argument, using his own words with appropriate substitutions, would look like this:
‘Every citizen acts as a representative of their country and serves as a walking advertisement for its actions — unless, of course, they publicly condemn those actions. At present, this means that every US citizen, and especially every supporter of President Donald Trump, serves as an advertisement for the United States’ imperialist war on Iran and the horrific crimes associated with it, including the mass killing of Iranian schoolgirls. This applies to all US citizens.’
Hasek’s logic also fits with US participation in the genocide of the Palestinians. The United States provides Israel with the arms to carry out the genocide, and the diplomatic backing that enables Israel to pursue its heinous crimes with impunity. This means, per Hasek, that unless every US citizen condemns their country’s participation in the genocide, they are walking advertisements for complicity in a horrible crime.
I join Hasek in condemning Russian imperialism. And I invite him to join me in denouncing US and contingent Israeli imperialism and their horrific crimes.
The United States and Russia. Two predatory powers—one obviously much stronger and more predatory— struggling for control of Ukraine
Readers might ask: How can you characterize Russia as a predatory power for its war on Ukraine, without recognizing US predation on Russia? The answer is that I do recognize US predation on Russia, and I denounce it as firmly as I do the raptorial wars of the United States on Iran and the Palestinians. But while the United States preys on Russia—and does so through NATO and its support for Ukraine—this fact in no way gainsays the reality that what Moscow risibly calls its “special military operation” is a bellum ultro inferre, an offensive war. I see the conflict in Ukraine as a war between Russia and the United States for control of Ukraine; what Lenin would have called a predatory war.
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