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Margaret Kimberley for Black Agenda Report
Ajamu Baraka and Margaret Kimberley discuss how the assault on Iran exposed the pathological nature of white power, the cynical games of the duopoly, and a new campaign to move the World Cup out of the United States.
“The criminal attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israeli fascist regimes once again revealed the sadistic brutality that has always been at the core of the Western European imperialist project.”
Margaret Kimberley: Black Agenda Report editor and contributor, Ajamu Baraka, joins me to discuss the implications of the criminal U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran and why the FIFA World Cup should not be hosted by the U.S. Ajamu, thank you for joining me.
Ajamu Baraka: Thank you, Margaret.
MK: Ajamu, the U.S. and Israel began their attack on Iran on February 28, thinking they could change the regime with a bombing campaign. But fortunately, Iran has better defense capabilities than they thought, and has been able to defend itself. Things have not worked out the way the US thought. There is a ceasefire in effect, there were talks which did not last very long, which actually, perhaps is better for Iran. Iran is controlling the Strait of Hormuz. The US claimed to have boarded an Iranian vessel. What is your understanding of where we are now?
AB: That basically, we are facing an ongoing and deepening international crisis as a consequence of the ill-advised and illegal military assault on Iran that has plunged the entire planet into relative chaos. Because of the consequences of that attack, which led Iran to close down the Strait of Hormuz, something that everybody knew, including U.S. intelligence, would be the likely reaction of an attack on that country, especially if Iran felt that it was facing an existential assault on their state and civilization. That is the situation we are witnessing now. The assault by the U.S. and Israel created the conditions in Iran that led the new young leaders, who I refer to as the young lions, to conclude that all bets were off, all constraints had to be removed because the fight was a fight to the death.
That is where we are. But it didn’t have to be like that because even after it was clear to many in the Trump Administration that a major miscalculation had been made and the administration was facing the very thing that Trump had campaigned against – a potential never-ending war that would sap U.S. lives, resources and international prestige, the administration was given a few opportunities to reverse itself.
One example, and perhaps the most important opportunity, was when the announcement was made that, after forcing the U.S. to accept the Iranian terms that demanded that the Israeli assault on the people of Lebanon had to be included in any resolution to end the war initiated by the U.S. and Israel, the Iranians opened up the Strait of Hormuz. Well, it wasn’t five hours later that the Trump administration then said, well, we welcome the opening of the strait by Iran but guess what? Now we’re going to close them down. We’re going to basically close all traffic coming from any port in Iran. The Iranians responded and said that will not be allowed to stand and announced that the Strait was going to be closed to all traffic.
You see, Margaret, the white colonial mentality is unable to accept situations in which the “natives” are able to push back, to resist, to win! As I have consistently argued, it is clear to me that before Western Europeans, that includes the Europeans who make up the ruling class in the U.S., before they give up global power, they are prepared to blow up the entire planet. For them, white power is not just a material force but a pathological need.
A video has been circulating on social media around ten days, ago when it appeared that Trump was going to walk away from Iran and accept a strategic failure. The video was an interview on Fox News with Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase Bank, a day or so after it appeared Trump was going to pull out of the war. Dimon said basically that the job needed to be completed. We all know that Dimon represents the real power bloc as a representative of finance capital and Trump’s boss. It was right after that interview that Trump announced he was prepared to commit genocide against Iran if they didn’t surrender.
So the question then becomes, who is giving the orders? Everybody talks about Netanyahu being the pivotal influencer over Trump, but many of us believe that Trump is representing the interest of a significant element of the ruling class. There’s a convergence of perspective and a convergence of strategy, and that is all related to their common belief that in order for the U.S. and Israel to dominate West Asia and block China, Iranian power needs to be destroyed and if that means Iranian society also. Well, genocide is now being normalized so who really would care. So that’s where we are today. Margaret, it’s really unfortunate that there’s no countervailing forces right now to stop what is going to be an impending, continued and escalating disaster as we are on this escalation ladder.
MK: You know, I’m glad you pointed out Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, his comments, and it’s a reminder of who runs things in the world. We spend a lot of time thinking about politicians, who’s in, who’s out, or which party’s in the majority, who wins the presidency, and perhaps we spend too much time thinking about those things, because the Jamie Dimons of the world are the ones who give these so-called leaders direction.
AB: Exactly. And we see the disproportionate power and influence of the Zionist lobby at moments like at the last State of the Union address by Donald Trump right before the attack, and you saw the ritual of the Democrats standing up or not standing, or the Republicans standing up in relation to something that Donald Trump said.
One of the few times during the entire evening when both sides of the Congress stood up in response to a comment from Donald Trump, was when Donald Trump talked about the absolute necessity, in essence, of destroying Iran.
And so we have to remind people that this is a bipartisan position on the part of the politicians who have been completely paid off and compromised by the Zionist lobby and the interests and objectives of the ruling element. That ruling element is disproportionately Zionist also. But even more importantly, we have to remind people of the terms of struggle and resistance. What we are seeing today is not an aberration but historical continuity. The Criminal Attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israeli Fascist Regimes Once Again Revealed the Sadistic Brutality that Has Always Been At the Core of the Western European Imperialist Project. It is what made Europe, Europe, and it is the material basis of white power.
So you’re right. This is what we see now with U.S. policies is a reflection of the agenda of the ruling class. The majority of the US population is opposed to the war, but that has no bearing on the policies because there is no democracy in fascism. The people are just ignored but if they actively resist they are suppressed. The only agenda that counts is the agenda of capital and at the center of that agenda is the commitment to war to solve Western capitalist decline – an impossibility.
In fact, you know Trump said very clearly that these notions of things like childcare and all of that is ridiculous, because we have to use resources to do what, to fight wars. They didn’t mean for those comments to be revealed to the public, but of course, they came out and graphically demonstrated the gap between the ruling class agenda and the human needs and aspirations of the people. Look at the proposal for a $200 billion supplement to the military budget to cover the ill fated, ill advised attack on Iran even when a majority of the population oppose the war. To drive home the contempt for the people, they follow that up with the audacious proposal to increase the military budget in 2027 by $500 billion. So they are quite clear that they are prepared to use all of the resources of the public to fight their wars and then to pass on the cost of those wars and increase prices for fuel, food and everything else. And if they can get away with that, then they will continue to get away with it until they are stopped. That’s really the challenge of the day that people have to understand. And I think they’re beginning to understand Margaret, even among elements of the MAGA base, that they’ve been hoodwinked, bamboozled by this member of the US oligarchy and the ruling class, in their arrogance, I think, have miscalculated, and they are generating significant opposition even among the MAGA forces that see that the interest of the bourgeoisie and their interests are fundamentally different.
MK: Just continuing what you were saying about the bipartisan nature of this and other military actions, the House held a vote on a war powers resolution, which failed by one vote, 213 – 214, and the one Democrat who joined Republicans is set to retire this year. It seems as though they know when the public wants something, they will go through some kind of sham. But in the end it’s always, “Sorry, we didn’t have enough votes,” and it’s a very cynical manipulation of public opinion. So when we hear members of Congress saying, well, we need to vote on this, instead of saying, even those who claim they want a vote, they don’t say whether they do or don’t support military action against Iran, which gives the game away, but then you have this vote which fails very narrowly. What are your thoughts about that?
AB: Well, that’s why we have to make sure that we keep the focus on the bipartisan character of these reactionary policies, because you’re right. That is the game that they play. It’s a very cynical game, given the impression that there may be opposition to the Republican agenda, when we know in fact, in fact it is not. And so they play that game. What happened in the house? You have the same kind of game that they play in the Senate, and now the main person who plays that role, taking up the mantle from Manchin, is Fetterman, out of Pennsylvania. So it is a game the Democrats are playing. But we have to expose that game and remind the public of the bipartisan nature of this commitment to advancing the interest of the minority of the population, the white male ruling class.
So that is our task, and our job is difficult because, of course, they still control, you know, the main channels of communication, and they are attempting to try to control social media. We know that significant advances on that front were made under the Democrats under the guise of protecting the public from inappropriate positions, inappropriate information, the “malign actors” of the nations of Iran and Russia in particular, and people were supporting that, primarily the so-called liberals who, in the past, used to champion freedom of speech.
So then, with the weird politics in the US, the new champions of freedom of speech ended up being the far right elements who made the argument that they were being pushed out. And then you had the purchase of the X platform, etc, by Elon Musk.
This is the task that I think progressive forces have to engage in, this communication with the public, helping them too as they are grappling with these things critically now, helping them to understand the real elements of this struggle against their ruling class, and to make sure that that they come up with a conclusion that is really in alignment with their class interest, and not the class interest of another supposedly reformist member of the ruling class, because that can happen. I mean, you have some other billionaires that are prepared to run for the presidency in 2028 with the same kind of sort of populist orientation, if you will. But you know, we’ve got to make sure that the public understands what the real deal is, so that they are not bamboozled once again.
MK: And before we close, let’s talk about the World Cup of soccer, soccer, as we say in the U.S., and the U.S. is the host country. There’ll be some matches in Canada and Mexico, but the U.S. is the host and these matches are scheduled to begin in early June. Talk to us about your involvement with the campaign to move the games.
AB: Well, the Black Alliance for Peace has a project, the North South Project for People Centered Human Rights. And we have moved to address this issue of the U.S. hosting the World Cup. We think that is obscene, that a country that is involved actively in an ongoing genocide, that has jettisoned international law and international morality to engage in gangsterism, the attack and the kidnapping of the President and the First Lady of Venezuela, the siege of Cuba, the occupation of Haiti, and now the unprovoked war against Iran, along with the security issues that we have within the context or within the boundaries of the U.S. because of the unleashing of ICE against both citizens and non citizens, and no guarantees that ICE will not be allowed to harass people during the course of the games.
All of this adds up to a situation in which the US should not be allowed to host the games. And FIFA knows better, because they have standards of human rights and we know that in the past, they have made moves against certain countries that were supposedly involved in systematic human rights violations, but yet, here we have the U.S. that is quite clear, is involved in genocide and involved in international lawlessness, but yet they are being allowed to host the games. Why? Because FIFA is estimating that they are going to make $11 billion off of these games. And therefore, you know, they are not concerned with how this might look in terms of normalizing genocide, providing a cover to international gangsterism by the U.S. and Israel. So we started the campaign. We built what we call the Anti Fascist Football Coalition, a coalition of organizations globally, and we have been agitating to move the games from the US, and that’s taken up as getting some degree of positive response, and is resonating with people. The argument that we are making is that we cannot allow them to to put a smiley face on genocide.
There are groups across the planet that are now taking this call up, and so that’s what we are organizing. And we are calling for FIFA to move the games. We’re communicating with FIFA. We put together a petition, and we have an endorsement process. We’re moving into phase two of the campaign, in case the games take place in the U.S., organizing opposition on the city level, and we’re asking people to to join us in supporting this campaign. We’re not going to allow the U.S. to be given an opportunity to mask its lawlessness, its brutality, its barbarism. And with this message, they want to show or display to the world, with this anniversary of the founding of the U.S., we’re not going to allow that to take place unchallenged.
MK: Well, thank you. Thank you so much.
AB: My pleasure. Thank you.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com.
Ajamu Baraka is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. He is the Director of the North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights and serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S.-based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC).
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