By New Worker’s Arab correspondent

The Middle East war enters its third week as waves of US and Israeli missiles strike Iran and the Islamic Republic hits back at the Americans, their feudal Arab lackeys and the Zionist entity. Thousands of Iranians and Lebanese have been killed or injured. But Israel has not escaped unscathed. The Israelis put their losses at 18 dead and 2,579 wounded while the Americans say they’ve lost nine military personnel and a further 150 wounded. People’s China has stepped-up shuttle diplomacy to push for an immediate ceasefire and a political settlement. And in Europe, Spain has formally withdrawn its ambassador to Israel and the Left group in the European Parliament has criticised European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for failing to condemn US and Israeli strikes in the Middle East.

Israeli air strikes hit Iran’s oil storage infrastructure last weekend. The Iranians responded by setting the Haifa oil refinery ablaze while their missiles continue their daily barrage on Tel-Aviv and other Zionist towns and settlements, including the Israeli nuclear centre at Dimona. Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance movement, has opened up another front in northern Israel and the price of oil soared around the world as Iran struck at Western ships defying their blockade of the Persian Gulf.

The Trump administration went into panic mode on Sunday when oil prices sky-rocketed
to nearly $120 per barrel when it became clear that the Americans cannot protect oil tankers
attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. It dipped back after Trump claimed an end to the fighting was in sight but began to climb up again following reports that Iran has rebuffed two American offers of a cease-fire.

The Trump offensive has failed. The treacherous American attack, in the midst of negotiations with the Islamic Republic, killed a number of Iran’s leaders but there were plenty to take
their place. The assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei paved the way for his son to take
power – ready to avenge his murdered father and nearly his entire family. Most of the senior leaders who were eliminated have already been replaced. The Iranian response to Washington and Tel-Aviv’s calls to take to the streets for regime change has been to rally around the leadership in the fight against a brutal enemy. And Iranian rockets have knocked out
the American bases in the Middle East while crippling the oil facilities of the feudal Arab Gulf rulers who do Trump’s bidding.

Within America’s ruling circles the blame game has started with some saying that Trump was pushed into war by the Israeli leader and the Zionist lobby in the USA. A narrative is emerging
suggesting that Israel, the tail, is wagging the dog, the USA, which has little to gain from this war. But this has been dismissed by a leading Israeli communist.

“While this might accurately describe the personal dynamic between Netanyahu and Trump – with the former having more experience in world affairs and decades of insider connections within the Republican Party and US foreign policy establishment – it is incorrect to generalise the USA–Israel relationship in this way” says Nimrod Flaschenberg.

“The way to see this war is as a joint effort by segments of the United States, Israel, European, and Arab ruling classes, which are committed to global and regional domination. The core of this alliance is in the United States and its security apparatus, which is far too big a dog to be wagged” – the view of the legendary PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, who said the same thing back in the 1970s.