By carrying out its military operation to destroy Iran's nuclear sites, the United States wanted to show the whole world its strike capacity.
Its giant bombers took off from American territory. They didn't need to ask permission from any country to cross global airspace. Those stealth bombers were undetectable. In itself, this military operation led by the world's greatest power marks a significant step in the escalation of war.
How dare Trump, followed by Netanyahu, talk about peace after laying waste to Gaza, attacking Lebanon and bombing Syria and then Iran ! But when these people talk about peace, it’s always with weapon in hand and with devastating fire power available. In actual fact, nothing is less guaranteed than the current truce with Iran.
In Gaza, the Israeli army continues its massacre that has already claimed more than 57,000 lives. Having taken control of the distribution of humanitarian aid, the Israeli army is now also firing on the crowds who come to collect food.
In the West Bank, Israeli settler militias have organized increasingly violent raids against the Palestinian population. In a Palestinian village in the center of this region, while international media were focused on the war between Israel, the United States and Iran, about a hundred Jewish settlers took advantage of the funeral of a 13-year-old Arab boy who had been killed by Israeli gunfire. They staged a kind of pogrom in the town, burning cars and dousing houses with gasoline. After defending themselves with stones, the population had to endure shootings from the Israeli army which had arrived to side with the settlers. This is Trump and Netanyahu's peace!
And then there was the NATO conference. It didn’t last long because almost all the countries present immediately complied with Trump’s injunctions to significantly increase their arms budgets.
Until now, the American requirement was that member states' military budgets be at least 2% of GDP. This threshold will have to rise to 3.5% within ten years, and even to 5% if the homeland security part of state budgets is included. It will be up to these same countries to make their own populations pay which, for France, would mean finding another €40 billion, on top of all the increases already planned, to bring the military budget to over €120 billion by 2035.
This is yet another considerable increase in European military budgets. The United States either imposes its diktat on countries that want to be on its side or it marginalizes them. And, by the way, they offer a virtually exclusive market to the American military industry, whose standards are those of NATO.
Today, there is war in the Middle East, Ukraine and other countries in the world but not yet here. But when so many weapons are accumulating, it would be foolish to think that we will never be targeted. All states are marching toward war.
State leaders may not even know against whom they are preparing for war, but they know that, even if they aren’t preparing, their competitors are. No one fundamentally controls this march toward war, not even the United States. But it's under way.
While many things are beyond our control, we already know that the wars to come will be against peoples and the exploited. We can already see this in the Middle East.
Those who govern us tell us that we will be ‘’on the right side’’. But there will be no ‘’right side'' for the peoples because all the dominant powers are rival capitalist powers who don't care about the fate of populations, starting with their own.
The only way for us, the exploited, to get ready for what's coming is to be deeply convinced that we mustn't trust our own leaders, whether civilian or military.
In peacetime, the state guarantees our oppression on behalf of the big bourgeoisie. In wartime, it also organizes our submission and conscription to turn us and our children into cannon fodder.
As workers, our main enemy is in our own country, it’s the capitalist class and its political servants. And we must fight them with all our might.
Nathalie Arthaud