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Both Israeli and Saudi officials have confirmed an unprecedented secret trip by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Yossi Cohen, head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, to Saudi Arabia on Sunday.
Israel Army Radio first reported on the trip and the meeting between US and Israeli officials and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which was confirmed by a senior Saudi official who spoke with him. Wall street journal. These are the first such conversations to be publicly reported, although meetings between Israeli and Saudi military and intelligence officials are believed to have taken place more frequently in recent years.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, later tweeted a denial of the report, saying: “No such meeting took place. The only officials present were Americans and Saudis. “The denial reflects the controversial nature of the meeting within Saudi Arabia, where the House of Saud in power has presented itself as the guardian of Islam and has formally insisted that” normalization ” The ties between Riyadh and Tel Aviv depend on the implementation of a Middle East, peace agreement and the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
However, the Sunni oil monarchies of the UAE and Bahrain dispensed with such conditions by signing a US-brokered agreement in August to recognize Israel. The monarchy in Bahrain, which rules over an oppressed Shiite majority population, depends on Saudi Arabia for its survival and could not have entered the deal without its approval.
The meeting between Pompeo, Netanyahu and bin Salman in the city of Neom on the Red Sea, like the August agreement, was not intended to achieve peace in the Middle East, but to consolidate an alliance between Washington, Israel and the Saudi monarchy. , axis of imperialist reaction and domination in the Middle East, in preparation for a war against Iran.
This has been the main objective of Pompeo’s extraordinary 10-day tour abroad, held just two months before the inauguration day, and what, according to the electoral results, should be the swearing-in of a new administration headed by the Democrat Joe Biden.
While it is traditional for “lame jerk” secretaries of state to use this interregnum to prepare for the handover of power and coordinate political decisions with their incoming replacements, Pompeo has made it clear that he has no intention of doing anything of the sort.
On the eve of his trip, he told a reporter who asked him if he anticipated a “smooth transition” at the US State Department that there would in fact be “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” openly aligning the US foreign policy Electoral coup attempt carried out from the White House.
Pompeo has announced plans to continually intensify Washington’s “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Iran, an economic blockade equivalent to a state of war, over the next two months, announcing new measures at least weekly.
During the course of his trip, he and State Department officials have repeatedly stated that the option of military action against Iran remains “on the table.”
Although the Secretary of State of the United States has refused to answer questions from representatives of the American media during his tour, he gave an interview to The National, an Abu Dhabi-based daily controlled by the UAE’s monarchical rulers, in which he was asked if a US military attack on Iran was being considered.
Pompeo responded: “The President of the United States always reserves the right to do whatever is necessary to ensure that Americans are safe. It has been our policy for four years. It will be our policy, as long as we have a responsibility to keep America protected. “
That such plans are under discussion was confirmed by the New York Times, which cited senior administration officials who reported on a Nov. 12 meeting between Trump and his national security cabinet in which the U.S. president raised the possibility of airstrikes on Iran’s main civilian nuclear site in Natanz. . The pretext for such an attack was that Tehran had exceeded the limits of its low-enriched uranium arsenal established by the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers, which the Trump administration unilaterally repealed in 2018.
While the Times reported that senior advisers persuaded Trump not to attack the nuclear facility and “left the meeting believing that a missile strike inside Iran was out of the question,” there are ominous signs that preparations for war are continuing.
US Central Command confirmed over the weekend that US B-52H Stratofortress bombers, capable of deploying up to 20 nuclear cruise missiles, as well as conventional munitions, have been redeployed from Base of the Minot Air Force in North Dakota on a “short notice, long-range mission” to the Middle East.
According to a press release from the US Central Command, the purpose of the mission was to “deter aggression and reassure US partners and allies.”
This was the first time that long-range strategic bombers have been deployed to the region since last January, following the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, one of Iran’s top officials, with US unmanned missiles, after his arrival at Baghdad international airport. for an official state visit.
The shipment of the B-52s to the Middle East follows the redeployment last week of a German F-16 fighter squadron to the Al-Dhafra airbase in Abu Dhabi, while the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group of the US Navy remains deployed in the Persian Gulf.
Meanwhile, Israel has been carrying out increasingly provocative airstrikes against Iranian-linked forces in Syria, while offering unprecedented public claims of responsibility for the strikes. The latest such attacks were reported on Saturday in the eastern Deir Ezzor region, near the Iraqi border, hitting up to 10 targets and reportedly killing 14 militants.
The Israeli government has for years lobbied the United States to wage war with Iran, and its latest actions are undoubtedly intended to provoke such a confrontation before the end of the Trump administration.
Conventional wisdom within the corporate media and the Democratic Party is that the anti-Iranian campaign being waged by Trump and Pompeo aimed at boxing into an incoming Biden administration, impeded their stated goal of rejoining the Iranian nuclear deal. , although demanding even more. Tehran concessions.
However, more and more sinister possibilities are being considered. the Washington Post reported Sunday that “speculation has increased that the Trump administration was preparing for military action against Iran’s nuclear capabilities in its final days. Some considered Netanyahu’s apparent visit to the [Saudi] kingdom and the presence of Pompeo as further proof that a strike was possible. “
The long and bitter conflict between the United States and Iran dates back almost 40 years since the overthrow of the US-backed Shah dictatorship. Its objective source lies in the drive of US imperialism to impose its hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East and deny its strategic resources to its main global rival, China. Whatever the tactical differences, this momentum will continue whether Democrats and Republicans take power next year.
Yet in the context of the explosive political crisis unfolding within the United States, the Trump administration’s launch of an abrupt military confrontation with Iran – and the inevitable Iranian retaliation – could serve a definite and sinister political purpose. It would provide the pretext for the declaration of a national emergency, blocking the transfer of power and imposing martial law.
Between now and January 20, any provocation can be used to justify starting a new catastrophic war in the Middle East with the potential to ignite a global conflagration. The fight against this threat can only be waged by the working class mobilizing its independent force against both the Trump administration and the Democrats and in unity with workers around the world in the fight against the source of the war, the capitalist system of Profits.
