As a result of Israel’s genocidal offensive in Gaza, the United States has been forced to expand its presence in the Middle East. President Biden has sent warships and thousands of troops to the region, and the U.S. military is now exchanging direct fire with Iran-aligned groups. This increasing U.S. entrenchment is not something Biden will be able to get out of easily.

　　Biden promised to end the “forever wars” in the Middle East, a promise he has been unable to keep. Two years ago, leading foreign policy analysts were discussing a “post-American order” in the Middle East, but today, the whole world is being shaken by Biden’s policies toward the region.

　　The crisis in the Middle East is a crisis for Biden’s whole task of strengthening a declining U.S. imperialism. Biden had a period of success after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which allowed him to use the NATO alliance to reassert U.S. influence in Europe. That success is now in question two years into the war. The United States is getting sucked back into the Middle East as Biden’s main foreign policy success is waning, leading the capitalists to question whether Biden’s strategy to rebuild U.S. power is their best option.

　　How the various crises develop remains an open question. But it is likely that whatever happens, the United States will find itself trapped in the Middle East. This would be a blow to U.S. imperialism at a moment when it is hoping to reorient to China, and it is already a humiliating outcome for Biden’s original strategy to reestablish the United States as a world hegemon.

　　For now, it seems that the crisis in the Middle East will fuel Biden’s domestic troubles and risk another Trump term. But whether Trump or another Democrat benefits from the disaster of Biden’s foreign policy, and even if Biden somehow makes it to reelection, the United States has already been weakened and has no clear way out of the Middle East.

　　Given Biden’s inability to stabilize the Middle East and U.S. imperialism, the continuation of Israel’s offensive, and the open question of how the U.S. election will shape international politics, there is an opening for the working class to intervene with its own policy. Already it is clear that the working class, most notably in the Arab world and the imperialist countries, has become a factor that the various capitalist powers need to consider in how they pursue their interests.

　　By resisting the imperialist-backed genocide in Gaza, the international working class can and must take advantage of this extra space for class struggle. The struggle for Palestinian liberation must unite workers in the imperialist countries with workers around the world, especially in the Middle East. This struggle must win over the Jewish and Israeli working class, which — while still deeply Zionist — contains some sectors beginning to confront the deeply reactionary Zionist state, which pursues its bourgeois ambitions at the expense of Israeli workers’ interests.

　　Despite the importance of the international movement, the role of the working class is limited. While some sectors of the working class have taken up the struggle by putting out statements, demanding their unions call for a ceasefire, and in some cases even refusing to ship weapons to Israel, the role of the working class in the movement must develop to be at the forefront. It is essential for workers already taking up the struggle for Palestine to unite their actions internationally and massify the movement. Workers must resist the attempts by capitalists to contain the struggle through the union and NGO bureaucracies as well as the growing attempts by capitalist governments from South Africa to Saudi Arabia to find bourgeois solutions to the growing support for Palestine.

　　The capitalists clearly cannot resolve the contradictions of the imperialist system, contradictions that are driving imperialist barbarism and war. The working class can chart a course forward by uniting internationally in a fight for a socialist way out of these crises.

　　Editor: Zhong Yao  Deng Panyi

　　From: https://www.leftvoice.org/the-united-states-is-trapped-in-the-middle-east/（2024-2-22）