To understand how our government was able to start this war with Iran, we have to look at how the Trump White House sold a false promise of “peace.” And how certain voices from the “alternative” media have assisted in marketing this lie, even though these same commentators are now condemning Trump for attacking Iran.
The main figure I’m talking about is Tucker Carlson, who played a crucial part in providing cover for the Trump neocons as they prepared for this provocation. Carlson has denounced Trump’s strike on Iran, yet just three months ago, Carlson platformed the actor who’s been most instrumental in creating complacency over Trump’s Middle East policies: Steven Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East. This March, Witkoff had an interview with Carlson where he articulated all the narratives the second Trump administration had been promoting about its foreign policy in that earlier stage. Witkoff asserted that Trump was genuinely looking for peace in Ukraine, peace in Gaza, and peace with Iran, and that by doing so he was mounting an authentic opposition towards the neocon establishment.
To craft this image of a Trump government that was standing up to the foreign policy elites, Witkoff and Carlson discussed how the media has targeted Witkoff, referring to instances where he’s been labeled an agent of Hamas or other foreign governments. Supposedly this meant he was standing up for real principles; but the reality is that whatever differences there are between Witkoff’s camp and the Zionists who’ve attacked him, these points of divergence are entirely superficial.
All that Witkoff and Trump have done to change Washington’s diplomatic posture is assert they’re open towards negotiations with these governments, which has actually served as a ploy for justifying more war and genocide. If Trump and Witkoff have been doing all they can to bring peace, then according to this narrative these foreign governments must be the ones who’ve undermined that goal. This is undoubtedly an idea that the advocates of war with Iran hope to promote as Trump escalates the conflict; and for the antiwar movement to resist this war, it will need to learn from the Steve Witkoff psyop.
The most destructive lie that Witkoff told in the interview, and that’s been propagated more widely by Trump’s apologists, was the notion about Trump having seriously intended to rescue the people of Gaza. Many of the commentators who’ve helped sell Trump as “fighting the deep state” recognize that what’s happening in Gaza is not a war but a genocide; so to deny that they’ve been narratively assisting this genocide, they’ve had to affirm the perception that Trump’s White House seeks to end the mass murder in Gaza.
This isn’t what Trump himself has said, with his stated plan being to ethnically cleanse Gaza; but Witkoff spoke as if there’s actually a chance that the U.S. will bring about economic development within Gaza, as opposed to engineering Gaza’s extermination like it’s actually doing. This lie was part of the cover which Washington managed to create for itself during that moment; a cover that concealed the plans for bringing the genocide into its next stage, and for instigating a regional war to save the Zionist entity.
If the antiwar movement wants to succeed, it will need to go beyond admitting that support for Trump was the wrong tactic. The movement will have to commit towards a united front with the forces that are resisting Washington’s aggressions; which means breaking out of online politics and “alt” media, and building an actual anti-imperialist front within the workers movement.
This is an essential question for all of the political actors and orgs that have spoken out against Trump’s Iran strike: are they willing to not just rhetorically oppose the war machine, but carry out the essential step of entering into class struggle? We’re not going to truly have an impact on our government’s war plans until we’ve prepared the proletariat to leverage their unique power against the war machine; to implement strikes across the core productive industries, ones designed to punish the ruling class for perpetrating these imperialist schemes. To bring about such a project, we will need to bring our orgs into the workers movement, and build up independent worker orgs. There is a viable route towards gaining the power we’ll need for victory, if we choose to take this route.
The Steve Witkoff psyop, and all other “dissident” ideas that involve appealing towards the ruling class, can only gain traction because our movement hasn’t pursued a truly revolutionary strategy. Because far too many “socialist” or “antiwar” orgs have avoided serious class struggle, and instead tried to win the favor of either the Democrats or the Republicans. This ruling class tailism is the easy path, the path that gets you boosted by the algorithms and keeps you relatively safe from repression. That opportunistic route is tempting, but anyone who sincerely wants to win this fight will reject it, and join in on the project for a workers struggle against the wars.
It’s this idea, the idea of class struggle, that can let the anti-imperialist movement truly make a compelling argument for why the masses should join it. The overwhelming majority of people who’ve been influenced by the Steve Witkoff psyop aren’t motivated by opportunism; they’re looking for answers, and the only answers they’ve found are ones which were crafted to keep them away from class struggle. When the movement for a workers revolt becomes stronger and more visible, it will gain much more mass pull.
This is how communists can intervene in the situation our government has created, and turn the backlash against the Iran war into an effective popular effort. The same applies to the backlash against the Gaza genocide, which is absolutely not finished despite the efforts to demobilize it. If we take the right lessons from what we’ve experienced, we’ll be able to end the antiwar movement’s cycle of defeats.
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