N°11-01/03/2021 The Trump administration has not deviated from the general orientation of the United States in dealing with the problems of the Middle and Near East.
While we note a shift towards Asian issues with a significant military redeployment in that region considered to be the most sensitive site of confrontation within imperialism, the United States have not, far from it, abandoned the idea of supremacy in the regions around the Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Middle and Near East. There, the essence of US policy under Trump's mandate has been to strengthen the imperialist role of the State of Israel and a confrontation with Iran by withdrawing from the Treaty on nuclear power, not to mention the continued intervention in Syria.
Under Trump's mandate, the USA did have a strategy vis-à-vis Palestine: they quickly scrapped the notion of two states contained in the Oslo accords, by supporting the colonization-annexation of the West Bank and by encouraging agreements between countries in the region and Israel. Let us recognize that they have had some success with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Morocco. If at the same time, one of its main allies, Turkey, which, let us remember, is one of the most important members of NATO in the Mediterranean, went it alone, it is because it intends to carve out a place of regional power in competition with Israel, Iran and Russia. However, Turkey has never stood in the way of US activities in Syria and the latter’s illegal occupation of a border area in the northeast is not to displease the US, whose military presence continues to be a cover for looting Syria's natural oil and gas wealth; it is also a thorn planted in Syria with the capacity to destabilize this territory at any time by activating terrorism.
The question posed is therefore what will be next under Biden's mandate? We can already be sure that pro-Israel policy is not going to change. Israel is too important an ally in the region to change the previous strategy. We have no doubt that the efforts to unite the great imperialist alliance underway around the USA and Israel will continue. In fact, in a recent interview with CBS News, Anthony Blinken, speaking as Joe Biden's future secretary of state, implicitly regretted that Trump had decided to end underground support for the anti-Assad rebels. "Withdrawing entirely from Syria," he said, deprived Washington of any major leverage in that country. This says it all: the Biden administration will indeed increase its military pressure against the Syrian Republic with the hope of regaining a foothold there with a regime under its sway. About Iran, while the USA expresses the idea of a resumption of dialogue on nuclear issues and its return to the treaty signed in Vienna in 2015, the heavy sanctions which strangle the country and suffocate its population are maintained. The USA mean to "discuss" with their finger on the trigger!
Expecting something fundamentally new in US international guidelines is therefore an illusion. The US monopolies are at the helm, as they were under Trump. The all-powerful state's mission is to ensure their domination in international competition. Throughout his campaign Biden has asserted that the US must once again become the main force imposing its point of view, by force if necessary, on the whole world. Let us not allow the future to be written by the imperialist powers. We must fight them by waging an uncompromising class struggle against capitalism in every country and organize the solidarity of anti-imperialist struggle.