Washington has carried out daily intense military strikes on hundreds of targets in Iran since July 11, after Tehran ignored President Donald Trump’s ultimatum for the regime to issue a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz is open and that it won’t attack ships passing through it.
In response, Tehran attacked more commercial ships and launched missiles and drones at U.S. bases in Oman, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon sent 20 U.S. warships, including two aircraft carriers, back toward the Arab-Persian Gulf to restart a blockade of Iran’s ports. Shipments of food and medicine are exempt, subject to U.S. Navy inspections. The impact of the blockade will fall hardest on working people in Iran, exacerbating shortages and stoking further price rises.
“We are going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate,” Trump said July 14, threatening devastating airstrikes.
While Trump has declared that the April 8 ceasefire and subsequent “Memorandum of Understanding” are over, U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that the purpose of the U.S. measures is to “pressure the regime back to the negotiating table.”
The central goal of Washington’s war — and its negotiations — is to force the Iranian regime to cooperate so the U.S. rulers can impose some measure of stability that would allow them to defend and advance their domination of the region.
Washington sees that as the road to maximize profits for the U.S. rulers from the exploitation of oil, gas and other natural resources in the Middle East, and to push back encroachment by their rivals in Beijing and beyond. The U.S. rulers have no intention of allowing Tehran to control maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Israel, which earlier dealt significant blows to Iran’s military and nuclear capacity, has not been involved in the latest fighting.
Unlike Washington’s, Israel’s war has been defensive, aimed at preventing Tehran and its allies — from Hezbollah to Hamas — from launching more pogroms against Jews and Israel on the road to a new Holocaust. The pro-regime press in Iran continues to call Israel “a cancerous tumor” that must be removed.
Hezbollah, Tehran’s strongest proxy
Since the start of the ceasefire, Tehran has not launched new direct attacks on Israel. It’s hoping that it can use Washington’s determination to strike a deal to get the White House to keep up its pressure on Israel to prevent it from dealing decisive blows to Hezbollah.
Despite the destruction of Tehran’s air defense systems and much of its ballistic missiles and arms production, the Iranian rulers’ faction-ridden regime is hoping it still can inflict enough damage to win concessions from Washington, especially in Lebanon.
Based among Shiite Muslims, who make up just a third of Lebanon’s population, Hezbollah is more powerful than the Lebanese Army. Trained, financed, armed and to some extent directly led by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah shares Tehran’s goal of destroying Israel and eliminating the Jews there.
Hezbollah is key to Tehran’s attempts to recover its waning influence in the region and rebuild its capacities to destroy Israel.
Israel’s daily Haaretz notes that Tehran’s current “restraint” is because the reactionary regime is trying to preserve its military capability “for a time of its own choosing.”
To prevent Hezbollah from continuing to attack northern Israel and prevent it from carrying out pogroms against Jews, the Israel Defense Forces now occupy a wide swath of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s web of tunnels
Until Israel captured Lebanon’s historic Beaufort Castle and the surrounding heights, just 3 miles from the Israeli border on May 31, Hezbollah had used a web of tunnels — built with Tehran’s assistance — underneath the fortress to fire hundreds of rockets at northern Israel.
One of the tunnels is nearly a mile long with living quarters, kitchenettes and “an exceptional” quantity of arms, including anti-aircraft systems, Israeli soldiers say.
Just a few miles away is another “strategic” underground facility at Ali Taher ridge. But Washington has blocked Israel from capturing and destroying it. The Trump administration does not want the Lebanon “ceasefire” disrupted, regardless of the danger Hezbollah poses to Jews.
The Israeli and Lebanese governments resumed negotiations in Rome July 14 on establishing two “pilot zones” in Lebanon where Israeli forces would pull back and be replaced by the Lebanese Armed Forces. Hezbollah opposes the pilot zones and says it will fight any attempt to force it to disarm.
Israeli officials have made it clear their troops will not withdraw from southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah remains a threat.