By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, January 20, 2026

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In an unusually candid speech in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned that world order is at a “rupture” point due to the U.S.’s longstanding vise-grip on the world and its swiftly expanding authoritarian nature under President Donald Trump.

Skewering “American hegemony,” Carney said that countries like Canada have long known that the idea of the international rules-based order was a “fiction” that states nonetheless signaled their support for in order to be granted access to crucial goods, trade, and other resources like finance.

For decades, states with “middle” amounts of power like Canada “participated in the rituals, and largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality,” Carney said. In return, the U.S. allowed other states access to important systems.

“This bargain no longer works,” Carney told the World Economic Forum. “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”

But, over the past two decades, great powers like the U.S. are increasingly using “economic integration as weapons,” he said. This is causing countries to retreat into themselves, becoming less reliant on outside sources — which Carney warned will lead to greater fragmentation and volatility.

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“Tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination,” he said.

Countries like Canada “compete with each other to be the most accommodating,” he said. “This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.”

He calls for countries to form a third path, one of greater cooperation, in order to push back against the threats by major powers. Doing this would require dispensing with simply signalling support for global order in favor of redoubling efforts to actually enforce principles like those laid out in the UN charter, he said.

“We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong if we choose to wield it together,” he said. Countries must “stop invoking the ‘rules-based international order’ as though it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.”

The speech comes just weeks after German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier similarly said that the U.S. is ending world order as it’s known, and instead turning the world “into a den of robbers, where the most unscrupulous take whatever they want” and countries are “treated as the property of a few great powers.”

Carney and Steinmeier both, perhaps, ignore their countries’ respective responsibilities for the erosion of the enforcement of international order — in their support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, their contributions to the global system of imperialism, and their participation in an increasing crackdown on asylum and immigration by wealthy countries, among other actions.

However, many experts have noted the vast erosion of international principles brought on by the U.S. in particular, which is accelerating under Trump.

Amnesty International USA warned in a report on Tuesday, the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, that Trump’s first year has led to a “human rights emergency” in which the administration is “cracking the pillars of a free society.”

“At stake are the rights that enable people to defend all other rights and live without fear from the arbitrary exercise of power and discrimination, including the rights to freedom of the press, expression, and peaceful protest; a fair trial and due process; equality and non-discrimination; and privacy,” the report said. “When these rights are weakened, the harms do not stay contained — they spread.”

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about:blank This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Sharon Zhang

Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky.

There is no ceasefire, no aid, no Hamas disarmament, IDF withdrawal or stabilization force. Just a lot of talk about Trump-run panels with little buy-in.

1. regions middle east
2. gaza

Paul R. Pillar

Jan 19, 2026

The Trump administration’s announcements about the Gaza Strip would lead one to believe that implementation of President Trump’s 20-point peace plan, later largely incorporated into a United Nations Security Council resolution, is progressing quite smoothly.

As such, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff announced this month on social media the “launch of Phase Two” of the plan, “moving from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction.” But examination of even just a couple of Witkoff’s assertions in his announcement shows that “smooth” or even “implementation” are bitter overstatements.

Witkoff said that Phase One has “maintained the ceasefire.” No, it has not. Israel has continued daily attacks against the Gaza Strip ever since the ceasefire was supposed to go into effect last October. As usual with unobserved ceasefires, both sides accuse the other of violations. The casualty count, however, reveals which side lethal violations are coming from. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli attacks since the start of the supposed ceasefire have killed at least 451 Palestinians and injured 1,251. As was true of Israeli attacks during the previous three years, many of the victims have been civilians. On the other side, the Israeli military states that three of its soldiers were killed in combat during the first few days of the ceasefire in October 2025.

Witkoff also said that “Phase One delivered historic humanitarian aid” to Gaza. What he did not say is that continued Israeli rejections of requests to deliver aid to the Strip have made the flow of aid much less than what was agreed to and far less than what is needed. As of mid-January, 24,611 aid trucks have entered Gaza since the ceasefire agreement—fewer than half of the 57,000 that Israel should have allowed in under the agreed allocation.

Phase Two thus is being announced without anything close to full implementation of Phase One.

The administration has announced some, though not all, members of the “Board of Peace,” headed by Trump, that is supposed to function as an international board of directors overseeing implementation of the rest of the plan. Recruitment of a full slate of members evidently has been difficult. Hesitation by many governments to participate is perhaps understandable, given the uncertainties about implementation so far and the nature of the overall project as one that Trump has directed in coordination with Israel.

Recruitment will not be made any easier by the administration requiring a $1 billion cash contribution from any government wanting extended membership on the board.

The personnel announcements made so far are sufficient to displease each side in this conflict. The Board of Peace includes, among others, Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and former British prime minister Tony Blair. Arab governments and many others in the Muslim world distrust Blair because of his role in the Iraq War and his perceived pro-Israel bias when he was an international envoy addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel has been quick to object to the membership of a “Gaza Executive Board,” which the White House also announced and will have a vaguely defined relationship with the other bodies involved in Gaza. This board will include — besides Blair, Kushner, Witkoff, and others — the Turkish foreign minister and a senior Qatari official. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the Gaza Executive Board as constituted is “at odds with Israeli policy.” The statement evidently reflects Israel’s sour relations with Türkiye and Qatar, largely because of the relations of those two governments with Hamas.

The Israeli objections will provide Netanyahu’s government with an additional rationale for overturning the whole diplomatic process whenever it chooses to do so. It is not just the government, but also the Israeli opposition that is making an issue of the Executive Board membership. Opposition leader Yair Lapid called the inclusion of Türkiye a “grave diplomatic failure.” Itamar Ben Gvir, the extreme right-winger who is minister of national security, called for the Israeli military “to return to war with tremendous force in the Strip.”

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Meanwhile, some apparent organizational progress has taken place in Cairo, with the first meeting of the National Committee for the Administration of the Gaza Strip (NCAG), a group of 15 Palestinian technocrats who are supposed to function as an interim administration under the supervision of the Board of Peace. The committee met with Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, who has been named “director-general” of the Board of Peace. Members of the NCAG have not been announced apart from the committee’s head, a civil engineer and former deputy minister of transportation in the Palestinian Authority named Ali Shaath.

In his announcement about Phase Two, Witkoff said nothing about the prospective International Stabilization Force (ISF), which is supposed to play a major security role during the interim administration and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Recruiting participants in the ISF has been even more difficult than recruiting members of the Board of Peace. Governments do not want their troops to get involved in an active combat situation, as the Israeli attacks continue. They especially do not want to be involved in a mission of disarming Hamas, an objective that Israel was unable to achieve through three years of unrestricted warfare.

Amid frequent mention by Witkoff and others about Hamas needing to live up to its obligations, it is important to remember that Hamas never signed up to Trump’s 20-point plan. What Hamas has agreed to, going back to a framework agreement in 2024, has been a complete ceasefire, release of all hostages in exchange for release of an agreed number of Palestinian prisoners, and return of remains of the deceased, amid an ending of the siege of the Gaza Strip and the beginning of internationally supervised reconstruction of the territory.

Hamas also has made clear it is willing to cede governance of the Gaza Strip to independent Palestinian technocrats. In this regard, Hamas publicly welcomed as an “important positive development” the establishment and initial meeting of NCAG. Hamas also accepts in principle the presence in Gaza of a neutral international peacekeeping force.

As for disarmament, the conditions matter. Hamas has offered to bury its weapons as part of the long-term truce or hudna that it has long offered Israel. But it would completely surrender its weapons only to a genuine Palestinian government.

What Hamas will not do is unilateral disarmament as Israel continues to occupy Palestinian territory and to kill Palestinian citizens. It is unrealistic and unreasonable to expect that, especially in view of the slaughter in Gaza of the past three years.

The technocrats on NCAG have an enormous task, and they face it with major handicaps. Perhaps symbolic of the handicaps is how Shaath, to get to the Cairo meeting from where he has been living in the West Bank, had to travel through Jordan and was detained by Israeli authorities for six hours at the Allenby crossing. A Palestinian official commented that this incident demonstrates an Israel intention to sabotage the committee’s work.

An Arab diplomat observed that a committee of 15 members cannot administer the Gaza Strip without large numbers of civil servants. But Israel is blocking the participation of not only anyone on Hamas’s payroll but also anyone on the Palestinian Authority’s payroll.

In his initial public comments after being named chairman of NCAG, Shaath talked about the huge task of clearing the rubble, which could take three years while overall reconstruction would take about seven years. The situation could become even worse. Israel is continuing to create still more rubble by methodically demolishing buildings in the half of the Gaza Strip that it still occupies.

Neither Trump’s plan nor any other peace plan will be able to bring anything close to peace, security, and prosperity to Gaza as long as Israel is the controlling power on the ground and is determined to oppose anything that looks like Palestinian self-governance.

Paul R. Pillar

Paul R. Pillar is Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies of Georgetown University and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Geneva Center for Security Policy.

Barak Ravid, Axios, January 16, 2026

The director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, David Barnea, arrived in the U.S. on Friday morning for talks on the situation in Iran, according to an Israeli source and another source with knowledge of the meeting.

Why it matters: Barnea’s visit is part of the consultations between the U.S. and Israel over the protests in Iran and possible U.S. military action in response to the regime’s crackdown.

Barnea is expected to meet in Miami with White House envoy Steve Witkoff, who is managing the direct channel of communication between the U.S. and Iran.
Witkoff has been in touch with Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, during the protests.
It’s not yet clear whether Barnea will meet President Trump in Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.

Driving the news: Barnea’s trip follows a phone call on Wednesday between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the Iran crisis.

During the call, Netanyahu asked Trump to hold off on military action against Iran to give Israel more time to prepare for potential Iranian retaliation.
An Israeli source said that in addition to concerns about retaliation, the current U.S. plan includes strikes on security force targets in Iran, but is not seen by Israel as strong enough to meaningfully destabilize the regime.
U.S. officials say military action is still on the table if Iran resumes the killing of protesters. Israeli officials think that despite the delay, a U.S. military strike could take place in the coming days.

What to watch: The U.S. military is sending additional defensive and offensive capabilities to the region to be ready in case Trump orders a strike, U.S. sources say.

The Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its strike group are making their way to the Middle East from the South China Sea.
More air defense systems, fighter jets and possibly submarines are also expected to arrive in the region.

The intrigue: When he reached out to Witkoff, Araghchi proposed a meeting and the resumption of nuclear negotiations.

The Israeli government is concerned the Iranians will use such negotiations to buy time and relief from the U.S. pressure.
On the other hand, some officials think the current crisis could convince the Iranian regime to make concessions it refused to consider in the past, on the nuclear program, missile program, and proxy groups.

At a conference of the Israeli-American Council in Miami on Thursday night, Witkoff said he communicated with the Iranians the day before about the potential mass hangings.

“That has been shut down,” Witkoff said.

Witkoff said he hopes it will be possible to get a diplomatic solution with Iran and noted that any deal will have to address uranium enrichment and Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, Iran’s inventory of ballistic missiles, and its network of proxies in the region.
Witkoff said Iran’s economy was badly “stumbling” and if Tehran wants to change that and return to the community of nations, it can be accomplished through diplomacy. “The alternative will be a bad one.”

Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran on January 9, 2026.

(Photo by MAHSA / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)

It’s virtually impossible to predict what lies ahead for Iran and its people. But if President Donald Trump decides to take military action against Iran’s current regime, nothing good will come out of it.

C.J. Polychroniou

Jan 14, 2026 Common Dreams

Iran’s Islamic regime is under incredible pressure as the protests that begun in late December over the collapse of the currency have morphed into a mass popular uprising that has spread across the entire country and shows no sign of slowing despite a brutal crackdown that has resulted so far in the killing of thousands of protesters.

Make no mistake about it. Iran’s current leadership is murdering its own citizens in order to remain in power and thus block the growing support for secularism, freedom, and democracy. It’s as simple as that. This is a regime that has been facing unprecedented hostility by the United States and some of its closest allies since coming to power in 1979 but has been far more interested in exporting the Islamic revolution than looking after the well-being of its own citizens. It is a reactionary regime that has suppressed the fundamental rights of women, banned independent trade unions, and engaged in a systematic crackdown of communists and other leftists, all the while catering to powerful national capitalist interests.

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Iranians have a long history of rebellion against authoritarianism and repression. Under the Shah, Iran had one of the world’s most brutal and repressive regimes, strongly supported by the United States. Indeed, while the Shah sought to modernize the country and even gave women the right to vote, and the Family Protection Law of 1968 granted women certain rights in divorce and custody, he and his generals ran the country with an iron first. Tens of thousands of Iranians were killed during the Shah’s reign, and Iran’s dreaded secret police, SAVAK, employed torture and execution to stifle political opposition.

Yet, Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution, aided by Marxists, intellectuals, various secular groups, and the middle class, did not represent a transition from monarchy to democracy. Instead, it replaced a brutal, pro-Western monarchy with a theocratic regime that rolled back much of the social progress that had occurred up to that point. Repression came back, this time with an Islamic face, though the regime enjoyed at first considerable support among merchants, students, clerics, and the poor. Khomeini’s regime massacred and exiled all communists and embarked on a campaign of purification of policies. Women’s rights were drastically curtailed, and this included the removal of professional women from the public sector as well as the adoption of various means and methods aimed at discouraging women in general from entering the labor force.

The US is an imperialist power with a long history of undermining democracy throughout the world. The Iranian people will not accept US interference into their own political affairs.

Iranian women took to the streets by the thousands just a few weeks after the revolution to oppose Khomeini’s decree mandating the hijab. This decree was followed by a ban on alcohol, the separation of men and women in schools and beaches, and the criminalization of music. Iran was converted in no time from a Westernized society with a brutal political regime to an Islamic state sustained by an equally brutal political regime. Under the new social order, religion and state mixed as thoroughly as they did in Saudi Arabia. The only difference is that the two countries followed different branches of Islam–Iran’s political system is based on Shiism, while Saudi Arabia’s rests on Wahhabism.

More recently, in 2022, the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Jina Mahsa Amini while under morality police custody sparked the nationwide “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, which people from all walks of life joined to call for an end to the four-decade rule of Iran by the religious fanatics. The Iranian authorities responded by detaining thousands of people while killing more than 560 protesters. It was reported that the average age of those arrested was 15.

The key reasons behind the current anti-government protests are economic hardships and political grievances. Iran’s economy has been under severe strains for a long time due to the international sanctions but also because of mismanagement, corruption, and a host of deep structural problems (chronic inflation, widespread poverty, and high youth unemployment, among others) which the regime has failed to address.

Protests broke out on December 28 after the Iranian currency, the rial, crumbled against the US dollar, leading to soaring food prices and to an even higher inflation rate, which had already risen to nearly 50%. It all started with demonstrations by shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, but they quickly spread to numerous cities across the country, reflecting deep and widespread discontent among the general citizenry with the current regime. This means that the protests, which have been very large in size and joined by people from across Iranian society, are not simply driven by economic worries. They are political protests against a corrupt and oppressive regime.

According to some sources, more than 2,500 people have been killed by the Iranian authorities since the protests begun, but there are unverified reports, suggesting that the number of protesters killed could be at least 12,000 and possibly as high as 20,000. Leading Iranian officials have labeled protesters as “enemies of God,” a charge that is punishable by death under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They also insist that the protests are foreign driven.

Israel and the United States would like nothing more than to see regime change in Tehran and turn Iran into a US-Israeli vassal state. But the claim that the Iranian people are protesting against a dictatorship by being a pawn in the hands of foreign powers deserves nothing but scorn. Nonetheless, it speaks volumes of how alienated the regime’s rulers must feel from the nation’s citizenry. I suspect that deep down they are cognizant of the fact that their regime lacks political legitimacy in the eyes of the vast majority of the Iranian people.

The people of Iran have not forgotten the involvement of the CIA in the 1953 coup that ousted the democratically elected Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh. Their desire to get rid of Iran’s current regime is not an invitation for foreign interference. Indeed, who is to say that perhaps none of the courageous protesters would be paying with their lives for Iran to be free from an oppressive theocracy if the 1953 coup hadn’t happened?

It’s virtually impossible to predict what lies ahead for Iran and its people. But if President Donald Trump decides to take military action against Iran’s current regime, nothing good will come out of it. The US is an imperialist power with a long history of undermining democracy throughout the world. The Iranian people will not accept US interference into their own political affairs. In fact, such action may cause many Iranians to unite, at least temporarily, behind the regime. In sum, only the Iranian people themselves should be able decide their nation’s future.

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C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. His latest books are The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change (A collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky; Haymarket Books, 2021), and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (Verso, 2021).

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The Trump administration is preparing an imminent military attack on Iran, in the next stage of a regime-change operation aimed at returning the Middle Eastern country of 93 million people to neocolonial subjugation and placing its vast oil reserves under US imperialist control and domination.

For days, Trump, America’s fascist would-be dictator president, and his henchmen have been threatening to strike Iran with bombs and missiles under the cynical pretext of “defending” anti-government protestors.

On Tuesday morning, in a social media post framed as a message to the Iranian protesters, Trump declared, “TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS… Help is on its way.” This was just hours before he was to confer with top Pentagon generals and his national security staff on “options” for attacking Iran.

Open-source intelligence and flight-tracking data reveal that since December there has been a surge of US war materials to the Persian Gulf region, a necessary prerequisite for waging war on Iran.

Trump’s attempt to depict himself as the “liberator” of the Iranian people is a monstrous fraud, based on the Hitlerian concept of the “Big Lie.”

US imperialism never reconciled itself to the mass uprising that overthrew the tyrannical regime of the Shah in 1979. It has mounted a decades-long campaign of threats, military aggression and economic warfare against Iran and its people. In 2018, Trump torpedoed the UN-backed Iran nuclear accord and unilaterally imposed crippling sanctions—subsequently reinforced under the Democrat Biden—with the avowed aim of crashing Iran’s economy and bringing about regime change.

Washington’s desired outcome has always been driving the Iranian people into deprivation and misery. The sanction-enforced cut-off of access to drugs and advanced medical devices has alone caused tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of premature deaths.

As always, the US corporate media are all reading from the same script dictated from the White House. They question nothing, investigate nothing.

Less than two weeks ago, Washington illegally attacked Venezuela, killing more than 80 people, kidnapped its president and seized what are the world’s largest oil resources. In the weeks preceding, the media repeated the administration’s transparent lies that President Nicolás Maduro headed a narco-terrorist regime, just as they breathlessly repeated the claims of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney regarding Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” in the run up to American imperialism’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.  

Now Trump, his Democratic Party enablers and the media would have us believe that Iran is in the grip of a “popular uprising” that is being “brutally” crushed by the Iranian authorities. This is the new manufactured casus belli. It replaces that used to justify last June’s 12-day US-Israeli war on Iran that killed more than 1,000 people and which Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked when they held a war conclave at Mar-a-Lago on December 29—the threat supposedly posed by Iran’s civilian nuclear program.

No doubt there is widespread anger and dissatisfaction with Iran’s clerical-led bourgeois nationalist regime, which represses any form of working-class political self-expression and has systematically dismantled the social concessions made to the working people in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 revolution that overthrew the tyrannical monarchical-dictatorship of the Shah.

But the protests now unfolding in the streets of Iran are not a movement of and for the working class. This is attested by their social composition, absence of any demands to address the pressing socio-economic problems facing Iran’s workers and rural toilers, and the lack of any organized working-class intervention in the form of mass strikes.

The protests were initiated by the bazaari—that is a section of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie comprised of money-lenders, merchants and shopkeepers—and have taken on an ever more explicit right-wing, pro-imperialist character akin to the “color revolutions” instigated by American imperialism and it agents in Ukraine, Georgia and elsewhere.

The operatives of the CIA and other imperialist intelligence agencies are manifestly present and playing a major role in inciting violence, alongside such foreign-based imperialist operatives as the Shah’s son, the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who late last week urged protesters to press for the government’s overthrow by “seizing and holding city centers.” On Thursday, Israel’s far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu boasted that Israeli agents are operating on the ground in Iran.

As in 1953, when the CIA and Britain’s MI5 organized the coup that overthrew Iran’s elected president, the nationalist Mossadegh, imperialism works through sections of the Iranian bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, including no doubt disaffected sections of the Islamic Republic’s establishment, eager to secure their wealth and privileges by functioning as direct imperialist agents.

These elements are viciously hostile to the plight of the oppressed masses as exemplified in the prominent protest slogan, “My heart beats only for Iran—not for Gaza, not for Lebanon!,” the protesters’ targeting of Afghan refugees and increasing embrace of the Pahlavi dynasty.

Due to the misrule of the Islamic Republic and the political confusion spread by the pseudo-left in and outside Iran, who call for unity with far-right forces in the name of “democracy,” tragically some workers and students have no doubt been caught up in the ongoing protests and state repression. But as the World Socialist Web Site previously explained, “any progressive tendency in Iran would have to immediately repudiate Trump’s ‘support’, denounce the threat of imminent US military action and call for the immediate lifting of the punitive sanctions that are strangling Iran’s economy.”Available from Mehring BooksThe struggle against imperialism and for workers’ power in IranA pamphlet by Keith Jones

From all indications, as the pro-imperialist character of the protests has become clearer, they have become restricted to more privileged sections of Iranian society. Within the working class the memory of the Shah’s regime, its subservience to US imperialism, monopolization of the country’s wealth and the brutal repression upon which it rested, endures.    

Those now expressing their “horror” and “revulsion” at the “brutality” of the Iranian regime have not been moved by the ongoing slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza—to say nothing of the Nazi-style starvation of the entire enclave’s population—perpetrated by Israel with the full support and military assistance of Washington, first under Biden and now Trump.

As in Venezuela at the beginning of the year, the Trump administration is acting with utter criminality and recklessness.    

However, more than criminality connects the attack on Venezuela and the regime-change operation, and an impending military attack targeting Iran. They are part of a developing world war.

The US is seeking to seize hold of the world’s oil resources in preparation for military confrontation with China. China imports more than 70 percent of its daily oil consumption, with Iran accounting, according to various estimates, for 11 percent or more of all Chinese imports in 2025 and Venezuela’s 3-4 percent. Losing access to Iranian oil would be a significant economic and strategic shock to China’s independent industrial base.

Workers must be warned: US imperialism is on the verge of launching a new war against Iran whose consequences are incalculable. In threatening Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated “When [Trump] says he’ll do something, he means it.” Trump has repeatedly vowed to unleash military fury against Iran, just as he has pledged to rule like a dictator.

 “I don’t need international law,” Trump told the New York Times last week. “The only thing that can stop me,” he continued is my own will.

In reality, there is something that can stop him: the international working class. Even as Trump prepares for war on Iran, 15,000 nurses are on strike in New York City—the largest nurses’ strike in the city’s history. In France, hundreds of thousands have struck against austerity. Italy saw a general strike in November. Belgium’s workers walked out against the country’s coalition government. From Germany to the UK to Latin America, the objective conditions for a global movement against capitalism and war are emerging.

As the WSWS wrote in its New Year statement: “The ruling class has made clear what they want 2026 to be: a year of unrestrained military violence. The answer must be to make 2026 a year of class struggle and the development of a mass movement for socialism.” This depends on the building of a new leadership in the working class, rooted in the principles of Marxism and armed with the strategy of permanent revolution to forge its political independence and unify its struggles across state boundaries and continents.

by Dave DeCamp | January 12, 2026 at 7:17 pm ET | Iran

The White House said on Monday that US airstrikes against Iran are “on the table” as President Trump has continued his threats to bomb the Islamic Republic amid protests in the country.

“One thing President Trump is very good at is always keeping all of his options on the table,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “And airstrikes would be one of the many, many options that are on the table for the commander-in-chief.”

Leavitt added that “diplomacy is always the first option for the president,” though Trump backed an Israeli attack on Iran during the last round of nuclear negotiations back in June. “The president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran,” Leavitt said.

On Sunday night, Trump suggested Iran had reached out to discuss the possibility of holding negotiations and suggested he was open to diplomacy, but also said he was considering “very strong” options. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said that the “communication channel” between Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi remains open.

Axios and The Wall Street Journal both reported on Monday that Trump was leaning toward bombing Iran but was still exploring the possibility of negotiations. However, it’s unclear what sort of diplomatic deal would satisfy Trump as he continues to shift the pretext for potentially launching another war.

In recent weeks, Trump has threatened to bomb or support an Israeli attack on Iran if it rebuilds its civilian nuclear program or “continues” its conventional missile program, and has repeatedly threatened to attack the country if Iranian authorities kill protesters. The Axios report said that if Trump decides to bomb Iran, the strikes would likely target elements of Iran’s government responsible for internal security.

Iran’s position is that it doesn’t seek war with the US, but it’s warning that it will strike back if Trump follows through on his threat. “If Washington wants to test the military option it has tested before, we are ready for it,” Araghchi told Al Jazeera.

The Telegraph reported over the weekend that amid the threats of US airstrikes on Iran, the US military has conveyed to President Trump that it needs time to position assets in the region to prepare for Iranian counterattacks, which would likely involve missile strikes on US bases.

According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based and US-funded NGO, at least 646 people have been killed in the ongoing protests in Iran, including 133 military and law enforcement personnel, suggesting there have been significant attacks against Iran’s security forces. Iranian government sources have also said more than 100 security personnel have been killed, but have not released an overall death toll.

Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu has revealed that Israeli agents are currently active in Iran.

In an interview with Israel’s army radio, Eliyahu discussed Israeli operations in Iran over the past year and claimed that activities are ongoing, according to Israel Hayom newspaper.

He said, “When we struck Iran last year, we were on their territory and knew how to prepare the ground for the attack. I can assure you that our people are working there right now.”

Referring to Iran’s internal situation and possible Israeli involvement, he added “Are they now acting directly to topple the regime? No. Are they acting to ensure that Iran cannot threaten us from all other aspects? Yes.”

Earlier this week, Eliyahu called for action against “terrorist elements in the Bedouin diaspora,” saying the issue “is no less serious than jihadist terrorism.” He also urged that “the same measures used against Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists” be applied against those causing unrest.

A woman holds a portrait of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during a gathering in Caracas on January 3, 2026, after US forces captured him. President Donald Trump said Saturday that US forces had captured Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro after bombing the capital Caracas and other cities in a dramatic climax to a months-long standoff between Trump and his Venezuelan arch-foe.

(Photo by Federico Parra / AFP via Getty Images)

The primary focus of Congressional Democrats appears to be more with Trump’s failure to follow proper Constitutional procedures than his flagrant violation of the UN Charter and the brazenly imperialistic nature of the attacks and subsequent threats.

Stephen Zunes, Jan 07, 2026, The Progressive

The US attack on Venezuela resulted from having an incredibly corrupt and autocratic-minded President using his office to enrich himself and his supporters, deploying the country’s armed forces against his own citizens, abusing the justice system to punish political opponents, and manipulating the electoral process to try to stay in power.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has engaged in similar behavior as well.

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While there is no denying Maduro’s authoritarian rule, mismanagement, and corruption, that is not why the United States invaded. President Donald Trump acknowledged that a key American goal was to regain control of Venezuelan oil, the largest known reserves in the world, saying, “We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure.” While acknowledging that it would require billions of dollars in investment by US oil companies to do so, he promised, “They will be reimbursed for what they’re doing.” As with many previous US military interventions, it is based on lies.

First of all, Maduro did not steal “our” oil, as Trump and other US officials have alleged. Even putting aside the question as to whether the United States somehow has the right to another country’s natural resources, Venezuela nationalized its oil industry back in the 1970s under the leadership of a pro-US centrist government at a time when dozens of other oil-producing nations were nationalizing their oil companies. Rather than confiscating the companies without compensation, Venezuela agreed to international arbitration and paid billions of dollars to ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and other US oil companies.

Nor is it because of Maduro’s authoritarianism. The United States remains the world’s biggest diplomatic supporter and arms supplier of dictatorial regimes around the world, many of which are even worse than Venezuela, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Azerbaijan.

Trump’s alleged concern about drug trafficking is also nonsense, particularly in light of his pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was found guilty by a US jury of being responsible for supporting the shipment of 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Hernández, like Maduro, was notoriously corrupt, suppressed pro-democracy protesters, and stole elections, yet the rightwing Central American leader received support from both Republican and Democratic administrations, which have criticized Maduro for similar behavior. Trump has also pardoned and released a significant number of other figures involved in drug trafficking while reducing support for public health responses to drug abuse.

Ironically, Venezuela is not a major player in drug trafficking. Despite administration claims to the contrary, Venezuela plays virtually no role in the manufacturing and smuggling of fentanyl, which largely comes through Mexico. Venezuela ranks well behind other Latin American countries in cocaine production and is not a major transshipment point of the drug to the United States.

Even if the indictment for drug trafficking against Maduro is legitimate, international law does not permit any nation to attack a foreign country and kidnap a criminal suspect. It also raises questions as to why it is that federal courts cannot hold a US President accountable for alleged crimes, but they somehow have the authority to hold foreign presidents accountable for theirs.

Indeed, Maduro’s alleged criminal activities are not really what the US attacks on Venezuela are about: The Trump Administration plans to take control of Venezuela, with Trump insisting “We’re going to stay until such time as a proper transition can take place.” He announced that the United States would “run the country,” that “we’re designating various people” to do so and “we’re going to make sure it’s run properly.”

When asked in a press conference exactly who would be running Venezuela, Trump said the “people that are standing right behind me, we’re going to be running it,” pointing at Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and General Dan “Raizin” Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But Venezuela still has a functioning government, with its vice president Delcy Rodríguez, who is seen to be more pragmatic and less authoritarian-minded than Maduro but is still a committed socialist and nationalist serving as acting president and apparently unwilling to cave to Trump’s demands. Trump explicitly declared that she could remain in power as long as she “does what we want.” Otherwise, Trump has threatened her and other government ministers, saying that if they defy his demands, “the United States retains all military options . . . . All political and military figures in Venezuela must understand: What happened to Maduro will happen to them.” Referring specifically to Rodríguez, Trump said, “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”

And he was clear his demands would be enforced militarily, warning there would be a “second wave” of military action by the United States if Venezuelan government officials did not comply, saying, “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground.” Rubio added, “We’re going to make decisions based on their actions and their deeds in the days and weeks to come.”

Maduro made a lot of enemies in the international community during his twelve years in power, which helps explain why, despite few outright endorsements of the US intervention, opposition by some leaders in Europe and elsewhere has been somewhat muted. However, such flagrant violations of international law will inevitably harm the position of the United States internationally, particularly in Latin America, where many will view this as a return to the gunboat diplomacy that was the hallmark of US policy for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Indeed Trump’s new National Security Strategy, released last month, calls for a revived Monroe Doctrine in which the United States would increase military deployments in the region to ensure that the United States will be able to control “critical supply chains” and to guarantee “continued access to key strategic locations” throughout the hemisphere. Trump himself has called it the “Don-roe Doctrine” and declared, “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”

The United States currently maintains a large armada of about 15,000 military personnel in the Caribbean Sea, not only threatening Venezuela, but other countries as well. Trump has warned the democratically elected leftwing president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, that he has to “watch his ass” and told Fox News that “something’s going to have to be done with Mexico,” also now under the leadership of a left-leaning president, Claudia Scheinbaum. Trump also said that “Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about,” with Rubio adding, “If I lived in Havana, and I was in the government, I’d be concerned—at least a little bit.”

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has been unable to explain how it will be able to control a country of nearly thirty million people, directly or indirectly. While many Venezuelans may be glad the unpopular autocratic leader is gone, like their counterparts in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, it does not mean they support US control of their country and its natural resources.

Unlike the US-made war on Iraq, another oil-rich country, there is not a sizable minority of Congressional Democrats on record supporting war in Venezuela. Indeed, most who have spoken publicly have been in opposition. However, the response to last week’s attack on Caracas and the seizure of Maduro has been disappointingly tepid. For example, instead of demanding that threats against Venezuela cease immediately and holding the Trump Administration accountable for the illegal intervention, the most House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries could muster was that “the House and Senate must be briefed immediately and compelling evidence to explain and justify this unauthorized use of military force should be presented forthwith.”

There is indeed the very serious issue regarding the illegality of the United States attacking a foreign state without Congressional authorization or even notification, particularly with the threat of further war. However, the primary focus of Congressional Democrats appears to be more with Trump’s failure to follow proper Constitutional procedures than his flagrant violation of the UN Charter and the brazenly imperialistic nature of the attacks and subsequent threats.

Unless that is also challenged, the threat of further war in Venezuela and beyond will grow.

An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder

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© 2023 The Progressive

Stephen Zunes

Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he serves as coordinator of the program in Middle Eastern Studies. Recognized as one the country’s leading scholars of U.S. Middle East policy and of strategic nonviolent action, Professor Zunes serves as a senior policy analyst for the Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, a contributing editor of Tikkun, and co-chair of the academic advisory committee for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

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Dear Maggie Meehan, I greatly appreciate your comment in which you challenge progressive members of Congress to fight resolutely and peacefully against the banditry that Trump and his war mafia have committed in Venezuela and are threatening to use aggression against other neighbouring countries in flagrant violation of the UN Charter and international law.

The international community’s inadequate response to Trump’s most recent crime will serve as an incentive for him to launch attacks and plunder other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.

By your example in 1985, you and your friends demonstrated that the only way to oppose the imperial and anti-human policies of US militarism, its profiteers, and its warmongers is through political struggle.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine listen as President Donald Trump addresses the media on January 3, 2026.

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

“Trump has no right to take us to war with Venezuela. This is reckless and illegal,” said Rep. Greg Casar. “Congress should vote immediately on a War Powers Resolution to stop him.”

Jake Johnson

Jan 03, 2026

Members of the US Congress on Saturday demanded emergency legislative action to prevent the Trump administration from taking further military action in Venezuela after the president threatened a “second wave” of attacks and said the US will control the South American country’s government indefinitely.

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), said that “Congress should vote immediately on a War Powers Resolution to stop” President Donald Trump, whose administration has for months unlawfully bombed boats in international waters and threatened a direct military assault on Venezuela without lawmakers’ approval.

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“Trump has no right to take us to war with Venezuela. This is reckless and illegal,” said Casar. “My entire life, politicians have been sending other people’s kids to die in reckless regime change wars. Enough. No new wars.”

Another prominent CPC member, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), said in response to the bombing of Venezuela and capture of its president that “these are the actions of a rogue state.”

“Trump’s illegal and unprovoked bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president are grave violations of international law and the US Constitution,” Tlaib wrote on social media. “The American people do not want another regime change war abroad.”

Progressives weren’t alone in criticizing the administration’s unauthorized military action in Venezuela. Establishment Democrats, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and others, also called for urgent congressional action in the face of Trump’s latest unlawful bombing campaign.

“Without congressional approval or the buy-in of the public, Trump risks plunging a hemisphere into chaos and has broken his promise to end wars instead of starting them,” Schiff said in a statement. “Congress must bring up a new War Powers Resolution and reassert its power to authorize force or to refuse to do so. We must speak for the American people who profoundly reject being dragged into new wars.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he will force a Senate vote next week on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to block additional US military action in Venezuela.

“Where will this go next?” Kaine asked in a statement. “Will the president deploy our troops to protect Iranian protesters? To enforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza? To battle terrorists in Nigeria? To seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress Americans peacefully assembling to protest his policies? Trump has threatened to do all this and more and sees no need to seek legal authorization from people’s elected legislature before putting servicemembers at risk.”

“It is long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy, and trade,” Kaine added. “My bipartisan resolution stipulating that we should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization will come up for a vote next week.”

The lawmakers’ push for legislative action came as Trump clearly indicated that his administration isn’t done intervening in Venezuela’s internal politics—and plans to exploit the country’s vast oil reserves.

During a press conference on Saturday, Trump said that the US “is going to run” Venezuela, signaling the possibility of a troop deployment.

“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” the president said in response to a reporter’s question, adding vaguely that his administration is “designating various people” to run the government.

Whether the GOP-controlled Congress acts to constrain the Trump administration will depend on support from Republicans, who have largely applauded the US attack on Venezuela and capture of Maduro. In separate statements, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) described the operation as “decisive” and justified.

Ahead of Saturday’s assault, the Republican-controlled Congress rejected War Powers Resolutions aimed at preventing Trump from launching a war on Venezuela without lawmakers’ approval.

One Republican lawmaker who had raised constitutional concerns about Saturday’s actions, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, appeared to drop them after a phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

But Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) noted in a statement that both Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “looked every senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change.”

“I didn’t trust them then, and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress,” said Kim. “Trump rejected our constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.”