Alex Callinicos
Socialist Worker / March 2, 2026
The mightiest imperial power in history is being led by the nose into a very dangerous war by its clients, Saudi Arabia as well as Israel.
The great German philosopher GWF Hegel was a major intellectual influence on Karl Marx.
One of Hegel’s more controversial arguments was his defence of monarchy. He did so on the basis that every state needs an element of what he called “contingency”—in other words, of accident, personality and choice. When a major decision has to be made, someone has to say “yes” or “no”.
This analysis actually applies quite well to those elected monarchs of modern capitalist states—presidents and prime ministers.
The United States-Israeli attack on Iran is, as BBC international news editor Jeremy Bowen has rightly insisted, “a war of choice” on the part of Donald Trump and his crony Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Their claims that the bombardment of Iran and the assassination of leading figures such as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are acts of self-defence are plain lies.
Both have elections coming up. Trump has developed a taste for wielding the Pentagon’s vast military power. It’s a welcome distraction from his sinking approval figures at home. These reflect the administration’s failure to overcome the cost of living crisis and his implication in the vile Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
For Netanyahu, however, this latest attack on Iran is primarily a continuation of Israel’s policy since 7 October 2023 of using its superiority in air power and intelligence to destroy its enemies in the region. But what’s most significant is how Trump has been drawn in behind Israel.
The Washington Post newspaper makes two claims in a very interesting report. First, “Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman made multiple private phone calls to Trump over the past month advocating a US attack, despite his public support for a diplomatic solution.”
The second concerns secretary of state Marco Rubio’s briefing last Tuesday for the Gang of Eight—the leaders of the House, the Senate and each chamber’s intelligence committees. Rubio “indicated to lawmakers that the mission’s timing and goals were shaped by the fact that Israel was going to attack with or without the US.”
If true, this second claim is remarkable. It means that, as in the case of the Israeli assault on Iran last June, Trump reacted when the key US ally in the Middle East presented him with few other options.
Like Hegel’s monarch, he served as “someone to say ‘yes’ and to dot the ‘I’”. Despite his bluster, his decision to join in is a sign of weakness rather than strength.
The mightiest imperial power in history is being led by the nose into a very dangerous war by its clients, Saudi Arabia as well as Israel. This is despite the very public reservations expressed by Trump’s handpicked chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff general Dan Caine.
Trump and Netanyahu say they want regime change. But they dare not invade Iran, a country three times the size of France with a population of over 92 million.
Expert Robert Pape tweeted, “Since the First World War, dozens of US, Israeli and allied air campaigns have tried to force political change—none installed friendly governments. None! They strengthen nationalism and intensify resistance.”
Despite the brutality in which it repressed January’s mass protests, the Islamic Republican regime in Iran has developed bureaucratic structures and a real social base. Khamenei’s death doesn’t mean it’s finished. As widely predicted, Tehran is using its vast drone and missile arsenal to spread the war throughout the region.
This is intended to put pressure on the Gulf regimes, which have built themselves up into a major centre of global capitalism over the past generation.
The spectacular videos of drone attacks on skyscrapers in Dubai dramatize the threat. The Financial Times newspaper laments, “The emirate has diversified away from reliance on oil revenues by expanding tourism, financial services and commerce.” An expat complained on X, “Moved to Dubai for tax shelter and now I’m in a bomb shelter.”
The Iranian attacks seem so far to have rallied the Gulf states behind the US and Israel. But Tehran is only just beginning to target the oil and gas infrastructure on which the region—and indeed the world economy—depend.
Trump has sowed the wind, and no doubt he will reap the whirlwind.
Alex Callinicos is a Rhodesian-born British political theorist and activist
