It has begun.

So Donald “Make Israel Great Again” Trump has at last activated the suicide pact between the United States of America and the genocidal apartheid state of Israel – if we die, you must die with us. By bombing nuclear facilities in Iran, the USA has finally made the leap from active genocide supporter to direct combatant. The consequences of this long-predicted move will be immense. For now, war criminal Benjamin “The war must never stop” Netanyahu has congratulated him and Dumb Donald has declared victory, posting that “Fordow is gone”. There won’t be any need for so-called fact checkers to establish that the self-delusion of the American president and Israeli prime minister and the realities on the ground do not mach.

Of course, everybody in the chain of command in America knows that this was a symbolic strike afflicting little damage. Russia had warned the USA not to strike Fordow whilst its own scientists were present, hence it is a forgone conclusion that they and anything else of relevance were moved prior to the strike. Allegedly it was a warning shot. If so, it has been a serious miscalculation on par with the Israeli miscalculation some weeks ago that they could disable the Iranian defence in a surprise attack and neutralise its military overnight. With Tel Aviv and Haifa looking ever more like Gaza, this delusionary display of chutzpah has already proven to be the undoing of the alien enterprise in the midst of the Levant: the carefully crafted narrative of a progressive victim state bringing enlightenment to the region was destroyed forever in two years of merciless vengeance rained down on the innocent people of Gaza. Now, the equally carefully crafted narrative of Israel’s military superiority and invincibility has also crumbled in the course of less than a month of Iranian missile and drone attacks.

Israel can no longer save (or defend, as they would like to say) itself. It’s main sponsor ultimately had to step in to try and salvage what remains. In doing so, it also hastens its collapse, expected by any serious analyst since the USA lost its imperial war in Vietnam. The narrative of America as the land of the free, the land of opportunity, the exporter of liberty and human rights has already been destroyed long ago. Now the narrative of America’s standing as the only superpower that nobody can dare oppose will also crumble. Those who had not yet discovered that the emperor has no clothes after the new strongman Trump fled with his tail between his legs from the “barefooted” Yemenis, just like his predecessor had fled from Afghanistan, will very soon have to open their eyes. The same Arab countries who paid tribute to Trump (literally in cash commitments) and begged him to have America sodomise them once again, will now have to decide whether they can afford to remain sitting on the fence in order to be knocked off next or whether they might belatedly hear the call to jump the sinking ship.

Many had wondered what had happened to Iran’s “True Promise“ when it appeared to have been delayed indefinitely. Many criticised Iran for putting its national interests before the suffering of the people of Gaza. One explanation might have been the fact that at the time they were still actively gathering information within Israel of “sensitive” locations to add to their target bank. Others reasoned that the Iranian people would want to punish their government for inviting retribution by the (now no longer) superior might of Israel and America. Whatever the strategic and tactical reasoning within Iran’s political and military establishment, Israel revived that promise and Iran taught them a long overdue lesson. Now that the USA has weighed in as well, Iran has made a new promise, that they will respond and that all options are open.

The fact that the American-led Western (Zionist) empire is at its weakest is evident already in the fervent media speculation as to what Iran might do next. Will they continue to destroy Israel? Will they attack American bases in the region? Will they close the straight of Hormuz and cripple Western economies, effectively applying sanctions on America? Can they be made to scale down and return to talking? There is wide-spread fear in the Western camp, and Iran has been smart enough to act without making bold statements of the kind the baseball cap wearing geriatric at the helm of the US empire is known for.

For sure, there will be no let up in the war of attrition against Israel. As for American interests, such as bases in the Gulf, Iran does not have to act in a hurry. There are plenty of other actors in the region who welcome the opportunity to finally strike at them. American interests are now no longer a target purely by association, they are outliers of a nation directly involved in hostilities. The American military is heavily invested in clumsy military hardware which has become outdated in the face of modern drone and missile technology. In their brief standoff with Yemen, they found out that the balance of power had changed, and not in their favour. Yet, compared to Iran, Yemen would be a mere scout patrolling the Red Sea. The Project for the New American Century is fast entering the dustbin of history.

With such prospects, it is predictable that there is also outrage at home: the American people (at least some of them) have begun to realise that US foreign policy is not made by congress but dictated by Israel via the politicians they have paid for (many of whom also sit in congress, of course). Already, there are calls for impeachment of the president. Other Western leaders in the UK, France and Germany, who applauded Israeli and US strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities are turning daily more at odds with their own populace. Western populations don’t particularly like the idea of nuclear powers (declared, like the US, or undeclared, like Israel) bombing other countries’ nuclear facilities. They fear the fallout, and not only of radiation. There is now zero trust between the people and the (allegedly democratic) governments who want to lead them over the cliff edge.

The days where wars only happened abroad are gone. If Ukraine seemed too close for comfort to most Europeans, this new confrontation has much wider implications. Trump has just thrown down the gauntlet and replaced whatever remnants there were of international law and order with the “might is right” law of the jungle. His problem: the USA and Israel lack the might to force things to go their way.

Iran has called the American bombing an attack on the international order and urged the UN and international bodies to take action. Of course, they do not trust those bodies. They do not expect that the security council, in which the USA has a veto, will move to condemn US actions. But if this time the UN general assembly does not censor the security council beyond words of mere criticism, the UN will go the way of the dinosaurs (if they ever existed). And in the new, emerging balance of power, there will be no more place for Western dominance. For this reason alone, Israel and America committed a grave mistake by going over the top. People of what lately has been termed the “global south” are used to economic hardship, political instability and war. Europe and North America were net beneficiaries of that inequality. Now that economic hardship, political instability and war are coming their way, they are ill equipped to cope.

It won’t be pretty. When a fish is caught and out of the water it flaps most violently for a while. Then it stops. By deliberately leaving the safety of its waters, the Zionist US empire and its Israeli garrison outpost has committed suicide. They won’t go quietly, but go they will.