By Johannes Stern
Following Tehran’s missile strike on Israel this week, the US and Israel are preparing a massive attack on Iran. Despite its public warnings of a “wildfire” in the Middle East, the German government would support strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, military installations, or oil fields that would plunge the entire region into a catastrophic war. The statements from Berlin leave no doubt about that.
Although the Netanyahu regime provoked the Iranian response through a series of provocative attacks, the German government exclusively condemns Iran and supports Israel’s war offensive.
Green Party Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote during the Iranian attack on X (formerly Twitter): “Israel is being attacked by Iran with missiles in these hours. I condemn the ongoing attack in the strongest possible terms. We have strongly warned Iran against this dangerous escalation. Iran must stop the attack immediately. It is leading the region further to the abyss.”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democrats) expressed similar views. “The Iranian missile attacks on Israel are to be condemned in the strongest possible terms,” he said. Iran risks “setting the whole region ablaze” and it is necessary “to prevent it under all circumstances.” Hezbollah and Iran must “stop their attacks on Israel immediately.”
He went on to declare his solidarity with the Israeli war aims. Hezbollah must “withdraw from the border area with Israel,” because this would “pave the way for a return of the people to the north of Israel.” A few days “before the anniversary of Hamas’ terrible attack on Israel,” his thoughts were “with the hostages held and their families.” Their fate must be “an incentive for everyone to reach an agreement on the basis of the proposals made by US President Biden.”
What are these “proposals?” In fact, the US and the other imperialist powers are using Iran’s attack as a pretext to give Israel carte blanche to wage direct war against the region’s second-most populous country. “We will discuss with the Israelis what they will do, but we [the G7] agree that they have the right to respond,” Biden said Wednesday.
The WSWS explained in a recent perspective the broader objectives of the war:
“One year after the start of the Gaza genocide, it has become clear that Israel seized upon the events of October 7 to implement long-held plans to ethnically cleanse and annex all Palestinian territories. This is part of a regional war throughout the Middle East to conquer what the Zionist state claims to be its biblical borders.
For the United States, it has been a means to cement imperialist control over the oil-rich Middle East region and to establish the Middle East and Central Asia as a firm base for US military operations in order to press ahead with its confrontation with Russia and China.”
Germany does not want to stand aside in the imperialist redivision of the world but intends to secure as much of the spoils as possible. For this reason, it plays a leading role in the NATO war offensive against Russia in Ukraine and also in supporting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, which is now being extended to the entire region.
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) foreign policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter openly stated in a post on X that the imperialist powers are concerned with a reorganization of the entire region. Israel is “creating the opportunity for a new security structure in the Middle East by weakening the terrorist regime in Iran and significantly destroying the Iranian tentacles Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi.” For Lebanon, too, “this is an opportunity for a new beginning and stabilization,” he added cynically.
In a guest article for Focus under the title “No more taboos in the Middle East – seize the opportunity,” Kiesewetter argues in favour of military intervention. “If necessary, we would also have to be prepared to defend Israel with our armed forces,” he demanded. At the moment, we are “not yet ready,” but at least we are talking “about military support measures, for example in the field of aerial refuelling or in the medical service.”
It is now important “to show a presence and stand united as Europe by investing in the building of the state in Lebanon,” he continued. It must be clear that an Israeli peace arrangement with the Palestinian territories must be militarily and robustly secured in the future if it is to be credible. Therefore, “It is prudent not to engage in exclusionary activities with a view to a future peace arrangement in the Middle East. Even the involvement of German soldiers should not be ruled out, even if that is still a long way off.”
In fact, the deployment of German troops in the Middle East is already being openly discussed by the German government. “Peace needs international security guarantees that Gaza will never again be a source of terror against Israel,” Baerbock explained in an interview with Stern this week. Germany, together with its allies, is ready to contribute to this. However, she went on, we have learned from the Afghanistan mission “that you always need strong regional partners for peacekeeping missions.”
The mere reference to Afghanistan underlines that the issue is not “peace,” but neocolonial occupation. German and international “peacekeepers” would support Israel in alliance with the corrupt, pro-imperialist Arab regimes in the region and brutally suppress any opposition among the population.
Comments like Kiesewetter’s show that the ruling class admires Israel’s genocidal war policy and views it as a model. Israel is “making the Middle East safer, especially with diplomacy and toughness” and fighting “the essential evil in the region: Iran and its henchmen.” Now Germany too must “say goodbye to its Middle Eastern romance and finally combine diplomacy with toughness and thus become credible.”
A particularly filthy comment from the pen of Die Welt editor-in-chief Ulf Poschardt celebrated Netanyahu as the “avant-garde of the West.” More than any other head of state, he considers “the combativeness of the West, liberal democracies and free societies not to be a punchline of absurd Sunday speeches, but a mandate.” According to Poschardt, this makes Netanyahu, “a role model, especially for those cowardly, self-confident representatives of the West who encourage the enemies in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran or Ankara to reach out.”
Cynically, Poschhardt justifies the Israeli policy of violence and his own enthusiasm for it with the crimes of the Nazis. “In the shadow of the Shoah,” he writes, “‘never again’ has always shaped the Israeli security identity, but this identity has never been so endangered, even shaken, as it was after the barbaric attack almost a year ago.” Netanyahu and his generals worked “against this trauma: not driven by it, but calmly.”
Poschhardt et al. can rub their blood-smeared hands as long as they want. The genocide in Gaza, which is now being extended to the entire region, shows that it is the ruling class that, eight decades after the Holocaust and the war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, is returning to the policy of genocide and putting it into practice in an increasingly comprehensive and “calm” way.
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