Iran retaliates: is all-out Iran-Israel war coming?

oaklandsocialist

April 14

Tehran has retaliated with a barrage of rockets and drones for Israel's terrorist bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria. This barrage is still going on while I am writing. However, some things are becoming clear or are confirming what was already clear.
The Iran government has to retaliate or it will lose all credibility within the region. At the same time, it is trying to avoid an all-out war with Israel. Such a war would inevitably draw in the United States and would be very damaging to Iran. According to al Jazeera, the Iran government has already said that the matter is "concluded". And this is before there is any confirmation that any of the rockets or drones have actually hit any target inside Israel. Not only that, but the Iranian government claims it has hypersonic rockets that could reach Israel in 400 seconds. If that is true, then the fact that they didn't use them is clear proof that they desperately want to avoid a wider war.

The same is true for the Houthies and Hezbollah.

Biden
Biden, too, has every reason to want to avoid a wider war in which U.S. forces would almost inevitably get involved. Such a war would further damage the US influence in the region and beyond.

Furthermore, US involvement in such a war would be extremely unpopular from the start here at home. Normally, when a country goes to war there is a wave of patriotic war fever at first. It's hard to see how this would develop in this case. Israel would be blamed, especially since a recent poll showed that something like 55% of people in the US already disapproved of how Israel was conducting the war. That was even before Israel's assassination of the World Central Kitchen workers.

US involvement in such a war would also seriously damage Biden's election prospects at home. Trump will blame Biden for it. Trump would say that were he in office, he would have been able to negotiate a deal and also that Biden's weakness inspired Iran. Millions of US voters would fall for that.

Netanyahu
The only one who has something to gain from an all-out war with Iran is Netanyahu. As soon as the war against Gaza ends, Netanyahu is out of office. A widening of the war will help sustain him.

Netanyahu cannot be controlled by Biden. Even if all of the rockets launched by Iran are shot down, it's possible that Netanyahu will order further escalation. If he does, then it's hard to see how things would not escalate from there.

Not only that but it's possible that a US fighter jet flying in the region could be hit. If that happens, then Biden would probably order retaliation.

world capitalist crisis
The entire situation once again reeks of the world capitalist crisis. We have extreme right wing adventurers in office in Russia and Israel (Putin and Netanyahu) and another one possibly coming into office in the US (Trump). What does it tell us when the "reasonable" world leaders are the likes of the Netanyahu-hugging Joe Biden?

working class and socialism
The only force capable of preventing a complete disaster is the world working class, but the working class is as far from playing an independent political role as can be imagined. The only force that is in worse crisis, that is in complete disarray, is the world socialist movement. That movement barely even exists. It is dominated by Putin defenders and apologists. Maybe, though, the decks are being cleared. In that case, those who are struggling to rebuild a socialist movement based on international working class solidarity and working class independence will have an opportunity to really develop. We had better rededicate ourselves to the task, though.