AS this is written, President Donald Trump has proclaimed a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, apparently trying to wind down a war which he initially disclaimed responsibility for, then backed the aggressor in, and then escalated through direct intervention.

Both Iran and Israel have endorsed this hyper-fragile development, although all recent experience shows that Israel’s words in these matters cannot be trusted.

If there is indeed a pause in hostilities, it represents, if not a win for Iran, at least a setback for Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated objectives.

For the Israeli premier, this was all about collapsing the regime in Tehran. Yet it emerges still standing.

It is impossible to assess what damage has been done to Iran’s military capacity and nuclear programme, although it is likely to be significant. 

But if the Iranian government indeed remains intact, Israel’s aggression will have fallen short in its aims, even if there is a temporary shift in power towards the US and its satraps, as there was after the Iraq invasion in 2003.

This illustrates a truth about contemporary imperialist wars. Regime change cannot be imposed by air power — the field in which the big powers enjoy the clearest advantage — alone.

It must be supplemented by either a ground invasion or by internal insurrection. The first has not, it seems, been contemplated, since it would lead to a military fiasco on an even greater scale than in Iraq and irretrievably split Trump’s political base in the US, sick of foreign wars as much of it is.

Nor has the second yet occurred, despite the Islamic Republic’s own brittle base and anti-popular policies. Defence of national sovereignty against aggression has, not for the first time in such wars, proved more consequential.

A ceasefire may not endure, of course. But even a sustained interruption in Israel’s attack speaks to the growing anxieties in the imperialist capitals as to the consequences of a prolonged conflict.

The mere threat of closing the Straits of Hormuz was enough to send markets into a tizzy. Iran’s missile response, fired at Doha, appears largely performative, but the next one may well not be.

A pause will also allow attention to return to the genocide in Gaza and the ongoing Israeli attempt to obliterate the Palestinian people. The Iranian government is the last significant source of militant state support for the Palestinians still standing, given the collapse over generations of all Arab resistance apart from the Houthis in Yemen.

The main reason Netanyahu bombards Iran and kills its scientists in their beds is not because he aspires to annex Iran, something even the most perfervid zionist does not dream of, but in order to make it easier for him to resolve his Palestinian problem to his gory satisfaction.

For Netanyahu, Iran’s disintegration into Iraqi, Syrian or Libyan-style chaos is the preferred outcome, allowing the IDF to pursue the congenial work of massacring starving Palestinians with still greater gusto.

So the thwarting of Netanyahu’s plan, if that is what has happened, to plunge the country into ungovernable mayhem is significant.

Other elements of the situation stand in sharp relief.

One is the political, moral and strategic exhaustion of British policy in the Middle East, and indeed elsewhere.

Sir Keir Starmer has appeared blinking as if in a hostage video to intone that there must be “de-escalation” while supporting every aggressive move by the escalators — Israel and its master, the US.

He called for a resumption of diplomacy, neglecting to observe that talks were planned between Washington and Tehran when Israel sought, successfully, to abort the process by means of bombardment and assassination.

He issued bland pronouncements, almost identical to those put out in the name of Canadian Premier Mark Carney, among others, presumably written for them by some Elon Musk work-experience trainee seconded to the US State Department.

These missives avoid taking any overt position on the actions of the aggressors, beyond an understanding nod, while sternly injuncting the victim to roll over and play dead. The lawyer is silent on whether Washington has breached international law with its bombing, although the answer is plain.

Starmer and his witless myrmidons instead declaim that Iran is the “main source of instability in the Middle East” as if the world could not see what is happening with its own eyes — and as, once again, dubious intelligence reports are weaponised to justify the imperial violence of the US bloc.

The Prime Minister is reduced to a role more suited to his limited talents, trying to rearrange concert billings by getting Irish hip-hop band Kneecap barred from the stage at the Glastonbury festival. 

He has already supplied an image for the ages, crouched at Trump’s feet, scurrying to collect the pages of the trade deal the US president had scattered on the floor and seemed little concerned to regather. Metaphors have never felt so redundant.

So here is the sixth major imperialist war in the Middle East/south Asia this century alone — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria and now Iran. No-one could possibly assume that it is the last, or that it is over.

None of the attacked have ever had any nuclear weapons — a point I would assume everyone in power has noted by now. North Korea, on the other hand, has such weapons and remains unattacked, despite its charter membership of George Bush’s “axis of evil.”

Perhaps it must be recognised that principled opposition to nuclear proliferation in a nuclear-armed imperialist state is putting the cart before the horse. Until we stop our governments attacking other peoples, we cannot, on principle, deny the victims the right to defend themselves as they see best.

More questions abound. The “two-state solution” in Israel-Palestine, long-championed by the well-meaning as well as the imperial cynics, is being buried under the depravity of the Israeli state. Too often presented as a “solution” to the “Palestine problem” — which is now scarcely plausible in any case — it leaves the “Israel problem” untouched.

That problem is on graphic display when starving Palestinians are forced to queue for food aid to survive — and then are mown down by the Israeli military in their dozens every single day.

Beyond imposing a bloody military occupation on Gaza, the same state is presently ethnically cleansing the West Bank, occupying parts of Lebanon, swallowing great slices of Syria beyond those illegally retained since 1967, bombing Yemen and now extending aggression to Iran.

Why any socialist would regard an arrangement which keeps such a state in existence a “solution” to anything is an interesting issue. Alternatives are challenging to be sure, but Israel’s racism and its instrumentalisation as an imperialist asset are of its essence as a state.

It is time to think outside the box, particularly when the box in question proves to be a bloody iron maiden. Weakening or destroying the imperialist basis for Israel’s continued existence as constituted in the US, Britain and elsewhere, would be decisive.

Let there be no doubt that Trump ultimately directs Israel’s endeavours. Netanyahu gives an appearance of bouncing Washington, but in the end, he cannot move without the assurance of US support.

The Pentagon has 40,000 military personnel, with ships and nuclear missiles to match, in the immediate vicinity. Their priority now is securing the region against any intrusion of Chinese influence, which only grows with every new aggression by Western powers and their local proxies.

Despite China’s low-key engagement in the present crisis, it remains the main challenger to US global hegemony, as the Trumpians are dimly aware.

Who would have thought that one might find greater wisdom in far-right Congressional imbecile Marjorie Taylor Greene than in all the bien-pensants of global centrism? It was the Republican provocateur who pointed out the obvious: “There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first. Israel is a nuclear-armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer.”

As for Britain, its place is cemented among the supporting cast of “bad actors” abroad in the world, whose existence so exercises a few among the Star’s readership. 

Anyone comforted by the idea of Starmer — or Badenoch, or Farage — having a larger arsenal at their disposal is no friend of the Iranian people, never mind the Palestinian. Nor, for that matter, are they better friends of the British working class, paying a price for our rulers’ imperialism stretching decades ahead in resources, and lives too, unless a change is imposed.