Ten hours after threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” US President Donald Trump posted a statement on Truth Social Tuesday evening claiming that he will “suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” conditional on Iran agreeing to the “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.” Trump further claimed that the US has “already met and exceeded all Military objectives” and that the US and Iran were “very far along with a definitive Agreement.”
According to media reports, citing Iranian officials, Iran has accepted a “ceasefire” proposed by Pakistan, after a last-minute intervention by China, with final approval reportedly given by Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.
As of this writing, it is unclear what the basis of the agreement is. On Tuesday evening, Trump posted a vicious denunciation of CNN in relation to Iran, writing, “The alleged Statement put out by CNN World News is a FRAUD, as CNN well knows,” and threatening legal action against the company. This was apparently in relation to a report published by CNN under the headline, “Iran claims victory, says it forced US to accept 10-point plan.”
The 11th hour agreement, however, will be seen as a retreat by Trump. His threats had failed to intimidate Iran, but they have intensified the political crisis within his government.
Trump’s threat to annihilate a civilization of 93 million people—which by itself is a war crime—and the war as a whole have produced a political crisis of historic proportions. The statements have exposed the American government as an outlaw regime, headed by the criminal underworld. It generated shock and revulsion throughout the United States and internationally. Whatever remained of the supposed moral authority of the United States has been permanently and irreparably shattered, with the most far-reaching consequences for American society.
Washington and its allies launched a war they assumed could be decided by assassination and terror, but they seriously miscalculated the level of resistance from the Iranian people. American imperialism now confronts an insoluble dilemma. Escalation deepens the stigma of criminality in a war that it cannot win and risks explosive domestic consequences; retreat will be read internationally as a defeat and will further destabilize the political situation inside the United States.
The events of Tuesday underscore just how extraordinary the crisis has become. Within the military, those tasked with executing Trump’s orders were being placed in the position of carrying out operations universally recognized as war crimes, amid growing unease that the armed forces could be left “holding the bag” for whatever actions were taken.
This reality found expression in statements from within the political establishment itself, including sections of both the Republican and Democratic parties. Representative Sara Jacobs (Democrat-California) wrote that “the president just threatened genocide,” called on the Joint Chiefs of Staff to disregard any orders violating federal and international law, and said that “all options—including impeachment” must be considered. Representative Ted Lieu, also from California, addressed the military command directly, insisting that the Uniform Code of Military Justice and federal law prohibit war crimes.
That such statements are being made at all is an index of the scale of the crisis. Yet they also expose the paralysis and bad faith of the “opposition.” The same Democrats who backed the genocide in Gaza, enabled the war against Iran, funded the military apparatus and refused to mount any serious fight against Trump’s dictatorship now issue warnings of imminent war crimes while proposing no concrete action to stop them.
The official statement issued by the House Democratic leadership Tuesday declared that “Donald Trump is completely unhinged” and that “The House must come back into session immediately and vote to end this reckless war of choice in the Middle East before Donald Trump plunges our country into World War III.”
Just over one week ago, more than 8 million people took to the streets in “No Kings” protests against Trump. While opposition to the war against Iran was a dominant sentiment among those participating, the Democratic Party organizers systematically excluded any serious reference to the war against Iran, let alone warnings about “World War III.”
Now, the Democrats write that the world is on the brink of world war, which would inevitably involve the use of nuclear weapons. Their appeal, however, is not to the population but to the Republican Party. “It’s time for House Republicans,” the statement concluded, “to put patriotic duty over party loyalty and join Democrats in stopping this madness.”
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer together with other Senate Democrats issued a statement Tuesday acknowledging that “intentionally destroying the power, water, or basic infrastructure upon which tens of millions of civilians depend … would constitute a war crime.” But the operative line is a plea: “The president must not follow through on this threat.” In other words, after five weeks of illegal war, Senate Democrats respond to a threat of mass murder by asking Trump politely not to do it.
The Democrats appeal to Trump’s better judgment and to Republican “patriotism,” while refusing to mobilize the immense opposition that exists in the population, because such a mobilization would immediately raise issues they fear far more than Trump.
The Democrats, moreover, support the basic aim of US domination of the Middle East and the war against Iran, which flows from the genocide in Gaza, initiated under Biden. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy—who earlier in the day called Trump’s threats “grossly morally wrong” and “evil”—responded Tuesday evening to reports on the ceasefire terms: “It appears Trump just agreed to give Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz, a history-changing win for Iran,” Murphy wrote. “The level of incompetence is both stunning and heartbreaking.”
If the ruling class confronts an insoluble dilemma in foreign policy, it faces a corresponding insoluble dilemma in domestic policy. It has brought the political underworld to power, embodied in Trump, to prosecute global war and social counterrevolution—policies that cannot be carried out through legal or democratic methods. But the attempt to impose them is detonating the very social forces the ruling class fears most: the growth of explosive class conflict within the United States.
All factions of the bourgeoisie are unalterably opposed to such a movement from below, because it threatens not merely a particular administration but the foundations of capitalist rule itself. The response of the ruling class will not be to retreat but to escalate and to intensify domestic repression.
Whatever the immediate developments, the war is generating consequences the political establishment cannot control and from which it cannot escape. The crisis cannot be resolved through the normal mechanisms of the corporate-controlled political system.
The Socialist Equality Party insists that the decisive issue is the independent intervention of the working class as a social and political force. The two-week ceasefire, if it lasts, will be a period of escalating political crisis. This period must be used to build mass working class opposition to the war and the Trump administration.
This struggle is inseparable from the political mobilization of the working class against the capitalist oligarchy and the capitalist system it defends. The ruling class is driving humanity to the brink of catastrophe. The working class must respond through the fight for socialist revolution.