Trump threatens Iran with strikes "in ten minutes", three days before the midterms

According to Le Monde, Donald Trump threatened Iran on Saturday with fresh strikes on "one or two sites", including Mount Kolang, near the Natanz nuclear complex. "We can do that in ten minutes," the US president said. Still according to Le Monde, press reports point to a possible short, intense military campaign after the US midterm elections, due Tuesday. Iran, for its part, has promised "an immediate response" should a new offensive come.

What we do not yet know: whether a decision has been taken, how large the strikes would be, and what the consequences would be for civilians. The dispatch does not say. Let us simply recall that an "operation of ten minutes" is always measured in lives, on the side of those who live under the bombs. What follows is our reading, not an established fact.

First, the timing. A public threat, three days before a vote. Cui bono? An executive that wants to look strong at the moment the votes are counted. War as a campaign argument: an old recipe. But reducing this to domestic politics would be too narrow. The vote passes; the pressure remains.

For the essential point is this: coercion. Threatening to strike a specific site, naming the mountain, timing the execution, is diplomacy conducted with a bomber. The message to Tehran is simple: negotiate on our terms. The message to other capitals too. Within the grid bequeathed by Lenin, the great powers contest spheres of influence, resources, routes. Sanctions, alliances and arms contracts are the political wrapping. The Middle East, with its oil and its sea lanes, is a central theatre. "Iran's nuclear programme" is the stated motive; the regional pecking order is the prize.

Next, the logic of the state. For Lenin, the state is not an arbiter above classes but the instrument of a ruling class. When it speaks of defending the homeland, one must ask whose interests lie behind the homeland. Arms makers and energy industrialists have rarely had cause to complain about escalation. This dispatch contains no figures, and we will not invent any. But the question of who cashes the next ammunition order is not an indecent one.

Finally, escalation feeds itself. A public threat binds the credibility of the one who makes it: backing down costs, striking costs too. Tehran, for its part, promises to respond at once, which narrows the room for manoeuvre still further. Two states, two apparatuses, a machine in which peoples are never consulted.

We will be told about "deterrence" and "a rules-based order". Translation: the rules apply to others. American and Iranian workers have no interest in this affair, beyond paying the bill. On Tuesday, people will vote. The missiles, for their part, have no ballot paper. (our translation)