The United States flew strategic bombers over the Persian Gulf on Wednesday, December 30, for the third time since the second half of November. According to Haaretz, senior officers in the Israel military have met in recent days with their counterparts at US Central Command, aiming to tighten the links between the two armies against Iran. This string of American military force deployments to the Gulf region has only intensified speculation that that US President Donald Trump plans to “go out with a bang” and take military action against Tehran before President-elect Joe Biden enters office on January 20.

On Friday, December 18, Israel’s Defense Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz met with the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley who had arrived in Israel for a two-day visit a day earlier. During his visit, Milley met with a number of top Israeli military officials, including the army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi. Hours later Milley met with Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

An obviously relaxed and confident Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confers with the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, December 19, 2020. In the center is the Israel military’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi. Even the mask can’t hide Netanyahu’s satisfaction. Woe to us all if Israel’s arrogant and corrupt prime minister gets his way in the end. (Photo: GPO)

The Communist weekly Zo Haderech has written in its recent issue that, at the end of the Trump’s presidency, the Middle East is riddled with signs of imminent war. “The last few days saw reports of B-52s making their way from North Dakota to the Gulf, of an Israeli submarine passing in the Suez Canal and of Trump’s intention to deliver one final blow against Tehran,” the paper noted.

One senior US military officer said the flight on Wednesday this week of two Air Force B-52 bombers was in response to signals that Iran may be planning attacks against US-allied targets in neighboring Iraq or elsewhere in the region in the coming days. Today, January 3, marks exactly a year since Trump ordered the targeted assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in drone air strike near the Baghdad International Airport. Therefore, the Americans speculate that the Iranian’s likely could use the anniversary of Soleimani’s murder to commemorate their hero’s death and more fully retaliate for it, something they only did very symbolically, with no American losses, a year ago. Just over a week ago, on December 23, Trump tweeted: “Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over.” It is in this fashion that the Americans rely on the short term memory of world public opinion to camouflage heir own imperialist aggression in the closing days of the Trump presidency, as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office. (Biden has stated numerous times that he favors renewing US participation in the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that the Trump administration withdrew from.) Naturally the aim of Trump’s treachery is to goad the Iranian’s into making a move militarily that would justify, in the eyes of the current US administration, a major strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities in and around Tehran. As Trump is a well tutored student of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose No. 1 strategic goal is to neutralize Iran’s “nuclear threat” against the State of Israel, both teacher and pupil are well aware that this is their last chance to execute such potentially calamitous aggression before Trump leaves the White House and is deprived of his role as Commander in Chief of all American forces.

Wednesday’s bomber flight comes just over a week after an Israeli submarine openly sailed south through the Suez Canal on its way to the Persian Gulf, in a show of force against Iran. The move was approved by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, yet another member in the US’s anti-Iranian axis, according to the Kan Israeli public broadcaster.

The Israeli submarine reportedly surfaced and began heading towards the Persian Gulf. Israeli intelligence sources said the move was meant to “send a message” to Iran. In addition, last week, the Israeli military spokesperson Hidai Zilberman told the Saudi Arabian Elaph news outlet that Israel was tracking Iranian movements around the region and that Israeli submarines were quietly “sailing everywhere.”

Last week, a US Navy guided-missile submarine made an unusual transit of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Earlier in December, a pair of B-52 bombers from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana flew what the military calls a “presence” mission over the Gulf, the second of three since Trump’s defeat in the US presidential election.