Biden-Harris administration approves $20 billion for genocide and war in the Middle East

The Biden-Harris administration has approved a massive $20 billion arms sale to Israel to pave the way for a regional war against Iran and any other force that stands in the way of imperialist aims in the Middle East.

The Biden administration is dripping in blood from the genocide in Gaza, which it has armed, financed and politically justified. The Lancet medical journal estimates that nearly 200,000 people have been killed in the genocide so far.

Of the $20 billion additional arms sales approved this week, $19 billion is for the delivery of new fighter jets or to upgrade the fighter jets Israel already operates. These warplanes would not be used against Gaza, which has already been bombed into rubble. They would be used to turn the cities of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and above all Iran into similar killing zones.

As the Socialist Equality Party resolution adopted at its Eighth National Congress last week states, “The Gaza genocide is a component part of a broader regional and global war. Israel’s assassination in late July of the top military leader of Hezbollah in Beirut and the top political leader of Hamas while he was in Tehran raised to a new level the danger of a direct US-Israeli war against Iran. From the beginning of the genocide, US military and political officials made clear that their support for Israel’s actions was connected to advanced preparations for a conflict with Iran, a principal ally of Russia and China in the Middle East.”

There is a sinister subtext to the Pentagon announcement. Israel already has unquestioned air superiority in the region. The sole purpose of this weapons sale is to replace anticipated losses in a war with Iran and its allies which could erupt at any moment. The Biden-Harris administration wants to ensure that Israel can continue pulverizing the people of the Middle East without missing a beat.

The timescale of the weapons sales, with delivery stretched out from 2026 to 2029, demonstrates the real program of a future Harris-Walz administration. Both corporate-controlled parties, the fascist Republicans of Donald Trump, and the war-mad Democrats of Kamala Harris, are unalterably committed to military aggression all around the world to maintain the dominant global position of American imperialism.

The SEP calls for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all US troops from the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. All military and financial aid to Israel must be stopped immediately and all arms shipments ended.

The vast US military and intelligence apparatus and the massive arsenal of American imperialism, including the stockpile of nuclear weapons, must be dismantled, along with the shutting down of the hundreds of US overseas military bases and the disbanding of the standing army. This will free up immense resources to pay reparations to countries ravaged by US militarism and to meet critical social needs at home.

The only way to fight genocide in Gaza is to mobilize the international working class against imperialism as a whole. That is the program which the election campaign of the Socialist Equality Party is fighting for.