The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 26th June 2026
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 26th June 2026
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
American and Iranian delegations meet in Switzerland to hammer out the details of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding that has extend ed the truce in the Persian Gulf. The double-blockade’s been lifted. Oil prices fall to pre-war levels. But the guns still blaze in southern Lebanon as Israeli forces struggle to hold their positions in the face of fierce partisan resistance.
In Bürgenstock, a Qatar-owned luxury hotel complex overlooking Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, Pakistani and Qatari mediators are working overtime with the belligerents to sort out what has and has not been agreed over the last few months in order to prepare a final peace deal with in the 60-day cease-fire tie limit.
Although oil tankers are now passing freely through the Strait of Hormuz the Iranians have not given up their claim to charge a toll on what had been an international waterway before the fighting began in February. Although the Americans have agreed that an unspecified amount of Iranian assets frozen under imperialist sanctions would be “made fully available for use” by the Islamic Republic during the truce, they say that some of it would be spent on buying American wheat, soybeans and corn.
A claim angrily rejected by Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who said: “America falsely claims our unfrozen assets will buy their agriculture. Interesting. The only crop we’re harvesting is what you planted: decades of mistrust. It’s organic, abundant and home-grown. But apparently the US only exports GMO soybeans, broken promises and trash talks!”
But the real flash-point is Lebanon. The US–Iran cease-fire agreement calls for an end to the fighting and the total withdrawal of Israeli troops from the border strip they’ve occupied and covet as a “buffer zone” in southern Lebanon. The Americans have, in fact, curbed the Israelis, who have pulled back from some exposed positions and stopped bombing Beirut. But Netanyahu, the Israeli leader, is facing a general election in October and he wants to hold on to some Lebanese territory to claim ‘victory’ in a Middle East war he has so clearly lost.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, talks about getting the sectarian Syrian regime to move against the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia that leads the resistance in southern Lebanon – a move that could trigger sectarian strife throughout Lebanon and re-ignite the civil war in Syria. The Syrians have, however, wisely heeded the Turks who still occupy parts of northern Syria. The Turks are the major backers of the powerful Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and they want to extend their influence throughout the region – but this can only be done at Israel’s expense. The future doesn’t bode well for the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu…