US defeat against Iran exposes Zionist grip on Washington; popular struggle needed to break it: Activist

By Press TV Website Staff

The United States’ shifting rhetoric on Iran is not a sign of strategic flexibility but a symptom of a profound defeat that Washington refuses to accept, says an Austrian writer and activist.

In an interview with the Press TV website, Vienna-based anti-imperialist activist Wilhelm Langthaler said Zionist neoconservatives have effectively captured the US state apparatus and that only a “violent rupture” or mass popular struggle can dislodge them.

Langthaler is a longtime political and human rights activist based in Vienna, Austria. He has been vocal about Western interventionism, Israel’s overriding role in US foreign policy, and the sovereign rights of nations resisting Western imperialism.

He said Washington’s pattern of “threat, ultimatum, retreat, and repeat” reveals a fundamental inability to impose its will on the Islamic Republic of Iran, even in the aerial sphere, where the US once claimed unchallenged supremacy.

“Basically, this is [an] expression of the defeat Washington suffered against Iran, combined with the unwillingness to accept the consequences,” Langthaler told the Press TV website.

“The US Empire, with its Israeli chain dog, is still set on keeping its former position at all costs, according to the old Neocon concept, which is not in line with the reality on the ground.”

He pointed to a series of US failures across the region, from Iraq and Syria to Libya and Afghanistan, noting that “boots on the ground proved to be very difficult, up to impossible.”

Langthaler dismissed the notion that President Donald Trump’s contradictory messaging stems from strategic calculation, instead attributing it to an unresolvable tension between Trump’s anti-war campaign rhetoric and the Zionist-controlled deep-state apparatus in Washington.

“Trump set out to end the endless US wars while promising the continuation of the US Empire, including white supremacy. From the very beginning, this constituted an unresolvable contradiction, if not a lie,” he asserted.

Iran says Israeli campaign to steer US into ‘unwinnable’ war will ‘soon unravel’

The Iranian foreign minister says Israel is running an extensive influence campaign to push the US into an unwinnable war of choice.

Asked about the influence of pro-Israel lobby groups in the US, Langthaler was unequivocal.

“They do have a decisive influence not only on the Trump administration but on the entire state apparatus. And it is clear that it was them who pressed for the aggression,” he stated.

However, the activist cautioned against framing this as merely “foreign” interference.

“It is intrinsic. Israel is de facto part of the US, as Algeria was for France,” he stated.

Langthaler also addressed internal fractures within the so-called MAGA movement, noting that significant sections are turning against Israeli control over the US state. He cited the electoral victory of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York as evidence of growing institutional opposition.

“Zionists will do whatever [is] possible to defend their entrenchments within the US regime. Without an element of popular mass struggle or also civil war, they cannot be driven out,” he warned.

On the path forward, Langthaler called for a global solidarity movement modeled on the Vietnam-era anti-war campaigns, with a specific focus on supporting Iran’s right to national sovereignty and countering “anti-Islamic prejudice instigated by our politico-mediatic elites.”

“Iranian steadfastness is the best thing Iran can do. Not only for its own nation, but for the region and the world. Actually, there is no other way to deal with Western imperialism,” he said.

He urged activists worldwide to pressure their governments to stop supporting Zionism and American wars, and to back Iran’s sovereignty under international law.

“We need to make this message pass, which will enormously help to pressure our elites to take distance from Zionism and imperialist aggression at large,” he told the Press TV website.

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