
Middle East Wars Are Still About Oil and Empire
Gilbert Achcar explains how oil, US power, and regional rivalries have shaped decades of conflict in the Middle East — and why the confrontation with Iran fits a long imperial pattern.
William G. Martin teaches at SUNY-Binghamton and is co-author of After Prisons? Freedom, Decarceration, and Justice Disinvestment (2016) and a founding member of Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier; he covers local justice matters at www.justtalk.blog

Gilbert Achcar explains how oil, US power, and regional rivalries have shaped decades of conflict in the Middle East — and why the confrontation with Iran fits a long imperial pattern.

A new study from the Center for Working-Class Politics, Arizona State University’s Center for Work and Democracy, and Jacobin reveals that politicians with union backgrounds campaign more aggressively for workers and vote further left — but unions rarely recruit them.

The United Workers Union is one of Australia’s largest unions, and an upcoming ballot will see members choose between militancy and the status quo.

Implementation of the White House’s return-to-office directive will be aided by the tech firm Palantir. It remains unclear why a spy-tech company should be tasked with things like “employee seat assignments.”

The CIO unionized General Motors in 1937 and saved the labor movement. Today’s unions need to do the same to Amazon if there is any hope of stopping the slow death of American labor.

As Donald Trump launches a dangerous war on Iran, understanding what really drives US imperial aggression is more urgent than ever. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, which many critics wrongly claim was about oil, offers an illuminating case study.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has revived plans to draw on frozen Russian assets to make loans to Ukraine. Yanis Varoufakis writes for Jacobin that the idea is unworkable and incompatible with efforts to move toward a ceasefire.

At their 2026 organizing conference, Young Democratic Socialists of America focused on organizing student workers, building campus movements against ICE, and preparing mass action for May Day 2028 to confront Trump’s authoritarianism.

Kristi Noem, just fired from her job as secretary of DHS amid allegations of self-dealing, staffed the department’s AI division with leadership taken directly from a tech company under contract with DHS to develop its biometric surveillance system.

Just one year ago, the idea that New Yorkers could get universal childcare was dismissed as utopian nonsense. An organized democratic socialist movement made it a reality, with the first phase launching this year.

For roughly half a century, a certain strain of American evangelical theology has taught millions of believers to read conflicts like Trump’s war with Iran not simply as geopolitics in action but as prophecy unfolding in real time. I was one of them.

Across Germany, tens of thousands of high school students went on strike on Thursday to protest the likely reintroduction of military service. Germany’s political leaders want a new generation of soldiers, but young people are against it.

In recent years, top defense contractors — backed by trillions in taxpayer dollars — have prioritized enriching shareholders over expanding production. As war spending surges, America’s biggest weapons manufacturers could funnel even more to investors.

The war on Iran is a joint effort by segments of the US, Israeli, European, and Arab ruling classes that are committed to global and regional domination — not just the result of Israeli pressure on Donald Trump.

Taxing the rich in New York, as Zohran Mamdani has proposed, isn’t just right and necessary. New polling shows a strong majority support making the wealthy pay, suggesting that Gov. Kathy Hochul’s refusal to do so is political malpractice.

For a century, American wars were planned by think tankers drawn from the boards of Goldman Sachs and Chevron. It gave rise to horrors like Vietnam and Iraq. That era is over. What comes next is very likely worse.

Chuck Schumer is not only failing to meet the moment by not opposing the war on Iran. He has long been a hawk on Iran among Democrats and Americans who are yearning for peace.

Donald Trump is angry because Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, hasn’t backed the war on Iran. Sánchez’s stand is hardly radical, but it seems like it now that almost all of Europe has fallen in behind Trump.

The largest and longest nurse strike in New York City history concluded last month. A rank-and-file nurse leader writes in Jacobin about how the 15,000 striking nurses beat giant hospitals to win major victories on safe-staffing and other issues.

After weeks of nurses picketing in the freezing cold, New York City nurses concluded their biggest-ever strike last month. Jacobin spoke to a striking nurse leader about their fight against intransigent employers and a hostile governor.