Every morning, we’re in the habit of getting a cup of coffee at 6 am and returning to bed to watch ‘Morning Joe.’ We’ll confess to a clever trick: when they cut to streams of stupid ads, we hit two clicks and switch to Al-Jazeera for more realistic and rational coverage of the Middle East. Then we flip back to ‘Morning Joe’ when the ads are over.
We’re also noting that we're more a fan of Mika Brzezinski than Joe Scarborough. The real saving grace of the show, however, is the range of politicians and experts they bring in for commentaries.
But this past week has been unique. It’s been a disgusting display of warmongering chauvinism over the content and projected outcomes of the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MOU) that Trump signed with Iran.
Make no mistake. We have been ‘revolutionary defeatists’ regarding this unjust ‘war of choice’ from the git-go. We also held no brief for the fascist theocrats of the Islamic Republic, and their aims of becoming a wider local hegemon based on the Shia and other Muslims in the region. We also predicted that as long as the regime in Tehran held on, Trump’s war would end in a political defeat, regardless of all the inflicted military and human damage. But unlike too many liberal pundits, we are not going to attack Trump from the right, with a hidden suggestion that the terms should be rejected and war might continue.
The signing of the MOU on June 15, 2026, should have instead been a moment of profound relief for anyone identifying with progressive, liberal, or humane values. After months of a destructive, ‘voluntary’ conflict that destroyed human lives and pushed the global economy to the brink, triggered skyrocketing domestic inflation, a diplomatic exit ramp was finally established. The virtual signatures of President Trump and Iranian officials represented an objective necessity: the halting of an unsustainable quagmire, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and a phased de-escalation of a naval blockade that was choking working-class families at the gas pump.
Yet, alongside MSNOW’s Morning Joe, reading the op-ed pages of mainstream centrist publications in the days following the announcement revealed a surreal, inverted reality. Rather than welcoming the ceasefire, too many prominent voices of establishment liberalism launched a coordinated, vitriolic attack against the agreement. To hear them tell it, the MOU is an act of craven “appeasement,” a “humiliating capitulation” by ‘Neville’ Trump that hands a “blank check” to the regional ambitions of the Iranian theocracy.
For the American left, watching this spectacle is as revealing as it is grotesque. It exposes a fundamental truth about the modern U.S. political landscape: when the survival of the American empire is at stake, the distinction between the institutional right and the establishment center-left starts to dissolve. By criticizing the peace deal from the right, these “liberal” commentators have revealed themselves as the dependable media guardians of the military-industrial complex. They sound like they want the war to continue indefinitely.
Their core grievance is that the U.S. gave up its hard-won “leverage” for nothing. Pundits wring their hands over the “surrender” of the naval blockade and the prospective unfreezing of between $20 billion and $25 billion in Iranian assets, alongside the creation of a $300 billion regional reconstruction fund. From a strict materialist and class-conscious perspective, these arguments are easily debunked fabrications designed to manufacture consent for permanent global dominance.
First, the narrative that American taxpayers are funding a “bailout” for Tehran is a lie of omission. The $20 billion to $25 billion slated for phased release is not a gift from the U.S. Treasury; it is the release of Iran’s own capital. These are sovereign assets frozen in international banking channels, such as accounts in Qatar, by unilateral U.S. banking sanctions. Returning an adversary’s own withheld property to secure a cessation of hostilities is standard diplomatic protocol, not a radical concession.
Second, the $300 billion reconstruction fund—whether one favors it or not—is explicitly structured as a private investment vehicle and development package, financed by Gulf monarchies, international partners, and private corporations, not the U.S. government. The administration explicitly negotiated a U.S. contribution of zero dollars. The capital is being provided by regional states and private international investors who desperately need and hope for regional stability so that global commerce can resume safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
Furthermore, as administration officials and independent analysts have noted, this is a strict “pay-for-performance” roadmap. Access to these funds is back-loaded, phased, and entirely conditional on Iran maintaining the ceasefire and allowing international oversight. The economic gates lock immediately if the terms are breached.
When Morning Joe laments the loss of “leverage,” what they are actually mourning is the failure of maximum-pressure warfare. But what was the truth of the situation? The naval blockade was not producing a diplomatic breakthrough; it was producing a catastrophic stalemate while punishing the global working class. By choking off oil shipments, the war triggered a massive domestic energy crisis, forcing working-class Americans to bear the brunt of greater-than-usual inflation. Lifting the blockade was not simply a favor or concession to Iran; it was an economic necessity to prevent further domestic erosion of living standards in the U.S. and worldwide.
A solid left response to these dilemmas is rooted in lessons learned from Lenin. Inside the United States, the largest core of global financial capital, imperialism is not a separate policy choice; it is capitalism in its higher monopoly stage. The super-profits extracted from global exploitation are the very mechanisms that stabilize domestic corporate rule and fund the militarization of our local communities. Therefore, it is impossible to wage an effective class war at home while ignoring the militarization and hot wars waged by our ruling class abroad.
The broad common front is the strategic mechanism that addresses left isolation on such matters. It reminds us that socialists must build the largest possible coalitions around immediate, universally understood democratic demands, such as stopping a war, without requiring every participant to hold a master’s degree in Marxist theory.
We form alliances with a wide variety of non-socialists based on shared objectives. We do not demand that a neighborhood peace group or a progressive representative adopt the language of a Marxist vanguard before we march together. Instead, we meet the masses where they are, using the concrete realities of the war to demonstrate how the capitalist state functions. It is a dual approach: building a broad, popular front for peace while maintaining an independent socialist voice that explains the deeper systemic roots of aggression.
This strategy operates as a long-term base-building project among oppressed nationalities, the working class, and grassroots social movements. It connects the violence of the U.S. empire abroad with the structural oppression, racism, and state violence experienced by marginalized communities inside the United States. Furthermore, the internationalist framework allows for support for grassroots revolutionary movements within target nations abroad, such as the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ movement in Iran, without aligning with their reactionary governments.
The establishment liberal outrage over the June 2026 MOU is a reminder that the corporate media’s primary function is to police the boundaries of acceptable political discourse. When Morning Joe laments a peace agreement, they are signaling to the public that permanent war is the only realistic framework for American foreign policy. They weaponize human rights language and geopolitical abstractions to obscure the cold, material realities of empire, inflation, and class exploitation.
For us, the path forward is clear. We must reject the warped choice presented by the corporate media. We do not defend the reactionary, anti-woman, anti-labor theology of the Islamic state, nor do we accept the permanent-war doctrine of the American political center. By utilizing the strategy of a common front against fascism at home and war abroad, the left can effectively organize the working class around a coherent, anti-war position. This war may have halted on paper for now, but the struggle is ongoing against new wars on the horizon, such as Cuba. The system that produces wars continues in every neighborhood across the country. Rise up!
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