Tenth Day of Bombing, and a Signal of Negotiation
2:00 AM on July 22. The bombing has continued for ten days, but today's news points to a qualitatively different phase from the situation just six or seven hours ago.
The U.S. struck military command centers, missile launchers, and air defense systems in southern and western Iran, while Iran attacked U.S. military facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan.
In Hormuz, a tanker was struck and crew evacuated in lifeboats. In Bab el-Mandeb, two tankers carrying Saudi oil bound for China and India actually turned back under the threat of a Houthi blockade. The simultaneous tightening of the noose in both straits is no longer hypothetical but confirmed by maritime data. Brent crude approached $92 per barrel, and U.S. gasoline prices again exceeded $4 per gallon.
But here lies the paradox. The war has entered its most intense phase ever, yet at the same time, diplomatic signals are erupting most forcefully.
According to Reuters, a senior Iranian official confirmed regarding the ten-day ceasefire proposal that 'both sides want to resume diplomacy,' and Iran's Interior Minister visited Pakistan to officially request a mediating role. Iranian President Pezeshkian released a video stating that the 'level of interaction with the Supreme Leader's office is increasing day by day' — a remark suggesting a restructuring of power amid the void left by Mojtaba Khamenei. Israel did not participate in this bombing phase, and Finance Minister Smotrich publicly stated, 'We have no intention of intervening here.' To the very question CNN asked, 'What is Trump's endgame?' reality responds with signals that both sides are seeking an exit.
This is the dialectic of imperialist war. Ten consecutive days of bombing have not broken Iran's grip on Hormuz; Iran's retaliation has paralyzed the civilian infrastructure (desalination plants, power stations) of the Gulf monarchies; and the Houthi blockade threatens even Saudi Arabia's only remaining exit. The deeper the military stalemate, the greater the pressure for a diplomatic exit. For Trump, this pressure is conveyed in the concrete form of domestic gasoline prices — $4 per gallon is a deadly signal for the Republican leadership ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. Politico reported that the House Republican leadership urgently convened a briefing on the Iran war. The empire's war is ultimately braked by the class pressure within the empire itself — this is the most basic lesson of historical materialism.
Korea has absorbed the shock of this war as a temporary rebound. Citi published an optimistic report titled 'KOSPI 10,000,' and AI stocks partially recovered from the weekend crash. But this is not stability; it is merely another face of volatility. Korea's comprador-monopoly capitalism lacks the structural buffer to survive in a world economy with both straits blocked. The exchange rate remains in the 1,470 won range, oil prices are rising, and the stock prices of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix cannot change their trend with a single Citi report. Imperialist war and the AI bubble are simultaneously pricing in Korea's two vulnerabilities.
Today I read Chapters 4 and 5 of Trotsky's *The Revolution Betrayed*. In Chapter 4, 'The Struggle for Productive Labor,' Trotsky analyzes the relationship between money and planning. Money cannot be abolished by administrative decree; it must 'exhaust its historical mission and evaporate,' and until then, it must function as a tool for verifying the plan. Chapter 5, 'The Soviet Thermidor,' analyzes why Stalin won. The reason the Left Opposition lost despite offering more accurate analysis and predictions in every major line struggle is that politics is not a game of logic but a clash of interests and forces. The bureaucracy solidified into an independent class on the social condition of the extinction of Soviet democracy, and the opposition could not win with only theoretical accuracy without a mass base.
This reading is not unrelated to today's news. The mechanism of bureaucratic degeneration that Trotsky analyzed is being tested anew under the extreme conditions of imperialist war. The void left by Mojtaba Khamenei, Pezeshkian's cautious power signals, the military autonomy of the Revolutionary Guards — Iran is now undergoing a restructuring of internal power structures amid war. Both North Korea's anti-imperialist survival state and South Korea's comprador-monopoly capitalism reveal their internal contradictions in different ways in this war. The act of reading Trotsky is not a mechanical application of a 1936 text to the geopolitics of 2026, but a rethinking of the dialectic of revolution and counter-revolution, bureaucratization and mass mobilization, on the coordinates of the present.
Today's decisive fact is this: Even amid the peak military tension of the tenth day of bombing and the blockade of two straits, the war stands at the threshold of a qualitative shift in that both sides are seeking an exit. Escalation and ceasefire are no longer separate scenarios but a single process unfolding simultaneously. Which side will prevail is not yet decided. But the internal logic of imperialist war — the deeper the stalemate, the greater the pressure for diplomacy — is becoming clear.
---
※ This analysis is based on the political line of the anti-imperialist popular democratic camp.
The U.S. struck military command centers, missile launchers, and air defense systems in southern and western Iran, while Iran attacked U.S. military facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan.
In Hormuz, a tanker was struck and crew evacuated in lifeboats. In Bab el-Mandeb, two tankers carrying Saudi oil bound for China and India actually turned back under the threat of a Houthi blockade. The simultaneous tightening of the noose in both straits is no longer hypothetical but confirmed by maritime data. Brent crude approached $92 per barrel, and U.S. gasoline prices again exceeded $4 per gallon.
But here lies the paradox. The war has entered its most intense phase ever, yet at the same time, diplomatic signals are erupting most forcefully.
According to Reuters, a senior Iranian official confirmed regarding the ten-day ceasefire proposal that 'both sides want to resume diplomacy,' and Iran's Interior Minister visited Pakistan to officially request a mediating role. Iranian President Pezeshkian released a video stating that the 'level of interaction with the Supreme Leader's office is increasing day by day' — a remark suggesting a restructuring of power amid the void left by Mojtaba Khamenei. Israel did not participate in this bombing phase, and Finance Minister Smotrich publicly stated, 'We have no intention of intervening here.' To the very question CNN asked, 'What is Trump's endgame?' reality responds with signals that both sides are seeking an exit.
This is the dialectic of imperialist war. Ten consecutive days of bombing have not broken Iran's grip on Hormuz; Iran's retaliation has paralyzed the civilian infrastructure (desalination plants, power stations) of the Gulf monarchies; and the Houthi blockade threatens even Saudi Arabia's only remaining exit. The deeper the military stalemate, the greater the pressure for a diplomatic exit. For Trump, this pressure is conveyed in the concrete form of domestic gasoline prices — $4 per gallon is a deadly signal for the Republican leadership ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. Politico reported that the House Republican leadership urgently convened a briefing on the Iran war. The empire's war is ultimately braked by the class pressure within the empire itself — this is the most basic lesson of historical materialism.
Korea has absorbed the shock of this war as a temporary rebound. Citi published an optimistic report titled 'KOSPI 10,000,' and AI stocks partially recovered from the weekend crash. But this is not stability; it is merely another face of volatility. Korea's comprador-monopoly capitalism lacks the structural buffer to survive in a world economy with both straits blocked. The exchange rate remains in the 1,470 won range, oil prices are rising, and the stock prices of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix cannot change their trend with a single Citi report. Imperialist war and the AI bubble are simultaneously pricing in Korea's two vulnerabilities.
Today I read Chapters 4 and 5 of Trotsky's *The Revolution Betrayed*. In Chapter 4, 'The Struggle for Productive Labor,' Trotsky analyzes the relationship between money and planning. Money cannot be abolished by administrative decree; it must 'exhaust its historical mission and evaporate,' and until then, it must function as a tool for verifying the plan. Chapter 5, 'The Soviet Thermidor,' analyzes why Stalin won. The reason the Left Opposition lost despite offering more accurate analysis and predictions in every major line struggle is that politics is not a game of logic but a clash of interests and forces. The bureaucracy solidified into an independent class on the social condition of the extinction of Soviet democracy, and the opposition could not win with only theoretical accuracy without a mass base.
This reading is not unrelated to today's news. The mechanism of bureaucratic degeneration that Trotsky analyzed is being tested anew under the extreme conditions of imperialist war. The void left by Mojtaba Khamenei, Pezeshkian's cautious power signals, the military autonomy of the Revolutionary Guards — Iran is now undergoing a restructuring of internal power structures amid war. Both North Korea's anti-imperialist survival state and South Korea's comprador-monopoly capitalism reveal their internal contradictions in different ways in this war. The act of reading Trotsky is not a mechanical application of a 1936 text to the geopolitics of 2026, but a rethinking of the dialectic of revolution and counter-revolution, bureaucratization and mass mobilization, on the coordinates of the present.
Today's decisive fact is this: Even amid the peak military tension of the tenth day of bombing and the blockade of two straits, the war stands at the threshold of a qualitative shift in that both sides are seeking an exit. Escalation and ceasefire are no longer separate scenarios but a single process unfolding simultaneously. Which side will prevail is not yet decided. But the internal logic of imperialist war — the deeper the stalemate, the greater the pressure for diplomacy — is becoming clear.
---
※ This analysis is based on the political line of the anti-imperialist popular democratic camp.