Intervention by Booker Omole
Sovintern English Language Forum, Moscow, April 2026
Comrades,
The question before us is not whether a wider war will emerge in what is referred to as the Middle East, a term of colonial origin which obscures the real geography of struggle.
The reality is that war is already unfolding in West Asia.
What we are witnessing is not a series of isolated conflicts, but the development of a unified and expanding system of imperialist war.
This system reflects the deepening crisis of imperialism as a global formation.
West Asia has become its central theatre.
In Palestine, the ongoing destruction of Gaza represents the clearest expression of imperialist violence. This is not an isolated humanitarian catastrophe. It is a sustained political and military project, supported materially and politically by United States imperialism, with Zionism functioning as its principal regional instrument.
This situation is not simply one of occupation. It is a mechanism of coercion directed at the entire region.
The escalation against Iran marks a further development of this trajectory. The use of military pressure, economic sanctions, and control over maritime routes reflects a coordinated strategy of containment directed against any force that resists imperialist domination.
At the same time, resistance has developed in different forms across the region. In Yemen, control over strategic maritime corridors has been contested. In Lebanon, the balance of forces has constrained further expansion of war. In Iraq, opposition to foreign military presence remains a central political contradiction.
These developments must be understood not as separate phenomena, but as interconnected expressions of a single regional contradiction between imperialist intervention and popular resistance.
Comrades,
From a Marxist Leninist standpoint, it is necessary to identify the principal contradiction.
In the present conjuncture, this contradiction is between United States imperialism, together with its Zionist instrument in West Asia, and the oppressed peoples and states that resist its domination.
United States imperialism constitutes the central organising force of intervention, coercion, and political destabilisation in the region. Zionism operates as a forward instrument of this system within West Asia.
Without this determination, it is not possible to establish a correct strategic orientation.
The task of anti imperialist forces is therefore not neutrality between competing powers, but clear opposition to the principal source of imperialist aggression.
Comrades,
The situation in West Asia is inseparable from developments in other regions.
In Eastern Europe, the conflict in Ukraine reflects the consequences of NATO expansion and the broader confrontation between imperialist blocs.
In the Sahel and across parts of Africa, there is growing resistance to foreign military presence and to neocolonial structures of dependency.
In East Asia, the strategic encirclement of China expresses the attempt to contain an emerging centre of economic and political power.
These are not independent conflicts.
They are different expressions of a single global system in crisis.
Imperialism operates through multiple fronts, but under a unified logic of domination.
Comrades,
This global contradiction is also expressed in Kenya.
The presence of United States military installations and the integration of the country into external strategic frameworks reflects its position within the imperialist system.
At the same time, Kenya is not only a site of domination. It is also a site in which class contradictions are developing and where resistance is emerging.
The task before us is therefore to develop political clarity and organisational capacity.
To reject fragmentation.
To identify the principal contradiction.
To unite all anti imperialist forces on a clear political basis.
The struggle against imperialism is not a matter of sentiment. It is a matter of organisation.
History does not advance spontaneously. It advances through conscious and organised action.
Long live the unity of the anti imperialist struggle.
Long live the organisation of the working masses.
Forward to liberation.