On Monday, US imperialism ordered a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in a desperate attempt to crush Iran through economic sanctions.
This is the latest attempt, following the dismal failure of previous attempts, to force Iran to submit to the dictatorship of the US through bombings and missile attacks, and provoking a response from Iran that was clearly unexpected by US president Donald Trump and the Israeli regime.
Unable to inflict military defeat on Iran, and suffering huge losses as a result of a war costing the US an estimated around $2 billion a day, Trump has now turned to economic sanctions aimed at Iran’s oil industry.
In fact, the US is not technically blockading the Strait of Hormuz, instead, it is keeping its navy in the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean rather than risk its vessels by coming too close to the Iranian coast.
Iran has categorically rejected any illegitimate attempt by the US to interfere in its sovereign waters.
Iran’s military warned that any threat to the country’s ports will trigger a broader regional response, and that no port in the Persian Gulf or Sea of Oman will remain secure if Iranian ports are targeted.
The plan by the US to prevent maritime traffic to and from Iranian ports was condemned by the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid, as a flagrant violation of Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, calling it an illegal act of aggression that threatens regional and international peace and security.
Saeid added that the illegal blockade also seriously violates the fundamentals of the international law of the sea.
The imposed blockade has caused bewilderment and fear amongst countries around the world about what the US is attempting to achieve – apart from risking a military confrontation with China if it attempts to seize one of their vessels.
It would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz which has been blocked to enemy vessels by Iran, with Iranians insisting that they would still, in effect, have control of the Strait and can determine which ships would be allowed to pass.
What it is achieving is driving the cost of oil and gas even higher, hitting consumers across the world, including the US, and pushing global capitalism completely over the cliff into economic recession.
On Sunday, Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Iran’s delegation to the ‘peace’ negotiations that broke down on Saturday following the US demanding what amounted to complete surrender by Iran, told Americans in a post on X to ‘enjoy the current pump figures’ adding ‘soon you’ll be nostalgic for $4-$5 gas.’
This was no idle threat. Petrol prices in the US have rocketed since the war on Iran.
European countries have attempted to distance themselves from an increasingly unhinged Trump administration and, despite Trump’s claims that other countries would help enforce the US blockade, none have agreed to become involved.
In its terminal crisis, US capitalism, drowning in $39 trillion of debt, is desperately seeking to assert its supremacy over the wealth of the world through wars that will be paid for by the working class and masses across the world.
In its decline and weakness the US has destroyed the old capitalist alliances, along with any belief that it can reorder the world through war.
Capitalism is a deranged out-of-date social system that in its death agony can only survive by imposing war and poverty on the working people of the world.
The working class have the power to put an end to imperialist war at home and abroad by demanding their trade union leaders call an international general strike to bring down the capitalist governments in the US, UK and Europe, bringing in workers’ governments and socialism.
The most urgent task today is to build up the WRP and Young Socialists in Britain and sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to provide the leadership required to overthrow capitalism worldwide and advance humanity with the victory of the world socialist revolution.
