ON SUNDAY, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth insisted publicly that, despite the illegal bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday, Donald Trump’s administration ‘does not seek war’ and is not trying to impose a regime change on Iran.
This statement was echoed by Trump’s vice president JD Vance and US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
These three top members of Trump’s ruling circle were quickly humiliated by Trump, who posted on his ironically named ‘Truth’ social media account, that the overthrow of the Iranian government and regime change was exactly what he planned.
Trump wrote: ‘It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change”, but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change ???’
The reason for his top officials to be wary of openly calling for regime change is the long history of disasters that have accompanied all previous wars by US imperialism to impose its dominance on the world through bombings followed by US troops on the ground.
Crucially, the massive demonstrations by over 11 million throughout the USA on June 7 has proved that American workers and youth are rising up against the Trump administration, its support for genocide in Gaza and its war drive throughout the Middle East.
If Trump is hoping for the Iranians to be cowed into submission or for some popular uprising, this was exposed as wishful thinking when the streets of Tehran were packed out on Sunday with Iranians demonstrating in support of their government and against US imperialism’s barbaric declaration of war.
At the same time, Saturday’s bunker-busting bomb attack has not acted as any deterrent to Iranian missile strikes on Israel in support of the Palestinians.
On Monday, Iran launched a massive wave of missiles against targets in Israel, with Israeli media reporting at least four impact sites across the country, including a missile striking a ‘strategic infrastructure facility’ in southern Israel causing power outages.
Meanwhile, as the dust settles from the US bombing raid, experts are questioning whether it had inflicted the damage on the Iranian nuclear enrichment programme that Trump boasted about, with evidence emerging that these facilities had been emptied prior to the attack.
The Iranian parliament on Sunday voted to close down the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow shipping trade route that sees nearly a third of the world’s oil and gas supplies pass through, as part of the retaliation against the US and its supporters.
This decision is not binding, and the final decision will be made by top security officials according to Iranian state media.
But even the threat has caused panic, as such a massive choke on oil and gas supplies would inevitably cause a catastrophic economic collapse across the US, UK and Europe at a time when world capitalism is already headlong over the precipice of recession and economic collapse.
Strikingly, the US, for all its boasts about being in control of the region, has been reduced to begging China and Russia to use their influence on Iran to persuade it not to take this step.
In effect, the most powerful capitalist country in the world is forced to beg China, who Trump names as the main economic threat to the US, and Russia to bail out American capitalism, to prevent economic meltdown.
In its weakness, the US, supported by minor imperialist nations like the UK, is lashing out and driving towards an all-out war, that in their desperation does not preclude the use of nuclear weapons, to try and reimpose their domination on the world and its resources for the exploitation of the bosses and bankers.
In its death agony, imperialism only holds a future of world wars and economic collapse which workers and youth will be expected to pay for with their lives.
Capitalism in its final imperialist stage has reached the end of the road, and must be put out of its agony by the powerful working class forcing its trade union leaders to call mass general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments and bring in workers governments and worldwide socialism.
There is no other way forward!