The news this week, that the army and security services have informed government ministers that there is a ‘25% to 50% chance’ that there will be a war against Iran in the near future, demonstrates the desperation of world imperialism.
According to reports of a recent meeting of the British National Security Council, this was the risk assessment made by the foreign office, military and MI5 about the prospects of an Israeli strike on Iran under the pretext of stopping that country’s nuclear programme, a programme that is entirely for the development of energy as most experts agree, and one which Iran has a perfect right to develop.
Such an attack would inevitably lead to retaliation by Iran against the Zionist state and its allies.
What the British and US governments fear most is that Iran would block the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow six-mile-wide channel through which 20% of the world’s oil must pass on its way out of the Gulf.
The scenario that is being carefully leaked out is that Israel, terrified of a nuclear-armed Iran, launches a pre-emptive strike against the country, against the wishes of its US masters.
The US, with Britain being reluctantly dragged in as the faithful servant, would then be forced to come to the aid of Israel and launch its own attacks on Iran, smashing up the country and paving the way for a complete imperialist invasion.
It now transpires that US imperialism has, for the past year, been stockpiling fuel and military equipment at its bases in the Gulf in preparation for just such an attack.
Along with this build-up of military might, two US aircraft carriers have been deployed in the region over the past three months ready for the signal to go.
The US has insisted that its British allies send minesweepers into the area near the Strait of Hormuz to deal with any attempt to mine the sea channel and choke off the supply of oil to western imperialism.
US bases on the British territories of Diego Garcia would be used for long-range bombing raids against Iran.
What is crystal clear is that far from the US and British governments being unwilling bystanders who will get dragged into a war against Iran reluctantly, they have in fact developed an advanced plan for all-out war against the Iranian people.
This plan would circumvent any inconvenient veto on the use of military action against Tehran on the UN Security Council by Russia or China, by allowing imperialists to claim support for ‘plucky little’ Israel as justification for another illegal war.
Israel, it should never be forgotten, is the only entity in the region that has not just nuclear capability but a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons courtesy of its US masters.
Indeed, the thought that Israel would defy the US, on which it relies for its survival, over an attack on Iran is farfetched to say the least.
It could only launch such an adventure with the support of a very powerful section of the US ruling class.
The relentless drive to war by imperialism is a product of the unrelenting economic crisis of capitalism.
Imperialism in its death agony is responding in the only way it knows how in this crisis — to try and re-colonise the world and physically dominate the oil and mineral-rich regions.
Despite its defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, world imperialism is forced to risk Armageddon in order to survive.
There is only one way to stop this mad rush to war and the loss of countless lives and that is through the world socialist revolution to put an end to imperialism for good.
