A report from the director of US national intelligence, James Clapper, issued last Tuesday signalled that imperialism’s war preparations against Iran have reached the point of open war.
In his annual ‘worldwide threat assessment’ Clapper warned that Iran was preparing to launch attacks against America and American interests, citing an alleged plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador in Washington which was supposed to have been uncovered last year.
This is the first time that the US government and its security organisations have come out openly and accused the Iranian government of being behind this so-called ‘plot’, in the past they have blamed ‘rogue elements’ within the Iranian state.
In fact, the entire ‘plot’ was so unbelievable from the start – it involved Iran supposedly hiring killers from a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the operation – that even the right-wing press had difficulty in taking it seriously.
But now it is being trotted out as proof that Iran is poised to launch terror attacks in the US and around the world to provide justification for an attack on Iran designed to overthrow the government and place the oil-rich and strategically vital country under the complete domination of US imperialism.
This statement follows hard on the heels of the build-up of imperialist naval forces in the region in preparation for a full-blown attack on Iran.
In fact, the only violence and murderous attacks are directly attributed not to Iran but to US imperialism and its client state, Israel.
For years now US imperialism and its Zionist stooge have been waging an undeclared war against Iran and its people, a war that has been stepped up dramatically in the immediate past.
While sanctions against Iran are not new, the latest round imposed by the US at the end of December, and faithfully followed by the EU in January, are designed to hit not just oil exports but the financial basis of the country with a complete embargo being imposed on the Iranian central bank and all financial dealings with the country.
This has completely undermined the Iranian currency, the rial, to the extent that it has dropped in value by over 70 per cent in the past month.
Along with this economic attack has been a campaign of murder directed at Iranian scientists.
Since 2010 four scientists have been killed by car bombs or street shootings; unlike the Saudi ambassador case there is no doubt as to the responsibility for these assassinations, Israel acting on behalf of its US masters.
A few days after the latest murder, that of 32-year-old scientist Mustafa Roshan on January 11, an Israeli source told the Sunday Times that the killings were part of ‘Israel’s secret war’ with Iran, before adding that they were a ‘precursor to a military strike, not merely an alternative.’
Imperialism, in its desperate crisis, is seeking to keep going by trying to impose the entire burden of the crisis on the backs of the working class at home while simultaneously attempting to reconquer the world’s resources and markets.
This war on two fronts places the working class directly in the same trench as the Iranian people in the forthcoming struggle, facing the same enemy.
Trade unions in Britain must immediately oppose any war against Iran by the British or any other imperialist government.
The only way to defeat the common enemy of the working class, world imperialism, is to build the revolutionary leadership, the Fourth International, to lead the working class to take power and establish socialism and put an end to the barbarism of imperialism once and for all.
