LAST Friday’s attack by US planes on the Syrian airfield of al-Shayrat was not a one-off military exercise to teach the Syrians a lesson, but the opening shot in a drive to war against the Syrian people and Russia.
This has become crystal clear in the few days after this illegal attack as US imperialism, aided by its faithful lap-dogs in Britain, has moved from it being a ‘limited action’ taken in response to completely unproven allegations that Syrian forces had used poison gas, to the demand that Russia pulls out all its troops from the country and throws president Assad and the Syrian people to the wolves of IS and al-Qaeda.
If Russia refuses to back down then US imperialism is prepared for an all-out war with Russia.
The Tory government is right behind this drive to war with foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, acting on the instructions of Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State, cancelling a visit to Moscow and instead agreeing to spearhead a war alliance with the US.
The demand from Tillerson and Johnson is for Russia to withdraw all its forces from Syria and drop all support for President Assad; failure to do so will lead to a confrontation between Russia and the US. Tory defence secretary, Michael Fallon, added his voice to the clamour for an all out war with Russia by claiming that they were responsible for the deaths caused by these chemical weapons.
Fallon wrote: ‘By proxy Russia is responsible for every civilian death last week.’ The message is clear – if imperialism can’t drive Russia out of Syria with threats it is prepared to go to war.
Many commentators have expressed surprise at the sudden change in the Trump administration that until last week talked of ‘deals’ with Russia and appeared to accept that Assad would stay as president following the defeats of its proxy jihadist rebels at the hands of the Syrian army aided by Russian and Iranian allies.
In fact US imperialism has never deviated from its imperative to smash up Syria, followed by an attack on Iran in order to secure the region and its mineral wealth for exploitation. But the big prize for the imperialists has always been to overthrow the gains of the Russian Revolution and restore capitalism to the lands they were driven out of 100 years ago.
Driven by the historic crisis of capitalism this drive to open up Russia and China to capitalist exploitation of their vast resources and people has become an absolute imperative that they are prepared to risk nuclear war to achieve. At the same time that imperialism is waging war against the people of the world to re-conquer the lands it has been driven from, the imperialists are forced to wage war against the working class at home.
The same world crisis of capitalism that is driving war abroad is driving the austerity war against the working class in Britain and America and across the capitalist world. Trump can find $54 billion extra for the US military, taking the money from cuts to Federal spending on welfare and other services vital to workers while the Tories can promise unlimited funds for war against Syria and Russia while driving workers into the ground and destroying the NHS through cuts.
This establishes the unity of working people in Britain and the US with the people of Syria and Russia. They are not our enemy – the joint enemy is the ruling class that will go to any lengths, including nuclear war, to preserve the profits of the bankers and capitalists.
The only force that can stop this is the working class. In Britain workers must immediately demand that the unions take action against imperialist war by calling strike action against Tory war plans.
The TUC must be forced to call a general strike against the common enemy and bring down the Tories and go forward to a workers government that will withdraw all troops from the region and join hands with the working people of the world in advancing to the overthrow of imperialism through the victory of the world socialist revolution.
Only socialist revolution can put an end to imperialist wars.
