THE WORLD’S stock markets plunged upon opening yesterday morning following US president Donald Trump’s ultimatum to Iran that it had 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz or the United States would ‘obliterate’ all the country’s power plants and infrastructure.
In response to Trump’s threat, Iran pledged massive retaliation against the energy infrastructure, information technology and water desalination plants belonging to the US and its allies across the region promising to ‘irreversibly destroy’ these essential infrastructures.
Yesterday Iran ramped up its promise of delivering catastrophic blows against US imperialism and its Israeli ally. Iran’s National Defence Council said in a statement that any attempt to attack the Iranian coast or islands will cause ‘all communication lines in the Persian Gulf to be mined’.
The statement said that in any attack ‘the entire Persian Gulf will practically find a situation similar to the Strait of Hormuz for a long time,’ adding: ‘the responsibility for it will lie with the threatening party.’
Trump’s ultimatum caused shock waves throughout the stock markets when they opened yesterday morning as the international investors and hedge funds finally grasped the magnitude of the war instigated by US imperialism and Israel and its crushing effect on the world economy.
The head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, said that the situation facing the world is now more serious than the two oil crises in 1973 and 1979, saying it was like ‘two oil crises and one gas crash put all together.’
In the event, Trump performed an abrupt about-turn and announced: ‘I have instructed the Department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructures for a five day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions.’
Yesterday morning Trump wrote on his Truth Social media site: ‘I am pleased to report that the United States of America and the country of Iran have had, over the last two days, very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.’
This claim by Trump that the US had been engaging in good and productive talks with Iran to discuss a complete and total resolution of the illegal war started by the US and Israel was immediately rejected by the Iranian government.
A source in the Iranian Foreign Ministry told IRIB News that there has been no contact or dialogue between Tehran and Washington and that Trump’s claim was aimed at lowering energy prices and buying time to implement his military plans.
The bourgeois media are reporting Trump’s five day ‘pause’ in attacking Iranian energy infrastructure as a climbdown by a US president who has bitten off more than he can chew.
An analysis piece in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph noted that US allies across the world, with the exception of Israel, ‘will breathe a sigh of relief’ at the thought that Trump has backed down and is desperately searching for a way out.
However, Iran remains absolutely steadfast and is refusing to be fobbed off with any more empty promises about negotiated peace talks that serve only as a cover for the US military to lick its wounds and regroup for another murderous onslaught aimed at crushing the Iranian revolution and reorganising the Middle East under the domination of US imperialism and the Israeli state.
The most powerful imperialist nation in the world has proved unable to inflict defeat on Iran or the Palestinian resistance to Zionist occupation.
The time has come for the working class to mobilise its strength to overthrow capitalism and put an end to genocidal wars that cost the lives of thousands of Iranians and Palestinians and people throughout the region in its desperate attempt to survive economic collapse.
The working class in the US, UK, Europe and across the world must unite in demanding their powerful trade unions call mass general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments and go forward to workers governments and socialism.
Build sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to provide the leadership required for the victory of the World Socialist Revolution.
