US president Donald Trump yesterday abruptly left the G7 meeting in Canada, telling reporters he wanted ‘better than a ceasefire’ between Iran and Israel.
When pressed exactly what this meant, Trump refused to specify, saying he wanted ‘a real end’ that might include ‘a complete give-up’ on the part of Iran, adding that he was ‘not too much in the mood to negotiate now.’
When the regime of Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu launched the unprovoked and illegal massive aerial bombing of Iranian cities, along with the targeted assassination of military leaders and scientists, last Friday, Trump insisted that the US had no involvement.
Despite all Trump’s protestations, it was widely believed that the US had prior knowledge of this huge and dangerous escalation of war and had made no attempt to rein in Netanyahu, if not actively encouraging the missile attack.
Instead, Trump immediately ordered a build up of US forces in the region and, following a similar call by Netanyahu, told Iranians to ‘immediately evacuate’ the capital, Tehran.
There is no certainty about what Trump will do next to support and aid imperialism’s loyal Israeli attack dog, but Netanyahu is demanding bunker-busting bombs from the US to attack Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities.
The waves of missile and air attacks have failed to inflict real damage on these facilities or weakened the Iranian military, despite causing hundreds of civilian deaths.
In fact, the response of Iran to the unprovoked attack with its own missiles has caused a massive crisis amongst Israelis, whose belief in their invincibility under the security of the US-provided ‘iron dome’ missile protection system has been shattered.
Yesterday, following the deliberate Israeli attack on the Iranian TV news station, Iran responded by hitting the HQ of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, according to local reports that were quickly deleted by the authorities desperate to hide any evidence of Israel’s vulnerability.
Since Netanyahu launched his attack on Friday, Israelis in cities across the country are forced into shelters overnight, shelters that it turns out are not as secure as they were led to believe, only to wake in the morning to scenes of devastation that they were very happy to inflict on Palestinians but are now terrified that it has come back to bite them.
Desperate for the US to intervene militarily, Netanyahu is now pushing for Trump to go for ‘regime change’ in Iran.
Regime change in Iran, a huge country with a population of over 92 million, carried out by Israel (population around 9.5 million) is impossible without a war that would not preclude US invasion or the use by Israel of its nuclear (and illegal) arsenal provided to them in the past by the US and France.
Whatever the immediate outcome of Trump’s chaotic and increasingly desperate attempts to reorder the Middle East for the exploitation of US capitalism, the dangers of all-out war, including the threat of nuclear weapons, by imperialism in the region has reached the point of explosion.
With the governments in Canada, Britain and Europe faithfully following the lead of the US in supporting Israel’s absolute right to bomb Iran and commit genocide in Gaza, the moment of truth has come for the working class internationally.
The working class alone has the power to put an end to imperialist wars by withdrawing its labour, without which none of the weapons used can be produced or transported.
Now is the time for working class internationally to demand the leaders of its trade unions call mass strikes to end the world diving into a war that would devastate millions of lives in the region and cause economic collapse throughout the world.
Leaders who refuse must be removed and replaced by a new leadership that will organise general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments, bringing in workers governments and socialism.
This means building up the WRP and Young Socialists in Britain and sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to provide the leadership required to dump capitalism in the dustbin of history, with the victory of the World Socialist Revolution.
This is the way forward!