IN what amounts to a declaration of war between US imperialism and Iran, US president Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that a massive US armada is quickly moving towards Iran ‘with great power, enthusiasm and purpose.’
The fleet, headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, is larger than the one Trump sent to Venezuela before the illegal kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, and Trump was quick to proclaim that this fleet was ‘prepared to rapidly fulfil its mission with speed and violence if necessary.’
Trump is claiming that this massive armada, now within striking range of Iran, along with the dispatch of F-15 Strike Eagles and B-52 bombers to Jordan and Qatar, have been assembled to force Iran to give up its domestic nuclear programme.
Trump wrote: ‘Hopefully Iran will quickly “Come to the table” and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties.’
The Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi responded that he was not prepared to negotiate under threats but was willing to talk without preconditions, and that this had been relayed to the US on numerous occasions, insisting that Iran ‘always welcomed a mutually beneficial, fair and equitable Nuclear Deal’, adding: ‘which ensures Iran’s rights to peaceful nuclear technology, and guarantees NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS.’
However, Araghchi insisted that the Iranian military will respond to any ‘aggression against our beloved land, air and sea.’
Earlier this month, Trump threatened to bomb and kill Iranian leaders under the pretext that they were responsible for the deaths of protesters.
He backed off this threat in order to assemble the US forces required to mount an all-out military attack, switching his claim to be defending the rights of protesters to demanding Iran surrenders completely to demands that it gives up its domestic nuclear programme.
Now these aircraft carriers, troops and fighters are in place, Trump is clearly on the verge of declaring war on Iran – a war to overthrow the Islamic Republic and install a pro-imperialist and pro-Zionist regime.
Any attack on Iran would detonate a war throughout the entire region, with Israel reported to be showing signs of nervousness about the scale of Iranian reprisals, given the capability of Iranian missiles to strike deep into Israel, as shown in the illegal attacks by joint US/Israeli air strikes last June.
Ali Shamkani, a senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader, said: ‘Any military action by America, from any source and at any level, will be considered the beginning of a war, and the response will be immediate, comprehensive and unprecedented, directed at the aggressor, at the heart of Tel Aviv and all its supporters.’
One thing is clear, that behind all the talk by Trump about sending ‘another beautiful armada’ of warships to within striking distance of Iran for the purpose of pressurising them to talks, the real intention is to bomb the country to pieces in order to impose US imperialist mastery over the oil-rich Middle East.
With US capitalism at its weakest, drowning in over $38 trillion of national debt, and facing a working class that is rising up against Trump’s attempt to impose dictatorship over US workers, the only way out of this death agony for US capitalism is war – war against workers at home and war against the working masses of the world.
The Iranian people are not the enemy of the international working class.
The enemy is a bankrupt capitalist system that in its desperation is forced to resort to world war in an attempt to keep the bosses and bankers from crashing into bankruptcy.
The workers in the US, UK and Europe must now organise their strength by forcing their trade unions to call general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments and replace them with workers governments and socialism.
The way to end imperialist wars is to dump imperialism into the dustbin of history where it belongs.
Now is the time to build sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to organise the working class to smash capitalism and imperialism with the victory of the World Socialist Revolution.
