IRAN’S foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has warned that ‘If Iran is attacked it will be all-out war!’
He was responding to threats from US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who referred to the attack on Saudi oil fields as an ‘act of war’. Yesterday, the US was pushing for a ‘Coalition for Peaceful Resolution’ to ‘counter’ Iran.
Last Saturday, in pre-dawn raids, ten drones hit two oil facilities of Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant Aramco in the country’s east, causing huge fires. The attacks had cut the state oil giant’s crude oil supply by around 5.7 million barrels per day, or about half of its output. Immediately, world oil prices rocketed by as much as 20%.
US and UK imperialism, which have armed Saudi Arabia and supported its attack on the Houthis in the Yemen, killing thousands of innocent civilians, including many children, has been dealt a decisive strategic blow by this attack.
It proved that they are unable to defend the Saudi oil fields that the West depends upon, including the USA, despite Trump’s bluster about domestic US shale oil production.
While the fragility of their economic system, that is capitalism, has been exposed, the arrogance of the Saudi ‘paper tigers’ has been shattered. They believed that they were ‘untouchable’ and that they were immune from attack.
The world just watched as Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched devastating attacks on the Yemen using US- and UK-supplied equipment. They have rained bombs down on the country, destroying its infrastructure, creating mass malnutrition, with millions on the verge of starvation. After the Saudis bombed the water system, a cholera epidemic broke out which wiped out hundreds of thousands of Yemeni people and in particular killed many children.
Yesterday, in retaliation for the attack on the Saudi oil fields, the Saudi-led coalition launched an offensive against the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah, in violation of a 2018 UN-brokered ceasefire agreement.
However, no amount of mass bombings of defenceless people can wipe out the fact that despite the Americans supplying the Saudis with 88 Patriot missile defence systems, they were unable to shoot down a single drone as their oil fields burned.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said after this debacle that the American’s air defence systems are incapable of thwarting an attack by multiple small planes and missiles, and that this has now been proven. The Russian Defence Ministry said the US system is ‘ineffective in countering small aircraft and guided missiles’.
The Saudis and the US are now screaming for revenge and they are now targeting Iran. The US has assembled a ‘Maritime Security Construct’ to patrol the Gulf waters. So far the anti-Iran coalition includes Australia, Bahrain, the UK, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel.
The coalition is to ‘deploy warships to protect shipping routes’ in the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The security of the Strait of Hormuz is organised by Iran and this move by the US is a desperate provocation of Iran.
The US is preparing to use its allies in the Gulf to wage a proxy war with Iran. Countries like Saudi Arabia should seriously consider their position after the attack on their oil fields. Doing the dirty work of the USA only invites an even greater disaster to fall onto the Saudi people.
A recent poll showed that over 80% of Americans are opposed to a new war on Iran. In the UK, workers who opposed the Iraq war in their millions will not support a war with Iran to prop up a British ruling class that has brutally pauperised them since the 2008 crash.
The UK and US unions must now take action and mobilise workers in mass strike actions declaring, ‘Our enemy is at home! War on Trump and Johnson, not on Iran!’
In the UK, workers must step up their class war against the British ruling class, and bring it down with a general strike to bring in a workers government.
The workers and the poor of the planet must now unite to put an end to imperialism, and bring in worldwide socialism. This is the only way forward!
