ON SUNDAY, US president Donald Trump issued his latest threat that American military forces would force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Dubbed ‘Project Freedom’, Trump said on his social media platform that the US would ‘help free up’ ships left stranded in the Gulf as a result of the Iranian closure of the Strait to countries hostile to Iran.
Since February 28, when the US and Israel launched their unprovoked and illegal war, the Iranian military have blocked the Strait to oil and gas tankers affiliated to both the US and Israeli regimes along with those cooperating with them.
Cutting off 20% of the world’s supply of gas and oil, along with chemical supplies vital to food production, has caused a massive economic crisis globally.
This crisis is accelerating, as existing stockpiles of these supplies continue to dwindle pushing the global economy into a recession and a depression rivalling, and even exceeding, that of the 1930s.
Trump, having failed to defeat Iran through massive missile and bombing campaigns by the US and Israel, attempted to impose a US blockade of ships using Iranian ports on 13 April to try to crush the Iranian economy, and achieve what the US military had failed to do.
Just as the US military badly underestimated the strength of the Iranian forces, so Trump is guilty of a serious underestimation of the resilience of the Iranian people who have for decades experienced brutal economic sanctions, imposed by the US and its imperialist allies, and emerged stronger.
Trump has made wild claims on his Truth Social website during the course of the war on Iran, from declaring absolute victory and that Iran was ‘begging him’ for a peace deal, to threats to annihilate the entire population and completely destroy Iranian civilisation.
All his lies about imminent victory have been designed to placate the oil markets by reassuring them that the Strait of Hormuz will quickly reopen.
The price of oil has been vacillating as a result. In the past, it has been consistently falling to around $100 a barrel, before shooting up again to $120 when it becomes clear that Trump’s postings are simply lies.
Trump’s latest scheme of ‘guiding’ ships through the Strait, involving 15,000 military personnel, guided-missile destroyers, and over 100 land and sea-based aircraft, along with warships and drones, is being portrayed as a ‘humanitarian gesture’, not a military escalation.
Trump claimed several unnamed countries had requested US assistance, and he wrote: ‘For the good of Iran, the Middle East and the United States’ the US would ‘guide their ships safely out of these restricted waterways.’
Trump warned that any interference by Iran to his ‘humanitarian gesture’ would be met with a forceful response.
In other words, Trump and US imperialism are preparing the ground for a major escalation of the war, and a return to missile air strikes against Iran under the cover of humanitarian concern for trapped vessels and their crews.
Yesterday, Iran responded to this latest threat saying that all commercial ships will still require approval to cross the Strait, with Ali Abdollah Aliabadi, senior Iranian military commander, saying: ‘We warn that any foreign armed forces, especially the aggressive US army, will be attacked if they intend to approach and enter the Strait of Hormuz.’
With US imperialism humiliated by its defeat at the hands of the Iranian military, Trump is preparing once again to launch a war that will pour fuel on the flames of a crisis that is already engulfing the Middle East and the entire world economy.
The working class in the US, UK and Europe is being forced to pick up the bill for imperialist war through soaring energy costs and massive increases in the cost of living and has overwhelmingly demonstrated its support for Iran and the Palestinians in their fight against imperialist aggression.
Now is the time for the working class internationally to take action by calling general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments and bring in workers governments and socialism.
This is the only way forward.