US PRESIDENT Trump has embarked on a massive escalation of the war on Iran when he announced on July 11 that the ceasefire is ‘over’.
Since then US forces have carried out nine consecutive nights of missile attacks on Iran targeting civilian infrastructure along with military targets.
On Sunday, Trump claimed that the missile attacks over the weekend were to ‘punish’ Iran for the deaths of three American soldiers killed at the US air base in Jordan last week.
Trump, in his usual boastful fashion, claimed the US had ‘hit Iran very hard again’ and that ‘Iran has been very, very badly damaged. They’ve lost everything almost militarily. They’ve got very little left.’
Reports have emerged that Trump is actively looking at plans for a ‘wider war’ after the abject failure of the previous unprovoked US-Israeli war which was launched on February 28.
In the aftermath of that protracted bombardment of Iran by the US-Israeli military, Trump also declared that the country had been brought to its knees, its military destroyed and its leaders ‘begging’ him for a deal.
It turns out that, far from being crushed, Iranian resistance proved to be decisive in upending Trump’s and Israel’s plans to carry out regime change and seize control of Iran thus extending their domination over the entire Middle East region.
In fact, it is not Iran that has been weakened but the US.
Since March, military experts have been warning that the expenditure on massively expensive missiles to bombard Iran, along with huge amounts of military hardware to ‘protect’ US assets across the region, was in danger of depleting stocks.
These warnings went unheeded by the Trump administration, desperate to claim some form of ‘victory’ to justify a war they started.
These warnings have reached an increasingly high level of alarm amongst senior US officials.
An official familiar with the discussions taking place in the Trump administration told the Washington Post at the weekend that the US does not have enough missiles to wage an all-out war with Iran.
The dwindling stockpile of air defence and long-range missiles meant: ‘We do not have enough to safely sustain operations’ adding: ‘I don’t think the White House is aware of that.’
At the weekend, officials at the Pentagon were reported to be in discussions about how to prepare for escalation of the war – preparations that, according to the New York Times, were well under way before the latest round of US attacks.
F-16 fighter jets from Germany along with F-35 jets from the UK were being sent to the Middle East the NYT reported.
Last week, Trump refused to rule out sending ground troops inside Iran, specifically the tiny Kharg Island just off the coast which handles approximately 90% of Iranian crude oil exports.
With military advisors warning that the US is in no position to invade a tiny island without suffering massive casualties, let alone a ground invasion of a country the size of Iran and subduing a population of around 90 million, the options for US imperialism obtaining any victory are non-existent, leaving open the option of using nuclear weapons – something that Trump has casually floated in the past.
The failure of US imperialism to inflict defeat on Iran and now facing a military and economic crisis accelerated by the US-Israeli war, the capitalist class is prepared to take the entire world down with them through a nuclear war.
The working class in the US, UK and Europe has the power to put an end to imperialist wars by calling general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments and bring in workers governments and socialism.
This requires the building of sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to organise and lead the World Socialist Revolution to victory.
Join the WRP and Young Socialists, build sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International to provide the leadership to put an end to capitalist wars and advance humanity to a socialist future.
