EARLY Wednesday the US and Saudi Arabia announced they had carried out coordinated aerial attacks against bases in Iraq belonging to the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMU) in a deliberate extension of the illegal war being waged by US imperialism against Iran.
The PMU is a coalition of anti-terror resistance groups formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State takeover of Iraq.
The Saudi-US justification for this attack was the claim that PMU had been involved in recent attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure.
In a statement issued on Monday, the PMU resistance group rejected the Saudi allegations as ‘baseless’ and warned that any ‘foolish action’ on the part of the Saudi regime ‘will be confronted with a decisive response that will compel them to feel deep regret’.
Clearly the war, that Trump boasted would be ended in a matter of weeks following the US-Israeli unprovoked missile attack on February 28, is spiralling out of control for American imperialism and spreading throughout the entire Middle East region.
After five months of constant missile and bombing raids US has failed to secure any kind of victory, and on the contrary is facing an Iranian opponent that will not just refuse to submit but is delivering massive blows against the US military and causing a dramatic economic crisis throughout the world.
Oil prices shoot up to well over $100 a barrel and immediately fall when Trump declares a temporary halt to bombing only to shoot up again when the US restarts its aggressive attacks on Iran driving up the cost of living across the US, UK and Europe threatening to push the already frail capitalist economies into recession.
Trump boasted earlier this year that the US had an ‘amazing economy’ and that ‘we had the best economy of any president ever in my first term. I believe this is going to blow it away.’
In May, Trump dismissed the pain inflicted on Americans by his war on Iran and his trade war against the rest of the world saying that the plight of ordinary citizens were ‘not even a little bit’ influencing his administration’s war adding: ‘I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.’
Independent US senator Bernie Sanders this week posted on X facts that Trump and the American capitalist class don’t want to think about.
Sanders wrote: ‘60% of our people live paycheck to paycheck. 85 million are uninsured or underinsured. More than 750,000 are homeless. The price of groceries is through the roof.’
These stark figures will be vastly exceeded when the true cost of the war on Iran makes itself felt in the very near future.
At present the US government is admitting the war has already cost them at least $37.5 billion (£29 billion) a figure described by Professor Linda J Bilmes, a leading expert on the economics of war, as just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.
On Tuesday the Daily Telegraph published an analysis of the real cost of the war.
According to this analysis the cost had reached $151.3 billion (£113.8 billion) by July 24 and that ‘If the war continues at the current rate, that figure would climb to $311.3 billion by the end of the year.’
The Telegraph reported that Professor Bilmes estimated that ‘once the full cost of the conflict was taken into account, the eventual bill could reach $1 trillion’.
All adding to the US national debt currently standing at well over $39 trillion, rapidly approaching 100% of US GDP.
Trump, and the capitalist class he speaks for, contemptuously dismiss the American working class as fit only to be exploited and made to bear the brunt of capitalist collapse.
In the same way that the ruling class regard workers and masses of the world whose lives are inconsequential to a capitalist system that wages war in a desperate attempt to escape economic collapse.
The time has come for the working class to organise its full strength by taking action to bring down their capitalist governments in the US, UK and Europe and take power, advancing society to a socialist future with the victory of the World Socialist Revolution!
