Trump’s war at a dead end. The cynical barter between old and new imperialist powers

By: PCL Italy

“Freeing the Strait of Hormuz, ensuring free navigation and free trade.” This has become the invocation of all imperialist powers, starting, of course, with the United States. And also the possible banner for an expansion of the war of aggression against Iran. It is no coincidence, given that one fifth of the world’s oil transport passes through Hormuz, along with a far larger share of gas, aluminum, and helium, all vital to the world economy.

But the same countries that invoke the “liberation” of the strait do not quite know how to proceed. The US President—the same one who for fifteen days has declared every day that “the enemy has been annihilated” and that “the war is won”—is appealing for the help of those allied imperialist powers he had not even informed of the attack. But the allied imperialist powers hesitate. On the one hand, they want to please the US; on the other, they do not want to be dragged into war. All the more so in the face of Iran’s unexpected military resistance. A coalition of warships to free Hormuz? “It is possible, but… after the war is over,” declare the European imperialist countries — when, that is, there would no longer be any need.

Imperialist countries that provide the US with logistical support, operational backing, and shared military bases in the Middle East, Italy included, do not want to appear as accomplices of Trump. They are, but in a form that would like to remain anonymous. Because Trump’s war, already unpopular in the US, is even more so in Europe. Because Trump continues to humiliate allied imperialist countries, from whom he asks help while reopening bargaining over their heads with Putin. Because the Trump-led Board of Peace excludes European imperialist powers from the colonial partition of the Middle East. Why, then, sacrifice themselves for a war imposed on them, and moreover ruinous?

Better to throw the stone and hide the hand behind the scenes. Better to try to negotiate under the table with Iran a pass for their own ships, and to ask it for clemency for their Gulf allies. All despotic regimes, no less than the Iranian regime. All based on the slave-like exploitation of migrant labor. All involved in the aggression against Iran, either as direct promoters of the war (Saudi Arabia) or as active providers of military bases, radar, and intelligence to US imperialism (Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and above all the United Arab Emirates). But all of them business clients of all imperialist countries, large or small. The chorus call for their protection is only the protection of their own business.

And Russia, and China? Where has the fabulous world of the BRICS gone — the “protective shield” of the Global South, the real alternative to American dominance?

Iran and the United Arab Emirates, both associated within the BRICS, are at war with each other. Russian imperialism, formally bound to Iran by a strategic partnership agreement, not only takes care not to protect its ally — perhaps by providing it with vital air defense means — but aims to cash in, with satisfaction, on the advantages that the American Zionist war ensures: greater revenues from the increased price of oil, greater possibility of financing its own war of invasion of Ukraine, greater bargaining power toward American imperialism in negotiating the partition of the invaded country. The longer the war of aggression against Iran lasts, the more Russian imperialism gains on the strategic chessboard decisive for it.

In exchange for an American opening on Ukraine, Russia has already abstained at the UN on Trump’s colonial plan for Palestine. And today, as already in June, it presents itself as a restraining force on Iran: as an adviser of prudence and moderation in responding to aggression. The blockade of Hormuz, for Russia, is in the end only an advantage — still more so if it formally dissociates itself from it.

As for China, it has obtained from Iran a pass for its own ships and its own oil through the Strait of Hormuz. For the rest, it asks Iran to spare as much as possible the Gulf monarchies, all of them — without exception — involved in major business dealings (also) with Chinese imperialism. It too abstained, like Russia, at the UN on the plan for Gaza. It too is directly involved, through its own companies, in the oppression of the occupied West Bank.

Like Russia, China did not want the American Zionist war against Iran, an ally of both. But once the war is underway, the only concern of Beijing, as of Moscow, is not to support the ally, but to draw benefit from it for their own imperialist interests. Certainly China, as a great world power, does not want a blockade of the global economy. But if such a blockade occurs due to the closure of the Strait, it will be others — not China — who pay the highest price.

In short, Iran is an “ally” of China only in the role of guarantor of Chinese ships and their oil navigation, not in the role of a country defended and protected from aggression. Within the BRICS, as at other latitudes of the globe, there are masters (imperialist powers) and vassals (semi-colonial countries). China and Russia belong to the former; Iran belongs to the latter. Are the BRICS the strategic alternative to the United States?

The entire world situation brings back a fundamental truth. Wage earners, oppressed peoples, and attacked semi-colonial countries have no protectors in the high spheres of this or that imperialism. They are only bargaining chips in their dealings and their wars. Only the overthrow of imperialism and capitalism can open a different future for humanity.

Against the American Zionist war, out with imperialism from the Middle East!

Against every imperialist mission to “free” Hormuz!

Italy out of the Aspides mission in the Persian Gulf!