Trump’s move of sending a navy fleet to the Persian Gulf with the objective of halting the nuclear development of this Middle East nation, maximizing the pressure that the rupture of the United States with the G5 + 1 nuclear agreement and the economic sanctions it imposed against the Iranian people caused, pushes the region to the verge of a new imperialist intervention against the sovereign rights of the people. We need a global mobilization to stop this new aggression.
The shipment of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to the Persian Gulf, with a flotilla of B-52 bombers, destroyers loaded with Tomahawk missiles, Patriot anti-missile batteries, the leaked information about the intentions of preparing a force of 120,000 soldiers, etc., with the task of controlling navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 35% of the oil marketed by sea on the planet circulates, and the Iranian response with the deployment of ships and defensive missiles, are the latest chapters of a series of actions that configure a scenario that remind some analysts of the moments before the imperial invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The truth is that since Trump abandoned, in May 2018, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Action Plan) agreement, signed in 2015 by the members of the Security Council (USA, Russia, China, France, Great Britain) and Germany with the Iranian government, by which the economic sanctions that blocked the Persian economy were lifted in exchange for this country accepting imperialist inspections and limitations on its nuclear development, the tension between the master of the north and the Iranian nation have not stopped rising.
Trump´s objectives
The Trump offensive that broke the agreement, against the opinion of the signing imperial partners, seeks to force Iran to stop its missile development program, withdraw its troops from other regions of the Middle East and end its support of organizations which oppose US interests such as Hezbollah, Hamas or the Yemeni Houthi rebels.
The gendarme of the world, which has lost power in this troubled and strategic zone after its setbacks in Afghanistan and Iraq, tries to stop Iranian expansion in the region in favor of its two most important allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. And it does so despite the protests of European imperialism, which heavily invested in the area after the signing of the agreement, and is now forced to lose those investments in order to avoid being financially blocked by US imperialism.
The sanctions on Iranian oil exports, as well as other products of the Asian nation, caused a severe deterioration of its economy and the subsequent impoverishment of the people, deteriorating the governing theocracy since it is unable to unload the weight of the crisis on the capitalists who dominate the country, much less to promote strong anti-imperialist resistance in the region.
There is a strong recession and decline of the Persian economy. According to the IMF, this year, GDP will be reduced by 6%, inflation already climbs to 40% per year and oil production has dropped from 2.8 million barrels a day (May 2018) to 1.3 million today. The US is also redoubling its pressure for the countries that buy Iranian oil, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, India and China to look for alternative sources of supply. (La Nación, 23/05/2019)
A conflict that does not stop growing
Rushed by a situation of constant deterioration, the Tehran rulers ended up calling on their European trading partners to abandon their purely declarative attitude and distance themselves from US pressures, under the threat of resuming the enrichment of uranium at the levels previous to the agreement. They also threatened with blocking the Strait of Hormuz if the global boycott to their economy continues. In turn, this was used by Trump to justify sending of the navy.
In recent days, new situations increased the clashes of this conflict. First, the attacks on Saudi oil tankers and two other vessels off the coasts of the United Arab Emirates (an ally of Saudi Arabia) in the Persian Gulf, then the successful blows of drones loaded with explosives against Saudi oil installations, launched by the Yemeni Houthis (allies of Iran), who are at war against Saudi Arabia’s invasion of its territory and subsequent brutal aviation attack on the civilian population of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, which is under control of the Houthis.
To this we must add the pressures of the visit of Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to the Iraqi government, which is Shiite and an ally of Tehran. Pompeo demanded the protection of the US troops, companies and businesses stationed in Iraq. Then there was the partial withdrawal of the US diplomatic representation in Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The explosion of a rocket in the green area of Baghdad, near the US embassy, the withdrawal of military missions of European countries from Iraqi territory and the declaration as a “terrorist organization” of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the Muslim Brotherhood, allied with the authorities of Tehran, complete this picture of confrontations and pressures.
The truth is that, after the American withdrawal from the region, following the setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, the presence of US troops in the Middle East was reduced and US intervention was reduced to military air support, as shown in the last confrontation with ISIS. Trump’s current policy increases the pressure of imperial interests in the area, advancing against the people’s rights, redoubling the support for the Zionist genocide of Palestine, trying to put the Iranian nation in check or reinforcing its support for Saudi attacks on the Houthi rebels of Yemen.
This offensive, which shows Trump leaning on his hawks Bolton and Pompeo, should be seen as part of a growing global polarization. After the dispute over world capital profits and its hegemonic power, a weakened US imperialism is threatened by a new outbreak of the economic crisis despite a relatively favorable situation, redoubling the pressure on several fronts. The trade war with China and other countries, the advance against Venezuela and this new aggression against Iran are part of it.
This attack seeks to force the adversary to negotiate more favorable conditions for the US empire. Can this end in a new invasion in the Middle East like the war against Iraq? This can not be ruled out, although military analysts see it as the least likely possibility and circumscribe it to a limited bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities But the dynamic can lead to a greater confrontation, in a region where the drums of war have not stopped rumbling.
And if they have not stopped rumbling, it is because the people of the Middle East have not stopped fighting. To the heroic Palestinian resistance, we must add the struggles of the Kurds, the Yemeni rebels, the new flowering of the Arab Spring in Sudan and Algeria, that weaken imperial domination and favor inter-imperialist disputes. These struggles are the greatest capital for the Iranian people in defense of their national interest against US aggression.
The policies of the Iranian theocracy, which led and capitalized on the enormous democratic and anti-imperialist revolution of 1979, are responsible for the weakness of the nation against harassment and imperial conditioning. Precisely because, instead of deepening the fight against imperial domination, the ayatollahs used their power to reinforce the power of the Persian bourgeoisie, renegotiate with the multinationals and become one of the counter-revolutionary factors in the Middle East. They are allies of the murderous Syrian government, of the imperialist bureaucracies of Russia and China, and stand against the mobilizations and democratic (and anti-capitalist) revolutions of the peoples of the region and of their own people, when they demand liberties and the end of the austerity plans.
Beyond the inconsistencies and betrayals of the Iranian leadership, the US imperial aggression is an attack on the Iranian people and all the peoples of the region. We must develop a global mobilization to stop it. The demand of the end to sanctions and the respect of the right to self-determination of the Iranian nation is a task of all democratic and anti-imperialist activists of the world and an obligation for revolutionary socialists. Iran has the right to its autonomous nuclear development, more than the real terrorist of the world, US imperialism, its governments and genocidal dictatorships such as Israel or Saudi Arabia or the cynical “democrats” of Europe and the United Nations that endorse its actions.
Down with the imperialist attack against Iran!
US Navy out of the Persian Gulf!
No more economic sanctions!
For the right to self-determination of the Iranian nation and all the peoples of the Middle East!
Gustavo Giménez