THE Tory Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, declared the UK’s readiness to go to war with Iran last Thursday when he threatened that UK and US forces would take military action to stop the Iranians closing the Strait of Hormuz to shipping.
The Strait is a narrow four-mile stretch of water through which oil from the Gulf region must pass on its way to the west.
The threat by Iran is in response to the war preparations being made by imperialism against the Iranian people, preparations that are taking the well trodden path of first sanctions, then barring all Iranian oil exports and, finally, military action, the same tactic employed against Iraq and Libya.
So far, the UN has imposed four rounds of sanctions against Tehran, while last Saturday US president Obama signed into law a bill that will make dealings with the Iranian central bank illegal, and threatens action against any other country that does not observe these sanctions.
The UK has imposed similar sanctions on the financial dealings with the central bank and, along with the rest of the EU states, is preparing to implement a complete embargo on all Iranian oil exports.
With the attempts by US and world imperialism to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, the closest ally of Iran in the region, and the stepping up of sanctions against the oil and financial structures of the country, Hammond’s threat of military intervention is by no means ‘sabre rattling’, but an expression of intent.
Hammond was speaking in Washington where he had been attending a meeting on the proposed cuts in US military expenditure.
Obama announced cuts in military spending to the tune of $487 billion over ten years, mainly to be borne by the army and marine corps.
These cuts are a drop in the ocean: it still leaves US military spending greater than the next ten high-spending countries put together.
The change that Obama did signal was that of the priorities of US imperialism.
The defence of European capitalism is now downgraded, with the UK and France especially told that they will have to shoulder the burden of NATO.
The Middle East and the Gulf region is now one of the two top priorities for US imperialism as it prepares for war to secure the region for exploitation of its natural resources.
The other is the Asia-Pacific region, with the main target being the deformed workers’ state of China.
What scares US imperialism is that China has been the biggest purchaser of US bonds, both federal and state. Should it choose to dump those bonds it would bring down the US economy at a stroke.
While the ruling Stalinist bureaucracy will not take such a step and continues to prop up a decaying capitalist system at the expense of its own working class, the threat is enough to frighten the US ruling class.
However, the thought of being able to get their hands on the vast natural resources and markets denied to capitalism in both China and Russia, as a way of resolving the current crisis of capitalism and further enriching the ruling class, has the imperialists drooling and planning for a war as the only way out of the crisis as far as imperialism is concerned.
As Lenin always insisted, there is no crisis from which capitalism will find it impossible to escape, unless it is overthrown by the working class led by a revolutionary party.
In fact, the more desperate the crisis, the more desperate and reckless the capitalist class becomes.
Such is the depth of the world crisis of the capitalist system that the only way out for them is to wage war to re-conquer the former colonial countries and to re-impose capitalism in Russia and China at the same time as they wage civil war against their own working class.
Only the victory of the world socialist revolution can put an end to imperialist, war by putting an end to capitalism itself.
Now is the time for building sections of the Fourth International, the world party of the socialist revolution, in every country.