The rivalry between top imperialists keeps getting sharper. This intensifying struggle pressures all local ruling classes and leads various factions to more openly fight it out. One clear example is the May 9 move by U.S. President Donald Trump to dump the Iran nuclear deal and escalate economic sanctions against the struggling country. Trump’s move reflects competing strategies within the U.S. ruling class, which is split into two camps: the dominant multilateralist wing versus a more domestic-oriented, isolationist wing.
In recent years, going back to the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, the multilateral imperialist U.S. strategy has been to keep control over Middle East oil by playing regional powers off against one another and limiting any one country’s influence. The Iran nuclear deal of 2015, in accord with Europe, Russia, and China, was designed  to keep Iran relatively stable by relieving economic sanctions.
This year, Trump replaced main wing ruling-class figures Rex Tillerson and H.R. McMaster with Mike Pompeo and John Bolton as Secretary of State and national security adviser, respectively. Pompeo, the former CIA director and a darling of the Koch brothers, the domestic-oriented wing’s chief funders, and Bolton, a George W. Bush-era war hawk, now have Trump’s ear. Both have been vocal opponents of the Iran nuclear deal.
Trump’s decision to pull out of the deal is an apparent move toward provoking regime change in Tehran. Iran has long supported rebel groups and factions that threaten the interests of U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Israel. Iran backs Houthi rebels fighting Saudi Arabia in Yemen, along with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both constant threats to Israeli borders. In addition, Iran has significant influence in Iraq.
Trump and Co. willing to brush off EU
Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal was sharply rebuked by foes and allies alike. The European Union has much to lose if the deal falls apart. Overall, the EU is Iran’s number-one trading partner, with trade soaring from $9.2 billion (U.S.) in 2015 to $25 billion in 2017 (Guardian, 3/25). Germany has gone so far as to announce that it would stay in the deal in defiance of the U.S..
It’s apparent that the U.S. bosses influencing Trump are comfortable with alienating traditional, post-WWII European allies and doubling down on Saudi Arabia and Israel. Emboldened by the U.S. withdrawal, Israel may decide that now is the moment to take on Hezbollah, the Iran proxy that has previously achieved some success against Israeli forces. In 2000, Hezbollah forced Israeli troops to withdraw from southern Lebanon; in 2006, it blunted Israel’s offensive there. Now the militant group is expanding into Syria (Council on Foreign Relations, 03/18).
Israel wants to stop three things: advanced weaponry reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon;, the Syrian civil war spilling into the Israel-occupied Golan Heights; and Iran militarily entrenching itself on its northern frontier. In this carpe diem moment, by widening the scope of its airstrikes against Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria, Israel is deliberately challenging Iran (Stratfor, 05/2018).
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has been ratcheting up its own tensions with its main regional rival. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “warned that the battle for influence over the Middle East ought to take place ‘inside Iran’” (CFR, 03/2018). It’s important to point out that the U.S. is an active backer of the three-year, Saudi-led bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, a proxy war that has slaughtered thousands of civilians, wounded tens of thousands more, “created the world’s largest food security emergency, and led to a cholera outbreak….” (bbc.com, 11/1/17).  
Russian, Chinese bosses making inroads
In response, Iran has increasingly turned to China and Russia, which re-entered the region in 2015 on behalf of its ally in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad, and has emerged as a decisive factor in that country’s brutal civil war. As detailed in the March issue of Foreign Affairs:
Russia could not have made these gains without Iran. Iranian ground presence gave Russia its victory in Syria. And in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, Iran and Russia have worked together closely to counter U.S. influence….Iran sits at an important geographic location and is an
energy-rich country of 80 million people, with a network of allies and clients that spans the Middle East—all outside the United States’ sphere of influence.
China, one of the biggest buyers of Iranian crude oil, has signaled that it intends to continue trading with Iran: “By driving away American, European and Japanese companies, sanctions could increase opportunities for Chinese businesses,” said Hu Xingdou, an economist at the Beijing Institute of Technology (Agence France-Presse 3/18).
Chinese businesses involved in Iranian development are worth at least $33 billion, with many of them connected to China’s massive One Belt, One Road global infrastructure initiative. Beijing is seeking a leading stake in developing a Iranian gas field project as well, “with state-owned oil company CNPC set to replace Total if the French energy behemoth withdraws from the project over U.S. sanctions” (AFP, 5/18).
Lose-lose proposition for U.S. rulers
After disastrous imperialist interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. ruling class has been trying to lower its military profile in the Middle East. The main wing needs to keep its powder dry to prepare for an eventual big-power showdown with ascendant imperialist rivals China and Russia. The domestic wing, meanwhile, is strenuously opposed to paying higher taxes for a ground war in the Middle East. They want to defend their interests on the cheap, with a nuclear deterrence strategy.
The bosses’ problem is that neither wing’s strategy can address their fundamental problem, a relative decline as the leading imperialist superpower. The U.S. is losing influence and control in the Middle East, and will continue to lose regardless of the Iran deal. The post-World War II liberal world order just isn’t what it used to be.
Workers in Iran must rise again with PLP
Despite recent government crackdowns and the reinstitution of U.S.-led sanctions, workers in Iran have a rich history of fighting back against fascist exploitation. In the 1970s, workers organized against the CIA-backed Shah; more recently, they have mounted a militant fightback against the fascist fundamentalist regime.
As the Trump regime tries to sway Iranian workers to join a movement for regime change, these workers must look to the lessons of the co-opted Arab Spring movements, which wound up replacing one set of U.S.-backed puppets for another. Only a communist revolution, led by the Progressive Labor Party, can destroy capitalism and serve workers’ needs.