On September 14, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned Abqaiq and Khurais oil processing plants were attacked by drone and missile strikes of unconfirmed origin, disrupting five percent of global oil production and pushing rival imperialists closer to World War III. The latest conflict in the Middle East demonstrates the deteriorating influence of a fractured U.S. ruling class. It also reminds us how the fight over resources among the world’s competing capitalists leads to mass murder and displacement of workers.
Only by building an international revolutionary communist party, the Progressive Labor Party, can workers transform the next, inevitable, inter-imperialist war into the final class war against all bosses. Second to the labor power of the international working class, oil may be the rulers’ most lucrative commodity. Under the profit system, competing capitalist super-powers have repeatedly clashed over control of oil profits in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the capitalist bosses in Iran, under the banner of the poisonous ideologies of religion and nationalism, are struggling to regain control over their own oil production.
Under communism, we will write a different story. The leadership of the international working class will determine the development of energy resources, based on workers’ needs and the protection of the planet for future generations.
A changing world order
Since 2015, the criminal state terrorists of Saudi Arabia have been fighting the Iran-backed nationalist Houthi rebels in Yemen, a brutal conflict that has slaughtered an estimated 100,000 people, mostly civilians, through targeted airstrikes and epidemic famine and cholera (theguardian.com, 6/20). While the Houthis immediately took credit for the attacks, both the U.S. and Saudi bosses blamed Iran. In any case, the incident emboldens U.S. rivals and creates doubt among its allies. It reflects the U.S. bosses’ loss of influence in the region.
The old liberal world order, dominated by the U.S. ruling class since World War II, is under siege. The two closest U.S. allies in continental Europe are hedging their bets. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, citing the atrocities in Yemen, is refusing to lift an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia (Bloomberg, 9/17). French President Emmanuel Macron, in defiance of U.S. sanctions, has proposed a $15 billion line of credit to Iran (New York Times, 9/5). Both Germany and France have opted to remain in the nuclear deal brokered by ex-U.S. President Barack Obama—and which President Donald Trump withdrew from last year.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin followed up on missile system sales to Iran and Turkey by offering a similar deal to Saudi Arabia (Reuters, 9/16). In June, Putin declared that Iran would not be alone if attacked. The Russian bosses are clearly willing to play both sides and ready to capitalize on U.S. weakness.
Divided U.S. empire in decline
The seeming confusion among the U.S. bosses is a result of competing factions within the ruling class. The main-wing finance capitalists, representing the big banks and multinational oil companies, are committed to maintaining U.S. control over the oil-rich Middle East—with ground troops, if necessary, as well as multilateral alliances with the rulers’ historic allies. At the same time, the main-wing bosses realize they’re not nearly prepared for an all-out war with China or Russia. First they’ll need to force unity and discipline upon their own class; hence the looming impeachment of Trump. Then they’ll need to build a mass patriotic, multiracial, fascist movement within the working class.
Gen. Joseph Dunford, an Obama appointee and outgoing chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently warned that a sustained conflict in the Middle East would require the U.S. to divert more forces to the region from the Pacific theater, where it’s seeking to contain an ascending and expansionist China in the South China Sea and East China Sea. The main-wing bosses may need to keep their powder dry for a future conflict against their main rival for world dominance.
Meanwhile, the smaller domestic oil bosses, led by the Koch family and fronted by Trump and his Fortress America foreign policy, want to outsource the military policing of the Middle East to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They’re against paying heavy taxes for a future ground war—or even maintaining multilateral alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). They’d prefer to rely instead on the U.S. nuclear threat and Air Force and Navy to protect their profits.
Despite some “locked and loaded” bluster early on, Trump was careful to downplay the prospect of war with Iran and indicated the U.S. would continue to rely on escalating economic sanctions. Four days before the attacks, Trump fired John Bolton, the “hard-power” national security advisor who’d pushed for military intervention against the Iranian regime. On September 20, Trump announced the deployment to the Persian Gulf of a token few hundred additional soldiers, on top of the 2,000 troops sent since June, along with air and missile defense equipment—a move that Defense Secretary Mark Esper characterized as “defensive” (npr.org, 9/20).
Imperialist war vs. communist revolution
Capitalist dictatorship—what the bosses call “liberal democracy”—means that millions of workers will continue to be killed or made into refugees by one crisis after the next. More than 70 million workers are currently displaced (UNHCR, 6/19). Three million have been forced to flee their homes in Yemen alone. This is the “collateral damage” of inter-imperialist rivalry. It’s one of many reasons the profit system must be smashed.
Inter-imperialist war represents the highest level of competition among bosses. It also spells fascist terror for workers. The last two world wars exposed the capitalists’ willingness to murder tens of millions of workers in their ruthless struggles over profit. But those wars also triggered two monumental communist revolutions, in the Soviet Union and then in China—the first times in history when the working class seized state power.
As communists in PLP, our historical task is to build on the foundation of those great class wars. Our role is to prepare workers throughout the world to break with nationalism and the bosses’ lethal ideas. Our job is to organize a mass, international movement of millions and build for communist revolution. Join us!