As the Israeli rulers’ bloodbath in Gaza reaches new depths, it’s no accident that inter-imperialist conflict is widening around the world’s largest strategic reserves of oil and gas. The latest capitalist disaster began with a ruthless, anti-worker terror attack by Hamas and a genocidal response by the state terrorist Israeli “Defense” Forces (IDF). Now it has spread into IDF violence in the occupied West Bank and bloody fights in at least four neighboring countries: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen (Guardian, 12/26/23). This knife’s-edge volatility marks the snowballing decline of the old U.S.-led world order and the rise of competing imperialist bosses in China and Russia. Along with Ukraine, Taiwan, and the South and East China Seas, the Middle East is a prime potential flashpoint for World War III.

In Syria, months of airstrikes against pro-Iran militias have failed to stop drone attacks on U.S. bases there (National Public Radio, 11/9/23). In Lebanon, Iran’s proxy forces in Hezbollah are firing rockets and drones at military posts and border towns in Israel, forcing the evacuation of 60,000 residents. Not to be outdone, the IDF has bombed Lebanon daily, displacing 74,500 people and killing 160 (ABC News, 12/28/23). Israel’s rulers say they are ready to open a second front in a war that could soon get much bigger (New York Times, 12/27/23).

If anything, the tempo of these clashes seems to be quickening. On Christmas Day, U.S. airstrikes targeted Iran-backed forces in Iraq. On December 31, U.S. Navy helicopters sank three Yemeni Houthi boats in the Red Sea after reports of an attempted maritime hijacking (abcnews.go.com, 12/31/23). On January 2, a top Hamas official was assassinated by a drone strike outside Beirut. One day later, in a rare terror attack inside Iran, explosions massacred more than one hundred mourners on the anniversary of the U.S. assassination of General Qassim Suleimani.

Worldwide, the imperialists’ battle for supremacy is reshaping alliances and escalating their struggle to control markets, resources, and labor—a struggle at the hideous heart of the capitalist profit system. According to the Carter Doctrine, as proclaimed in 1980 by U.S. President Jimmy Carter: “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests” of the U.S., and “will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” More than forty years later, we are witnessing the legacy of the president who supposedly championed “human rights”:  the horrific suffering in Gaza.

Joe Biden: war criminal in chief
Make no mistake—it’s the U.S. bosses’ “vital interests” in oil and gas that compel their cold-blooded support for Israel’s ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip. Back in October, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s goose-stepping defense minister, made the Zionist regime’s plans clear: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel….We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” The predictable results: the internal displacement of more than 80 percent of Gaza’s population, looming mass starvation, and the slaughter in plain sight of more than 22,000 people, two thirds of them women and children—or about “twice as many women and children in two months…as Russian forces have killed in Ukraine in nearly two years” (cbc.ca, 12/30/23). According to a former United Nations war crimes investigator, "the density of Israel’s first month of bombardment in Gaza” has no parallel since the U.S. genocide in Vietnam, nearly half a century ago (cnn.com, 12/22/23).

Many civilians have been slaughtered by monstrous 2,000-pound bombs dropped on Gaza City south of Rafah, where the IDF steered families to find safe shelter. The bombs have a “lethal fragmentation radius” of about 1,200 feet, an area equivalent to 58 soccer fields (cnn.com, 12/22/23). They are so blatantly criminal that the U.S. military death machine used only one of them in its no-holds-barred war against ISIS (cnn.com, 12/22/23). But since October 7, more than five thousand of these “bunker-busters” have been furnished to Israel by the same Joe Biden administration that’s now publicly advising the Zionist baby killers to “minimize” civilian casualties (cnn.com, 12/22/23). They’re the same pack of shameless liberal liars who vetoed a December 8, 2023 cease-fire resolution at the UN Security Council.

Workers everywhere must fight back against U.S. imperialist’s atrocities. At the same time, we must call out the regional gangsters who run Israel and Iran, along with “national liberation” misleaders like Hamas. Under capitalism, wars are fueled by the rulers’ need for maximum profit. There can never be world peace as long as the bosses are grasping for their next dollar. Only the international working class, organized for communist revolution by Progressive Labor Party (PLP), can end imperialist war by smashing the bosses and their states. Only our class can cure the fatal diseases of nationalism, racism, and sexism for all time.

Imperialists sharpen knives for oil
Of the ten countries with the largest proven oil reserves, five are in the Persian Gulf region: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait, with close to a trillion barrels of oil among them (Oilprice.com, 4/24/23). Four of those countries are also among the top ten for proven reserves of natural gas (www.worldometers.info, 2023). It’s worth noting that significant oil and gas deposits were recently discovered off the coasts of Lebanon, Israel, and Gaza.

Despite U.S. rulers’ warnings to stay out of the Gulf, Russia and China are infiltrating the region. In 2018, Russian military support led torture king Bashar al-Assad to a civil war victory over his equally brutal U.S.-backed enemies. Last year, China Premier Xi Jinping brokered a “peace” summit to restore diplomatic ties between long-time rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. The October 7 attack by Hamas, possibly orchestrated by the vicious mullahs of Iran, shattered U.S. plans to reconcile Israel’s Zionist bosses with the Saudi rulers (CNBC, 10/12/23).

With backing from both Russia and China, Iran has funded and armed the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq—all sworn enemies of U.S. interests. After nine years of devastating civil war, the Houthi bosses control a strategic area of northern Yemen that borders the Red Sea, the gateway to the Suez Canal—“a vital artery for container ships and fuel tankers,” including major oil interests (New York Times, 12/19/23). Despite a U.S.-backed Saudi bombing campaign that wiped out tens of thousands of civilians, the Houthis remain defiant.

Join the fight for communism
With no end in sight to Israel’s mass murder in Gaza, weakness in the U.S. ruling class has been exposed for all to see. Anti-Zionist sentiment and condemnation of Israeli apartheid rule in its occupied territories are at all-time highs around the world. Notwithstanding the trap of Palestinian nationalism, honest workers’ eyes are opening to the hypocrisy of liberal U.S. misleaders. Workers are turning against the Democrats and threatening not to vote for Biden this November. As U.S. politicians keep funding Israeli genocide, a militant anti-war movement is sprouting. Workers in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago shut down holiday access to airports. Others disrupted the lavish Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year’s Day.

As communists, we need to be in this struggle to combat the leadership’s dead-end nationalism with internationalism. But street protests won’t be enough to end the bosses’ butchery. We need to organize soldiers in all capitalist-led armies to turn the guns around for communist revolution. Only a revolutionary communist party, PLP, can lead this fight to smash imperialist war. Only a united international working class can create a world run by and for workers, where the bosses’ profit-driven wars will be a distant memory. Join us!