Over the last several months, Iran has successfully closed the Strait of Hormuz, with oil tanker passage down by as much as 95 percent. The resulting price spikes and drops in exports for both oil and fertilizer have devastated the international working class. The United Nations predicts that 45 million people will be pushed into extreme hunger, mostly in Africa and Asia (4/20).
The war in Iran is, fundamentally, a dogfight among imperialists for control over oil. The U.S. bosses are desperate to cling to their control over the world’s oil supply, the lifeblood of the U.S. empire. Meanwhile, Chinese and Iranian bosses have jumped in to exploit U.S. weakness. Chinese capitalists are forcing more countries into their orbit by manipulating oil prices and renewable tech in their bid to become the top-dog imperialist.
Iran’s capitalist rulers have seized the opportunity to further entrench their anti-worker regime and potentially expand their military and business enterprises across the Middle East. None of these bosses care a lick about their own workers, whom they are willing to sacrifice by the millions to protect their profits. The international working class has no choice but to turn these imperialist conflicts into class war and to end the profit system for all time.
War with Iran hastens U.S. decline
The evident defeat of the U.S. ruling class in Iran is accelerating the fall of the world’s once-dominant superpower. U.S. control over the region’s oil has been a core part of its imperialist strategy since the end of World War II. It established the dollar as the world’s unchallenged reserve currency and allowed the U.S. to punish any smaller capitalists who step out of line (see box on oil history in our next issue).
Of late, however, the U.S. bosses can’t seem to get out of their own way. The big multinational oil companies went all in on Donald Trump in 2024, with 88 percent of their campaign donations backing Republicans and their pro-oil policies. Their bet is paying off. Even as U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that more bombing will have no effect on negotiations with Iran (Washington Post, 7/20), “Chevron reported net income of $12.2bn for the second quarter, a more than fivefold increase on the same period last year. ExxonMobil reported a profit of $14.5bn, double what it made in the same period a year ago” (Guardian, 8/4). The problem for the U.S. ruling class is that this naked profit-seeking undermines the broader interests of U.S. imperialism. With its Patriot missile interceptors severely depleted (Al Jazeera, 8/9), the U.S. is less able to honor its security guarantees to Saudi Arabia and the other petro-states. And as the U.S. bosses find their interests threatened, they will become even more reckless and dangerous—regardless of which party wins the next midterm or presidential election.
In the bigger picture, the U.S. capitalists’ reliance on fossil fuels, an outlook based on short-term maximum profits, is a growing threat to capitalism writ large. With greenhouse gas pollution still rising, 3 degrees of global warming now looks increasingly likely—a prescription for famine, drought, and mass migration that could devastate economies and threaten the lives of billions (Current Affairs, 8/6).
China’s renewables empire
The Chinese imperialists are at the center of an alliance to break the U.S. monopoly over global finance. U.S. economic sanctions are having less and less impact. When the Biden administration imposed severe sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, a number of traditional U.S. allies—including Turkey, Israel and India—refused to comply and continued doing business with Vladimir Putin.
As the world’s largest importer of oil, China essentially controls the market. With vast stores of oil in reserve, huge strides in electrification and renewables, and the ability to control domestic industrial demand, China can raise or lower the short-term oil price by up to 30 percent (The Economist, 8/9). At the same time, China’s global dominance in the clean energy technologies of the future—notably solar, wind, and batteries—represents “the biggest energy security threat in history,” according to the head of the International Energy Agency. Earlier this year, 50 countries set records for imports of Chinese solar panels (CNN, 4/26). China is using renewable energy to steadily expand its sphere of influence in preparation for the next world war.
Iran’s bosses cashing in
At least 4,000 Iranian workers have died in the war so far, with tens of thousands more wounded, including over 1,600 children (Al Jazeera, 7/20). Two-thirds of all U.S. attacks have hit residential, commercial, or other civilian buildings (Bloomberg, 4/21). More than three million people have been displaced, mostly people fleeing urban centers for fear of being killed by U.S. or Israeli bombs (NRC, 3/27).
Despite this devastating toll to workers, the Iranian bosses, led by the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are seeking to escalate the conflict (see box) and expand their own profit base in the region. They see the war as a potential opportunity to expel the U.S. from bases in the region.
Fight back!
Wars over natural resources are inevitable under capitalism, regardless of which set of bosses are in charge. In their rush to profit from oil extraction, none of these bosses will stop from creating misery on a scale never before seen. Our class must intervene by building a mass revolutionary movement to seize state power and build a new world, where workers will balance their need for energy with their need for a livable planet. Progressive Labor Party seeks to lead the way into this communist future—join us!
Iranian bosses are strait ca$hing in
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is tasked with enforcing theocratic capitalist rule in Iran, including sexist dress codes and other harsh rules for behavior. The IRGC took a lead role in the January crackdown that slaughtered at least 5,000 protesters and possibly thousands more (Amnesty, 1/26). The IRGC is also a sprawling capitalist enterprise that extracts profits from oil exports, airports, dams, railways, pipelines, and engineering and construction companies, within Iran and around the world. They stand to make billions more from the tolls they’re demanding for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz—a protection racket, no more and no less. On top of these so-called legal enterprises, the Guard Corps runs a massive smuggling operation for alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and narcotics, to the tune of $12 billion per year (Fortune, 3/2)
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is closely tied to the IRGC. He is estimated to control $3 billion in luxury assets around the world. His father, the assassinated Ali Khamenei, may have controlled as much at $200 billion (Forbes, 7/29).
