U.S. imperialists’ face-off with Iran’s nuclear-bent bosses is escalating towards war. At stake is control over the Middle East and its increasingly strategic energy resources. According to CNN, Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “is quietly leading the ongoing military planning for an attack against Iran’s nuclear weapons in the event the president gives the order to do so” (12/20/11).

In the latest round meanwhile, Obama tried to slap tighter financial sanctions on Iran unless it gave up its nuke program. In turn, Iran’s naval brass threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz. Virtually all of the oil and gas exports of Iraq and Kuwait and more than half of Saudi Arabia’s pass through that waterway sails. All of these resources are dominated by U.S. and British oil giants.

Then Obama sent an aircraft carrier group through the strait while the Iranian navy practiced maneuvers nearby. Obama also pointedly announced a “$30 billion sale to Saudi Arabia of advanced-model U.S. F-15 fighter jets and associated weapons systems” amid “recent irrational behavior by the Tehran government” (Voice of America, 12/29/11). In direct response, Iran “test-fired a medium-range surface-to-air missile near the strategic Strait” (VOA, 1/1/12). Iran warned it would not accept return of the aircraft carriers.  

China-Russia-Iran Axis Speeds Ayatollahs’ A-Bomb

Iran’s rulers have since eased off shutting Hormuz, since its closure would also deprive themselves of oil export revenue and cut off their main customer, China. But aided by the anti-U.S. coalition, they remain determined to build a bomb. The Washington Post (11/7/11) reported:

Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles....Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction....Crucial technology linked to experts in Pakistan and North Korea [both heavily influenced by China — ed.] also helped propel Iran to the threshold of nuclear capability.

Rockefeller Ruling-Class Wing Chanting ‘Bomb Iran’

Consequently, calls in the U.S. for blasting Iran’s nuke plants have recently expanded from the Israel lobby to the highest capitalist circles. The imperialist, Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) speaks for its funders: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and banks like JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup. A CFR headline in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs says it all: “Time to Attack Iran.”

The article’s author, Matthew Kroenig, has Obama’s ear. From July 2010 to July 2011, he was a special adviser in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, “responsible for defense strategy and policy on Iran.” A nuked-up Iran, Kroenig warns, could hamstring future U.S. invasions of energy goldmines Saudi Arabia and Iraq: “With atomic power behind it, Iran could threaten any U.S. political or military initiative in the Middle East with nuclear war, forcing Washington to think twice before acting in the region.”

U.S. ‘Surgical’ Strike Could Go Global

Ruling-class mouthpiece Kroenig absurdly proposes a moderately deadly “hit and run.” He ignores the realities of the sharpening imperialist rivalry and the related and growing importance of oil, the lifeblood of capitalism, especially in its cheap and highly profitable Middle East form:

Iran’s rapid nuclear development will ultimately force the United States to choose between a conventional conflict and a possible nuclear war. Faced with that decision, the United States should conduct a surgical strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, absorb an inevitable round of retaliation, and then seek to quickly de-escalate the crisis. Addressing the threat now will spare the United States from confronting a far more dangerous situation in the future.

U.S. bosses, however, face problems in their attempts to avoid a more widespread armed conflict. First, the U.S. military is already stretched thin. It must defend more than seven hundred bases worldwide, and is especially dependent on an all-volunteer army. Second, Iranian retaliation might be more drastic than Kroenig thinks. “Iran said Monday it had successfully test-fired a long-range missile during its naval exercise in the Gulf, flexing its military muscle to show it could hit Israel and U.S. bases in the region if attacked” (MSNBC, 1/2/12).

Then there are the inevitable entangling interests and alliances of capitalism. Another Rockefeller-bankrolled think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), identified these “regions of competition” as inseparable from the oil dogfight now centering on Iran: “Gulf Cooperation Council countries [including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and U.S. Fifth Fleet host Bahrain], Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Europe, Russia, China, Japan and Asia, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil” (Iran and the Threat to ‘Close’ the Gulf, CSIS website, 12/29/11).

Wider wars will likely result from a U.S. attack on Iran. Planning the attack and awaiting Obama’s order, General Dempsey said, “Any [Iranian] miscalculation could mean that we are drawn into conflict, and that would be a tragedy for the region and the world” (CNN, 12/20/11).

U.S. rulers have employed direct military action in the Middle East since 1979, when Iran’s Islamist oil barons booted out Shah Reza Pahlavi, the Exxon/Rockefeller puppet whom the U.S. CIA had installed in power. U.S. influence in this cornerstone of its worldwide empire continues to erode. In response, U.S. rulers must forcibly claw back strategic lost territories, like Iraq and Iran, and militarize for its inevitable confrontation with strengthening imperialist foes China and Russia. Whether they can accomplish these goals in the face of their own internal disunity is another question (and the subject of coming CHALLENGE articles). Their struggle is further complicated by the worldwide economic crisis that threatens both U.S. and European stability.

Working Class Must Rise Up Against Capitalism’s Mass Murder

The global scramble for energy profits has already killed millions of working class Iraqis and thousands of their working class brothers and sisters in the U.S. military. This imperialist competition is killing still more in Afghanistan and Pakistan. With Chinese and Russian involvement and the nuclear wildcard, an Iran oil war could prove far deadlier still for the international working class.

The only way to stop the worsening murder and misery inflicted on our class by oil-soaked billionaires is to destroy the profit system itself and replace it with working-class rule. Tens of millions of workers throughout the world are already resisting the bosses’ attacks. Strikes and demonstrations are on the rise in the Middle East, the European Union, Latin America, China, Pakistan, India, and — with the Occupy movement — in the U.S.

But to smash capitalism, the root cause of this misery, requires communist leadership to point the way. It’s not enough to replace one set of capitalist murderers for another; the entire, horrific profit system must be replaced with workers’ power. A new system must be erected to produce for workers’ needs, not bosses’ profits — the source of racism, sexism, mass unemployment, poverty and unceasing wars.

That new system, our Party’s ultimate aim, can be won only through communist revolution.