U.S. & China will make world war; workers can make revolution

Facing the ‘Thucydides Trap’…the military must step up its efforts.
—Xu Qiliang, Vice-chairman of China’s military

[China] stated that war with the United States is inevitable...When you [U.S.] send an armored brigade combat team anywhere in the world...you have made a strategic decision to fight and win
—Major General Richard Coffman of U.S. military

Imperialist rivals China and the U.S. are caught in the “Thucydides Trap,” an inevitable drive towards war when a rising power threatens to displace the established world power. Driven by their need for maximum profit and world supremacy, the capitalists are on the course toward World War III. 

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Workers have no side in bosses’ volatile U.S.-Iran conflict

The assassination of the Iranian bosses’ top military and intelligence leader, Major General Qassim Suleimani, is a big setback for the U.S. finance capitalists and their already weakened position in the oil-rich Middle East. While what may happen next is unpredictable, it’s clear that the world is more unstable today than it was before the New Year. As inter-imperialist competition intensifies, a global conflict over Iran seems more likely than ever—and with it, a looming threat to millions of workers’ lives.
Workers need to draw our own “red line” against all wars for profit, and against all the rulers who wage them. We must organize on the job and in the street to resist the bosses’ fascist, nationalist campaigns—to fight for a new world based on workers’ needs. A united international working class can turn imperialist war for profit into a revolutionary war for communism!

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Syria and Iran, flashpoint for next world war?

On February 10, in response to an alleged Iranian drone flight over Israeli territory, an Israeli F-16 jet was shot down while bombing a region in Syria occupied by Iran, the first time an Israeli warplane has been lost in combat since 1982. The incident sparked the largest Israeli air raid on Syria in decades, with both Syrian and Iranian military installations being targeted.  As Russian imperialism strengthens both its foothold in Syria and its alliance with Iran, this flashpoint in the Syrian war signals the possibility of broader conflict between an expansive Russia and a U.S. empire in decline.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump has openly called for regime change in Iran for its human rights abuses (though he’s said nothing about the indiscriminate bombing and slaughter in Yemen by U.S. ally Saudi Arabia).

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Gaza Carnage Prelude to U.S.-Israeli War on Iran?

For eight straight days, U.S.-armed Israel bombed Palestinian civilians in what the New York Times called a “practice run for any future armed confrontation with Iran” (11/23/12). Meanwhile, President Barack Obama was on a Southeast Asia road trip to round up allies for any potential conflict with China.

These actions underscore the fundamental dilemma facing U.S. capitalists. They are desperate to maintain their global top-dog status, but they’re not quite ready for the regional and world wars that inevitably loom as imperialist rivalries intensify. Obama stands ready to expand U.S. military adventures beyond Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, but has failed to build the domestic unity and patriotism that his ruling-class backers need. At the same time, the U.S. bosses lack international support to secure Iraqi oil and Afghan gas routes against Islamist militias.

Factional fighting has destabilized Iraq and limited Exxon Mobil’s ability to extract barely half its goal for oil production there. The Taliban and Islamic militias have prevented construction of the gas pipeline extending through Afghanistan from central Asia. As they struggle in these smaller arenas, U.S. imperialists know it will be far more difficult to confront the militaries in Iran and China.

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