Turn the Guns on the Warmakers and Fight for a Communist World
June 19— Qatar is a tiny Persian Gulf peninsula with 2.2 million people. It’s the latest example of how the world’s capitalist-imperialist rulers have to fight over every square inch of the globe. Their wars for control of oil- and natural-gas profits could easily explode into World War III.
The Qatar crisis shows the urgent need to destroy this deadly capitalist system. Its competition for maximum profit snuffs out the lives of so many of our class brothers and sisters! But imperialist wars also create huge new opportunities for communist revolution.
A communist world will have no classes, no capitalist-imperialist bosses, no borders, no nations. We will be one international working class united by one International Communist Workers’ Party under the same red flag. We will have one common interest: producing and sharing collectively to meet the needs of the masses everywhere.
Nobody will be able to exploit others. There will be no economic competition because there will be no money. Nothing will be bought and sold. This will destroy the material basis of the wars that are inevitable under capitalism.
In a communist world we will not fight over the world’s resources or labor power. When there are disagreements about what to produce or how, or how to share scarcity, we will discuss matters collectively. We will strive for consensus on how best to meet everyone’s needs.
Natural Gas Money Fuels Regional, Global Conflicts
Rulers of three regional powers – Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia –compete for control of the Persian Gulf area. All three once controlled Qatar. Most recently, Qatari rulers were junior partners of the Saudi monarchy in supporting US imperialism, especially in Iraq. Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base holds the largest concentration of US military personnel in the region.
Since Qatar started exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 1997, it has become the world’s largest LNG exporter. Qatar recently announced plans to open a huge gas field on the Iranian border. It expects to dump cheap LNG on an already glutted market.
The Qatari rulers’ LNG profits have allowed them to chart a different course from the Saudis. While competing with Russia and Iran for markets, Qatar has a 19% stake in Russian energy giant Rosneft. It shares energy infrastructure with the Saudis’ main antagonist, Iran.
Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV station supported the Arab Spring—the Saudis didn’t. It gives favorable coverage to Islamists who represent a threat to the Saudis and the other Gulf monarchies.
After Trump visited Saudi Arabia, the Saudis (with United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt) launched an air and sea blockade of Qatar, which imports all its food. They accused Qatar of backing terrorism and cozying up to Iran.
Iran offered to open its ports to keep food supplies flowing. The Saudi-Iranian conflict then escalated with a hostile encounter between the Saudi navy and one or more Iranian boats.
Turkey lined up with Qatar, sending troops to prevent a possible invasion. Turkey has vast economic ties with Iran. Instability in Syria and Iraq is increasing competition between the two powers for regional influence. However, Iran is in the Russian orbit and Turkey (although a NATO member) is moving in that direction. Saudi Arabia and Egypt remain in the US-Israel camp – at least for now.
US Imperialist Decline: Danger of World War Increases
Washington’s response to the Qatari crisis shows a ruling class in disarray.
Trump calls for continued isolation of Qatar. This is a minority view among US imperial strategists. This wing wants to make a firmer stand against Russian imperialists and their allies in this strategic oil-rich region. Trump may also hope to reduce Qatari competition with the US natural gas industry.
Secretary of State Tillerson represents the main wing of US imperialism. These bosses see Trump’s policy as a dangerous threat. It’s driving Turkey into Russian arms. It’s intensifying the US-Turkey contradiction over an independent Kurdistan or an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria. Turkey’s rulers consider Kurdish separatism to be an existential threat.
Tillerson’s position is to avoid an all-out confrontation with Russia and Iran in Syria or the Persian Gulf. Instead, the US would exert enough military and economic pressure at least to keep them at bay. If this fails, these bosses would rather face their Russian rivals in the Black Sea, Eastern Europe and Ukraine.
Trump’s break with Turkey could make it impossible for the US to do this. Turkey guards the Bosporus Strait, the only way warships can enter the Black Sea.
Trump’s Qatar policy is deepening the rift between the US and its European NATO allies. He had already refused to reaffirm NATO’s collective-defense policy, pushing Europe toward Russia. The German foreign minister voiced support for Qatar, accusing the US of increasing tensions in a “region already plagued by crisis.”
The US ruling class has many disagreements about whom to fight and where and how. But fight they must, to try to regain their empire. And just as inevitably the Russian, Chinese and Iranian and other capitalist-imperialist rulers will fight to keep and expand their own power.
The world’s workers, soldiers and youth have nothing to gain by siding with any of these imperialist murderers. Our fight is to build a mass ICWP to turn the guns on the warmakers and build a communist world.
Syria: Sharpening US-Russia Conflict
June 18—Today the US shot down a Syrian jet in the Southern Raqqa countryside. Russia then threatened to target US aircraft flown over Syria. Tensions are escalating daily.
The battle over Syria is bringing the US and Russia-Iran axis into sharper conflict—especially along the Iraq-Syria border. The US is trying to use its “rebel” forces and US military forces to control this border. It hopes to prevent Iran from sending supplies and troops to support Assad in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The US and Israeli rulers are haunted by the possibility that a Damascus-Baghdad-Tehran land route could reopen. That would vastly increase Iran’s capacity to influence future developments in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. It would further loosen US imperialism’s grip on the Persian Gulf region.
To prevent this, the US has bombed the Syrian Arab Army forces that are trying to take the key border town of Al-Tanf, where the US has a base. The fighting in that area has intensified with both Russian and US war planes and troops there.
The only realistic plan to end this deadly warfare is to mobilize everywhere for communist revolution – the sooner, the better.
Immigrant Workers in Qatar
Ninety percent of the people in Qatar are viciously-exploited immigrant workers. Over a million come from India and Nepal. Many are slaving under horribly dangerous conditions, building stadiums for the 2022 World Cup. These workers include readers of Red Flag. We urge these readers, and others, to spread this paper to co-workers and to friends back home. Join the International Communist Workers’ Party! Mobilize the masses for the Communist future, without borders or exploitation or imperialist war, that we all urgently need.
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