War in Iran here ♦ What Enlisted Personnel Can Do here ♦
War in Iran and Sharpening US-China Conflict
LOS ANGELES (USA), May 12— “US global hegemony is going away pretty fast,” posted a Red Flag reader. “BRICS was already ascendant, but this really foolish war with Iran is speeding up the transition of global power. Iran will become a really wealthy ally of China and Russia. The petrodollar will likely be dethroned, and the world will divest from US Treasury bonds. That could spell catastrophe for the US. How bad do you think it will get?”
Many wonder about the final outcome of the US/Israel war on Iran and Lebanon. What is already clear is the tremendous human and environmental destruction that the imperialists have wrought.
“It has been a war for oil—and, by extension, for markets,” declared an immigrant US steelworker.
It is an imperialist war driven primarily by the United States and Israeli rulers.
“I was in the US Army during the Vietnam War,” remarked another industrial worker. “The US military high command thought they would quickly wipe out the Vietnamese fighters. Yet we watched as the army collapsed and they were forced to abandon that invasion. Now, with the war in Iran, it is said that the necessary ammunition cannot be procured.”
Indeed, the war with Iran has depleted US reserves of military materiel and ammunition to an “alarming” degree, say lawmakers and Pentagon estimates. The rapid consumption of critical missiles threatens US capacity to confront other global conflicts, like Ukraine and Taiwan.
This is driving an accelerated surge in US war production, unprecedented since World War II. We must take this opportunity to organize for communism in the factories, among the thousands of young workers who will end up there. And among the working-class youth in the imperialist armies.
The merger of industrial and finance capital characterizes imperialism. The US/Iran war has intensified the financial challenges facing the US capitalist class.
Already, the Chinese currency (renminbi or yuan) is penetrating the global market. US policymakers are responding with “currency swap lines” that stabilize their economies and guarantee them access to dollars for trade and oil sales. The overarching objective is to reinforce the dominance of the dollar and maintain the stability of global markets.
But Iran, Russia, and other countries already sell oil in yuan. Even Saudi Arabia might soon. India, Japan, and, of course, China buy oil in yuan. The petrodollar has indeed been “unthroned.”
As we go to press, Trump and his planeload of billionaires are heading to China to “make deals” to fatten their bulging pockets. But no “deal” can paper over the deadly rivalry between the two powers.
Global capitalism is in a general crisis of overproduction of goods and of capital. This can only resolve itself through massive destruction of human lives, productive capacity, and the environment.
The wars in Palestine, the Persian Gulf, Ukraine, Sudan, Kashmir, and more all reflect great-power conflicts. The prospect of direct confrontation, even nuclear war, cannot be ignored.
How much worse will things get for workers in the US and globally? Much worse. But not forever.
The working class, led by its International Communist Workers’ Party, will end this deadly system through communist revolution. Workers, students, teachers, soldiers, homemakers, professionals: Join us in this fight! We have a world to win!
Letter: How Enlisted Personnel Can End Imperialist War Atrocities
During the Vietnam War, a popular saying in the US anti-war movement was, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” As if people refusing the draft or leaving the military could prevent imperialist war.
It was idealism. It went against the iron (materialist) laws of capitalist development, which make imperialist war inevitable.
What actually made the difference was soldiers and sailors organizing rebellions inside the US armed forces.
As long as they have state power, the rulers will field their armies. Some people will “opt out.” But that will not end imperialist war. Communist organizing will.
To end imperialist war, we have to end capitalism with communist revolution. Soldiers, sailors, marines, and industrial workers are at the center of the contradiction between the working classes’ needs and the imperialists’ needs. They have been in the past, and will be, open to fighting and producing for our class instead of for the imperialists.
Soldiers, workers, and youth can use their unity, solidarity, and weapons against the bosses, instead of against our class brothers and sisters.
Angry Russian sailors mutinied in 1905 on the Battleship Potemkin against rotten meat and the Russo-Japanese war. They won the support of workers in the port city of Odessa. Their mutiny showed the potential of organizing inside the rulers’ militaries. It spurred Russian communists to increase their revolutionary organizing among sailors and soldiers.
During World War I, Russian communists organized in the government’s military. After three grueling years of war, groups of these Russian soldiers and sailors were key in massively leaving the front and going to the cities to join with industrial workers to overthrow the capitalist government. They used their weapons for revolution.
The imperialists sent soldiers from fourteen armies to attack the new workers’ state. The Russian communists called on these soldiers to refuse to attack them and instead support the revolution. Many soldiers in every army refused to attack their Russian brothers. The Russian Red Army defeated the imperialists’ attacks.
During the US war on Vietnam, there were rebellions against the US Army’s racism and their war by US soldiers and sailors on every military base and ship, including in Vietnam. The US rulers faced a military in rebellion and fierce Vietnamese resistance. Some communist soldiers recruited fellow soldiers to fight for communism. The US withdrew from Vietnam.
Today, the US rulers are facing the threat of the end of their petrodollar privilege. An end to their hopes of regaining their lost hegemony. They will continue this war.
Being inside the military and factories to counter the rulers’ racism and fascism and mobilize angry, frustrated, and overworked soldiers, sailors, and workers looking for solutions is key to mobilizing to turn their imperialist war into communist revolution.
—A Comrade
Read Soldiers, Sailors, Marines: Crucial to a Communist Workers’ Revolution here