Seymour Hersh's article "The Coming War" (The New Yorker, January 17th 2005) stating that the USA was planning to attack Iran has not been denied. Nor is it denied that the US has already conducted secret missions inside Iran. Instead the US State Department led by Condoleeza Rice has stepped up the propaganda against Iran's nuclear programme. Bush too has stated that "war against terror" is now a "war against tyranny". Iran has been identified as "one of the outposts of tyranny in the world".

With the death of Arafat, Iran has become the one source of opposition against Israel in the Middle East. And the voice of Israel has not been silent. Military intelligence chief, General Aharon Zeevi has claimed that Iran will produce enriched uranium by this summer so that it can build a nuclear bomb by 2008. The fact that Israel and Pakistan already have such a bomb is conveniently forgotten - but then their regimes are propped up by Washington.

Oil and the dollar

And Iran, of course, is a major oil producer currently producing about 4 million barrels daily with reserves of 90 billion barrels. These reserves are only 20% less than those of Iraq, and make it a very significant source of future oil. It is also geographically a key piece of the jigsaw of states between the Red Sea and the Caspian. With a US-controlled government in Iran, oil from the Caspian basin could be brought out via Iran to the Gulf.

The reasons for US belligerence thus remain the same as before the attack on Afghanistan and Iraq. This is control of the world's oil supply so that they can also gain the revenue from a strategic commodity traded largely in dollars. The dollars that flow to the US ($500 billion per year) help to pay for the continuing trade and budget deficits allowing the Federal Reserve to print dollars way beyond the level supported by the commodities produced in the real economy. At the end of the day, US imperialism rests on military force. Today there are about 100 countries around the world which have a US military presence, and new bases are being built in the Balkans, in the Caucasus and in Iraq.

No support for the Mullahs

We would shed no tears if the outcome of any conflict was simply the removal of the loathsome ayatollahs, and their corrupt and reactionary regime. But, as we saw in Iraq, it will not be the mullahs in their rich houses in Northern Tehran who will suffer, but the Iranian masses who are already sick of them. This is the regime which pioneered the modern version of Political Islam which uses religion as a tool for fooling and controlling the working class. It pretends that there is an Islamic economic system which is neither capitalism nor socialism. But, while they preach sermons about Islamic brotherhood, the mullahs and the Islamic capitalist class exploit Iranian workers by wage labour. This exploitation is as savage as anywhere in the world. Today Iranian workers (brothers in Islam) have to work 16 hours daily to cover the rent of a flat! The mullahs and Iranian capitalists live in luxury similar to the Shah. Although we detest the Islamic regime it is the Iranian working class which has to overthrow it. The US hates the Iranian working class just as much as the mullahs. As we saw in Iraq it will be the workers who suffer the brunt of the US butchery. The 100 000+ civilian Iraqi deaths are evidence enough of what war will mean to any country hit by the US. The futile hope which we denounced nine years ago that Khatami's reformist regime would achieve anything other than increase unemployment and attack workers living standards have long since been dispelled. In June a new election will be held in which the general apathy of the population (only 50% turned out last time) and the threat from the US will probably lead to a so-called "conservative" winning. All the corruption, the petty oppression of women by the Pasdaran, the not-so-petty oppression of everyone by the secret police and the dire state of the economy will take second place to the nationalist idea that the regime will play on. The mullahs are thus quite happy with the USA's threats of attack. They are not only the only reason for anyone to vote for them once again but the threats also allow them to make propaganda against workers who go on strike as "unpatriotic".

Let us be clear.

• Revolutionaries and workers don't choose between imperialist regimes.
• We don't act as cheerleaders for any faction of the ruling class.
• We don't support the opposition in Iraq or the mullahs in Iran simply because they are the enemies of the USA.
• Our opposition is internationalist and founded on the need for workers everywhere to unite to fight for their own interests.

Imperialist games go on

Meanwhile, imperialist games go on. There are reasons why the US may not be in a hurry to act on its threats. The USA is already militarily stretched and Iran is a huge country with 70 million people. It also has more sophisticated air defences than its neighbours with a Russian-built missile system capable of striking airfields throughout the region. On top of this, the USA is still forced to police Iraq and Afghanistan years after the wars there were supposedly ended. Any attack on Iran would be a dramatic risk but it cannot be ruled out.

World capitalism is facing a crisis of falling profit rates and debt which is not sustainable for ever. This crisis is promoting dangerous rivalries as the USA turns on former allies as well as new foes. The US case against Iran is even more threadbare than that against Iraq. Iran's enrichment of uranium, which is the present pretext for regime change in Iran, is actually its legitimate right and does not violate any treaty.

The aggressive preparations which the US is now undertaking indicate how little the US is now prepared to bother with the so-called international law. A US attack on Iran would be a setback for the EU and a disaster for the UK. French, German and British ambassadors have been shuttling to and fro between European capitals and Tehran trying to convince the Iranians to avoid provoking the US by giving up uranium enrichment. Behind this lies the European determination to ensure their own oil supplies and oil contracts with Tehran and to prevent the US overturning these by force, as happened in Iraq. The British Foreign Secretary has even said, perhaps prematurely, that the UK would not support an invasion of Iran. Japan and China would also be significant losers if the US were to overthrow the Tehran regime and rip up existing oil contracts. The stakes are so high and the military lobby so powerful in the current USA ruling class that another catastrophe is possible unless the workers in the advanced capitalist countries can paralyse and strangle the monster of imperialism before it can strike again...