THE growing prospect of escalating war in the Middle East is the product of a policy of imperialist war, intervention, and national oppression which has been followed by successive British governments.

The immediate cause is Israel’s war on Gaza and its recent assassinations of leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas. The latter targeting of Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas, when he was visiting the new president of Iran, was a deliberate provocative attack which was certain to draw Iran into retaliation.

He was also one of the main negotiators for a ceasefire in talks which have been going on in Qatar for months. Netanyahu knew exactly what he was doing with both the assassinations.

Not content with a genocide in Gaza and brutal repression in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, he wants a wider war in the Middle East in order to attempt to destroy Iran and its allies.

He will have been emboldened by the standing ovation he received in Congress when he visited Washington recently and by the continued support from Britain, the US and the EU for his attacks on Gaza.

War in Lebanon is drawing closer but Israel should not be confident of victory against Hezbollah, which has more weapons and experience than Hamas and which won the war in 2006. War with Iran would be on a different scale — a major conflict between two highly armed states.

It would inevitably drag in other states. Already Jordan, a loyal ally of the West and home to many exiled Palestinians, is increasingly worried at mass protests over its support for Netanyahu. Throughout the Middle East, there is real anger over the rulers’ complicity with what is going on there.

But this isn’t just the Middle East. Nato’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine is failing but the Nato powers are doubling down. Germany, France and Britain, as well as the US, are all committing to higher levels of defence spending and to more arms being sent to Ukraine.

They are also committing to the use of these weapons directly on Russian territory, and to the use of their own national forces in “advisory” roles — in other words, helping to operate and direct the weapons.

To those politicians urging on these actions, it might seem that nothing can go wrong. But a conflict between nuclear-armed powers is an ever-growing prospect. There is also an arms race in the Pacific aimed at future conflict with China.

Since the end of the cold war, we have been told repeatedly that successive interventions by the US and its allies were essential to destroy the “enemies of the West.” As a result, our governments have devastated Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

They have watched as Netanyahu continues his war on the Palestinians and reinforces his apartheid state. They have helped to create a vile atmosphere of Islamophobia encouraged by politicians and now seeing its consequences with fascist pogroms on the streets.

We should not allow them to take us into another war. On this anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan, we must assert that peace, not war, is the only possibility of avoiding barbarism.

The Palestine movement has been an inspiration to socialists as it maintains a mass movement of solidarity throughout Britain. We must extend that movement to fight against more arms spending, for an end to new hot or cold wars, and to oppose the imperialism on which the British government rests.

The link between imperialism and racism is obvious and both must be defeated — which means challenging the priorities of capital itself.

Lindsey German is convener of the Stop the War Coalition.