THE decline of the US empire in this period of capitalism’s multiple crises is the defining factor in world events.

On these issues, and despite the fog of war, industrial-scale disinformation and misinformation, socialists must speak with absolute clarity, without qualification or caveat, anything less is a justification — there is not a grain of justification for the unprovoked attack by the United States and Israel on Iran.  

Donald Trump was elected as the “peace president,” his view was we are now in the age of “great power” politics; no more than a pragmatic recognition that globalism and unipolarity had failed and a new approach was required.

But he was always as much an Establishment politician as any of his murderous predecessors.

Abandoning promises to his Maga base that there would be no more “forever wars,” he has fully capitulated to the US neocon state bureaucracy and its indistinguishably interconnected oligarchy and his pro-Israel billionaire donors.  

But the “tail” isn’t “wagging the dog”; exercising its power to maintain hegemonic world dominance remains US policy. It would be a serious error to underestimate its capability to exert that power despite the considerable limitations on it as a result of industrial and military decline.

The US regime change strategy never actually varies much; target an opponent, demonise them as “evil,” demand support from compliant European or other vassal states, target the opponent’s currency, arm and finance anti-regime terrorists (in Iran that includes al-Qaida), encourage popular resistance, and then, war.

The outcome of the war on Iran is unclear, but the potential for escalation cannot be overexaggerated. Israel and the US have planned for a relatively short, if attritional, war. But if they don’t succeed in destroying the current Iranian state power, they will have failed.

If Iran’s military capabilities are strong as it claims and severe damage is inflicted on Israel, it is entirely possible it will — ever the victim — resort to a nuclear strike. In this case Iran, which is capable of producing nuclear weapons, may well do precisely that.

Even if Trump and Netanyahu achieve their goals it will be a pyrrhic victory, they have no onward strategy but to Balkanise Iran and unleash a period of murderous chaos. The genocide in Gaza will be given fresh impetus and extended to the West Bank and beyond. Yemen will be next on the list, Cuba will be crushed and the endlessly enraged neocons, puffed up with success will turn their eyes to China.

No country will ever trust US calls for diplomacy and negotiations ever again.

More than that, the Western elite are now exposed as the “Epstein class;” it would be a severe misjudgement by socialists to underestimate how deeply that has embedded itself into the collective psyche of the world’s oppressed. None but the most craven and servile see the West anymore as the “good guys.”

But there is another side to all this; polls show 75 per cent of Americans oppose the war, support for Israel is in freefall, especially among the youth, the economic consequences of a war that extends beyond weeks into months will have severe, even disastrous, economic consequences, strengthening anti-war sentiment.

Mouthing “concern” over international law the British Establishment will stand foursquare with Trump and Netanyahu.

Keir Starmer, John Healey and the rest of this gang are our enemies, not the Iranian people. As are Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz.

In response to imperialist war socialists oppose chauvinism in all its forms, and from whatever quarter. So, we must look at our own back yard too.

Any labour or trade union movement leader, any self-identified anti-Establishment or radical politician must be judged first and foremost on whether or not they are absolutely clear in their opposition to this war, and any imperialist war for that matter.

To openly support or merely acquiesce, either through silence or even hesitation, with the attack on Iran, then they are wholly complicit.

It is entirely unacceptable to claim to demand defence spending must increase in the “national interest,” the time-honoured formulation for class collaboration. To choose warfare over welfare is not just a concession but a spur to reaction.  

And any “radical” political party that does not understand the necessity for an unequivocal and immediate condemnation of the attack on Iran will be unable to hold firm under pressure from the ruling class and will ditch its “progressive” domestic policies too.

This war is so plainly destructive, unnecessary and unjustified that many will look for answers — and, more than that, an alternative. The anti-war movement has been at the epicentre of the anti-genocide resistance.

That resistance has not only been to genocide and war but more widely to repression and oppression itself. There is no reason the energy, commitment and determination of that movement cannot be replicated in our communities and workplaces.

Increasingly workers in the West are drawing the conclusion — if they can do it to them, they can do it to us.

Objectively, the conditions for resistance and building support for a socialist alternative have never been more favourable. It is the primary task of socialists and trade unionist in this country and in the West most particularly, to build anti-war, anti-imperialist activity and resistance.

Opposing imperialist war must be a first principle, and second nature, to those seeking to build such an alternative.