The shaky two-week ceasefire reached by Washington and Tehran April 7 is a further step along the course pursued by the U.S. rulers to impose a “Pax Americana” across the Middle East. The same thing was true of the shaky ceasefire Washington imposed on Gaza in October 2025.
The goal is to advance their domination of the region, to open it to further plunder of its vast natural resources and their exploitation of the labor of working people. They seek collaboration with all capitalist regimes there, including Tehran, to strengthen U.S. control and weaken the sway of their rivals, especially Beijing.
This is what President Donald Trump meant when he announced the ceasefire, saying, “We have already met and exceeded all our Military objectives.”
He was speaking for the same “we” on whose behalf he had said, “We truly have the best, most professional, and lethal military in the history of the world,” April 6. Like all U.S. presidents, Democrat or Republican alike, when he says “we,” he means the U.S. ruling class.
The ceasefire changes nothing about the character of the U.S. rulers’ predatory drive for profits and power. Working people have every interest in continuing to demand Washington get its troops, bases and warships out of the Middle East. Bring the troops home!
The hysterical focus of the liberal press on Trump’s threats and bluster, including his threat to wipe out “a whole civilization” in Iran, obscures the fact the war wasn’t waged to serve the partisan aims of any of the U.S. rulers’ political parties. It was carried out to advance the cutthroat interests of the capitalist class as a whole.
Washington is accelerating its drive to restore its productive capacity — essential to expand its military supremacy —and shore up its declining place as the world’s dominant imperialist power on the backs of its rivals and of working people.
The interests of workers are irreconcilable with those of the U.S. imperialist rulers. We share interests in common with fellow workers worldwide — in Iran, Israel, everywhere — and a desire to live in peace.
The pause in the bombing, if it holds, allows Washington to test the waters on getting a deal with Tehran that can aid its objectives. The U.S. rulers’ actions have nothing to do with supporting the courageous struggle of workers, farmers and oppressed nationalities in Iran to get the bloody regime there off their backs.
Neither does Washington’s intervention have anything to do with defending Israel and its fight to prevent Tehran, Hezbollah and Hamas from carrying out another Holocaust. Working people should back Israel’s defensive war to stop Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that would threaten the lives of all those living there — including half of the Jews on planet Earth.
Amid the deepening crisis of capitalism, the U.S. rulers are preparing for more wars. The administration has proposed a massive $1.5 trillion war budget, up 40% from last year.
The working class has the power to prevent Washington and its rivals from marching humanity toward another world war. We need a working-class party and a tested Marxist leadership to chart a course to take political power into our own hands.
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