As part of their blockade of Iranian ports, the U.S. rulers continue to build up their military forces in the Middle East, threatening Tehran with renewed bombing and military assaults, alongside a collapse of the Iranian economy, if it doesn’t give in to Washington’s demands.
The USS George H.W. Bush, carrying some 6,000 troops, arrived April 23, joining two other U.S. aircraft carriers and tens of thousands of troops in the region. The Marine Corps Boxer Amphibious Ready Group with 4,200 more troops is on its way.
“U.S. forces aren’t there in support of the Iranian people or to defend Israel’s existence as a refuge from Jew-hatred and the threat of another Holocaust,” Paul Mailhot, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New York governor, explains to workers as he campaigns. “They are there to advance U.S. imperialist domination and plunder of the region. Working people the world over should be calling for all U.S. troops, bases and warships out of the Middle East, and for the defense of Israel as a refuge for the Jews.”
The bourgeois press, from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal, portray Tehran’s small speedboats as a serious threat to U.S. imperialism, despite the fact that Washington devastated Tehran’s navy, air force, air defenses, missile launchers and arms factories during its 40-day war. They imply that the Trump administration’s extension of the ceasefire shows that the reactionary regime in Iran has come out stronger.
The reality is much different.
U.S. naval forces have forced dozens of oil tankers and other ships involved in trade with Tehran to turn around. Washington has also interdicted tankers carrying Iranian oil thousands of miles away from the Arab-Persian Gulf.
Some 90% of Iran’s economy depends on international sea trade. With the blockade preventing empty tankers from docking at Iranian ports to pick up oil, Iran’s oil industry is running out of storage space.
If that happens, Tehran will have to start shutting down oil wells. Even doing this for a short time risks permanently damaging the oil fields and the profits of Iran’s capitalist rulers.
Looking for allies to pressure Washington to end the blockade, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with officials in Pakistan and Oman April 25-26 and then with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin told Araghchi that Moscow will do what it can “so that peace can be achieved as soon as possible.” That’s a way of saying Moscow doesn’t plan to do anything more.
While both Moscow and Beijing have been key trading partners with Tehran and have provided some military aid, neither is looking to provoke a major confrontation with Washington, nor jeopardize their relations with the other Gulf governments.
Tehran doesn’t hold the ‘cards’
Nonetheless, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, claims Tehran still holds significant “cards” to play.
But the only “card” it has, short of starting a new round of missile and drone attacks across the Middle East, is its small speedboats, which threaten ships trying to cross the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian permission. The strait has been largely blocked since the war began. Little changed with the ceasefire. Iranian forces have boarded and taken possession of several container ships. This most directly affects the U.S. rulers’ competitors.
President Donald Trump warned April 23 that U.S. forces will blow out of the water any Iranian ship involved in placing mines in the Strait of Hormuz. His warning didn’t order Iranian forces to stop taking possession of ships from other nations.
That’s not an oversight. Only 7% of the oil used in the United States passes through the Strait of Hormuz. But China imports some 70% of the oil it consumes, half of it from the Middle East, especially Iran. Japan, India and South Korea among other countries are especially dependent on shipping through the strait.
Beijing has been forced to resume purchases of U.S. liquefied natural gas and crude oil, as Washington has extended its control over world oil markets in the course of its war in Iran and its military intervention taking control of Venezuela’s oil in January.
US oil companies’ superprofits
The U.S. is the world’s biggest producer of crude oil. U.S. exports of crude and other petroleum products rose from about 11 million barrels a day at the start of the war to 12.9 million by mid-April. U.S. refineries are operating close to capacity. With oil at over $100 a barrel that’s a big boost in profits.
Araghchi presented new proposals saying Tehran would end its attacks in the Strait of Hormuz in return for guarantees of no more U.S. or Israeli military operations against Iran or Hezbollah in Lebanon. Next would be discussions on “the management of the Strait of Hormuz,” a euphemism for Tehran’s control of maritime traffic. Only later would Tehran discuss its nuclear program.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded for the U.S. April 27, saying that “the nuclear question is the reason why we’re in this in the first place.” He said Washington would not allow Tehran to “decide who gets to use an international waterway and how much you have to pay them to use it.”
Neither Rubio nor Trump have said anything about Tehran’s demand that Israel stop attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel fights to prevent new Holocaust
That’s because while Washington and Israel coordinated their military operations against Iran, they were carrying out two different wars. Washington seeks to use U.S. military might to force a wing of the faction-ridden Iranian regime to be more subservient to U.S. imperialism.
Israel is fighting for its existence as a refuge from Jew-hatred and pogroms and to prevent another Holocaust. The bourgeois clerical regime in Iran — and its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — have as a central goal destroying Israel and eliminating the Jews who live there.
Since Feb. 28, Israeli troops have occupied a swath of southern Lebanon along a ridge about 5 to 6 miles from the Israeli border. This makes it harder for Hezbollah to attack towns in northern Israel.
Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah created a far-reaching network of tunnels, including along the border near Israel. Israel Defense Forces April 28 destroyed over a mile of tunnels in southern Lebanon meant to be a launching pad for attacks on Israel.
Soon after a two-week ceasefire was announced in the war with Tehran the White House pressured Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Lebanon. “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer,” Trump declared April 17. “They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the USA.”
But Hezbollah, which is better armed than the Lebanese Army, has said it will not abide by any agreement between the Lebanese government and Israel.
Hezbollah continues to launch rockets at towns in northern Israel. Israel continues airstrikes against Hezbollah’s bases and combatants in southern Lebanon, despite Trump’s order, while holding off targeting Hezbollah in Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.
Amid rising tensions across the Middle East the threat of a new round of fighting is a real possibility.