Washington’s buildup of massive firepower in the Middle East and its threats to attack Iran within the week increase the likelihood of more devastating wars across the region. The U.S. rulers are pressing to deepen their domination there and elsewhere, against both rival capitalist regimes and the struggles of working people.
The largest U.S. strike force in two decades is being assembled. It already comprises two aircraft carriers, 13 accompanying destroyers and a growing number of fighter jets at U.S. airbases in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Refueling and surveillance aircraft and Patriot and THAAD air defense missiles are being deployed for any U.S. air assault, alongside military forces Washington permanently deploys across the region.
President Donald Trump’s administration says the government in Iran must agree to end all nuclear enrichment to prevent Tehran from building nuclear weapons. It’s demanding the Iranian rulers give up their ballistic missiles and abandon backing for proxy forces — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite-based militias in Iraq and Hamas.
“Our missiles are not subject to negotiation, and they will not be,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Feb. 18. Tehran openly states its goal is to destroy Israel and kill the Jews there. It launched waves of missile strikes on Israel in 2024 and 2025.
Further talks between Washington and Tehran are set for Feb. 26.
“They must make a deal,” Trump warned Feb. 19, or “bad things will happen.” The next day he said he was considering limited airstrikes.
The U.S. rulers’ threats have nothing to do with aiding the courageous struggles of working people in Iran against the deadly assaults of the bourgeois clerical regime there. Nor does the vast deployment of U.S. military power in the Middle East have anything to do with defending Israel and the Jews. Washington’s only interest is to gain stability in the region to advance its plunder of oil, other resources and labor.
Washington’s imperialist war aims
The U.S. war preparations are aimed at forcing Tehran to find a way to “fit” into the U.S. rulers’ plans for domination and exploitation of the region. Washington seeks to compel governments across the Middle East to subordinate themselves more closely to its dictates and to deal blows to its rivals worldwide, especially Beijing.
U.S. targets could include Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “bases and production facilities, over a protracted period of time,” retired Navy officer Bryan Clark told the Atlantic magazine. This “would allow the U.S. to achieve part of what they were seeking through the talks,” he said. Striking “production facilities” would lead to both military and civilian deaths.
The Iranian rulers have an estimated 2,000 missiles capable of hitting Israel. During last year’s 12-day war, Tehran indiscriminately bombed Israeli population centers, killing 28 people. Israel’s Iron Dome defense system was able to intercept some, but not all, of the onslaught.
Fresh from their military intervention in Venezuela and the oil blockade they’ve imposed on Cuba, the U.S. rulers believe their military superiority means they can control any conflict they put into motion, set its parameters and prevent any unintended consequences.
But the real world experience of Washington’s wars — including those in the Middle East — show this is an illusion, one with deadly consequences for working people in the region and for the workers in uniform the U.S. rulers send to war.
As Washington was building up its military forces, Iranian and Russian warships held joint military exercises in the Gulf of Oman Feb. 19.