War is raging in Iran and Lebanon. It's affecting the Gulf monarchies and threatens to flare up again in Iraq and Syria. It's been ongoing in Palestine for more than three years and has turned Gaza into a heap of ruins. It's been ravaging Ukraine for more than four years and devastating Somalia since 2019 and also Sudan. It's almost permanent in the Sahel and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and has been so for so many years that it's difficult to say exactly when it started.
The smell of gunpowder and death is saturating the planet's atmosphere. By attacking Iran, imperialist leaders - Trump, Netanyahu and the smaller ones that follow their lead - are plunging the entire world into a Third World War.
War is more than ever the normal functioning of capitalism. For decades, the United States, European countries, China, Russia and their allies have been fighting over resources, trade markets and zones of influence. Some of them want to keep the lion's share, others want to partake of the feast. Every crisis, every local conflict is an opportunity to weaken their adversaries. Economic sanctions, cyber-attacks, political interference and proxy wars are the previews to a more direct confrontation.
What the United States reproaches Iran is neither its obscurantism nor its dictatorship but the fact that this regime defies it. The fate of the Iranians matters no more to them than that of the Palestinians. But they're using the Iranians' courageous struggle against the regime of the mullahs to promote their own interests.
The United States wants a regime in Iran that is under its thumb. The same goes for Cuba, which it has been starving and for Venezuela, whose president Maduro was kidnapped and thrown into a New York jail. And it’s the same in Latin America and in Greenland. Likewise, the United States wanted to get the Ukrainian regime on its side and that led to war with Russia.
The war against Iran is also an indirect attack against China, whose oil supply is threatened. It's part of the fight waged by American imperialism to contain its main competitor and remain the master of the world. And this conflict is only one stage in the American imperialist process.
Officially, France isn't at war with Iran, especially since Macron was presented with a fait accompli by Trump and Netanyahu. But he didn't take long to fall in line with them. And how can we possibly believe that sending the aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle to the Mediterranean has no other purpose than that of “defense”?
France, which was a colonial power in the Middle East, has forged defense partnerships with the Gulf countries and has established military bases there. Why? Because French capitalists have huge interests in Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, which are among the biggest buyers of French weapons. Tomorrow, French soldiers may be dying in the Strait of Hormuz for the interests of Dassault, Total and Vinci.
The capitalists are turning the entire planet into a battlefield. It's madness and a crime against humanity!
Rich countries could use their technological progress and knowledge to improve the living conditions of the peoples who contribute to their prosperity everywhere. They could offer poorer countries the possibility to develop. They could fight climate change and accomplish many other things besides. But they use their power to dominate and exploit workers and peoples, often depriving them of even the minimum needed to preserve their dignity.
If we are to denounce fanatics and dictators, we must, first and foremost, denounce profit-hungry people in the capitalist strongholds, and their insane accumulation of wealth and power!
We, the workers, have nothing to gain from seeing our children kill each other over the control of an oil pipeline or some strategic market. The enemy is in our own country. It's in the corporate boardrooms that speculate on conflicts and raise the price of gasoline. It's at the head of the government that produces Rafale fighter jets and nuclear submarines instead of training doctors and hiring teachers. It's at the head of the army that is preparing young people to sacrifice themselves on the altar of capitalist profits.
The only war we must wage is the one that will sweep away the bunch of exploiters and warmongers governing us. Workers of France, Europe, the United States and elsewhere, let's unite across borders to overthrow it!
Nathalie Arthaud