After claiming he was not going to participate in the US-Israeli war on Iran, Starmer is pretending it's all business as usual. He can even say that this war in the Middle East is not "Britain's war", despite the ongoing assistance to the US. Trump replies, accordingly, that the Ukraine war isn't "America's war", despite its ongoing supply of weapons!

    One thing is certain, however, and that is that neither of these wars are wars which the working class anywhere in the world has any interest in supporting.

    The hype used to justify this bloodshed is literally incredible. As if a country like Iran - strangled by sanctions ever since the revolution in 1979 and decimated by 8 years of war with Iraq thereafter, ever posed any real "threat", nuclear, or otherwise. On the other hand, it was always under threat from imperialism and its Israeli client state.

    The tragic irony is that if its regime had actually built a nuclear weapon with the uranium it was able to enrich, neither Netanyahu nor Trump would have dared to attack. That's precisely the "use" of a deterrent.

    Western politicians also claim that Iran is a "sponsor of terrorism". It gave weapons to Hamas? Maybe. But whether one believes it or not, the Iranian regime always denied any knowledge of the 7 October attack.

    Anyway, the Shia Islam they practice opposes terrorism and, indeed, suicide bombing - unlike the fundamentalist current in the dominant Sunni Islam practised in the Gulf countries, which spawned al- Qaeda and ISIS.

    As for Iran's sponsorship of Hezbollah, indeed, this is true, but Hezbollah is not a "terrorist organisation". It is a state within a state in Lebanon; a government party. Its army was built in response to the Israeli army's regular invasions to kill Palestinians in their camps in Lebanon and to defend the Shia majority in the South.

    These are the facts of the matter. But they have been deeply buried under the turmoil in the Middle East and the lies churned out by western media. And yes, the initiator and chief perpetrators of the conflict - which did not begin on 7 October - are the string of Israeli governments which have, since 1948, insisted on exclusive rights over this tiny territory between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea... And western governments, starting with Britain, France and the USA acquiesced in the name of profit and strategic self- interest.

    Now there is another "war for oil"; a way to justify making big profits from fossil fuel again! It might even make one of Britain's untapped North Sea oil beds viable again. Yippee for the myriad of little oil companies... But for the working class it's a signal that our class war needs to get underway!

As soon as the war against Iran began, the oil price shot up - from a pre-war $70/barrel to $120/barrel and then came down to around $80/barrel. But that's probably not the end of its ups and downs, aggravated by speculators, who've been buying up oil stocks since January.

    They rightly predicted the disruption to world oll supply, 15-20% of which passes through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, under Iranian control.

    This oil crisis is, say economists, even worse than the 1970s "oil shock" which signalled the end of the post-war boom and the start of the period of permanent crisis for world capitalism.

    Reacting to this crisis, the International Energy Agency instructed Western governments to release 400m barrels of oil reserves {out of a total of 1.8bn). Oil prices dropped briefly below $100/barrel, only to rise again, thanks to speculation on the market!

    Yes, while sharks in Wall Street and the City profit from the war, prices of everything are already rising for ordinary people all over the world. In Northern Ireland, where many use oil for heating, its price has more than doubled. Here, petrol at the pumps is already 7% higher, and diesel, 13%. At the same time, heavy fuel oil for ships is 160% up.

    Giant shipping companies pass on these price rises by charging more (+ 15-20% so far) for transporting goods. And then retailers hike up their prices... So workers everywhere, who are already experiencing a cost-of-living crisis, are being hit in the pocket again.

    Meanwhile, instead of capping prices and attacking profiteers, (perish the thought!) the government announced "help" of £53m for the poorest households. But most of this money will go directly into the pockets of oil retailers!

    As for the major oil producers, like BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Total, after paying out a total of £330bn in profits over the past 4 years, they're looking forward to an even greater windfall. Yes, it's Iranian blood for oil, this time round. And our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters will keep bleeding until the West's working class decides to use its own force to put a stop to imperialist exploitation for good.