(Biannual September 2018) |
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Communiqué on the American withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement: A step in the march towards generalized imperialist war (10 May 2018).
Trump’s decision to denounce the Iranian nuclear agreement is an important step in the evolution of ’international relations’, that is imperialist rivalries. The consequences are not only the risks of an immediate extension of the wars in the Middle East, immediately confirmed by the direct confrontation between Iranian and Israeli forces on the night of 9-10 May. But above all the accelerated aggravation of tensions between the great imperialist powers and the growing affirmation of a central imperialist polarization between the United States and continental Europe. It is a real ultimatum that the American bourgeoisie gives to all its rivals... and especially to Europeans. This is what the American ambassador to Germany immediately made clear: ’German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately’! (quoted by the German newspaper Der Spiegel on May 9th [1]).
Beyond the economic aspect, secondary in fact because Germany and Europe could very well tolerate in itself a stop of their investments in Iran, the ultimatum is of a political and imperialist order. ’The United States has chosen the path of confrontation with Europe’ (idem). For German capital and its main allies in the European Union, the dilemma is clear: either submit to the American ultimatum and expect to be stifled very quickly under the successive dictates that will follow and lose all imperialist credit with the other major powers; or it is ’time for Europe to stand up to the United States’ (idem) by regrouping around it the anti-American imperialist front, starting with China and Russia. This will not be without difficulties and internal contradictions in each European country, as Der Spiegel expresses, obviously with regret, for the German bourgeoisie, some parts of which still hesitate before the inevitable: ’Europe is confronted with the potential loss of what has been the most important, reliable and beneficial constant of [its] foreign policy for decades: the partnership with the United States and the transatlantic relationship’ (idem). This will not go without difficulties and contradictions within the European Union, in particular with the anti-Russian and pro-American countries of the former Eastern Bloc.
But the main European countries no longer really have a choice. Trump keeps poking at and provoking the European Union and Germany. It expresses so clearly both the degree reached by the contradictions of capitalism, the exacerbation of the competition between capitals in the unbridled search for shrinking profits, which drags us into the generalized war and, consequently and complementarily, the desperate rage that has seized the American bourgeoisie in the face of its constant historical retreat, since the disappearance of the USSR, on the international scene. Capitalism drags humanity into the generalized imperialist war. The international proletariat, both an exploited class and a revolutionary class, has no choice either. Either submit to capital and that will lead to even more misery and exploitation to prepare for widespread war, then because of war itself; or resist the attacks of capitalism by confronting its states and paving the way for their overthrow, the destruction of capitalism itself and the establishment of a communist society without misery or war.
For the international proletariat to be able to open up this perspective and this hope, it must also resolutely engage in political confrontation against all the forces of each capitalist state, right-wing and left-wing political parties, trade unions and other forces of political and ideological control, and against bourgeois repression [2]. If each national bourgeoisie has no other choice but to engage in the march to generalized war and in confrontation with its own working class, the international proletariat – and particularly its most conscious and combative minorities by coming together to lead this class political struggle – has no other choice but to engage in the resolute defense of its class interests by assuming the confrontation with capitalism and its state.
PS. We draw attention to Nuevo Curso’s statement (in Spanish), the main points of which we share: https://nuevocurso.org/tratado-nuclear-y-rescate-argentino-dos-caras-de-la-guerra-comercial/.
Notes:
[1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/time-for-europe-to-stand-up-to-the-united-states-a-1206997.html
[2] This is precisely what the proletariat in France is failing to do, even though the conditions for a widespread and generalized struggle were met around the railway workers’ strike in March. By not disputing the timing, the planning, the strike days in the hands of the unions, by respecting the terrain of government-union discussions and negotiations, in short by not confronting politically in the assemblies and in the workplaces the union sabotage, the struggle of railway workers and other mobilizations (such as that of Air France or the Ford factory in Bordeaux) will suffer failures - barring unforeseen circumstances breaking the course of events - because of their isolation. It is a lesson for the proletariat of all countries.