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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Iran calls the shots in the Persian Gulf

by our Arab Affairs correspondent

Six months of war and although the guns are still silent in the Persian Gulf the double blockade continues – paralysing the strategic waterway vital to the oil exports of Saudi Arabia and the other feudal Arab Gulf states.

On social media Donald Trump drivels on about the USA maintaining “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran’s main mil itary command, the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, says that no commercial vessel or oil tanker has been, or will be, able to cross the Strait of Hormuz safely without the Iranian armed forces’ permission and supervision.

The headquarters’ spokesman said that, as in the past, the Strait of Hormuz is under Iran’s full control and management, rejecting American claims about vessels’ normal passage through the Strait of Hormuz as being “false and nothing but lies”. These false claims are indicative of the “desperation and helplessness,” of US forces in the region.

Although secret talks continue the Iranians say they’re ready to sit this out until Trump goes, while the Americans scrabble around looking for an exit strategy that re opens the Strait of Hormuz without any of the tolls the Iranians want to levy. Trump’s team say they’re now concentrating on turning the screw on the economic blockade against the Islamic Republic to force them to accept America’s terms for ending the conflict.

Meanwhile Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a defence agreement in Mecca last week that would treat an attack on one as an attack on all three Middle Eastern powers. The Turks say this pact is aimed at the Israeli threat but in essence it’s only Trump’s old Middle East NATO plan minus direct American input – although that’s still there in the shadows as Turkey is a major player in NATO and all three allies are largely dependent on US arms supplies to keep their armed forces going.

On the Palestine front, Israel has rejected US President Donald Trump’s 15-point peace plan for Gaza and will not withdraw troops from the Palestinian enclave until Hamas is completely disarmed. And a planned Syrian intervention in Lebanon, inspired by their masters in Washington, designed to curb Hezbollah has been put on hold after the Iranians made it clear that any Syrian move against the Lebanese resistance would be robustly challenged by the Islamic Republic and their allies in Lebanon and Syria itself.

And in Iraq the Americans are expected to complete their £1.50 withdrawal by the end of September, marking the end of a military presence that began with the US-led invasion in 2003. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said 30th September remains the “fixed and final date” for ending the military mission of the US-led coalition in Iraq and completing the departure of its forces. The US presence in Iraq once peaked at more than 170,000 troops. More than two decades later, Iraq is still living with the consequences of the illegal and disastrous US-led imperialist invasion that brought down the Saddam Hussein government and sparked off a ferocious resistance to the subsequent American occupation.