Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. This week in history: March 9-15
- 25 years ago:
50 years ago:
75 years ago:
United Nations forces recapture Seoul
100 years ago:
2. London demonstration against Iran war deflected into futile appeals to Starmer
Thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday to demand an end to the bombing of Iran.
Assembling near Parliament in Westminster, the demonstration moved south, crossed the Thames via Vauxhall Bridge, and ended with a rally at the US Embassy.
The march was organized by the main groups within the “Palestine Coalition,” which have led the mass demonstrations in the capital against Israel’s slaughter in Gaza for the last two-and-a-half years. These include the Stop The War Coalition (STWC), the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
The Palestine Coalition—primarily STWC and PSC—led that movement into a dead end, channeling energy into futile demands that Starmer, the warmonger and genocide apologist in chief, adopt a peace policy. The same bankrupt perspective—demanding pressure be put on the political leader of one NATO power (Britain and Starmer) to alter foreign policy and put pressure on another (the US and Trump)—was again the main demand coming from the platform.
Via a message read out from the stage, former Labour leader and now head of Your Party, Jeremy Corbyn declared that “we are here today to say loudly and clearly, do not drag Britain into another illegal war. Let’s follow in the footsteps of Spain, whose Prime Minister [Pedro Sanchez] has said very clearly that we are not getting involved in this illegal war in any way whatsoever. For too long, the UK has blindly followed the US as it indulges in catastrophic interventions around the world. We are here to defend something different: a foreign policy based on cooperation, equality, and sovereignty…”
Corbyn—a deputy president of the STWC—was unable to attend the rally, saying he was “in Amsterdam with The Hague Group, a historic meeting of 40 states which seek to hold Israel accountable for its genocide in Gaza.” The coalition was convened in January last year by the Progressive International, which is led by, among others, former Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, most known for his betrayal of the Greek working class.
The Hague Group consisted initially of nine member states: Belize [which withdrew], Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa. Corbyn and Your Party’s other most prominent leader, Zarah Sultana, are both members of the Progressive International Council. The advancing of the leaders of a coalition of capitalist states is a perspective solely based on pressuring the political establishment and a dangerous trap which must be rejected by the working class.
Speaking at the demonstration, Sultana invoked the catastrophe of the Iraq war while insisting, as others did from the stage, that Starmer had to recover the backbone he supposedly had prior to the US and Israel bombing Iran. She said of the prime minister: “Despite having apparently learned the lessons from Iraq, Keir Starmer is repeating the same mistake. At first, he said Britain would not be involved, and within days came the familiar U-turns. And now American B-1 bombers are landing on British soil before flying out to kill Iranians.”
Despite Sultana’s propensity for rhetoric generally to the left of Corbyn, she expounds bankrupt bourgeois politics just as surely as he. The task wasn’t the mobilization of the working class in Britain and internationally to stop war on Iran and end the capitalist system—the root cause of the wars in the Middle East and Africa over the past 25 years. Rather, concluded Sultana, “today we raise our voices for peace, for justice, and for a world where governments learn the lessons of the past.”
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The rewriting of Starmer’s Iran policy is breathtaking. Starmer’s policy was never not to back Trump in his bombing and regime change operation. It was only how best to ensure Britain could fully join in behind a cloak of “legality.” This was made clear by the leaks published last week in The Spectator—and reported by the World Socialist Web Site—confirming that British officials had been informed of the planned offensive 17 days in advance and were engaged in intense discussions with Washington over how the Labour government could assist.
3. “We are fighting this war for the banks”: London post and transport workers denounce bombing of Iran
As with the genocide in Gaza, Britain’s trade unions are refusing to mobilize their members for industrial action against the Labour government’s participation in a war of annihilation—openly declared by the fascist in the White House, Donald Trump, and his Goebbels-like neo-Nazi henchman, Pete Hegseth—against a country of 93 million people.
Last week teams of Socialist Equality Party supporters distributed leaflets and spoke to workers operating and maintaining buses across West London and to postal workers at Mount Pleasant Mail Centre, Royal Mail’s central sorting and distribution hub. Despite finishing and starting exhausting shifts, workers engaged in a serious discussion on the strategy to defeat the war that they opposed.
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A postal worker, a member of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said, “The war is criminal. It is aimed at stealing Iran’s resources. Have you noticed no one is discussing [Jeffrey] Epstein anymore? It’s gone from the front pages, and the media is happy to move on. The people running the post are billionaires. They are the same as the ones leading the wars out to steal the countries’ resources. They don’t care about us. We don’t care about them. What there needs to be is a revolution.”
Another veteran postal worker listed the wars he had lived through and said, “I am sick of the wars and the impunity granted. They seem to think they can do what they want. What about the Epstein files, that’s no longer in the news is it? To me it’s important workers in America start the fight, then we can all join in. Without that it is very difficult to do anything.”
4. Brit awards and Baftas: Criticizing genocide and the rise of the far-right and being censored for it
Last week’s Brit Awards in Manchester saw several political comments by artists. Equally noteworthy were public reactions to broadcaster ITV’s censorship of political comments in its coverage of the acceptance speeches.
ITV deliberately drowned out comments “Free Palestine and fuck ICE” by drummer Max Bassin of the band Geese.
Viewers complained at the censorship on social media, with one commenting, “I’ve never known the Brits bleep out so much stuff.”
The Brits are a showcase event for the British music industry. Even in this corporate environment, artists spoke from the red carpet and the podium about the rise of Reform UK, the continued genocide in Gaza and domestic repression in the United States.
Perhaps the most interesting comments came from Irish artist CMAT, nominated for international artist of the year. She spoke out against “anyone trying to argue that art is not a political place.”
“Everything is politics,” she said. “More than ever, art is politics because you don’t get to make art in a fascist state. Fascism is on the rise in every single country in the world.” Fascism was “showing its ugly head in Ireland… all over the UK and don’t even get me started on America.”
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CMAT has been consistent in her support for Palestinians. In 2024, she pulled out of the Latitude Festival because of its sponsorship by Barclays, which was financially involved in the Gaza war. She ended her set at Glastonbury last year with a pro-Palestinian statement.
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Even the tamest of political comments requires censorship. ITV censored a joke about Peter Mandelson by the host, comedian Jack Whitehall. There is an anxiety in the ruling class that comment on such a detested figure could reveal the depths of hostility to the political system.
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The Baftas was presented by the BBC a week earlier. A social media storm was whipped up over an incident there involving Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson.
Davidson’s Tourette’s involves coprolalia. When he is ticking, he involuntarily shouts extremely offensive things. This is not something he can control, and it is intensified at moments of stress. His life inspired the film I Swear, which shows the condition with sympathy and in depth. Robert Aramayo, who plays Davidson, won best actor.
Davidson was ticking when he arrived at the ceremony. The audience were alerted to this, but other performers seem not to have been. When Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan were presenting an award, Davidson shouted an offensive racial slur.
The BBC, which had a microphone at Davidson’s table, chose not to edit this out when it was broadcast later that evening. But much of the social media furor that followed was directed against Davidson.
Davidson has spoken of his distress, as the BBC had assured him that they would edit any of his involuntary swearing out of the broadcast. StudioCanal and Bafta had both made clear swearing would be edited out. Warner Brothers flagged concerned during the event. They were assured the BBC would be notified and the racial slur would be edited out. It was not.
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While they were broadcasting comments guaranteed to cause distress to Davidson, Lindo and Jordan, the BBC also cut the words “Free Palestine” from the acceptance speech of Akinola Davies Jr.
The director won Outstanding Debut by a British writer, director or producer for My Father’s Shadow, about a family reuniting after the 1993 Nigerian election. He thanked “all those whose parents migrated” after escaping persecution or genocide. “Your dreams are an act of resistance,” he said, concluding, “For Nigeria, for London, the Congo, Sudan, Free Palestine,” which was greeted with applause. The last two words were censored.
Davies commented, “It was really important… to say that in a room full of artists, because we have an opportunity to influence people because they watch our films.” He pointed to recent years of demonstrations “trying to show solidarity with the people of Palestine, we’ve had some of the largest political solidarity demonstrations in the UK.”
The anxiety this provokes in the ruling class is driving the censorship and suppression of any critical comment. This censorship is posing ever more sharply the need for a genuine political alternative, revolutionary and socialist program against genocide and war that can mobilise the international working class.
5. Iranian in New Zealand speaks out against pro-war propaganda and intimidation
The World Socialist Web Site recently spoke with Bahram, an Iranian who fled to Australia as a refugee in the 1980s and has lived in New Zealand for many years. He denounced the global propaganda campaign justifying the illegal US‑Israeli war against Iran, including the way governments and corporate media are systematically promoting a narrow, right‑wing layer of supporters of Reza Pahlavi—the son of the deposed Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi—as the supposed voice of “the Iranian community.”
Bahram explained that Pahlavi is backing the imperialist war in order to restore the hated US‑backed monarchy that was overthrown in the 1979 revolution. He said Pahlavi’s supporters in Europe and in New Zealand are “using bullying tactics” and issuing outright threats in an effort to silence anti‑war voices within the Iranian diaspora.
He strongly denounced the position taken by the New Zealand government, which is echoing Washington’s lies. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters declared that the war’s aim was “to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security.” Luxon refused to criticize the criminal conduct of the war, including the bombing of a school which killed more than 160 children.
Bahram pointed out that Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, from the far-right ACT Party, has embraced supporters of Pahlavi. Seymour posted on Facebook a picture of the Lion and Sun flag used by the US-backed dictatorship in Iran, which has become the logo of the pro‑Pahlavi monarchists.
Seymour defended the unprovoked and criminal bombardment of Iran, declaring that “an axis of evil is falling. First in Venezuela, now in Iran, people right across the Middle East can look forward to a lot more freedom without this terrorist organization and its proxies attacking and terrorizing the region.”
This is said by a government that continues to support the genocidal actions of the Israeli military against Palestinians in Gaza—methods that are now being used against the population of Iran. New Zealand’s ruling elite is backing the violent carve-up of the Middle East by US imperialism and its proxies, as part of an increasingly global war.
Bahram told the World Socialist Web Site that the National Party-led coalition government was “ignoring international law and they are ignoring that kids are dying, including 185 teachers and students at a girls school. [The US and Israel] are hitting maternity hospitals and our government’s silent about it.”
The official pretext for war was a sham, he said: “Iran was not ready to develop a nuclear weapon, there is no evidence of it.” Responding to the lie that the war is being waged to “liberate” the people of Iran, Bahram said, “We’ve seen the American ‘freedom’ in Iraq, we’ve seen it in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, women still have no rights, they are treated like animals, and that’s the legacy of America.”
He acknowledged that the conflict, much like the United States’ actions in Venezuela, was intrinsically linked to Washington's broader strategic confrontation directed against China. China, as a major importer of oil and other critical resources from both regions, was simultaneously advancing its efforts to establish a trade corridor through Iran. This initiative aimed to further expand its economic engagement with Eastern European countries.
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Bahram made clear that he opposed Iran’s theocratic and dictatorial regime, which imprisoned and tortured him as a young activist following the 1979 revolution. He knew people killed during the state crackdown on mass protests in January this year, which were driven by social inequality, soaring inflation and demands for democratic rights. He warned that the regime in Iran would make use of the war, just as it had used the war with Iraq from 1980-1988, to suppress internal opposition.
He believes supporters of Pahlavi were only a small minority of the protesters. Their role was “enormously” exaggerated by the international media. There is evidence of audio being added to videos of protests to make it appear that large numbers of people were calling for the restoration of the monarchy. Bahram said the violent actions of pro-Pahlavi groups had played into the hands of the Khamenei regime, providing it with a pretext for brutally repressing the protests. “I hold Pahlavi responsible. Thousands of people died; he has to answer for that.”
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After the bombing began, media outlets published headlines such as “Iranian NZers ‘incredibly hopeful’ attacks will lead to swift regime change” (Radio NZ) and “‘First step toward victory’: Iranians in NZ react to Khamenei’s death” (One News). On March 2, Stuff prominently published a letter from a Pahlavi supporter stating: “The community has a tremendous respect for the US and Israel for their brave and moral action.” Similar items appeared in the media in the US and across the world.
Bahram explained that “Pahlavi wants to ride on the blood of the Iranian people and get himself [into power].” He would then establish a ruthless imperialist-backed regime. “Pahlavi’s document about a temporary government clearly says: we will work with Israel to establish our security system. They want another SAVAK. They’re openly saying that.”
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In Telegram chat groups, Iranians who oppose the war are receiving abusive, often anonymous messages, including threats of violence from pro-Pahlavi individuals. “This bullying is happening not only to the Iranian community here [in New Zealand],” Bahram said. “It’s happening in Europe. I was made aware that the German police have been alerted to it. These people have been going to Iranian businesses and shops saying: ‘If you don’t put our posters up, we will deal with you.’ They haven’t gone to that extent here.
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“There are videos from Europe saying: ‘we will identify you and we will get you if you are against Pahlavi.’ This is open.” In New Zealand, Bahram said, “They find people who are opposed to them, then they send private messages saying: ‘you are a bastard, I will get you.’ Not many Iranians feel safe to speak out or to write to the media.
“I have been informed that a lot of students are being bullied, are getting abusive messages, they say that they don’t feel safe.”
Bahram said he believed most people “are intelligent enough to see that war is not the answer. We have an expression: ‘If the egg breaks from inside, a bird comes out. If the egg breaks from outside, it will be eaten.’ This is always the case.”
He was encouraged by the fact that the Trump administration is extremely unpopular and “a lot of Americans are standing up and questioning the war.” He pointed to the example of a Marine veteran who protested in a Senate hearing against the attack on Iran. “I respect the soldiers who stick with their values, not the orders of their superiors. There are a lot of good people in America, and the government doesn’t represent the people.”
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One recent target of the pro‑Pahlavi groups in New Zealand was the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), which held a public meeting at Victoria University of Wellington on March 4 opposing the war. A Telegram channel circulated the IYSSE’s poster with the message: “This notice is being circulated at the university. If you are a student/professor and would like to object to this, please let me know,” in an attempt to mobilize a campaign against the meeting.
In the event, the Pahlavi supporters were unable to organise any disruption. The meeting went ahead and advanced a socialist strategy to unite the working class internationally against the war and its source in the capitalist profit system, highlighting the alternative to both imperialist intervention and the reactionary Iranian regime. It also exposed the phony anti-war posturing of the opposition Labour and the Green parties, which have criticized the war while still supporting New Zealand’s alliance with US imperialism.
6. SEP/IYSSE public meeting in Colombo: Stop the US-Israeli war against Iran!
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality in Sri Lanka will hold an urgent public meeting on March 17 from 4–6 p.m. at the Public Library Auditorium in Colombo to discuss the escalating imperialist war against Iran and the tasks confronting the working class in Sri Lanka and internationally.
The US-Israeli war of annihilation against Iran is part of the drive of US imperialism for world hegemony. The US is using its superior firepower to reassert its world domination amid its continuing historic decline.
Before waging the illegal war on Iran, the Trump administration fully backed Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and militarily asserted its neo-colonial domination over Venezuela, by abducting President Maduro and compelling it to submit.
As the war against Iran enters its second week, more than a thousand people, including children have been killed, and the country’s infrastructure is being devastated. President Trump has declared that the war will only end with the Iran’s “unconditional surrender”.
This war is being waged not only against the people of Iran. It is part of an emerging global war against working people all over the world.
With the US sinking of Iran’s IRIS Dena frigate in the Indian Ocean, killing at least 140 sailors, the Trump administration has declared to the world that it is not bound by any law, convention, or civilized standard of conduct, but only by the imperatives of US imperialism.
The governments of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Sri Lanka are complicit in the US-Israeli war. Neither country has named, let alone condemned, the US and Israeli, instead issuing meaningless calls for restraint and deescalation.
The SEP stresses that this war will not be stopped by appeals to the fascistic Trump administration or any of the imperialist powers. The defense of the Iranian people and the defeat of the war criminals require the political mobilization of the global working class against world capitalism. This can only be achieved on the basis of an international socialist strategy.
Speakers will discuss the causes of the war, its global implications, the historical and theoretical issues involved, and above all the necessity of the working class politically intervening to stop it.
We urge you to attend this meeting and participate in this important discussion.
Date: Tuesday, March 17
Time: 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Venue: Public Library Auditorium, Colombo
7. Students defy right-wing death threats to protest ICE in Battle Creek, Michigan
On February 20, hundreds of students walked out of class at 1:25 pm at Lakeview High School in Battle Creek, Michigan to participate in a planned protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The day before the protest, 57-year-old Mark Hendricks from the neighboring community of Galesburg was arrested by the Battle Creek Police Department (BCPD) and Michigan State Police on a charge of “making threats to commit violence against students with a firearm.”
Screenshots posted by community members show that Hendricks responded on social media to someone saying “This is going to be awesome” about the planned protest. His response said, “yes, AWSOME!! (sic) WHEN YOU COMMUNIST ILLEGAL ALIEN PEDOPHILE PROTECTING PIECES OF SHIT GET WHAT YOU HAVE COMMING!! (sic) WE WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!!”
Another post by the fascist Hendricks stated “All Maga Patriots!! Come to Battle Creek! Come armed! Be ready to fight and destroy ALL COMMUNIST ILLEGAL ALIEN PEDOPHILE PROTECTORS! THEY DONT DESERVE TO LIVE!!”
News Channel 3 reported that BCPD Sergeant Chris Rabbit said “the threats through the social media platform implied bringing weapons to the protest. … Our response was heightened today in response to the threats. We had 15 officers deployed.”
Despite the threat, hundreds of students gathered at the school’s stadium for student speakers and then marched along the adjacent Helmer Road to the intersection with Business Loop I-94 in front of a Meijer supermarket.
The decision by the students to go ahead with their protest at this high traffic location, after receiving death threats, demonstrates their strong conviction to oppose ICE and the increasingly fascistic actions of the Trump administration.
One of the student speakers said “this entire country is turning into a dictatorship, and no power of hate is greater than love. … I do not see any immigrants as any sort of threat because they are here to survive. I know a couple of kids who need to stay here because they have medical issues and if they go back to where they come from, they’re going to die. I want everybody to be with me in this. I love this country and I can’t let it be like this.”
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The action by the students at Lakeview High School are part of a growing movement of students across the US. In Michigan, the walkouts have taken place in the Detroit-metro area, which contains almost half of the state’s population, as well as many other communities.
In the Grand Rapids area, there have been many walkouts involving hundreds of students. Students walked out at Northview High School January 30, Lowell High School February 3, Grand Rapids Public Museum High School on February 4, Wyoming High School on February 6, Southwest Middle High School February 13, Grandville High School on February 13, and Innovation Central High School February 18.
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In Lansing, the third-largest metro area in Michigan, students walked out at East Lansing High School on January 9, Waverly High School on January 20, Eastern High School on February 3, and Sexton High School on February 3.
Smaller communities have also seen student walkouts, including Traverse City on January 30, Muskegon High School on February 16 and Hart High School on February 18.
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Battle Creek has a sizable and established immigrant community, including a large Burmese population estimated at around 3,000 people in the city and nearby Springfield, as of 2024. Many arrived as refugees and now work in local industries and run businesses. The city has claims immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Iraq and Somalia.
The Battle Creek area is also home to a significant layer of manufacturing workers in food production and auto. While jobs at Kellogg’s and Post have sharply declined over the past 40 years, the auto and other sectors are expanding, and these workers now make up more than 20 percent of the local workforce.
In 2021, 1,400 workers went on strike for 11 weeks against Kellogg’s across four plants before being betrayed by the union bureaucracy. The contract accepted by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) leadership was virtually identical to the one workers overwhelmingly rejected three weeks prior. The agreement expanded the two-tier wage system rammed through in the previous contract in 2015, removing all caps on the number of so-called transitional workers the company can hire.
The deal contained only a single small wage increase in the first year of the five-year agreement for first tier “legacy” workers, with only cost-of-living adjustments for the remaining four years.
“Those stupid simple bastards [in the union] sold us out,” one worker at the Battle Creek plant told the WSWS. “I just feel the fight has just begun,” another Battle Creek worker said. “We didn’t even get half of what we went out for. It’s just disappointing.”
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The threat of violence against students in Battle Creek cannot be explained as merely the deranged ranting of a single individual. Across the country there have been physical attacks and threats directed against students participating in anti-ICE demonstrations.
On February 20, students in Quakertown, Pennsylvania were assaulted by the borough’s police chief and borough manager, Scott McElree. Five students who acted to defend themselves from a sudden attack were arrested and now face felony aggravated assault charges, which, if they are tried as adults, carry a statutory maximum of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000 in Pennsylvania.
Video of the incident shows McElree approached students while in plain clothes, shoving one and placing another—now identified as a 15-year-old girl—in a chokehold before taking her to the ground. Startled students surrounding the man sought to physically prevent the assault.
State and local politicians in Quakertown—both Democratic and Republican—are also threatening the growing opposition by trying to criminalize protest actions by students and teachers. The WSWS has reported that across the US, teachers and school staff are facing investigations, discipline and firings over even perceived support for anti‑ICE protests.
This climate of violence is being deliberately cultivated by the Trump administration and broad sections of the ruling class as part of their drive to establish a presidential dictatorship. Following the killing of 37-year-old Rene Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Vice President JD Vance declared that the ICE officer responsible was protected by “absolute immunity.”
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The defense of students’ democratic rights is inseparable from the struggle of workers in Battle Creek and across the country to defend their jobs, wages and living standards. The same corporations that have eliminated thousands of jobs over the past decades—while enriching themselves—are backed by a political establishment that is expanding its police state to wage war against immigrants, students and workers who oppose its agenda.
Students courageously protesting the ICE raids must turn to workers in Battle Creek’s factories and workplaces, including those at Kellogg’s, Ferrero, Mars and throughout the region’s manufacturing sector. The working class is the only progressive force in capitalist society. Through its labor—and its collective power to withhold that labor—the working class alone has the ability to halt the ruling class’s drive toward dictatorship, stop its illegal wars abroad, and defend jobs, living standards and democratic rights at home.
8. Video: Stop the imperialist war against Iran! Oppose the Albanese government’s complicity!
The assistant national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), Max Boddy, released a video Monday March 9, opposing the criminal US-Israeli war on Iran, denouncing the complicity of the Anthony Albanese Labor Government, and calling for a socialist anti-war movement.
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Workers around the world share a common interest. They have no stake in conflicts fought for oil, profits and global domination. United internationally and based on a socialist program of opposition to all capitalist parties, the working class has the power to stop this descent into catastrophe.
9. Market turmoil set to intensify as war in Iran enters second week
For the first week of the US-Israeli onslaught against Iran global stock markets remained relatively stable, apparently in the belief that it would soon be over. That situation may be about to change as the consequences of the war unfold.
The exception to the relative calm was Asia, marked by a plunge in the high-flying Korean market of 12 percent last Tuesday, the largest single-day fall ever, eclipsing that incurred in the global financial crisis of 2008. Other markets in the region also went down significantly because of the severe impact on Asia of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The selloff could extend further this week as the oil price continues to surge amid predictions that it could soon top the $100 per barrel mark for benchmark Brent crude. Major producers in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kuwait, have announced they are cutting back production. Qatar has invoked force majeure over its inability to meet liquefied natural gas (LNG) contracts.
The price of Brent crude settled at more than $92 per barrel at the end of last week, up by 28 percent since the start of the war, to reach its highest level since 2023. It was $70 a barrel before the war began. The American benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, jumped 36 percent for the week to reach more than $90 per barrel in its largest weekly rise since 1983.
Goldman Sachs, among others, has warned that crude prices could go over $100 per barrel this week “if no signs of solutions emerge by then.” In a note to clients its analysts said oil prices could go to “demand destruction levels even more quickly than history and simple models focusing on Persian Gulf exports only suggest” and that the “unprecedented” supply shock was 17 times worse than in the weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The “solutions” being demanded involve a further escalation of the military onslaught.
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Asian economies dependent on supplies from the Middle East which pass through the Strait of Hormuz are already being adversely affected. The Taiwan government said it was seeking a mutual assistance framework with Japan and South Korea to help deal with any LNG shortages.
Japan has set up a special government office to deal with energy supply issues. The trade minister said it would work “with a sense of urgency.”
South Korea is to enact emergency energy procedures. It imports around 70 percent of its crude oil from the Middle East along with 20 percent of its LNG, all of which passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
The chief economist for the Asia-Pacific at the French investment bank Natixis, Alicia Garcia Herrero, has characterized the situation as “terrible” for Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand because of their lack of reserves and their dependence on supplies coming via the Strait of Hormuz.
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Financial markets are already being impacted because of decisions taken on the basis that the general direction taken by central banks would be to lower interest rates. That scenario has been blown out of the water by the fear that the oil price rises could set off a new inflationary surge.
The chief economist of the European Bank, Philip Lane, has said there could be a “substantial spike” in inflation and a “sharp drop in output” in the Eurozone depending on how long the war lasted.
He warned that the “impact would be amplified if it also gave rise to a repricing of risk in financial markets”—the words used by bankers and financial analysts to describe a significant selloff.
The indications of that are muted as yet but they are present and could rapidly rise to the surface.
President Donald Trump’s nomination of Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma to head the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has quickly won the backing of leading Democratic politicians and sections of the trade union bureaucracy, underscoring the bipartisan character of the assault on immigrants and democratic rights.
Mullin, 48, has been a far-right supporter of Trump, consistently backing the administration’s anti-immigrant policies and the expansion of the domestic police apparatus. Mullin has served in Congress since 2012, first as a member of the House of Representatives and since 2023 as a US senator from Oklahoma. Prior to entering politics he owned a small plumbing and home services company and briefly attempted a career as a mixed martial arts fighter, participating in three amateur bouts roughly two decades ago that lasted less than five minutes combined.
Mullin’s response to the killing of Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti earlier this year underscores the reactionary outlook that he will bring to the Department of Homeland Security. Appearing on Fox News the day of the murder, Mullin immediately repeated the administration’s justification for the killing and slandered the victim as a threat. “A deranged individual who came in to cause max damage with a loaded pistol, with an extra mag that was completely loaded was shot and killed,” Mullin declared, before blaming Democratic politicians for the political fallout from the incident. The remarks echoed the rhetoric of Noem and other administration officials, who lied in defense of the immigration police while at the same time smearing those murdered by them.
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Mullin has also been a vocal supporter of US military aggression abroad. In a recent interview on CNN, he defended the ongoing US-Israeli assault on Iran while falsely claiming the United States was not at war.
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Mullin’s record of defending police violence, promoting anti-immigrant repression and supporting imperialist war leaves no doubt about the political character of Trump’s nominee. It is precisely for this reason that sections of the trade union bureaucracy have rushed to embrace him.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien offered praise for Mullin on Thursday, telling The Hill, “If anyone is willing to stand their butt up to protect America, it’s Markwayne Mullin.” The statement marks a remarkable turn in relations between the two men, who nearly came to blows during a Senate hearing in November 2023 after Mullin challenged O’Brien to a physical fight.
The confrontation, which drew national attention, has since given way to what both men now describe as a friendly relationship. Speaking at the Republican National Convention last year, Mullin said O’Brien apologized to him at the request of Trump and that the two have remained in regular contact.
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Support for Mullin is not limited to the trade union bureaucracy.
Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has already declared he will vote to confirm Trump’s nominee, calling Mullin a “nice upgrade” from outgoing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
Fellow Democratic Senator Peter Welch of Vermont likewise praised Mullin as “competent” and “honest,” predicting that the Senate will confirm him.
Mullin himself has signaled his intention to meet with Senate Democratic leaders, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, to discuss “improvements” to immigration enforcement operations.
“If they have real concerns, I’m going to listen to them. I’m going to see if it’s practical,” Mullin told reporters.
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Despite claims from capitalist politicians in both parties, DHS does not exist to protect the population. Its function is to police and suppress the population in the interests of the financial oligarchy.
All those sowing illusions in Mullin and the DHS are lying to workers.
In addition to the Democrats and Teamsters bureaucracy, Mullin’s nomination has been welcomed by some of the most reactionary forces in American politics.
The anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group long associated with far-right and xenophobic politics, issued a statement congratulating Mullin and declaring it looked forward to working with him as he “carries out President Trump’s mass deportation mandate.”
That endorsement underscores the political character of Mullin’s nomination. His elevation to lead the DHS signals the continued expansion of the federal immigration police and the intensification of Trump’s “mass deportation operation.”
Nothing about Mullin’s appointment signals any change in the role of DHS.
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Democratic and trade union support for Mullin and the DHS exposes these organizations as enemies of the working class. Seven Democratic senators voted to confirm Kristi Noem as DHS secretary, and leading Democrats are now preparing to support her replacement. The unions, integrated into the corporate and state apparatus, function as labor police, suppressing opposition while maintaining close relations with the very officials overseeing mass repression.
The defense of immigrants and democratic rights requires a break with both big business parties and the pro-corporate union apparatus. Workers must organize independently, building rank-and-file committees across industries and national boundaries to unite immigrant and native-born workers in a common struggle against the capitalist system that produces dictatorship, war and social inequality.
11. Trump threatens ground troops, assassinations in escalating Iran war
US President Donald Trump is preparing to deploy ground troops against Iran, several press outlets reported this weekend. While presented as short-term special forces operations against Iranian nuclear sites and oil facilities, any such action would represent a massive escalation of the illegal US-Israeli war against Iran.
Trump himself openly threatened the use of ground troops in remarks to reporters Friday aboard Air Force One, returning from a ceremony to receive the bodies of the first six American soldiers killed in the war—likely the first of many.
What Trump discusses with the brutal Israeli regime and the fascist Republicans in Congress he will not discuss with the American people as a whole. The White House has not sought authorization from Congress for military action against Iran, let alone a declaration of war, as required by the US Constitution.
But the American people have heard this before. The rhetoric of “limited” operations and “special forces” is the same lie the ruling class has told before every major ground war of the past 75 years.
The “military advisers” sent to Vietnam became 550,000 troops. The “shock and awe” campaign in Iraq, launched based on the lie of weapons of mass destruction, was declared over in 2011—only for U.S. troops to return in 2014, where they remain to this day. Afghanistan’s “limited” mission stretched across 20 years. Now, barely one week into a war launched without congressional authorization on fabricated pretexts, seven American soldiers are already dead, and the administration is laying the groundwork for a ground invasion of a country three times the size of Iraq with a population of over 90 million.
The deep unpopularity of this war cannot be overstated. Trump won in 2016 and 2024 by posturing as an opponent of “endless wars”—a fraud now exposed for all to see. Workers instinctively understand that their sons and daughters will be sent to die while gas prices soar, social programs are gutted to fund the war machine, and the specter of a draft looms over an entire generation. This is why the administration speaks in euphemisms about “boots on the ground” while Lindsey Graham assures the public “this is not Iraq.” It is Iraq—and Vietnam, and every other war waged by American imperialism at the expense of working people at home and abroad.
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Trump and Netanyahu stepped up their murderous threats after the Iranian Assembly of Experts elected Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to succeed his father as supreme leader. The elder Khamenei was assassinated in the first hours of the war when Israeli bombs, aided by CIA targeting, struck a leadership compound in Tehran. Trump declared even before the selection that he would have final approval over any new Iranian ruler, in effect promising to murder anyone who took the position without his permission. The Israeli government said Mojtaba Khamenei would be placed at the top of its targeting list.
Actions by the Pentagon demonstrate the vast escalation underway. The aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush has set sail from Norfolk toward the war zone, expected to reach the eastern Mediterranean in 10-12 days. A third carrier in the region will allow US Central Command to maintain and even increase the saturation bombing of Iran.
The Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, an elite paratrooper unit, canceled a planned training operation, “fueling speculation within the Defense Department that soldiers specializing in ground combat and a range of other missions may be sent to the Middle East as the conflict with Iran widens,” the Washington Post reported. There were suggestions in the media that the 4,500-strong Immediate Response Force could be deployed against Kharg Island, the offshore oil facility handling 90 percent of Iran’s exports—either to destroy it or seize it outright
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The American working class must oppose the course of mass murder and destruction of an advanced society and culture on which the US government has embarked. But workers and young people must recognize that no amount of protest or pressure on the Democratic Party will stay Trump’s hand. The Democratic Party, like the Republican, is a party of big business. It defends the global interests of American imperialism and supports the goals of the war against Iran, whatever its quibbling about Trump’s refusing to seek congressional authorization.
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The Democratic Party, while quibbling over procedure, parrots the talking points of the Trump administration and facilitates this genocidal war. The vote last week on a War Powers resolution was a political charade from the start—designed not to stop the war, but to provide a fig leaf for the Democrats’ support of it. Their public posture is to complain about process while repeating the same anti-Iran propaganda used to justify aggression and assassination.
The introduction of ground troops would have massive consequences not only for Iran, but for the entire world and for American society itself. A land war against a country of 90 million people cannot be fought without the total subordination of American society to war, requiring the erection of a ferocious police state to suppress domestic resistance to an unfolding catastrophe.
Yet the very recklessness of this escalation is producing growing anger and opposition. Millions of workers and young people do not want another imperialist bloodbath, and the longer the war continues, the more explosive its economic, social and political consequences will become.
The decisive question is whether this opposition is organized and given conscious political direction. The working class is the only social force that can stop the war. The catastrophic economic consequences of the conflict, and its direct connection to the developing dictatorship within the United States, will demonstrate to millions the necessity of forcing an end to the war, dismantling the US war machine and bringing down the Trump administration.
This requires that opposition take the form of an organized, politically conscious movement—socialist in its program and internationalist in its perspective—mobilizing the immense power of the working class against imperialist war and the capitalist system that produces it.
March 7 marked 11 months since 63-year-old Ronald Adams Sr. was killed at the Stellantis Dundee Engine Plant in Monroe County, Michigan. His widow, Shamenia Stewart-Adams, and co-workers have still received no official explanation of what happened to her husband. The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) has issued no findings. The United Auto Workers (UAW) has said nothing. The engine plant is back in full production.
A spokesman from MIOSHA said that the case was “still open,” almost a year since Adams’ death. An independent investigation conducted by the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), which presented its initial findings at a public hearing in Detroit in July 2025, provided evidence of widespread safety violations by management, including disregard for the most basic lockout/tagout procedures and a rush to complete the retooling of the critical engine plant, which was more than a year behind schedule. Far from opposing this, union officials from UAW President Shawn Fain down, enforced these deadly conditions and joined in the corporate coverup afterwards.
In comments to the World Socialist Web Site, Shamenia Stewart-Adams said, “We need an explanation as to what happened. We have not gotten an update on the investigation or anything. We’ve got no answers. You just wait—no answers. We’re just empty right now. I just feel like a report should have been given. Especially since the factory is back in full production.”
Stewart-Adams also expressed her sympathy with the widow of Antonio Gaston, a worker at the Stellantis Toledo Assembly Plant in Ohio, who was crushed to death eight months before her husband died. The worker’s widow, Renita Shores-Gaston, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Stellantis. “We’ve gone through similar things. There has to be justice for her family and mine,” Shamenia said.
Next month, Stellantis, a multi-billion company, is expected to pay an $11,292 fine in a final settlement of three serious safety violations that led to Gaston’s death, including failing to provide safety guards to protect workers from “pinch points” on the inverted IPF Chassis Delivery Conveyor. According to the family’s attorneys, workers at the plant have alleged that the guards were removed to boost production and Gaston, a materials handler, was not trained to work on the assembly line. Management allegedly assigned him there because of manpower shortages due to hundreds of previous layoffs at the plant.
Will Lehman, the Mack Trucks worker and socialist who is running for UAW president, condemned both Stellantis and the UAW bureaucracy for their treatment of the Adams and Gaston families. In a statement on 11 months since Adams’ death, he stated:
I urge workers at the Dundee plant and throughout the UAW to demand the immediate release of the results of the MIOSHA investigation on the death of our brother Ronald Adams Sr. along with all digital machine logs, safety reports, and communications involving Stellantis, its contractors, and the UAW. As the resolution unanimously passed at the IWA-RFC public hearing stated: those responsible—from corporate executives to union officials and government regulators—must be held accountable for their role in the preventable deaths of Ronald Adams Sr., Antonio Gaston and other workers.
These deaths are not accidents but the inevitable product of a system that sacrifices workers for profit. Every day in America’s industrial slaughterhouse, workers are maimed and killed on the job as corporations drive speed ups, cut safety and treat human life as if it is disposable.
With its continued silence, the UAW bureaucracy is demonstrating a callous indifference for not only the victim of the deadly working conditions, but towards his widow, and his many family members who have been effectively abandoned by the UAW in the family’s search for answers. To workers Adams was the protector of the plant, but the UAW bureaucrats are demonstrating that in addition to being only a number to Stellantis, he was only dues revenue to them. Workers cannot forgive and forget what happened to our brother, and both the company and bureaucracy will be held accountable for their indifference for one of our own.
We cannot defend our lives and livelihoods while we are bound hand and foot by a union apparatus that stands against us at every turn. As it is presently constituted the UAW is a union in name only. It functions to isolate us, discipline us and protect the interests of a privileged bureaucracy that is in bed with the companies and the government.
We, as workers must collectively organize in defense of our social and democratic rights, including the right to a decent standard of living, secure jobs and safe working conditions. My campaign is not about replacing one bureaucrat with another but abolishing the pro-company UAW apparatus, transferring power to workers on the shopfloor, and establishing workers control over safety and production standards by rank-and-file committees, controlled democratically by workers ourselves.
MIOSHA opened an investigation into Adams’ death the day of the fatality on April 7, 2025. Nearly a year on, no findings have been released, no citations issued, and Stewart-Adams has received no communication from the agency. This is less a failure than a feature. Federal and state safety agency investigations are chronically delayed, and when they conclude, typically produce fines that are rounding errors for a corporation the size of Stellantis. The agency exists to absorb public outrage, not to hold corporations accountable.
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In the eleven months since Adams’ death, Shawn Fain’s UAW has issued no statement demanding accountability from Stellantis and made no public demands of MIOSHA. Instead, it moved as quickly as possible to reopen Dundee Engine—protecting production continuity and its dues base over the demands of Adams’ family and coworkers.
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This is not a failure of individual leadership but the institutional character of an apparatus built on class collaboration. For decades the UAW has functioned as a labor-management partnership, suppressing rank-and-file opposition, delivering a disciplined workforce to the corporations, and pocketing the dues. The deaths of Ronald Adams Sr. and Antonio Gaston are the human cost of that arrangement.
These deaths are the direct consequence of the 2023 sellout agreements signed by Fain & Co. after the bogus “stand up” strike at GM, Ford and Stellantis. Hailed as “historic” by the UAW, the Biden administration and the corporate media, the deals paved the way for massive layoffs in the auto industry, most recently in the permanent layoff of 1,100 workers at GM’s Factory Zero in Detroit. Fain who called Trump a “scab” as he stumped for Biden and Harris, turned around and hailed Trump’s “America First” trade measures and illegal tariffs of the fascist president.
More than 5,000 workers are killed on the job in the United States every year—a figure that dramatically undercounts the toll when occupational illness is included. The auto industry has been among the most dangerous, as Stellantis and its rivals have driven speed increases, expanded job combinations and cut safety staffing to maximize returns. Workers who raise safety concerns face discipline or termination with the collusion of the UAW apparatus.
The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) demands the full public disclosure of the MIOSHA investigation; criminal accountability for Stellantis executives responsible for conditions at Dundee Engine and Toledo Assembly; and an end to the UAW’s cover-up of the company’s safety record. We call on autoworkers and workers throughout industry to take up the fight for the families of Ronald Adams Sr. and Antonio Gaston as their own.
13. The US-Israel war against Iran threatens to engulf Türkiye and Azerbaijan
As the US-Israel imperialist war against Iran enters its second week, the risk of this criminal aggression expanding to include NATO member Türkiye and its ally Azerbaijan is coming to the fore.
According to a statement by the Ministry of National Defense on Wednesday, March 4, “A ballistic munition detected to have been launched from Iran and, after passing through the airspace of Iraq and Syria, directed towards Turkish airspace, was timely engaged and neutralized by NATO air and missile defense assets deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean.”
Speaking to AFP, an unnamed Turkish official said the target of the destroyed missile was “not Türkiye,” adding, “We believe the missile was targeting a base in the Greek Cypriot part of Cyprus but veered off course.” The Iranian General Staff also stated that it did not target any US bases in Türkiye.
However, following a meeting of NATO ambassadors, a statement was issued saying, “We condemn Iran’s targeting of Türkiye. NATO stands firmly with all Allies, including Türkiye.” Meanwhile, the Turkish press ran false and provocative headlines such as “Iran attacked Türkiye,” “Iran was going to hit Incirlik,” and “Iran fired missiles at the Ceyhan oil pipeline.”
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On Thursday, it was announced that an attack had been carried out with drones on Nakhchivan Airport in Azerbaijan’s territory bordering Türkiye. President Ilham Aliyev immediately blamed Iran for the attack, calling it a “terrorist action” and said he had ordered the army to “prepare and implement appropriate retaliatory measures.”
Azeris, concentrated in northern Iran, are the country’s largest minority with at least 15 million of Iran’s 90 million population. In 2025, Israel imported 46 percent of its total oil from Azerbaijan. Most of this crude oil flows through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan Pipeline, which passes through Türkiye, and Türkiye’s Ceyhan Port.
Iran has denied allegations of attacks on Türkiye and Azerbaijan. Speaking to the US press, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi said, “Our armed forces deny any claim that a missile was fired at Türkiye or Azerbaijan. NATO says this missile was fired by Iran, but we have no reason to attack Türkiye. Türkiye is our good neighbor. Similarly, there is no reason to send drones to Azerbaijan.” Workers in Türkiye, Azerbaijan, and internationally need to be warned: The US and Israel may resort to any kind of provocation to directly involve regional states in the war against Iran. Türkiye’s involvement in the war could, under Article 5 of NATO, formally draw the entire alliance into the conflict.
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The Trump administration demonstrated in Venezuela that it will not engage in any negotiations when the interests of the national bourgeoisie of sovereign states clash with those of US imperialism; it demands complete submission and a puppet government. Trump is now demanding “complete submission” in Iran.
Following World War I, the territories of present-day Türkiye, which had been occupied and carved up by imperialist powers and their proxies, won their national independence war in 1922 with the support of the Soviet government led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, thereby escaping colonization. However, as Trotsky brilliantly explained in his Theory of Permanent Revolution, this “political independence” did not end the country’s dependence on imperialism as a backward country. Türkiye joined NATO against the USSR in 1952 and became a critical ally of US imperialism in the Middle East.
Whenever this military-strategic alliance faltered, Türkiye witnessed military coups and changes in government. The 1960 coup was followed by the 1971 military intervention, while the 1980 military coup was clearly carried out in collaboration with the CIA. This coup also secured imperialist dominance in Türkiye following the loss of Iran after the 1979 Revolution.
The most recent, NATO-backed, coup attempt was made against Erdoğan on July 15, 2016, almost 10 years ago. It failed. The main reason for the attempt was that the foreign policy of the Erdoğan government was increasingly coming into conflict with the interests of its American and European allies.
While Ankara enthusiastically supported the US war for regime change in Syria, it could not accommodate the Pentagon’s decision to make Kurdish nationalist forces in Syria its main proxy force. The possibility of a Kurdish state was unacceptable to Türkiye’s ruling elite, given the country’s large Kurdish population. Ankara responded by deepening its policy of maneuvering between the US-NATO and China and Russia, while Washington’s response was a coup attempt that included efforts to assassinate Erdoğan.
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Now, workers in Türkiye also face the danger of being drawn into an imperialist war against Iran due to Ankara’s close ties to Washington and NATO. The government, and the capitalist political establishment as a whole, is inherently incapable of providing a progressive response to this crisis. This requires a consistent revolutionary struggle against imperialist war, and the only social force capable of doing so is the working class.
14. "It's always money and power": Protesters speak out at London demonstration against the war on Iran
World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke to some of those who marched through central London on Saturday at the demonstration demanding an end to the bombing of Iran. Thousands joined the protest, reflecting far more widespread international opposition to the escalating war drive led by the United States and Israel, and facilitated by Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
Members of the Socialist Equality Party distributed thousands of copies of the statement, “Stop the criminal US-Israeli war against Iran!”. Many people signed up to participate in the Emergency Online Meeting hosted by the WSWS the next day, “Stop the imperialist war of extermination against Iran!”.
The interviewees expressed deep hostility to the war and distrust of the political establishment responsible for it.
Gazelle, an Iranian, explained, “The biggest threat to Iran right now is the Western imperialists… Iran is the last place they haven’t touched. For them it secures their interests in that region.”
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Another Iranian demonstrator, who asked not to be named, said she attended the protest as “I just can’t hold my anger anymore.”
She expressed anger over the role of the European powers in enabling Israel’s military actions. “I’m against the war,” she said. “I’m against Israel bombing Gaza and bombing wherever they want in the world. I’m very angry with the whole establishment in Europe, because they didn’t stand against Israel when it started committing genocide in Gaza.”
The major powers’ support for Israel had emboldened further aggression. “They believe they can do anything in the world,” she said.
The demonstrator denounced what she described as “a criminal class—an arrogant class that thinks it can do anything,” that is responsible for wars. She said in reference to Jeffrey Epstein—the billionaire buddy of Donald Trump and many others in the upper echelons of the ruling class—“we call them the Epstein class, the Epstein world”.
The fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide, dictatorship and fascism.
