Hamid Alizadeh, editor of www.marxist.com, discusses the recent confrontation between American and Iran, and explains why the left and the labour movement must oppose US imperialist aggression.

The current sabre-rattling, as Hamid states, escalated on 3 January with the killing of the Iranian military general, Qassem Soleimani - one of the top figures in the Iranian regime.

This was a clear provocation by Trump, designed as a chest-beating exercise to distract from the problems the US President faces back home, and also with his reactionary foreign allies in Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The result, however, has been to push ordinary people in the Middle East behind the Iranian rulers, in opposition to US imperialism, thus cutting across the class struggles and revolutionary movements that have been developing in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon in recent months.

It is the duty of all socialists to oppose the warmongers in Washington and London, and to fight to overthrow our own imperialist ruling classes.