Global crisis 'raises new prospect of war on Iran'

Louise Nousratpour at the Labour Representation Committee conference in Conway House
Sunday November 16, 2008
The Morning Star

DELEGATES have vowed to mobilise against any plans to attack Iran, warning that the economic crisis has brought a new threat of war.

The Labour Representation Committee conference heard that the global slump could lead to more wars driven by a capitalist system desperate to restore lost profits through arms sales and plunder.

Opening the session on international issues, left Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn urged delegates to affiliate to anti-imperialist organisation Liberation, which was founded as the Movement for Colonial Freedom in 1954.

He said that Liberation had links to a large number of solidarity groups around the world and that "international solidarity is the only answer to this global crisis.

"The way mainstream media reports the crisis, you would think that it only affects the West and big business profits. But the reality is that, for the first time ever, some one billion of the world's population have plunged into starvation."

Socialist Youth Network representative Ben Lewis warned the conference that the threat of military action against Iran had not passed.

"One of the best ways for capitalism to solve its crisis is through war and military intervention," he said.

"We have already seen the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan spill over to Pakistan and Syria."

The committee's anti-war commission chairman Mike Phipps called on delegates to endorse a statement issued by the Justice for Iraq conference in July in London.

It reads: "We call on those states responsible for the invasion and occupation of Iraq to terminate their illegal and immoral war and express our solidarity with the Iraqi people in their struggle for peace and self-determination."