Stephen Sefton, March 15th 2026
Whereas Russia’s initially limited Special Military Operation in Ukraine was deliberately provoked by repeated actions in bad faith by NATO country governments and their proxy Nazi sympathizers in Ukraine, the February 28th attack on Iran by the US and Israel was completely unprovoked. An even more heinous dimension to the criminal aggression against Iran was the false US pretense of engaging in peace talks just as they did immediately prior to their earlier treacherous aggression against Iran in June last year. The catastrophic wars in Iran and Ukraine are essentially two fronts of a single global offensive by the United States and its allies against majority world countries led by China and Russia. At stake within that broader context are two fundamental principles of international relations, the right to self-determination and the principle of indivisible security.
Self-evidently, the US and European powers have supported Zionist usurpation and theft of Palestinian territory ever since 1948, systematically frustrating and suppressing the Palestinian people’s efforts to realize their self-determination over almost 80 years. The same NATO country governments supported the Ukrainian regime’s racist attacks on its Russian speaking populations of the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts, who consequently seceded from Ukraine as independent republics and then joined the Russian Federation in 2022, as had the people of Crimea in 2014. In the case of both Palestine and Donbass, NATO country governments have acted in support of genocidal indiscriminate mass attacks on civilian populations seeking to uphold and defend their right to self-determination.
Ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 the NATO countries led by the US have persistently ignored their commitments under the non-binding 1975 Helsinki Final Act which aimed at promoting peaceful cooperation in Europe based on respect for the principle of indivisible security. The text of the final act recognizes and expresses the intention to pursue efforts to ensure “the indivisibility of security in Europe as well as their common interest in the development of co-operation throughout Europe and among themselves”. Ever since NATO’s criminal aggression against former Yugoslavia in 1999, Russia’s leadership has striven to encourage successive North American and European governments to return to the framework expressed in the Helsinki Final Act, especially in relation to the principle of indivisible security.
Now, after four years of a war against Russia promoted and supported by NATO, the imminent consequence of having violated this principle of indivisible security will certainly be NATO’s strategic defeat in Ukraine. Likewise, in the case of the war against Iran, the consequences of ignoring Iran’s legitimate security concerns will very clearly be the destruction in great part of the Gulf Arab countries and very severe damage to Iran for sure, but, also, a strategic defeat of the United States and of Israel’s genocidal expansionist regime. However, accompanying those momentous outcomes, the unprovoked aggression against Iran also involves a catastrophic impact on the rest of the world’s economy, effectively challenging the infamous longstanding international tolerance of US and Zionist crimes in the region.
To begin with, this impact is being felt in the rise in oil and gas prices which may be long term given the possible drastic cut in production of 25% of the world's oil supply. Many observers have noted the varied disastrous effects of this probable outcome, even if normal commercial traffic through the Straits of Hormuz resumes, on practically the entire world economy in the months to come. The general consensus foresees the main following negative sequels:
* loss of as much as 35% of the world's urea supply for fertilizers seriously affecting world food production
* cuts in the availability of fuel generally, but especially diesel fuel affecting transport costs everywhere as well as industries like fishing and in the case of gas for production processes of materials like cement
* shortages of natural gas and bunker fuel in affected countries will reduce stable electricity supply causing problems for the production of aluminum and glass, affecting every industry dependent on these products and will also affect activities dependent on reliable constant electricity ranging from health care to semi-conductor manufacture
* shortages of petrochemical inputs, industrial gases or materials like sulphur, vital for all kinds of manufacturing processes
Self-evidently, all these cuts and shortages will increase inflationary pressures leading to a fall in consumption in the most important world markets as well as chronic volatility and uncertainty in financial markets compounding what may well be a serious prolonged global recession or even depression. For the governments of many countries, especially of low income countries, resulting deeper indebtedness will greatly complicate their energy, manufacturing and agricultural crisis. All these effects worsen the horrific catastrophe of the destruction of so many lives by these wars caused by the systematic criminality of the US ruling elites and their allies who have long embraced the classic fascist union of corporate and political power.
The wars in Ukraine and in Iran are radically different from the wars of 2011 against Libya, Syria and Ivory Coast, because both Russia and Iran have the military power to be able to prevail against the US and its allies. For Russia and Iran, these wars are conflicts in which they have no choice except to prevail if they are to deter future aggression against their peoples and territory by the rapacious Western ruling elites and their allies. A fundamental necessary outcome for Iran and its allies in the region is the defeat of Zionist expansionism and the removal of US military presence from the Gulf. Similarly, for Russia, the necessary outcomes are an end to NATO expansionism and the categorical neutrality of Ukraine.
These outcomes are also of the utmost importance for China’s security, closer Eurasian integration and more democratic international relations based on respect for the principles of self-determination, indivisible security and international law. The worldwide economic debacle provoked by the US and Israeli aggression will be such as to unite world opinion against failing US imperialism and in favor of China's advocacy for a multilateral commitment to a common destiny. While the US and its allies struggle to assimilate their strategic defeat in Ukraine and Iran, the majority world led by Russia and China will work to consolidate an end to the catastrophic wars imposed by the greedy, sadistic ruling élites of the collective West.