EDITORIAL
Corporate Profits Surge from War and Destruction

May 4, 2026

Gasoline prices are surging once again. In Michigan, Indiana and Ohio they increased by close to a dollar per gallon in less than a week! Throughout the country, gas prices are now two dollars per gallon higher than they were just two months ago, when the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran.

Higher prices mean higher profits. The six biggest oil companies in the world are now making 30 million dollars per hour more in profits than before the war. That’s 30 million dollars more profits every single hour, day and night! For the oil companies, that’s tens and hundreds of billions of dollars in extra profits from the war.

The oil companies are not alone. The entire capitalist class in this country is cashing in on this war. Fat orders pour in for the military contractors and all of their suppliers. Energy, chemical and agricultural companies take advantage of shortages to boost their prices on their existing stock, feeding a new wave of inflation. Meanwhile, profits soar. The stock market hits new records.

The business press is jubilant. “American corporate profits keep shrugging off global tumult. Earnings expectations are through the roof,” announced The Economist (April 20). “Corporate America Is Minting Money … Profits grow for many companies in the face of war, rising oil prices and inflation …” announced the Wall Street Journal (April 26).

But those price increases and shortages spell starvation and ruin for the already impoverished populations in the poorer countries of the world. And even here, in this supposed most privileged country, it is the working population that pays the price. Millions of working people can’t afford to buy enough gas for their car to go to work … and put food on the table. Farms and mom-and-pop shops are being squeezed out of business.

All those profits, trillions of dollars—that’s blood money.

The news media and the politicians present this war like it is some kind of wrestling match between the U.S. and Iran. In response to the U.S. and Israeli military attacks, Iran blockades the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off vital shipments of energy and other primary materials that feed the world economy. So, the U.S. Navy blockades the Iranian ports, initiating a siege of the Iranian economy.

Who’s going to win? That’s the question they all ask.

But the U.S. and Israel didn’t just bomb Iran’s military installations. Their bombing campaign was aimed at destroying the Iranian economy and demoralizing the Iranian population. The U.S. and Israel targeted Iran’s roads, bridges and ports. They bombed vital industries, including the country’s main steelmaking and petrochemical factories. They even bombed a lot of residential neighborhoods.

It is the Iranian working class that has paid the price. Thousands have been killed and wounded, while millions have been forced from their homes. At least two million people have been thrown out of work. And the cost of living has soared, with the annual inflation rate reaching 67% per month. The damage is so extensive, it will take decades to rebuild. And that’s assuming the U.S. and Israel don’t resume their bombing and missile attacks—which is a real possibility.

No, Trump and the rest of the U.S. rulers are no friends of the Iranian people—no matter how much they pretend.

The U.S. is not bombing Iran in order to spread democracy, which is the usual horrible lie that the U.S. superpower always tells when it bombs and murders in other countries. No, the U.S. and Israel, its junior partner in the Middle East, went to war against Iran for one reason and one reason only. They want to weaken a regime that did not always obey U.S. dictates, a regime that is also allied with Russia and China, the U.S.’s main global rivals, over whom the U.S. superpower is also trying to impose its domination. The U.S. superpower is thus opening up a new chapter in human history of war, chaos and destruction. It is a future of barbarism.

This is sheer insanity. Another future is possible. Humanity has within its reach all the means to get rid of poverty and want. The wealth and technology are there. They’ve been there for a long time. But that possibility can only be realized by the working class when it enters into a period of struggle, fighting to wrest the power away from the capitalist class. And when the U.S. working class enters into this fight, it will find it has powerful allies: the working class in Iran … and around the world.