American imperialism is rushing headlong into war with Iran, assuming direct command of a predatory conflict it has long plotted alongside Israel, its proxy in the Middle East. With US support and encouragement, Israel initiated the onslaught on Iran on the night of June 12.
In a series of bellicose, mafia-style posts on his Truth Social media platform Tuesday, President Donald Trump all but publicly declared that he has ordered the US military to directly enter the war.
Making no distinction between US and Israeli forces, Trump declared, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” This was followed by a direct threat to murder Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei. “We know exactly where” he “is hiding,” Trump menaced. “We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But … Our patience is wearing thin.”
Some thirty minutes later, Trump demanded Tehran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
The US-Israeli war on Iran is an act of brazen criminality. The direct entry of American imperialism into the war will have catastrophic consequences for the people of Iran—a historically oppressed country—as well as for the broader Middle East and the world.
It constitutes a massive escalation in the unfolding US imperialist-led global war. Washington has long viewed its drive to subjugate Iran and exert unfettered dominance over the world’s principal oil-exporting region and key ocean trade routes as critical to preparing for war with China.
US imperialism has never reconciled itself to the 1979 popular uprising that overthrew the monarchical dictatorship of the Shah. In declaring “unconditional surrender” the aim of the US-Israeli war on Iran, Trump is spelling out in his typical gangster fashion that Wall Street and Washington are intent on reimposing neo-colonial domination over the Iranian people.
In recent days, the US military has been surging warplanes, naval vessels and other war materiel to the region. With B-52s, which are designed to deliver nuclear weapons, now forward deployed, Trump’s call for the 9 million residents of Tehran to flee can only be interpreted as an implicit threat that the Iranian people could be targeted with nuclear bombs.
The corporate US media is repeating the lies of an “imminent threat” by Tehran, used to justify one criminal US-led war after another.
Assured of the support of Washington and the other major imperialist powers, Israel has already expanded the war to target energy infrastructure, the national broadcaster, hospitals and civilians, in addition to nuclear facilities, missile defenses and command structures.
At the same time, the Zionist regime is intensifying its drive to ethnically cleanse and murder the Palestinians of Gaza.
Trump’s statements, beginning with his Friday posts declaring the Israeli attack on Iran “excellent” and that he had been in on the planning, have demonstrated that from its very outset the war was a joint US-Israeli operation.
The White House’s claim that a sixth round of talks would be held in Oman last Sunday between US and Iranian officials on a peaceful resolution to the nuclear conflict was a ruse, designed to lure Iran’s political and military leaders into a death-trap.
While Trump leads the way, the leaders of the other imperialist powers are backing Israel’s criminal assault on Iran. Speaking Tuesday on the sidelines of the G7 summit, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed gratitude for Israel’s attack on Iran, saying Israel was doing “the dirty work … for all of us.”
Issued Monday evening, the “G7 Leaders’ statement on recent developments between Israel and Iran” casts Iran as the aggressor, and greenlights escalation of the war. It affirms that “Israel has a right to defend itself;” pledges the imperialist powers’ support “for the security of Israel,” and condemns Iran as “the principal source of regional instability and terror.”
What a lie! It is Israel, not Iran, that illegally acquired nuclear weapons with imperialist assistance, and that refuses any and all International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversight of its nuclear program or to otherwise abide by the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
And it was Washington that in 2018 abrogated the UN-backed Iran nuclear accord, with Trump unilaterally imposing sweeping, globally-applicable sanctions on Tehran with the aim of crashing Iran’s economy and precipitating regime change. Western intelligence agencies have repeatedly conceded that there is no evidence Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and, even were it to do so, Tehran is years away from fashioning such a weapon.
The criminality and violence of the imperialist powers are rooted in their desperate crisis.
Whatever the initial outcome of the onslaught on Iran, it will ultimately prove a disaster for US imperialism and its Zionist allies.
Washington’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq ended in debacles. Two decades on, American capitalism confronts a deepening debt crisis, is beset by mounting social conflict, and is headed by a criminal oligarch who is attempting to pre-emptively stamp out mass working class opposition by erecting a presidential dictatorship.
Iran is a complex country with a population of over 90 million and a large and militant working class. The imperialist onslaught will radicalize the masses in Iran, across the Middle East, and globally.
The struggle against imperialism and the emerging third world war requires the development of an independent political movement of the working class animated by a socialist internationalist program.
The expanding Mideast war will undoubtedly produce more surprises and shocks. But there is no question that Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime has been staggered by the initial attack.
This is not principally due to the US-supplied Israeli military having greater firepower and technological savvy. Rather it is rooted in the class character of the Iranian regime. The Iranian bourgeoisie lives in mortal fear of the working class—all the more so in that it has systematically rolled back all the social concessions made to Iran’s workers and toilers in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 Revolution.
Organically incapable of making a class appeal to all the oppressed masses—irrespective of ethnicity or religion—of the Middle East, including the Israeli working class, for a joint struggle against imperialism, the Iranian regime has sought to maneuver in the face of relentless US pressure, repeatedly seeking a rapprochement with Washington. In its delusion that it could strike a deal with Trump short of unilateral disarmament—the same Trump who scuttled the original nuclear accord and has threatened on multiple occasions to annihilate Iran—it walked into the trap laid for it by Washington and Tel Aviv.
The US ruling class is giving overwhelming support to this war of aggression. The Democratic Party has stated its support for Israel’s illegal assault on Iran, and Trump’s role in it.
In an interview on NBC Sunday, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff endorsed the attack on Iran, saying, “So I support those actions. And I support the administration’s actions in helping Israel defend itself.” He added that if Iran were to retaliate against US bases, “Iran opens itself up to potential attacks on Fordow [uranium enrichment refinery] or elsewhere.”
The international pseudo-left is silent on the attack on Iran. Addressing rallies over the weekend against Trump’s attack on democratic rights, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib did not even mention the ongoing bombardment of Iran. Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister who helped impose EU austerity on Greece, wrote in a post on X Monday, “Ignore the war with Iran. Iranians can defend themselves.”
The only progressive answer to imperialist barbarism is the revolutionary mobilization of the working class. The same systemic capitalist crisis that is driving imperialism to world war is compelling the working class into mass social struggles. Over the weekend, millions of people took part in demonstrations against Trump’s attack on democratic rights and on social programs.
The fight to defend the social and democratic rights of the working class must be unified with the struggle against imperialist war. The development of such a movement is dependent however on its arming with a socialist program and a revolutionary leadership. The World Socialist Web Site, the International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated Socialist Equality Parties are dedicated to spearheading this struggle.