Colonial violence, lies, and reruns
Starting June 13, Israel has launched an unprovoked bombing campaign on Iran, killing at least 430 civilians and wounding thousands. On June 21 and 22, the United States joined the attack.
One doctor in Tehran described the aftermath of the initial attack as a bloodbath. “We were overwhelmed by chaos and the screams of grieving family members.”
The US and Israel justify their assault on Iran as preemptive strikes against Iran’s nuclear program. But we’ve seen this episode before — it’s a rerun of the same lie told against Iraq in 2002–03.
In reality, the world should fear the US and Israel first and foremost. The US has more than 5,000 nuclear warheads and is the only nation in history to have used them in war — against Japanese civilians in 1945. Meanwhile, Israel has refused UN inspection of its estimated 100–200 nuclear weapons. Both operate on the bloodthirsty logic of imperialism and Zionism.
The real plan behind the attacks, as “disclosed by Israeli broadcaster Channel 14, reportedly seeks to destabilize Iran’s government through systematic bombing of strategic sites while coercing mass evacuation from densely populated areas.” Defense Minister Israel Katz warned: “Tehran will be treated like Beirut”.
Imperial hypocrisy
Israel is exploiting the unpopularity of the Iranian regime to try and gain support for their assault. In a televised address to the Iranian public between bombings, Netanyahu claimed: “We are clearing the path for you to achieve your objective, which is freedom.”
As Bella Beiraghi wrote in Red Flag, “this narrative — that bombing people while they sleep will facilitate their freedom from the forces of political oppression — has been repeated time and again during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.” The same lie was used to justify toppling Iraq in 2003.
It’s not just Netanyahu or Trump — the entire imperialist and capitalist system reeks of violence and hypocrisy.
Western media outlets are trotting out figures like Reza Pahlavi, the son of the disgraced former dictator of Iran, who says that Israeli strikes will help “liberate” the country. As if 90 million Iranians still want secret police, only the return of the Shah’s secular ones. Did Western bombs free the people of Iraq or Libya?
As Iran’s missiles struck Israel, including a hospital in Beersheba, the Israeli military decried: “Attacking hospitals is a crime.” Are we to believe that, after two years of bombing hospitals and flattening Gaza, Israel has suddenly discovered international human-rights law?
World leaders speak of “restraint” while continuing to send arms to the genocidal apartheid state of Israel. Democrats chastise Trump for acting without Congressional approval, while still framing Iran as the belligerent enemy. None of them have an ounce of respect for democratic rights.
Beyond anti-war: we need anti-imperialism
Israel and the US have brought catastrophe and genocide to the whole Middle East while most of the “civilized” world has stood by and supported it. Western media and politicians have spent the past 20 months downplaying and justifying similar horrors in Gaza. Beiraghi puts it starkly:
Tens of thousands of Palestinians and thousands of Lebanese have been slaughtered with impunity. The calculation now is that hundreds or thousands of Iranians added to the toll will not be of any international consequence. But each death is more than a number. It’s a child who will never become an adult; it’s a family torn apart forever.
Even as Trump has posed as peacemaker at times, the US government and its ruling class are directly responsible for this war. Besides the US’s own bombing, Israel would never be able to commit genocide against Palestine or attack Iran without US funding and backing. Israel is the US’s “watchdog” — a watchdog that sometimes slips the leash in pursuit of their shared goals. The US may bristle as Israel disrupts the stability it needs to dominate the region, but it is always willing to fund, justify, and manufacture consent for the Zionist entity’s crimes.
As revolutionary socialists in the US, our main enemy is the US empire, including what Netanyahu called a “mighty aircraft carrier of our common civilization,” the Zionist state.
The US ruling class has hated Iran since the revolution in 1979 removed the Shah dictatorship, a key prop of US imperialism in the region. From Jimmy Carter on, Republicans and Democrats alike have sanctioned the Islamic Republic regime, severely hurting the people of Iran. The US backed Iraq in the Iran–Iraq war in the 1980s, resulting in over 450,000 people killed. Even the peace plan imposed by the US — just like the nuclear treaty negotiated under Obama — was a way for imperialists to control Iran.
Anti-war sentiment must be clear on opposing the system — capitalism — that drives countries to carve up and dominate the world through imperialism. It’s not just Netanyahu or Trump — the entire imperialist and capitalist system reeks of violence and hypocrisy.
The main enemy is at home
The ruling classes of the region are not without blame. Some, like Egypt’s Sisi or the Saudi royal family, are in bed with the US and Israel. Egypt’s security forces just recently attacked and deported a mass caravan of North African and international activists trying to break the siege on Gaza.
Others, like the Gulf monarchies or Turkey, deploy rhetoric supporting Palestine, but fear protests for Palestine might get out of hand and threaten their own regimes. Palestine solidarity protests were one of the ferments of the Arab Spring/MENA revolutions of 2011–2013.
Revolutions in countries across the region could establish workers’ governments that could offerreal, not rhetorical, support to the people of Palestine and Iran.
“Yes the Iranian people have been fighting against a brutal dictatorship for decades. No, that does not in any way justify the blatant, unprovoked act of war committed by Israel against Iranian land and people.” — Sahar Delijani
Iran, for its part, has jockeyed into position as a regional power. It has built up allies and proxies that have served the cause of Palestinian liberation at turns, like the Houthis in Yemen, and undermined it at others.
Iran and the Lebanese militia it backs, Hezbollah, assisted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime in its brutal repression of Palestinians and solidarity with Palestine. Together they flattened the Palestinian refugee camp, Yarmouk, during the Syrian revolution. That enclave was once home to beloved Palestinian activist and just-freed political prisoner Mahmoud Khalil’s mother’s family.
Far from leading an “Axis of Resistance,” the Iranian government protects its own interests first and foremost, just like any other capitalist state.
In the past decade, Iran has seen massive popular protests and workers’ strikes — and faced severe state repression. Western sanctions have devastated the economy, while the theocratic and military elite loot what they can from it.
As Firebrand, we stand with Iran’s exploited and oppressed against their rulers, without falling into the trap of supporting imperialist attacks against Iran. We also reject the US and Israel’s cynical appropriation of the Kurdish slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” to justify their aggression, as if either had any interest in women’s liberation. Dealing with the theocracy in Iran is up to the Iranian people, not any other state or its bombs.
As Iranian poet Sahar Delijani wrote:
Yes, the Iranian people have been fighting against a brutal dictatorship for decades. No, that does not in any way justify the blatant, unprovoked act of war committed by Israel against Iranian land and people.
As revolutionary socialists in the US, our main enemy is the US empire, including what Netanyahu called a “mighty aircraft carrier of our common civilization,” the Zionist state.
Our main slogan — especially as bombs fall on Iran — remains: US and Israel out of the Middle East. Down with imperialism and Zionism. Defeat to the US and Israel.
