As dawn broke on June 13, the skies above Iran were lit by waves of airstrikes unleashed by Israeli forces. This large-scale assault, reportedly involving hundreds of fighter jets, struck numerous targets – including scientific research centres, military command posts, and civilian areas. Preliminary reports confirm the death of over 70 civilians, alongside several key figures in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the nuclear sector.
This violent escalation is not an isolated incident, but the latest episode in a long and calculated campaign by the Zionist regime to assert its dominance over the Middle East.
We denounce in the strongest terms the Israeli regime’s latest escalation, and equally condemn the governments that have affirmed their support for such an unjustified and unprovoked attack. Backed economically, diplomatically, and militarily by U.S. and NATO imperialism, Israel has, over the last eight decades, developed into a regional imperialist power, carrying out brutal campaigns against all its nearby states with the dual aim of expanding its territory and exporting its capital. Focusing only on recent years, Iran is the latest country attacked, as this aggression comes in the wake of a genocidal war against the Palestinian people, ongoing invasions of Lebanese territory, near-daily bombardments of Syria, and shadow warfare against Yemen.
While Israeli and Iranian authorities alike present the current conflict as rooted in ‘security’ or ‘defence’, communists understand that what motivates the current escalation is the intensifying contradictions of the imperialist world system – contradictions driven by a crisis of capital overaccumulation, which in turn accelerates the decline in the rate of profit across the global capitalist economy.
Viewed in this light, it becomes clear that Iran is not a progressive defender of Palestinian resistance, but is itself a capitalist state pursuing its own imperialist ambitions in the region, exploiting the current instability to extend the reach of its own monopolies and strengthen its marginalised position within the imperialist system. The clash between Israel and Iran is therefore not a battle between anti-imperialism and imperialism: it is a power struggle between competing capitalist blocs. It is a confrontation among robber powers, each fighting for supremacy, and none acting in the interests of the working class.
While it is crucial for Palestinians to exploit contradictions among imperialist powers in pursuit of their just struggle for national liberation, it is even more crucial to recognise that there can be no illusions in capitalist states or imperialist blocs. One does not defeat one imperialist pole by siding with another. The only path out of this infernal cycle lies in the struggle of the oppressed people of Palestine and the internationalist working class against Zionism, imperialism, and capitalism. Solidarity with the Iranian people must not become support for the Iranian state. In the same way, solidarity with the Palestinian struggle must not mean uncritical alignment with Iran, China, Russia, or any other bourgeois power manoeuvring to reshape the global order in its image.
The workers of the world have no interest in this war. It is not our war. Its blood price is paid by our brothers and sisters – crushed beneath bombs, starved by sanctions, or forced to flee.
Down with imperialism – everywhere. No war but the class war!