We stand with the Iranian people.
We express our full solidarity with the Iranian people and condemn without hesitation any military aggression and any collective punishment imposed on civilian populations. Bombardment, sanctions, and threats of wider war only deepen the suffering of working people – who once again, as in every war, are made to pay the price for conflicts they did not create.
However, the present confrontation cannot be understood as a struggle between imperialism and anti-imperialism. What is unfolding is a sharpening conflict within the imperialist world system itself – a system defined not merely by the foreign policy of particular governments, but by the global dominance of monopoly capital, the export of capital, and the hierarchical organisation of states through uneven development.
In this context, Iran is not an anti-imperialist alternative. It is a sovereign capitalist state integrated into the imperialist world order, occupying a subordinate position within its hierarchy while pursuing its own regional ambitions and forms of influence.
The Iranian state emerged from a rupture that expelled direct Western domination and established national sovereignty. That rupture, however, did not abolish capitalist relations of production. The state today functions to preserve sovereignty while consolidating accumulation under a nationally rooted bourgeoisie.
Its economy remains structured around oil and gas rents, state-mediated monopolies, private accumulation, and strategic partnerships designed to secure markets, capital, and regional leverage. Sanctions and external pressure have not transformed this class character; they have reshaped patterns of accumulation and encouraged closer alignment with rival blocs seeking to challenge the dominance of the US-led order.
None of this negates the fact that, in the specific context of Palestine, Iran positions itself in opposition to Israeli expansionism and US-backed Zionist aggression. That opposition may weaken the regional dominance of Israel and its imperial sponsors. But the weakening of one pole within the imperialist system does not alter the class character of the state pursuing it. Tactical convergence against a common enemy does not transform a capitalist project into a socialist one.
The escalation now intensifying must therefore be understood as a confrontation shaped by the contradictions of the imperialist system – involving a dominant imperialist bloc and a regional imperialist state seeking to strengthen its position within that same global hierarchy.
None of the ruling classes involved act in the interests of the working class.
Solidarity with the Iranian people must not become political support for the Iranian state. Opposition to Western aggression cannot mean alignment with rival capitalist blocs manoeuvring to reshape the global order in their own interests.
Down with imperialism – everywhere.
No war but the class war.