Together with Israel, the United States began its murderous bombing campaign against the people of Iran. A day after the strikes began, Trump announced that Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed along with several other key military and political leaders of Iran. Thus far, the U.S. and Israel have bombed over 2,000 targets in Iran, with the promise of many more attacks to come.
For days, the U.S. military was building up its forces in the region, while carrying out its sham negotiations about Iran’s nuclear energy program. The U.S. has used this program as the excuse to impose harsh economic sanctions on Iran for years, aimed at weakening the regime. But none of this has worked at stopping the Iranian regime from being a major thorn in the side of U.S. imperialism in the region. And now with Israel, its partner in genocide, the Trump administration has decided to escalate its attacks on Iran in an effort to weaken and possibly remove the leadership in Iran in order to impose U.S. dominance of the people and resources of the region.
The existence of the current regime in Iran has stood as an obstacle to the domination of the U.S. in the Middle East since 1979, when a popular revolution overthrew the dictatorial Shah of Iran. The Shah was put in power in 1953, when the CIA overthrew the government of the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, whose government challenged U.S. and European interests throughout the Middle East after he nationalized the Iranian oil industry.
The right-wing Islamic dictatorship that took power in 1979, and continues to rule, has stood in the way of the U.S. exerting its total control over the region. And with the U.S. wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and more, Iranian opposition to the U.S. has been an obstacle to the total U.S. domination of the region.
This war is the latest attempt by the U.S. to crush Iran’s influence in order to try to assert its control over the Middle East. This is not a war about Iran’s nuclear energy facilities. This is a war about U.S. imperial domination in the Middle East. For decades, U.S. administrations, from Bush and Obama to Biden and Trump, have tried to weaken and replace the Iranian regime with one that would bend to U.S. imperial interests. These attacks on Iran represent the latest attempt by the U.S. to achieve this goal.
Already, the initial strikes on Iran have hit two schools, one an elementary school for girls, killing at least 153 people. This is just the beginning, as strikes inside Iran in heavily civilian populated areas continue. In response, Iran is targeting Israel and U.S. military bases in the region. They have also launched attacks into countries in the region that are allied with the U.S. Thus far, three U.S. soldiers have been killed and Trump has already warned that others will be killed by Iran’s retaliatory strikes which could last for weeks.
Being opposed to this unjust war on innocent people does not mean we should support the brutal Iranian regime. The regime in Iran is a violent dictatorship that has oppressed the working class and the population of Iran for decades. But that does not give the U.S. or Israel the right to wage war on the people of Iran.
And we can’t believe their lies when the Trump administration claims to care about the people of Iran. The U.S. can’t pretend to be upset about the mass murder of Iranian protestors by their regime, while the U.S. and Israel bomb Iranian civilians, and the Trump administration murders protestors here. Similar to the Iranian dictatorship, the Trump administration wants to crush all opposition and protest inside the U.S. They use their ICE thugs to go after those who stand up, and call those who resist and speak out against ICE terror and Israel’s genocide “domestic terrorists.”
There is a direct link between their military aggression abroad in Iran and Venezuela, and their threats against Cuba and Greenland, and their brutal policies of repression here in the U.S. The Trump administration is saying loud and clear that they are prepared to use the violence of the U.S. military to impose U.S. dominance all over the world. And it is building up its ICE terror campaign here in the U.S. to try to crush resistance from the population.
Neither the people of Iran, the U.S., nor the Middle East have anything to gain from this war. Their wars are a threat to us all. Our future is linked with the majority of the people around the world. We must oppose those who wage these wars to increase their domination over the people and the resources of the world. We cannot allow their wars of mass murder to be carried out in our name.
