Defend Iran, Defeat Zionism and US Imperialism

On Friday 13 June, the Israeli regime attacked Iran, bombing the capital, Tehran and other cities. Iranian officials have reported 224 deaths, mostly civilians, while Israel said 24 of its civilians were killed by Iran’s counterstrikes. Residents of both countries have been evacuated or fled.

Global oil markets are poised for big price increases following strikes on the world’s biggest gas field, South Pars which is shared by Iran and Qatar. This will increase the price of fuel and all other commodities all over the world.

US president Trump is evidently in full support of Israel’s war on Iran and is reported to have said, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran” and suggested that the US was able to kill Iran’s supreme leader. Iran’s main military and security advisers have been killed by Israeli strikes.

Israel’s lethal air strikes are the most dangerous attack on the country and targeting of Iranian leaders since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran countered by launching several waves of missile attacks, targeting airbases used for Israeli air strikes. While the war with Iran is intensifying, Israel has continued with its attacks on Gaza, killing dozens of starving aid seekers in Khan Younis.

The G7 (governments of the seven most powerful nations) expressed support for Israel while calling for “broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East”.

Ever since Hamas staged its prison breakout and military attack on Israel on October 7 2023, that triggered Israel’s genocidal war against the native Palestinians, Iran’s regional power has declined as Israel attacked its partners in the “Axis of Resistance” – from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq. Iran’s close ally, Syria’s autocratic leader Bashar al-Assad, was ousted in a coup d’état orchestrated by a Turkey/US/Saudi Arabia/Israel alliance.

Israel’s pre-emptive strike on Iran

Israel launched its air war, its largest ever on Iran, on Friday after claiming that the Islamic Republic was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. This has been a regular claim by the Israeli regime for over thirty years, and they have seized any opportune moment to defeat Iran and ensure their political dominance in the Middle East. Both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have stated that Iran does not possess nuclear weapons and that their nuclear capabilities were limited to civilian use.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has pointed to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has over 100 nuclear weapons and is not a party to the NPT.

Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will continue with the war until Iran’s nuclear development is completely disabled. Trump has supported this position and called on Iran to surrender if it wants Israel to stop destroying the country and killing thousands of Iranians. By ensuring Israel’s impunity, the US president has emboldened the Israeli regime to commit more war crimes and continue with the genocide of the Palestinians.

Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities are illegal and will eventually end the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and encourage other countries to develop nuclear weapons as the best form of security.

Several countries have broken the treaty in its history – Israel, India, Pakistan and apartheid South Africa. None of these countries were threatened by war at that time but because all of them were allies of the United States it was supported by Western powers. Yet Iran, which is constantly under threat from Israel, the US and Nato, and has been sanctioned for several decades, is now being attacked by Israel and the US for not even having nuclear weapons but merely developing nuclear capacity. This scenario, as we have seen it unfold before, is intended for regime change against enemies of the West. Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), and Libya (2012) were attacked to ensure the political dominance and control over the valuable resources of these countries by the US and its Western allies, Britain and France. With Israel’s latest and biggest attacks on Iran, Israel is calling on the Iranian people to rise up and oust the Iranian government.

Nuclear Warheads and Power

Country | Number of nuclear warheads
US | 9400
Russia | 6000
China | 600
France | 300
Britain | 200
India | 180
Pakisan | 170
Israel | 100

Israel and the USA – A Long History of War and Invasions

Iran has never initiated any wars against any country in its modern history despite hostility and attacks by Israel and the US since 1979.

There is a long history of western imperialist intervention in Iran, including the coup d’état that overthrew the democratically elected secular government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. Western imperialist forces (the US, Britain and France) reinstated the autocratic monarchy, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to ensure their control over Iran’s vast oil and gas reserves. This arrangement was disrupted by the Islamic revolution in February 1979 and ever since, the new theocratic regime has been the enemy of the West and Israel, its proxy state and Middle Eastern military force.

Why we as South Africans must defend and support Iran

This is a conflict about redrawing the map of the Middle East. If Israel wins this war and defeats Iran, this would be a serious setback not only for the Mullah regime but also for the Iranian people, the Palestinians and all oppressed peoples in the region. It would strengthen the hegemony of the imperialist settler state as well as of the U.S. However, if Iran manages to repel the Zionist aggression, this would be a terrible blow for Israel and would immediately open a major domestic crisis. Weakening the Zionist state would aid the liberation struggles of the Palestinian, the Syrian, the Lebanese and the Yemeni people. And it would also weaken the hegemonic position of U.S. imperialism in the region.
https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/on-those-socialists-who-refuse-to-defend-iran/

In any imperialist, unjust war, the issue is the economic interests of major powers – in particularly Iran’s oil. Iran has, after Saudi Arabia, the world’s second largest oil reserves (approximately 11.6% of global reserves). Iran also has an important geo-strategic position by which it controls the shipping and oil transport via the Strait of Hormuz. Likewise, the Western powers would have through a compliant regime in Tehran, better access for oil pipelines from central Asia, the Persian Gulf and the border with Russia.

We have recently seen how the U.S. regime’s president related to South Africa by expelling its ambassador, Ebrahim Rassool, and falsely accusing the government of a conducting a genocide against white South African farmers. All this was dramatically performed at the White House while the U.S. was supporting and supplying Israel with the weapons to carry out the horrific genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza that has killed over 100,000 and destroyed the homes and lives of over 2-million people.

The interests of the U.S. and the major capitalist countries is to exploit our natural resources and cheap labour. If any country and its people oppose this and stand in the way of this exploitation, they get bullied and coerced to cooperate. Depending on the conditions, this can result in violent war and destruction by these imperialist countries’ rulers. Failure to oppose their every act of coercion and bullying only encourages them to perpetrate greater horrors. This has been the experience of many countries that have since become enemies of the US and the West, such as Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and China. Their mainstream media has portrayed these countries as “terrorist” whereas history has shown that the real terrorists are the Western imperialist countries that colonised the rest of the world, committed genocide of the native people, killing millions of people and continue to subjugate the majority of the world’s people in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

We must adopt an anti-imperialist position to defend Iran against imperialism, irrespective of the nature of their regime. We must call on all working class and progressive forces to oppose Israel and U.S. imperialism. An imperialist/Zionist victory will be a major defeat for the international working class. Conversely, a successful defence of Iran and defeat of Israel will be a victory for the international working class of all countries, especially of the Middle East and the USA, and shift the balance of class forces by direct working-class political action. It will contribute to the end of Israel’s colonial genocide of the native Palestinians and build working class confidence internationally. Defence of Iran does not imply support for the reactionary theocratic regime, but rather a working-class defence of Iran’s national sovereignty against Zionism and US imperialism.

Martin Jansen is the director of Workers’ World Media Productions and an executive member of Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Cape Town