Several weeks have passed since the war began with large-scale U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. In the first days, Trump and Netanyahu presented the operation as a “short and precise war”: a lightning strike that would eliminate the leadership and destroy the military infrastructure of the Islamic Republic, paralyzing the regime’s power apparatus and paving the way for a rapid collapse of the government. But the reality on the battlefield tells a very different story. The Islamic regime has not collapsed, nor has Iranian society moved toward regime change through foreign intervention. On the contrary, Iran continues to strike Israeli targets and U.S. bases in the region, and the war that was supposed to last only a few days has turned into a prolonged and regional conflict.
At the same time, the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has shown that this war is not merely a military operation but a development with potentially global economic consequences. Disruptions in oil shipping and attacks on energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf have shaken global energy markets and driven oil prices sharply upward. The war in the Middle East is therefore directly affecting the world economy. Trump’s political maneuvers and his calls for other powers to join the conflict clearly demonstrate that the current war is not simply a dispute between a few states; it is part of the deeper crisis of the global capitalist order – a system that, when confronted with economic and geopolitical deadlocks, repeatedly resorts to militarism and imperialist rivalry.
But war does not only transform the geopolitical landscape of the region; it also reshapes social and political relations within societies. The Islamic Republic, which in recent years had been significantly weakened by social uprisings, women’s protests, and workers’ struggles, has now found in wartime conditions a new opportunity to rebuild its authority. War allows the regime to militarize society, intensify repression, and portray itself as the “defender of the nation.” This is one of the central contradictions of imperialist wars: the same wars that are launched in the name of “freedom” or “regime change” often end up strengthening precisely those regimes they claim to overthrow.
On the other side, sections of the Iranian right-wing opposition and neo-fascist nationalist forces – which for years have relied on the scenario of foreign intervention – have increasingly revealed themselves as instruments in Western war projects. Recent demonstrations organized by these groups in European cities, including gatherings held in Stockholm with the presence of figures from Western pro-war circles, provide a clear illustration of this development. Slogans such as “Aryan blood flows in our veins” and open praise for Trump and Netanyahu expose the reactionary and fascistic character of this current. Here, extreme nationalism and neo-fascist tendencies attempt to present themselves as political tools for NATO’s geopolitical agenda.
These forces do not represent freedom or a democratic future for Iranian society. Instead, they seek to turn social uprisings and genuine popular struggles into fuel for a proxy war whose outcome would not be liberation but destruction, instability, and new forms of domination.
For this reason, the response to the current war cannot be to choose between two reactionary camps. Neither the Islamic regime nor the imperialist powers and their regional allies represent the interests of the people. Both sides ultimately follow the same logic: preserving power, controlling resources, and managing the crises of capitalism through militarism and war.
In the face of these two reactionary poles, only one real path exists: the construction of an internationalist movement against war and against the system that produces war. Such a movement does not appeal to states for peace, nor does it align itself with any power bloc. Its task is to organize a social force capable of challenging the war machinery of states and the nationalist propaganda used to legitimize war.
This means building anti-war and anti-capitalist centers of resistance in workplaces, universities, and neighborhoods; linking social struggles in Iran with workers’ movements and anti-war movements across the region and the world; and making clear a simple but decisive truth: the wars of states are not the wars of the people.
If such resistance from below does not emerge, the present war will not only produce greater destruction but will also turn the region increasingly into a battlefield for great-power bargaining and proxy conflicts. The only force capable of breaking this destructive cycle is the internationalist solidarity of workers and peoples.
The war that is burning the region today is a war of states.
The answer must be the common struggle of the people against war, against despotism, and against the capitalist order that generates these conflicts.
Toward anti-war and anti-capitalist centers of resistance
Against nationalism and fascism
Long live internationalism
Mars 15, 2024
Interantionalist Workers Organization