"No to a regional war!" graphic produced by Standing Together, original here.
Attacks by Israel on targets associated with Iran’s nuclear programme, and Iranian attacks on Israeli targets in response, are a dangerous escalation that threatens the safety of people across the region.
A new Israeli attack on Iran, most likely with US backing, had long been anticipated by many commentators and analysts. The first wave of those attacks struck high-profile targets, including killing Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, a key unit of the Iranian regime.
Israel wants to cut off Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons. US President Donald Trump has framed Israel’s attacks as punishment for the Iranian regime's failure to sign a new nuclear treaty with the USA, and offered them a “second chance” before an even more “brutal” wave of attacks. But Trump’s Israeli allies do not want to see such a deal signed; they want a free rein to hit Iran as hard as possible.
Workers' Liberty opposes war between Israel and Iran on both sides. Israel’s actions are inseparable from the wider project of its rulers to bolster Israel’s power in the region. The savagely destructive war it is carrying out in Gaza, and the increasingly violent occupation of the West Bank, are also aspects of that project. However, Iran’s attacks on Israel do not take on a progressive character merely by dint of being retaliatory. Iran’s militarism, too, is a projection of its regional-imperialist ambitions.
Some currents on the left see Iran’s bellicosity towards Israel as somehow an extension of the struggle against Israel’s colonial subjugation of the Palestinians. It is nothing of the sort. The Iranian state is a brutally authoritarian theocracy, whose leaders talk of “wiping Israel off the map”. The conquest of Israel by Iran, in alliance with its proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis is a reactionary fantasy, but were it to be realised, the result would not be a “free Palestine”, but an oppressive totalitarianism built on blood and ashes.
It is hardly unreasonable for Israelis to be concerned about the prospects of such a regime developing a nuclear bomb. But an Israeli war on Iran will, as well as taking a toll in Iranian civilian life, make the people of Israel less safe, not more. In addition to the threat to Israeli civilians from immediate Iranian retaliation, in the medium term it may well cause the Iranian regime to accelerate its nuclear programme rather than abandon it.
Some protests against the war have been called under the slogan “hands off Iran”. The force whose "hands" socialists should be most concerned to get “off Iran” is the clerical-fascist regime. Israel’s war should be opposed for the inevitable toll it will take on civilian life and for the risk of even wider regional conflagration it represents. The left should not pretend Israel is about to colonise Iran, thereby casting the Iranian ruling class in the role of anti-colonial freedom fighters.
We stand with Iranian workers, women, and youth against the clerics’ regime. We stand with those in Israel-Palestine fighting for peace and equality. No to regional war, for peace and equal rights!
Click here for a 2008 debate sparked when Israel looked like bombing Iran's nuclear installations, but in fact didn't.
Comments?We welcome replies, corrections and debate pieces. Contact us