Israel is subjecting Lebanon to a campaign of ‘Gazafication’ – systematically levelling villages, displacing populations and targeting journalists and medical staff – under the pretext of ‘fighting Hezbollah’. Their intention is clearly to prevent any ceasefire between the US and the Iranians, and to seize Lebanese territory by force of arms while much of the media’s attention is focused on Iran.

For over a month, Israeli and US strikes have targeted every major city and province across Iran. As of 13 April, the Iranian Red Crescent has confirmed 2,076 deaths, overwhelmingly of civilians, but the real figure is much higher as many are buried under rubble.

The war in Iran, which started as a reckless gamble on the part of Trump, is developing into a significant strategic defeat for US imperialism, which can have important consequences for the world economy, the position of America as a world power, and world relations in general. 

“Total and complete victory. 100 percent. No question about it.” With these words, Donald Trump described the two-week ceasefire with Iran announced last night.

The US-Israeli war on Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz have created a crisis in the world economy and further exposed the fault lines between US imperialism and its Russian and Chinese competitors.

Four weeks into the US-Israel war of aggression against Iran, the war aims of US imperialism have not only not been achieved, but they look further away than before. Trump is faced with an impossible situation. If he cuts his losses and declares victory now that would represent a massive humiliation for US imperialism, and a massive personal blow. But any attempt to escalate would be fraught with danger and carry serious risks with only a slim chance of success. At the present time he appears as if he is attempting to do both at the same time.

The war in the Middle East, ignited by the US and Israel’s full-scale attack on Iran, has dealt a hammer blow to the world economy. Asia, though bearing no responsibility for Trump and Netanyahu’s reckless adventure, is among the heaviest casualties of the economic fallout. As the war rages with no end in sight, Asian workers must be ready to resist any attempt by the ruling class to make them foot the bill.

Seeing an opportunity, on 22 September 1980 Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. The Iranian military had largely dissolved following the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Republic, less than a year old, was far from having consolidated its power. The Islamists faced the grueling task of rebuilding the Iranian bourgeois state, as power remained effectively in the streets.

Drunk with success in Venezuela, Trump thought that the same methods could be used to force Iran to submit. Either a threatening naval force encircling the country would lead to capitulation, or a short sharp decapitation strike would produce regime change through the emergence of a new leadership willing to comply with imperialists’ demands (a ‘Delcy in Teheran’ as some put it).

Following the US and Israel's scandalous, unprovoked attack on Iran, we are republishing the following article, which was first written after the 12-Day War in June 2025. It remains every bit as true as then.

We publish here a statement sent to us by the Communist Alternative Organization in Iraq on the tragic death of their comrade Yanar Mohammed, who was assassinated this morning in a criminal terrorist attack at her home. We send our sympathy and solidarity to Yanar’s comrades, family and friends.

In the morning of Saturday 28 February, Tehran was shaken by a series of loud explosions as US and Israeli missiles struck the capital of Iran. Clouds of smoke were also seen rising from Tehran, Qom and other Iranian cities, announcing the commencement of war.

Once again, the eyes of the world are fixed on every word and gesture of the man in the White House, Donald J. Trump. With one third of the entire American Navy assembled in the region, and with Trump oscillating between threats and calls for negotiations, the question on the lips of millions is: will there be war with Iran?

This January, two days after Trump bombed Venezuela and kidnapped its president, Nicolás Maduro, Saudi Arabia bombed southern Yemen and kidnapped the leadership of the country’s Southern Transitional Council (STC). This kicked off a chain of events, and now a fault line has erupted all along the Red Sea, spreading westward as far as Morocco and east as far as the Indian subcontinent. Two hostile camps are facing each other – both comprising US allies!

A massacre of Rojava and the Kurds is being prepared in Syria. The Islamist regime, headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa and backed by the West, has launched an offensive into the north-east of the country and has surrounded the historic Kurdish fortress-city of Kobane on the northern border with Turkey. ​​