To the great and proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the time for your freedom has come (…) When we are done, take control of your government. It will be up to you to take it (Trump, 28 February).
The imperialists, be they American, British, French, Russian, etc., have always brandished similar pretexts to justify their interference and aggression, supposedly to avert a military threat or to restore democracy, in Iraq, Libya, Ukraine… and recently in Venezuela.
Neither imperialist China, which is threatening Taiwan, nor imperialist Russia, which has invaded Ukraine, have lifted a finger to defend their Iranian “ally”, or the Venezuelan one either. In reality, the imperialists don’t care about the people; they can support a “democrat” as well as the worst despot, depending on their interests. The wars they wage are never for the rights of the people, but for the incessant division and re-division of the world. At the same time, Israel has unleashed a new aggression against Lebanon, with daily aerial bombardments of towns and villages and the invasion of troops in the south, ordering more than 700,000 civilians to evacuate the area.
Trump is restricting democratic freedoms in the United States, launching his ICE parallel police force against immigrant workers. He is strangling Cuba. He is threatening Panama, Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Colombia, etc. Netanyahu’s Zionist government is responsible for the genocide in Gaza and the forced colonisation of the West Bank. And these people have suddenly become the defenders of the Iranian masses? The US military intervention in Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president has resulted only in the maintenance of the regime with US control of the country’s oil resources.
Despite Trump’s declarations, which he quickly abandoned, the carpet bombing of Iran is not intended to enable the Iranian masses to take power. On the contrary, American imperialism, like the oil monarchies of the Middle East, fears the outbreak of revolution in Iran more than anything. On the contrary, it is looking either for a solution to patch up the mullahs’ regime in a more internationally accommodating version with so-called “reformers” of the regime, or for a return to the saddle of the absolute Pahlavi monarchy. But today’s Islamist “reformers” are yesterday’s executioners of workers, women, Kurds and students. But Pahlavi Senior was their executioner of the day before yesterday. It was to put an end to the monarchical dictatorship, American domination and the SAVAK that the Iranian revolution began in 1978, before being confiscated and crushed by the Islamist counter-revolution, supported at the time by the Stalinists, the Maoists and most of the organisations claiming to be Trotskyists, who relied on the anti-imperialist rhetoric of the reactionary Imam Khomeiny to turn him into a revolutionary leader!
The last mobilisation of the Iranian masses against the Islamist dictatorship at the end of December/beginning of January 2026 was bloodily crushed by the regime’s militias using heavy machine-gun fire. However, on 22 February, new demonstrations broke out in the universities, shouting “Down with the dictatorship!”.
The imperialist aggressors made sure that this independent movement of the masses in January-February was stifled by the dictatorship, before unleashing their war. Their bombs are not aimed at liberating the Iranian masses, but at subjecting them to a new master, at the price of destroying the country, if necessary.
In the event of an imperialist attack on an oppressed country, we internationalist communists are on the side of that country against imperialism, without giving any political support to the regime of that country and its national bourgeoisie. This is as true for Ukraine as it is for Iran.
Israel, out of Lebanon and Syria!
In the United States and everywhere, a campaign by trade unions and workers’ parties to ban all Israeli or American bombing; to lift the economic blockade of Iran; to evacuate the imperialist fleets of the United States, Great Britain and France from the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and to close all their military bases in the Middle East!
The Iranian masses have shown admirable courage in their struggle against the dictatorship. For the moment, in addition to the regime’s repression, they have to protect themselves from American and Israeli bombs. But inevitably, the struggle will continue. What is lacking is certainly not courage, but the political organisation of the Iranian proletariat, of the students, on a clear line:
Down with the Islamist dictatorship! Disband the Pasdaran and the Basijis! Religion is a private matter! Separation of state and Shiite clergy!
For the release of political prisoners! For all democratic freedoms (freedom of expression, freedom of organisation, women’s rights, the right to strike, the right to demonstrate, etc.)! The right of national minorities to self-determination!
Self-defence at demonstrations! Creation of shoras in workplaces, living and study areas and barracks!
Neither regime “reformers” nor pro-imperialist royalists! Workers’ and peasants’ government based on shoras! West Asian Socialist Federation!
(Argentine, Austria, France, Spanish State, Turkey)