Imperialist War

The United States and Israel have been heavily bombing Iran for over a month now. US spokespeople have announced that more than 11,000 targets have been struck during this period. Tens of thousands of expensive, high-tech munitions have been rained down on Iran – ranging from newly deployed next-generation missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles, to nine-ton bunker-busters and precision-guided bombs. In addition, a large number of anti-air missiles have been used to prevent Iranian counterattacks. Taking into account not only the munitions used but also the operational costs of warplanes and naval vessels, it is not difficult to see that an enormous amount of money has already been spent on this war. In relation to this, some commentators argue that “the cost of the war is so high that the US cannot sustain it for long”, and suggest that, due to the burden imposed by these expenses, the US will be inclined to bring the war to an end.

the working people must give not the slightest credence to the lie of the US-Israel about saving and liberating the Iranian people. The destruction caused by the bombs rained down upon the Iranian people and the peoples of the region cannot be hidden behind the façade of “salvation and freedom”. However, in the name of being on the side of the Iranian people, not the slightest support can be given to the Mullah regime either. Iranian working people must rise up to take their destiny into their own hands. The world working class must give them every possible support in their struggle against both US-Israeli imperialism and the Mullah regime.

Revolutionary Marxists take the side of neither Israel nor Iran. Marxists focus principally on the class character of the warring parties, analysing which class interests the war serves, for what aims, and as a continuation of which policies. Here, we are dealing with two regional capitalist powers, both connected to rival major imperialist forces. Each side pursues policies aimed at expanding or consolidating its regional influence. And these events are unfolding within the broader framework of the ongoing third imperialist world war, which is being fought in its own distinct manner. This specific war is merely one link in the larger chain of that great war. Precisely for this reason, the “12-Day War” could not remain a mere twelve-day conflict. New wars and clashes are inevitable as links in this greater war. On one side, we have forces attempting to establish a new order in the region, desired primarily by US and other Western imperialist powers. On the other, we have a power aligning itself with the imperialist interests of rivals like Russia and China in the region. Both policies are reactionary from the standpoint of the working class; both are enemies of the working class. The working class cannot take sides in this reactionary bourgeois line-up.

it is clear that not only the United States but also other major Western imperialists are seeking to further spread and escalate the ongoing World War. Russia and China, on the other side, see where things are heading and are preparing accordingly. It is very clear that the only thing the imperialists, plunderers and militarists will bring is more death. They are not pursuing peace, but rather more influence and more power. According to them, peace can only come "after the great victory"; until then, more weapons, more soldiers, and more powerful attacks will be needed. The people will be asked to make greater sacrifices and to unite tightly around the state in defence of the homeland. Those who pin their hopes for peace on the great powers, their negotiations, or international bourgeois institutions are deceiving not only themselves but also the world's workers. The truth is starkly clear: The only force capable of stopping the imperialists is the organised revolutionary working class.

The Trump line, in fact, in line with the general line of American imperialism, is based primarily on the reduction of China’s position as a global economic power and preventing it from becoming a global political/military power. At this point, Trump is making tactical attempts to drive a wedge between Russia and China, to neutralise Russia and to make the necessary concessions. If he fails to achieve his goal with these tactics, it is quite possible that he will take the opposite course and increase the dose of violence and war and legitimise this transformation as “look, you see, I did my best to compromise, but they rejected it, leaving us with no other choice”.

The primary force resisting the Zionist expansionism and aggressive policies of the Israeli state must be Israeli workers themselves. As in Iran, the correct line of struggle for the proletariat here is to transform the war into a domestic class war and overthrow bourgeois rule. That Israeli workers, like working masses everywhere under conditions of declining consciousness and organisation, largely side with their state is no justification for treating them as enemies. Rhetoric that fails to distinguish between the Israeli state and Israeli workers –or between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism – is at best erroneous, and often deliberately poisonous. On the contrary: Extending the hand of internationalist class solidarity to Israeli workers as our objective class brothers and sisters remains fundamentally essential.

What Trump (and American imperialism in general) wants is not to break up the world market, end free trade, eliminate globalization, etc., but to slow down, control, and extract significant concessions from China. It aims not to end globalization, but to reshape it in line with its own interests, to make its rivals accept its hegemony by teaching them a lesson. It is not possible for him to implement even most of the tariffs he has voiced, let alone all of them, permanently. He also knows that the opposite would mean cutting the branch he is sitting on while trying to undermine the Chinese economy.

The capitalist system, floundering in its historical crisis, continues to exist alongside the immense unemployment it has created, the deepening poverty of the masses, and the imperialist wars of division it has spread. The rulers of this system, which is turning our world into an increasingly chaotic and hellish place, maintain their dominance by intensifying their oppression of the masses and spreading authoritarian regimes. The United States, which presented itself as the champion of democracy to the world after the Second World War, is now, under the reckless leadership of the madman Trump, trying to bring countries into line with astonishing audacity. While Trump challenges the institutions that limit the powers of the president in the US and secures his seat of dominance, his crony Elon Musk puts on a show with Nazi salutes in his speeches. The bourgeois democracies that accompanied the rise of capitalism are increasingly giving way, in capitalism’s era of decay, to a general reality of authoritarianism and fascism in political life. What defines our era is the dominance of plutocracy shaped by dictators like Trump and Putin and the pinnacles of financial capital. There is no need to dwell on this point for too long. Because it is clear that wherever we look, filth is oozing from the seams of the capitalist system. Writers who have not sold their conscience to capitalism enough to ignore this reality cannot help but ask, “How will this filth be cleaned up?”

The Syrian war, which is a part and a front of the ongoing Third World War, has flared up with unprecedented speed after nearly five years. HTS forces, together with other partners, launched an offensive on 27 November, captured Aleppo and started advancing towards Hama. First of all, we must say that this wave of attacks following the war that Israel started in Gaza and spread to Lebanon is a sign of a new phase in the Greater Middle East Project. US imperialism together with its partners has decided to accelerate the project. The US, which has taken the war to a new level with Israel by using the excuse of the organisations it calls terrorist and their actions, is now accelerating the act of destruction through HTS, which it calls terrorist.

Both the liberation of the Palestinian people and the liberation of the peoples of the world from becoming part of the new links of the war depend on the workers of the region, the Israeli workers and eventually the workers of the whole world to raise the struggle. Considering the impact of the short-lived general strike in Israel and the growing protests on the Israeli rulers, it is clear which way the workers of the world should take to oppose the war.