No War on Iran!

In the early morning of 28 February, the US and Israel conducted coordinated attacks on Iran. Named Operation Epic Fury, Israel targeted Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure and prevent counterattacks by Iran, while the US aimed to dismantle Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs through bombings of ministry and military buildings. The military operation coincides with Pakistan’s bombing of Kabul.

These criminal attacks of the US-Israel follow a buildup of military forces in the region—the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and the northern Indian Ocean—marking the largest US mobilization since 2003, when the Bush administration and the “coalition of the willing” launched an imperialist attack against Iraq.

The entire region has become a flaring torrent of imperialist antagonisms, threatening to spill over into broader conflict. As of the evening of 28 February, US-Israeli strikes have killed hundreds of Iranians, including an elementary school with dozens of children reported dead in the blast. Early reports from Israeli intelligence, along with confirmation by Iran, report the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

These military attacks arise from the driving laws of capitalism-imperialism. Under the Trump presidency, the US military budget is expected to soar to $1 trillion, reflecting the growing war economy, and the preparations of the ruling class to aggressively seize new markets, investment opportunities, raw materials, transport routes, and cheaper labor in order to overcome the looming capitalist crisis.

Capital needs new outlets and it intends to find them, on mountains of corpses of the peoples of the world.

Operation Epic Fury is but another element in the competition between the great imperialist powers of the US-EU-Israel and NATO on the one hand and China-Russia-Iran on the other. A link in the plans of the US and its allies for a “New” or “Greater Middle East.” It is another flash in the pan of capitalism’s long slide towards a generalized imperialist conflict which will cost the lives of millions of workers and people.

We reject the pretexts that the intervention of the US-Israel in Iran, supported by the previous figures of the Iranian monarchy, Reza Pahlavi, is being carried out in the interests of those sectors of the Iranian people who took to the street to protest the economic and political conditions in the country.

War with Iran will only lead to death and suffering for the Iranian people.

We reject the attempts of this government to project the title of “state sponsor of terrorism” onto any competitor while it is responsible for or behind the strangulation and slaughters in Cuba, Gaza, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Venezuela, Ukraine, excluding the bloody history of the US within its own borders.

We stand by the people of Iran against this imperialist attack.

The Communist Workers’ Platform also highlights the situation of the sailors of the USS Gerald Ford who have been on one of the longest deployments in US Naval History, who are allegedly sabotaging the bathrooms onboard the ship in protest of abhorrent conditions and in refusal of war with Iran. It is not a secret that, for too long, the working class has given up its children for the wars of the wealthy capitalists, for the wars of the ruling class, many of whom originate from the most marginalized segments of the US.

We are clear that the US military is an instrument of our class enemy, but those within who stand against foreign deployment, must turn this indignation against our common enemy and join the workers of the US to finally put an end to imperialist aggression. We call on those forces within every branch of the US military in favor of peace to resist the imperialist slaughter that threatens us all.

The energy of the workers and people of the US cannot be spent on mobilizations and protests alone. The movement cannot be our final goal. A substantial alteration of the political, diplomatic, and economic relations of US policy is necessary. Such a change is only possible through a social response and only the proletariat has the capacity to paralyze everything and demonstrate a rejection of imperialist war.

The workers’ movement is the only independent agent that has no objective interest in the continuation of imperialist war or in the suffering of the Iranian people. On the contrary, it holds a position that allows it to take a side in this conflict—the side that repudiates war for profit and stands in solidarity with the Iranian people. An effective response can only flow from an organized working class and the workers’ movement, as the only force capable of bringing the imperialists to their knees and putting an end to their plans.

The Communist Workers’ Platform demands the complete and permanent withdrawal of all US military forces from outside the country’s borders, the closure of all US military bases, an end to cooperation with the murderous state of Israel, and the permanent cessation of all imperialist agreements and alliances, including the recent Board of Peace, the Abraham Accords, and Operation Prosperity Guardian, all three of which are aimed at achieving the plans of the monopolies in the Middle East.

Let us mobilize a response to the aims of the ruling class: an organized workers’ movement, with a Communist Party at its lead. This is our greatest duty to the peoples of Iran. Our weapons must be turned against our exploiters, our common enemy: the capitalist class and its rotten capitalist system.

No war between peoples, no peace between classes!

Solidarity with the people of Iran!

No to imperialist war!

Central Committee of the Communist Workers’ Platform