Socialist Party statement
On Saturday, 28 February 2026, the war criminals Trump and Netanyahu led an unprovoked, murderous attack on Iran, killing its head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other top officials. These ‘Board of Peace’ leaders also bombed two schools in the city of Minab, killing 148 people, mostly children.
As the air strikes continue to target the country, more death and destruction will be inflicted on Iran in the coming days. This war must be opposed – we need mass mobilisations on the streets and militant action, as was recently taken by dockworkers in 22 ports in the Mediterranean against the Gaza genocide.
Barefaced lies
The cynicism and hypocrisy surrounding the pretext of the war is incredible. The US, the world’s biggest nuclear power (and “greatest purveyor of violence” in the words of Martin Luther King), allied with the genocidal Israeli state, the only nuclear power in the region, is attacking Iran for developing its nuclear power programme in any form – rejecting the unprecedented concessions Iran agreed to. Not only does Iran have no nuclear weapons, but there was also no credible threat of attack from Iran on any other state.
Despite shameful reporting throughout the Western media of “preemptive strikes”, this is a naked imperialist war of aggression against a state that the US and Israel see as their chief rival in the region and have long sought to topple. These powers seek unfettered domination of West Asia, including control of Iran’s oil and gas reserves, the fourth largest in the world.
Having laid waste to Gaza in the genocide, and having knocked back the “Axis of Resistance” (the forces aligned with Iran, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the former Assad regime in Syria), the Zionist State in particular is determined to exploit the opportunity to effect regime change in Iran.
Trump’s rampage
The gangster capitalist methods of US imperialism are on full display in 2026. The assault on Iran comes in the wake of Trump’s criminal kidnapping of Venezuela’s President in January. This is an empire in decline, politically and economically, leaning on its still considerable military might and lashing out in all directions – threatening countries from Panama to Colombia, to Greenland, and turning the screws on Cuba with escalating sanctions.
Domestically, Trump is under massive pressure with the publication of the Epstein Files and has been pushed back in Minneapolis in his attempts to up the ante in his war on migrants. Moreover, there are deep divisions within the MAGA movement, his key base of support, as his hollow promise to end America’s “forever wars” goes up in smoke.
There is already massive opposition to this military adventure in the US, with just 21% of the population supporting it, and it comes at a time when large sections of US society are shifting in their support for Israel. For the first time ever, 41% sympathise more with ‘the Palestinians’, against just 36% for ‘the Israelis’.
Regime change
If the US and Israel are hoping to bring about regime change, they will need more than airstrikes to secure it. It would probably require direct military intervention in the form of ‘boots on the ground’, and inevitably, significant casualties of US soldiers.
In 1999, 70 days of NATO bombing of Serbia failed to dislodge Slobodan Milsovic, and this was at a time when there was greater support in society for the idea of Western imperialism acting as the world’s police. In fact, it was a mass movement of workers and young people in September 2000, not imperialist bombs, that brought an end to the rule of that hated dictator – an important lesson for the Iranian people today.
It remains to be seen what the reaction within Iran will be, but rather than fatally weakening a regime (the Ayatollah can be replaced), an imperialist attack of this nature can be used to shore up support – based on nationalism – for even a regime as unpopular as the theocracy in Iran. Regardless, Trump and Netanyahu have no concern for the Iranian people and nothing to offer but instability, chaos, and destruction.
Iran’s retaliation
With its back against the wall, the Iranian State has struck back with missile launches against Israel and US army bases in the region. Three US soldiers have been killed. It has also attacked US allies such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Kuwait.
This has resulted in considerable economic dislocation. Dubai Airport, the busiest in the world, has been shut down and oil and gas traders have suspended shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, where 20% of the world’s oil and gas passes.
World leaders back war crimes
The reaction from world leaders has been a predictable display of snivelling cowardice. Western capitalist allies have quickly fallen into line. Shamelessly, the likes of Macron, Starmer and Merz have given tacit approval to the attack on Iran. Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who only last month won plaudits for his speech in Davos criticising US foreign policy and the breakdown of the ‘rules based order’, put out a statement saying that Iran’s development of nuclear energy must be stopped.
Closer to home, the Irish government’s response has been pathetic. Micheál Martin has called for “all parties to exercise restraint”, ignoring the actual dynamic of the war, but criticising Iran for “[using its] malign influence to drive conflict and division in the Middle East”. Yet another example of the cravenness of Ireland’s capitalist establishment when it comes to its imperial masters in Washington.
No support for the theocracy
While we steadfastly oppose any intervention by imperialist forces, we have no truck with the brutal theocratic dictatorship that rules Iran. It is based on the rule of an elite, capitalist minority based around Ayatollahs and the so-called Revolutionary Guard, who own and control vast swathes of the economy and have built a regime based on the oppression of women, national minorities, and LGBTQ people, and repression of working-class people generally. It has slavishly followed the dictates of the imperialist-controlled World Bank and IMF, resulting in mass wealth inequality, and where 90% of the workforce are in precarious jobs. It is no friend of the working class in Iran or in this region.
The Iranian working class, poor and oppressed, have every right to oppose this regime, which massacred thousands of ordinary Iranians who took to the streets in the last two months. We stand in solidarity with these protests and with those Iranian students, who only this week held protests with slogans making clear their opposition to both the rule of the theocracy and the pro-imperialist Shah’s son, who wishes to restore the Pahlavi monarchy.
While Pahlavi has promised democratic elections if he is restored to power, this should be met with the scorn it deserves. His father ruled Iran based on torture, oppression and deep inequality; there is nothing to suggest he will be any different.
Iranian people must decide their own fate
The Iranian working class and young people must rely on their own agency and organisations, and must decide their own fate. Imperialist states will never act as benign forces that will assist their struggle. They are intervening to defend the interests, power and profits of their own ruling classes; the consequences for the people of Iran will be disastrous. You only have to look at the experiences of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan to see the results of imperialist “regime change” – millions were killed, living standards plummeted, and political chaos remains.
A victory for imperialism in this war will only strengthen its hand and embolden it to engage in further colonial adventures.
A truly democratic republic will never come into existence on the basis of the rule of imperialism and capitalism in Iran. An independent movement of Iran’s working class and the oppressed must be forged to bring this about, a movement independent of all capitalist and imperialist forces – a movement that fights for a socialist Iran, where its wealth is publicly owned and utilised in the interests of all, and one where freedom and self-determination can be achieved.
