the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jun 19, 2025
On June 22, three days after the following article was written, the United States military bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran in U.S. imperialism’s latest version of “shock and awe.” Seven B-2 stealth bombers flew 7,000 miles non-stop from Missouri in order to drop 14 bunker buster bombs, weighing 30,000 pounds each, on two of the nuclear facilities, for the first time anywhere in the world. As the bombers approached Iranian airspace, a U.S. nuclear submarine off Iran’s coast launched dozens of cruise missiles aimed at a third nuclear site.
It was the kind of military operation that only the U.S. superpower has the resources to pull off: 125 aircraft participated in different capacities, resulting in 75 “precision guided” weapons being dropped on the three locations.
At a press briefing following the bombing run, Pentagon officials pretended that the goal of the bombing was to pave the way for a cease-fire between Israel and Iran that was signed two days later. But nobody can believe that this cease-fire will end the ongoing decades-long war that includes not just Israel and Iran, but especially U.S. imperialism.
In reality, this military operation by the world’s greatest power is an important step in the escalation of that war. For it was, first of all, a show of force aimed at Iran. But it was also aimed, with the supreme arrogance of the world’s biggest military power, at the entire world, especially China.
We translated the following article from one that appeared in Lutte de Classe #249, published by comrades of the French Trotskyist organization, Lutte Ouvrière, July-August 2025.
By launching a bombing campaign against Iran on the night of Thursday, June 12 to Friday, June 13, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken a new step in the military escalation in the Middle East.
The stated aim of Israel’s military operation, dubbed Rising Lion, is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, which would constitute an “existential threat” to the State of Israel. In a speech broadcast on Israeli television, Netanyahu said: “This operation will continue for as many days as necessary to eliminate this threat.”
Since June 13, after destroying Iran’s air defenses, the Israeli air force has had control of the skies and has been bombing the entire country on a daily basis. Mossad commandos are said to have intervened on Iranian soil. Military and nuclear sites, centers of political power, and infrastructure such as fuel depots have been targeted. Some of Iran’s top political and military leaders—including the chief of staff and the head of the Revolutionary Guards, a militia that is one of the pillars of the regime, as well as nuclear program officials, and even scientists—have been killed. But the bombing has also hit buildings and residential areas, killing hundreds of civilians in just a few days. It should be added that launching high-powered missiles at nuclear facilities is particularly “dangerous for both the population and the environment,” which is what the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a denunciation of Israel’s action.
Just as in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, Israeli leaders are engaging in large-scale state terrorism with total disregard for the lives of both the Iranian and Israeli populations—the missiles fired by Iran in retaliation have killed dozens of Israelis.
Throughout his political career, Netanyahu has constantly brandished the supposed Iranian threat in order to portray himself as the defender of Israel’s security. The same calculations must have prompted him to engage in the current conflict.
For several months now, the Israeli prime minister has been facing growing opposition to his policy of all-out war in Gaza, expressed in demonstrations bringing together thousands of people every Saturday in major Israeli cities. A growing number of reservists are refusing to respond to their call-up and join their units, up to 60–70% according to Israeli journalists.
By launching a war against Iran, Netanyahu was undoubtedly seeking to create a reflex of national unity and thus close ranks behind him. The state of emergency, declared on June 13, has allowed him to ban all gatherings, call on Israelis to take shelter, and put an end, at least for now, to any protest. The Israeli population is thus committed to war, whether it wants to be or not.
On the foreign front, Netanyahu also wanted to force the U.S. hand by obliging Trump to support him, given that in recent weeks the U.S. president had expressed his annoyance with Israeli policy. Iran has been considerably weakened since October 7, 2023, by blows to its regional allies, the decapitation of the Lebanese Hezbollah, the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and the bombing of the Houthis in Yemen. By attacking Iran at this moment Netanyahu knew he could count on the support of the United States and all the imperialist powers.
This Israeli offensive against Iran would have been impossible without explicit U.S. approval, regardless of the degree of U.S. involvement in the preparation and implementation of this war. Trump may initially have claimed only to have been informed of Netanyahu’s plan to attack Iran. But it didn’t take long before he welcomed it, describing its result as “excellent.”
Macron, for his part, immediately aligned himself with the U.S. position, declaring that Israel had the right to defend itself. Which in this case amounted to recognizing its right to attack Iran! The few derisory gestures of disapproval of Netanyahu’s policy reduced themselves to bemoaning the fact that recognition of a Palestinian state had been postponed indefinitely. Macron even went so far as to say that he was prepared to go to war alongside Israel if necessary. The right of a country to defend itself is therefore not recognized in the same way for all states!
Iran has always denied wanting to acquire nuclear weapons and has always claimed that its nuclear program is limited to civilian applications. There is no reason to take the Iranian leaders at their word. But neither should we take the leaders of Western countries, led by the United States, at their word when they claim to want to maintain a monopoly on nuclear weapons for the sake of security for the world’s peoples. The only country to have used this weapon to date is the United States, in 1945 against Japan, causing the destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and more than 200,000 deaths. And this is the one that dares to pose as the guarantor of the proper use of nuclear weapons!
In reality, the United States seeks exclusively to guarantee its military supremacy. Only allied countries, such as Israel, Pakistan, and India, have been unofficially granted the right to possess this military technology, a right denied to any state that imperialism does not control and that wants to stand up to it.
The nuclear issue also serves to justify the maintenance of economic sanctions against Iran and the demand that it submit to control by the major powers through the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency. This pressure culminated in 2015, under Obama, in the signing of an agreement that Trump denounced three years later, after coming to power. After adopting a very tough stance, he resumed talks with Iranian leaders on the eve of the Israeli attack and said he was determined to reach a new agreement.
But while repeating that he was not involved in Netanyahu’s decision to launch an attack on Iran, Trump immediately saw the political advantage he could gain from it. He could address the Iranian leadership by saying, “Sign an agreement or the war will continue.” Israel is literally playing the role of imperialism’s strong-arm goon.
Echoing Israeli propaganda, some commentators pretend that this war could enable the Iranian population to overthrow the mullahs’ dictatorship. The opposite is likely to happen, with the population suffering Israeli bombing and the repression the regime could intensify, taking advantage of the state of war. But even if the Israeli military offensive were to bring about the fall of the regime, the Iranian people could not expect liberation brought by the bombs of U.S. imperialism and its Israeli ally, which oppresses and massacres the Palestinians.
Iran responded by firing a barrage of missiles that Israel’s Iron Dome defense system was unable to stop completely. The number of casualties is rising on both sides. A vicious cycle has been set in motion that could lead the Israeli army to engage in a long war. The imperialist powers are involved in this conflict. The United States, Germany, and France are providing political support to Israel and supplying it with weapons.
The imperialist states may become even more involved, and in any case they are ready to do so. Trump has warned Iran: “If the United States is attacked, it will use the full force of its military.” A new escalation that would see the United States on the front line against Iran is possible. In the past, U.S. troops have been sent on several occasions to defend imperialist interests in the Middle East: in 2001 in Afghanistan, in 2003 in Iraq, in 2014 in Syria. These interventions have helped to turn these countries into ruins and spread chaos throughout the region.
Israel’s war against Iran is part of a more general development within the imperialist world, which is organizing a veritable march toward war. Hot spots are flaring up, military budgets are rising, and all the heads of state are declaring that preparations must be made for a major conflict. This development is a continuation of the economic clashes and competition that are being exacerbated by the deepening crisis of capitalism.
This situation is increasingly similar to the one that the world experienced on the eve of the Second World War and which Trotsky described in 1938 in The Transitional Program:
“The picture of international relations is no better. Under the growing pressure of capitalist decline, imperialist antagonisms have reached the limit beyond which the various conflicts and bloody explosions (Ethiopia, Spain, the Far East, Central Europe...) must inevitably merge into a global conflagration.”
Trotsky concluded: “Without socialist revolution, and that in the next historical period, the whole of human civilization is threatened with being swept away in a catastrophe. Everything depends on the proletariat, that is, in the first instance, on its revolutionary vanguard.”
Today, after that global conflagration that ended as World War II, in a new period directly matching it, Trotsky’s overall conclusion is as relevant now as back then. Everything depends on the proletariat, that is, on its revolutionary vanguard.