EDITORIAL
Stop the U.S. Attack on Iran!

Jun 23, 2025

Well, Trump did it: he jumped to put the U.S. into the war on Iran. On Saturday, June 21, several B-2 stealth bombers delivered fourteen “bunker buster” bombs to three nuclear sites in Iran, in an elaborately planned attack that was clearly in the works for weeks, if not months.

Trump’s stated intention was to disable Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, which he and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had claimed was very close to being able to assemble a nuclear bomb.

Never mind that the U.S. and Netanyahu have been claiming for twenty years that Iran was “weeks away” from a bomb; never mind that both the U.S. and Israel HAVE nuclear warheads … supposedly the mere possibility that Iran might (soon) have the capability to build ONE is enough for them to justify an intense bombing campaign, started by Israel on June 13, and joined by the U.S. on Saturday, June 21.

In fact, Israel and the U.S. have been targeting Iran for decades. It intensified after Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023. Israel then attacked Hamas (and the entire population of Gaza), as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen (joined also by the U.S.)—all three are supported by Iran. With all of them weakened (and with the downfall of the regime in Syria, another Iran ally), Netanyahu apparently decided this was the time to strike Iran.

As for the U.S., it has had Iran in its crosshairs ever since the popular revolution in 1979 that toppled U.S. imperialism’s preferred dictator, Mohammad Reza Shah. A brutal theocratic dictatorship may have come to power after that revolution, but that is not what the U.S. cared about, not at all. The U.S. continues to support many brutal theocratic dictatorships in that region. What they have always cared about has been that a revolution in a large, major country, overthrew THEIR dictatorship, and that the current regime is not under their control.

This is why there has been so much vilification of Iran’s regime and its influence in the region. This is why the U.S. and other Western countries have submitted Iran to sanctions for decades, causing poverty and death for many in the country.

Trump wants to say that the U.S. and Israel’s attack was targeted, precise, and completely successful in shutting down Iran’s nuclear program. Mission Accomplished.

This is not going to be that easy.

In the first place, this bombing attack could not possibly have been successful in completely shutting down Iran’s nuclear program. If anything, it may speed up Iran’s attempt to build a nuclear weapon. Before, Iran was led to believe that if it showed itself to be compliant, U.S. sanctions would be lifted. Now it knows that none of that matters. If anything would have shown Iran the need for a nuclear deterrent, it would have been these attacks last weekend!

So, this will not just end with the U.S.’s one bombing campaign. Iran may respond with attacks on one or more of the many U.S. military bases in the region. If so, Trump will almost surely feel a need to respond. If the Iranian regime is threatened or toppled (a stated goal of the Israeli government), a number of other regimes in the area are fragile and could start to fall as well. This is one powder keg, now lit, that could well blow into a wider regional war, or even a world war.

At the very least, it could turn into the kind of “forever war” that Trump claimed to oppose when he ran in 2016 and 2024. All experts agree that if the goal is truly to shut down Iran’s nuclear program, that cannot be done through aerial bombing alone. It takes boots on the ground to do that, leaving open the possibility that this will turn into another dragged-out occupation like we saw in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is what the Trump administration has just pulled us into. It is not just Trump—it is the entire capitalist class he is acting for, which for decades has insisted on seeking complete control of a region it considers as crucial to its profit-making and to its control of the world.

This war is just starting. And we will be made to pay for this war, in myriad ways. Workers have no interest in this war. More than that, we have every interest to join with and support the working people of Iran—and of Israel and of Gaza—who have been made to suffer for imperialism’s war for control and profit.