The protests being organized against the so-called “US/Israel war” on Iran have been called by groups like the People’s Forum and Party for Socialism and Liberation, which are unabashed partisans of the Iranian regime and its “axis of resistance” allies — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and related Iraqi militias. These forces are united in their goal of destroying Israel, the only country that offers refuge from Jew-hatred, and killing or driving out the Jews who live there.
The People’s World, paper of the Communist Party, says “Progressives denounced the war as a manifestation of U.S. and Israeli imperialism, and worse.” Workers World Party issued a statement, “Sayyed Ali Khamenei: Rest in power!” It describes him as “the great Iranian leader of the Islamic Revolution” and a “world-renowned religious and political leader who represented Iran’s steadfast resistance to U.S. imperialism.” These forces — and much of the liberal media — insist on referring to the unfolding conflict as an “Israeli/U.S. war,” when in fact these are two very different wars.
These groups speak as if the U.S. imperialists’ bloody war to extend their domination and plunder of the peoples and resources of the Middle East is the same as Israel’s war to defend its existence and that of the Jewish people. Israel is fighting to prevent the Iranian rulers from acquiring the weapons — nuclear and otherwise — Tehran needs to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and inflict another Holocaust. The Jews in Israel make up almost half of the entire Jewish population in the world.
These are two quite different wars and require counterposed responses from working people worldwide.
And there is a third battle being waged inside Iran. Since 2017 there has been an upsurge in struggles by Iran’s working people and oppressed nationalities to get the murderous bourgeois clerical regime off their backs. That regime was the product of a counterrevolution in the early 1980s aimed at pushing back the powerful gains won by workers, farmers, women and oppressed nationalities as part of the revolutionary upsurge that toppled the U.S.-backed shah in 1979.
A working-class campaign against the U.S. war on Iran has to start from the interests that workers share in common in the U.S., in Iran, in Israel and worldwide. That includes unequivocally opposing the U.S. rulers’ bombing of Iran, and explaining why workers should back calls for Washington to get its troops, bases and warships out of the Middle East. It means defending Israel’s right to exist as a refuge from Jew-hatred and pogroms. And it means support for the aspirations and struggles of the toilers inside Iran.
It is impossible to accomplish these objectives in the actions being promoted today. Their goals are a deadly danger to working people.
Join the Socialist Workers Party in advancing a working-class campaign against Washington’s war along the line projected in the party statement “US out of the Middle East!” in the lead article.