Iran/Israel: capitalism is spreading the chaos of war

For several days now, Israel has been waging another deadly offensive against Iran – an offensive that has been met by a deluge of missiles from the Islamic Republic which, despite Israel's military superiority, has caused a great deal of damage and a number of casualties. For the moment, the fog of war propaganda makes it impossible to assess the scale of the massacre, but a real fire storm is raining down from both sides: while Iran is aiming indiscriminately at the cities of the Israeli state and a few symbolic sites,  the IDF seems to have mainly targeted the Iranian nuclear installations likely to produce atomic weapons, but also scientific personnel and those in charge of the nuclear programme, as well as the military and religious leaders likely to oversee the response. This ‘self-defence’ operation (according to Trump) has caused at least several hundred civilian casualties in Iran. The aim of decapitating the Iranian strike force and breaking up its response speaks volumes about Israel's desire to go much further than it did in April 2024 when the IDF targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus to eliminate several military leaders, and the following September with the assassination of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah. Netanyahu's government barely conceals its desire to see the collapse of the Mullahs' regime and to plunge its great regional rival into chaos.

Until now, Iran has tried to respond to provocations without really being able to impact Israel directly, but has been increasing the pressure through the terrorist organisations it sponsors (Houthis, Hezbollah, etc.) and by supporting Russia in the Ukrainian conflict. Faced with the risk of destabilisation, or even the collapse of their regime, the “Revolutionary Guards” have no choice but to opt for a headlong flight into chaos and barbarism. Even if it’s unable to defeat the Israeli state, the Islamic Republic undoubtedly has the means to drag the entire region down with it.

The real culprit in wars is capitalism!

This conflict is not an ‘isolated incident’, nor is it the product of the murderous ‘madness’ of the Israeli far right or the ‘fanaticism’ of the Mullahs: it is the expression of a capitalist system at the end of its tether. After each conflict, each massacre, the press and politicians accuse this or that state, this or that leader: ‘it's Putin's madness’,  ‘it's Netanyahu's messianic delusions’, ‘No, the  barbarity of Hamas’, ‘American imperialism’, ‘France's neo-colonialism’, ‘Chinese expansionism’... Admittedly, all these states, large or small, all these leaders, left or right, extremist or ’democratic’, demonstrate boundless barbarity and chilling cynicism. But they are all acting within a system in crisis and without a future, where the competition of each against all is pushing every nation to intervene on the international stage with increasing savagery. Today, with this new open war, we can only note that there has been a very serious additional step, the acceleration of the dynamics of militarism and chaos. A chaos that is increasingly corroding the world, with conflicts that are becoming entrenched, a plunge into endless quagmires, resulting in heaps of dead bodies and large-scale destruction. In the Middle East, Ukraine, Africa and elsewhere, uncontrollable conflicts are multiplying and widening, with no hope of lasting peace, and no belligerent able to impose ‘order’ or even profit from such massacres. In Ukraine, the belligerents are absurdly sacrificing tens of thousands of lives for a square meter of ruins, hoping to appear in a position of strength during hypothetical negotiations. In Sudan, the ‘forgotten’ war remains as devastating as ever, with over 150,000 dead and more than 13 million displaced in just two years. The temporary ceasefire between India and Pakistan following the violent confrontations of recent weeks does little to reassure anyone about the danger of tensions between these two nuclear powers. In Yemen, the war waged by the Houthi rebels on their own soil and in the Red Sea, and the Israeli, Saudi and American responses, have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and a huge humanitarian disaster. The uncontrollable destabilisation of entire regions, which can also be seen in Lebanon, Syria, Libya, throughout sub-Saharan Africa and in the gang wars in Haiti, is getting worse by the day.

The Middle East is caught up in a downward spiral where more and more players are entering the arena to try to impose their sordid interests: on the rotten soil of the historic Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Hamas attack of October 2023 (at the very least supported by Iran, if not directly piloted by it) has spawned a series of conflicts setting more and more countries in the region ablaze: Lebanon, Yemen, a timely attack by Islamist rebels in Syria, operations by Turkey on its border... And now it's Iran's turn, hitherto active behind the scenes, to enter the scene for good!

The IDF has (potentially) succeeded in decapitating Iran's nuclear programme; and many chancelleries, starting with Washington, are congratulating themselves on the success of Operation Rising Lion. But this absurd barbarity of war will ultimately benefit no-one! Israel has pulled off a coup, but at what price? Not only is Netanyahu's irresponsible scorched-earth policy accelerating Israel's discredit and isolation on the international stage, it is also exposing his country to an even more chaotic environment. Iran is obliged to retaliate, even if this exposes it to a militarily superior enemy. This is a very serious situation that could even lead to the military and political collapse of a country that shares borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Pakistan and Afghanistan. With its oil reserves and control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, Iran is also a major global economic player. And the Islamic Republic will not hesitate to play with all the risks of extending and intensifying the chaos if it feels in danger. What's more, other imperialist sharks such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are not to be outdone, and are also in the front row in this powder keg, trying not to calm the situation but to undermine one competitor or another. Pandora's Box continues to spit out its noxious contents! The war can only drag on and escalate the confrontation to a much higher level, even if Netanyahu's desire to see the collapse of the Mullahs' regime is achieved quickly.

Faced with imperialist war, the only side to choose is the camp of the proletarian revolution!

Pacifist ‘goodwill’ will do nothing: capitalism is war! The bourgeoisie is incapable of stopping this infernal machine. Only the proletarian revolution, by overthrowing the power of the bourgeoisie everywhere on the planet, can free humanity from this increasingly deadly and omnipresent threat.

But the road to revolution is still long, very long indeed. As we have shown in our press since 2022, the proletariat is now regaining its fighting spirit and gradually beginning to recover its strength and class identity. Very small minorities within it are seeking to return to revolutionary positions. But although the proletariat holds the keys to history, it does not yet have the strength or the consciousness to oppose war as a class, to oppose the barbaric war of capitalism with its own perspective of the revolutionary transformation of society.

The bourgeoisie is perfectly aware of these weaknesses and is mobilising its whole ideological arsenal to prevent the maturing of class consciousness. Proletarians the world over must learn to be wary of the rhetoric of the bourgeoisie, in particular its left and extreme left wing(Trotskyists, in particular), designed to legitimise, in a supposedly critical way, the policy of one imperialist camp or the other. This is the meaning of the subtle distinction made by certain varieties of Trotskyism between aggressors and aggressed: “Iran has every right to retaliate against Israel - and we must oppose Israel's brutal attack on the Iranian people”[1]. The same deliberate mystification is reflected in the calls for the leaders of other countries to sever ties with Israel: "Down with Israel's aggression against Iran! [...] Macron, enough hypocrisy! Break all diplomatic, military, economic and commercial ties with Israel immediately"[2]. Behind their supposedly revolutionary language, all these professional mystifiers have been selling us their ideological junk for months with the ‘defence of the Palestinian people’, i.e. support for Palestinian nationalism led by Hamas, a bourgeois clique of the worst kind largely supported and financed by Iran. Now that the Mullahs have to confront Israel more directly, the Trotskyists are plunging a little deeper into the mire (if that were still possible) by calling on the working class to support the Islamic Republic (sorry!... ‘the Iranian people’)!

Faced with the rotting dynamics of capitalism, all nations, whether powerful or weak, have nothing left to offer but war and misery. Whether in the name of ‘international law’, ‘national liberation struggles’ or the ‘fight against imperialism’, all these bourgeois states and parties, which seek to make people believe that a solution of ‘peace’ exists within capitalism, which urge support for the so-called ‘victims of aggression’, are among the most dangerous enemies of the working class whose only aim is to divert it from its historic struggle.

For today, it is through the struggle of the working class against the generalised degradation of its living and working conditions, a consequence of the historic crisis of capitalism and the considerable increase in military budgets, that the working class will be able to develop and politicise its struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a society without nations, without war and without exploitation.

Stopio, 17 June 2025

[1] “Key questions about Israel’s escalation of war in Iran”, Socialist Workers Party (June 2025).

[2] ‘Delegation’ of the Parti des Travailleurs to the Élysée, 11 June