Version imprimableThis war desired by Netanyahu and Trump has certainly ended in a ceasefire, but its future remains more than uncertain as the will of the US administration and the colonial and criminal state of Israel converge in a project of profound modification of the political realities and the balance of power in the Middle East. This desire to reshape the region is not new. It started in 1991 with the first war against Iraq. But this policy has accelerated since October 2023 and since Benjamin Netanyahu and his supremacist government launched their genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza. This genocidal process is accompanied by a desire to expel Gazans and the rapid expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Netanyahu’s design is to eliminate the Palestinian people as a subject and political actor.
Reshaping regional balances
At the same time, Netanyahu, supported by all the Western powers, felt powerful enough to considerably weaken Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Finally, the collapse of the dictatorial Assad regime in Syria has left Iran without a consistent ally in the region. With impunity, Israel occupies part of Syria and regularly bombs that country, as well as Lebanon.
By mutual agreement with Trump, Netanyahu seized the opportunity offered to him to attack the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic program and to eliminate senior leaders of the Revolutionary Guards and personalities linked to Tehran’s nuclear program. Netanyahu pointed to the progress of Iran’s nuclear program in terms of uranium enrichment and the meaningless bluster directed at the state of Israel over the past 46 years by the leaders of the Islamic Republic to “justify” his “preventive war”. The verbal threats of the Iranian leaders are more a matter of propaganda and the desire to position themselves as leaders in the region’s public opinion than anything else. The Islamic Republic has never had the means, nor the will, to “eradicate” the state of Israel. Finally, regarding the Iranian nuclear program, the IAEA and the US intelligence services claim to have no proof of the existence of a military program. The Islamic Republic seeks to be a so-called “threshold” country rather than a nuclear power. What is certain, however, is that Israel wants to remain the monopoly of nuclear weapons in the region.
An intervention that is in no way democratic
During the twelve days of war, civilian, industrial and strategic infrastructure was deliberately targeted. The Israeli air force even bombed the notorious Evin prison, officially killing 79 people, including many inmates. Targeting a prison in which a significant number of opponents of the regime are held shows the extent to which the war unleashed by Netanyahu was not intended to \2free Iranians from their tyrant". In general, this military aggression has put a temporary stop to the social protests that have been expressed forcefully in recent months.
Faced with Netanyahu and Trump’s war, the Islamic Republic could only retaliate by relying on its arsenal of drones and ballistic missiles. The isolation of the regime in Tehran was evident in this sequence. Its regional allies were no longer able to act, Beijing and Moscow, which have substantial economic and diplomatic relations with Israel, were conspicuous by their silence. It must be said that as far as Putin is concerned, this conflict has allowed him to hide the war he is waging against the Ukrainian people. He took the opportunity to intensify its operations.
The search for a capitulation
The Israeli military aggression was also within the framework set by Washington while negotiations on the nuclear program were underway. By bombing the nuclear sites of Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan by the US air force, the Trump administration is seeking to make the Islamic Republic capitulate and obtain maximum concessions from it. It was also a question of US imperialism making a demonstration of power and sending a message to its competitors, China and Russia. Regarding the Middle East, the Trump administration is seeking to impose a domestication of states and a management of the region on its terms. And that requires total control over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and military program. This is the meaning of Trump’s statements since the end of the war.
The Islamic Republic has emerged from this sequence weakened. Aware of being detested inside the country, the regime’s leaders immediately responded with increased repression against opponents. The government has restricted communications and the internet, intimidated and arrested, while increasing the rate of heavy sentences and executions.
Today, prisoners of conscience and political prisoners are particularly at risk. Fars News, one of the media outlets close to the security circles and the Revolutionary Guards, even calls for the mass execution of political prisoners as was done in the summer of 1988. The massacre of opponents at the end of the war against Iraq allowed Khomeini and the mullahs’ regime to eliminate more than 12,000 militants of the People’s Mojahedin and the various organizations of the revolutionary left.
Mossad infiltration
It must be said that the recent war has highlighted the security failure and vulnerability of the Islamic Republic. By specifically eliminating senior Revolutionary Guard officials and scientists linked to the nuclear program, Israel has demonstrated the extent to which the Iranian state’s summits are infiltrated. And this is not new, as this anecdote reminds us. On September 30, 2024, former President Ahmadinejad revealed to CNN Turk that the head of an Iranian secret service unit in charge of anti-Mossad counterintelligence was himself an agent in the pay of Israel. Unmasked in 2021, this agent and the twenty or so members of his team had managed to flee Iran.
The Israeli-American aggression has triggered a hunt in Iran for “Mossad agents” that has resulted in numerous arbitrary arrests, summary trials and hangings. The Islamic Republic, which does not hesitate to stage its “successes,” seeks above all to hide its failures and to reinforce a climate of terror in order to muzzle all attempts at protest.
Anti-Afghan racism
In addition to this repressive campaign, there is a policy of racism and mass expulsion against Afghan refugees. They are accused pell-mell of working for “foreign powers,” of being responsible for youth unemployment, crime and all the woes that affect Iranian society.
According to the International Migration Observatory, between 1 June and 5 July 2025, nearly 450,000 Afghans were forced to leave Iranian territory. Since the beginning of 2025, this number has risen to 906,326 people according to the UN agency. Numerous reports and videos indicate the great violence with which Afghan migrants are deported.
This policy is organized at the highest level of the state. The regime is waging a hateful media campaign against them. According to official announcements, buses carrying undocumented migrants will be confiscated permanently, and individuals who risk transporting an undocumented Afghan face a withdrawal of their licence and five years in prison. From now on, renting accommodation to undocumented migrants is punishable by a two-year prison sentence.
Employers who hire undocumented Afghans face the withdrawal of their business permits and the closure of their premises. What should be noted is that the majority of Afghan refugees in Iran do not have papers. The regime’s security forces are engaged in arbitrary racial profiling.
In some cities, their bank accounts are frozen, their property confiscated, they are sometimes beaten and forced to get into trucks in order to be escorted back to the border. Young girls attending school in Iran and women are unscrupulously sent back to Afghanistan, where even greater oppression awaits them.
While state racism against Afghans is not new, it has grown in recent weeks.
Afghan refugees settled in Iran, some of whom have been living in Iran since the early 1980s, have fled the Soviet invasion, the imperialist wars of the United States, the obscurantism and gender apartheid of the Taliban. They are an integral part of the working class in Iran and occupy the most arduous and low-paid jobs. They are overexploited and many of them are without rights.
In this context, the Free Union of Iranian Workers and the Vahed trade union (public transport workers in Tehran and the suburbs) have produced two statements against the racist policy of the Islamic Republic. These statements are complemented by a public letter signed by more than 1,300 activists, artists and journalists condemning the treatment of Afghan refugees. These positions are particularly salutary.
A febrile regime
Despite these repressive and racist policies, the regime has not managed to hide its failures. Within the government itself and among the elites, disagreements filter through and grow. For example, in a recent issue of Donya-ye-Eqhtesad, a major Iranian journal specializing in economic issues, a letter signed by more than 300 university presidents, academics, researchers, economists, and leading political and scientific figures appeared. The signatories implicitly point to the ineffectiveness of economic policies, and explicitly mention corruption, the capture of rents and the deep involvement of the Revolutionary Guards in the economy. They criticise the economic policies carried out and the repression. While situating themselves within the framework of the Islamic Republic, the signatories point out that the country is no longer governable in this way, they are concerned about the risks of collapse if the increase in poverty, the emigration of elites and the decline of productive investments are not stopped. They are calling for the release of political prisoners, the protection of academic freedom and open debate, including in the media. This reflects tensions and feverishness within the ruling circles.
A bleeding economy
According to Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian, every year 20 to 30 billion dollars leave the country illegally, even though the social situation is catastrophic. This is enough to demonstrate the degree of corruption of the upper echelons that share the power and wealth of the country.
More than 60% of the population lives below the poverty line. Under the effect of the sanctions imposed by the US and the economic policies carried out by the government, the country has been hit for several years by devastating hyperinflation. The black market, which is totally controlled by the Revolutionary Guards, has contributed to their phenomenal enrichment. The weight of the sanctions is being felt by workers and the vast majority of the population.
By 2024, according to the Islamic Republic’s Statistics Centre, the prices of imported goods had increased by 53.8%. The price of medicines and medical care has risen by 400% in the last five years. With the Israeli-American war against Iran, the trend has become much more pronounced and this on all goods. The price of meat is now around 213 euros per kilo, the price of bread has just increased by more than 50%. In recent months, rice, which is the staple of Iranian cuisine, had increased so much that many families had to replace it with bread. With this explosion in the price of bread, many will have to deprive themselves more. Wages, meanwhile, remain very low. The monthly minimum wage has been set at 10,399,000 Tomans since March 2025. And this amount does not reflect the income of day labourers who earn even less. In any case, it must be compared to the cost of living which exceeds 35 million Tomans per month. In addition, there are electricity and water cuts, as well as shortages of all kinds, making the daily life of the populations very complex.
The people of Iran know this better than anyone. The Islamic Republic is a theocratic, reactionary, misogynistic and racist capitalist state. It has nothing to do with anti-imperialism. Its regional policy is driven by the interests of the regime’s dignitaries and the Revolutionary Guards who have enriched themselves on the backs of the workers by getting their hands on the country’s resources.
The regime’s empty slogans such as “Death to the great Satan” or “Death to the little Satan” are ridiculous and delude only in the minds of those who want to believe that anti-imperialism and the struggle against the colonial state of Israel can be reconciled with support for dictatorships that crush their own people.
In the coming weeks, we must loudly demand a halt to executions and the release of all political and opinion detainees locked up in the jails of the Islamic Republic.
Left-wing and democratic forces must prepare to support future popular uprisings that are sure to resurface in Iran. Like previous mobilizations and in particular the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, they will aim to bring down the Islamic Republic. It is the duty of consistent anti-imperialists and anti-capitalists and revolutionaries to build concrete solidarities with those who struggle for the right to self-determination of peoples, for social justice, equality and freedom. Solidarity with Afghan women, youth, workers, national minorities and refugees is a moral and political imperative for all forces that want to put an end to imperialist wars, oppression and exploitation.
This is the meaning of the recent tribune initiated in France by the comrades of “Solidarité Socialiste avec les Travailleurs en Iran” (“Socialist Solidarity with the Workers in Iran”) and signed by many personalities, trade unions, associations and political organizations.
Statement published by Solidarité Socialiste avec les Travailleurs en Iran (Socialist Solidarity with Workers in Iran)
Solidarity with peoples fighting against war, colonialism and dictatorship,
No to the war waged by Israel and the United States against the peoples of the region!
The Trump administration has just joined the war launched by the colonialist and criminal state of Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran. This war is leading the Middle East to the brink of disaster.
This war, which is illegitimate and illegal under international law, is the direct result of the impunity enjoyed by Netanyahu and his supremacist government. The same impunity that, despite the international arrest warrant against him, allows him to continue the genocide in Gaza. It is this immunity that allows the State of Israel to occupy part of Lebanon and Syria. Invoking the ‘right to defend itself’, the State of Israel has intensified its ongoing policy of massacring Palestinians with the aim of achieving genocide.
The military confrontation between an excessively armed power, supported by its US sponsor, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, a dictatorial state that has maintained itself for more than 46 years through repression and terror, is a disaster for the peoples.
Sheltered behind the Western military and political umbrella, the State of Israel intends to crush Iran, subjugate the surrounding countries, maintain its monopoly on nuclear weapons and become the main power in the region. A colonial and Western power dominating countries and peoples from the southern shores of the Mediterranean to the Strait of Hormuz.
Netanyahu and the deadly rush forward
In its headlong rush towards war, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is now attacking Iran, claiming to be defending itself against a hypothetical nuclear threat. This is despite the fact that the State of Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and does not report on its own nuclear arsenal.
Netanyahu has opened a new front at a time when his government is increasingly unpopular, including in Israel. He has launched this new war as the global protest movement against the ongoing genocide in Gaza is growing and as citizen and activist initiatives to break the blockade imposed on Gaza have multiplied in recent times.
By attacking Iran now, Netanyahu is seeking to obscure the crimes and genocide he is perpetrating in Gaza. He has also silenced the criticism that was beginning to be timidly expressed by Western governments under pressure from public mobilization.
Finally, this intervention, supported by Trump, aims to obtain the complete capitulation of the Islamic Republic, or even the overthrow of the regime, which negotiations over its nuclear programme would not have allowed. The partition of Iran is even to be feared, given that Israeli-US policy consists of reshaping the region.
The Israeli army is bombing military targets, but also public administrations, strategic energy sites and infrastructure, as well as civilians. The bombings carried out by the State of Israel and the United States on nuclear sites are contrary to international law. They pose a risk of irreversible damage from an environmental and human point of view.
No one and nothing is safe in Iran, and hundreds of people have already been killed and thousands wounded. Cornered and forced to respond, the Islamic Republic of Iran is using ballistic missiles and other drones with random accuracy, causing civilian casualties in Israel.
The governments that arm and support Israel, starting with the United States and the countries of the European Union, including France, are complicit in the expansion of Israeli aggression against the peoples of Iran and throughout the region. They are all partners in these mass killings.
Finally, the precision with which senior members of the Revolutionary Guards are being eliminated indicates the extent to which the State of Israel benefits from complicity, right up to the highest levels of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Netanyahu is counting on certain sectors of the Islamic regime, notably the Revolutionary Guards, to bring about a change of power in Iran.
It is up to the people of Iran to decide their future!
History clearly shows that there is no path to democracy in the shadow of war and imperialist intervention. From Iraq to Afghanistan, there is no shortage of examples of military intervention leading to human and political disasters.
War claims new civilian victims every day, but it also threatens the long and courageous struggle of the people of Iran against a repressive regime, the latest culmination of which has been the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement. In recent months, social mobilizations in Iran had been gaining momentum. With this war, Netanyahu has temporarily halted this dynamic. In doing so, he is doing the Islamic Republic a great service.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a dictatorship founded on the blood of its opponents, on the deprivation of freedoms, on the systematic repression of women and youth, and on the crushing of social movements and national aspirations.
We stand firmly alongside the people of Iran, both in their ongoing resistance to dictatorship and in their right to live free from foreign military aggression.
In unison with all those who have been fighting in Iran for decades for freedom, equality and social justice, we reject any regime change ‘from above’ and through foreign intervention. The overthrow of the Islamic Republic must come only from the struggle of the people of Iran.
As the United States enters into war with Iran, it is urgent that voices be raised against widespread conflagration and human and environmental disaster.
We demand that the international community exert pressure to immediately end this irresponsible escalation.
The State of Israel and the United States are not the only states in the world to absolve themselves of international law, but they are the only ones to do so on such a scale without being subject to any sanctions. This double standard is scandalous.
We affirm that Netanyahu and Trump are a threat to the world. They must be stopped!
We urgently demand:
• An immediate end to Israeli and US aggression against Iran
• An immediate end to the regional escalation of war
• Solidarity with political prisoners and human rights defenders in Iran
• Support for social and democratic demands
• An end to repression by the Islamic Republic of Iran
As we have been doing for months, we continue to demand:
• Immediate lifting of the blockade of Gaza and an end to settlement in the West Bank
• Immediate sanctions against Israel
• An immediate end to all arms trade with Israel
• Termination of the Association Agreement between the European Union and the State of Israel
• Global mobilization to end genocide, apartheid and settlement in Palestine
30 June 2025
Article translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.
The tribune in French with full list of signatures is available here. In English (without signatures) here.
