International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow.
In the aftermath of January 2026’s crackdown, voices within and close to the Islamic Republic renewed calls for Iran to complete a nuclear deterrent, claiming the bomb would have prevented the current existential crisis. Houshang Sepehr, exiled Iranian Marxist and editor of Solidarité Socialiste avec les Travailleurs en Iran, challenges this on structural grounds. Drawing on the cases of India, Pakistan, and North Korea, he argues that nuclear deterrence only functions within security architectures backed by a great power patron --- a guarantee Iran never had. Neither Russia nor China was willing to absorb the risks of a nuclearised Islamic Republic contesting US hegemony. The bomb, he concludes, would have deepened Iran’s isolation rather than protecting it.
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As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran goes into its third week, the people of the United States are still figuring out what they think about the conflict. Since the war began, most polls show a majority of Americans disapprove of the war, something unseen in modern American history. A majority of Americans approved of World War II, the Korean War, and initially of the Vietnam War. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2000—the American government, anxious for revenge—was backed by huge majorities when it made war on Afghanistan in 2001. When in 2003 the George W. Bush administration wanted to make war on Iraq, it fabricated false evidence that Saddam Hussein had nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction, and, bamboozled by Bush, nearly three-quarters of the American people supported the war.
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The first round of the French local elections will take place on Sunday 15 March, the second on 22 March. There is a real possibility that the “traditional” right, which is increasingly radicalizing in a far right direction, will win in Paris, under Socialist Party government since 1995, and that the Rassemblement National could win in France’s second, and very multi-racial, city, Marseilles.
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“This landmark ruling highlights the links between institutional politics, militias and economic interests in Rio de Janeiro.”
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The upcoming mass No Kings! demonstrations planned for March 28 and ambitious plans for May Day mobilizations point to the growing convergence of anti-Trump forces. This convergence takes place against the backdrop of Trumps’ destructive assault on democratic rights in the US and the sovereignty of nations abroad, most recently his reckless aerial attack on Iran, and plummeting approval ratings in the polls.
read article...Where does the tremendous power of the occupation of city spaces, particularly the square, come from? The occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo brought down the Mubarak dictatorship, the indignados in assembly in the plazas shook the Spanish authorities, and Occupy Wall Street and its offspring across the United States have frightened city and state governments setting off a wave of police repression and state violence. The pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 led the Chinese Communist Party to send in the army, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands. What is the threat and what is the power inherent in the occupation of city spaces?
In July-September 2011 the stock markets were again shaken at international level. The crisis has become deeper in the EU, particularly with respect to debts. The Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM) interviewed Eric Toussaint about various facets of this new stage in the crisis in a seven-part interview published initially on their website.
The effect of the world crisis in Latin America requires three types of discussion: the immediate economic effect, the long-run political effect and the social measures required to confront the financial collapse.
IN AN ARTICLE published in 1928, José Carlos Mariátegui, the true founder of Latin American Marxism, wrote: “Of course, we do not want socialism in Latin America to be an imitation or a copy. It must be a heroic creation. We must inspire Indo-American socialism with our own reality, our own language. That is a mission worthy of a new generation.” His warning went unheard. In that same year the Latin American communist movement fell under the influence of the Stalinist paradigm, which for close to a half century imposed on it an imitation of the ideology of the Soviet bureaucracy and its so-called “actually existing socialism.”
The first round of the local elections took place against a backdrop of widespread creeping fascism in France and comes after a brutal offensive by the far right, during which the traditional ‘Republican’ right has decisively broken from much of its historical framework and values.
- read article...The majority of the party votes to maintain its autonomy and a commitment to social change.
- read article...After 59 days of unjust imprisonment, Lyes Touati has finally been acquitted - 59 days of waiting, mobilization, solidarity and determination.
- read article...International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.
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