International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Iran's shockwave in Asia

Pierre Rousset — 2026-05-27T06:24:27Z

By dint of dragging on, the United States' war against Iran seems to be becoming a real international tipping point whose scope varies according to the region. Its consequences are expected to be major in Asia. On the geopolitical terrain, of course, as illustrated by the Xi-Trump summit in Beijing on 14-15 May. But it will also aggravate the social crisis in many countries as well as boosting the global climate and ecological crisis. It is the beginning of multiple upheavals that will only be fully measured with hindsight.

- IVP616 - May 2026 / United States (USA), China, Iran, Taiwan

The Reasons for the US-Israeli Aggression against Iran

Sarah Selami — 2026-05-20T14:01:54Z

“It is important to remember that the Islamic Republic of Iran — and more broadly the Iranian capitalism it administers — is not a simple passive victim of this warlike configuration. It is a fully-fledged player, committed to its own logic of power, internal consolidation and regional influence.”

- IVP616 - May 2026 / United States (USA), Israel, Iran

Justice for the Middle East Is Also About Climate

Adam Hanieh, Denys Gorbach, Simon Pirani — 2026-05-11T17:10:15Z

“The deepening climate emergency means that we need to put upfront the question of the climate and the urgent need to move away from fossil fuels. The Middle East is absolutely key to this because it sits at the centre of the world oil and gas industry, particularly in relation to global exports. The politics of the region – from Palestine to Iran – cannot be understood separate from this role of the Middle East in the global energy system.”

- Features / Palestine, United States (USA), MENA (Middle East/North Africa), Ecology and the Environment, Israel, Iran, Kurdistan

Iran and the Western left

Cihan Tuğal — 2026-05-06T11:50:26Z

As occupations and wars intensify, anti-imperialism has become a key priority for the global left. This has raised questions about how to organise and mobilise a mass anti-imperialist movement.

- Features / Iran, Anti-imperialism

Iran Between the Russian and Chinese Models

Gilbert Achcar — 2026-05-04T09:32:37Z

Donald Trump claimed to pursue “regime change” in Iran, but in a manner distinct from the George W. Bush administration's use of the term to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was framed as bringing democracy after Saddam Hussein's overthrow. As we have repeatedly argued in these pages, even before the joint U.S.-Israeli aggression against Iran (see, for example, “Washington Will Not Bring Democracy to Iran” [Arabic], 10 February 2026), Trump's objective was – and remains – to replicate his Venezuelan strategy: abducting the president to pave the way for a successor willing to cooperate with Washington and its oil interests. In other words, his aim was to “change the regime's behaviour”, not to change the regime itself.

- IVP616 - May 2026 / Russia, China, Iran

Reza Pahlavi speaks of a “revolution”, but what kind?

Houshang Sepehr — 2026-04-15T20:38:18Z

In Iran, the streets, morgues and cemeteries are now littered with corpses. Predictably, the Islamic Republic is carrying out summary executions of protesters with extreme brutality. It was a deliberate massacre aimed not only at stifling mobilizations, but also at deterring any dissent.

- IVP615 - April 2026 / Iran

Trump's barbarous war on Iran, part of a long history of war crimes

Dan La Botz — 2026-04-07T05:22:33Z

President Donald Trump's war on Iran is barbarous, cruel, vicious, undertaken and carried out without a bit of concern for the millions of human beings it is affecting in Iran, in the region, and throughout the world. The nature of the war was revealed on the first day, 28 February , when the United States hit a school in Minab and killed an estimated 175 people, 100 of them children. Attacks on civilians are a war crime, all too common a war crime in all modern wars. Now Trump is threatening an even greater war crime.

- IVP615 - April 2026 / United States (USA), Iraq, Vietnam, Iran

A Revolutionary Feminist Position on Iran: Vs. Authoritarianism, Vs. Imperialism, Vs. Zionism, and NO TO WAR!

Anonymous — 2026-03-31T18:43:36Z

A REVOLUTIONARY FEMINIST position on Iran must refuse the false and damaging binary that demands choosing between defending the Islamic Republic and endorsing US-imperialist and Zionist intervention. This is a constructed choice designed to collapse political judgment into campism. It converts solidarity into a competition of moral allegiances and leaves ordinary people, workers, women, youth, and minorities to a reality shaped simultaneously by internal repression as well as external militarized destruction.

- Feminism / Women, Iran, Far Right, Anti-imperialism

The Iranian nuclear bomb: a devastating boomerang

Houshang Sepehr — 2026-03-17T17:32:39Z

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.

- IVP614 - March 2026 / Iran, Nuclear power

US Antiwar Movement Grows Slowly Amid Political Confusion

Dan La Botz — 2026-03-09T07:25:09Z

U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have conducted a tremendously powerful air war against Iran which, as Iran responded and Israel also made war on Lebanon, quickly became a regional war bringing death and destruction to many Middle Eastern nations, killing thousands. Trump is now demanding Iran's “unconditional surrender” and the right to a role in choosing the country's future leaders. Elected as a candidate who opposed foreign wars and regime change, Trump has repeatedly betrayed his promises.

- IVP614 - March 2026 / United States (USA), Iran