Iran’s regime poses a challenge to US dominance of the Middle East, but is not a genuine alternative to imperialism, writes James Supple
A ceasefire on Iran after 12 days of brutal US and Israeli bombing is still holding.
Over 600 people were left dead, the Iranian government said, after Israel targeted residential apartment towers and densely populated areas in the capital Tehran.
But with Trump demanding Iran deliver an “unconditional surrender” and capitulate to US demands over its nuclear program, the underlying tensions are unresolved.
Shamefully the Australian government backed both Israel’s attacks and the US bombing. Foreign Minister Penny Wong labelled “Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program” as “a threat to international peace and security”, while Anthony Albanese declared, “The world has long agreed Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon, and we support action to prevent that.”
Most Western governments did the same, with Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz even praising Israel’s attacks as, “the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us”.
This slavish support for Trump is more sickening warmongering from world leaders. Israel has spent 18 months butchering Palestinians and already has at least 90 nuclear warheads.
It is a rogue state unleashing unrestrained military aggression across the whole region as it continues to bomb Lebanon, Syria and Yemen and steps up its genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Yet it continues to be armed and backed by the West.
In March, US director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard admitted that US intelligence officials had concluded Iran was not working to build a nuclear bomb and had never restarted a nuclear weapons project dismantled in 2003.
Trump says he wants negotiations with Iran for a deal over its nuclear program. Yet he tore up the previous agreement, signed under Barack Obama’s administration, in 2018. Instead Trump sought to impose what he called “maximum pressure” on Iran, through sanctions designed to cripple its economy and punish the population in the hope the regime would fall.
Trump admitted on social media after Israel began bombing that he had “told” Iran there would be a massive military strike if it didn’t give in to his demands.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing for years for military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.
Yet Israel’s attack has gone far beyond targeting nuclear facilities. It also assassinated a swathe of senior Iranian military leaders, including the head of its armed forces Mohammad Bagheri and the leader of its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Salami.
Covert Mossad operations attempted to cripple Iranian air defences so that Israel could bomb targets at will. Israel also targeted ballistic missile facilities in an effort to reduce Iran’s capacity to respond.
It also hit regime targets including Iranian national television studios and the Evin prison.
The attack on Iran shows how Israel’s aggression serves the interests of US imperialism. Israel is again acting as an attack dog for US interests.
This is the barbaric relationship between the US and Israel that has played out in the latest round of Israeli aggression: Israel extends its control over historic Palestine, assisting the US to entrench its place as the major imperialist power in the region.
Imperialist control
The US and Israel set out to inflict as much damage on Iran as possible. This was designed to humble a state that challenges the dominance of US power in the Middle East. Iran’s size and population mean it has always been a significant regional power.
But the US has never forgiven Iran for the revolution in 1979 that removed one of the US’s most loyal servants, the Shah of Iran.
The Shah rose to power through a coup in 1953 organised by US and British intelligence services, overthrowing the elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh, which had nationalised the oil industry previously controlled by Western companies.
The Shah’s regime was central to US efforts to control the region’s oil supplies, hosting the CIA’s Middle East headquarters.
After he was overthrown, the US backed an Iraqi invasion in 1980 and supported Iraq in the devastating eight-year war between Iraq and Iran that killed a million people.
The latest war is a continuation of decades of imperialist savagery designed to force Iran into submission.
The US has imposed economic sanctions that have driven much of the population into poverty, preventing Iran from exporting oil or trading with other countries, and producing mass unemployment and inflation of around 40 per cent.
Axis of resistance
The Iranian government lends support to what it calls an “axis of resistance” to Israel and US imperialism across the region.
But despite the courage of resistance organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah their approach of armed struggle has been unable to defeat the Israeli military that is armed and backed by US imperialism.
Since October 2023, Israel has launched wars all across the region, repeatedly bombing Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran. It seized control of more territory in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime in December and significantly weakened Iranian influence through dealing blows to its proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon.
However, Iran’s dictatorial rulers have been careful to avoid an all-out confrontation with Israel themselves.
Israel’s bombing caused serious damage but did not strike any decisive blow. Iran’s capacity to strike targets inside Israel, however, has been limited. It caused damage to residential areas in Tel Aviv and Haifa and successfully struck some targets but Israel, with support once again from the US, intercepted most of its missiles.
Iran’s nuclear program has been set back but not obliterated. An initial assessment from the US Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that it was capable of repairing it within months.
Some at least of Iran’s stockpile of 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 per cent, which could be converted to weapons grade through further processing, was probably moved and remains intact.
But it is clear that Iran’s axis of resistance is not the force that can break US imperialism in the Middle East. A serious challenge to Israel and US imperialism requires mass struggle from below across the region. It requires toppling the corrupt rulers of the Arab states including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, who have failed to lift a finger to oppose Israel all through the genocide in Gaza.
The Egyptian government has just used its police and security forces to block the Global March to Gaza, which aimed to deliver aid to the starving and besieged Palestinian population.
The working class has the power not just to bring down these regimes and to win real democratic control of society but to end Israel’s apartheid state. Workers’ strike action could impose a blockade on oil, gas and other trade and ban Israeli shipping.
There was a glimpse of this possibility during the Arab revolutions in 2011. Workers played a key role in forcing the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak from power. The revolution opened the Rafah gate to Gaza. But the Egyptian army regrouped and seized power in 2014.
In Iran in 1979 it was also the working class, most importantly the oil workers, that dealt the death blow to the repressive Western-backed regime of the Shah. It is mass revolutionary struggle that holds the key to transforming the Middle East.
