I oppose the Islamic Republic because it is a capitalist regime built on repression, inequality, and the denial of basic freedoms. But I am also opposed to imperialist war against Iran, because history shows that foreign intervention has never brought democracy to the Iranian people. The Iranian people must decide their own future.
At the moment trade unions are banned and there are no free and fair elections in Iran. The workers, urban poor, students and other oppressed people need to have their own unions or independent organisations. Political parties, including socialists, have to be free to act. The thousands of political prisoners must be freed.
I write this not as a distant observer, but as someone whose life has been shaped by Iran’s struggles for freedom. I am an Iranian Marxist activist, a former political prisoner of the Islamic Republic, and someone who participated in the mass movement that overthrew the Shah during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 as a teenager. Like many others of my generation, I later became a refugee after repression intensified against leftists and democratic activists. I have also long been active in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for justice and self determination.
A regime facing deep social opposition
The Islamic Republic today faces one of the deepest crises of legitimacy in its history. Over the past decade Iran has experienced repeated waves of mass protest, and nationwide uprisings.
In November 2019 protests triggered by government increases to fuel prices spread to more than 190 cities. Security forces killed between hundreds to over 1000 protesters according to human rights groups. This was one of the bloodiest crackdowns since 1979. In 2021 there was another uprising in Khuzestan, after water shortages triggered protests. Many people were killed by the regime.
In September 2022, the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police sparked nationwide protests. The movement became known as the Woman Life Freedom movement. Many workers across the country joined, hundreds were killed and thousands arrested.
Last year in December continuing in January a massive nationwide wave of protest against the regime erupted and more than 6000 people were killed, many more injured and tens of thousands were arrested with severe punishments imposed in the prisons all around the country.
These movements reflect deep anger at political repression, corruption, economic inequality, and the systematic oppression of workers, women, and other nationalities within the country including Kurds, Turks (Azeris), Baluchis, and Arabs. Workers, pensioners, students, and women continue to organise despite arrests, surveillance, and violence. “Death to the dictator” is a very common slogan across demonstrations. But the struggle inside Iran is not only political, it is also social and economic. In recent years the urban poor and workers’ struggles have been at the centre of resistance against the regime.
War cannot bring democracy
Some commentators even among the left argue that foreign military action could weaken the regime and accelerate democratic change. This ignores historical experience.
Iranians remember the devastation of the Iran–Iraq War from 1980, which killed hundreds of thousands and allowed the regime to consolidate power by militarising society and suppressing political opposition. Authoritarian governments often benefit from external threats. War allows them to portray themselves as defenders of the nation and to silence dissent in the name of national security. Bombing Iran will not strengthen democratic movements, it will weaken them.
According to the limited voice messages, short reports, and fragments of testimony still emerging from inside Iran anger toward the United States and Western intervention is once again intensifying among ordinary people.
When a nation is placed under siege, people often close ranks against external aggression.
Those who claim that Western intervention could promote democracy in Iran must confront the reality of history. In 1953, the United States and Britain orchestrated a coup against Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, after he nationalised Iran’s oil industry. The coup replaced a democratic government with the authoritarian rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. That intervention crushed Iran’s democratic movement and laid the foundations for decades of dictatorship. For many Iranians, this history demonstrates that imperial powers have repeatedly intervened in Iran not to promote democracy but to defend their own strategic interests.
The slogan “Down with the USA” did not originate with the Islamic Republic. It was already widely chanted by radical students, leftists, and anti-imperialist activists in Iranian universities years before the fall of the monarchy. During the mass upheaval of the 1978-9 Iranian revolution, the streets of Iran echoed daily with this slogan as millions mobilised against dictatorship, foreign domination, and the US-backed rule of the Shah.
Some argue that the Iranian people cannot overthrow the regime without outside intervention. This view underestimates both Iranian society and the power of collective struggle. In 1979, millions of people, workers, students, women, and the urban poor, brought down the monarchy through mass mobilisation, strikes, and demonstrations during the Iranian Revolution.
Today Iran remains a society with powerful traditions of resistance. Workers organise strikes, women lead acts of civil disobedience, students challenge repression, and activists continue to build networks of solidarity despite enormous risks.
The future of Iran must not be decided in Washington, Tel Aviv, or any other foreign capital. It must be decided by the people of Iran themselves.
No to imperialist war.
No to the Islamic Republic.
Free all political prisoners.
By Rouzbeh Abadan
