After weeks of military threats, and despite ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, the US and Israel have combined to rain bombs on cities across Iran.
One of the first places bombed by the self-proclaimed “peace President” Donald Trump was an elementary girls’ school in Minab, a city in southern Iran. Al Jazeera is reporting that 108 children have been killed.
Trump says he is bombing Iran because he wants “peace in the Middle East and indeed the world.” But the only peace Trump knows is the peace of the graveyard.
Gaza, where US supplied bombs have killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, is a graveyard. Trump has bombed at least six other countries since becoming President. Hundreds of thousands are dead in Ukraine as the US and NATO are locked in war with Russia.
Over and over again, Trump has shown his willingness to use military power to maintain US imperialism’s interests around the world.
Tragically, in the West, many Iranians are supporting Trump’s bombing. But US imperialism has never brought peace or democracy—think of the consequences of the US and its Western allies’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US wants to make the Middle East safe for US imperialism. It has enabled and encouraged Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It has backed Israel’s bombing of Lebanon. It bombed Iran alongside Israel in June 2025. Trump claimed then that Iran’s nuclear program had been obliterated.
He is calling on “the IRGC and Iranian police to join ‘Iranian patriots’ to change the government”. But the IRGC (Revolutionary Guards) are the elite troops who killed as many as 30,000 Iranian protesters in early January.
Similarly US President George Bush Senior called on the Kurds and Shia in Iraq to rise up against Saddam Hussein in 1991, but then did nothing when they did revolt and were suppressed by Saddam.
Trump’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro was also done in the name of regime change. But it has shown the predatory nature of US imperialism as Trump has seized Venezuela’s oil as part of threatening governments across South America in an effort to boost US corporate profits.
As in Venezuela and Cuba, Trump wants a compliant regime in Iran.
In retaliation, Iranian missiles have struck several US military facilities in the region, including the US Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and bases in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Some have also hit targets in Israel.
Iran’s military is no match for the military power of the US and Israel, but there is a risk of wider war with threats by Iran to close the Gulf of Hormuz and Yemen threatening shipping in the Red Sea.
Labor’s capitulation
Trump’s bombing has also revealed Anthony Albanese’s abject capitulation to US imperialism. Albanese declared his complete “support” for “the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”. But there is no evidence that Iran is producing a nuclear weapon. Albanese’s support for war on Iran is an echo of John Howard’s support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 based on the lie that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction.”
Albanese falsely claims that Australia isn’t “directly active in the current military strikes”. Intelligence gathered from satellites linked to the Pine Gap spy base in the NT that monitor Iran feed information directly to the US. This information has undoubtedly been used by the US and Israel to make their strikes on Iran as lethal as possible.
Albanese’s support for the bombing comes just weeks after he hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia.
Trump’s bombing of Iran reveals more than ever the role that Israel plays as the violent enforcer of US imperialist interests in the Middle East—and how the genocide in Gaza is a product of Western imperialism’s support for Israel.
Albanese is welded to US imperialism through the AUKUS deal with the US and UK. Besides the $368 billion for nuclear submarines, Labor is committed to boosting Australia’s military budget and expanding domestic weapons manufacturing. Australia is expanding US bases and increasing US troop numbers stationed here.
Tens of thousands rallied across Australia to oppose Herzog’s visit. In Sydney 20,000 people faced police violence as the NSW government tried to ban protests. The Palestine movement needs to redouble its efforts to sanction Israel and cut off Australia’s weapons trade with Israel. We also need to demand an end to Australia’s military alliance with the US, kick out all US bases and scrap the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.
By Ian Rintoul
