On June 21st, President Donald Trump ordered attacks on three Iranian nuclear sites. The strikes included the use of B2 bombers, dropping six 30,000-pound bombs, along with missile launches from submarines. This constitutes an act of undeclared war by Trump, and it must be opposed.
The US strikes come in the second week of the Netanyahu regime’s latest conflict in the Middle East, where the Israeli military launched numerous missile strikes against Iranian targets and the Khamenei regime responded in kind. Netanyahu has resurrected claims of Iran developing nuclear weapons that he has peddled since the early 2000s.
The conflict with Iran represents a new attempt by Netanyahu to hold onto power by keeping Israel in a constant state of war. Days before Israel’s attack, Netanyahu narrowly avoided the collapse of his party’s governing coalition when opposition parties threatened to dissolve the Israeli parliament, which would force an election. Polls suggest that former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, another right-wing warmonger opposed to Netanyahu, would defeat Netanyahu’s coalition if an election were held now.
Israeli officials condemned Iran for striking hospitals when it retaliated, despite the Israeli military regularly bombing hospitals, massacring Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid, and perpetrating a genocide in the Gaza Strip. Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians seeking aid in the last few weeks alone, including an attack on June 17th where Israeli tanks fired into a crowd gathered around aid trucks, killing at least 59 people and injuring 221 more.
The So-Called “Peace Candidate”
Donald Trump came to power promising that there would be no new wars. In an address to a National Guard conference during his 2024 campaign, Trump said “When I’m back in the White House, we will expel the warmongers […] and we will restore world peace.” In his inaugural address in January, Trump promised his legacy “will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.” Yet as the Independent Socialist Group noted months ago, Trump has always been a war-monger. He also carried out missile strikes against Syria in 2017. In fact, this is not the first time he struck Iranian targets; in 2020, he brought the US to the brink of conflict with the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
Biden and the Democratic Party have helped to lay the groundwork for US confrontation with Iran through continued funding and support for the Israeli government’s wars in the Middle East and ongoing genocidal policies against Palestinians.
The Trump administration does not oppose, but is complicit in Israel’s wars, including the Netanyahu regime breaking the brief ceasefires in Gaza. Likewise, negotiations with Russia over ending its invasion of Ukraine have gone nowhere. Neither of Trump’s peace proposals served the interests of working-class people in Ukraine and Palestine, and instead sought to grant the US increased control over their economies and resources. Since Trump’s second term began, the possibility of new wars has increased, with tensions and skirmishes growing between the nuclear-armed powers India and Pakistan.
Trump has failed to bring peace anywhere, while his trade policies have only hurt the economy and working-class people at home. This is reflected in his approval rating, which stands at 43% as of June 22nd, 3.3 points down from the previous week, according to The Economist. Although recent polls only showed that 16% of US citizens support the United States getting involved in the Israel-Iran War, the Trump administration might see a new war as a way to clamp down on domestic unrest and use nationalism to boost its poll numbers.
Working-Class People Can Prevent Escalation
A war with Iran could escalate to a wider conflict, given the tensions between the US and China over Taiwan, the ongoing Russian Invasion of Ukraine, and conflict between India and Pakistan. Wars between capitalist states, whether major imperial powers or not, never serve the interests of the working class. It is our class that dies on the battlefields and in the bombed cities, not the wealthy capitalists who can afford to flee or hide out in state-of-the-art shelters.
A war between nuclear powers could potentially bring about the end for us all. The capitalist powers in normal times will likely do everything in their power to prevent such a conflict, but mistakes can be made, and the margins are narrow.
It is the labor of the working class that the corporations, and the government they control, exploit to keep the economy running. It’s also the working class that can make the capitalist war machine stop. Working people are the ones who build the weapons, transport them by rail, air, and sea, and are sent to fight wars. As the working class, we have the power to refuse to participate in wars started by the capitalists and their political representatives.
There is a growing protest movement in the United States responding to Trump’s attacks on civil liberties, immigrants, workers, unions, and the LGBTQ+ community. This resistance can form the basis of a new and powerful anti-war movement by linking up with the labor movement and the protests against the Gaza genocide and the Trump regime. If the labor movement or at least some unions help build an anti-war movement, weapons manufacturing and shipping can be stopped at the point of production.
Workers around the world can build a mass movement to bring the economy to a halt until demands for ceasefires, reconstruction, and nuclear disarmament are met. Part of that movement will require breaking with the war-mongering capitalist parties — both the Democratic and Republican parties — and building a new, independent working-class political party of our own.
The Independent Socialist Group calls on unions, workers, and community organizations to:
- Build a movement to end the US’ participation in and support for the wars in Iran and Ukraine and end the genocide in Gaza; release all hostages and political prisoners.
- Build a new campaign for international nuclear disarmament.
- End all military aid to Israel and all other war-mongering, anti-worker regimes.
- Defend free speech! Block the Trump administration from detaining and deporting students, labor organizers, and other activists.
- Organize strikes at the point of production and distribution to stop the war machine profits.
- Run independent, anti-war candidates as a step toward building a for a new, mass working class political party, independent of the two corporate parties and the war profiteers.
- Organize for democratically planned, public ownership of the big corporations to use the wealth created by the labor of working people for universal healthcare, housing, jobs programs, and an end to war profiteering.