On the early morning of Friday, June 13, Tehran and several other cities in Iran were bombarded by Israel with a squadron of modern F-35 fighters, accompanied by a barrage of drones and missiles. Israel confirmed that it had launched a direct and full-scale undeclared war on Iran. It must be stressed that the attack was a both a flagrant violation of Iran’s territorial sovereignty and wholly illegal under international law.
The aggression was initiated just 48 hours before the sixth round of formal negotiations between Iran and the U.S. were set to take place in Oman. It was aimed at sabotaging a formal negotiation process that had been underway for nine weeks. The attacks ran completely against the course of developments up until that point.
In the initial days of the aggression, the whole Iranian population were utterly terrorized and terrified. They were fired upon seemingly from every direction. It felt more akin to a major coup attempt.
Indeed, what was witnessed was an attempt at “regime change” in Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself repeated that message over and over again, inviting the people of Iran to exploit the “opportunity” afforded to them by his illegal offensive.
It has long seemed that the criminal apartheid Israeli government’s ultimate objective is none other than the complete overthrow of the ruling regime in Iran. And now, considering both the bombing and targeting of civilian infrastructure within Iran, as well as the arming of some Kurdish separatist elements along Iran’s western borders, there can be no doubt that an attack upon Iran is a central part of a larger plan by the U.S., through its proxy Israel, to redraw the map of the Middle East.
To defend Iran’s sovereignty is to defend its people, vital infrastructure, culture, history, and territorial integrity. A military attack by a racist and colonialist regime such as that in power in Israel is a criminal act against all Iranian people—regardless of the nature of the government ruling the country.
And condemning this attack does not run contrary to the righteous opposition to the criminal Islamic Republic dictatorship and its manifestly bankrupt policies.
Defending Iran’s sovereignty while also unwaveringly opposing the theocratic dictatorship in power there are not mutually exclusive positions. In fact, those familiar with Iran might legitimately argue that bona fide expressions of both go very much hand in hand.
It would be a big miscalculation to explain away Israel’s animosity towards Iran, the country, as being simply the result of the Tel Aviv regime’s animosity towards the Islamic Republic, per se. This war should not be mischaracterized as a religious war between the Jewish Israeli leaders on the one hand and the Islamist regime in Tehran on the other.
The underpinning logic and rationale of neo-colonialism shows that Iran, as an independent power in West Asia, whether under an Islamist dictatorship or a democratic and secular government, will always remain in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialism and its regional attack dog.
Historical precedent also confirms this to be the case. From the era of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh until today, whenever Iran has sought independence—not necessarily an anti-imperialist position but simply an independent one—it has faced continual pressure, threats, conspiracy, and peril.
Therefore, the idea that “if the Islamic Republic goes, Israel will no longer be an adversary of Iran” is naive to state the least and stems from a lack of proper understanding of geopolitical realities. at least as they pertain to Iran and the Middle East region.
The Iranian left has correctly characterized the military attack on the country as a heinous crime against all Iranian people and quickly demanded its immediate cessation.
A progressive take mandates that events be analyzed through a historical and internationalist lens. Today, the Iranian left has a national responsibility to provide a deep insight into the true nature of the Israeli state. This is because, on the one hand, the Islamic Republic regime’s discourse entirely lacks credibility with the people, while on the other, those opposition forces on the political right neither countenance nor proffer any criticism of Israel. Thus, the duty to fully expose the reality of the wicked catastrophe being inflicted upon the people of Gaza to this very day falls to the left.
In recent decades, the Middle East has entered an unprecedentedly critical phase, marked by wars and overt military aggression—led by Israel and fully supported by the U.S.—aimed at reshaping the region’s geographic and political map.
Now, the region is enduring another truly devastating reconfiguration, inflicted upon its peoples by U.S. imperialism and its allies, chiefly Israel. The recent illegal aggression waged by these two belligerents is part and parcel of the ongoing reconfiguration and attempt at reassertion of the U.S.’ declining hegemony.
Three decades of adventurous and reckless foreign policy on the part of the Islamic Republic, formulated to serve the absolute rule of despotic Islamists, has collapsed for all to see and has proved disastrous to Iran’s national interests.
The fundamental tenet of this policy was to “export the Islamic Revolution” and extend the Islamic Republic’s regional hegemony, thereby serving to fortify the theocratic dictatorship at home. Estimated to have cost tens of billions of dollars, the approach was publicly touted by the regime as a deterrent against external aggression, particularly from Israel and the U.S.
This policy has not only failed but has spectacularly backfired, placing Iran in the proverbial “eye of the storm”—that is, U.S. imperialism’s designs to reconfigure the Middle East, involving Israel. Further, U.S. imperialism desires a reconfiguration of the Middle East, a strategy led by the disastrous pairing of an ultra-right U.S. president in Donald Trump and an unashamed war criminal in Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hundreds of blameless Iranian people have already paid the ultimate price for this war, with many more lives irreversibly destroyed, not to mention the destruction of the national infrastructure, at the hands of Israel’s war machine, which is facilitated and serviced by the U.S.
It would be remiss not to mention however, that the Islamic Republic’s reckless “paper tiger” brinksmanship also played a role in bringing on the destruction.
The primary objective of Israel’s 12-day war on Iran was to create the conditions for “regime change,” driven by the delusion that the Iranian people would somehow heed Netanyahu’s call for an uprising and rally behind the very aggressors raining bombs down upon their homeland.
Yet, the opposite occurred. Despite widespread revulsion towards the ruling theocracy, Iranians instead rallied behind the defense of the homeland in a spirit of national solidarity and rejection of foreign intervention.
The Iranian people desire enduring peace and stability as essential foundations for their achieving freedom and social justice. Across the country, calls for “No War” resonate loudly and powerfully. This sentiment is strongly supported by the majority of Iran’s progressive forces and civil society currents.
To prevent the current crisis from escalating into a catastrophic broader regional conflict with massive and lasting consequences, anti-war and progressive forces internationally must stand in solidarity with the Iranian people and amplify their demand for proper diplomacy and a peaceful resolution.
This article is based on a speech delivered by the author at a meeting held during the policy conference of Unite the Union, one of the largest labor unions in the Britain and Ireland.
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