The newest wave of US-Israeli war against Iran has now completed its first full week. The vain dream of US imperialism to rapidly disintegrate the Iranian regime through selected annihilation has been shattered with the continued and escalated resistance of the Iranian people. The Iranian armed forces have continued to respond with strikes against US, Israeli, and Gulf monarchies’ targets in the region.
At the moment, the Islamic Republic of Iran has shown no sign of collapse despite the assassination of dozens of its high ranking leaders, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in the last week and during the so-called “12 Day War” this past July. What began as a classic American imperialist “shock-and-awe” campaign now demonstrates a tendency to develop into a protracted military conflict, an all-out ground invasion, or even a direct strategic defeat for US imperialism in the region.
Development of the Current War
Fundamentally the events of the last week re-emphasize the collapse and bankruptcy of the so-called “rule-based international order” once heralded by the US and other imperialist Powers to dress up their hegemonic rule. Like with the military aggression against Venezuela, the US has given up all nominal pretense of respecting the sovereignty and independence of oppressed countries and peoples. In both cases, the US attacked without a formal declaration of war and without any pathetic justification of bringing freedom and democracy to the people. President Trump did not even send a formal notification of the initiation of military action against Iran to Congress until March 3, four days after the campaign had begun, nor has he felt the need to engage in the sort of elaborate public relations campaign that fellow imperialist George Bush conducted in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
Just like in the 19th century, leaders of US imperialism are not ashamed to openly declare their true intentions for the military actions: for the re-partition of the world and the control of natural resources and market, in the sharpening contradiction against social-imperialist China and Russia. “[The Iranian regime] directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world,” declared Trump, echoing speeches made in the British parliament immediately before the Opium War against China almost two centuries ago. As US imperialism finds itself unpopular at home and unable to defeat Russia and China heads-on abroad, it launches wars of conquest and loot both as a distraction and to further its reactionary ambitions. It accelerates its push for increased fascistization in order to expedite the conduct of such military adventures, and improve their tactical flexibility.
The Iranian response towards the US-Israeli bombardment campaign was swift. Iran, together with allied paramilitary forces in the region, has carried out successive missile and drone swarm operations targeting US and puppet military and economic infrastructure across Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, and Cyprus. According to the Iranian military and confirmed by satellite images, at least two THAAD missile defense batteries – key component of US air defense that costs approximately $32.5 million annually per battery – have been destroyed. These air defense systems, which involve complex long-range early missile detection systems, take years to construct.
Meanwhile, it was reported that multiple Gulf states are at the verge of exhausting their air defense capacity. It was also alleged that the US is “stonewalling” requests to replenish there air defense interceptors due to the lack of resources. For example, only around 800 Patriot missile interceptors are currently produced annually, meaning that the US, Israel, and the Gulf states could potentially expend an entire year’s worth of production every week at the current pace of battle. Multiple oil fields and processing facilities of the Gulf states have already been hit by Iranian attacks and oil production has been interrupted or halted. Qatar, the world’s second biggest producer of liquefied natural gas which accounts for approximately 20% of the global supply, has fully shut down gas liquefaction. On March 2, Iran officially announced its blockade of the Straight of Hormuz, a key water channel through which roughly 20% of the world’s crude oil passes.
These news have sent shock waves through the global economy as the Gulf states produce roughly 30% of global oil output. Oil has surged to its highest price since 2023 on March 6 as US stocks dropped.
While US imperialism has major strategic, economic and political weaknesses, things cannot be viewed one-sidedly either, and it shouldn’t be forgotten that the American empire is a dangerous dying beast with great military power. The United States has inflicted major conventional military damage in the last weak against Iran, destroying much of their naval force, killing dozens of senior leaders of the Iranian Old State, and killing hundreds of Iranian soldiers and civilians in their wanton bombing campaign. These figures also include as many as 175 elementary school girls killed in a direct strike on their school. If the United States is able to establish air superiority over part, or all of Iran, they will no longer have to rely on stand-off missiles which are in short supply, and instead can utilize vast Cold War stockpiles of traditional “gravity” or “dumb” bombs to carry out an even bloodier mass-bombing campaign.
Another important factor is that Iran is ruled by a reactionary dictatorship of the big capitalists and landlords. The hands of the Iranian ruling class are dyed red with the blood of the working people. Just a few months ago, it committed brutal massacres against the Iranian people’s just uprisings. Meanwhile, the Iranian State has shown willingness to negotiate with US imperialism. During the Iran nuclear deal almost a decade ago, Iran cut down its enriched uranium production in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The current situation only happened because Iran has continuously retreated in front of US imperialism, from the assassination of General Soleimani to the weak response during the events of last year including the “12 Day War”, genocide in Palestine, and fall of the Iran-backed Assad regime. As the war goes on, there is a strong possibility that a section of the Iranian ruling class will instead opt for capitulation.
Meanwhile, China and Russia have provided no significant assistance to Iran. Despite being the main imperialist Powers ruling over Iran, both countries have little interest in directly confronting US imperialism in the Middle East. China, while being Iran’s biggest oil buyer, has deepened partnership on trade, investment and arms sales with the Gulf states throughout the years and is only interested in stability in the region. Saudi Arabia, in particular, has built defense ties with China starting from the 1980s. The instability in the region may play out in Russia’s favor, as rising oil prices strengthens its war economy. In turn, this, as well as the expenditure of vast quantities of American armaments against Iran, will weaken the position of Ukraine in the ongoing national war. On March 6, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent hinted at the possibility of lifting sanctions on Russian oil. These facts have again proved that Russia and China are not friends of the oppressed people of the world but are instead collaborators in the reactionary offensive against them.
In the words of Chairman Mao, leader of the Chinese revolution, imperialism must be “despised strategically, but taken serious tactically.” On this note, it is important to consider some new changes reflected in the present imperialist war. This attempt at overthrowing the Iranian government, just like the previous attack on Venezuela, demonstrates new patterns: new technologies and the evolving international situation allows for the tactic of selective annihilation against the leadership of an oppressed country to become an increasingly favored method in imperialism’s counterrevolutionary campaigns.
Selected Annihilation
The tactic of selected annihilation is more commonly associated with attacks on the people, in order to isolate revolutionary leadership from the people. In fact, it is the main method of attack employed by imperialists against revolutionaries. During the Russian revolution, the reactionaries famously attempted to assassinate Lenin as a last resort to stop the revolution. In a more recent example, Cde Basavaraj, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), was assassinated by the Old Indian State last year, which caused a heavy blow to the ongoing revolution in India.
Selected annihilation of an entire country’s leadership is not new in and of itself either. This tactic has been employed by imperialists since its earliest days, with the objective of quickly subjugating smaller and weaker countries. A more recent example was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, where Soviet special forces and airborne troops stormed the Afghan presidential palace and assassinated the President, installing a new regime within hours.
US imperialism, however, has not utilized assassinations as a preferred tactic to subjugate a country for decades. Instead, it has been keen to use more covert ways, whether by backing coups d’état by reactionary elements within the military or by exploiting the masses’ anger against the Old State. At the height of its power, US imperialism was able to change the Party in Power almost with the stroke of a pen. In the few cases where a military invasion is necessary, such as in Iraq or Afghanistan, an overwhelming military force was deployed with the help of its allies to overthrow the ruling faction of the big capitalists with relative ease.
In this case, the increased usage of selected annihilation is a clear example of the growing weakness of US imperialism, as well as being a product of innovations in modern military technology. On the one hand, the US does not have connection with a solid opposition faction among the ruling class in Iran and Venezuela, and on the other hand, it is unprepared for or unable to shoulder the burden of an all-out war of aggression. Instead, Donald Trump and his administration placed their hopes on a more moderate faction assuming Power and capitulating after the neutralization of “hardliners” such as Khamenei and Maduro. The rise of drone-warfare and so-called “smart missiles” has also allowed for rapid targeted attacks and assassination attempts from afar in ways that were not possible in prior decades.
New Considerations
Modern warfare is being transformed by ever-present surveillance technology which allows for more precise remote strikes and attacks. In all cases, this is assisted by penetration by agents of imperialism. According to sources within the Israeli government, nearly all the traffic cameras in Tehran had been hacked for years by Israel. Through them, US and Israel were able to determine the movement pattern of high-ranking Iranian government officials and identify the exact time Khamenei and other leaders gathered for a meeting to launch the deadly strike. Capitalist media alleged that Israel used a mathematical technique which runs through billions of data points to pinpoint new individuals for surveillance and assassination. Quite ironically, the cameras of the Old State used to monitor the Iranian workers and peasants have been used as a tool against the big capitalist and landlord rulers.
These hits are the latest fruit of the US-Israeli intelligence operation against Iran and other opponents. Since 2010, multiple leading Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in assassinations orchestrated by the US and Israel, in order to stop the Iranian nuclear project from progressing. During the Gaza War, Israel engineered an attack which exploded thousands of handheld pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, before assassinating the Party’s long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The impact of spies and agents of imperialism in these operations likewise cannot be understated. According to Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of the US army, Nicolas Maduro was captured when the a small CIA team in Caracas understood “how he moved, where he lived, where he traveled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets.”
While imperialists often lie about their technological capacity to appear more powerful in front of the world’s people, these claims deserve serious investigation. Altogether, the imperialists have employed a combination of old and new methods to surveil their enemies in order to defeat them. The people’s struggles are no exception to this rule. For example, in the ongoing Operation Kagar, the Old Indian State has used cutting-edge technology such as advanced drones equipped with high-definition cameras and thermal imaging sensors to monitor Maoist activity, assisting the mass encirclement and annihilation campaign of the armed forces on the ground.
In the final analysis, the key factor in war is not technology, weapons, or geography, but man. While these changing conditions have created difficulties for revolutionaries and oppressed nations, they also bring newer opportunities. The ongoing war partially illustrated this: expensive US air interceptors are already being overwhelmed and destroyed by cheap mass-produced Iranian drones. As modern warfare evolves, the working class and oppressed peoples shall also adapt and defeat the enemy on these new terrains.
Future of the Conflict
The current imperialist aggression against Iran is likely to develop into either a protracted military stalemate or a full-blown ground invasion. According to the capitalist press, Trump privately expressed “serious interest” in carrying out a ground invasion against Iran on Friday. “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” Wrote Trump on social media the same day as he tries to ramp up the psychological offensive against Iran. Furthermore, US-Israeli agents have been heavily lobbying proxy forces within Azerbaijan and Iraqi Kurdistan, encouraging them to use American-Israeli air power as a cover for a military incursion in the Kurdish and Azerbaijani-majority provinces of Iran.
As the initial plan of selected annihilation did not yield the desired result, US imperialism has found itself at a crossroads and burdened with another a hugely unpopular war. In all of this one thing about the goals of the current reactionary campaign is clear: the US will continue its attacks against the Iranian and Middle Eastern people to solidify its control of the region and dismantle any opposition.
Uncertainty also stems from the role of Israeli expansionism. While the US has been indecisive regarding the exact extent of its involvement, Israel seems determined in seizing this opportunity to destroy the Iranian State after its weakening during the “12 Day War”.
Needless to say, it is the duty of all revolutionaries and progressive forces in the imperialist nations to join with the oppressed peoples of the world in raising up a powerful wave of anti-imperialist resistance to propagate and educate the masses on the justness of the Iranian resistance and against the imperialist war of aggression. But we must ask candidly: facing yet another US war of aggression, what is the state of the revolutionary movement? To have indulged in years and decades of tired event organizing and spectacles of the petty bourgeoisie, through the “cold accumulation of forces” or adventurist actions isolated from the working class – this amounts to the highest betrayal of the blood shed by the Iranian people.
The “colossal heap of garbage” that has plagued the “left” must be swept away. In the long term, this means to integrate with the struggle of the working class, transforming it into a class-for-itself through militant and collective struggle, overcoming sectarian divisions through mobilizing hundreds and thousands for economic and political demands connected to the anti-imperialist struggle. Independent and combative class politics must emerge in order to provide the Iranian people their long-needed material support.
Ultimately, it is the Iranian people who will defeat US imperialism through their armed struggle, and we are fervently certain in this outcome. Through the concerted effort of the Iranian nation and all oppressed nations in the Middle East, led by the only thoroughgoing anti-imperialist class – the working class and its Party – US imperialism and all reactionaries will lose.
The Anti-Imperialist League, an international alliance of anti-imperialist organizations, draws the line like this:
At this point, the theoretical and political distinction is of great importance. The anti-imperialist line must place independent class politics, the self-organization of the peoples, and international solidarity at its center. On the one hand stands imperialist aggression, and on the other domestic reaction; both forces attempt to draw social opposition to their own side. For whatever reason, carrying the banner of reaction and aligning behind it means becoming part of that reaction.
What the oppressed must do is unite under their own banner and struggle against both imperialist aggression and domestic reaction.
