The very fragile ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. and Israel is holding for now. But the U.S. continues to illegally blockade Iran and seize its ships. The fascist Donald Trump warns “the whole country is getting blown up” if it doesn’t meet his imperialist demands. Israel’s Defense Minister threatens to return Iran to the “Stone Age.” And the U.S. continues to build its military forces in the region, now with no less than three aircraft carrier strike groups. 

Who are the aggressors? The U.S. and Israel. They launched a surprise attack on Iran—while Iran was negotiating with the U.S.—behind the lie that its missiles and nuclear program posed an immediate danger to the U.S. They did not pose such a danger. Now the U.S. has imposed a naval blockade on Iran—another unjust act of war that threatens the well-being and survival of 93 million Iranians and people around the world.

Who threatens the world with its nuclear weapons? The U.S. and Israel. Iran’s Islamic Republic is a reactionary regime, but it has no nuclear weapons and never has. The U.S., however, has some 5,000 nuclear warheads and is the only country that has ever used them. Israel has 100-200. This is very ominous: the U.S. and Israel have already carried out genocide in Gaza. And Trump has repeatedly threatened to “obliterate” Iran and end Iranian civilization. This reeks of threatening a nuclear attack, and if this illegal, illegitimate war continues and escalates, it could further heighten the danger of nuclear war—a grave danger the U.S. and Israel are responsible for.¹

Who are the biggest mass murderers and terrorists? For the past 47 years and right down to today, the Islamic Republic has carried out terrible crimes against the Iranian people. This includes torturing and murdering political prisoners—in 1988 alone between 2,800 and 5,000. And early this year Iran killed more than 7,000 anti-government protesters, and perhaps far more. And the Islamic Republic has supported reactionary fundamentalist forces across the Middle East.

But as horrific as this record is, it still doesn’t hold a candle to the decades of war crimes committed by the U.S. and Israel. Since the 1950s, the U.S. imperialists have bullied, attacked and intervened their way across the Middle East—from the CIA’s 1953 coup overthrowing the popular Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran, to the 1991 and 2003 invasions and sanctions against Iraq, and to over four decades of American threats, sanctions, and economic warfare against Iran. This sordid record includes fomenting, exploiting and protracting the horrific 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War which took between 500,000 to well over a million lives.²

From Israel’s violent expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians in its founding “Nakba” of 1948 to its wars against neighboring Arab countries, and from there to its continuing seizure of more and more Palestinian land, Israel has been terrorizing, displacing and murdering Palestinians for over seven decades. Just since October 2023, it slaughtered over 70,000 Gazans—more than 20,000 of them children!—and unleashed a reign of terror and killed over 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel has killed over 2,400 Lebanese just since March 2 of this year. And in recent decades, Israel has carried out repeated acts of sabotage, assassinations, and now massive air attacks against Iran. For most of these decades, the U.S. was massively funding, arming, and supporting Israel and its genocidal crimes. 

As of April 7, the U.S.-Israel war has killed 3,636 Iranians, including 254 children, driven over three million from their homes, and destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure Iranians depend on to live. And even worse possibly looms.

Who is threatening the starvation of millions of people around the world? The U.S. and Israel. Their war led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has cut off supplies of energy, fertilizer, and other essential goods. This is having ripple effects around the world, including threatening food supplies, and throwing 45 million more people into acute hunger. 

Why is the U.S. fighting war after war after war, especially in the Middle East? The main reason is that the U.S. is a capitalist-imperialist empire, and this system demands control and exploitation of global markets, resources, and strategic regions. The Middle East (including the Persian Gulf) is one of the most strategic areas of the world in regard to resources and its location at the intersection of Europe, Asia and Africa. That’s why over the decades the U.S. has intervened, threatened, sanctioned, and attacked country after country no matter which party is in power. 

For a long time Israel, the U.S.’s closest regional ally, has seen Iran’s Islamic Republic as its principal rival in the Middle East. Now Israel wants to seize on Iran’s relative weakness to destroy the Islamic Republic and replace it with a government subservient to Israel. In the current situation, Netanyahu was able to “sell” Trump on this idea. According to a major piece in the New York Times, Netanyahu even sat in on the White House “situation room” meeting where going to war was discussed, and advocated for it—something highly unusual, to say the least.

What can and must be done? 

First, spread everywhere the demand to “STOP THE U.S.-ISRAELI WAR AGAINST IRAN” and that the “THE TRUMP FASCIST REGIME MUST GO NOW!” Get this dividing line demand reaching into every corner of society.

Second, dig deeper into the WHY of this whole thing. WHY did the vaunted U.S. democracy end up putting a fascist lunatic in its top office? WHY has that same system taken the lives of more than 14 million people since World War 2 in wars and interventions? And WHY does the U.S. provide so much aid to Israel and maintain such a uniquely close relationship with it? (Go here, here and here for more on this. 

Third, seriously dig into the solution to this: a revolution, one aimed at putting into place a genuinely socialist system, on the basis of the vision and blueprint laid out in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America by Bob Avakian, and popularized in WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM. And if this resonates at all, as you go deeper, above all, get involved.