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In the early hours of June 13, 2025, the Israeli state launched a sweeping military assault against more than a hundred sites across Iran, marking an unprecedented escalation in the Middle East. Utilizing a combined campaign of intelligence-driven Mossad operations and airstrikes by the Israeli Air Force, the assault targeted nuclear and military installations in Tehran, Isfahan, Natanz, and other strategic locales—inflicting significant civilian and military casualties and triggering widespread panic, mass evacuations, and infrastructural collapse.
The Iranian regime responded with a barrage of missile attacks on Israel, which were able to penetrate the highly touted “Iron Dome” and hit military and civilian targets. The exchange of fire continues since, and the Israeli regime doubles down on its threats, saying that “Tehran will burn”.
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As of today (June 17), over 200 people are reported killed and more than 1,000 injured in Iran. The bombing damage to hospitals, energy infrastructure, and residential zones in Tehran constitutes a direct assault on working class people, and not the Islamic regime.
Civilian displacement has followed swiftly: hundreds of thousands have fled Iran’s capital in search of safety, navigating fuel shortages and communication shutdowns.
The Israeli workers and youth face a similar situation, though not to the same degree as the Iranian masses. Tens of ordinary people have lost their lives and hundreds have been injured.
The people of Iran but also the people of Israel are facing a nightmare situation because of the war between two reactionary regimes: on the one hand the Israeli watchdog of Western (US and European) imperialism, on the other the Iranian theocratic capitalist regime suppressing every democratic, human, trade union, gender and other rights.
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Contrary to Israeli government claims of “preemptive defense” against a nuclear threat, Internationalist Standpoint understands this strike as part of a broader imperialist strategy by the zionist regime. It reflects Israel’s approach to impose its domination in the Middle East, based on the military superiority that the Western governments’ unconditional support secures.
At the same time, it exposes its current weakness, as the genocide in Gaza has not provided anything else than brutal destruction. The claimed aim of “eliminating Hamas” has not been realised to the degree that the Israeli regime planned, and internationally Israel is increasingly facing isolation among the mass of workers and youth.
In any case, Israel’s propaganda about “Iran’s nuclear threat” is hypocritical, in the sense that Israel itself has nuclear warheads and is refusing to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and also refuses to accept IAEA inspections.
This attack also exposes the hypocrisy of the Western powers. The US and Europe, both in mass possession of nuclear weapons, do not hesitate to cause untold suffering to the Iranian people in order to allegedly stop the Iranian regime from possessing nuclear weapons. This hypocrisy was once again on full display in the joint statement issued by the G7 leaders, who met in Canada on June 17, 2025. The statement emphasized Israel’s “right to self-defense” and reiterated support for “Israel’s security,” while labeling Iran as “a principal source of regional instability and terrorism.” Notably, the statement made no mention of Israel’s initiation of the assault or the devastation suffered by the Iranian people. Instead, it offered vague references to the protection of civilians, effectively legitimizing Israel’s military aggression.
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The workers’ movement, both in the Middle East and globally, must show solidarity with the Iranian people—particularly the working class, women, youth, and oppressed minorities—who are now enduring the devastating consequences of the Israeli State’s aggression. However, this solidarity must not be confused with any form of support for Iran’s oligarchic capitalist regime itself. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a repressive, reactionary state that cloaks itself in the language of “anti-imperialism” while systematically crushing all internal dissent and democratic expression. Its anti-imperialist rhetoric is nothing more than a tool to legitimize authoritarian rule and silence opposition.
Far from being a defender of its people, the regime has been responsible for the killing, imprisonment, and torture of thousands who dared to resist its authority—from workers and trade unionists to students, women’s rights defenders, and ethnic minorities such as Kurds, Baloch, and Arabs. Independent labor organizing is banned; strikes are met with mass arrests, beatings, and long prison sentences. The regime has waged war on women who dared to remove their headscarves, on teachers who protested for better wages, on retirees asking for dignity, and on university students demanding freedom of thought. The recent women-led uprisings, sparked by the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini, were met with brutal repression, with hundreds killed and thousands detained in a campaign of terror.
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The working class, youth and social movements internationally need to act to show their solidarity to the Iranian and Israeli people who are paying the price for the battle for domination in the Middle East by their own governments. They need to organise against militarisation and rearmament projects that fuel the prospect of more conflicts, in the era of geopolitical rivalry.
Protests and movements, including strike action, aiming to pressurize Western governments to stop funding and supporting the Israeli war machine need to be stepped up. History has shown that workers can play a decisive role in halting wars—not by appealing to the morality of political elites, but by exercising their collective power at the point of production and distribution.
Arab, Jewish and other working people of the area should stand up against their governments and try to find ways of cooperation on a class basis.
This path is difficult, but is the only way the Middle East can have a future. Capitalists on all sides will sacrifice as many lives as needed, including their “own” people, to secure their profits and their domination. The only force that can stop such a nightmarish scenario is the working class and the oppressed, supported by an international movement of working people, against war, imperialist intervention and capitalism.
