For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic has been siphoning the wages of workers, teachers, and retirees, plunging society into despair while amassing a vast military arsenal. The Iranian populace has already borne the costs of the Islamic Republic’s proxy wars and its recent missile strikes on Israel. The regime’s commitment to militarism, warmongering, and terrorism has wreaked havoc on the lives of eighty million Iranians.
Meanwhile, bourgeois propagandists and the right-wing opposition continue to stoke the flames of war, eagerly anticipating a retaliatory strike by Netanyahu’s government. This desperate segment of the opposition clings to the notion of war and U.S. intervention in the region as mechanisms to pressure the Islamic Republic into concessions or enforce top-down reforms.
Yet, this conflict does not serve the interests of the Iranian people or the broader region. It is not a battle between the citizens of Iran and those of Israel, who find themselves under the yoke of Netanyahu’s authoritarian rule. The policies of American militarism and the Islamic Republic’s proxy warfare, framed as deterrence, are inhumane and have failed miserably. President Biden’s approach, asking Netanyahu to declare victory while distancing the U.S. from further attacks on the Islamic Republic, highlights this failure. Satisfied with demonstrating its power, the Islamic Republic has no real interest in perpetuating the military conflict with Israel.
The Worker-Communist Party, Tudeh Party, Iranian Left Party, Hekmatist party, Communist Party of Iran, and the Labourer’s Creed have simultaneously condemned the ongoing military conflict between Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran. These groups assert that the conflict primarily advances the political agendas of the involved governments: Israel diverts attention from its internal strife and the Palestinian conflict, while Iran suppresses domestic dissent and stalls revolutionary movements.
These parties argue that such regional conflicts primarily benefit imperialistic powers, thereby posing significant obstacles to global peace. They have passionately urged workers and advocates for freedom worldwide to denounce warfare and dedicate themselves to dismantling oppressive regimes, striving for a future marked by peaceful coexistence and mutual respect.
The escalation of hostilities is perceived as a strategic maneuver by Iran’s authoritarian regime to distract from its escalating domestic crises, including economic downturns and the burgeoning ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement. The mentioned organizations emphasize the urgent need to form a broad coalition and escalate protests to halt severe violence in Gaza and counteract Iran’s aggressive policies. This initiative also supports global movements that oppose tyranny and champion human rights and democracy.
Below, you will find a summary of the statements from Iranian leftist and communist parties regarding the events of the past few days.
Hekmatist Party:
Against the Confrontation and War of Terrorist States
The Worker-Communist Party of Iran – Hekmatist views the ongoing war atmosphere, missile launches, and military confrontations between the criminal states of Israel and the Islamic Republic, along with their objectives, as reactionary. The civilian populations in Israel, Iran, and other regional countries do not wish for an escalation of the war. The racist Israeli government needs direct confrontation with the Islamic Republic to sideline the genocide in Gaza and the Palestinian issue, and to control domestic dissatisfaction within Israel.
Similarly, the Islamic Republic benefits from the wartime atmosphere and crises beyond its borders to enforce political repression domestically, assault women, suppress wage issues, exacerbate poverty among the working class, control internal tensions, and suppress revolutionary struggles. The confrontation between these two terrorist states, two religious capitalist apartheids, is against the struggles of workers and freedom-seeking people in Iran, Israel, and the region. The expansion of war fronts in the Middle East only gives a platform to terrorist forces and those against society. This terrorists’ war has nothing to do with freedom-seeking and revolutionary goals. This war must be stopped.
Our call to workers and freedom-seeking people in Iran, Israel, the region, and the world is to actively join the effort to end the war of terrorists. We condemn the confrontations of terrorist fronts and their objectives. The people of Israel, Iran, and the Middle East must overthrow their terrorist, autocratic, and religious governments to achieve lasting peace and peaceful coexistence.
The Netanyahus, Bidens, and Khameneis are the architects and perpetrators of this situation. Revolutionary workers and people in Iran must decisively end their dealings with the ruling Islamic bourgeoisie, which would be the greatest service in curbing the movement of political Islam, resolving the Palestinian issue, and isolating the fascists in the Israeli government.
Iranian Left Party:
Opposition to Military Adventurism and Against Warmongers
The current situation should not be seen as accidental. Today’s condition is an inseparable link in a 45-year chain, and as long as the basis is on tension and turmoil between the two sides, it will continue to escalate. We see the current acute situation as a moment in a conflict shaped by actions and reactions on both sides of the hostility.
The continual advocacy for the destruction of Israel, with heavy human and financial costs to promote not just an interventionist but also a criminal policy, and actions like the bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina in the 1990s by one side of the conflict, and the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, various political, security, and military conspiracies both within and outside our country by the other side, including attacks on critical nuclear facilities, the recent massacre in Syria, and numerous cyber-attacks are all indications of an undercover war and preparations for an overt war.
Israel’s attack on the Damascus consulate is internationally regarded as an attack on Iranian territory and is condemned. However, the Islamic Republic of Iran, which portrays itself as a victim citing such norms, occupied American soil in Tehran in its early years and, three decades later, sent its “fire-at-will” thugs over the walls of several embassies, including Saudi Arabia.
Despite turning the soil of Gaza to dust with the consequence of over 32,000 Palestinian deaths in the past six months and enjoying the support of the USA and most Western governments, Netanyahu’s government has failed to achieve its goal in this unequal war and has been defeated. Currently, the criminal government of Israel is poised to seek a way out of the stalemate of the lost war in Gaza by preparing for another war.
The Council of Retirees of Iran, alongside all groups, organizations, and the majority of the society weary of war, declares to the initiators of it that this war and tension have nothing to do with the people’s benefit and their lives and are against our interests, and as a result, this crisis must be ended as soon as possible.
Yesterday’s demonstration of Iran’s Council of Pensioners against poverty and high prices in different cities. Video from Tehran.
Hekmatist Party (official line):
This is not our war!
Israel, its military government, and Netanyahu, following the massacre and genocide of the innocent people of Gaza, find themselves in a domestic and international deadlock. In an attempt to escape this isolation, even from its traditional and historical allies in Western societies, Israel is trying to extend the scope of war and military hostilities to other countries in the region, particularly Iran. This move aims to draw NATO, the United States, and European Union countries into supporting it in the Middle East.
Israel’s attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s consulate in Syria, which resulted in the deaths of several figures from the Islamic Republic, was an act born not out of strength but desperation. This attack has fueled a wave of intimidation and war propaganda among Israel, the U.S., and Iran, escalating tensions further in an already volatile region.
Israel’s military operations, further genocide of the people of Gaza, and efforts to attract traditional supporters for military intervention in the Middle East are actions of a regime that the world has risen against. No degree of military provocations and terrorism will help Israel escape its global deadlock and alleviate its domestic political crisis.
An arms and military boycott, along with political and diplomatic isolation, such as closing embassies and cutting off the influence of Zionist fascism globally, is the political response that civilized humanity has set before the world. This is done in order to save the world once and for all from the playground of global militarism led by the United States and to end the tragedy in Gaza.
The reciprocal military propaganda by the Islamic Republic and its pretense of “defending the Palestinian people” transform its conflict with the Israeli government into a dispute over the “rights of the Palestinian people.” This is merely a tactic to gain leverage in global negotiations and diplomacy and a means to silence the people and reduce the pressure from the widespread protest movement against it. This is not the war of the people in Iran! This is not our war in Iran! The military propaganda of the Islamic Republic has little to do with the rights of the Palestinian people.
The people in Iran, the working class, and their progressive movements are part of civilized humanity that has a joint political response to solve the Palestinian issue. Solving the Palestinian problem is the work of civilized humanity that has so far caused Israel to face widespread global isolation and is capable of resolving it. The militaristic atmosphere created by the reactionary powers of the region and the world is an effort to silence freedom-seeking people everywhere. We must stand firmly against this atmosphere with all our strength!
Communist Party of Iran and The Labourer’s Creed:
Jewish apartheid and Shiite apartheid needs war
The alignment of the Islamic regime with the objectives of expanding the war by Netanyahu and Israeli right-wingers is precisely due to alignment with the results and effects of this destructive war in suppressing the civil and revolutionary movement of the people of Iran. In this goal, both apartheid regimes are united and aligned.
The revolutionary uprising of Jina, in advancing itself and expanding civil disobedience, and mobilizing the greatest force in organizing widespread resistance against Shiite fascism, does not need war. All defenders of war and its expansion are sworn enemies of the revolutionary uprising ‘Woman, Life, Freedom.’ The expansion of war will only lead to widespread destruction, brutal killing of people, disintegration of the economy, and disruption of everyday life. The current expansion of war will only benefit the defenders of apartheid in Iran and Israel.
Now is the time for peace-loving people in Israel to act to end the Gaza war, to stop the warmongering efforts of the ruling right-wing and racist government, and to create new conditions for peaceful coexistence with the oppressed people of Palestine and to expand their current protests against the war. It is also time for the people of Iran to confront the warmongering efforts of the Islamic Republic and to breathe new life into the civil, revolutionary movement ‘Woman, Life, Freedom.’ An even wider alliance in the struggle for freedom and the struggle for bread, and bringing out an increasing number of protesting people to break the regime’s war with the people and its diversionary foreign wars, is a vital necessity.
We call on all freedom-loving and equality-seeking forces, all conscientious and concerned individuals, to wholeheartedly rejuvenate the peace movement; to use all their resources to expose the efforts of warmongers from all sides. Mobilizing the public opinion of people around the world and attracting the support and cooperation of organizations and institutions defending peace to pressure their governments to help reduce the atmosphere of war and to end the evident genocide in Gaza is an indispensable necessity.
Worker-Communist Party of Iran
The Islamic Republic initiated its attack on Israel by launching dozens of drones and ballistic missiles, marking the official start of a war between the two countries. It is clear that the Israeli government will not leave this attack unanswered, and it is also evident that the Islamic Republic, both militarily and politically, lacks the capability to sustain this war. Khamenei and other government officials are aware of this reality but what has driven them to start a war is their desperate and dead-end position against the Iranian people and a full-scale revolution that has shaken the entire regime of the Islamic Republic to its core. Like many governments under revolutionary pressure in modern world history, the Islamic Republic needs an external war because it has reached a deadlock and defeat in its internal war against the people of Iran.
The Israeli government has not yet responded to this attack. Previously, Israeli officials had announced that they would respond to any attack from Iran on Iranian soil. Whatever the response, it will drag the Islamic Republic into a maelanstrom from which there is no escape. The Islamic Republic will attempt to use this war as a pretext to increase pressure and repression on the people of Iran, but today’s conditions are not like those during the Iran-Iraq War. The regime is weaker, more chaotic, more despised, and more isolated, and the masses are more prepared and angrier than before, making it unlikely for the government to strengthen its domestic position through this war. It is not the government, but the people of Iran who can use these conditions to intensify their assault and expand the scope of their protests and struggle.
Ending the war initiated by the government and all the warmongering of the regime, as well as the warlike atmosphere it has imposed on the region and Iranian society, depends on the advancement and victory of our revolution. The defeat of the Islamic Republic is not only inevitable in the external war but also in its internal war against the people of Iran.
Cooperation Council of Leftist and Communist:
The military conflict between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel and the possibility of an expansion of a reactionary war is condemned
(This council consists of the Socialist Workers’ Alliance, the Communist Party of Iran, the Worker-communist Party of Iran – Hekmatist, the Labourer’s Creed, the Organization of Iranian People’s Fedai Guerrillas (Minority), and the Minority center.)
The conflict in the region escalated following the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of many civilians. The Islamic Republic and its proxy forces have deemed this attack a victory. In retaliation, the Israeli government, led by Netanyahu, whom they call “the butcher of the Palestinian people,” has leveled Gaza with bombings, missile strikes, and extensive ground military attacks, leaving over 33,000 dead, most of whom are children and women. Most Western countries, led by the United States, have labeled the Israeli government’s massacre of civilians as this country’s “right to self-defense” and have strongly supported this racist and occupying state. Over the past six months, relentless attacks by the Israeli government on civilians have faced public outrage and widespread social struggles, forcing Western governments to pressure Israel to accept a ceasefire.
After failing to achieve its stated objectives in Gaza and becoming internationally isolated due to the genocide in Gaza, the right-wing government of Israel attacked the consulate of the Islamic regime and killed commanders, intending to directly draw the Islamic Republic into the war and divert attention from the Gaza issue. The Islamic Republic, caught between internal pressures and its proxy forces and also to avoid the possibility of a failure in its deterrence policy and isolation among its allies, chose the option of a direct military attack on Israeli territory.
The reality is that the world under the dominance of capitalist governments is entangled in intertwined crises. Wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the consequences of the decline of American hegemony and unilateralism in international relations, and the increasing political and military crises in the Middle East, increasingly drive the contemporary world towards war and militarism, which result in nothing but slaughter, massacre, and destruction. The mission of all leftist and communist forces, and all progressive and honorable free people, is to expose warmongering and to counteract the policies of reactionary and warmongering religious governments, including the states of Israel and the Islamic Republic.
Tudeh Party of Iran:
Playing with the disastrous fire of imperialism and reactionism in the Middle East
What we are witnessing in the Middle East these days is a dangerous game played by imperialist countries, the criminal and racist state of Israel, and the anti-people government of the Islamic Republic of Iran with the fire of a widespread war that could have disastrous consequences for the people of the region and our homeland.
The regime of the Supreme Leader, which is increasingly mired in a political-economic crisis and has intensified in recent weeks, under explicit orders, a campaign of suppression and assault on the rights of women, workers, and laborers, is keen to use the escalating tensions in the region and external threats to place the country in an emergency state to momentarily bypass obstacles in the way of its survival. The situation of the racist Netanyahu state is similar to the bankrupt regime of Iran. A government in deep political-economic crisis and a prime minister who has been prosecuted by Israeli courts for corruption and theft, and continuing the war are among the ways for Netanyahu and his government allies to remain in power.
The Israeli government is also keen to use the escalation of tension and conflict to divert global public opinion about the shocking human tragedy it has created in Gaza and also to silence the resonant voice of the global movement defending the rights of the Palestinian people and world peace. Another important point to consider is the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in the USA and the UK in the coming months, which military conflicts have always been exploited by reactionary and warmongering forces to deceive public opinion.
With the attacks of drones and missiles by the Islamic Republic of Iran and the possibility of retaliatory attacks by the Netanyahu government against Iran, the risk of further spreading war and bloodshed increasingly threatens our region and homeland. The escalation and expansion of military conflicts in the region only serve the strategic policies of global imperialism to impose its full hegemony over the region and will not secure the national interests of either of the two nations trapped under religious and anti-people governments. The people of our homeland, along with all the peace-loving forces of the world, want an end to all regional wars, including the war in Gaza and Ukraine.
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