Iranian workers demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to genocide and repression
18 June 2025 The decision by Netanyahu to escalate the brutal genocide of Gaza by launching new and unprecedented attacks on Iran has dramatically increased the danger of an all-out regional war raging across the Middle East. Fast shifting events are taking place, with the situation changing on an hourly basis. Already it is clear that there is significant loss of life, particularly in Iran, and huge material and environmental damage – especially with oil and gas supplies being targeted. On top of this is the real danger of a nuclear catastrophe. The potential for further escalation and for unpredictable, dangerous consequences is implicit in the threats uttered by Trump, who is demanding the immediate capitulation of Iran, and is discussing the use of US air forces to support the Israeli military. Over the last 48 hours, Trump has called on the residents of Tehran to flee, argued he knows where the Ayatollah Khamenei is “hiding”, and deployed military aircraft and warships into the region. The attack on Iran also conveniently shifts attention away from the genocide in Gaza where the daily massacres and humiliation of the starving masses — over 300 people have been slaughtered and more than 2,000 wounded while trying to collect aid from the US backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation since May 26 — merits little more than a passing comment from the rulers and media outlets of the imperialist powers. Indeed the statement by Macron, Starmer and Carney in mid-May criticising the attacks of the food aid convoys have been quickly forgotten as once again, the western powers have swung behind Netanyahu. Starmer has already sent fighter jets to the region ready for action if needed. As public pressure, fueled by the harrowing images of deliberately starved children, mounted and began to create visible cracks and shifts in tone within Western governments, it is clear that the timing of Israel’s attack on Iran was no coincidence; it was designed, in part, to disrupt that momentum and restore a degree of consensus among key allies by resurrecting the narrative of the Israeli state’s supposed victimhood. False claims As if mirroring the attack by western powers on Iraq in 2003, with its non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the ongoing barrage of attacks started on Friday (the Israeli military itself claims it has hit 1,100 targets in Iran in 5 days) is based on the spurious claim of the imminent production and use against Israel of nuclear bombs. Netanyahu has partly built his political career on claiming that Iran was on the point of producing nuclear weapons – in 1992 he claimed the regime was only three to five years away…and he has been making the same claim, as well as urging military intervention, for over 33 years. Yet in recent months an IAEA report concluded that it had “no credible indications of an ongoing, undeclared structured nuclear programme” and the US Director of National Intelligence has discounted the idea that Iran was involved in a nuclear weapons programme. Ironically, as a result of the attacks, the Iranian regime is now threatening to leave the NPT, or nuclear non-proliferation treaty. By leaving the NPT, Iran would no longer be obliged to forgo nuclear weapons or to accept international inspections. Rather than preventing the Iranian regime from going nuclear, this attack is providing it the strongest incentive to do just that. As for the official claim that these attacks would enhance the security of ordinary Israeli citizens, it is fundamentally undermined by the deadly missile retaliations launched by Iran in response, which have directly harmed civilians within Israel —including Palestinian citizens living within the ‘48 borders, many of whom are excluded from access to the country’s bomb shelters. Trump jumps on bandwagon With the Israelis apparently winning aerial dominance, Trump seems to be now more explicitly jumping on the bandwagon to claim credit, although he changes his position from day to day. Trump now says that the Iranians should negotiate, forgetting the fact that there was already a programme of negotiations underway which Israel’s actions effectively torpedoed. Echoing the way in which Israel killed Hamas leader and Chief negotiator Ismail Haniyeh last year to delay peace talks, the recent attacks against Iran have targeted Iran’s nuclear negotiators. Israel has clearly not been interested in negotiations at all as they deem violence and destruction to be the most effective method of changing the regional balance of forces more decisively in their direction. And it shouldn’t be forgotten that the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the so-called Iran nuclear deal, was the result of a painstaking process of negotiation between Iran and the US, China, Russia and other countries, which was sabotaged in 2018 during his first term when Trump unilaterally abandoned US involvement with the support of Netanyahu and the right wing in the US and Israel. Much of the brutal strategy adopted by the Israeli military in Iran follows the Gaza playbook. It is not just military and nuclear sites that are attacked, but key infrastructural facilities, including telecommunications, television and radio and energy as well as a hospital in western Iran, all of which directly impact on ordinary peoples’ lives. And ordinary workers with no stake in the regime live by or work on these facilities, as cleaners, technicians, secretaries, and they are now paying for this with their lives. Meanwhile, echoing events in Gaza, millions of residents of Tehran are told by the Israeli regime to flee for their lives. What of the sick or the old? And what will be left of their neighbourhoods if and when they return? Trump now repeats the call, grotesquely suggesting that he does so out of concern for saving life. Israel seeks more than just an end to the uranium enrichment process. The aim is to degrade Iran’s overall military capability, especially the missile programme, as well as seeking the disbandment of the militias linked to the Iranian regime. The logic is to exploit the window of opportunity
Iranian workers demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to genocide and repression Read More »