The Iranian people are facing horrendous bombing by both the USA and Israel. At least a thousand have died in this carpet bombing, where civilian lives have not been spared. This includes the bombing of a school by US forces, that killed 168 people, 100 of them children.
It is not just Iran that is being attacked. Lebanon has been viciously bombed by Israel, with incursions and occupations by Israeli troops, forcing nearly 700,000 to flee. The Israel state seems to have the same game plan as for Gaza- bomb southern Lebanon, Dahieh, and parts of the Bekaa into uninhabited devastation, and ethnically cleanse it.
During the course of the bombing in, The USA and Israel between them have eradicated many leaders of the reactionary theocratic regime, including Ayatollah Ali Khomeni, the former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and many leading lights of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, including its commander, Hossein Salami. We in the Anarchist Communist Group shed no tears for the deaths of these hangmen, as over the years they have been responsible for the killing of thousands of Iranians.
Iran has responded by widespread rocket and drone attacks throughout the region and its blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. Iran’s close ally, the equally reactionary Hezbollah in Lebanon, has also become involved in the conflict, triggering the Israeli invasion.
All of this follows the mass popular unrest in Iran in December 2025, sparked by the worsening economic situation and crippling price rises, and by increasing disenchantment with the mullahs’ authoritarian regime. In response the regime slaughtered thousands of people in January, and is continuing its execution of opponents of the regime.
The attacks on Iran by the USA and Israel have nothing to do with any decision to attempt to liberate the Iranian masses from the theocratic regime, that was never the intention either of Trump or Netanyahu. Their intention was to destroy or weaken Iran as a regional power. In fact, these attacks has legitimised the regime in part, especially on the global level, and much of the rotting traditional left has been enthusiastic in giving more priority to the murder of Iranians by the Americans and Zionists, than they have to the murder of Iranians by Khameini and his executioners.
The counterrevolution and bloody repression unleashed by Khameini has its continuation in the bombing by the USA and Israel. The overthrow of the regime by action of the Iranian masses has been closed down by these bombings. Equally, a rabid Iranian nationalism has been strengthened by these bombings, and hatred and repression against minorities within Iran, Baluchis, Kurds, and Arabs, as well as the many Afghan refugees, has been exacerbated. Already the monarchist forces around Reza Pahlavi, the former Crown Prince of Iran, are positioning themselves to coopt the mass movement, and to move it to the right. It is unclear, as usual, as to what the Trump regime plans for Iran, if it is successful in destroying the mullahs’ government, which is far from guaranteed. It could be Pahlavi, it could be some ‘reformist’ leader, it could be a renegade of the regime willing to do Trump’s bidding, as has happened in Venezuela.
We reject the mullahs’ regime as equally as we reject the forces around Pahlavi or the so called reformist elements within Iran. Equally, we totally oppose the barbaric bombing of Iran and Lebanon. Action similar to that of dockers worldwide must sabotage the war efforts. Here in Britain, we have to encourage the blockade of bases used for the bombing and given the go ahead by Starmer. Mass mobilisation around the world must strive to stymie the US war effort.