What are the facts of the US war against the Iranian people? First, you should know a little bit about the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its relations with the US; the Iranians certainly do. Public memory in the US usually begins with the 1979 hostage crisis. Iranian memory goes back quite a bit further.

In 1921, a cavalry officer named Reza Khan led a coup backed by the United Kingdom and overthrew the Qajar Dynasty of Persia. After World War II, the US started its Cold War against the USSR and the People’s Republic of China. In 1951, the people of Iran elected Mohammad Mossaddegh as their Prime Minister. He embarked on a program of nationalization of the Iranian oil fields, which had until then been controlled by and for the profit of a British firm, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Corporation.

The United Kingdom wanted to invade Iran to secure to oil. After all, the entire global economy had switched over to running on oil by 1951 and every Western military power needed oil to run their war machines. They couldn’t let Iran decide who to sell oil to. They might pick the wrong people! US president Harry Truman convinced the British not to act. At the same time, US diplomats assured the Mossaddegh government that the US was their staunch ally. Behind the scenes, the US was preparing to move against Mossaddegh because the US ruling class was afraid that the Soviets might get their hands on Iranian oil.

In 1953, the CIA and British intelligence agents from MI6 orchestrated a coup. They had the Shah issue arrest orders to detain and arrest Mossaddegh and the cabinet of ministers. The initial coup failed and Mossaddegh rallied the masses of Iran to his side. The US sheltered fleeing army officers in CIA stations across Iran, then unleashed them to counter Mossaddegh. He was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.

The Shah needed to shore up his position, since his people despised him for what he had done to their elected champion. So, the US provided the Shah with a nuclear program. They bulked up the Iranian army with massive US weapons sales: the Shah was authorized to purchase almost any non-nuclear US weapons system, and spent over $4.3 billion on sales from the US in 1974. Most importantly, though, the CIA built the Shah’s secret police, SAVAK. They trained this brutal force and, under CIA tutelage, SAVAK tortured and murdered political dissidents until the Shah was overthrown.

In 1979, after nearly three decades of abuse, the people of Iran rose up against the Pahlavi monarchy. They were led by a coalition of Communists, socialists, and Islamic revolutionaries. The revolution in Iran took on an Islamic character because mosques were one of the few places where people could organize without being dragged away by the Shah’s secret police. Islam in Iran thus took on a revolutionary role, rather than a reactionary one such as in Saudi Arabia.

The Islamic Republic today is a Parliamentary Republic with a unique element: the role of the velayat-e-faqih, or the oversight of a political “guardian” and jurist of the faith – the “Supreme Leader” of Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (the IRGC you may have heard about recently) is a secular branch of the Republican government. Uppermost in the political philosophy of every branch of the Islamic Republic is the principle that the Iranian people should never again be pawns of the Western powers.

Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has been the target of punishing US sanctions. The US has consistently attempted to exert what it calls “maximum pressure” – the same strategy they are applying to Cuba today and that they applied to Chile in the 1970s – to isolate the Iranian economy. This has resulted in countless deaths, and subjected everyone in Iran to collective punishment for daring to overthrow the US-installed dictatorship.

The Fight Against the zionists

The crimes committed by the zionist state in Palestine are not new, but their full extent has only now become undeniable to the US public. Since it was declared, the Islamic Republic has been opposed to the continuing genocide committed by the zionists and has worked tirelessly to assist the Palestinian resistance. This, more than anything else, has been the reason for the continued hostility of the US ruling class against Iran.

The US requires its forward base in the zionist territory for several reasons. It is the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” of US power projection. It keeps the Gulf vassal stats like Saudi Arabia in line, ensures that oil can continue to flow, operates as a relief valve for domestic US class-strife, and helps the totally enmeshed US-zionist tech and computer economy remain afloat. It is, in essence, an extra “frontier” from which land can be stolen to reward corporate enclaves and individual technical specialists.

In the fight for the freedom of Palestine, the Iranian government has been the strongest ally of the Resistance. In a very real sense, it is impossible to stand up for Palestine without standing against the United States. That includes their aggression against Iran.

Are We the Villains?

The fact of the matter is, from a world-historical perspective – from the perspective of anyone who isn’t a white American – the United States is unequivocally and without question the global “bad guy” and has been since at least the end of World War II. The US government is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world. Everybody other than us already knows this! There is no government the US won’t overthrow in the quest for profit or “containment.” Whatever internal criticisms you have of the Iranian government and how it treats its people, never fear – the US government treats people worse.

Most non-aligned states feel the need to develop nuclear weapons to stop the US from invading them. There’s no need to look back in the history books, just look at how Washington treated the sovereign states of Venezuela and Cuba this year! For what? The acquisition of Venezuelan oil, to cut off the flow of oil to China, and to open up Cuba to American investors and hotel magnates.

But let’s walk through the latest timeline of the US interventions in Iran and try to see if there’s any kind of pattern:

July 2015. A comprehensive nuclear enrichment agreement is reached between Iran, the US, and the UN in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

May 8, 2019. Washington unilaterally repudiates the deal.

Jan 3, 2020. Washington kills Iranian general Qassem Soleimani with a missile strike for the crime of being anti-zionist and Iranian.

March 7, 2025. Washington says they want to restart talks.

April 12, 2025. First round of talks are held between intermedaries.

April 19, 2025. Second round of talks.

April 26, 2025. Third round of talks are held, the first where experts from both sides are present.

May 11, 2025. Fourth round of talks are held.

May 23, 2025. Fifth round of talks are held. Both US and Iran report that there has been progress.

June 13, 2025. The zionists bomb Iran while talks are ongoing.

June 22, 2025. The United States bombs Iran during the talks.

July 25, 2025. Iran and European authorities meet.

Sept. 9, 2025. Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog strike a deal.

Sept 28, 2025. The UN places new sanctions on Iran.

Jan. 13, 2026. Washington calls off all further talks.

Feb. 6, 2026. Washington restarts talks.

Feb. 26, 2026. Washington and Iran may have a deal.

Feb 28, 2026. While talks are ongoing, Washington and the zionists pummel Iran with missiles and kill the Supreme Leader and his wife without warning.

The Islamic Republic negotiated in good faith; it reached a deal not once, but repeatedly and it was purportedly very close to a deal on February 26. Their counterparts in Washington used the cover of talks not once but twice to strike Iran. So, who, then, are the villains here?

We Have the Same Enemies

The US ruling class — the capitalists — who control all government policy, who decide when and where the country goes to war, and who engage in the most hideous acts of pedophilia, rape, abuse, and even murder; those people who set up and run the US economy, who profit from your misery, who set the police on you, who pilfer your wages and retirement funds, who have been turning the screws on their economic vise since before you were born, who crashed the economy in 2008 and got away with it… those people are our enemy. If the people of Iran have grievances against their government, it is their fight to carry out when and how they choose. Right now, the might of the US imperial war machine is bearing down on the Islamic Republic of Iran… and the Islamic Republic is winning. Not on the abstract level of vague principles, but on the very real level of fact, Iran’s resistance to US imperialism is weakening our collective enemy.

We should be overjoyed that our oppressors are being bloodied by their ill-conceived attacks. The US strikes on Iran have not weakened it at all; they have made it stronger, unified the people of Iran, and placed command of the Iranian nation in the hands of the secular IRGC.

Iran is striking our enemies for us, dealing blow after blow to the imperialist economy, exhausting the imperialist war materiel with their strategy, while we sit idly by and do nothing.

It comes down to each of us to begin organizing local circles to support the world war on imperialism that is now being waged. We must gather all sympathetic people in our locality and plan ways to slow down or degrade the war machine that is firing missiles and dropping bombs in our names. As we do this, we must not lose sight of the true enemy; it is also up to each of us to combat the ruling class propaganda that asks you to be thrilled at the drama of a downed US pilot. What was that pilot doing there? Do not forget: the enemy of the world is our enemy too.