“No War on Iran”

Early on Friday, 13 June, Israeli forces launched a brutal attack on Iran with backing from the United States, United Kingdom, and regional powers.

The assault brought devastation to cities across the country, hitting both military and civilian targets — including residential buildings in Tehran and elsewhere. The first confirmed casualty was a child.

As the bombing continued during the day, the United States administration issued an existential threat to Iran’s leadership: “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire,” President Donald Trump wrote on his “Truth Social” platform.

A war on Iran threatens to have catastrophic consequences for the peoples of the region — and the world.

Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza has already demonstrated its wanton disregard for human life. The destruction visited upon Palestinian civilians — a regime of indiscriminate bombing, enforced hunger, and endless displacement — has revealed a blueprint of destruction for the broader region.

But this is not just Israel’s war. The United States, European Union, and other Western powers have provided not only diplomatic cover, but active military, financial, and intelligence support in this genocide.

Billions in weapons shipments, vetoes at the UN Security Council, and political protection have enabled Israel’s assault, while advancing Western interests in the region. This same apparatus of support now threatens to facilitate an even more devastating war.

A war on Iran risks spilling far beyond the borders of these two nations. The United States operates an extensive network of military bases that provide active support to Israel. All of them will become targets of retaliation in a conflict that could quickly engulf West Asia as a whole.

The path of war leads only to greater suffering for a region that — from Iraq to Afghanistan — has been devastated by repeated imperialist assaults, and which continues to be ground down by Israel’s Western-backed war in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Palestine.

The Progressive International stands with the peoples of the world rising up against the State of Israel and its expanding war on humanity. The only path to lasting peace in the region runs through Palestine’s liberation.