Statements: Stop Israel now! No war on Iran!
Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses, The Philippines): Israel-US, Hands off Iran!
We condemn in the strongest possible terms Israel’s attack on Iran and residential neighbourhoods in the capital, Tehran, where civilians were killed.
This is a further escalation by this genocidal state of its war offensive in the Middle East — genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iran.
Israel acts with such impunity because it has the support of the United States and other imperialist powers.
Militarism and wars are an imperative of the imperialist system, historically and today, with imperialism once again on the war path.
We therefore support the right of sovereign nations in the Global South to protect themselves against imperialist coups and other forms of aggression, including through military means, as a deterrence.
While we also support all genuine peoples movements in the Global South struggling against capitalist and authoritarian regimes, ‘regime change’ should be the act of the masses themselves and in their interests, not a result of some imperialist plot.
In the case of Iran, where imperialism has had a long-term objective of regime change, we support Iran’s right to defend itself.
Israel-US, Hands off Iran!
No to imperialist wars!
Free Palestine!
June 13, 2005
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation: On Israeli military aggression against Iran
The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation strongly condemns the recent military aggression by the Israeli state against Iran. On June 13, Israel launched large scale attack against Iran’s civil nuclear installations and other infrastructures. This reckless escalation is part of a deliberate strategy by the US-Israel axis to impose regional imperialist dominance, destabilise West Asia, and provoke widespread conflict.
The far-right Netanyahu regime, facing increasing global isolation and domestic discontent amid the ongoing Genocidal war on Gaza, is now attempting to widen the conflict and externalise its crisis by targeting Iran and threatening Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and beyond.
Israel’s so-called “pre-emptive” strike follows the familiar script of US imperialism, echoing the 2003 invasion of Iraq under the false pretext of weapons of mass destruction.
A key turning point was the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, which dismantled a widely supported diplomatic framework and reignited tensions. Since then, Iran has faced escalating economic sanctions, acts of sabotage, and targeted assassinations, culminating now in open military threats.
It is increasingly clear that the goal of the US-Israel axis is to burn West Asia to crush sovereign nations, and impose control over the region’s geopolitical and energy landscape.
Israel’s action not only threatens West Asia, but the entire world. Israel has become a rogue state, brazenly violating international law and conventions with the full backing of the United States.
India must break its silence and take all possible steps to stop Israel. Silence and inaction will amount to complicity and India must not be bracketed with the US-Israel axis in its escalating crimes against humanity.
Central Committee, CPI(ML) Liberation
June 13, 2025
Fourth International: Stop Israel now!
Israel's unprecedented attack on Iran is a direct result of the impunity it has enjoyed while carrying out a live-streamed genocide in Palestine over the past 20 months. Under the false pretext of "self-defense," Israel has escalated its long-standing policy of Palestinian erasure into full-scale genocide. Now, it extends that aggression by bombing Iran, claiming to defend itself from a hypothetical nuclear threat—despite not being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and remaining unaccountable for its own nuclear arsenal.
This impunity is made possible by the United States and other governments that continue to arm Israel—supplying weapons, funding, and political cover as it carries out mass atrocities across the region. The U.S. has emphasized that Israel acted unilaterally in its strike on Iran and has denied any involvement while being the primary supplier of the weapons used in this attack. Alongside other governments that arm and shield Israel, the U.S. is complicit in enabling Israel's expanding aggression across the region. They are all partners in atrocity.
This belligerence has not only claimed civilian lives, but it also threatens the long and courageous struggle of the Iranian people against a repressive regime, of which the latest high point was the movement "Woman, Life, Freedom". History shows clearly: there is no path to democracy under the shadow of war.
We stand firmly with the people of Iran—both in their ongoing resistance to dictatorship and in their right to live free from foreign military aggression. We denounce Israel's attack on Iran and demand international pressure to stop its reckless regional escalation now.
We urgently demand:
Hands off Iran!
An immediate end to regional escalation!
Solidarity with political prisoners and human rights defenders in Iran, and vigilance against further repression by the regime.
As we have done for months, we continue to demand:
Sanctions on Israel now!
An immediate end to all arms trade with Israel!
Global mobilization to stop the genocide in Palestine!
Executive Bureau, Fourth International
June 13, 2025
Awami Workers Party (Pakistan): On the cowardly attack by Israel on Iran
The Awami Workers Party (AWP) strongly condemns Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran, mourns the deaths of civilians and warns that the US-backed Zionist regime is threatening to spark not only unprecedented military conflict in the Middle East but also potentially the world. The AWP also condemns the role played by Iran’s neighbouring Muslim countries, including Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, in facilitating Israel’s bombardment, much like these Muslim rulers have betrayed the Palestinian cause.
AWP secretary general Bakhshal Thalho has said in a statement that the Israeli and US states are the world’s biggest perpetrators of mass terror and have repeatedly demonstrated that they will act unilaterally and in complete contravention of all international covenants to both subdue the oppressed peoples of the Middle East as well as spark wider military conflagrations. Both states deploy the language of ‘counter-terrorism’ to justify imperialist wars in the region, a tactic that has now been adopted by Muslim rulers from Egypt to Pakistan to quell internal dissent and buttress their own militaristic designs.
The present attack on Iran has been justified in the name of neutralising Iran’s nuclear arsenal, exposing a ridiculous double standard on the part of the US, Israel and other so-called ‘civilised’ countries like France and the UK who themselves have built up massive nuclear weapons capacities. The rhetoric around Iran’s nuclear weapons mimics that which preceded the US war on Iraq in 2003 in the name of pre-empting ‘weapons of mass destruction, which in fact the US (and Israel) possess more than any other countries in the world. The AWP believes that Iran retains the right to defend itself and to deter further attacks by the Zionist entity.
The AWP has always opposed US imperialist wars and those waged by its Zionist satrap. The AWP believes that by target killing Iran’s senior-most military personnel, Israel and the US are sending the region and world spiraling towards unending war, hate and militarisation, which will benefit only the military-industrial complexes that rule in both countries, and indeed the world.
The AWP also views the Pakistani state’s toothless positions on imperialist wars in the Middle East with great suspicion. Pakistan’s military establishment has long pandered to the whims of US imperialism, including the 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, as well as its policy of encircling Iran. The Pakistani people firmly oppose the US-Israel nexus in the Middle East, as well as our own region, and the AWP appeals to all progressive forces to forge a mass anti-imperialist politics that can articulate solidarity with Iranians and Palestinians as well as oppressed peoples within Pakistan that continue to bear the brunt of wars, occupation and structural violence.
June 13, 2025
International Marxist-Humanist Organization: Oppose apartheid Israel’s attack on Iran!
Israel’s June 13 attack on Iran, beginning at 3:00 AM local time, was a reckless, barbarous act that threatens to set the entire region aflame. Some 200 Israeli planes, as well as missiles and drones, bombarded the country, destroying military bases and nuclear infrastructure, the avowed aim of the attacks. Israel also assassinated, apparently in their homes, several important military, political, and scientific leaders, among them the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s most important military leader. Its strikes also killed the chief-of-staff of the Army and four nuclear scientists. Reports from Iranian civilians suggest that many of the attacks struck residential areas of Tehran and other cities. To the extent that regime officials were killed in their homes, this constitutes a major violation of the laws of war, apart from the utterly innocent civilians also killed in such actions.
Israel clearly wants to stop any possibility of another US-Iran nuclear deal and may have moved more quickly to attack than even Trump wished. But now that Iran has counterattacked, the US will jump to Israel’s defense. This only underlines the need to cut off all military funding and aid to Israel, as we have been demanding since the genocidal Gaza war of 2023
Israel’s stated aims are to incapacitate or decisively delay Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, to destroy its long-range missiles, and to decapitate its military and nuclear research infrastructures. It promises, with strong US support so far, to deal such a decisive blow to Iran as to remove it as a threat to US-Israeli hegemony in the region. This, like its aim of “eliminating” Hamas in Gaza, is in the long run Quixotic. In truth, Israel has incomparably less chance of destroying Iranian military capacities. It will, however, be able to inflict untold suffering on the Iranian people.
How could such a miscalculation be possible? First, Israel and the US seem to believe that with Iran’s allies in Syria and Lebanon having been destroyed or severely weakened, that it will be hard for Iran to stage a serious counterattack against Israel. Thus, now is the time to take advantage of Iran’s weakness. This is a grand illusion if it means that Iran can be eliminated as a factor in the region rather than temporarily weakened.
Second, Israel seems to believe that the Iranian people will support their attack, and perhaps even rise up to overthrow the regime. While the regime’s popular support is weaker than ever since the 2023 mass uprising of women and ethnic minorities, this is an even greater illusion. This is the error of believing one’s own propaganda. The illusory character of such aims is seen in the horror almost all Iranians are feeling at this clearly unwarranted aggression, as seen in this post on social media from inside the country just hours after the attacks began: “The people of Iran must not be sacrificed again. Not for the Islamic Republic. Not for Zionist militarism. And not for those who, from abroad, mistake bloodshed for liberation.”
Finally, Israel is playing both the antisemitism and the Islamophobia cards, claiming that the Iranian regime is some kind of inherent threat to Israel, just because its rhetoric ever since 1979 has referred to the “destruction” of Israel. Also, because at some time in the future it could conceivably attain a nuclear weapons capability, Israel claims that Iran would then move to attack even if that meant suicide vs. Israel’s actual nuclear weapons, not least because its religious fundamentalism extolls martyrdom. Here, Israel is under the illusion that, just as largely spurious charges of antisemitism have been used to justify the repression of the pro-Palestinian movement in the West, and in the US, outright attacks on major universities, it could play that card again to gain support for its military adventurism. Given the relative silence of US liberals, and the support of the Trump administration, this may be the case. But for how long, especially if the US is drawn in or Israel asks it to take a direct part?
At the same time, our opposition to this military aggression in no way constitutes any kind of political support for the Iranian regime. The genuine left has opposed the Islamic Republic from day one. Back in 1979, we supported the feminists, the independent wing of the workers councils, and the leftist tendencies that wanted to turn to the revolution against the shah into something socialist, secular, and democratic. This kind of support for the progressive opposition needs to continue, just as we supported uprisings like the ones in 2023, or earlier, 2009. It can also be pointed out that the regime is weaker and more dysfunctional internally that it seemed, given how easily its leaders were picked off by Israel on June 13.
But these kinds of considerations in no way lessen our opposition to this new wave of Israeli-US aggression.
Written by Kevin B Anderson and approved as a statement by the Steering Committee of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization.
June 14, 2025
Ecosocialism 2025
