Trump’s Surprise Attack on Iran Deepens US Imperial Entanglements
Summary: Trump’s reckless attack on Iran constitutes new stage of US imperial aggression and of support for Israel’s genocidal Gaza war — Editors
Approved as a statement by the steering committee of the IMHO
The US’s June 22 surprise attack on Iranian nuclear facilities constitutes the first use of a new generation of “bunker-buster” bombs, dropped from B2 stealth bombers. According to an AP report of June 22, “The roughly 30,000 pound precision-guided bomb is designed to attack deeply buried and hardened bunkers and tunnels, according to the U.S. Air Force. It’s believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet (61 meters) below the surface before exploding, and the bombs can be dropped one after another, effectively drilling deeper and deeper with each successive blast.”
In short, this is the world’s most powerful weapon besides an actual nuclear device, one possessed at this level only by the US. Its use, and the reckless way it was employed, amid negotiations as a surprise attack, are surely meant to signal, as with Donald Trump’s call for the expulsion of the people of Gaza in February, a new imperial ruthlessness. This expression of violent brutality – and of sheer military force and technology unequalled by any other power — is surely aimed not only at the whole Middle East region, but also at strategic rivals like China, at ostensible allies like the “Western” powers, as well as at the popular forces at home that are, at least in Los Angeles, seeing the US military deployed against us on our own streets.
While no US forces were damaged, and as Trump lauded a great victory, it is not even clear if the bombs actually destroyed the three nuclear facilities that US planes targeted. And none are suggesting that Iran’s fissionable materials were destroyed, as these were likely removed during the weeks that such an attack had been threatened.
What Is New After June 22?
This does not mean that there is nothing new here, that we can just roll out the “Hands Off Iran” slogan and put a new date on it.
One, for the first time ever, the US has plunged directly and publicly alongside Israel in an attack on another country. A few days before, referring to Israel’s bombing campaign, Trump stated that “we” now controlled the skies over Tehran. It is saying a lot to note that even George W Bush abstained from that form of recklessness during his precipitous and disastrous 2003 war on Iraq, when his “coalition” did not include any Israeli forces, anathema in the region then as now. And while Trump is surely not (yet) employing ground troops, the political isolation of the US has surely deepened even beyond where it was the week before its attack on Iran.
The second new element – and this one applies to Israel as well as the US – is the grand illusion of regime change, but with a new twist. This time, the US and Israel not only state publicly that they intend to remove the Iranian regime from power, but also that they can do so by air power alone. Flush with Israel’s tactical victory over Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, and with the fall of its biggest regional ally, the Assad regime in Syria, a severe case of almost psychotic hubris has struck both Israel and the Trump administration. In Israel, the war against Iran has been overwhelmingly popular, this at a time when its war crimes in Gaza are being sidelined.
Even a genocidal megalomanic like Netanyahu knew fully well that he could not impose his will on Iran without direct US military intervention, and Trump responded without any serious consideration of the consequences. Now that Iran has already attacked the US base in Qatar, the US could be drawn in ever-deeper. And where does this stop, even though a ceasefire seems to have been declared as of this writing?
It should also be noted that inside the US, public opinion is surely not ready for a third war in the Middle East region, after Iraq and Afghanistan. This has not prevented the usual war hawks from lauding Trump’s attack, or “centrist” Democrats like New York’s Andrew Cuomo from complaining only about failure to consult Congress. It is doubtful that even this kind of bipartisan complicity will change public opinion all that much, however.
The silence – or worse – of European leaders, many of whom said they favored negotiations not war, is illustrated by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who wrote after Trump’s bombs fell that “it is important that Iran does not develop nuclear bombs” and then his foreign minister, when asked about it, refused to call the strike a violation of international law.
As to the military/political prospects, if the US/Israel plan to assassinate more high Iranian officials – a war crime unless they are directly involved in military efforts at the time – including even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei as has been threatened by Trump, they should remember that even the far smaller Hamas movement has continued to operate in Gaza despite multiple killings of its top leaders since 2023.
The Forces on the Ground Inside Iran
While we cannot of course know how Iranian public opinion and internal opposition forces to the reactionary theocratic regime, which are many and run deep, will respond in the coming weeks, the notion of Israel as “liberator” from abroad strains credulity. If anything, a rallying behind the defense of the country is the likely outcome.
As a joint statement from the country’s leading labor organizations strongly opposed Israel’s attacks states: “We, the independent workers’ and grassroots organizations and activists in Iran, have no illusions that the United States and Israel want to bring us freedom, equality, and justice — just as we have no illusions about the repressive, interventionist, and anti-worker nature and conduct of the Islamic Republic…. Israel’s claim that it holds no hostility toward the people of Iran is nothing but a lie and political propaganda. Just yesterday, the Israeli Minister of Defense threatened to ‘burn Tehran’” (“Joint Statement by Independent Organizations in Iran: Opposing War and Warmongering Policies,” International Marxist-Humanist, June 17, 2025 – https://imhojournal.org/articles/joint-statement-by-independent-organizations-in-iran-opposing-war-and-warmongering-policies/).
Or as Tehran Marxist intellectual Hassan Mortazavi asks, “Could it be, then, that Israel hopes to provoke a popular uprising—that amid the chaos, discontented masses might rise up and topple the regime? But this, too, is illusory” (Iran: A Proposal for Dialogue Among the Leftwing Forces,” International Marxist-Humanist, June 22, 2025 – https://imhojournal.org/articles/iran-a-proposal-for-dialogue-among-the-leftwing-forces/).This remains so even as Israel carries out a symbolic bombing of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison at the same time that it subjects thousands of Palestinian prisoners to a similar regime of physical torture and deprivation. It remains the case even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opines in a single sound bite that he supports the 2022-23 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran while also noting that some of the fighter pilots attacking Iran are women. This has led to a new Iranian feminist slogan: “Don’t ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ us, You Murderer!”
The creativity and resilience of the Iranian people continues to be shown in numerous other ways. As Tehran has seen the exodus of many of its nine million people, a good number have remained behind amid the bombs, either by choice or because health or age prevents them from moving out. To fill this gap, mutual aid networks are forming to deliver supplies and other care to vulnerable populations at a time when the regime has done little or nothing to protect the civilian population.
Our Tasks
The global left should spare no effort in opposing this dangerous imperialist escalation in a region already beset with genocidal wars and oppressive regimes. Especially in the US, with Trumpist fascists moving to take over the entire state, we will also face much more government repression than in recent decades for our principled antiwar opposition. The present crisis is rooted in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and in the US’s unstinting support for that war, now extended to Lebanon and Iran. Trump has now escalated these wars through his verbal support for the expulsion of the population of Gaza, by his allowing Israel to attack Iran in a massive air campaign starting in early June, and by the direct involvement of US forces in the air attacks on Iran beginning on June 22. The attack on Iran’s nuclear program is a smokescreen for an attempt to remove from power any government in the region that gives, or claims to give, any real support to Palestine. Saying that in no way implies political support for that regime, even as we need to say, loud and clear:
Stop all arms for Israel!
Stop the war on Iran!
Postscript written late in the evening of June 23
Trump has announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, but even if it holds for a while, a dangerous new global situation has already arisen as a result of a new type of US imperialist attack carried out in direct collaboration with Israel.
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