La Marx International

The military operation launched jointly by the United States and the Israeli army (IDF) against Iran on February 28, 2026, has become a revolutionary war. As the aggression drags on, despite imperialism's prediction that it would end in a matter of days, it has transformed into a battle between the counter-revolutionary front of the leader of global imperialism, the US, and its enforcer Israel against the nations, peoples, and militias of the Middle East. Now, more than a month after the attack, Operation "Epic Fury" can be considered a failure, and the US and Israel are suffering a defeat.

Iran has responded with missile and drone attacks across the Persian Gulf region, striking targets in Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil flows, is closed, driving oil prices to $120 a barrel. Donald Trump and Netanyahu believed the military intervention would be a walk in the park and that a few days would be enough to win. But as the days passed, they realized their actions resembled those of a "mad firefighter " trying to extinguish a blaze with gasoline, because they had ignited an even larger fire in the Middle East and the world.

As a result of the Pentagon's operation colliding with the revolutionary upsurge engulfing the region, the U.S. military has suffered over 300 officially recognized casualties, though the number may be higher, along with a similar number for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The U.S. is experiencing attacks on all its assets in the Middle East, and the fighting is spreading to Lebanon, where the IDF is battling Hezbollah's guerrilla warfare, which is causing heavy losses in equipment and personnel for Israel. It is also spreading to Yemen, where Houthi militias have begun attacking Israel, and to Iraq, where militias such as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, Jaysh al-Ghadab, and Saraya Awliya al-Dam have already carried out 41 drone and rocket attacks against imperialist bases in Iraq and Bahrain.

In Syria, the US military bases in Qasrak have been attacked. Rarely in history have we seen the military bases, embassies, and financial assets of imperialism under simultaneous attack across the Middle East region as we are witnessing today. The destruction suffered by the people of Iran is immense; the total number of soldiers and civilians killed exceeds 3,000 as a result of imperialism's bombing of towns and cities, seeking to weaken the country's two military branches. Iran has its regular army, the Artsesh, the largest military force with approximately 350,000 to 400,000 personnel. On the other hand, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or Pasdaran, which has a total of 190,000 to 200,000 personnel, is made up of the oligarchy and bourgeoisie who own the main branches of production, commerce and industry in the country, and is the heart of the theocratic regime, in addition to controlling the Quds Force, which carries out operations abroad and military intelligence with between 7,000 and 10,000 members.

In turn, as the revolutionary war drags on and expands, it exacerbates the economic, political, and social crisis of global imperialist capitalism. We Marxists stand for the victory of Iran and the peoples of the Middle East, for the military defeat of imperialism and Israel, and for the overthrow of the Ayatollah dictatorship in Iran. We stand with the Iranian people, who have been fighting through several recurring February Revolutions against theocratic capitalist governments and petro-monarchies that collaborate with imperialist aggression. We have no doubt that the mobilization and efforts of the people against imperialist aggression will strengthen the entire revolutionary process in the region and facilitate the struggle to overthrow these capitalist dictatorships.

The revolutionary war divides the world counter-revolutionary front

The revolutionary war has provoked a crisis on the global counter-revolutionary front. Donald Trump called on other imperialist countries to support action against Iran, but imperialist countries such as Germany, Japan, Canada, France, and England have refused to join the attack. Even governments like Meloni's in Italy and Sánchez's in Spain have refused to offer their bases for the attacks. The start of the attacks without authorization from the United Nations Security Council has provoked a crisis within NATO and the UN, reflecting the fracturing of the imperialist front.

The imperialist political crisis buries the "Decoupling Theory," which posits that the world is heading toward a Third World War between the US and China—a theory adopted by 99% of the global left that is completely false. If it were true, China and Russia would have already joined Iran, which would accelerate the defeat of the US and Israel, but Putin and Xi Jinping haven't lifted a finger to defend Iran and are allowing imperialist aggression to continue. This is because their ruling classes enjoy the privilege of being capitalist oligarchies that govern sub-metropolises highly dependent on imperialist capital and utterly incapable of confronting it. What we are witnessing, far from being a path toward a Third World War, is the path we have been seeing for the last 20 years: the war between revolution and counter-revolution.

Alongside the political crisis of the counterrevolutionary front, the crisis of the government of the head of global imperialism, Donald Trump, is unfolding. Following his defeat at the hands of the American people's mobilization that thwarted the ICE intervention in Minnesota, Trump is being cornered by massive mobilizations of the American people against his administration under the "No Kings" movement, coupled with a wave of workers' strikes and the prospect of a crushing electoral defeat in a few months' time when the midterm elections take place . Trump launched the attack without a declaration of war from the United States Congress, cornered by soaring inflation, the wave of strikes by the American working class, the collapse in popular support for his government, and the worsening global crisis of capitalism.

Trump launched a desperate attack against Iran in an attempt to reverse the inevitable collapse and failure of his policies. But the attack on Iran is not solely due to the crisis of Trump's imperialist administration, but also to the crisis in Israel, evidenced by the recent statements of former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who echoed the warnings of Eyal Zamir, Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, stating that: "The Israeli army is on the verge of internal collapse." Zamir refused to invade Gaza, arguing that the Israeli army could not withstand such a military adventure, and made this statement public to the media, which he had made at a meeting of the Israeli security cabinet, as you can read by clicking here.

Millions of Israelis are leaving Israel. Israeli authorities have announced that employees of state-owned companies will not return to their jobs. There is a mass exodus of settlers and citizens. The famous " Iron Shield" is failing. Bombs are falling on Tel Aviv, and several cities and neighborhoods are beginning to resemble Gaza. The population descends into underground shelters five times a day to escape the bombings and practically lives in them. There are a million internally displaced people from the cities of northern Israel. The economy is bankrupt. Israeli bonds are considered junk bonds, and investments have been withdrawn. With each passing day, Israel becomes more of a decaying state, and the slogan "Destruction of the State of Israel" is ceasing to be mere propaganda and becoming a reality. Trump is bombing Iran to "rescue" Israel, seeking to unite the population because he knows that the majority of Israelis hate Iran, but the move is proving disastrous, and instead of saving Israel, the revolutionary war is sinking it even further. Alongside the Israeli crisis, the global political crisis of imperialism is worsening.

Revolutionary war exacerbates the global crisis of capitalism

Israel has reached this situation as a result of the brutal blow it received from the Third Palestinian Intifada. The global left has denied the existence of the Third Intifada, but the facts are undeniable: Israel suffered over 80,000 IDF casualties due to the urban guerrilla warfare waged by Palestinian militias in Gaza, and Israel's attempt to seize Gaza failed so drastically that Donald Trump had to impose a ceasefire agreement to save Israel. But now, the revolutionary war is not only exacerbating Israel's crisis, but in its form and content is beginning to resemble the Third Palestinian Intifada.

Before the revolutionary war began, capitalism was already facing a severe situation of six combined crises, a veritable "perfect storm" emerging from its collapse, as you can read by clicking here. But the revolutionary war is exacerbating all these crisis trends, leading to stagflation, corporate bankruptcies, the collapse of cryptocurrencies, and the crises in China and Japan. In the more than a month since the revolutionary war began, stock markets around the world have plummeted, with Wall Street losing over $4.5 trillion. Economic authorities have had to implement capital controls on private lending institutions that manage trillions of dollars as "shadow banking," belonging to the large global capitalist corporations that dominate the global economy.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon's military spending is skyrocketing, as it has established a war based on missile strikes. Donald Trump threatens a ground invasion, but the reality is that imperialism has been unable to invade anything for over 20 years due to the defeat it suffered in the invasion of Iraq, which left the Pentagon in complete crisis. Iran responds to the bombing using cheap drones, the same tactic Ukraine uses against Putin, while the sophisticated systems of the United States and Israel are immensely expensive, considering that deploying a Patriot missile costs $5 million, which implies a daily cost of $2 billion for US imperialism. Defense Minister Hegseth submitted a request to Congress to spend $200 billion, to which must be added the costs for Israel.

At the same time, oil and gas prices rose dramatically, pushing the global economy toward a worldwide recession, according to The Economist in March. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, only 38 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, has driven insurance costs for tankers stranded in the Gulf to over $300 billion, resulting in 15 million barrels of crude oil per day—equivalent to 15% of global production—and 4 million barrels of refined products per day being unavailable for global trade.

The other route they could use to transport the oil is the Red Sea, but it has fallen under the control of the Houthi militias. The consequences of an oil shortage affect not only the energy sector, but also artificial fertilizers, food production, metal processing, semiconductor manufacturing, and the transportation industry. The longer these supply problems persist, the more certain it is that global supply chains will also be disrupted. In other words, revolutionary warfare exacerbates and intensifies the global crisis of capitalism and imperialism.

For the victory of Iran and the peoples of the Middle East! Down with the Ayatollahs! Weapons for the militias!

Ninety-nine percent of the world's left has a pacifist policy for revolutionary war. Their slogans are: "Stop the aggression," "For Peace," "Stop the attacks" —a policy that sounds like it belongs to the UN and imperialist officials. In the midst of revolutionary war, the slogan "Peace" is only revolutionary in the US and Israel, the aggressor countries, because it goes against their governments. But in the rest of the world, any slogan of "Ceasefire" is reactionary insofar as imperialism is constantly attacking the peoples of the Middle East. Therefore, it is up to Marxists to take up arms and advocate for the victory of Iran and the peoples of the Middle East. Our slogans are: "For the military defeat of imperialism and Israel," "Weapons for the militias of the Middle East!" And at the same time, we support the overthrow of the Ayatollah dictatorship in Iran, since the fight against imperialism strengthens the fight against all capitalist governments and oligarchies in the Middle East.

We stand with the Iranian people who are fighting against the capitalist theocratic government of the Ayatollahs. "Freedom of assembly and mobilization for the people of Iran!" "Full rights to arms and mobilization for the people!" We know that the mobilization and efforts of the people against imperialist aggression will strengthen the entire revolutionary process in the region and facilitate the struggle to overthrow these capitalist dictatorships. We invite you to join this campaign of the Marx International for the triumph of the revolutionary war on the path to global socialism.