The following speech was given by Joti Brar on behalf of the CPGB-ML at the international conference co-hosted by the World Anti-imperialist Platform and the AFVN (Association of Anti-Fascist Resistance Fighters of the Netherlands) in Amsterdam on Sunday 22 June 2025. The conference was held to coincide with the 2025 Nato summit. Delegates from the conference joined anti-Nato protests in The Hague as the warmongers committed themselves to increased military spending and discussed their plans for ‘containment’ (destruction) of sovereign and socialist countries including Russia, China, Iran and the DPRK.
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On 13 June 2025, the world woke up to the news that Israel had launched an unprovoked campaign of bombing and assassinations against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Clearly, the imperialists hoped that by using the cover of ongoing nuclear-treaty negotiations they could take Tehran off-guard and destroy a significant chunk of the country’s defence capabilities. At the same time, by assassinating leading military figures, they hoped to cause confusion and demoralisation in the ranks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Meanwhile, western politicians and journalists all asserted in chorus that “plucky Israel” was “defending itself” (or even “defending western civilisation”) against the “mad mullahs” and their supposedly “nuclear obsessed”, “aggressive” and “destabilising” regime.
Forgotten was all sanctimonious opining about the “path to peace” and “Palestinian statehood”. Gone were the admissions that Israel and its leaders just might be guilty of genocidal war crimes in Gaza. Gone was the (19 months belated) handwringing about the plight of starving and massacred civilians. The overall impression now given was that Israel was acting on behalf of the whole world and reluctantly shouldering its ‘responsibility’ as the ‘first line of defence’ against the terrible and imminent threat of a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran.
In fact, every part of their narrative is a lie, and much of it is eerily reminiscent of the lies that were used to justify the launch of the Iraq war in 2003. Moreover, the proposal to use just such a narrative to pave the way for a regime change operation was laid out by the USA’s Brookings Institution back in 2009. (Which Path to Persia?)
The truth is that Iran is a demonstrably peaceful state that has never launched an unprovoked attack against any other country, despite endless provocations and incitements. Likewise, its nuclear programme is known to be purely and demonstrably peaceful – as even the imperialist-controlled IAEA inspecting (actually, spying) regime has admitted.
Another vital piece of context missing from all the commentary about the so-called ‘Iran nuclear issue’ is that even if Iran did possess nuclear weapons, this is not a crime. Indeed, in a region where an imperialist proxy state (Israel) has been provided with nuclear warheads, there are many who feel that not having such weapons means leaving the Iranian masses extremely vulnerable to just such an attack as the one we are now witnessing.
Moreover, the possession or pursuit of nuclear weapons is not proof of aggressive intent. As Russia, the People’s Republic of China and the DPR Korea have all shown by positive example, and as Libya and Iraq showed through negative example, possession of nuclear weapons is the best protection that any state can provide to its people from imperialist intimidation; the best chance it can give them of living in peace and being able to develop a sovereign and independent economy.
Israel, meanwhile, is not the ‘plucky little David’ the media portrays, but a settler-colony acting on behalf of Anglo-American imperialism. Like the Banderite forces in Ukraine, the zionist thugs in Israel are a proxy army whose role is to fight imperialism’s targeted countries.
That is why seemingly limitless financial and military subsidies are funnelled towards both regimes. That is why British and American planners, logisticians and intelligence officers work round the clock to keep wars going that would long ago have been lost if the supposedly ‘sovereign actors’ had been depending on their own resources.
The fascistic proxy regimes in Kiev and Tel Aviv are managed from Washington and London; their so-called ‘leaders’ are paid handsomely to present a carefully created image to the wider world, and to ensure the continued flow of brainwashed ‘cannon fodder’, while West Point and Sandhurst provide the general staff who direct operations.
The need to sell the wider public on a ‘defence’ narrative is not a side issue. It is central to all imperialist operations in this era of decaying imperialism and rising anti-imperialism and socialism. After the communist forces beat fascism in the second world war, the imperialists were forced to accept certain socialist principles such as the equality of nations and the right to self-determination.
They were forced to rebrand themselves as upholders of such principles in order to shore up support for their decrepit rule. In particular, the Nuremberg tribunals established the principle that waging an unprovoked aggressive war is the highest crime against humanity.
To openly admit to hostile and aggressive intent in the present era is to court social revolution. But to have hide aggressive deeds behind defensive words is itself a source of weakness, since the constant hypocrisies to not go unnoticed by the masses. Hence today’s deep and deepening crisis of legitimacy across the imperialist world, where politicians and journalists are now the least trusted professionals.
Another important role played by the propaganda war is that of a psychological operation. The truth is that the imperialist bloc today is not nearly as strong as it wants us to believe. The balance of forces has shifted dramatically since the triumphant bourgeois declared the “end of history” in 1991.
By carrying out surprise attacks and accompanying them with hysterical mass media onslaughts; by making all kinds of blood-curdling threats and constantly asserting their ability to rain death and destruction on all who oppose them, the imperialists hope to demoralise their victims and persuade them into capitulating quickly.
As has been vividly demonstrated in Ukraine, Yemen and Gaza, the longer the imperialists are forced to continue their war effort, the more their military, economic and social weaknesses are exposed.
The propaganda onslaught is thus aimed at convincing the Iranian government to back down (or the Iranian people to rise up) before western missile supplies run low, inflation ramps up, markets melt down and social cohesion breaks down – in Israel and the Nato countries alike.
Psychological operations aim to isolate Iran from its allies. They aim to sow doubt, division and confusion amongst the Iranian people and amongst the masses in the west. They aim to reinforce the myth of US invincibility and firepower dominance – a myth that has been fatally undermined by recent events in Ukraine and the Red Sea.
The biggest propaganda lie – one repeated by many who call themselves Marxists – is that the war was initiated by Israel, and that the zionist state is an independent actor.
But the truth is that Israel’s weapons are provided by the west. Its economy is subsidised by US imperialism, which considers a few billion a year an excellent investment to secure for itself an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” at the heart of the oil-rich middle east. Israel’s government, armed forces and security services can do nothing without imperialist permission, and its war effort would collapse within 24 hours if imperialist funding and weapons streams were cut off.
So why is Iran really being attacked?
In fact, the imperialist camp has been plotting to bring down the Iranian government ever since the 1979 revolution dethroned the west-backed shah. That revolution was the Iranian people’s second attempt to get the Anglo-American boot off their backs, following the 1953 CIA/MI6 coup that brought down the country’s first popular anti-imperialist government led by Mohammad Mosaddegh.
Mosaddegh’s crime? Nationalising the ‘Anglo-Persian Oil Company’ (later known as British Petroleum), which had given itself exclusive rights to exploit Iran’s vast oil wealth.
Not only has the Islamic Republic always stood for the liberation of its own people from imperialist domination, it has also refused to accept or come to terms with the zionist settler-colony, and has consistently supported movements struggling for Arab freedom, in particular the Palestinian liberation struggle. It well understands that no people or nation can be free or at peace in the region while Israel remains – a dagger at the heart of the Arab liberation struggle.
Iran’s great crime in the eyes of the west is that it refuses to allow itself to become a vassal state whose wealth is extracted by western multinationals while its people are impoverished. Every step Iran takes towards developing and deepening its economic and technological independence is an offence to the imperialist profit-seekers, and every day of its continued success provides a dangerous example to the oppressed elsewhere.
Understanding the necessity of strength in depth, Iran has been playing an increasing role in the development of a cohesive anti-imperialist bloc. This bloc, with China at its head and including such non-imperialist formations as the Brics trading group and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) security agreement, is the biggest obstacle to imperialist hegemony today.
While the anti-imperialist and socialist countries work to build and deepen ties of economic, technological and military cooperation, the imperialists are desperate to break these bonds before they become too strong. Israel’s attack came just two weeks after the first freight train from Xi’an, China, arrived in Tehran.
The anti-imperialist nations know that their strength and survival depend on standing together. The imperialists hope to reassert their primacy by isolating and picking off each member of the anti-imperialist camp one by one.
Just as destroying sovereign and anti-imperialist Syria was seen as a ‘stepping stone’ towards weakening and then bringing down Iran, destroying sovereign and anti-imperialist Iran is seen by the rabid war planners in Washington and London as a ‘stepping stone’ towards weakening and bringing down Russia and China.
The imperialists’ desperation to fulfil this dream is fuelled by their system’s deep economic crisis. And this crisis is being further exacerbated by the failure of their war against Russia in Ukraine and of their war against the Palestinian, Lebanese and Yemeni resistance. The looming threat of Israeli social and economic meltdown has also spurred the zionist state’s backers into taking the reckless gamble of launching a new war to try to salvage their position.
As in the case of Ukraine, it is clear that even though their Israeli proxy is on the brink of total societal collapse, the west will keep funnelling money and weapons into the war for as long as it possibly can in the desperate hope that something will occur to shift the balance of forces. Ideally, something that creates regime change inside Iran.
The more desperate the situation becomes for the Nato criminals, the more reckless and destructive will their actions become. We can already see how ready they are to shift to terrorism and mass murder to try to defeat countries that are beating them militarily.
Communists cannot be passive or silent as the flames of war spread further. We must work hard to strengthen the anti-imperialist cause in every possible way.
Those of us who live in imperialist countries highlight the acts of solidarity being taken by dockworkers in various countries and build momentum behind the call for a mass campaign of non-cooperation with the war machine.
We must help the working class understand that the cause of the oppressed is our cause too, and that the imperialists’ wars cannot be waged without our labour.
To fulfil this aim, we must:
- Oppose and expose every aspect of the imperialist propaganda campaign.
- Build workers’ confidence by helping them understand their own power and the inherent weaknesses of the imperialist system in crisis.
- Recruit and train an army of socialist cadres able to inject confidence and a scientific understanding into the working-class movement.
- Unite and coordinate our struggle across international borders, linking up the struggles of workers in the imperialist heartlands with those of the oppressed peoples elsewhere.
Imperialism is in the throes of its deepest ever crisis of overproduction. In their desperation to save their dying system, the monopolist financiers are prepared to drown the world in blood and to carry out an orgy of destruction. But the more they lash out, the more they are creating the very forces that will ultimately destroy them.
It is our job to make sure that these forces are developed as rapidly as possible.
Death to imperialism and its zionist and fascist proxies!
Victory to Iran! Victory to Russia!
Build the axis of resistance!
