Israel’s bombing of Iran marks a dangerous escalation in the use of military force by the major capitalist powers through their support for Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist, corrupt, forever-war regime.
This unprovoked attack has precious little to do with Iran’s nuclear capabilities, which according to US intelligence is at least three years away from producing a weapon.
It is just as much an attempt to regain support for Netanyahu just as European leaders were for the first time criticising Israel for its genocidal destruction of Gaza.
Even Keir Starmer, a staunch ally of Israel, felt incapable of backing this latest escalation. Yet as soon as Israel attacked Iran, he sent the RAF to the scene — not to defend Gaza from its continued destruction, but to back Israel’s enforced starvation which has seen civilians slaughtered as they queue for food
Iran’s authoritarian government is brutal and reactionary, but foreign intervention led by states like Israel — which themselves have nuclear weapons — only deepens repression and silences prospects for internal change.
For Netanyahu to say in one breath that the Iranian people should revolt against the regime and in the next breath bomb their homes and infrastructure is the deepest hypocrisy. People under bombardment from a foreign power will understandably put opposition aside and unite with their government — however disgusting and repressive it may be.
The EU’s and G7’s support for Israel’s military campaign against Iran has wider consequences: it gives cover for authoritarian regimes elsewhere and legitimises state violence. Donald Trump’s open support for Putin, coupled with his unconditional backing of Netanyahu, and his mafia-style threat to assassinate Iran’s leaders, shows where this logic leads. Meanwhile, Moscow rains death on the citizens of Kyiv while the world’s attention is elsewhere.
This isn’t a question of moral failure. It’s the nature of a system built on military dominance and geopolitical control. The G7 acts not to uphold human rights or support self-determination, but to maintain its dominating role in global capitalism. The aim of Israel, the US, and other powers is to reduce Iran to the status of a failed state — as they did with Iraq, Syria, and Libya. The devastation of entire nations serves a clear financial purpose: the destruction is profitable, and desperation becomes a tool of capitalist extraction.
The UK plays its role too. It is the fourth biggest exporter of arms to Israel, while its political leaders remain complicit. The British government — as demonstrated by Starmer’s pathetic fawning over Trump — remains subservient to this new world disorder where the rules-based system of liberal bourgeois democracy has been swept aside.
Israel is the West’s regional policeman — not only against Palestinians, but also against the people of all neighbouring countries. It is an expansionist state serving the interests of global capitalism, enforcing its will through permanent war and occupation.
We reject the false choices being presented: between supporting bombing campaigns in Iran, genocide in Gaza, or aligning with movements whose politics are defined by gender oppression and antisemitism. These are not the only options. There is another path — one led by the people of the region themselves, including Iranians who continue to resist oppressive regimes, and Palestinians and Israelis who oppose occupation and genocide perpetrated by Netanyahu.
But this alternative cannot emerge while global structures of coercion remain intact. That’s why democratic transformation, must begin not in Tehran — but in Washington, London, Brussels, and beyond.
Ending the present drive to war, including the danger of a world-wide conflict, demands the deconstruction of the existing states at the heart of global militarism. In this way a world based on real democracy can be built: participatory, secular, and accountable.
The mass demonstrations against Trump in the US show a willingness to act against autocrats, as do global rallies for Palestine. Working for popular assemblies in the UK can create a real alternative to warmongering.
The Real Democracy Movement calls for:
- An immediate halt to the bombing of Iran
- An end to military support for authoritarian states, including Israel
- Support for democratic, secular forces across the Middle East and beyond
- Political, economic and social transformation in G7 countries through democratic popular assemblies
We stand with people everywhere who resist war, authoritarianism, and imperialism — not with states that enforce their will through violence.
Useful article on the crisis of the political system revealed by Europe’s collusion with Israel and US attack on Iran.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/23/us-iran-israel-war-western-leaders-diplomacy
“The end result is that such leaders are not only irresponsible, they are unrepresentative, unable and unwilling even to manufacture consent any more. An accelerating nihilism has taken hold. Mandates fray as centrist governments and political parties stray further and further from the public, which in Europe declares a historically low level of support for Israel. In the US (including Trump supporters), a majority opposes involvement in war with Iran. And so the gap between a detached politics and bloody reality widens even further. The managers of western hegemony hurtle into the void, taking all of us with them.”
This comment is great, it cuts through the noise to the political heart of the matter. Meanwhile as the world looks the other way, people in Gaza are facing a massacre and the ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Territories conctinues. I am really fed up with these Russian and American gangsters being characterised as “settlers” – they are paid merceneries, there to drive Palestinians from their homes and for no other purpose. No doubt the money is paying for their luxury apartments in New York and Moscow.
An excellent exposition with the correct conclusions for preventing escalation,