On July 11, Iran announced that it had fired warning shots at several vessels taking “unapproved” routes through the Strait of Hormuz and that it was closing the Strait to shipping altogether “until the end of U.S. interference in the region.” 

Over 20 percent of the world’s oil shipments come through this narrow waterway, and Iran’s actions defied a U.S. ultimatum that it publicly announce the Strait was open. 

Shortly afterward, the U.S. military announced that it had launched 140 new strikes on Iran in response. 

This comes as U.S.-Iran negotiations for a permanent ceasefire have stalled,¹ and Trump and Iran’s new leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, exchanged threats. Khameini issued a statement vowing to avenge the death of his father, the former Supreme Leader who was assassinated by the U.S. and Israel. Trump in turn threatened to “completely decimate” Iran if anything happened to him and that “1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran.” 

These developments come on the heels of the most violent U.S. attacks since a temporary ceasefire halted fighting on April 8. In response to Iranian attacks on several tankers, on July 8-9 the U.S. hit 170 targets, killing at least 14 people and wounding dozens more. This was a far more aggressive attack than the last round of tit-for-tat U.S.-Iran strikes on June 25-28.² Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps in turn claimed they launched 85 drone and missile strikes on U.S. military sites in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. 

This violent U.S. escalation was accompanied by bellicose, fascist threats from Trump to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure: its bridges—“which we can knock down”—and its electric plants and desalination plants—“We’ll take them out if we have to.” 

Be clear: Trump is threatening massive war crimes against Iran and its people, as well as the lives of millions in the region and the world. This must not be dismissed as more “bluster” and normalized! 

Everyone with a conscience should be condemning and opposing this genocidal threat.

The U.S. and Iran have been going back and forth—with negotiations as well as tit-for-tat military strikes—over the meaning and implementation of the vague, ambiguously worded Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) since they signed it on June 17. These latest attacks and counter-attacks show the limitations of the MoU in papering over the deep divide between the U.S. and Iran. And the escalating attacks may signal the beginning of an extremely violent and volatile phase of this conflict, a conflict which could spread across the region and beyond, potentially endangering millions of people. 

“Oppression Will Not Be Ended by the Most Terrible Oppressive Force in the World”—Bob Avakian

On February 28, the U.S. and Israel launched an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran—which posed no immediate threat to either of them. This attack was carried out while Iran was negotiating with the U.S. and it wiped out almost the entire senior tier of Iran’s leadership. This attack constituted an illegal war under international law—the supreme war crime.

The fascist Trump regime initially claimed this war was aimed at liberating the Iranian people. The truth, as the revolutionary leader and author of the new communism Bob Avakian writes, is that: “Oppression Will Not Be Ended by the Most Terrible Oppressive Force in the World”:

This U.S. war on Iran can’t be justified with the excuse that the Islamic regime in Iran is itself a terribly oppressive force. Yes, that is true—it is a barbaric regime that we revcoms have been vigorously exposing and opposing while firmly supporting the Iranian people’s struggle against this regime, over the four decades and more that this regime has been in power. But this is also true: The U.S. has, since its beginning and down to today, committed war crimes, and crimes against humanity, far beyond what the Iranian regime could even realistically think of committing. (Bob Avakian, "The New York Times Insists on Support for War Crimes—When They Are “Our” War Crimes")

The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, which has vast oil and gas reserves and is situated at a key strategic location, because it wasn’t under the U.S. thumb. Added to that, Iran’s Islamic Republic was posing a sharp challenge to U.S. domination of the Middle East, as well as to Israel. This region, located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, is home to both crucial trade routes and over half the world’s fossil fuel reserves. So, controlling it is critical to U.S. global dominance. 

In short, this wasn’t a war for any “noble” or just purpose, it was a totally unprovoked predatory war for imperialist domination and plunder. 

The Collapse of the Ceasefire and MoU and the Threat of Wider War

The U.S. and Israel expected a quick, decisive victory over Iran. Instead, despite all the death and destruction that their 23,000 bomb and missile strikes rained down, Iran didn’t collapse. Instead, it found relatively inexpensive, low-tech ways to fight back including drone and missile attacks on Israel, on U.S. bases in the region, and most impactfully, through shutting down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian shutdown wreaked havoc on the global capitalist economy.

This forced Trump and the U.S. to first declare a ceasefire on April 8, and then sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on June 17. This agreement granted Iran a level of ongoing control of the Strait, the lifting of sanctions on the selling of Iranian oil, a $300 billion reconstruction fund, and an end to Israel’s war in Lebanon.³

These concessions were seen as highly favorable to Iran—to such a degree that Trump ran into some opposition from other ruling class forces as being “too generous to Iran.” The opposition ranged from influential Democrats to MAGA Republicans, as well as from Israel.

In the face of this opposition and in line with the imperialist interests driving every section of the U.S. ruling class, the Trump regime in particular began violating its key MoU promises: to give Iran some measure of control of the Strait, to provide some relief from the punishing economic sanctions imposed by the U.S., and an end to Israel’s war and occupation of Lebanon. (Israeli forces are still occupying southern Lebanon and still attacking and killing inside the country.)⁴

Meanwhile, within Iran, a section of the new rulers are also opposing the ceasefire for mirror-opposite reasons—that the memorandum gave too much to the U.S. They feel that Iran should more aggressively defend its perceived interests, even if it could mean ongoing war with the U.S.⁵

It remains possible that some sort of deal between the U.S. and Iran can be reached. Yet for now, the ceasefire and the MoU have effectively collapsed, and the U.S. and Iran are effectively back at war, with the fascist Trump regime apparently feeling the necessity and the freedom to escalate its attacks, or even resume a full-scale war which Trump threatens and which would be even more violent and criminal than before.⁶

So once again, terrible and unjust suffering are looming over the lives of the Iranian people, as the real possibility of a much wider and more horrific war looms over the Middle East. 

And for what? For the ability of the U.S. imperialists to plunder and dictate to the whole world. 

The Insanity of This System and the Urgent Need for Revolution

Does humanity have to live with the waking nightmares of seemingly unending wars, the genocide in Gaza, and now this U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, and all the while with the danger of nuclear war ever present?

No! But the problem is much deeper than Trump’s ego, war profiteering, Israel, or other events and phenomena that many people and political forces point to. Instead, people need to “to dig beneath the surface, to discover the underlying mainsprings and causes of things, and arrive at an understanding of the fundamental problem and the actual solution,” as Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, sets forth in HUMANITY ON THE BRINK: A Forced March Into the Abyss, or Forging a Way Forward Out of the Madness?