Five lessons from the first month of the US-Israeli war on Iran

Jeremy Dewar (Workers Power, GB)

The war launched on 28 February by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu against Iran has opened a new stage in the disorder of world politics and the world economy. Its roots lie in growing rivalry between the old and rising imperialist powers, and in the weakening cohesion of what was once a solid bloc of Nato allies.

The war has exposed both the Zionist state’s drive for a Greater Israel and wider regional hegemony, and the limits of US imperial power and Trump’s policy of going it alone in contempt of Washington’s allies. Its longer-term effects are likely to be further instability in the region: more wars and revolutions, more repression and more resistance. One lesson is already clear. The US cannot be relied on to deliver either “regime change” or democracy.

The human cost has already been colossal. According to Reuters on 26 March, 3,300 people have been killed in Iran, nearly half of them civilians, including 217 children, while more than 1,000 have been killed in Lebanon, including 121 children. The UNHCR says 3.2 million people have been displaced in Iran and 1 million in Lebanon, in a region that already hosts 24 million refugees. A further 1.3 million Shia refugees in Lebanon are trying to return to Syria because of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing. Meanwhile life in Iran and Syria, particularly in Tehran, is becoming unbearable, with toxic air from damaged oil storage facilities and refineries.

Israel

If US secretary of state Marco Rubio is to be believed, it was Netanyahu who decided to launch this unprovoked war. The trigger was probably the December-January uprising, which was both widespread and popular. But Israel also appears to have believed that Iran had been softened up by the “easy victory” of the 12-day war in 2025, the decimation of Revolutionary Guard Corps units across the region, the defeats suffered by Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah and Hamas, and the long-term impact of Western sanctions.

Netanyahu and his fascist ministers were further emboldened by the genocidal destruction of Gaza, the accelerating settlements and displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank, and Israeli incursions into Lebanese and Syrian territory. And Netanyahu, as a gangster-politician trying to stay out of jail, calculated that the way forward was through war. In other words, this was not only the best time to keep the war going, but perhaps the only time.

Israel’s first strike aimed to decapitate the regime. On the first day it killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the IRGC commander, the armed forces chief of staff and the defence minister, before moving on to security chief Ali Larijani and the commander of the Basij militia. This follows Israel’s long-favoured strategy of assassinating senior leaders, as it has done with Hamas and Hezbollah.

This has widely been seen as a failure in one respect: it did not trigger a popular rebellion against the regime, nor did it replace the dead with more pliant figures. But that was not Israel’s only aim. The pinpoint strikes will also have chilled the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Who is next? The killings also cut across Trump’s plans, because second-rank leaders whom Washington may have seen as possible negotiating partners were also eliminated. As the Gaza war showed, every assassination sets negotiations back.

Although Israel’s strikes on Iran have broadly followed the US pattern, they have shown a much greater willingness to escalate. Israel has hit, or threatened to hit, power plants, oil facilities and desalination units. These attacks have helped the regime pose as the defender of the people, while also provoking Iranian strikes on similar targets in the Gulf, Israel and beyond. Again, that runs against Trump’s stated war aims.

But Israel’s attention has increasingly shifted to southern Lebanon, south Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah, Netanyahu’s declared enemy, was not an existential threat to Israel even before Iran’s latest losses. More important is that the occupation, and eventual settlement, of southern Lebanon, with the expulsion of much of the Shia population, is a long-term Zionist objective. The destruction of bridges across the Litani points to preparations for a land invasion.

Meanwhile the Palestinians have been pushed into the background, which again suits Israel. Gaza remains under starvation rations and violent military occupation. The synchronised pogrom in the West Bank on 22 March, after the death of a teenage settler, was another step in the attempt to destroy the very idea of a Palestinian territory, even in its already diminished and unsustainable form: the so-called two-state solution.

Zionism is, at root, an expansionist ideology. As it displaces populations, it must defend itself against those who resist, who seek to return, or who try to reverse its gains. It therefore seeks to move from relative regional hegemony to absolute hegemony. No other power, acting alone or in alliance, can be allowed to challenge it. Only in that way can Israel hope to attract further Jewish immigration to populate expanded and ethnically cleansed territory.

This is profoundly unstable, including for Israel’s own Jewish population. As resistance grows, Israel falls back on “mowing the grass”, striking both military and civilian targets. If the Islamic Republic survives, Israel is likely to continue attacking the country’s infrastructure and military facilities for years. Syria has already shown that even regime change does not remove a country from Israel’s crosshairs.

The USA

Whether Trump believed his own rhetoric that Iran was ripe for the taking and that this would be a short war or not, he has started a war with no straightforward end in sight. Of his many shifting aims, regime change always looked the least plausible, and now appears even further out of reach. Even the BBC has had to report the anger of ordinary Iranians at the destruction of residential areas, schools and hospitals, and of the infrastructure that sustains them: electricity, water and even breathable air. It is supporters of the regime who seem to have been invigorated by the war, turning out in tens of thousands for Ali Khamenei’s funeral, not the revolutionaries. Patriotism has grown.

Other possible “wins” that might offer Trump an off-ramp are either too small or too difficult. Iran’s nuclear capacity, in the sense of its ability to build a bomb, has certainly been degraded. But about 9,000kg of enriched uranium remains, including 440kg of highly enriched uranium, buried deep at two or more sites. Iran also retains the technical knowledge needed to rebuild enrichment facilities. Its ballistic missile programme, meanwhile, appears more advanced than previously thought, as the attack on Diego Garcia suggested.

Extracting that highly enriched uranium from beneath the mountains of central Iran would require an extensive bombing campaign and at least 1,000 troops with specialist equipment working under enemy fire, even if only in guerrilla conditions. Even then it would be a dangerous undertaking with major technical risks. The echoes of Jimmy Carter’s failed attempt to rescue the US embassy hostages in Tehran in 1980 are obvious.

There has been more success in reducing Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, but not enough to eliminate them, and probably not enough to do so. Iran has clearly held some of its most strategic missiles in reserve, and its ability to use drones effectively has not been seriously reduced. One would expect the mullahs’ stock of long-range missiles to diminish over time, but drones are another matter. They are small, relatively cheap, easy to assemble and, as the Ukrainians have shown in attacks deep inside Russia, easy to launch from mobile platforms. Any disused warehouse could become a temporary drone factory.

Reopening the Strait of Hormuz would be another difficult “win” for Trump to present. First, it was his war that closed the strait in the first place. Second, the economic effects of closure, higher oil and gas prices, will persist long after the fighting ends, both because shipowners will remain wary and because of the damage already done to gas fields, refineries and storage facilities. Third, air power alone cannot stop attacks on shipping. That would require boots on the ground, and a substantial number of them.

The US appears instead to be preparing to seize and occupy Kharg Island in the northern Gulf with 2,500 marines and 1,000 airborne rangers. Since 90 per cent of Iran’s oil exports pass through Kharg, such an operation would initially drive prices up, not down. Washington could also try to blockade the strait, through which 80 per cent of Iran’s imports, including food, pass. Either course would amount to a siege of Iran and would threaten the lives of ordinary Iranians more than the regime. And either holding Kharg or maintaining a siege would be difficult. US operations would almost certainly have to expand, with all the familiar dangers of mission creep, or else end in humiliating retreat.

In fact, the rise in crude oil and natural gas prices has already turned this war into a political problem for both the US and Trump’s MAGA coalition. Counter-terrorism official Joe Kent resigned in protest at Trump’s betrayal, Tucker Carlson has opposed the war loudly, and JD Vance is said to harbour serious doubts. Some of these attacks on Trump’s war are framed in barely disguised antisemitic language, revealing the anti-Jewish politics of sections of the far right inside the MAGA camp.

Many of Trump’s supporters may initially forgive him for breaking his election pledge not to involve the US in foreign “forever wars” that do not directly benefit Americans. But the longer the war goes on, the more bodies come home and the more the cost of living rises, not only through energy and transport prices, but through the effect on food production. A huge share of the world’s fertiliser production depends on inputs passing through the strait.

All this is likely to help the Democrats regain the House of Representatives, even if opinion polls suggest that confidence in them has not risen in proportion to Trump’s declining popularity. Democratic control of the House would open the way to impeachment proceedings. Losing control, and with it the committees and agencies that are supposed to hold the president to account, would also make Trump more likely to resort to still more unconstitutional measures.

Iran

The Iranian regime’s greatest advantage is that it has been preparing for this war for at least 25 years, and perhaps 35, since the US-led wars on Iraq in 1990 and 2003. It has long understood Israel’s capacity to assassinate leaders, its Dahiya doctrine of targeting civilian infrastructure and homes in order to turn the people against the regime, and its air superiority and bombing power, exercised with US military and satellite support. It has a strategy.

The IRGC will try to preserve its capacity to deliver high-grade weaponry for as long as possible, but it has also prepared decentralised structures capable of sustaining asymmetrical warfare almost indefinitely. Iran’s conscript forces number more than half a million personnel, split between the regular army, around 350,000, and the IRGC, around 200,000. The Basij adds another 125,000 volunteers, with many more in reserve. Iran has also called for, and pledged arms for, a second volunteer force of another 100,000. Only a minority of the regular troops have at times been won to the side of the revolutionaries; the rest remain committed to the regime.

IRGC officers in particular have wide experience of operational autonomy, and many have seen recent active service in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Iran is a world leader in military drone technology, and drones can be manufactured and launched effectively with relatively few inputs from remote locations. That is why, short of an extremely costly invasion of the coast, the question of reopening the Strait of Hormuz remains largely in Iran’s hands.

None of this means Iran is in a good position. Even if the regime survives, both the economy and, to a degree, its political authority have suffered a severe shock. It would only be a matter of time before another, perhaps larger, opposition movement emerges. Workers, women and young people at the forefront of the anti-regime struggle must prepare politically and, where possible, organisationally for that moment. Part of that means resisting the siren calls of a Pahlavi or any other figure backed by the US and Israel. Regime change must come from below.

Wider impact

The Gulf states, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, together with Iraq, have suffered the biggest direct impact, with 17 strikes on oil and gas facilities by 22 March, according to ABC News. Iranian facilities have been hit 10 times, including three Israeli missiles that struck two gas storage facilities and a pipeline on 24 March, during the US ceasefire. That underlines Washington’s inability to control its attack dog. Iran is estimated to have launched more than 5,000 projectiles at the Gulf states, with more than half aimed at the UAE.

Some of these attacks have been severe. The strike on the Ras Laffan gas facility, for example, could take an estimated five years to repair. Despite recent diversification, oil and gas still account for about a quarter of Gulf GDP. The economies of the UAE and Saudi Arabia have already contracted, by 5 per cent and 3 per cent respectively, while a three-month war would push the region into a downturn of 10 to 15 per cent. Iraq has been hit hardest of all. It is losing $3bn a day as petroleum production has fallen by 70 per cent, compared with a 33 per cent fall across the Gulf.

Alongside Iran’s direct retaliatory attacks on energy facilities, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes, has severely disrupted exports from the region. Iran is allowing only ships bound for China, Pakistan and India to pass, about 5 per cent of all traffic. Only Saudi Arabia and the UAE have pipelines and export routes that bypass the strait. The result has been a 35 per cent jump in European liquefied natural gas prices, while crude remains above $100 a barrel despite Trump’s talk of “peace talks”. Insurance premiums have also risen sharply.

Beyond energy, aviation and tourism have also been hit hard. These sectors account for a growing share of Gulf revenue, 11 per cent, or roughly $600m a day, and have effectively ground to a halt. But perhaps the most damaging effect has been on world fertiliser production, especially urea. Qatar accounts for 46 per cent of the world’s urea output, which depends on LNG, and production has been halted since the attack on Ras Laffan. For farmers across much of the world, the sowing season has therefore been disrupted, and yields are expected to fall sharply. Unless the fighting is halted quickly, a world food crisis and soaring prices are likely to follow.

The political fallout is equally damaging. The Gulf states all depend on the US for their defence, and most host US military bases. Indeed, Iran has cited that as the reason for targeting them. At least some of these states are therefore likely to look for more diversified defence arrangements and to reduce their near-total dependence on Washington. That would cut directly against the aims of the Abraham Accords, which were designed to bind these strategically important states more tightly to the US.

The war has also delivered a warning to nations and peoples tempted to pursue their own aims under cover of Israeli and US air power. In the first week of the war, Trump urged Iraqi Kurds to rise up and “take over” their territory in the north and west of the country, while the CIA encouraged the Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraqi Kurdistan to prepare for a land invasion, something Trump described as “wonderful”. A week later he withdrew the implied offer of support: “I have ruled that out. I don’t want the Kurds going in.” Why the shift? We cannot know for certain, but Turkish pressure probably played a part, since any revival of Kurdish independence would provoke Erdogan to retaliate against Kurds in Turkey, and perhaps in Syria as well.

The fate of oppressed peoples is always subordinated to the geopolitical imperatives of the great powers. A Kurdish invasion of Iran would not only be disastrous for Iranian Kurds, who would once again be targeted by the IRGC and Basij in a “forever war” before being abandoned by the US at the first ceasefire, as happened in 1991 under George Bush Sr. It would also further weaken solidarity between revolutionary forces in the region if they accepted US and Israeli backing for their own national struggle.

Geopolitical and economic fallout

As the war enters its second month, the world’s stock markets remain volatile, inflation is edging up, and with it the cost of living for workers and the poor. One estimate suggests that each day of warfare keeps oil prices elevated for another week. Oil is not expected to return to pre-war levels before at least mid-2027.

China’s economy has also been badly damaged, increasing the chances that a recession would become globally synchronised. Yet in its rivalry with the US there may also be unintended advantages. China could exploit the diversion of the USS Tripoli from Japan, and perhaps the redeployment of further US military resources from East Asia, by increasing military pressure in the South China Sea or around Taiwan through exercises and war games. China has also been diversifying its trade and investment in the Middle East, becoming less dependent on Iran, while anxious Gulf states may seek to deepen their ties with Beijing. For US strategists who see China as the main adversary, this war is a dangerous diversion.

The relationship between the US and its European Nato allies has also been badly strained. Trump launched the war without consulting them, then demanded their full support once it had begun. They refused. Britain under Keir Starmer has tried to straddle the divide, but in doing so has satisfied neither side. Diego Garcia has been made available for supposedly “defensive” operations, a meaningless distinction in an aggressive war.

Trump’s unilateral decision to relax sanctions on Russian oil exports in order to relieve pressure on global energy markets has worsened these tensions, because the resulting windfall for Russia will prolong and deepen the war in Ukraine. The UK’s move to pursue Russian oil tankers in a quasi-piratical fashion is a weak reflection of the same tension.

The war has also increased the likelihood that other conflicts will intensify or restart, as the Pakistani attacks on Kabul suggest. The world is in a dangerous moment, with the effects of this unprovoked war spreading far beyond the Middle East.

The US itself is not insulated from these effects, despite being an oil exporter, and despite the windfall profits made by its fossil-fuel giants. As the Marxist economist Michael Roberts notes, exports, consumer spending, government spending and investment are all down. Growth has been weakening in the US since 2023 and currently stands at a meagre 2.0 per cent, or 1.1 per cent per head. Rising energy costs will also hit the AI stock-market bubble, since AI is extremely energy-intensive. The conditions for another major financial shock are taking shape.

All this is likely to help the Democrats regain control of Congress, since two years of Trump’s presidency have brought only a renewed crisis in the American cost of living. But the US has surprisingly little control over how and when the war ends. Israel is plainly not ready for a ceasefire until the Iranian regime has either fallen or lost its ability to resist Israel’s drive for total regional dominance, something that none of the Gulf states wants. Iran’s demand that the US stop arming, facilitating and militarily backing Israel’s war machine may prove the hardest demand of all for Washington to accept.

For the working class and its organisations, that makes the task of building an anti-imperialist anti-war movement the highest priority. Dockers, arms workers and transport workers should follow the example set by Spanish, French, Italian and Greek port workers in blocking shipments of munitions to Israel and the US. They should refuse to service warships sent to “reopen” Hormuz.

They should demand the closure of all US bases in their countries. To win that, they will need mass working-class action: demonstrations, strikes, occupations and direct action. At the same time, attacks on Jewish symbols, property and people in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK, if they are indeed attributable to Tehran, are not legitimate acts of self-defence but antisemitic attacks. They must be condemned.

Finally, as the imperialist powers edge towards a new world war, socialists committed to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism must take steps towards building a new communist International.