Jacobin Radio: Iran in the Imperial Crosshairs

The United States and Israel have launched an illegal war of aggression against Iran, a conflict that has triggered a global economic crisis and intensified imperial rivalries between the U.S., China, and Russia. Ashley Smith argues that Trump’s war is a strategic disaster for U.S. imperialism, designed to reassert dominance over the Middle East and pressure China by controlling energy chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian regime, despite its brutal repression and high execution rate, has survived through asymmetric warfare, disrupting global oil, gas, and fertilizer supplies and pushing the world toward stagflation. Frida Afari emphasizes that solidarity must be with the Iranian people and their progressive movements—feminist activists, Kurdish and national minority groups, labor organizers—not the regime. Aleksandr Zapolsky reveals Russia’s pragmatic, not ideological, support for Iran, while highlighting how the war has fueled a new form of 'soft war' through drone operator recruitment from universities. Denis Pilash stresses that consistency in anti-imperialism requires opposing all aggressors—U.S., Israeli, Russian, and Iranian—because victories for one imperialist power embolden others. The panel warns that the failure of the left to build a genuine internationalist movement risks being co-opted by far-right forces, and calls for a politics of solidarity without exception across Palestine, Ukraine, Iran, and beyond.