The Iran War, Ideological Claims, and Reminders from the Past

The Iran war, which flared up with the bombing campaign launched by the US-Israel coalition on February 28, has now passed the 40-day mark, and the parties have agreed to a 15-day ceasefire. The ceasefire deal came after four days of heightened tensions, during which Trump threatened to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age if it didn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz. We know that these short ceasefire windows between wars are usually seen as breaks to catch your breath, tend to wounds, and regroup. That’s exactly what this ceasefire means for Iran. But for the US and international capital, it carries another crucial meaning: the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, the ceasefire agreement makes Iran’s reopening of the strait conditional on the US halting its attacks.

Right after the war started, Iran effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, leaving thousands of ships stranded in the Gulf. For the bourgeoisie, this meant billions of dollars in losses. And since most of those ships were tankers loaded with oil and gas, it also triggered a serious crisis in the energy sector. The complete halt of oil shipments through the strait sent oil prices through the roof, and the impact on energy prices hit workers hard while also affecting the entire production chain. That’s why internal and external pressure on Trump has clearly been building up in recent days. At one point, under that pressure, he even went on a tirade full of curses to get Iran to reopen the strait. With the ceasefire deal, Trump seems able to breathe a bit easier. The same goes for Iran, which has taken serious damage from US-Israeli bombings, and for the Gulf countries, which have also suffered considerably from Iranian strikes. Israel, meanwhile, appears to be using this pause to focus on levelling Lebanon.

After the ceasefire announcement, world markets took off on a wave of optimism, and premature commentary from bourgeois pundits –predicting a lasting deal and an end to the war– flooded the media. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to shipping was greeted with delight. But that evening, Israel launched its bloodiest attack yet on Lebanon, sending a shockwave through everyone. Just hours into the truce, the Zionist state carried out a heavy aerial bombardment on more than 100 targets it claimed belonged to Hezbollah, slaughtering at least 300 people within ten minutes, with the number of wounded nearing 1,200. After the attack, Iran announced that the ceasefire agreement had also included a halt to Israeli attacks on Lebanon, declared that passage through the Strait of Hormuz was suspended again, and warned that if the attacks continued it would deliver a “regrettable response to the occupying aggressors in the region”. The US then stated that the ceasefire did not cover Lebanon, while Trump’s announcement of an across‑the‑board 50% tariff on all products from any country supplying arms to Iran –with no exceptions– only deepened the shock. On top of that, Israeli attacks continued through the night. So it became clear, within just a few hours, just how fragile the ceasefire was. What’s more, it was announced that talks between Iran and the US –said to have restarted in Pakistan– had hit a dead end after just the first meeting.

The Iran war isn’t just causing severe destruction in the Middle East – it’s affecting the whole world through the resulting energy crisis, supply problems, and rising prices. That’s why opposition to the US-Israeli imperialist axis as the aggressor forces is steadily growing. At the same time, instead of focusing on the nature of the war and taking a principled stand, many analyses remain widespread that are entirely dictated by Trump’s lying, contradictory, and manipulative statements, and that, in their reaction against the US, end up closing their eyes to reality in many respects. The argument that the US is mired and looking for an honourable way out –based on claims that US and Israeli missile stocks are running low, that the cost of the war has become too high, and that Iran has the capacity to resist for a very long time– is still being hyped across mainstream media, alternative media, and the left alike. The ceasefire decision will likely make this kind of commentary even more common. Yet just as the early-war predictions that “the US won’t be able to keep this war going for more than ten days” –based on the same kind of reasoning– quickly proved baseless, the fact that the US has begun sending new naval and ground troops to the region shows that this war will consist of more than just a single phase.

Losing the Marxist perspective when assessing the situation can also throw socialists onto the wrong track. The false path opened up by reducing anti-imperialism to a “support the small against the big” policy, and more generally to anti-Americanism, throws the doors wide open to all kinds of manipulation and traps. Ideological arguments and distorted information spread by bourgeois channels can easily slip in through this door. Inside the US, there’s a fierce power struggle between Trump and opposing bourgeois factions; outside, the US –while fighting Iran– is also clashing with China and Russia. And of course, we shouldn’t forget the tensions between the EU and the US. All these bourgeois powers are simultaneously waging a multi-dimensional psychological war to wear each other down. For all sides, this psychological war is built on thoroughly distorting reality in order to shape public perception according to their own interests, and they operate a gigantic disinformation machine to do so (to which, these days, artificial intelligence has been added). The dirty, false information spread by this machine is processed and served up by a wide network ranging from bourgeois pundits to academics. So unless this information is carefully filtered, falling right into the trap set by the very bourgeois powers that spread it is all too easy.

First of all, the commentary served up by bourgeois channels, the claims and debates built on secondary factors and Trump’s incoherent statements, all skip over the nature of this war and what the US is aiming to achieve. The Iran war is not a single, isolated war. It is part of the Third World War – a war the US started with Afghanistan, continued with Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, extended into Gaza and Lebanon via Israel, and which has spread to multiple fronts outside the Middle East (notably Ukraine), taking different forms along the way. Those who fail to see this reality end up making claims about the US war in Iran, many of which contradict one another. Let’s take a look at the most prominent of these claims: Trump started this war to bury the Epstein files! The US is just Israel’s puppet, and the aim of this war is to ensure Israel’s security! Trump only cares about getting his hands on Iran’s oil! This war is the product of Trump’s madness, and sensible Republicans and Democrats are against it! The US cannot sustain this war militarily or economically for long! Israel’s goal is to bring down the mullah regime, but the US has no clear goal or strategy! The US has already got bogged down in the face of Iran’s resistance!

First of all, let’s be absolutely clear: these claims –which downplay the power of the US, its imperialist intentions and its sinister plans– are not only far from reality; they also lead to extremely dangerous consequences, since they are misleading. What’s more, as we’ll show shortly, the same claims were repeated endlessly during the attacks the US has carried out since the turn of the millennium – and yet US imperialism just carried on regardless. Those who say the US has no strategy, focusing on tactical manoeuvres, contradictory statements from officials, occasional miscalculations, wrong tactics, and so on, need to see that this imperialist war has been advanced step by step over the past 25 years by opening up new fronts. Because of this strategy –which they say doesn’t exist but which keeps on grinding forward– the US has reached, one by one, the goals it announced a quarter of a century ago. And in that time, millions of people have lost their lives, and continue to do so.

The most striking thing feeding the impression that the US acts without any plan or strategy is probably Trump’s rhetoric – the kind that makes people ask, “What is this guy talking nonsense about?” Most of these statements, which he makes like a showman on social media, are hardly worth taking seriously as policy. But every single one of them has a function. Trump times his remarks –“they want a deal, we’ve reached an agreement, I’m giving them three more days, I’ll bomb Iran back to the Stone Age”– with extreme precision. In doing so, he buys time while also offering major monopolies, especially the energy giants, the chance to make huge profits. Stock markets and oil prices rise and fall on Trump’s words. Meanwhile, certain people are pocketing billions through betting firms. We live in an age where everything has been turned into an instrument of speculation. All of this also clearly shows how decayed capitalism has become.

On the other hand, portraying Trump as a president who has lost his mind suits the American ruling class perfectly. It’s clear that the rising cost of the war will increase the burden on the working class and trigger explosions, not just around the world but in the US as well. In such a situation, blaming the problem on politicians who have “done the wrong thing” and focusing popular anger on Trump makes things easier for the bourgeoisie. Make no mistake: when things eventually go wrong, Trump will be the first one thrown to the working masses.

Given the justified anger towards US imperialism, it’s an entirely natural reaction for the world’s peoples to feel joy even at the smallest US setback. This is a psychological response similar to the human reaction you’d have when a brutal bully starts beating up a weaker man. But suppose the moment that weaker man is rescued from the bully, he starts attacking babies and children – how would his rescuers react? No doubt they’d turn on him too. Now let’s go back to the start and imagine that the witnesses to the fight knew from the beginning that both men were brutal murderers. What would their reaction be then? Everything would be different, wouldn’t it? This is precisely why, for working people to develop a correct stance towards wars and the warring powers, they must understand the nature of the war, its causes, and the character of the sides involved. War is a class phenomenon, and the response to it must be a class response as well. That is why, in the case of the Iran war, it is essential that its true nature be clarified for working-class masses. Only then can we take a correct stance against this war – without falling into the trap of arguments, lies, and manipulations that the bourgeois powers use to distract attention in their own interests. This is why, while opposing the aggression of American imperialism and the Zionist regime in the harshest terms, we must also refuse to give any credence to the nonsense that goes: “We know the mullah regime is reactionary, cruel, and bourgeois in nature, but faced with this war started by the great enemy America, we must stand with Iran today without questioning the nature of the mullah regime.”

We said that war is a class phenomenon. It should not be forgotten that alongside the wars between bourgeois powers, there is also the class war between the working class and the bourgeoisie – a war that will continue as long as capitalism exists. In this war, the enemy of the working class and all the oppressed is, no matter where in the world, the capitalist class and the bourgeois states that serve as its power apparatus. So can the working class defeat its enemy by seeing or presenting its power as weaker than it really is? On the contrary, if you underestimate the enemy’s strength, you will also hold back from making the necessary preparations – in which case defeat is inevitable, and the disappointment will be great. Unfortunately, there are those who ignore the destruction wrought by US imperialism –one of the greatest enemies of the world’s working people– through the imperialist war it began with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq at the turn of the millennium and then tried to spread across the entire region and the world. Instead, they claim that the US has got bogged down in a quagmire. What they are doing ends up producing the very same results.

Let’s speak the truth. According to the SIPRI report published in 2025, the US is the world’s largest military power, with annual war spending reaching one trillion dollars. That figure represents 37% of total global war spending. When you consider that its closest rival, China, accounts for around 12%, and Russia around 5.5%, you can see more clearly what a machine of destruction the US really is. This machine has overwhelming superiority, from nuclear weapons to the latest military hardware. Likewise, the US economy is on a completely different scale from other countries – it’s colossal. At $30.6 trillion, the closest rival is China with $19.4 trillion, and Germany with $5 trillion. Arguing that this colossal economic and military power cannot handle a war with Iran is either an ideologically and politically motivated bourgeois distortion, or just plain stupidity. There’s probably nothing more absurd than trying to show the working class that the US can be defeated by starting from a position of underestimating its military and economic power. Does all this lead to the conclusion that US imperialism is invincible? Of course not. The power that can defeat the US, both at home and abroad, is the organised strength of the working class.

Here’s what’s clear: you can’t defeat US imperialism by claiming it’s ‘bogged down in a quagmire’, and you can’t make Iran invincible –under the rotten mullah regime– by going on about its “2,000-year-old state tradition”. Arguing that the US is “bogged down” without even identifying its goal is utterly unserious. These kinds of assessments –divorced from reality and typical of the petty-bourgeois mindset– have led to many dramatic consequences. First of all, the weeks of US and Israeli attacks have already caused enormous damage to Iran, with key figures at the top of the regime killed. Nobody should be fooled by Iran’s tough talk of standing tall. While it’s not yet possible to predict exactly how regime change will happen, we can say clearly that the mullah regime has no future – contrary to what the public face of the regime would have you believe. This rotten regime is long past its expiration date, and there’s no way an Iran under its rule can hold together and carry on. What’s more, presenting the mullah regime as if it has the capacity to resist for a very long time creates a false picture that obscures the destructiveness of the war, and that picture could lead working people into complacency. Pumping up the image of a “defiant Iran” also serves to prolong the life of the mullah regime, allowing it to continue its oppression of workers and peoples. Meanwhile, the US –which we’re told is “bogged down”– is steadily implementing its plans step by step, using ceasefire talk to buy time and fill its gaps.

Looking at the actual situation, it’s impossible not to see that the US has never been as powerful in the Middle East as it is now. US imperialism dominates all the Arab states and has brought them closer to Israel than ever before. Turkey is included in this as well. That’s why Israel has reached the point of swallowing Palestine, can freely throw its weight around in Syria, and has now launched an invasion of Lebanon. China and Russia are currently unable to do anything about what the US is doing in the region. All they can do for Iran is provide technological support to help it keep the war going a bit longer. Furthermore, the US is using the Iran war to increase its military build-up in the region.

It’s true that under the Trump administration, the US –which has turned into an open war machine both at home and abroad– has seen its legitimacy and standing among working people inside the country and peoples of the world greatly weakened. But the tendency to look at this fact and ignore other aspects of reality can lead to false and misleading conclusions. The decisive factor from the capitalist system’s point of view is that, under conditions where war imposes itself as an economic and political necessity, the ruling class makes its decisions not by seeking popular consent – it simply imposes them. First of all, a war environment creates an extremely favourable ground for “national unity”. When the bourgeoisie’s ideological apparatuses do the necessary work, this ground is strengthened more easily than one might think. When election pressure is in play, the needed “consent” is manufactured through various means: promises of economic recovery (jobs, food, wealth...), stoking the perception of internal and external threats, reinforcing the fear that if the current government goes, everything will get even worse, and so on. As long as there are no massive casualties from frontline fighting, it’s much easier to maintain support for war policies or to neutralise opposition. On the other hand, the bourgeoisie turns to authoritarian regimes precisely so that, after a certain point, it can act without needing such consent. A stage where it becomes impossible to intimidate working people through repression, force, and fear can only be reached if there is a social opposition movement powerful enough to move towards revolution. And such conditions have their own dynamics and completely different laws of motion. Therefore, what we need are analyses that take many factors into account and interpret them correctly, along with a communist stance based on such analyses.

Different periods, different countries, the same ideological claims!

It may come as a surprise that the various manipulative or baseless comments being made today about the Iran war are a direct repeat of the comments made 23 years ago during the Iraq war – but unfortunately, that is the reality. Back then, in her assessments on this issue, Elif Çağlı drew attention not only to the falseness of such comments, which are a leakage of bourgeois ideology, but also to the danger they create. It will be useful to recall these assessments, as they contain very important points that also shed light on the present.

Çağlı first pointed out that the war started by the US in Afghanistan, with the invasion of Iraq as its second step, was a major imperialist war for the redivision of the region, intended to spread across the entire Middle East.

“The dominating power of the capitalist system, namely the USA, has confronted new imperialist adversaries such as rising China or Russia, which resulted in the world’s getting into a prolonged crisis of hegemony the outcome of which is not clear yet and this has become a chaotic historical period full of uncertainties. The main factor that determines this era is the escalating war for re-division between the old hegemonic power and the new forces that covet the throne of hegemony. American war staff’s promulgation of September 11 as the beginning of some new era is relevant to this and it is not an unavailing attempt. This date is a turning point for the American imperialism to block her rivals’ progression by taking action against them.

“The territory where all these powers are striving for hegemony stretches from the Caucasus to the Middle East and from there to Afghanistan. The area being a great distance from the USA, is very close to the new rising powers of China and Russia and it is the battle field of the third imperialist war of division.”[1]

This observation also provides the basis for correctly assessing US imperialism’s current moves and for taking a correct stance on all fronts of the ongoing world war. Çağlı noted that the aim of the US’s new-era strategy was to reinforce its hegemonic position right now against rising powers like Russia and China in the near future, so as not to lose superiority to others down the line.[2] Yet when these identifications were being made in Marksist Tutum, bourgeois commentary –going on about the US having no strategy and just lashing out wildly like a mad bull– was just as widespread then as it is today. We suggest reading the following lines from Elif Çağlı on this matter, substituting Iran for Afghanistan and Iraq, and Trump for Bush:

“The challange of the US imperialism under the Bush administration is not a temporary inclination; it results from a need to keep and further develop its superioty in the period of re-shaping the spheres of influence. It is perfectly possible that Bush and co. follow wrong paths, spoil everything or make many tactical mistakes while trying to fulfil strategical necessities of this period. For this reason the US administration will be bitterly criticised both by native opposition and by other imperialist centers of power. But these facts do not change the strategical realities that lie behind. As the war in Afghanistan and Iraq show, the intention of the US is not to eradicate these states form the map or make these lands her colonies but to make regime changes in accordance with her interests. To bring obedient forces to power and then jump into another area. To what extent it can manage this, will be determined by the imperialist war that is going on.” (2003)

Even though the US quickly established a puppet administration in Iraq, shaped all commercial deals according to its own interests, and grabbed the country’s oil revenues, those who closed their eyes to reality and tried to chase away the devil kept repeating the same thoughtless claims. Three years later, Çağlı took up these hollow claims again in an article titled “In the Middle of Danger”. In that article, noting that an imperialist power driven by the urge to expand into new markets does not enter into militarist adventures expecting it to be a piece of cake, she said:

“An imperialist power which is sure of its hegemonic position and confident about its power would not need to be frantically offensive. The great Versailles defeat, which the German imperialism had to suffer in the First World War, never caused them back away from the main stage, contrarily this failure dragged them into a ferocious bloody war hysteria. Even though imperialist powers in this kind of hysteria have sometimes the feeling of being pulled into a quagmire in the battle fields, this makes them not calm, but more offensive.

“The main factors that propel capitalist countries towards escalating militarism and fascism are serious political and economic facts that threatens the operation of capitalist system. It is necessary not to misinterpret developments, which would end up serving in the interests of the bourgeoisie. The reason why the imperialist war started and spread out is not the fact that Hitler, in the past, and Bush, today, come to power by chance. On the contrary, the extraordinary crisis conditions that capitalism is being dragged into push such crazed people onto the front of the power stage. For this very reason, this type of historical times are extremely turbulent periods made up of deep waves hitting from the bottom, which are not restricted to the term of one bourgeois party or one political leader.” (2006)

Today, Trump’s raging aggression –stretching from Latin America to Greenland and Iran– is no more the product of his madness than it was then. Even if a Democrat came to power in the US, even if the tone changed, it would be impossible for the essence of the imperialist policies being pursued to change at all. To see this reality, it is enough to remember a few things. The Syrian, Libyan, and Yemeni fronts of the imperialist world war were opened during the term of the “dove of peace” Obama (who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009!), after he took over from “stupid Bush” (2009-2016). Under President Biden (2021-2024; who had also been Obama’s vice-president), the Ukraine war was added to these fronts. And Israel’s massacres in Palestine were turned a blind eye to under both of them.

Just as today, during the Iraq war, bourgeois pundits were making daily commentaries based on Bush’s statements and short-term ups and downs in the course of events. In response, Çağlı pointed out that this bourgeois style causes the overall strategy to be lost while chasing after tactical zigzags. She also noted –and this is an extremely important point for today as well– that the liberal-left press, with its commentaries that appear more serious and comprehensive, has always carried a bourgeois influence into the socialist movement.

Regarding the label of “lunatic Trump” –which is frequently used as a reference point when assessing US imperialism’s current moves– let us turn to the past, to the era of “stupid Bush”:

“Since the election of Bush, a caricature of ‘idiot Bush’ filled this kind of press. Unfortunately we can see such attributes also in the socialist press. The point here is not of course a debate on Bush’s IQ. However, though employed with good intentions, such attributes may go out of control and prove counterproductive such that they can create an ambiguity in relation to grasping the developments. For instance, false or careless characterizations that can lead to relating the conflicts or wars which serve imperialist interests to stupid strategies of some bourgeoise politicians would serve the bourgeois ideology in the end. This kind of comments play into the hands of the bourgeoise opposition. They push the workers and toiling masses to the arms of such an anti-war movement that is confined within the boundaries of the order. However stupid or crazy may seem the acts of the US hawks for ordinary people who want to lead a relatively peaceful and restful daily life, wars do not result from caprices and adventurous leanings of stupid or crazy administrators. As we frequently repeat, war is the continuation of politics by other means.” (2003)

“The real mind confusers in the struggle of the working class against capitalist order are not –as in the example of Bush– ‘stupids’ who openly tell the realities of the system. On the contrary it is the clever politicians and ideologists who present themselves as good-hearted democrats and try to camouflage the sharp edges of capitalism. Because they blame Bush and the like for all evil in the system that can be apperantly seen by workers and toilers and spread the lie that the world could become a peaceful paradise if the US was governed by Clinton-like presidents. Thus they serve to lengthen the life of capitalist system. If the US is waging a war and occupies Iraq which seems totally unjust to the toiling masses, then hold on a bit you toilers! Because stupid Bush and co. will be beaten pretty soon in the elections and your distress will stop! Now all brillant strategists of American imperialism are mobilised to prevent the rebel of the working and toiling masses against the capitalist system with this kind of tricks. The so-called US democracy with two parties –which is rather like a seesaw game– is presented as a remedy that can eliminate the monster of unemployement, poverty and war which have seriously hurt the working class, toiling masses and oppressed nations. Can there be a bigger lie?” (2003)

When one re-reads these lines and thinks about how similar things continue to be said today, one can’t help but be amazed –unfortunately– that while the bourgeoisie carries out its business year after year with the same tactics and policies, the same drivel is repeated on behalf of the left.

Another important point that Elif Çağlı drew attention to is that a significant portion of the commentary appearing in the liberal bourgeois press about the US failure in Iraq actually gave voice to the demands of European imperialism. Back then, France and Germany –hoping to corner the US with propaganda about its failure and pave the way for a joint intervention in the Middle East– were pursuing policies that they continue to follow today, in order to get a share of the imperialist spoils. And as Çağlı noted, some of this type of commentary today also originates from within the US opposition itself. For example, back then, “Newsweek wrote that the Bush administration had suffered a total fiasco in Iraq and that behind it was the ‘neocons’, the neo-conservative wing of the US administration”. Today, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and so on are doing the same thing. Yet, as Çağlı stressed, “Such criticisms do not touch on fundamentals; they are tactical squabbles between the cliques that make up the American ruling elite. The experts who oppose the Bush team complain that this team has made a mess of things in Iraq, but they raise objections not to the overall strategy of US ambitions in the Middle East, but to the tactics used to implement it.” Exactly like the criticisms being made today about the Iran war.

The following lines also show that the Democrats –who today appear to be taking a different stance– have in fact had no different approach whatsoever regarding the essence of imperialist policies since back then. If we adapt these lines to today by changing the names, they could have been written for the present as well:

“Brezinsky, the prominent ideologue of the Democrat Party, which bears the role of opposition today in the two-party political system of the US, is complaining about the isolation of the US due to the false policies of the Bush administration towards the Middle East. According to him the US should restore its relations with Europe, cooperate with the European Union, pass into the position of an arbiter in the Palestine-Israel conflict and have an eye on the security of the region that includes Russia and its neighbours. Brezinsky, as an oppositionist, reminds the Bush team, who are in power, the need for shaping the foreign policy of the US in a way that suits the hegemonic power of the imperialist system. Liberal comments that sometimes turn into sharp criticisms directed at the US intervention in Iraq are not criticisms towards the expansionist policies of the US, but advices for her to expand in a more cautious and careful way.” (2003)

Finally, regarding the “Vietnam quagmire” comments – here too, we see that nothing has changed for a quarter of a century. So much so that Elif Çağlı, in the article in question, felt the need to address this issue under the heading “A ‘Vietnam quagmire’?” Regarding this analogy, Çağlı first points out the specificities of the Vietnam case, noting that the conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan are completely different:

“During Vietnam war two factors made the US retreat. In the first place, American families increasingly reacted to the fact that their sons were dead, injured or disabled in distant lands in a war hard to justify. The opposition in America was not limited to this only. American workers and soldiers driven to war were also speaking up and stepping up their actions against the administration. Secondly, there was a genuine anti-American struggle in Vietnam which had a confidence in the Soviet Union taking it as model, organised around the goal of a national developmentalist socialism waging a genuine war with a great support from the toiling masses. ” (2003)

Noting that neither of these factors exists in today’s cases, Çağlı then draws attention to something even more important: the political incorrectness of the Vietnam quagmire analogy from the standpoint of socialists. She puts it this way:

“Proceeding from the Vietnam analogy the liberal press insists that Iraq has become a quagmire for the US. Part of the socialist press share this view without seriously looking into the real situation. Subscribing to a talk of resistance as if there is a real upheaval of people against American imperialism when there is no such thing in sight would mean both misleading the masses and totally underestimating the realities. If Iraq could easily become a quagmire for the US without organised masses waging a people’s war –like in Vietnam– then why do we need so much effort to organise, so much determination to fight and self-sacrifice? It is the fundamental principle of proletarian revolutionism not to distort the reality, but to prepare the workers and toilers for the struggle in the light of the reality. We must know that a talk of resistance that is only good for adorning left journals and that has nothing to do with the real world would not help promoting the struggle of the working class.” (2003)

As can be seen, this situation applies more than ever to Iran today. Let us conclude our reminders with the following lines from Elif Çağlı:

“It would of course be pleasing for the revolutionary forces of the working class if Iraq was made a quagmire for imperialist agressors. But when this is not the case, then cries of delight on paper or in cyberworld would do no good for the revolutionary struggle of the working class. In the era of Stalinist domination there was a very popular saying: ‘imperialism is a tiger made of paper’. What happened then? The ruling bureaucrats of the despotic-bureaucratic regimes of the Soviet Union and the like, who did not take seriously the struggle against the capitalist system, are now busy considering how they can move faster into capitalism. Tending to walk the same way has nothing to do with the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. The imperialist capitalist system cannot be undermined by underestimating it or tail-ending the liberal left. Organised revolutionary struggle led by the working class is the only force that can defeat the expansionist ambitions of US imperialism and other imperialist powers in the Middle East and elsewhere. There is no other way of making the Middle East a quagmire for the US imperialism.”