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While the flames of war raged from every direction, Trump launched his election campaign amid a media frenzy, presenting himself as a peacemaker. He promised that, once elected, he would bring an end to all wars, projecting a peace-loving image and even claiming he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. However, Trump’s return to power not only failed to halt the wars but actually intensified military tensions: the war in Ukraine continues, the slaughter in Gaza has persisted despite the ceasefire, and simultaneously, military tensions between Thailand and Cambodia, conflicts between India and Pakistan, clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan, wars in Myanmar, Syria, Sudan, and Nigeria, as well as military tensions in Venezuela, have continued. Now a full-scale war has erupted in the Middle East, involving or affecting around fifteen countries. Today, war is no longer merely a military event; increasingly, it reflects the capitalist system in the barbaric era of imperialism and the way of life it produces.

Imperialist wars are not merely the result of decisions taken by warmongering leaders; rather, they express the very nature of the capitalist system in the present era. Regardless of the mask each state wears—whether it calls itself democratic or is openly dictatorial, whether it claims to be peace-loving or openly raises the banner of war—they all share one fundamental characteristic: the sacrifice of the working class and the oppressed as cannon fodder in imperialist wars. Without exception, all these states bear responsibility for these wars, and all of them are war criminals.

Contrary to the demagogy and lies of the democratic gangsters, who claim that the United States and Israel, through “precise” strikes, are merely seeking to eliminate political and military officials and target the military infrastructure of the Islamic bourgeoisie, the reality is quite different. In practice, all sides also target civilian infrastructure: factories, schools, residential areas, refineries, workplaces, sports halls, markets, and even clinics and hospitals are bombed. The commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) has stated that the scale of the first 24 hours of the current operation against Iran was twice that of the operation against Iraq in 2003. The truth is this: all sides are complicit in the perpetration of war crimes.

All the gangster democrats, with the criminal Trump at their head, speak the language of bandits and even take pride in their crimes. Thus, Trump proudly declares:

“No one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces. I built and rebuilt our military in my first administration. And there is no military on Earth even close to its power. Strength or sophistication.”[1]

During the First World War, Rosa Luxemburg argued that, in order to normalise war crimes, objective violence must be accompanied by a kind of brutality in thought and feeling, such that the spilling of blood is not only regarded as something ordinary, but even becomes a source of pride. Today, the criminal Trump is a clear embodiment of this historical analysis. Like a bandit, he proudly speaks of the most lethal and destructive army in the world — an army that no other force is capable of confronting. In other words, this warmonger not only welcomes war, but sees it as a stage on which to display the power and technological superiority of the United States.

Unfortunately, the Israeli working class, compared with its class sisters and brothers in Iran and the United States, has been far more deeply poisoned by nationalism and religion. This has allowed the Israeli bourgeoisie to mobilise the working class for war with relative ease. By contrast, despite all its defeats, the Iranian working class is in a far stronger position of struggle than its counterparts in Israel. In particular, one of the most combative battalions of the Middle Eastern proletariat belongs to Iran, which has recorded proud struggles in its historical memory. This war may have a negative and destructive impact on the Iranian working class and could prevent its struggles not only from continuing, but also from advancing to higher levels.

Capitalism imposes imperialist wars on humanity because it does not face a serious and organised class-based response from the global working class. But this does not eliminate, on the contrary, the responsibility of internationalists and particularly of the communist left to face this reality: to consistently defend proletarian internationalism, to expose the imperialist nature of these wars, and to clarify their material and class foundations in front of the working class.

It must be proclaimed in a clear and resounding voice: all of these conflicts are against the interests of the working class. It must be stated openly that the consequences of the imperialist war in the Middle East will not be confined to the region, for capitalism is a global system, and its destructive impact will weigh heavily on the shoulders of workers across the world. Most importantly, it must be emphasised that the real enemy is at home—whether in Tehran, Tel Aviv, Washington, London, Berlin, Paris, or anywhere else where capital, the state, and the military are aligned against the working class.

History has shown that the only force capable of ending the bourgeoisie’s machinery of slaughter—war—is the working class. It was the threat of revolution in Germany during the First World War that compelled the bourgeoisie to sign the armistice. This has always been the case: war criminals retreat only in the shadow of proletarian threat, merely to prepare themselves for the class war against the proletariat. Although the global working class is not currently in such a position, the development of the class struggle can open up that horizon for the proletariat.

War has become a way of life for capitalism in the age of imperialism. Capitalism cannot offer a future; it merely spreads brutality and barbarism to ever more regions. It is an illusion to expect warmongers to bring an end to war. The peace offered by warmongers can only ever be an interlude within a war-driven capitalism. From within capitalist peace, only the flames of future wars can emerge.

Only the class war of the workers can offer an alternative to the barbarism of capitalism—because the proletariat has no nation to defend, and its struggle must transcend national borders and develop on an international scale. Only the global working class, by turning the capitalist war into a war against capitalism and ultimately overthrowing it on a global level, can eliminate the material basis of imperialist wars and bring lasting peace to humanity.

Workers have no country!

Down with the imperialist war!

Long live the war between the classes!

Internationalist Voice

4 March 2026

[1] Trump declaring war on Iran.