June 9, 2026

On June 3, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the U.S. war against Iran was “over.” (France24.com, June 3) That evening the U.S. military struck Iran, and Israel has continued its genocidal aggression against Lebanon, including a strike on a residential building in Dahiyeh on June 7.

Democrats House Rep. Sara Jacobs and Sen. Cory Booker grilled Rubio on his assertion, with Jacobs saying, “You won’t admit President Trump is losing this reckless war of choice,” (CBS News, YouTube, June 3) and Booker later saying, “The president’s top people are lying.” (Cory Booker, Facebook, June 5)

Yes, it’s true. Trump, Rubio and other Republican politicians are blatantly lying. There is no end in sight to this war, despite their repeated claims that a ceasefire has either been brokered or is imminent. Rubio’s assertion that the U.S. won the war is based on false claims that Iran’s military has been destroyed. Meanwhile, U.S. forces have retreated from the Sea of Oman, and Hezbollah remains committed to resisting Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Why the deception? The Trump administration would rather commit outright falsehoods than acknowledge that the U.S. can’t crush the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has mass support from the Iranian people. To agree to Iran’s terms for ending the war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz — which include unfreezing Iran’s assets, 50% of them immediately — would be to admit defeat. But the war is widely unpopular in the U.S., so people here are repeatedly fed false information about it ending with a ceasefire within reach.

Washington may be, to use a word that surfaced during the Vietnam War — which the U.S. also lost — in a “quagmire.” Democratic politicians disagree with the Trump administration over how to weaken Iran. But both parties aim to defeat Iran. And neither party opposes economic warfare in the form of sanctions.

Iran war has global impact

The failure of U.S. imperialism to impose regime change on Iran has worldwide implications. Marta Fernández, the director of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, with the addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates) Policy Center in Brazil, tied it to Washington’s egregious threats against Cuba.

Fernández said, “A tougher posture toward Cuba can be interpreted simultaneously as geopolitical signaling, domestic political strategy and an attempt to reshape the political narrative after the frustrations associated with Iran.” Of course, Fernández explains, the U.S. is also determined to reassert its hegemony over Latin America. (presstv.ir, June 5)

Unlike Democratic Party politicians, who argued that Iran’s military was (in their view lamentably) still strong, the International Action Center would welcome a defeat for U.S. imperialism in Iran — or anywhere for that matter. We oppose destroying Iran or its military.

In fact, we want the U.S. working class to overthrow capitalism — an act of global solidarity with humanity! A defeat for imperialism anywhere helps workers and oppressed people everywhere, including in the U.S. It’s the flip side of the old union slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.”

U.S. out of West Asia! Stop the U.S. war machine!