By Workers World Editor
June 24, 2026
Just as war has been described as “a continuation of diplomacy by other means” by early 19th-century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, so is imperialist diplomacy war by other means. Workers World does not direct this warning to the Iranian negotiators — they understand their enemy as well as anyone does.
No, we speak to war opponents in the U.S. and to movements in the Global North and to all those who consider themselves Leninists, whose task is to obstruct future war moves by the U.S. imperialists and their Israeli cronies. We consider the imperialist diplomats treacherous, including toward the workers they rule over in their own countries.
The results of the battle that the current administration in Washington and its pit-bull collaborator in Tel Aviv started Feb. 28 have been almost universally called a defeat for the imperialist side. Though the judgment of the war was similar, there were two completely different motivations for various analysts of this setback to world imperialism.
Revolutionaries worldwide were elated by the Iranian people’s ability to withstand great physical and human losses and the Iranian government’s skillful use of asymmetric warfare. This included using inexpensive drones against superexpensive U.S. weapons systems and disrupting the world economy by controlling the Strait of Hormuz.
The revolutionary conclusion is that the U.S. superpower has been forced to retreat from its bold call for “regime change” and “destroying Iranian civilization.” On the contrary, the Pentagon’s network of U.S. bases in West Asia is in shambles. The war has shown that the U.S. can no longer simply threaten violence to control the 8.3 billion people of the world and manage the world economy.
U.S. relations with its feudal clients in the region, especially the monarchies in the Gulf, have been weakened. Relations with former European allies are shaky.
This loss of U.S. hegemony the revolutionaries consider an extremely positive first step for humanity. Workers World agrees. It is also a blow to the superreactionary, xenophobic and racist MAGA regime.
Another telling consequence of the setback was the MAGA administration’s sharp public criticism of the Israeli regime, the first such public U.S. break with its junior partner since the October-November 1956 French-British-Israeli seizure of the Suez Canal and other Egyptian territory.
Nearly all pre-Feb. 28, 2026, U.S. bases in West Asia were hit by Iranian drones or missiles following U.S.-Israeli aggression against Iran.
Pro-imperialist analysts had a similar conclusion to that of the revolutionaries but from different motives. U.S. corporate media (New York Times, Wall Street Journal) and imperialist think tanks fed up with what they consider the incompetence of the MAGA administration describe the U.S. decision to accept the MOU with Iran as a defeat for U.S. interests. Even some Senate warmongers from both parties have attacked #47 — for losing.
These forces, however, support U.S. hostility to Iran. They too want to crush the Palestinian resistance factions and Hezbollah. They evaluate the Feb. 28 attack, however, as a blunder that — at enormous cost to the U.S. treasury — has left Iran in a stronger position than before the attack.
Anti-imperialists in the U.S. need to remain wary of those who oppose the result of the U.S.-Israeli attack but still promote fully arming the Pentagon. Republican or Democrat, they are still enemies of humanity if they still vote for new weapons systems for the Pentagon and still support arming Israel (to carry out genocide). It is no virtue that they consider the MAGA regime to be sycophants of the president and incompetent and utterly corrupt defenders of U.S. imperialist interests who have accelerated the decline of the U.S. empire.
Voting on the new government bill for replacement funds for the Pentagon (funds spent for the aggression on Iran) will expose those in both parties who support imperialist war.
Despite all the challenges and threats faced by the Iranians, they have had the organization and the courage to confront the most destructive reactionary powers in the world and to thwart their aggression. Those of us who dream of a human society freed from imperialist plunder and capitalist exploitation, those of us who want a socialist future, owe the Iranians our solidarity.
