2026-03-01

On the morning of Saturday, February 28, 2026, the US and Israeli armies carried out a large, coordinated operation and launched missile strikes and air raids on targets in several Iranian cities. Reports state that on this first day of war, a bombing of a girls’ elementary school in the city of Minab, in Hormozgan Province in southern Iran, killed at least 50 people. Some reports put the total death toll so far at more than 200, with over 700 wounded. In response, the Islamic Republic targeted Israel and several US military bases in the region with missile attacks. These military strikes began after the United States moved forces and fully militarized the region, and after a second round of talks between the two sides collapsed under US war threats and the Islamic Republic’s insistence on continuing its nuclear program.

What we witness today marks a new link in the chain of imperialist conflicts that seek to redefine the balance of power in the Middle East. The United States strives to tighten its hegemony and control energy resources, strategic routes, and spheres of political influence, while the Islamic Republic struggles to survive and claim a share in reshaping the regional order. Once again, these efforts have dragged the Middle East into military confrontation. Trump’s neo-fascist administration has trampled the international laws that emerged from the balance of power after the Second World War. Following the genocide in Gaza, and in collaboration with the Israeli government, it seeks to advance its imperialist aims, especially in rivalry with China, by shaping a regional order that serves its interests. It views the Islamic Republic as the main political Islamist stronghold that blocks its plans. The Islamic Republic, in pursuit of its survival strategy, has spent hundreds of billions of dollars from society’s wealth and from the labor and exploitation of Iranian workers on nuclear projects and programs, on arming the so called axis of resistance, and on building a missile arsenal. It regards this war and even its expansion across the region as a means to secure its survival.

This war also unfolds amid deepening internal crises in Iran. For years, society has endured pressure from the enforcement of neoliberal capitalist policies, wage suppression, runaway inflation and soaring prices, a widening class divide, and the organized repression of independent labor unions and activists from other social movements. These conditions have left society far more vulnerable and have increased the ability of imperialist powers to exploit this situation.

This devastating war has cast its shadow over Iran and the region at a time when, over the past eight years, Iranian society has endured the blade of repression from the brutal Islamic Republic, along with poverty, economic hardship, and international sanctions. During this period, society has witnessed thousands of labor strikes, four mass uprisings and popular surges, and continuous protest movements by the most deprived social groups. Despite the horrific killing of protesters during the recent nationwide uprising on January 8 and 9, and despite its campaign of intimidation, the Islamic Republic failed to impose fear on society. People quickly moved beyond the initial shock and disbelief and turned their grief and anger into solidarity and protest against the ruling political structure. Large funeral ceremonies and commemorations for the fallen, condemnation of the Islamic Republic’s crimes by broad segments of society, a nationwide school strike, and widespread student protests across universities all reflect the prevailing public mood. Throughout this entire period, US interventionist policies have not only failed to support the movement to overthrow the Islamic Republic, but have acted against its interests.

Under the current conditions, this reactionary war not only fails to support social and protest movements, it pushes them to the margins. No matter how “smart,” precise, preplanned, or so called “humanitarian” a war claims to be, like any other reactionary war it brings killing, destruction, and displacement. Under these realities and wartime conditions, people place safety and survival at the top of their priorities, and protest movements lose momentum. As a result, social movement activists shift their focus and concentrate on reducing the war’s destructive impact on people’s work, lives, and security. In such circumstances, socialist, radical, and progressive activists in the labor movement and other social movements, especially student and youth activists in urban neighborhoods, must firmly reject this capitalist and reactionary war. At the same time, they must strengthen unity and solidarity among the people and organize volunteer groups and aid committees to reduce the war’s harm to people’s lives and safety.

In such conditions, ending the war requires overthrowing the Islamic Republic, and we must intensify the organized struggle to bring down this regime. At the same time, we must continually warn people not to fall once again for the directives and calls of Trump, Netanyahu, and Reza Pahlavi. An uprising to overthrow the Islamic Republic does not erupt spontaneously; it marks the peak of organization within a nationwide mass movement. Only the united and determined will of all leaders and activists in the leading social movements can achieve this goal. We must act without delay to organize and consolidate this collective will.

The Communist Party of Iran declares that the war between the United States and Israel and the Islamic Republic continues the policies they have pursued so far and, on both sides, serves as a reactionary and capitalist war. This war does not seek to free the people; it advances the geopolitical and economic interests of major powers. We reject any attempt to legitimize foreign intervention in the name of “supporting the people.” Historical experience shows that imperialist missile strikes and bombings do not bring liberation to the masses. In recent years, military assaults on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya have clearly shown that major power interventions have brought nothing to the people except destroyed infrastructure, deeper poverty, chronic instability, and stronger reactionary forces. At the same time, we must not allow the criminal Islamic Republic, which stands as one side of this reactionary war, to use the pretext of defending the country against foreign aggression to securitize society and push social and protest movements to the margins.

While condemning this reactionary war, the Communist Party of Iran calls on all workers, toilers, and freedom loving people of Iran to expand and intensify the struggle for the revolutionary overthrow of the Islamic Republic. We urge activists and leaders of the labor movement and other progressive social movements to strengthen efforts to organize and to build a coordinated nationwide leadership. Only by accelerating and intensifying the struggle to prepare the conditions for the revolutionary overthrow of the Islamic Republic can we free the people of Iran and the region from this criminal regime, neutralize the efforts of bourgeois and right wing opposition forces to impose an alternative from above and over the heads of the people, and present a clear horizon to the workers and oppressed people of the Middle East against the imperialist and reactionary regional order of the United States and Israel.

No to this reactionary war!
Down with the Islamic Republic regime!
Long live freedom, equality, and workers’ rule!

Central Committee of the Communist Party of Iran
February 28, 2026