Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. This week in history: March 16-22
- 25 years ago:
50 years ago:
75 years ago:
Iranian oil refinery workers strike against poverty wages and British exploitation
100 years ago:
2. London meeting marks 40 years since the expulsion of the Workers Revolutionary Party
On Saturday, March 15, the Socialist Equality Party (UK) hosted a public meeting at Birkbeck, University of London under the title “Trotskyism and the Fight for Revolutionary Leadership”. The event marked the 40th anniversary of the historic struggle within the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) against the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) leadership and was attended by workers and youth from across the UK.
The meeting was addressed by a panel of speakers, including David North, chairperson of the World Socialist Web Site and of the Socialist Equality Party of the United States. As the leader of the US Workers League, forerunner of the US SEP, North played the leading role in the struggle against the political degeneration of the WRP leadership and its concerted efforts to destroy the world Trotskyist movement.
The ranks of organized Trotskyism came under relentless assault in the 20th century, above all from the Stalinist counterrevolution in the Soviet Union and then from the revisionist tendency known as Pabloism, which demanded that the Trotskyist movement was liquidated into the Stalinist, reformist and bourgeois nationalist movements.
For several decades, the British Trotskyist movement, led by Gerry Healy, Cliff Slaughter and Mike Banda, led the way in the fight against these tendencies. By the 1980s, however, after a protracted period of political backsliding of an opportunist and nationalist character, they had abandoned and then betrayed the key theoretical conquests and principles of Marxism and Trotskyism.
The ICFI majority’s struggle against the WRP, led by the Workers League, secured a decisive victory over these political pressures and hostile class forces.
It prepared the way for a renaissance of Marxist thought, including an unparalleled analysis of globalization, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and restoration of capitalism, and the wave of anti-socialist renunciationism which swept across the social democratic parties and trade unions.
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In his closing remarks, David North placed the political issues at the heart of the struggle against the WRP in their full contemporary significance. He said of the US imperialist-led the war against Iran, “The strategy of this war is to abolish the 20th century. It is to eliminate completely all traces of the great liberation struggles. The war began only a few days after Marco Rubio declared that his aim was to put an end to the great retreat that began in 1945, that is, with the defeat of the Nazis, his heroes.”
He continued, “All the rules, all the normalities of the last historical period are over. Young people find themselves in the type of situation that existed in the 1930s and 1940s. There is no safe haven. We are living now in a historical period in which either the working class comes to power and puts an end to capitalism, or capitalism will put an end to the world…
“It is in this context that we have to understand the implications of what took place in 1985, when we state that there would be no Marxist, socialist, Trotskyist movement if that struggle had not taken place”.
North concluded, “All the achievements of the International Committee since that time: the development of the World Socialist Web Site, the offensive on historical questions, the transformation of leagues into parties, the vast body of historical and political knowledge accumulated over the last 40 years, and most recently, the introduction of Socialism AI... All of this speaks to the correctness of the work that has been carried out by the ICFI…
“But to recognise that does not provide the guarantee that this correctness and this historical continuity will be transformed into a mass movement. Outside of our efforts, it won’t take place... History doesn’t provide guarantees. What is possible must be achieved from our efforts, our determination…
“We are in a revolutionary period. We are in a counter-revolutionary period. Which of these two tendencies in the world will predominate? As Trotsky said so well in 1932-33, against the shadow of approaching fascism, struggle will decide.”
3. US media, politicians raise prospect of “boots on the ground” in Iran as Marine force deploys
On Friday, the Pentagon announced it would deploy a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU)—a rapid-response amphibious force of roughly 2,200 Marines backed by over 2,000 sailors on three warships—from its base in Okinawa, Japan to the Middle East. The Pentagon’s own description of the MEU’s mission is the “rapid insertion of sustainable combat forces—‘boots on the ground.’”
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The logic of “doubling down” is precisely the trajectory of the war. Having launched a criminal assault on Iran on February 28, the Trump administration has found that two weeks of bombing—more than 6,000 targets struck, the supreme leader and top officials killed, over 65 naval vessels damaged, destroyed or sunk—have not forced Iran’s capitulation. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. Iran continues to strike at commercial shipping with small boats, antiship missiles, drones and sea mines. Oil has surged past $103 a barrel. The war’s architects miscalculated, and now the answer from the military and political establishment is escalation.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a longtime advocate of regime change in Iran and close ally of the president, made this explicit. “He who controls Kharg Island, controls the destiny of this war,” Graham posted on X. “Semper Fi.”
“Semper Fi”—short for Semper Fidelis, “Always Faithful”—is the motto of the United States Marine Corps. Graham’s post was a dog whistle calling for a Marine amphibious invasion of Kharg Island, which Trump struck Friday and boasted had been “totally obliterated.” Trump told NBC he might hit it again “a few more times just for fun.” Retired Marine Colonel Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) told reporters: “These are the first ground combat troops that are headed to the region. The US might be able to capture the island and then say ‘OK, we’re done.’”
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright, appearing on Sunday morning television, provided the first concrete timeline for the war, confirming that “four to six weeks” was the “likely timeframe.” He acknowledged the Strait of Hormuz is not safe for shipping. Former Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry was even more revealing on ABC’s This Week, dismissing the entire war as “noise on the way” to a trade confrontation with China. “Venezuela was in service to American energy dominance,” McHenry said. “The issue with Iran was a target of opportunity where you had the 40 top leaders gathered in the same spot and they took action.”
More than 1,400 Iranians dead, 850 Lebanese dead, 13 Americans dead, oil above $100 a barrel, 3.2 million people driven from their homes—all of it, in McHenry’s words, just “noise” on the road to “reshaping the world.”
The Democratic Party’s response has been to offer the most tepid criticism imaginable. Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he did not think the war was “worth the costs” and that Trump had not “leveled with the American people.” But it was the Democrats who helped provide the arms for this war. In January, as Trump was massing forces for the assault on Iran, the House passed the $839 billion defense appropriations bill by a vote of 341 to 88, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar all casting “Yea” votes. In the Senate, the bill passed 71 to 29, with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Whip Dick Durbin voting in favor.
4. The war against Iran will intensify the internal crisis of American capitalism
The causes of this war are multiple and complex. Iran has long been a target of American imperialism, which has waged a decades-long campaign to dominate the oil resources of the Middle East. The attempt to overthrow the Iranian government, through assassination and mass slaughter, is bound up with the offensive of the American ruling class against China.
However, a major factor is the internal situation within the United States itself. Throughout history, regimes that confront deep internal crises have sought to resolve them through war....
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The Trump administration is no exception. Consider the issues that dominated the first two months of 2026. In January and February, the United States was shaken by a wave of social protests, which followed the massive “No Kings” demonstrations last year. The trigger was the deployment of some 3,000 federal immigration agents into Minneapolis–Saint Paul, culminating in the killing of Renée Nicole Good, shot dead by an ICE agent on January 7. On January 23, tens of thousands of people in Minneapolis braved temperatures of -30°F to march in protest. There were growing calls for a general strike, which emerged not from the trade union apparatus and the Democratic Party, but from below.
The response of the Trump administration and its Gestapo agents in ICE and the CBP was to murder Alex Pretti. Protests spread throughout the country, along with a nationwide wave of high school student walkouts. According to one tally, there were 334 walkouts in 2026 alone, in 236 school districts across 48 states and the District of Columbia.
Simultaneously, a significant strike movement was developing in the working class, which the apparatus of the trade unions have worked desperately to contain. In New York City, 15,000 nurses struck for over a month. On January 26, 31,000 nurses and healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente walked out in an open-ended strike in California and Hawaii, one of the largest healthcare strikes in American history. On February 9, 6,400 San Francisco teachers walked out for higher wages and adequate school funding.
The eruption of social protest and strike action expresses the accumulated consequences of decades of massive social inequality and an unprecedented concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny oligarchy. The ruling class is carrying out a jobs bloodbath, while demanding that workers accept falling living standards and deepening insecurity. The United States confronts a massive and unsustainable expansion of public and private debt, mounting threats to the global reserve status of the dollar, and renewed inflationary pressures that are devouring wages.
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The release of millions of documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files tore back a corner of the curtain on the moral rot of the American ruling class and its political representatives in both parties. The administration’s response—suppressing documents, issuing sweeping redactions, and claiming files had been “mistakenly” withheld—confirmed what the disclosures exposed: the state functions as the political instrument of an oligarchy that operates on the basis of criminality.
In attempting to “change the subject” through war, Trump is acting as in all of his actions as the representative of the capitalist oligarchy. The Democrats share these class interests. They support the war against Iran and the overthrow of its government.
As the war drive accelerated, Democratic leaders worked to secure the passage of massive military spending measures. And as protests erupted against ICE repression and political violence, Democratic officials reached an agreement with Trump. Included in the collaborationist frenzy of the Democrats was New York City mayor and Democratic Socialists of America member Zohran Mamdani, who in the months leading up to the war met twice with Trump, including once just three days before the bombing began, to hail his ongoing collaboration with the fascist in the White House.
Trump wants to change the subject. The media wants to change the subject. The Democrats want to change the subject. But war does not resolve internal crises. It intensifies them, above all when the war is going badly. The war against Iran is massively unpopular from the start. The economic consequences have been immediate and severe, including in soaring oil prices. The $11.3 billion spent in the first six days of the conflict alone represents a massive diversion of social resources that will be paid for through an assault on social programs. Opposition will grow as the war expands and the death toll mounts.
At the opening of the Iraq War in 2003, the World Socialist Web Site wrote: “Whatever the outcome of the initial stages of the conflict that has begun, American imperialism has a rendezvous with disaster. It cannot conquer the world. It cannot reimpose colonial shackles upon the masses of the Middle East. It will not find through the medium of war a viable solution to its internal maladies. Rather, the unforeseen difficulties and mounting resistance engendered by war will intensify all of the internal contradictions of American society.”
5. Immigrant workers launch strike at JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado
On Monday, 3,800 workers are set to strike at the JBS beef processing plant in Greeley, Colorado. The walkout would be the largest strike in the US meatpacking industry since the bitter 1985–1986 Hormel strike.
The strike is another sign of the rising class struggle in the United States. The year began with lengthy strikes by tens of thousands of nurses in New York City and on the West Coast. Educators in San Francisco have also carried out strike action, with educators in Los Angeles and other major districts voting to authorize strikes. The Greeley strike would also be the first major strike to begin since the start of the war against Iran, a massively unpopular conflict whose costs are already being imposed on the working class through price increases and austerity.
At the Greeley plant, between 80 and 90 percent of workers are immigrants, with the largest numbers coming from Haiti and Somalia. Fifty-seven different languages are spoken inside the plant, making it a truly international workforce.
The strike is doubly courageous given the rampage by the Trump administration against immigrants. According to the union, unmarked vans were parked outside the venue where the strike vote was held, raising concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was conducting surveillance. An investigation by the Colorado Times Recorder uncovered nine secret detention facilities across the state.
The Trump administration is also attempting to revoke Temporary Protected Status for as many as 500,000 Haitian workers. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, subjected to more than two centuries of imperialist oppression and repeated foreign interventions.
The assault on immigrants by Trump is an expansion of the deportation regime built up under both corporate-controlled parties. The Obama administration set records for deportations during its two terms, while the Biden administration deported 4.6 million people during its four years in office.
It is not uncommon for management to retaliate against workers by tipping off immigration authorities. An infamous raid on poultry plants in Mississippi in 2019 led to 680 arrests, including of workers who had recently won a legal settlement against management over harassment and abuse. More than 350 were deported. One worker was later killed in Mexico while attempting to reunite with his family after deportation.
A recent lawsuit has also accused JBS of human trafficking at Greeley. Haitian workers say they were lured to the United States through TikTok advertisements promising stable jobs and housing. When they arrived, many found themselves crammed into overcrowded conditions, with as many as 11 people to a room and between 40 and 60 workers living in a five-bedroom house without electricity or running water.
Workers across the country, regardless of legal status, race or nationality, have an obligation to support the strike. The same is true for workers internationally. JBS is a Brazilian multinational corporation that operates roughly 250 meatpacking plants in 25 countries, making the struggle of Greeley workers part of a global fight.
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While workers at Greeley are determined to fight, they face an obstacle in the UFCW bureaucracy, which will systematically try to isolate and undermine the strike.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the union assisted corporations and the government in keeping meatpacking plants open even as workers were becoming infected in large numbers. One of the most infamous cases occurred at the Tyson plant in Waterloo, Iowa, where management organized a betting pool among supervisors over how many workers would become infected, even as the union collaborated in keeping the plant operating.
UFCW Local 7 has a long history of isolating struggles by its members. Last year, grocery workers at King Soopers and Safeway in Colorado struck, but the UFCW did everything to keep these struggles from uniting. The union shut down the King Soopers strike in February with a 100-day “labor peace” agreement that ensured workers would not be on strike at the same time as Safeway workers. Safeway employees eventually struck on their own for three weeks during the summer.
These actions formed part of a nationwide pattern of sabotage. Roughly 100,000 grocery workers had contracts expiring last summer, placing them in an extremely powerful position to fight for major gains after decades of poverty wages and the spread of casual labor. Yet only a handful of workers went on strike at isolated chains in individual states.
In this context, the fact that Greeley workers are outside the national JBS contract creates a serious danger that their struggle will be isolated. This must not be allowed to happen.
Over 32,000 troops from 14 NATO member states are currently exercising in Norway and Finland to create the conditions for the opening of a northern front in a war with Russia. The biennial military operation was visited Friday by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, underscoring the importance attached by the imperialist powers to war readiness in the Arctic.
The “Cold Response” exercise includes land, sea and air operations across northern Norway, Finland, and Sweden. About 25,000 troops are engaged in operations on Norwegian territory and off the coast from March 9 to 19. A further 7,500 troops are operating in northern Finland, while air operations take place across all three Nordic countries. The largest contingent of troops, at close to 4,000, comes from the US, but all of the major European powers have also sent substantial numbers.
The region is on the frontline of NATO’s aggressive military pressure on Russia. Finland has a 1,300-kilometre border with Russia, while Norway has a shorter 200-kilometre frontier. Moreover, Norway’s coastline provides direct access to key naval passages for Russian commercial and military shipping to reach the open ocean.
The exercise occurs amid a massive militarization across the entire Arctic region, as the imperialist powers and smaller states jostle for advantage in a strategically crucial region for trade, energy resources and waging war. While Cold Response and other exercises are ostensibly aimed at Russia, tensions are sharpening among the European and North American imperialists. This is reflected in the fact that Cold Response is part of NATO’s larger Arctic Sentry, an operation launched in January in response to US President Donald Trump’s threats to use military force to seize control of Greenland from Denmark. Trump and his fascist advisers view control over Greenland as essential within the framework of their “America First” agenda, which demands complete US dominance over the entire Western Hemisphere as a platform for waging global wars against China and other rivals.
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The extensive collaboration between Germany and Norway on military matters was underlined by the presence of Defence Minister Boris Pistorius alongside Merz during the visit. In addition to space-based technology, German and Norwegian companies are cooperating to build a next-generation submarine for combat in Arctic and coastal waters. Germany’s TKMS (Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems) has led the project, which has resulted so far in Berlin and Oslo ordering six submarines each. TKMS is in the running for a multi-billion-dollar contract to supply the Canadian Navy with up to 12 submarines as part of Ottawa’s major military build-up in the Arctic.
Carney’s visit, however, reflects a shift in Canadian imperialist foreign policy that goes beyond the decision of where to purchase its new submarine fleet. Ottawa has borne the brunt of Trump’s “America First” agenda, including sweeping sanctions on trade and threats by the US president to annex Canada as the 51st state.
Carney’s Liberal government has therefore undertaken a calibrated shift in foreign policy, summed up in Carney’s speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos calling for a coalition of “middle powers” and the recently released Defense Industrial Strategy.
While still seeking to conclude an economic arrangement with the US, which is the destination for three-quarters of Canadian exports, Carney is pushing to build closer ties with the European imperialist powers on military and economic matters. The predatory character of such a project was made clear by Carney’s remark in Davos that major powers who are not “at the table,” i.e., the “table” of imperialist geopolitics where territories and plunder are divided up, will be “on the menu.” His plan to increase military spending to 5 percent of Canada’s GDP within a decade proves that being at “the table” means being ready for World War III. Prior to his trip to Norway, Carney visited Yellowknife in Canada’s Arctic to announce C$35 billion (about €22.3 billion) in investments in military infrastructure.
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Trump’s decision to loosen sanctions on Russia to allow oil exports in response to the rapid increase in its price to over $100 a barrel due to Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz provoked criticism in Berlin. German imperialism is concerned that the war in Iran is cutting across the drive to inflict a military defeat on Russia and subordinate the vast country to a semi-colony of European and American imperialism.
Reports prior to Merz’s Norway visit suggested he may be seeking from Støre a commitment to increase oil and gas supplies to Europe. Norway, which already supplies 48 percent of Germany’s natural gas and 17 percent of its oil imports, does not have the infrastructure to do this. Already throughout 2024, energy prices spiked drastically in the oil-rich country due to the connection of its energy grid with Europe and the rapid growth of exports since the beginning of the US/NATO war on Russia in Ukraine, prompting a growth in opposition to the government.
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Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at the press conference that Copenhagen has faced “totally unacceptable pressure from the US and US President” over Greenland. She applauded Carney for his proposal for a coalition of “middle powers” and argued that the downfall of the old world order meant that “something new” must be built. Støre, while clearly trying to avoid direct criticism of Trump by insisting that the stronger military presence in the Arctic was taking place “within the Transatlantic alliance,” opened the press conference by referring to the threats in “a world where autocratic forces are moving ahead and weaponizing critical resources.”
Both Denmark and Sweden have committed to cooperate with Macron’s proposal to expand France’s nuclear arsenal throughout Europe, which he announced just days after Trump launched his illegal war in the Middle East. Carney praised the initiative at the press conference. Finland is in the process of removing a ban on the import of nuclear weapons to the country that has been in place since the 1980s.
The aggressive militarist policies pursued by the governments in Germany, the other European powers and Canada entail a vast intensification of the class war agenda against the working class. Ruling classes are seeking the destruction of jobs in civilian industries, the elimination of public services and social programs to pay for bloated military budgets and the expansion of highly exploitative precarious employment. These attacks will drive millions of workers into struggle across both the European and North American continents, from the imperialist centers of Germany, France or Canada, to more remote regions in the far north being dragged into the new redivision of the world among the great powers. The decisive task is to arm these struggles with a socialist and internationalist program to oppose war and overturn the capitalist system that gives rise to it.
7. The rate of global warming is accelerating, approaching a dangerous tipping point
A newly published report in Nature, titled, “Climate change is speeding up—the pace nearly doubled in ten years” (Witz, March 6, 2026) finds that the past three years have been the hottest on record, continuing a decades-long trend of increasing temperatures. The overall rate of increase has risen from 0.2 degrees C. per decade in the 1970s to around 0.35 degrees C. per decade currently, based on data from NASA.Ironically, the recent surge may be the result of a lowering of particulate matter in the atmosphere due to the introduction of fuel regulations for international shipping. These particles reflect sunlight into space, reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the ground. Nevertheless, this has only enhanced an overall marked warming trend clearly evident since at least the 1980s, due to the burning of fossil fuels that release heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere.
Other studies corroborate the acceleration in global warming. One, for example, found that the rate of warming increased from 0.2 degrees C. per decade in the 1970s to 0.27 degrees C. now. That is slightly slower than the study previously cited, but still demonstrates a marked upward trend.
This acceleration is being driven by continuing greenhouse gas emissions. Another study was published in the journal PHYS.ORG, prepared by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) (March 6, 2026), and titled “Carbon emissions now more than double the planetary boundary, analysis finds.” It found that,
Based on the condition of limiting the rise in global average temperature to within 1.5°C, the analysis showed that Earth's safe limit for annual CO₂ emissions is approximately 4–17 gigatons (Gt CO₂ per year). However, humanity's current annual emissions amount to about 37 gigatons (Gt CO₂ per year). This level exceeds Earth's safe operating space by more than twofold.
The consequences of this trend are alarming. Another recent study published in Nature Climate Change (Palmer, March 3, 2026) is titled, “The hard road back from overshoot.” It presents the stark reality that there is no possibility of achieving the Paris agreement’s goal of keeping the increase in global temperatures to below 1.5 C degrees C. above preindustrial levels by drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It is now clear that “emissions have kept climbing, and even the most optimistic models now project that the global temperature will rise past 1.5 °C in just a few years, reach 2 °C in the next decade, and will remain above that for decades before coming back down, perhaps.” This is now referred to as “overshoot.”
The period of overshoot, even if dramatic measures, much more extensive than the feeble attempts made so far, are undertaken, will have devastating consequences not easily reversed. According to one scientist quoted in the article, “Coral reefs bleach, ice sheets melt, 50% of species vanish and droughts lengthen. These things happen long before temperatures start to fall. ‘We can’t just go above and then slide back,’ he said. ‘We carry the damage forward.’” One result is that frequency and strength of extreme storms will increase, with devastating consequences. A number of other scientists corroborate these dire predictions. The longer the drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is delayed, the greater the impacts to the earth’s environment will be.
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Appeals to the ruling capitalist oligarchy fall on deaf ears. Their interest is in defending the economic system on which their power is based. Any more than token efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would impinge on their profits and will be resisted. The history of the past half century proves that to be the case. And the growing capitalist crisis is already prompting the Trump administration to conduct a direct assault on the meager environmental regulations put in place in the preceding decades.
Indeed, the Trump administration is actively seeking to suppress research on the effects of climate change on the environment. For example, one study, newly released in draft form, reviews a large range of existing research on the already evident negative effects of global warming and other human activities on the natural environment and the consequences for humanity. This study was originally sponsored by the US federal government, then canceled by the Trump administration, but the team of scientists working on the project continued with it anyway.
The report paints a grim picture of the environmental degradation that has already occurred. For example, freshwater ecosystems are “overdrawn, polluted, fragmented and invaded.” Biodiversity is reduced. An estimated 34 percent of plant species and 40 percent of animal species are at risk of extinction. The impacts on the human population are already evident, including degradation of clean water, food, health, livelihoods and protection from storms and fire.
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As global temperatures continue to increase, sea levels will rise even more. This is the result of two factors. First, warm water expands. A recent study released by NOAA, “Climate Change: Ocean Heat Content” (Lindsey and Dahlman, June 26, 2025) documents that the oceans of the world have already absorbed a huge amount of heat from global warming. It found: “Upper layers are accumulating heat faster than deeper layers, but averaged over the full depth of the global ocean, the 1993–2024 heat-gain rates are approximately 0.66 to 0.74 watts per square meter averaged over the surface of the Earth.” The authors observe:
Less than a watt per square meter might seem like a small change, but multiplied by the surface area of the ocean (more than 360 million square kilometers), that translates into an enormous global energy imbalance. It means that while the atmosphere has been spared from the full extent of global warming for now, heat already stored in the ocean will eventually be released. That release of ocean heat would commit Earth to at least some additional warming in the future once greenhouse gas emissions stop.
Secondly, the melting of glaciers and continental ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica will contribute significant additional water to the world’s oceans. It is estimated that if all this ice melts, global average sea level would rise about 60–70 meters (≈200–230 feet), a distinct possibility if global warming continues. This has potentially severe consequences, not only for the permanent inundation of major coastal urban areas around the world, but even more when combined with enhanced storm surges during increasingly powerful hurricanes or typhoons, also the result of global warming.
The bottom line is that unless drastic measures are undertaken to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus slow and eventually stop global warming, the fate of human civilization is bleak. The resources that are now squandered on filling the pockets of the super-rich and financing war and dictatorship could instead fund the technological measures to accomplish the changes necessary to significantly reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses. However, as bitter experience has already shown, the corporate and financial oligarchy will do whatever is necessary to protect its interests regardless of the consequences.
8. Israeli and American bombs damage Iran’s cultural heritage
To this end, the American-Israeli assault on Iran has not only murdered thousands of people, among them more than 150 schoolgirls in Minab, devastated essential civilian infrastructure including schools, hospitals, fuel depots and communications nodes, but is seeking to destroy the cultural legacy of the country and its historical memory. The imperialist barbarians have bombed cultural heritages sites, particularly in the ancient city of Isfahan, but also in Tehran and even in remote locations.
As David North noted at the recent emergency online meeting, the war on Iran is part of an effort by US capitalism “to abolish the 20th century—to wipe out all the consequences of the national democratic and socialist struggles of the 20th century, to act as if it was all somehow a big mistake, that colonial domination can be restored and imperialism can rule.”
The destruction of Iranian antiquities and cultural heritage sites is part of this campaign. Historical monuments, museums and religious sites embody a people’s memory and social cohesion. Attacking them seeks to demoralize and disorient the population, to cut it off from its own development and to undermine the social solidarity necessary to fight imperialism.
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All these attacks are breaches of international law. The 1954 Hague Convention and the 1972 World Heritage Convention form the legal backbone for protecting global culture during conflicts. Article 4 of the Hague Convention (Respect for Cultural Property) enjoins signers of the convention to avoid “any use of the property and its immediate surroundings ... for purposes which are likely to expose it to destruction or damage in the event of armed conflict.” Israel, Iran and the United States are all signatories to this convention.
The 1972 World Heritage Convention, Article 6, states that countries signing the convention agree “not to take any deliberate measures which might damage directly or indirectly the cultural and natural heritage ... situated on the territory of other States Parties to this Convention.” All three counties have signed this protocol.
Destruction of heritage sites can also constitute war crimes under Article 8(2)(b)(ix) of the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC): “Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments ... provided they are not military objectives.”
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Both Israel and the United States left UNESCO in 2019, particularly since the former was enraged at the organization for identifying and seeking to protect Palestinian historical sites. The US rejoined under the Biden administration, and then the Trump government again withdrew in July.
The destruction of cultural heritage sites has been a goal of every American and Israeli action in the Middle East since 2003. The sacking of Iraq’s National Museum took place under the eyes of US troops in April 2003, along with the repeated occupation of cultural and heritage sites in that country. In Syria, there were the anti-cultural crimes of the forces that “covert” American attempts to overthrow Assad unleashed in 2015. The ongoing genocide in Gaza has targeted numerous Palestinian antiquities, museums and archives.
The US and Israeli militaries know exactly what they are doing in setting out to destroy Iran’s cultural patrimony. UNESCO said in a statement that “it has communicated to all parties concerned the geographical coordinates of sites on the World Heritage List as well as those of national significance, to avoid any potential damage.”
9. Kshama Sawant: Revolutionary rhetoric and reformist politics
Former Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant is billing herself as an “independent revolutionary socialist” candidate for Congress. She is running for the House of Representatives from the 9th Congressional District of Washington state against the incumbent, Democratic Representative Adam Smith.
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Sawant’s response to the war in Iran underscores her use of revolutionary rhetoric to disguise a nationalist and reformist perspective. She seeks to channel mass popular opposition to war, social inequality and attacks on democratic rights into the dead end of bourgeois electoral politics, while promoting the illusion that pressure from below can force a section of the trade union bureaucracy to lead general strikes and wring major concessions from the ruling class.
As for the capitalist class’s turn to dictatorship and fascism, which finds its most grotesque expression in the Trump administration, Sawant has little to say. In promoting a perspective of pressuring the political establishment, Sawant ignores Trump’s open drive to rig the 2026 mid-term elections or cancel them altogether. This is despite the White House push for the voter suppression “Save America” act and plans to deploy armed federal agents or troops at polling stations.
Sawant’s March 5 interview with Steve Zeltzer on his “Work Week Radio” podcast, titled “The US-Israel War on Iran, US Imperialism, Democrats & Class War in the US,” illustrated her perspective. She, in fact, said little about the war beyond denouncing it and calling for mass opposition to it. The bulk of the interview was devoted to criticism of the “business unionism” of “most union leaders” and calls for “class struggle unionism,” along with talk of electoral “breakthroughs” such as her ten-year tenure on the Seattle City Council and her current congressional campaign.
Sawant presented no analysis of the driving forces and historical origins of the war, nor did she address its global context and significance. She had nothing to say about its illegality, in terms of both international and domestic law, or the dictatorial manner in which the Trump administration is conducting it. She said almost nothing about what is actually happening in Iran, Lebanon and the broader Middle East, which gives the US-Israeli attack the character of a war of extermination.
At one point she called the current war just another of the “routine wars, routine aggression” carried out by US imperialism.
She spent, as usual, a great deal of time recounting the supposed “historic victories” she won while on the Seattle City Council (2014-2024), including a $15 minimum wage and the so-called “Amazon tax” on some of the largest corporations that operate in the city. The $15 minimum wage (now at $21.30 after provisions for inflation), the Amazon tax (between 1 percent and 2.6 percent) and certain renter protections prove, according to Sawant, that combining protest pressure with elective office can deliver massive gains for working people.
In reality, social conditions in Seattle have only worsened since Sawant’s ascension to the City Council....
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In the podcast, Sawant argued that ballot initiatives sponsored by elected “socialists” were comparable to the reforms enacted in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Such electoral “breakthroughs,” accompanied by “class struggle unionism,” could extract New Deal-type reforms today, she maintained.
Leaving aside the absurd comparison of a local ballot initiative with the great class battles of the 1930s, Sawant’s argument ignores the vast economic decline of American capitalism over the past 90 years. In the 1930s, the United States was already the industrial powerhouse of the world, home of the most advanced production methods, such as the assembly line. It led the world in the production of autos, steel, and other industrial goods.
Over the past 70 years the US has lost its industrial supremacy. Capitalism in the US has been financialized and deindustrialized. It has become the global center of financial parasitism. Over this period American capitalism has been transformed from the world’s largest creditor to its largest debtor.
This has been accompanied by a massive decline in the social position of the working class in the US and a staggering growth of social inequality. Today, the US is ruled by a tiny financial oligarchy that controls the great bulk of the country’s wealth. The top 1 percent in the US (3 million people) controls 32 percent of the national wealth. The bottom 50 percent (170 million people) controls a mere 2.4 percent. The fascist ignoramus Trump embodies this oligarchy.
To talk about extracting major social reforms from American capitalism today simply through pressure from below is delusional and, quite frankly, ignorant. As the World Socialist Web Site has written, the fascistic Trump administration represents the alignment of the political superstructure with the underlying social relations of American capitalism. Democracy cannot survive under conditions of such massive levels of social inequality.
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Sawant asserts that the problem with the labor movement in the US is the “business unionism” of “most” union leaders, and advances as the solution “rebuilding the militancy in the labor movement” in the form of “class struggle” unionism.
There is no lack of militancy in the working class. Workers are angry and want to fight. Strikes are spreading against declining real wages, speedup, and the attack on jobs—witness the nurses’ strike in New York, the Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers' strike in California, strikes by educators, refinery workers and others. There is mass opposition in the working class to the war in Iran and Trump’s drive to dictatorship, including the brutal assault by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents on immigrants. The role of the trade union apparatus is to betray and shut down the strikes and suppress the opposition to war and dictatorship.
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Sawant offers only a subjective explanation for the reactionary role of the union bureaucracy, i.e., bad leaders guided by bad ideas. Leon Trotsky, in his uncompleted 1940 article titled “Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay,” explained the objective socio-economic forces behind the degeneration of the trade unions, linking it to the development of monopoly capitalism. He wrote:
There is one common feature in the development, or more correctly the degeneration, of modern trade union organizations in the entire world: it is their drawing closely to and growing together with the state power… The labor bureaucrats do their level best in words and deeds to demonstrate to the “democratic” state how reliable and indispensable they are in peace time and especially in time of war. By transforming the trade unions into organs of the state, fascism invents nothing new; it merely draws to their ultimate conclusions the tendencies inherent in imperialism.
Eighty-six years later, the tendencies identified by Trotsky have developed to an extraordinary degree. Over the past five decades, the union apparatus has integrated itself into corporate management. It is comprised of upper middle-class functionaries whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of the workers they claim to represent.
The solution to this is not, as Sawant contends, pressuring the union apparatus to replace “business unionism” with “class struggle unionism,” in order to wrest concessions from the ruling class within the framework of capitalism.
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The World Socialist Web Site rejects Sawant’s claim that pressure from below can force the union bureaucracy to fight against war and in defense of the jobs, working conditions and living standards of the working class. The WSWS and the Socialist Equality Party fight for the building of a network of rank-and-file committees independent of the pro-capitalist union apparatus in the US and internationally to overthrow the bureaucracy and establish workers’ power on the shop floor.
To this end, the International Committee of the Fourth International has established the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. This is the only basis for mobilizing the power of the working class in the US and globally to put an end to capitalism, the cause of war, exploitation, and dictatorship.
This requires the building of revolutionary leadership to bring socialist consciousness into the working class, something that is opposed by Sawant and the entire array of pseudo-left tendencies.
Sawant’s agitation is devoid of Marxist analysis and hostile to the historically developed program of the Trotskyist movement. She is a demagogue, the worst enemy of the working class.
At the end of 2025, the Morenoite current led by the Socialist Workers Party (PTS) of Argentina held an international conference in São Paulo, Brazil. Previously known as the Trotskyist Fraction, the organization used the gathering to rebrand itself as the Permanent Revolution Current – Fourth International (PRC-FI).
This operation represents a critical political reorientation of the Morenoite movement in response to the eruption of the imperialist crisis and the disruption of the bourgeois national orders around which its organizations operate. Anticipating massive struggles by the working class and youth throughout the world, the Morenoites are consciously preparing to divert them from the road of socialist revolution and back into the arms of the national bureaucratic apparatuses that defend capitalism.
Renaming their organization “Permanent Revolution Current” plays a sinister and well-defined role in these counterrevolutionary efforts. At the center of the Morenoite conference’s deliberations was a reactionary theoretical revision aimed at eviscerating Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution.
By formally identifying themselves with the internationalist revolutionary doctrine that they expressly repudiate, the Morenoites seek to gaslight the working class and youth and prevent them from accessing genuine Trotskyism represented by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). They will not succeed.
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The “Permanent Revolution Current” (PRC) is being built as a new cover—adorned with “revolutionary” colors—for the Morenoite movement’s promotion of different national pseudo-left parties and trade union bureaucracies that defend the rotting capitalist order from the revolutionary offensive of the working class.
The stains on the Morenoites’ newly sewn political flag were quick to appear. The disgraceful role that the PRC is destined to play was graphically exposed in its response to the crisis unleashed in Venezuela by the US imperialist invasion on January 3, just two weeks after the end of their conference.
As the Chavista government led by “interim president” Delcy Rodriguez collaborates with the fascist Trump administration in establishing a neocolonial regime in Venezuela, the PRC has joined a political bloc with the Stalinists, pseudo-left dissidents of Chavismo and other Pabloite currents. This coalition is aimed at carving out space for the pseudo-left organizations in the new bourgeois setup being forged under imperialist tutelage and at preventing at any cost the working class breaking free of the bourgeois nationalist bureaucracy.
Among all organizations in this reactionary bloc, which were either directly integrated into the Chavista bourgeois regime or acting as its cheerleaders, the PRC plays the filthiest role.
For years, the “Trotskyist Fraction” had dedicated itself to issuing fraternal polemics against other pseudo-left currents for carrying out “zigzags, without any anchoring in the firmest class independence and anti-imperialism,” between aligning themselves with the Chavistas, on the one hand, and the Venezuelan far-right financed by US imperialism, on the other. But, as the historical development exposes the catastrophic result of such a political orientation, the PRC rushes to aid the demoralized pseudo-left parties to whitewash their past and masquerade as representers of the working class.
While the Morenoites speak of internationalist resistance to war and imperialism, the theses approved at their congress clarify nothing about the nature of the global crisis. Leaving the characterization of all fundamental aspects of the political situation undefined, the central concern of the PRC’s deliberations is to create leeway for their adaptation to imperialism.
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The Pabloite conception of an “international party” advocated by Assunção is diametrically opposed to that defended by Leon Trotsky.
In the Transitional Program, Trotsky answered the “skeptics” who opposed the foundation of the Fourth International with the claim that “its ranks are not numerous.” He wrote: “Outside these cadres there does not exist a single revolutionary current on this planet really meriting the name. If our international be still weak in numbers, it is strong in doctrine, program, tradition, in the incomparable tempering of its cadres.”
By proclaiming itself as the “most dynamic current of Trotskyism at the international level,” the PRC arrogates to itself the right to repudiate the doctrine, program and traditions of the Fourth International—long-ago rejected as “useless dogmas” by Morenoism.
The PRT creates the crudest political amalgam between the current that embraced “old opportunism”—i.e. Pabloism—and the tendency that fought to defend the revolutionary principles of Trotskyism—i.e. the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). This is a gross and deliberate distortion of the criminal role played by Pabloism and its Morenoite variant. The Pabloites did not simply “end up” in opportunism, they waged a conscious protracted struggle to completely liquidate the Trotskyist movement.
With this slander, the Morenoites hope to whitewash the record of historical betrayals of the working class committed not only by Pabloism, but by Stalinism and the different anti-Trotskyist forces that they seek to rehabilitate as the “left that claims to be revolutionary.”
As we enter a period of the greatest revolutionary struggles in history, the derailing of the construction of the Trotskyist leadership in the working class assumes the greatest importance for the preservation of the power of the capitalist oligarchy.
To assimilate the conquests of the struggle against anti-Marxist revisionism, in particular of the ICFI’s battle against Pabloism in the Fourth International, and to develop this struggle in light of the strategic experiences of the 21st century is the most critical factor in developing the revolutionary vanguard that will establish working-class power internationally.
11. North Texas activists convicted of “material support for terrorism” in landmark case
Nine North Texas activists were convicted of “material support for terrorism” and a list of other offenses last Friday for their alleged roles in a shooting on July 4 of last year. The Department of Justice press release explicitly framed this as a conviction of “Antifa,” with the title reading “Antifa Cell Members Convicted in Prairieland ICE Detention Center Shooting.”
The case relates to an incident on July 4, 2025 at the Prairieland ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, about 30 miles south of Fort Worth. There was a peaceful protest outside the center in the daytime, but a small group of activists came back late at night with the intention of setting off fireworks, hoping the noise would alert the detainees that they had support on the outside.
This was not a peaceful protest, but was far from a conspiracy to commit murder or “terrorism.” Messages between the activists released during the trial showed plans for slashing police tires, firing fireworks at the detention center and engaging in other acts of vandalism, which they in fact did. The activists brought guns and a bulletproof vest, which are legal to own and purchase in Texas and most US states, but left all but one weapon in a van they used to carpool. The defendants clearly ascribed to some form of anarchist political viewpoint.
Most of the protesters had left when two guards came out of the detention center and an Alvarado police officer, Lt. Thomas Gross, pulled up in front of the center in his squad car. There was an exchange of gunfire, in the course of which Gross was wounded and Benjamin Song, the protester who fired the shot, fled. He was arrested several weeks later.
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The case against the nine defendants was built at least in part on the testimony of seven other activists—Nathan Baumann, Joy Gibson, Susan Kent, Rebecca Morgan, Lynette Sharp, Seth Sikes and John Thomas—who pleaded guilty to the charge of “Providing Material Support to Terrorists” last fall. All 16 defendants face sentencing on June 18.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the verdict, claiming in a statement, “Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization that has been allowed to flourish in Democrat-led cities—not under President Trump.” She went on to threaten, “Today’s verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America’s streets.”
Every word is false except the threat of more prosecutions. “Antifa” is not a real organization. At most, it is a nameplate used by individuals who identify as “anti-fascist.” It has no organizational structure. There is no membership roll, no officers, offices or “cells.” It has no financial filings, no funds, nor any official or unofficial newspaper. It is no more an actual organization than the Justice League or the Fantastic Five.
This is well known by the government and is precisely the point. This case against a fictional organization is aimed at setting the legal precedent for applying the “Antifa” moniker against anyone the government chooses to target. Anyone protesting rising living costs, the war in Iran (or anywhere else), or who is on the picket lines could suddenly be labeled “Antifa,” and subjected to the full force of the state. No evidence is required, and that is by design.
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Anarchism is alien to the standpoint of Marxism and is incapable of and even opposed to mobilizing the working class against capitalism, which is the root cause of the drive towards dictatorship and the interrelated persecution of immigrants. Even in its most violent form, such as that seen in pre-revolutionary Russia, where assassinations of tsarist officials—and even Tsar Alexander II—were carried out by populist and anarchist groups, such methods were denounced by Lenin as “liberalism with bombs.”
The reliance on individual acts of violence, or even mere vandalism, exposes those involved to state repression and provocation, since it is easy for police provocateurs to feign willingness to carry out “direct action.”
12. Amazon workers locked out of warehouse during tornado (with video)
Amazon delivery drivers say they were locked out of an Oklahoma City warehouse last week during an active tornado warning. Amazon employee Priscilla Maddox captured footage of the moment bosses at the Amazon Flex station turned away drivers seeking shelter after the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the area on Tuesday.
The incident took place on the evening of March 10 at an Amazon delivery station at 8707 Pole Road, near the interchange of Interstate 35 and Interstate 240. In addition to the doors being locked, multiple Amazon Flex drivers alleged that management ushered them out of the building while sirens blared.
Maddox was due to run her last route of the day when tornado sirens went off, prompting workers to seek shelter inside of the warehouse. A video she uploaded to TikTok shows the warehouse doors being shut and locked as up to 15 drivers tried to get inside. The video showed the bosses pulling the door down as she begged to be let in while tornado sirens blared.
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In an attempt at damage control, Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson issued a statement saying, “The health and safety of our employees and partners is our highest priority, and we take these matters very seriously. The actions taken here are unacceptable and did not follow our policies and procedures, and we’ve suspended the employees involved while we investigate the incident. We’re reaching out directly to everyone affected to apologize and let them know that we’re taking steps to ensure nothing like this happens again.”
In fact, Amazon possesses a terrible record of safety and hazard violations. Amazon warehouse workers are generally injured at roughly twice the average rate. In 2021, an OSHA analysis determined that Amazon’s injury rate of 6.5 per 100 employees was 71 percent higher than the rate for all other non-Amazon warehouses with over 1,000 employees. Musculoskeletal disorders are the most common injury, borne from the relentless focus on speed and quotas as high as 600 packages an hour for some roles.
Tuesday’s close brush with disaster could have turned out like two previous incidents where Amazon’s negligence during inclement weather led to the deaths of workers. A fulfillment center in Baltimore collapsed in November 2018 following severe storms, killing two workers. In December 2021, six workers died in Illinois after Amazon kept them on the job overnight as severe tornadoes ripped through the midwest. Management ignored extensive warnings of the danger days in advance of the tragedy, including from the National Weather Service and local news outlets.
As the US-Israeli war against Iran rages on with the support of the European imperialist powers and the United Nations, opposition is building in the working class throughout the United States. Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site have been speaking with different sections of workers to give voice to this widespread anti-war sentiment.
In New York City, a WSWS team recently spoke with postal and UPS workers about the war and its connections to attacks on the working class at home. The perspective—“War abroad, mass layoffs in the US: The working class must stop the assault on Iran”—was distributed, along with an announcement for the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) and Socialist Equality Party’s upcoming public meeting in New York, “Stop the US-Israeli War Against Iran!” on Saturday, March 21, at 6:30 p.m. at The Center (Room 202, 208 West 13th Street, New York, NY).
The perspective begins, “While the criminal war against Iran rages in the Middle East, a parallel war is being waged by the American ruling class at home. The United States economy shed 92,000 jobs in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday, as the unemployment rate stands at 4.4 percent.” This jobs bloodbath includes UPS, which has announced a plan to layoff an additional 30,000 jobs this year after eliminating 48,000 positions last year.
UPS and postal workers were eager to discuss these topics.
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Workers in the New York City area who oppose the US-Israeli war against Iran and the drive toward dictatorship at home should make plans to attend the IYSSE’s public meeting on Saturday, March 21, at 6:30 p.m. ET at The Center to discuss what is driving the war, what the next stage of escalation could mean and the socialist political program on which opposition must be based.
14. “There is a real danger of a nuclear war”: Sri Lankan workers and students oppose Iran war
As part of the campaign initiated by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) against the imperialist war being waged by the United States and Israel against Iran, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Sri Lanka have held several discussions with workers and students.
The SEP and IYSSE will hold a public meeting titled “Stop US-Israel war against Iran” on March 17 at Colombo Public Library Auditorium.
SEP/IYSSE campaigners explained the flagrantly illegal character of the attack on Iran, the catastrophic situation developing in the Middle East, and the tasks facing the working class and youth in ending the war, which threatens to escalate into a world war. They distributed Sinhala and Tamil copies of the statement by WSWS chair David North, “Oppose the US Imperialist War Against Iran!”
Workers and students participated in the discussions with considerable interest.
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The meeting unanimously endorsed the statement “Oppose the US Imperialist War Against Iran!” and participants emphasized the urgent need for workers and youth to mobilize against the imperialist war.
K. Kandeepan, President of the [Plantation Workers Action Committee (PWAC) at Alton Estate in Maskeliya} and political committee member of the Socialist Equality Party, explained how the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and the SEP had predicted the unfolding imperialist aggression more than a decade in advance.
He quoted from the Historical and International Foundations of the SEP (Sri Lanka) published in 2011: “The rise of China, and to a lesser extent India, over the past two decades has dramatically shifted the center of gravity of world politics towards Asia. China has risen from the world’s 10th largest economy in 1990 to overtake Japan in 2010 and become the second largest after the US. ...
“. . . Every corner of Asia, including Sri Lanka, is caught up in this rivalry that is leading inexorably to a catastrophic conflict. Unlike the first two world wars that focused on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, a new conflagration is likely to be centered in the Indian Ocean.”
15. Far-right Nationals leadership switch highlights Australian political crisis
Matt Canavan has been the most vocal agitator in the rural-based Nationals to push the Liberal-National Coalition for a more aggressive, Trump-style agenda.
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For now, given the Coalition turmoil, the ruling capitalist class depends on Labor and its associated trade union apparatuses more than ever to implement its requirements. This means intensifying the assault on working and living conditions, accompanied by an offensive against basic democratic rights, as seen in the violent police attacks on anti-genocide demonstrators in Sydney last month.
The critical issue for the working class is to consciously break politically from the entire decaying establishment. A mass socialist movement must be built, in opposition to Labor, the Liberals, Nationals, One Nation and all the parliamentary parties. That is the only way to defeat the capitalist program of war, austerity and police-state authoritarianism.
16. Australian Greens’ phony posturing against Iran war
In Australia, as internationally, the utterly criminal US-led war against Iran has provoked widespread shock and anger. Those sentiments are particularly directed against the Labor government, which has been among the most enthusiastic supporters of the war and is an active participant.
Under those conditions, the condemnations of the war by the Australian Greens have elicited a response. The Greens have denounced Labor’s participation in the war and have branded it as illegal, something that no other parliamentary party has done.
The political function of the Greens’ criticisms, however, is to direct opposition back behind the very Labor government and parliamentary establishment that is complicit in the war. The Greens’ posturing goes hand-in-hand with appeals to Labor to change course based on suggestions that its participation in the war is an unfortunate mistake that could easily be remedied.
The line was set in the very first statement issued by the Greens the day after US President Donald Trump launched his sneak attack on February 28. “The Greens condemn these illegal, abhorrent and unilateral attacks,” Greens leader Larissa Waters declared.
Waters took note of the fact that Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had immediately declared his government’s support for the war, branding this as “disgraceful.” But in the very next breath, she stated: “The Labor government must immediately rule out Australian support for Trump and Netanyahu’s illegal war. No resources. No intelligence. No more cover.”
To use a colloquialism, the horse had well and truly bolted on that front. The Australian military is deeply integrated with the US war machine, the US-Israeli war depends on real-time intelligence relayed from the joint Pine Gap spy base in Central Australia, and the Labor government parrots all of Washington’s lies to justify the war.
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The Greens have not shifted their position even as Australia’s participation in the war has become more open and direct. They condemned the involvement of Australian personnel in a murderous attack on an unarmed and defenseless Iranian vessel off the coast of Sri Lanka, as well as last week’s announcement by Labor that it is dispatching a warplane, missiles and troops to the Gulf to aid the war against Iran.
But despite these developments, proving that Labor is an active, willing and important participant in the war, the operative call of the Greens, featured on its website, remains: “We call on the Albanese Government to: Withdraw support for the US-Israeli war against Iran and clearly condemn the bombing.”
In practice, that is to encourage workers and young people to simply plead with the government that is involved in waging the war, not to mount a political struggle against it.
It is the exact same position that the Greens have advanced over the course of more than two years of the genocide in Gaza. While at times noting that Labor is complicit in those historic war crimes, the Greens have insisted that with sufficient “pressure,” Labor can be compelled to end its backing for the US and Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.
That argument politically wrecked the mass movement against the genocide, subordinating it to the pro-genocide government. Labor has not shifted to the left, but has shifted further to the right, identifying itself even more openly with the Israeli regime and conducting an ongoing anti-democratic rampage against opposition, including through laws potentially criminalizing protests and even anti-Zionist political speech and organizations.
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Just as Labor’s open support for the war is not an aberration, so too the bogus posturing of the Greens is rooted in its class character. Notwithstanding its occasional “left” rhetoric, the Greens is a capitalist party, committed to the parliamentary order and to the defence of capitalism and Australian imperialism. The Greens’ record on war has been either to divert opposition back behind the political establishment, or to openly support imperialist operations.
The Greens denounced the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Australia’s participation. But as with their current calls for an “independent foreign policy,” their opposition was largely from the standpoint that the Australian military should focus its operations in the Indo-Pacific to secure “our interests,” i.e., those of Australian imperialism. At the same time, the Greens repeatedly lent support to the brutal neo-colonial occupation of Afghanistan.
This more open support of imperialist intervention became even more pronounced in the 2010s. In 2011, the Greens were the most frothing supporters of a US-led regime-change operation targeting the Libyan government of President Muammar Gaddafi. The Greens outflanked the then Labor government from the right, being the first Australian parliamentary party to demand that NATO impose a “no-fly zone,” meaning a direct US bombardment of Libya.
That operation having laid waste to Libya, the Greens then backed a similar US-led operation targeting Syria. They hailed the CIA-funded Islamist rebels, and again condemned the Australian government for not “doing enough” to aid the war effort, including with the imposition of sanctions.
More recently, the Greens have been the most vociferous supporters of the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. They have depicted the war as an effort to defend “democracy” and “human rights” in Ukraine, covering over the reality that the conflict was deliberately provoked by Washington and has been used by it to try and inflict a decisive defeat on Russia.
The Greens’ support for that war is particularly significant, because it is a graphic demonstration of where all the imperialist operations of the past 40 years are leading. Contrary to the Greens’ depiction of the wars in the Middle East and elsewhere as essentially disconnected episodes, they are components of a single US-led drive to reestablish its imperialist hegemony, the trajectory of which is to a world war with Russia and China.
By supporting the war against Russia in Ukraine, the Greens have demonstrated that whatever their tactical criticisms, they are on board.
The Greens are hostile to a socialist perspective, not only in Iran, but everywhere including in Australia. They are seeking to cover up the reality that the current war and the eruption of imperialist militarism are the expression of a breakdown of the global capitalist system.
The critical task is to build a revolutionary anti-war movement uniting the working class internationally and directing its struggles to the socialist reorganization of society as the only means of halting the plunge into barbarism. In Australia, that struggle requires not only the most determined political fight against the Labor government, but also against the Greens.
The fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide, dictatorship and fascism.
