SEP STATEMENT: THE ONLY SOLUTION IN IRAN AND THE MIDDLE EAST IS TO BUILD A SOCIALIST VANGUARD!

The embargo imposed on Iran’s economy for decades, the rotten mullah capitalism, and the regime’s massive military expenditures aimed at sustaining its capacity to wage war with the United States and Israel have made life unbearable for Iranian workers. Iranian workers, women, and youth, who have risen up repeatedly over the years, have once again taken to the streets across the country, chanting “Down with Khamenei.” As the regime grows increasingly brutal, ever more horrific news arrives from the streets by the hour, and the Iranian people are deprived even of basic means of communication due to internet shutdowns.

As US imperialism under Trump crosses new thresholds of gangsterism, it is common knowledge that after Venezuela, Iran is next on the list in 2026. Last June, US and Israeli thuggery sought to overthrow the regime by exploiting the Iranian people’s legitimate struggle against the rotten mullah capitalist apparatus of repression. Today, they have been activated once again with the same objective. Trump continues to preach hollow sermons about democracy as if he had not, just last week, disregarded a country’s sovereignty by abducting a head of state and issuing threats against Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, and Greenland. Trump leads the tune, and his EU imperialist partners sing along.

It is a fact that US NATO imperialism, which has, since the Iraq war, deployed every bloody scenario imaginable to impose regime change in the region and has waged proxy wars, has set its sights on Iran after Syria. For years, both the mullah regime and imperialism have used this reality to suffocate every demand for rights and freedoms, turning the region into a living hell as common enemies of the Iranian people. By inciting all forms of ethnic and sectarian division, they continuously suppress the high potential for working class radicalism across the region.

Unlike previous protest movements, the Iranian regime is now confronted with an awakening among the poorest layers of society and even among its own social base. The Iranian people, meanwhile, are trapped between street executions by the regime, organizational weakness, and imperialist manipulation and presence on the ground. The prominence of slogans supporting Pahlavi, a US and Israeli lackey with no organizational presence whatsoever inside Iran, stems from the severe lack of alternatives faced by the people. This tendency is obvious among youth crushed by repression, unemployment, and a lack of future. While revolutionaries and left forces with deep historical roots and an anticapitalist and anti-imperialist tradition cannot even breathe under the mullah regime, imperialists exploit this vacuum. The regime, through this mechanism, renders the country vulnerable to imperialist aggression and manipulation. The reemergence of the Persian nationalist Shah fuels reactions among different ethnic groups, especially the Azeri and Kurdish peoples, who have historically been oppressed by Persian nationalism, and the prospect of Iran being dragged into long-term instability is by no means far-fetched.

The Iranian people’s uprising against the mullah regime is, of course, legitimate. However, as history has repeatedly shown, any spontaneous street revolt without leadership and a program is also open to imperialist manipulation. Unfortunately, despite the immense sacrifices made since 1979, the struggle against the mullah regime has not produced an egalitarian vanguard of workers and the oppressed. Today, the heir of the Shah overthrown by the masses in 1979 is being promoted as an alternative to the mullah regime, and regrettably has come to the fore in the current wave of protests more than ever before.

The Shah regime and the Pahlavi dynasty have always been servants of imperialism in Iran, oppressing youth, women, and workers while handing over Iran’s resources to imperialist powers. After 1979, the mullah regime’s repressive apparatus, the Basij militias, inflicted immense suffering on the people and generated deep hatred. But it must not be forgotten that during the Shah’s rule, dozens of executions and massacres were carried out by the intelligence service SAVAK. This is the Shah now being broadcast from imperialist centers and applauded by liberal fools. Today, Reza Pahlavi, the heir of the last Shah who has lived in the United States for years, will serve as a puppet of the US-Israel barbarism that has, over the past two years, continuously produced massacres while redesigning the Middle East. The oppressed and exploited peoples of the Middle East can have no expectations from these reactionary forces.

The uprising of Iranian women, workers, and oppressed peoples cannot simply be labeled as collaborationist. Yet it is clear that imperialism, together with its agent activities inside the country, exploits the desperation created by the masses’ desire for change that lacks a clear address, and pushes the Shah to the forefront.

The Iranian people can only become decisive in shaping Iran’s future through the disciplined struggle of organized committees of the working people, and through the workers on strike, especially in the oil and mining sectors, leading the masses in the streets by declaring a general strike. There is no progressive option for Iran other than the working people becoming a new constituent power by expropriating all of the country’s wealth, above all oil, from the mullahs and capitalists. The only path to freedom and justice in Iran is the emergence of a socialist revolutionary program.

At this point, the position of socialists must be clear:

1. No people have ever achieved liberation through the change brought about by US EU imperialist interventions. On the contrary, destruction, massacres, and barbarism have appeared repeatedly in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. No to imperialist intervention.
2. The reactionary Shahist current, well known to Iranian revolutionaries, cannot be an alternative to the mullah regime.
3. The only real alternative and solution to the mullah regime lies in building a revolutionary vanguard.

There is no alternative other than advancing the perspective of a socialist Middle East against imperialist barbarism and dictatorships.

Originally Posted on SEP Official Website