AMID the continuing disorienting cacophony of war in the Middle East, and the horrific toll being exacted upon the Palestinian people in particular, while the international community and its representative organisations look on, unable or unwilling to act decisively, a singularly ominous drumbeat is becoming increasingly pronounced once more: the threat of a renewed attack upon Iran. 

This threat has escalated sharply in the wake of the UN’s endorsement of the “snapback” of a regime of sweeping sanctions on Iran, effective from Sunday September 28, following the expiry of a 30-day countdown triggered by the European Troika (Britain, France, and Germany) for the country’s “significant non-performance” of its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) 2015. 

This comes despite the valiant attempts of China and Russia to extend the JCPoA for a further six months and thereby delay “snapback” until April 18 2026, affording Iran more time.

The move instigated by the foreign ministers of the European Troika nakedly owes to the aligning of their stance on Iran with that of the Trump administration. 

In particular, they cite Iran’s refusal to co-operate with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — a position all the more unconscionable given that, according to the IAEA itself, Iran had complied to the very letter of its obligations under the JCPoA prior to the unilateral abrogation of that agreement by the first Trump administration back in 2018. 

The Troika further stressed Iran’s non-authorisation of IAEA inspectors to access the country’s nuclear sites, despite the reality that the suspension of said inspections began only after the US and Israel launched a 12-day campaign of bombardment against Iran in June — killing over 1,000 civilians, maiming many more, causing huge damage and targeting its nuclear facilities — in flagrant violation of international law. The agency has since confirmed, on Friday September 27, that inspections have resumed.

On the other hand, the bellicose rhetoric and reckless posturing of the Islamic Republic regime, as it continues to engage in games of “cloak and dagger” and “will they, won’t they” with the international community — eerily reminiscent of the Saddam Hussein regime’s posturing in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq — constitutes a fundamental abrogation of the ultimate responsibility it has towards the people of Iran, as well as the safeguarding of the country and its inalienable interests.

Nobody should be under any illusion. The reintroduction of this crippling sanctions regime will hurt first and foremost the long-suffering Iranian population at large, not those presiding over the now 45-year brutal theocratic dictatorship. 

Of course, this is a familiar playbook — the economic strangulation and deliberate degrading of a country’s critical infrastructure over years, with UN approval, bookended with the launching of unilateral military action to bludgeon the said country into complete submission or effective dismemberment — followed to horrific effect, not least in neighbouring Iraq. Indeed, the parallels between the situation of ordinary Iraqis from 1991, in the wake of the first Gulf war, until 2003, and the one now facing the Iranian people are stark and should not be dismissed out of hand.

The majority of Iran’s population is already enduring immense socioeconomic hardship amid an economy in complete freefall — primarily the result of three decades of the theocratic regime’s disastrous imposition of neoliberal economic policies. This, in turn, has led to the hollowing out of Iran’s rentier dollar-based economy, creating conditions that have enabled the US to wantonly inflict its unjust and damaging financial and economic sanctions on the country.

The current situation is particularly perilous given US imperialism’s urgency to arrest and shore up its dwindling hegemony, coupled with the erratic, unpredictable, but primarily dangerous machinations of the increasingly fascistic Trump administration and the carte blanche it has seemingly afforded the criminal Netanyahu regime in Tel Aviv.

Iran is now at the eye of the proverbial storm, with the reconfiguration of the map and balance of forces of the Middle East taking place in earnest to assure continued US hegemony as well as the implementation of Israel’s expansionist designs. And our country is in a deeply vulnerable situation — its security and legitimate national interests are continually exposed to attacks, sabotage and malign interference from abroad.

Essentially, the people of Iran find themselves caught in a perilous situation between the mal-designs and machinations of a brutal clerical dictatorship on the one hand, and the increasingly aggressive and threatening manoeuvres of an unpredictable Trump-led US on the other.

Even according to estimates acknowledged by officials in the regime itself, public support for the Islamic Republic and its continuation does not surpass 20 per cent of the population.

However, this widespread antipathy does not translate into support for foreign interference in Iran, let alone the doctrine of regime change — as vividly demonstrated in the Iranian public’s reaction to the 12-day war against Iran in June, in which the rallying around the country’s flag and in defence of national sovereignty was discernible.

The people of Iran do not want to become another Iraq, Libya or Syria and see their country similarly devastated by bloody foreign intervention, war and prolonged instability — essentially sacrificed on the altar of their ruling dictators’ reckless brinksmanship, critically false projections of military might, and hollow anti-imperialist posturing.

The worsening shortages of water, with Tehran projected to be on course for a Day Zero-type scenario; increasingly frequent electricity outages; the steep and continuing rise in the cost of living; the near-collapse in the value of the national currency; and a catalogue of environmental disasters, have all wrought havoc on the lives of the majority of ordinary Iranians and the economy.

The regime is manifestly unable to manage the adverse effects of these compounding crises, leaving the nation in a state of limbo, paralysed by uncertainty and facing the ominous possibility of a looming war on the horizon.

Across the country, calls for “no war, no sanctions; liberty and justice” are resonating with growing urgency. Yet, due to the unrelenting systemic repression by the theocratic dictatorship, Iran lacks the fundamental structures that could channel these popular demands into organised and co-ordinated action.

There is no functioning peace movement, no independent women’s movement or functioning trade unions, and civil society currents have been rendered ineffective.

The absence of these democratic pillars in Iran leaves the public there without a collective voice, while the regime continues its misrule without accountability — driven not by the national interest, but the imperative to preserve the theocratic dictatorship at whatever cost.

Thus, the struggle for freedoms, human and democratic rights, and social justice is inextricably bound to the struggle for peace and national sovereignty in Iran. These two struggles are inseparable; neither can exist meaningfully without the other. 

Iran’s future remains the sole preserve of the Iranian people themselves. This is precisely why communists, left and progressive campaigners, and peace movements around the world, while opposing imperialism and its incessant drumbeat to war, must also recognise and support the Iranian people’s struggle against reaction and dictatorship, in pursuit of human and democratic rights, liberty, and social justice.

Navid Shomali is a member of the political committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran and its international secretary.