If the forces of the Resistance and the peoples of the region are heading in this direction (retaliation and Resistance), I assure you that the Americans will leave our region. They will leave the Middle East humiliated, defeated, terrified, running for their lives, as they have done in the past… When, and I describe it precisely, when the coffins of American soldiers and officers will begin to flow, when they’ll come in a vertical position and leave for the United States in a horizontal position, Trump and his Administration will know that they have lost the region… If we achieve this goal, and we will achieve it God willing, the Liberation of Al-Quds, of the Palestinian people, the full return of all Palestine and all the holy places of Palestine to the Arab-Muslim Nation will be very close, a stone’s throw away. When the United States leaves our region, these zionists will pack up and leave. It may not even require a battle against ‘Israel.’
– Hassan Nasrallah
The nature of this historic moment should not escape any of us and Hassan Nasrallah’s premonition about the prospect of humiliating US imperial forces in the battlefield has finally arrived. The war the US and its zionist colony impulsively unleashed on Iran is an unprecedented error that is solidifying the advancement of an evolving decolonial revolutionary process in West Asia. The Iranian Resistance and its allied militant formations have dragged imperialist forces into a protracted war in such a short timeframe that the world hasn’t been able to process the real significance yet. We are witnessing the continuation of a revolutionary process that was initiated by the Palestinian Resistance and now has world-historic implications. In light of this reality, the revolutionary movement in the US is at a challenging crossroad. Anti-colonial resistance is at its most acute phase in decades and the US world-system is no longer simply precarious, but on the verge of rapid systemic crisis. Every attack on the zionist colony is bringing us closer to world revolution and we have a responsibility to act. The movement in the US can no longer tolerate the duplicitous dance of class and colonial collaboration. Those who recoiled from the Black Revolution – during the armed period in the 70’s and the George Floyd Uprising – with all of its destructive and liberatory potential for the world, surely recoil at the potential destruction of “Tel Aviv” and the implications this has for world freedom.
To properly understand these dynamics we must look closely at the current war. The US and its zionist colony attacked Iran with the stated goal of overthrowing the state, destroying Iranian military capacity and severing its alliance with regional Resistance forces – the Axis of Resistance (Ansarallah, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Resistance and the Iraqi guerrilla organizations). Throughout the past year the US has focused on undermining Iran in a variety of ways. For instance, the US placed treasury sanctions on Iran in last year with the publicly stated intention of destroying the Iranian economy and fostering an uprising. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent proudly detailed the scheme stating, “last March [2025], I said that I believe the Iranian currency was on the verge of collapse” because “President Trump ordered Treasury and OFAC division, Office of Foreign Asset Control, to put ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran.” He continued proclaiming that the plan succeeded “because, in December, their economy collapsed. We saw a major bank go under. The central bank [had] started to print money. There [was] a dollar shortage. They [we]re not able to get imports. And this is why the people took to the street.” The protests he’s referring to, from last December, were spearheaded by Washington’s economic war against Iran, or as Bessent referred to it US “economic statecraft.” This economic assault led the US and its colony to assume it could launch a war of aggression to overthrow the Iranian state, falsely believing their subterfuge had paid dividends.
The war has tremendously backfired. Iran and the Axis of Resistance was as formidable as most informed observers and revolutionaries alike knew all along. The goal of overthrowing the Iranian state by launching an indiscriminate aerial assault proved as absurd as expected. Washington and the zionist regime have essentially wandered into a self-inflicted trap. The imperialist forces erroneously assumed the Iranian state would capitulate from pressure and the masses would rise up in support of the western assault. In essence, their war planning was shrouded in a historical level of colonial hubris. Due to this certain outcomes seem rather clear now. Of course, predictions in politics are always a fools errand, but it is very difficult to envision a way for the US to escape this self-inflicted crisis. There are several factors at play that validate this presupposition.
The US and the zionist regime, as noted, launched an aggressive, widespread bombing campaign against Iran. Notably, the two states did not commit any ground troops to the war for a variety of reasons – it’s politically unpopular and practically impossible. The US also has a limited supply of munitions in the region for several reasons. The US has military bases and conflicts all over the planet, so the arms have to be distributed in a measured, careful fashion. Their air defense supplies are notoriously expensive, vulnerable and easily exhaustible. The Twelve Day War the US and the zionist regime launched against Iran last year ended precisely at the twelve day mark because the two states realized they were running out of air defense capacity quickly. The exchange rates between air defense on the US side versus drones and missiles from the Resistance forces is very unfavorable to the west. Iranian drones cost between $10k-$50 a piece with ballistics ranging from $250k and up. US air defense missiles can run between $1 million to $13 million a piece. Furthermore, it takes between two to ten air defense missiles to intercept a single drone or missile fired. US production cannot keep up with the rate of fire or the expenses necessary to fight an attritional conflict. We are also now around that same timeframe in this war and have passed the twelve day mark. The US is already publicly searching for an exit, but none exists.
Another important factor here is the sheer size of Iran and its indigenous weapons capacity. The country is approximately the size of western Europe with a population of 90 million people. A significant portion of the country is mountainous. In fact, the main points where a hostile ground force would likely invade is checkered by dense mountainous terrain. The areas looking over the Gulf states in Iran have significant vantage points, with huge mountains peaks towering over the flat, desert land of the Gulf states. This geography allows Iran to litter the mountains with missile and drone facilities that can fire downward at vast, open terrain. Crucially, Iran has expanded its indigenous weapons production capacity with most of it functioning underground. The country produces high end, extraordinarily advanced ballistic and hypersonic missiles, low end drones that are incredibly effective, and they notably supply their regional allies with these weapons.
The US and the zionist regime also lack, what is referred to as, escalatory dominance; meaning, the two states cannot increase their use of violence against their adversaries without fear of consequences. The region provides a rich target environment for Resistance forces and the US is rather impotent in terms of preventing attacks. For instance, the Strait of Hormuz is one of the tightest choke points in the world. Between 20-30% of the world’s oil and gas travels through this waterway. Iran has effectively blockaded the strait and the US is powerless to change the situation. The US threatens to increase its bombing campaign across Iran in response. But Iran can then torch the entirety of the Gulf oil fields which will make the blockade unnecessary and further destroy the international economy. The US can threaten to invade. Iran can drag US forces into a mountainous guerrilla war. The US threatens to target civilian infrastructure. Iran can destroy the Gulf state’s desalination plants which would potentially destroy the existence of the Gulf state’s in a rather short timespan. These states are between 75% to 90% dependent on desalinated water for their survival. In essence, the US has no real options to stop the war or prevent global economic collapse.
Regional Resistance forces are acting in concert with the Iranian campaign. Hezbollah has tied up the zionist state in a protracted guerrilla war in northern occupied Palestine and southern Lebanon. The Resistance has also bombarded the occupied territories with missiles and drones, destroying important equipment, depleting air defense capacity and forcing settlers out of the occupied northern settlements. The Iraqi Resistance, in tandem with Iranian strikes, have destroyed US military bases, oil facilities, US consulates, embassies and vital military equipment. The US is now in a multi-front war with no plausible strategy to address it or to exit. We also have not seen Ansarallah in Yemen or the Palestinian Resistance enter the conflict yet, which may come at a decisive moment.
The longer the oil and gas blockade continues the more severe the economic consequences will be for the world economy. As stated, the US has no clear way of changing this situation and we are racing towards an economic catastrophe that is incredibly unpredictable and world-historic. There are indications that the Resistance will demand a US retreat from the region, shattering its influence and and military posture in a dramatic historical turn. This would be tantamount to a modern decolonial revolution. The rising of the popular masses in Iran underlines this fact. And its also evidence of the unprecedented, growing weakness of US power projection. If Iran, a formerly semi-colonial state, and its Resistance allies can bring the US to its knees then revolutionary forces around the world should realize that the US is, in fact, a paper tiger. We have a responsibility, echoing the words of comrades on the frontlines, to carry forth the mantle of international revolution into the heart of the imperial core.
But how are we to do this if our politics are submersed and infected with the disease of collaborationism? The illness is not new. In fact, it is a rather complex ailment that has appeared amongst many revolutionary tendencies and takes many shapes and forms. Its most prominent emergence was during the Sino-Soviet split, as the socialist movement descended into internal feuding which ultimately led to its demise. The Cold War announcement of Khrushchevite “peaceful coexistence” with imperialism was a betrayal that Mao and Guevara – two fighters who represented the modern advancement of revolutionary war – could not tolerate. Guevara denounced Khrushchev’s Soviet Union as an“accomplice of imperial exploitation,” and Mao thought, what he deemed as Soviet liberalization, would eventually lead to its inevitable collapse. There’s no need to rehash the intricacies of this debate, but the heart of the feud is essentially the same tension that exists for us today – the tension about the centrality of imperialism to internationalist revolution and the persistent, stubborn reemergence of collaborationism with imperialist and colonial forces amongst the left.
It is this very tension that led to the collapse of the revolutionary left in West Asia as well. In Palestine, many of the organizations in the PLO (the coalition of nationalist, secular and leftwing parties) slowly drifted down the path of revisionist collaboration; first with the Ten-Point Program which recognized the existence of the zionist entity, then Oslo, leading to Fatah (the central Palestinian nationalist organization) becoming an arm of zionist settler-colonialism. Islamic Jihad and Hamas emerge atop the ashes of revolutionary socialist legitimacy in Palestine. The PKK, the vanguard of the Kurdish revolutionary movement, was granted access to the Bekaa training grounds by the PLO and fought arm in arm against NATO, zionism and imperialism in the 80s. Today it has emerged as the shock troops or cannon fodder for US and zionist imperial adventurism; linking the very survival of its project to the maintenance of the zionist colony and the fascist US world order – further eroding the revolutionary socialist base in the region. Bolivarian Venezuela, the bulwark defender of South American socialism, had become a global inspiration under Chavez, only to see its subsequent President kidnapped by US imperialism, seemingly in collusion with the vice president and members of the state.
In the US, this schism is ever present and, across tendencies imperialist social democracy has taken root – condemning “both sides” in the struggle against zionism in West Asia, supporting imperialist militarism and fascism in Europe, and/or refusing to actively, or even passively support resistance forces while they are engaging in heightened conflict. This tension underscores the significance of our era. As western forces are barreling down on Iran and the state and society are executing a historic armed resistance, we must forcefully advance and maintain the position that US imperialism remains the principal contradiction in the struggle today. Like a wounded animal thrashing blindly, the US is hastily trying to ensure its coercive dominance over the colonized and formerly colonized world. As Marco Rubio stated in Munich the US has “no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the west’s managed decline.” They have boastfully committed to overconfident militarism and reimposing direct colonial relations.
Therefore, revolutionaries in the imperial core cannot tolerate “revolutionary” values and projects that do not accept choosing sides in a battle of this importance. The perfidy displayed by the US in their negotiations with Iran has been, and cannot remain, analogous to the half measures western radicals have displayed in terms of their opposition to imperialism or their positionality in regards to the Palestinian Revolution. The Resistance in Gaza broke down the walls of colonial dominance for Palestine and for the world at large. Imperialist social democracy in the west chooses to only see Palestinians as helpless victims and not the pinnacle of our revolutionary future. The victimized subject is easy to comprehend; to pity; to forget. The armed subject, the true force for liberation, is treated as a separate entity from the colonial society, divorced from their people and imposed from above – entirely illegitimate. While, in actuality, the armed front is the highest expression of revolutionary, therefore human, advancement. The Palestinian Revolution cannot be separated from its armed movement and the attempt to do so is a violent act of colonial imposition.
As Iran’s war of liberation proceeds, we must also clarify that the Palestinian Revolution and the Iranian Resistance are, in fact, the same front. The attempt to separate these struggles is also an act of ideological colonialism, and in the context of the current war, egregious complicity. The war is primarily over Iranian support for the Palestinian Resistance. There isn’t a single project in the world that has armed Gaza other than Iran and the US and its zionist colony, being wedded together as genocidal settler-colonial states believe the Greater “Israel” project can only succeed, can only sufficiently create Lebensraum, through the death of Palestine. The Axis of Resistance, like the Palestinian Joint Operations Room, is the multi-tendency anti-colonial alliance that is confronting this white supremacist expansion while trying to forcefully rid the region of western domination.
Martyred Palestinian activist Nizar Banat defended Iran’s role arguing that, “Iran is the only country in the world that has a permanent clause in its budget, from the budget of the Iranian people’s bread, that pledges to support the Palestinian Revolution, regardless of its orientation, whether it was Fatah, the PFLP, the communists, anyone. It never intervened in our ideological conceptions of resistance… it is a nation with dignity and honor, and knows clearly that the American presence is the problem. That the ‘Israeli’ presence is the problem.” Hamas leader, Martyr Yahya Sinwar declared “if not for Iran’s support for the Resistance in Palestine we would not have obtained these capabilities. Indeed, our (Arab) nation has deserted us. Our nation has deserted us in our difficult moments, while Iran has supported us with weapons, equipment, and expertise.” Ali al-Imad, Ansarallah political bureau member, stated, “The path is one, and coordination exists within a unified front. The Yemeni decision is strongly present, but it is part of a broader vision based on acting as one nation confronting a single enemy… This approach has been tested and proven effective, and it was previously adopted in the support front in support of Gaza.”
This clarity of purpose is found amongst socialist tendencies as well. The PFLP informs us that, “The joining of Lebanese, Yemeni, Iranian, and Iraqi resistance forces to support Gaza reflects unity in destiny and depth in solidarity. This confirms Palestine is not alone against occupation.” Yahya Mansour Abu al-Asba, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Yemeni Socialist Party, declared that his party “stands firmly with the Islamic Republic of Iran and stands against the American-‘israeli’ aggression and against the criminal mobilizations aimed at eliminating our Arab peoples.” While in a joint statement the coalition of Palestinian Resistance Factions denounced “the criminal zionist attack on Iran” which happened because Iran takes a “principled stand with Palestine and our resistance. Iranian missiles brought joy to Gaza’s children.” They concluded by “urg[ing] all free peoples to: unite behind Iran’s armed forces. Abandon petty divisions… [and] stand against zionist-western hegemony.” In words and in deed these positions are as clear as day and cannot be ignored.
Without a doubt, from Al-Aqsa Flood to the current Iranian-led war front, the Axis of Resistance has risen to the vanguard of anti-colonial struggle. Anti-colonial conflict does not necessitate a socialist, Marxist, or anarchist attire to retain legitimacy. Nat Turner, Malcolm X, Pancho Villa, or the Mau Mau have all retained admiration in the popular insurgent memory without subscribing to our doctrines. It is through our own acts of Resistance that our politics rise and this must be through complicity in struggle not in conflict with the oppressed. Iran has decimated US bases in the region and is poised to utterly destroy the world economy. Hezbollah has now forced the zionist colony to fight a protracted guerrilla war on its north while raining missiles down on the occupied cities of Palestine. The war has progressed so quickly, and intensely, with so much financial damage to the US that questions about the stability of the US-led world order are rapidly emerging. With potential world-changing dynamics at hand, revolutionaries in the imperial core must move in tandem with the Resistance.
Not taking sides in a revolutionary upheaval is taking a side. The position of indifference, or even antagonism, to the Resistance becomes part of the imperial war effort. While oppressed bodies fill mass graves, in a valiant fight to liberate the region from the domination of Euro-colonial power, the western left stands unmoved, nose in the air, pondering why the petulant savages haven’t adopted the same discourse and failed political strategies prevalent in their own societies? Revolutionaries in the core must begin to seriously look to the Axis for direction as their struggle has presently reached unprecedented heights.
In the US there is notable ambiguity about our revolutionary horizon, but there are concrete positions and likely fissures emerging soon that we must not overlook. While a segment of the revolutionary milieu has focused on identity politics as a primary obstacle for revolutionary momentum a more precise diagnosis would juxtapose the colonial collaborationism amongst the left, in regards to international struggle with the white class collaboration that has maintained, and strengthened the settler-colonial project at home.Therefore, the process of building a revolutionary project in the US cannot focus on the demographic that has remained a historical accomplice with the capitalist class since the states inception. The class struggle here will have to wed the liberation of the Black colonies, the indigenous Nations, and the Latino independence struggles into a unified front of rebellion, all in alliance with anti-colonial forces abroad.
During the George Floyd Uprising we watched the police retreat under the blows of the Black resistance and uniting this struggle with other oppressed struggles is paramount. In actuality the US police, like the zionist colony, are more vulnerable than they initially appear. The police collapsed from the strength of the revolutionary Black masses and largely regained order due to the disorganization and weakness of revolutionary forces in the streets.
At the time of the George Floyd Uprising the revolutionary left was unprepared for his murder and the populations militant response. The coming crisis on our hands today is clear as day. The Axis of Resistance has brought the US to the verge of disaster, and even if these problems prove to not be as acute as they initially appear, possibilities will remain open in the future. We must be ready to act. Every locale is unique, therefore, each place requires specific thought and consideration that is greater than the scope of this text. We are not trying to chart out concrete directions for the entirety of the movement in detail but we’d like to offer some brief suggestions that can be used as a basis for discussion and strategizing.
- The necessity to build coherent, capable revolutionary organizations is extremely important. Comrades who have functional organizations should consider uniting with likeminded forces and immediately begin discussions about establishing organized militant components to their aboveground formations. These militant, underground formations can serve as the basis for sustaining protracted struggle against the state. If organized well these formations can escalate the crisis and put pressure on the state to retreat in the West Asian theater.
- Aboveground formations or other loose milieus can start large scale propaganda efforts connecting the Axis of Resistance War with the anti-ICE struggle, the Black Liberation Movement, the struggles on the reservations and the growing economic inequality plaguing the class. Prominent street campaigns with graffiti, posters, or whatever is at your disposal will suffice. However, pushing the line that connects these issues in the society is key.
- Direct action campaigns against targeting the entire edifice of zionism domestically in the US – supportive businesses, politician offices, schools, media, etc., should happen immediately. The people in West Asia must know that we are combating this colonial scourge in solidarity with their struggle.
- If mass looting commences revolutionaries should participate and use the actions as a means of socialization of the insurgent economy. Revolutionary politics, in the popular imagination, are best shaped through revolutionary practice. To break the bourgeois, individualistic mentality in this society we can socialize looted resources and create new proletariat forms of solidarity through action and distribution. This can demonstrate that we offer an alternative political form in real time. The redistribution and reallocation of market supplies can also be used to create a supply chain for frontline actions against the state, buttressing the rear in the ongoing conflict.
- The 3rd precinct in Minneapolis was burned to the ground in the George Floyd Uprising. If the rebellion reaches a similar stage the resistance should target detention centers, jails and prisons. Freeing people from the capitalist dungeons will further the rebellion, strengthen the front, and help establish a new underground railroad.
We cannot permit any distance between ourselves and the Palestinian and Iranian frontlines. The Black Liberation Army found the sincerest expression of international solidarity from the PFLP and that history of solidarity, traversing the streets from Harlem to Khan Younis, illustrates what should be our template for resistance today. The anti-colonial struggle in the US, with Black Resistance and anti-ICE formations at the forefront, must merge its efforts with the Axis of Resistance today, beyond the rhetorical scope and into the strategic and material. That is only plausible if we overcome, or defeat the collaborationist disorder that permeates within our networks. The police and ICE have effectively declared war on its internal Black colonies, and its migrant labor force, while West Asia deals with the full brunt of US military power abroad. War and revolution, as should be understood, are undeniably bedfellows. The two historical processes regularly merge into one another. The Palestinian Revolution reignited by the Al-Aqsa Flood operation has opened the door to a prolonged protracted war that has shifted into an Iranian popular upheaval against colonialism. This may lead to a regional revolution that destroys the brutish zionist colony and upends the US world order. It must be our objective to ensure that this regional war turns into a World Revolution. Our house must be properly in order to achieve this.
Death to Amerikkka!
Death to the zionist regime!
Ahmed Hadid
Submitted Anonymously