The illegal war launched on Iran by the United States and Israel is not just the workings of one person or one government. This is not the U.S. being “dragged into war” by Israel, because the U.S. and Israel are both settler colonial states with a history of imperial interventions in other countries. The current war on Iran is a symptom of systems that have oppressed us for hundreds of years: capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. These systems have ravaged our environment, committed genocides against Indigenous peoples, and repeatedly sent working-class people to kill each other for the interests of the few, not the many. This is not a “clash of civilizations,” a “preemptive strike,” a war to “free” Iranian people, or even a “distraction from the Epstein files.” This war is about the divide between the haves and the have-nots. The ruling class has used war to divide and conquer us for centuries. For any person forced to work for a living, the only rational case for war on Iran is the case against it.

The United States is an empire in decline. While U.S. economic growth has been tied to speculative investments in artificial intelligence technology, countries like China have become leaders of industries like electric vehicles and renewable energy that have proven to be more productive and profitable. It is not a coincidence that the two most recent imperial interventions have been in Venezuela and Iran, countries with vast oil reserves who have openly opposed U.S. economic and political interests. Regardless of whether the U.S. wants to extract resources from Iran, it’s clear that it will not allow forces that challenge its power.

And if the U.S. is unable to economically compete with an adversary, it can always rely on its military strength to crush opposing states. The U.S. spends nearly $1 trillion annually on its military, has about 800 military bases around the world, and is the undisputed leader in technology for war. Therefore, “regime change” is not the only possibility for Iran’s future. Just look at Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, or Haiti. In many cases, the U.S. would rather create a failed state than deal with a state that opposes its interests. This could create a humanitarian crisis in Iran, just so the U.S. can preserve its power and so capitalists can profit on war.

Under a system of global capitalism that requires competition between states for power and profit, Iranian “freedom” is not a legitimate reason for U.S. intervention. After all, this is the same United States that has overthrown the governments of countless countries and is currently backsliding into fascism. If narcotrafficking was the justification for war on Venezuela, what is being done to address the demand for drugs in the United States caused by our own poverty? If Iran poses an “existential threat” to the United States and is “oppressing its own people,” what is being done to stop billionaires from destroying our environment? Why are masked agents of state violence like ICE and Border Patrol terrorizing our communities?

President Donald Trump is not the cause of this war. He is a puppet—a symptom of the real forces oppressing us: capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. The same rhetoric used by the Democratic Party to justify Israel’s genocide of Palestinians has been used to defend our government bombing a girls’ school in Iran, killing at least 170 people. So, if we want to stop this illegal war on Iran, we need to get involved in our community and build power for working-class people outside of the political system that oppresses us—before the imperial boomerang comes back around again. No war on Iran!