This article was originally published on February 5, 2026 and has been lightly edited to reflect Saturday's US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
// Photo: AP
Today, as yesterday, imperialism does not seek the “freedom” of the Iranian people, but rather to break the country and subordinate it, as it is attempting to do in Venezuela and has done regionally in countries such as Iraq.
This imperialist offensive is inseparable from the deep social crisis Iran is undergoing. The Trump administration recently tightened sanctions in September, which had already led to wage cuts and emptied supermarket shelves, betting that greater misery could break the regime. Imperialism opted for a “pressure cooker” strategy to encourage and instrumentalize social protest. When this maneuver failed to subdue the clerics, the White House resorted to deploying aircraft carriers, threatening missiles, and declaring that “all options are on the table.”
This analysis of imperialist coercion and attempts at manipulation does not imply denying the legitimacy of mass mobilization against inflation, repression, and social misery. On the contrary, the danger lies in its instrumentalization: the attempt by Trump, the Israeli state, and the imperialist right more broadly to redirect a legitimate social revolt toward an outcome subordinated to imperialist interests — one that would not only fail to resolve the hardships facing the masses but would instead reinforce new forms of domination.
History offers clear warnings. From Iraq to Libya, from Syria to Ukraine, imperialism has repeatedly sought to transform popular discontent into supposed “democratic transitions” managed from above with puppet governments, in pursuit of its interests, leaving the masses disarmed, divided, and ultimately defeated.
The fact that the extent of direct U.S. or Israeli influence in the Iranian uprising is not entirely clear does not diminish this danger, but rather makes it more urgent and important to identify. None of this implies political support for the theocratic and murderous regime of the Islamic Republic, whose repression of thousands of people must be denounced without hesitation.
But denunciation of the regime cannot become neutrality in the face of imperialist aggression, which aims to subjugate Iran. Faced with an escalating imperialist offensive, the only progressive way out is to assert an independent path against war and foreign intervention, against ultimatums and supervised “transitions”.
A Social Crisis in the Making
The latest protests are part of a cycle of revolts that began with the “Bread, Work, and Freedom” demonstrations in late 2017, when the working class reemerged as a political force in response to rising food prices, unpaid wages, and the collapse of the reformist promises of the Rouhani government, whose pact with the devil in the nuclear deal only meant “sanctions relief” for the ruling elite by stabilizing the profits of state-linked capital and commercial sectors, without improving the daily living conditions of the majority.
Then, in 2018, Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions became the context in which the regime made the working class pay for imperialist pressure through increases in fuel prices, subsidy cuts, and wages crushed by inflation, a strategy that triggered nationwide fuel protests in November 2019.
Three years later, the livelihood crisis and the crisis of legitimacy openly converged in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising of 2022.
Amid these explosions, the working class has continued to organize — in the strikes of Haft Tappeh workers, the national mobilizations of teachers and retirees, the struggles of Tehran bus drivers, and the repeated strikes of contract workers in the oil and petrochemical sectors — often through informal coordinating bodies and nascent forms of self-organization that revive, in embryonic form, the idea of workers’ councils (shoras).
From these accumulated experiences of revolt and worker action, a broader social movement confronting the regime has emerged. Even at the height of the latest movement, it lacked coordination, organization, and a unified set of demands; however, the intolerable social situation underpinning it shows no signs of disappearing.
In the context of a society that has gradually gained confidence in its own capacity for resistance, the crisis in Iran has not diminished but intensified, as the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025 disrupted trade and finance, and the reimposition of UN sanctions in September triggered a new round of economic shock therapy overseen by the so-called reformist wing of the regime, represented by Pezeshkian, which shifted the costs of the crisis to the population through subsidy cuts, rising energy prices, currency collapse, and inflation-crushed wages.
Social division is reflected in everyday life, as reported by international media about families forced to sleep on rooftops after renting out their homes and households buying cooking oil on credit, while the regime’s elites ensure a comfortable life for their children in the same “Western” countries they claim to despise. It is against this backdrop of social deterioration and growing inequality that external pressures and political maneuvers are unfolding to impose an outcome from above.
The Imperialist Horizon: The Attempt at a Reactionary Closure
While Trump’s internal crisis has reduced his room for maneuver, it has not slowed Washington’s efforts to exploit the current confrontation with Iran to its own advantage, especially at a time when U.S. authority is eroding globally.
As in the recent escalation against Venezuela, coercion and spectacle are part of a broader offensive that, when conditions are favorable, moves toward open interference, the attempt to hijack state power, and the transformation of the country into an imperialist protectorate, with sectors of the regime acting as Washington’s vassals. In Iran, such an operation would face much greater obstacles, but the logic behind it is the same: to mask, through threats, demonstrations of force, and diplomatic maneuvers, the absence of a lasting solution to the contradictions facing U.S. imperialism today, stemming both from the prolonged crisis of profitability of capitalism and the rise of rival powers such as China.
Alongside Trump’s changing arsenal of maneuvers, a parallel ideological offensive is brewing, as the media and political elites spread prefabricated answers about what should happen in Iran. For some, the solution is the restoration of the monarchy or some type of regime under the leadership of Reza Pahlavi: not the empowerment of the masses, but the replacement of the clerical elite with a royal one, anchored in networks of exiles and foreign patronage.
Monarchical restoration is presented as “freedom.” But every time “freedom” has been imposed from above in the region, it has meant foreign-backed rule and repression. In Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein led to occupation and civil war. In Libya, NATO’s removal of Muammar Gaddafi brought militias and lasting instability.
Iranian monarchists are asking Iranians to forget their own history. In the 1920s, Reza Shah came to power with British support to crush strikes and peasant revolts that spread after the Russian Revolution. In 1953, a coup backed by the CIA and MI6 restored his son Mohammad Reza Shah to power to block a mass movement fighting for the nationalization of Iranian oil. What followed was not democracy, but twenty-five years of dictatorship enforced by prisons and the CIA-trained SAVAK. Today, the same solution is being recycled. Reza Pahlavi does not appear to have popular support within Iran; his support seems to come mainly from sectors of the diaspora and foreign political circles. However, this has never been an obstacle to imperialism-backed transitions. The logic of so-called “color revolutions” does not depend on broad popular legitimacy, but on taking advantage of moments of social unrest, repression, and political disorientation to push for top-down leadership that can ensure the continuity of the existing order.
Behind the resurgence of the lion and sun flag, therefore, lies a well-known project: not a struggle for popular self-determination, but a pro-imperialist solution imposed from above, whose goal is to contain and ultimately repress the independent organization of workers, women, and youth. The monarchist current grouped around the Shah’s son openly represents this project, seeking to reinsert Iran into the imperialist regional order under the banner of “democratic transition.”
Opposed to these pro-imperialist solutions is a second camp: those who defend the existing regime in the name of opposition to the U.S. and Israel, considering repression as something that must be accepted. This logic is also reflected in debates within the pro-Palestine movement, where some currents present Iran as a progressive regional force simply because it appears to “confront” the United States and Israel. However, condemning the massacre of protestors does not imply support for foreign intervention.
An anti-imperialist stance today implies the unconditional defense of Iran against U.S. and Israeli aggression, while rejecting both a pro-imperialist transition imposed from above and the regime’s attempt to monopolize anti-imperialism in order to demobilize and repress internal dissent. This tension is exacerbated by the fact that the regime itself has mobilized its social base not only against the United States, but also against the protests, presenting independent struggle as a threat to national survival.
There is no doubt that U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies seek to overthrow the Iranian government. But reducing the protests to the machinations of the CIA or Mossad is itself a political operation. It transforms a social uprising rooted in inflation, unemployment, and state violence into an external conspiracy, obscuring the independent action of workers, women, and youth, the social force through which anti-imperialism can acquire a progressive and emancipatory content.
Neither Imperialist Attack nor Reactionary Tutelage
None of this implies political support for the theocratic and murderous regime of the Islamic Republic, whose repression must be denounced without hesitation. But denouncing the regime cannot become neutrality between oppressor and oppressed countries. Faced with the opening salvos of a new war and attempts at manipulation by Trump, the Mossad, and the entire imperialist right, the immediate task is to take a stand against imperialism, warning that even a legitimate mass mobilization can be diverted toward a reactionary solution dictated from abroad, whose purpose is to reaffirm imperial control.
The alternative is not ultimatums disguised as diplomacy or supervised “transitions,” but rather to affirm a clear position: against imperialist war, against all foreign intervention, and against the reactionary use of popular revolt. Only in this way can the struggle against internal repression remain independent and open up a truly emancipatory perspective for Iranian workers, women, and youth.
Maryam Alaniz is a socialist journalist, activist, and PhD student living in NYC. She is an editor for the international section of Left Voice. Follow her on Twitter: @MaryamAlaniz
[This article was originally published on February 5, 2026 and has been lightly edited to reflect today's US and Israeli strikes on Iran.]