Victor Vaughn | Red Phoenix correspondent | Maryland–
The refusal of the U.S. and Israeli governments to dispute the fact that the war on Iran is for American and Israeli capital’s financial interests is staggering. Domestically, the U.S. war with Iran remains unpopular, even among Republicans. It’s no longer a radical or controversial conclusion that the Iran war is for economic interests rather than any supposed security threat or opposition to nuclear weapons. The irony of two belligerent nuclear-armed powers.
The playbook of imperialist intervention is well-known: Trump did not seek Congressional approval for the attack, acting unilaterally just like the January anti-democratic ouster of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro. His justifications for war are blatantly false and have shifted repeatedly: from stopping nuclear proliferation, to a continuation of regional proxies, to supporting Iran’s popular uprisings, to invoking a “preemptive war of self-defense,” an Orwellian justification George W. Bush used to start the 2003 war with Iraq.
On Feb. 28, 2026, the United States, in alliance with the apartheid state of Israel, launched a criminal war of aggression against Iran, assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several other Iranian officials. But what is unique about the long-anticipated imperialist U.S. and Zionist war on Iran is the unusually explicit, unapologetic embrace of violence.
This conflict was long expected, rooted in the lengthy history of U.S. imperialist intervention in Iran. In 1953, the CIA engineered the overthrow of Iran’s democratically-elected government and the installation of the absolutist Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi. Over the next quarter-century, the Shah served as a willing ally to the interests of the U.S. capitalist class. His CIA-trained secret police, SAVAK, became notorious for widespread repression, including the torture and disappearance of thousands of Iranians. In 1971, while 44% of Iranians struggled below the poverty line, the “King of Kings” threw the most lavish party in history to celebrate his empire’s anniversary.
In 2007, retired U.S. General Wesley Clark gave an interview to the independent news program Democracy Now! in which he described a conversation he had at the Pentagon about ten days after 9/11. Clark said an unnamed general allegedly showed him a classified memo and told him:
“‘We’ve made the decision; we’re going to war with Iraq.’ This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, ‘We’re going to war with Iraq, why?’ He said ‘I don’t know.’ […] This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out 7 countries in 5 years starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off Iran.’”
Speaking of Iran and its 90 million people, on Apr. 7 Trump posted, “A whole civilization will die tonight,” in an explicit and outright threat of genocide by a sitting President of the United States. These are not idle threats: the Gaza genocide’s death toll stands at over 72,000 people, not including those who died from lack of access to life-saving medical care. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth framed the war as an apocalyptic religious crusade: “God also stands with the people of Israel against their enemies and blesses those who bless Israel. America should stand with Israel because we honor God and love freedom.”
Perhaps the most honest of all was Senator Lindsey Graham, who was candid about the true purpose of the war when he spoke to Fox News on Mar. 8:
“When this regime goes down, we are going to have a new Mideast, and we are going to make a ton of money. […] Venezuela and Iran have 31% of the world’s oil reserves. We’re going to have a partnership with 31% of the known reserves. This is China’s nightmare. This is a good investment.”
Benjamin Netanyahu himself dropped the “anti-nuclear” story a day after Israel bombed Iran’s main gas field. Despite also claiming Iran’s ability to enrich uranium had been destroyed, which should theoretically mean the war should end, Netanyahu revealed U.S. and Israeli monopoly capital’s true motives at a press conference in Jerusalem, where he stated his vision of an oil and gas pipeline to channel Middle Eastern petroleum directly through Israeli ports, effectively bypassing the Strait of Hormuz completely:
“Just have oil pipelines, gas pipelines, going west through the Arabian Peninsula, right up to Israel, right up to our Mediterranean ports and you’ve just done away with the choke points forever,” Netanyahu said. “I see that as a real change that will follow this war.”
The pipeline he’s referring to is the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC). The ruling classes of the U.S. and Israel have fully admitted that this conflict was started by them in order to destroy Iran’s regional economic influence and clear the path for this project. This is not the sole financial interest, however: an added bonus is allowing Israel to declare war on all its neighbors and seize more land, starting with Gaza and its aggression against Lebanon, and the U.S. to undermine European powers’ influence in the region. While the U.S. is energy independent and can easily weather any financial storm its wars create, Europe is heavily dependent on maritime imports. Europe is paralyzed by a conflict of interest between their military alliance with Washington and potential economic disaster at home.
Even more alarming, allegations have emerged of outright corruption. Even bourgeois lawmakers who historically have been fine with insider trading, have raised concerns about half a billion dollars worth of oil trades made on Mar. 23, just minutes before Trump’s post on Truth Social about “productive conversations” in Iran. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating at least two incidents of well-timed trades generating millions of dollars in oil profits before major policy shifts by the White House, including another just hours before the announcement of the Apr. 7 two-week ceasefire, which netted these mystery investors another $950 million.
The American and Zionist aggression against Iran is bound to create huge economic ripple effects throughout the world, but a prolonged conflict will generate enormous profits for several notable industries. Leading the surge are U.S. defense contractors and energy firms such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Palantir, with analysts at J.P. Morgan and Forbes identifying them as the primary beneficiaries, though the high-tech nature of the Iran war is also obvious through the involvement of tech and AI companies:
“U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, has identified more than 20 weapons systems being used in Iran, which are manufactured largely by Lockheed Martin, RTX and its subsidiary Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technologies and General Atomics Aeronautical, among others. […] Arizona-based SpektreWorks is behind the one-way “LUCAS” drones that the military said have been used to carry out strikes at a lower cost, while the higher-end Tomahawk missiles reportedly also being used in the region are produced by Raytheon. THAAD interceptors, a different type of missile used to intercept enemy fire, are produced by Lockheed Martin. Those companies and others in the drones and missile space potentially have the most to gain from the strikes, with Catalyst Funds’ chief investment officer David Burns telling Insider, “The companies that have the most exposure to missile defense systems are the ones that are gonna be the biggest beneficiaries of increased demand.” Software company Palantir has also seen its stock go up as the company provides services for the military, and analysts have suggested European defense companies will also benefit, with analysts at JP Morgan identifying BAE Systems, Renk, Leonardo DRS and QinetiQ as the ones with the most exposure to the U.S. market.”
Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil flows, has caused the price of crude oil to rise, which has been financially beneficial for oil and energy companies like Exxon, Chevron Corp., and Occidental Petroleum. Trump’s regime is banking on the U.S. monopoly capitalist class being willing to endure disruption to the global economy in exchange for profiteering and long-term gains. The goals of the U.S. is to secure their profit base in the Middle East and secure its hegemony against China and the European Union. Israel, for its part as the proxy of U.S. imperialism in the region, wants a pliant vassal state in Iran.
Once the underlying economic pressures are laid bare, the true nature of the war on Iran and the deeper machinations of capitalist society become apparent, and the empty phrases of Trump’s “two-week ceasefire” ring hollow. Deception has been key to the U.S.-Israeli strategy from the start, and this agreement is merely a fragile pause rather than a genuine attempt at deescalation. Negotiations have already stalled, or more likely been deliberately sabotaged. U.S. actions in Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba are all examples of a hostile and aggressive United States desperate to maintain its crumbling empire against the rise of China as a global imperialist competitor. War is an inevitable product of competition between the capitalist classes of great powers, and a more authoritarian, fascist-leaning U.S. turns increasingly to military force to maintain its global dominance.
The U.S. and Zionist war against Iran is fundamentally unwinnable. The U.S. and Israel expected Iran to collapse quickly after the assassination of its leadership, but it did not. Iran itself is a large, populous country with significant military capabilities, and sees the conflict as existential, and thus will not surrender. The U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will severely destabilize the global economy, further alienate allies, and further accelerate the decline of American influence. Inter-imperialist rivalry is intensifying, and without a revived Marxist-Leninist movement, the world risks the beginning of a catastrophic conflict.