US-Israel Launch Joint War on Iran, Exposing Diplomacy as Cover

Analysis of: US-Israel attack on Iran: Tehran launches retaliatory strikes as Trump says ‘major combat operation’ under way – live
The Guardian | February 28, 2026

TL;DR

US-Israel launch unprovoked war on Iran mid-negotiations, targeting leadership and military infrastructure while Iran retaliates against Gulf bases. This marks a dramatic escalation of imperialist intervention in the Middle East, prioritizing regime change over diplomacy and risking regional conflagration.

Analytical Focus:Contradictions Historical Context Interconnections

The joint US-Israeli military assault on Iran, launched while nuclear negotiations were actively underway, exposes a fundamental contradiction at the heart of American foreign policy: the rhetoric of diplomacy serving as cover for predetermined military action. Trump's explicit call for regime change—urging Iranians to 'take over your government'—strips away any pretense that this operation serves defensive purposes. The timing, coming just as diplomatic talks were progressing, mirrors the June 2025 attack that similarly torpedoed negotiations, revealing a pattern where military force consistently overrides diplomatic solutions. This operation represents the culmination of decades of imperialist pressure on Iran, rooted in the country's 1979 revolution that expelled Western capital and nationalized oil resources. The massive military buildup Trump called his 'beautiful armada'—the largest US force in the region since the 2003 Iraq invasion—was never genuinely leverage for negotiations but preparation for war. Israeli officials' admission that the attack was 'planned for months' and aimed to create 'bigger change, for years to come' reveals the maximalist objectives: not nuclear non-proliferation, but the destruction of an independent regional power that challenges US-Israeli hegemony. The immediate economic consequences—shuttered gas fields, closed airspaces, evacuated populations across multiple Gulf states—demonstrate how imperialist wars socialize costs across entire regions while concentrating benefits among weapons manufacturers and energy speculators. Iran's retaliatory strikes on US bases throughout the Gulf expose the vulnerability of America's military infrastructure and the impossibility of conducting 'limited' wars in an interconnected region. The civilian casualties, including 40 killed at a girls' school, will be dismissed as 'collateral damage' while the stated goal of 'freeing' the Iranian people rings hollow given the bombs falling on their homes, schools, and workplaces.

Class Dynamics

Actors: US military-industrial complex, Israeli state apparatus, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iranian civilian population, Gulf state monarchies, Western energy corporations (Chevron, Energean), European political leadership, Russian state, Working populations across Middle East

Beneficiaries: US and Israeli defense contractors, Energy speculators profiting from supply disruptions, Israeli political leadership seeking to eliminate regional rivals, Gulf monarchies aligned against Iran, US political figures seeking to project 'strength'

Harmed Parties: Iranian civilians (including 40+ killed at girls' school), Workers and residents across Gulf states under missile threat, Populations displaced by conflict, Global working class facing energy price increases, Diplomatic personnel whose work is rendered meaningless, Migrant workers in Gulf states (Asian national killed in UAE)

The attack demonstrates the asymmetric power relationship between the US-Israeli axis and regional states. Despite Iran's retaliatory capability, the imbalance in military technology and economic resources favors the aggressors. Gulf states, despite housing US bases that make them targets, have no meaningful sovereignty to refuse American military presence. European allies express 'concern' but remain subordinate to US strategic decisions. The power relationship also manifests domestically: Trump launched 'major combat operations' with 'minimal consultation with Congress or the American public,' revealing how war-making power concentrates in executive hands regardless of democratic pretense.

Material Conditions

Economic Factors: Control of Persian Gulf energy resources and shipping lanes, Israeli gas field vulnerabilities (Leviathan shutdown), Global energy market volatility, Defense industry profits from sustained military operations, Iran's economic independence from Western financial systems, Cost of maintaining US military infrastructure across Gulf states

The war targets Iran's productive capacity directly—its missile industry, navy, and military infrastructure—while simultaneously disrupting regional energy production. The shutdown of Israeli gas fields operated by Chevron reveals the material stakes: control over energy resources that generate profits for Western corporations. Iran's development of indigenous military-industrial capacity represents an attempt to escape dependency on Western arms markets, making it a target precisely because it challenges the monopoly on advanced military technology. The migrant worker killed in Abu Dhabi—identified only as an 'Asian national'—represents the expendable labor force that maintains Gulf infrastructure while bearing the costs of geopolitical conflicts they have no role in creating.

Resources at Stake: Persian Gulf oil and gas reserves, Strategic shipping lanes (Strait of Hormuz), Regional military infrastructure, Iranian nuclear program and missile production capacity, Israeli offshore gas fields, US military bases across Gulf states

Historical Context

Precedents: 1953 CIA-MI6 coup against Mossadegh (Operation Ajax), 2003 Iraq invasion under false WMD pretenses, June 2025 US-Israeli attack on Iran during negotiations, Pattern of attacking during diplomatic processes (Libya 2011), Historical Western intervention following resource nationalization

This attack fits within the broader pattern of imperialist intervention against states that assert economic independence from Western capital. Iran's 1979 revolution, which nationalized oil and expelled Western corporate interests, established it as a permanent target for regime change. The current assault represents the latest phase in a decades-long campaign that has included sanctions, covert operations, and support for regional proxies. Trump's explicit invocation of regime change—'take over your government'—echoes the rhetoric used to justify interventions from Guatemala (1954) to Libya (2011). The simultaneous Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict mentioned in the article reveals how peripheral states are drawn into permanent instability as great powers compete for regional dominance. This represents late-stage imperialist competition where declining US hegemony responds to challenges through military force rather than economic or diplomatic means.

Contradictions

Primary: The contradiction between stated diplomatic objectives (nuclear non-proliferation) and actual military objectives (regime change) reveals that negotiations were never genuine—the 'beautiful armada' was always preparation for war, not leverage for peace.

Secondary: Gulf states hosting US bases become targets, exposing how 'protection' creates vulnerability, Trump's 'America First' rhetoric contradicts subordinating US interests to Israeli strategic objectives (as Iran's foreign minister noted: 'Israel First means America Last'), Call to 'free' Iranian people through bombs that kill Iranian schoolchildren, European allies calling for de-escalation while maintaining military bases in targeted region, Russia's alliance with Iran versus Putin's reluctance to confront Trump over Ukraine interests

These contradictions cannot be resolved through military means. Each escalation deepens regional instability, expands the conflict zone (already affecting five+ Gulf states), and hardens Iranian resistance to Western demands. The historical pattern suggests that even 'successful' regime change (Iraq, Libya) produces not stability but prolonged chaos serving no one's interests but arms manufacturers. The contradiction between military aggression and stated humanitarian concern will intensify as civilian casualties mount, potentially generating both domestic opposition in aggressor states and regional solidarity with Iran. The economic contradictions—energy market disruption, war costs, regional destabilization—may ultimately constrain military operations more than any diplomatic or humanitarian considerations.

Global Interconnections

This conflict cannot be understood in isolation from the broader restructuring of global power relations. The US military buildup represents an attempt to reassert hegemonic control over the world's most strategically vital energy-producing region at precisely the moment when that hegemony faces challenges from multiple directions: China's Belt and Road Initiative, Russia's regional influence, and Iran's own efforts to build an independent regional bloc. The attack occurs against the backdrop of US economic decline relative to rising powers, making military force an increasingly attractive substitute for economic leverage. The involvement of multiple Gulf states—as both US military hosts and Iranian targets—reveals the integrated nature of imperialist infrastructure. These monarchies, themselves products of British colonial map-drawing, serve as nodes in a network of extraction that funnels energy resources to Western markets while providing bases for military projection. The simultaneous Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict referenced in the article demonstrates how the entire region exists in permanent instability, with borders drawn by colonial powers now serving as fault lines for endless proxy conflicts. The response of European powers—expressing 'concern' while hosting military bases and supporting sanctions regimes—exposes their subordinate role in the US-led imperial system, unable to pursue independent foreign policy even when their own interests in regional stability are threatened.

Conclusion

The US-Israeli assault on Iran represents not an aberration but the logical culmination of imperialist policy that has targeted Iranian independence since 1953. For working people globally, this war will mean higher energy prices, economic instability, and the diversion of resources from social needs to military destruction. The explicit regime change objective—Trump telling Iranians to 'take over your government'—reveals the contempt with which imperialist powers regard national sovereignty when it conflicts with their interests. Yet the contradictions this war generates—between stated and actual objectives, between 'protection' and vulnerability, between humanitarian rhetoric and civilian casualties—create openings for anti-war organizing. The Omani foreign minister's declaration that 'this is not your war' points toward the possibility of international solidarity against military aggression. Workers in the US, Israel, and allied states have no interest in wars that enrich arms manufacturers while impoverishing their own societies. The task is to transform recognition of these contradictions into organized opposition to the imperialist system that produces them.

Suggested Reading

• Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of imperialism as driven by the need for capital to secure resources and markets illuminates why the US targets Iran's independence and why military force substitutes for economic leverage as hegemony declines.
• The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (2007) Klein's documentation of how crises—including wars—are exploited to impose economic restructuring provides essential context for understanding the regime change agenda underlying military intervention.
• The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961) Fanon's analysis of colonial violence and the psychology of liberation helps explain both the dynamics of imperialist aggression and the forms of resistance it generates in targeted populations.
• The New Imperialism by David Harvey (2003) Harvey's concept of 'accumulation by dispossession' explains how military intervention serves capital's need to open new territories for exploitation when traditional accumulation stalls.