Imperialist War and the Attempt to Reshape the World and the Region

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European states in the 1980s and 1990s, the balance of the global order as it was known was disrupted. The United States and Western capitalist states moved to exploit this imbalance to impose an unrivaled military, political, and ideological hegemony.

However, reality was more complex than it appeared on the surface. It was not only the model of the so-called “socialist” states—which were, in reality, socialist only in name—that collapsed; rather, the entire capitalist system itself was in crisis, with no way out of its chronic impasse except through further wars and impoverishment. US imperialism believed that through wars it could impose its economic and geopolitical dominance over the world, thereby shaping a new global order in which it reigned supreme as an unchallenged power—what its strategy dubbed the “Project for the New American Century.” The reality on the ground indicates quite the opposite. Decades of imperialist military and economic wars have led to the rise of economically and militarily powerful regional actors such as China, India, South Africa, and Brazil, while in our region, Israel, Turkey, and Iran emerged as major players. The US-British invasion of Iraq in 2003 marked a decisive turning point in this turbulent landscape. The defeat of the US in Iraq—culminating in 2011 and its aftermath—was a clear indicator of the declining dominance of US imperialism, despite its claims to the contrary. Economically, China has become its primary military and economic rival, while regional powers broke free to play larger, more independent roles. Globally, the war in Ukraine since 2022 stands as a testament to a emerging global order that has yet to fully solidify, wracked by deep internal contradictions. Regionally, ongoing wars—especially since 2023—have reached their peak in today’s continuing imperialist war on Iran.

There is no stable global or regional order; rather, there is a bloody global and regional crisis of the capitalist system. It is a violent labor within a crisis-ridden capitalist system based on competition and profit, destined to persist for a long time at the expense of the lives, dignity, and right to self-determination of the working class and popular masses. Thus, the revolutionary socialist position has always stood firm against imperialist inter-state rivalries, upholding internationalist solidarity with workers and the oppressed, affirming that the primary enemy lies at home within their own governments, while opposing all imperialist wars waged against colonized and oppressed peoples.

The ongoing US-Zionist war on Iran forcefully demands a clear political stance. Contrary to the arguments presented by sections of the Syrian reformist left, US imperialism and Iran cannot be placed on equal footing. America, the supreme imperialist superpower, is waging its war to force Iran—its regime and its people—into subjugation for its own interests. We cannot stand with a brutal imperialist power aggressing against a weaker nation and people. While we have stood, and continue to stand, with the struggles of the Iranian people against their regime for democracy, social justice, and radical change, the current imperialist war has halted these internal struggles and rallied support around the existing regime. Furthermore, the defeat of Iran would mean that the entire region falls under Israeli dominance backed by the US, transforming it into the paramount regional power controlling the peoples of the region to compete with Erdogan’s Turkey from a position of dominance, at the cost of oceans of blood spilled from our peoples.

This imperialist war, therefore, requires us to stand against it and against the puppet regimes complicit in it. The defeat of Iran signifies full US-Zionist imperialist dominance over the entire region, crushing the spirit of resistance and further dampening the capacity of its peoples for emancipatory struggle.

The Syrian situation lies at the very heart of this regional and global turmoil. As is now well known, the new Thermidorian authority—one of the key factions of the counter-revolution—was handed power through regional and international consensus. The US President loses no opportunity to declare before the head of this new regime that it was he who handed them power in Syria with Turkish and Israeli approval.

Despite the current weakness of this Thermidorian authority—which relies on jihadi and sectarian militias and mobilizes a fascist base for killings, intimidation, massacres, and enforcing its rule—it remains ever-ready to do the bidding of its imperial masters: from its potential role against Hezbollah in Lebanon, to its war earlier this year to dismantle the Autonomous Administration and attempt to abort the Kurdish movement, to sealing the eastern borders to prevent connection between Iraq and the resistance movement in Lebanon, and finally, as reports indicate, sending its fighters to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, as it previously did elsewhere at Turkey’s request. It is a client regime with multiple masters: the US, the West, Turkey, the Gulf states, and Israel. It functions closer to a mercenary company serving its masters than a sovereign state.

In this regard, sections of the reformist and Stalinist-rooted Syrian left rush to justify this reality, arguing that regime changes in Syria have always occurred through imperialist interventions, making the new authority no exception. Adding to the opportunistic nonsense that characterizes them, they claim that the regional and international powers that brought this new regime to power will compel it to be democratic rather than autocratic! What wretched nonsense and deceit from these “leftist” political forces—especially considering they were among the reformist and liberal forces that previously gambled on the intervention of Iran, Russia, and China to reform the Assad regime through negotiations. These “leftist” and “democratic” parties base their policies entirely on relying upon—or rather subordinating themselves to—the assumed good intentions of imperialist and regional states. They view the instrument of change in our countries not as the masses, but as the “hidden hand” of major regional and global powers. We see the dismal results of such failed bets across our country and the region: a bottomless catastrophe.

In sharp contrast, we call for reliance on our working people and popular masses as the true agents of change, building internationalist solidarity among them and between their emancipatory and leftist forces. Overthrowing these puppet regimes and achieving radical social and political change—rooted in the interests of the working people, building their democratic organs of power from below—is the only path to stopping imperialist wars, ending the endless bloodbath and destruction, and restoring the sovereignty, freedom, and dignity of the people.

All Power and Wealth to the People!

Revolutionary Left Party

July 2026