Iran and the new cold war

The following article by Carlos Martinez, originally published in the Morning Star, argues that the criminal Israeli-US strikes on Iran are not credibly rooted in concerns over the latter’s alleged nuclear weapons program, but rather in its consistent anti-imperialist stance and its far-reaching material support for the cause of Palestinian freedom.

The article also links the attacks to broader geopolitical dynamics, especially Iran’s deepening alliance with China. Since signing a 25-year cooperation agreement with China in 2021, Iran has become integral to the Belt and Road Initiative, in addition to joining BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and emerging as China’s primary trading partner in West Asia.

This growing partnership makes Iran a strategic obstacle to US-led imperialism, especially in the context of the New Cold War against China. Carlos draws parallels with the 1953 coup against Iran’s Prime Minister Mossadegh, orchestrated by the CIA and MI6 to protect Western oil interests in the context of the original Cold War.

Today, the New Cold War, centred on US efforts to encircle and contain the People’s Republic of China, is adding urgency to the US’s bid for regime change in Iran. Iran’s deepening integration into the Belt and Road Initiative, and its close coordination with China and Russia, mark it as a frontline state in the struggle between the Project for a New American Century and the Global Community of Shared Future…

The installation of a US proxy regime in Tehran would be a major blow to the Belt and Road Initiative, and it would potentially compromise China’s energy security, giving the US de facto control over the flow of oil and other resources through the Persian Gulf.

The article concludes by urging Western anti-war movements to oppose this escalating campaign to preserve and expand imperialist hegemony.

There has been a great deal of speculation as to the reasons for the criminal Israeli-US attack on Iran.

The reason proffered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump is that Iran is on the cusp of acquiring a nuclear weapon, and that therefore the forcible dismantling of its nuclear infrastructure is a matter of great urgency.

Obviously, no reasonable person believes this; certainly nobody who remembers Tony Blair’s cynical 2003 claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

After all, Netanyahu first publicly accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons back in 1992 – 33 years ago – when, in a speech to the Knesset as Deputy Foreign Minister, he declared that Iran was three to five years away from acquiring a nuclear weapon and argued for preemptive action.

Netanyahu was later subjected to widespread mockery in September 2012 when, holding up a cartoonish drawing of a bomb during his speech at the UN, he claimed that Iran was 90 percent of the way to the level of uranium enrichment needed for weaponisation.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to deny seeking nuclear weapons and is a longstanding signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The country’s government maintains a strict edict against the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons or indeed any weapons of mass destruction – contrasting rather starkly with Israel, an undeclared nuclear weapons state and non-signatory to the NPT. Furthermore, there has been no credible intelligence validating Netanyahu and Trump’s claims about Iran’s weapons program.

A much more credible reason for the attacks on Iran is its consistent support for Palestine. Iran is the state that has done most to provide material support – in the form of weapons, training and funding – to the forces of Palestinian liberation over the course of several decades. Plus, Iran is at the core of the Axis of Resistance against Zionist and imperialist interests in West Asia.

Given the genocidal war that Israel is waging on Gaza, combined with its bid for broader regional hegemony and its recent attacks on Lebanon, Yemen and Syria, it’s not entirely surprising that it has launched this criminal assault on Iran.

Another element to consider is that, with the Syrian Arab Republic gone from the scene after 14 years of devastating proxy war and suffocating sanctions, Israel currently enjoys far greater freedom of action that it previously did. If nothing else, Israeli warplanes can fly with impunity through Syrian airspace. Meanwhile, the current Syrian administration – motivated by a deep sectarian antipathy to Shi’a Islam as well as a need to please its paymasters in Washington – has moved to prevent Iranian military activity within its borders.

So far, so obvious. But there is also a wider geopolitical dynamic at work.

Iran’s ties with China

In 2021, Iran and China signed a 25-year cooperation agreement including hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese investment in the Iranian economy – in energy, in infrastructure, transport, digital technology, advanced industry and more.

The deal provided a lifeline to Iran, which had been suffering badly under the illegal US-imposed sanctions regime. Signing the agreement, then-Foreign Minister Javad Zarif stated that “China is a friend for hard times” and noted that “the history of cooperation between two ancient cultures of Iran and China dates back centuries”.

China has since become the principal buyer of Iranian oil, which constitutes around 15 percent of its oil imports. Iran is China’s number one trading partner in West Asia, and the two countries have collaborated on a number of important infrastructure projects, including the construction of the Persian Gulf Bridge between Qeshm Island and the Iranian mainland, and a freight railway line connecting Xi’an in China to Iran’s Aprin dry port.

Iran became a member of BRICS in 2024 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2023. It has become a key partner in the China-initiated Belt and Road Initiative. As such, it can be considered as being closely aligned with China’s vision of a Global Community of Shared Future and its proposal for a multipolar system of international relations.

This blossoming relationship provides an important clue as to why Iran is being targeted for war and regime change. Whatever anyone thinks of the religious and philosophical framework of the Iranian state, Iran is an anti-imperialist country – a key supporter of Palestine, a key component of the multipolar project, and a reliable friend of China and Russia.

Needless to say, replacing such a state with a proxy regime is a dearly-held dream for imperialist strategists. What they desire is a government “wholly subservient to neo-colonialist interests … its economic system and thus its political policy directed from outside”, to use the vivid words of Kwame Nkrumah in his classic 1965 work, ‘Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism’.

Plus ça change

A regime change operation against Iran, in the context of a Cold War waged by the US and its allies against the world’s leading socialist country, is something of a throwback.

Seven decades ago, in 1953, the CIA and MI6 orchestrated the overthrow of the Iranian government led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, which had committed the unforgiveable crime of nationalising the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (what is now BP). Mossadegh’s government was replaced with the brutal dictatorship of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, which proved to be significantly more responsive to the needs of Western energy companies, in addition to allowing its territory to be extensively used for US surveillance of the Soviet Union. Iran came to be a leading regional proxy of Western imperialism.

Today, the New Cold War, centred on US efforts to encircle and contain the People’s Republic of China, is adding urgency to the US’s bid for regime change in Iran. Iran’s deepening integration into the Belt and Road Initiative, and its close coordination with China and Russia, mark it as a frontline state in the struggle between the Project for a New American Century and the Global Community of Shared Future.

Michael Flynn, a retired US lieutenant general who served as National Security Advisor in the early days of the first Trump administration, confirms this analysis, saying that “a positive US relationship with a new Iranian regime, so whatever the regime is that rises up out of the ashes, if we have a positive relationship with that regime, that really benefits the United States of America, particularly against China, and it weakens China”.

The installation of a US proxy regime in Tehran would be a major blow to the Belt and Road Initiative, and it would potentially compromise China’s energy security, giving the US de facto control over the flow of oil and other resources through the Persian Gulf.

The empire strikes back

The West is losing its economic dominance. Measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), China is now the world’s largest economy; measured in nominal GDP, it is the second largest, projected to surpass the US within the next few years. BRICS has overtaken the G7 in terms of economic size, and China is fast catching up in terms of science and technology. However, the fact is that the US still retains military hegemony, with its 800 overseas military bases and its extensive deployment of troops and weapons around the world.

As the mechanisms of ‘cold’ war – tariffs, export controls, sanctions, propaganda etc – prove increasingly ineffective, we can expect the leaders of the US-led imperialist world order to use ever more desperate, and ever more violent, means to fight back against the multipolar trajectory. Such is the global context to the recent attacks on Iran.

The anti-war movement in the West must be ready to firmly resist this escalating campaign to preserve and expand imperialist hegemony.