On 28 February 2026,  Israel bombed Iran , followed by USA— killing its head of state while peace negotiations were still underway. Diplomacy was not exhausted. It was simply set aside.

Among the first victims: 165 young girls killed when their school was bombed in Hormozgan province.

When a government bombs a school and kills 165 children for political change — that is terrorism. The United States and Israel are rogue terrorist states that have abandoned and diminished international law. This is not new for either state.

New Zealand Chose a Side

When Iran retaliated by striking the U.S. military bases on nearby Arab states   from which the attacks were launched, Prime Minister Luxon and Foreign Minister Peters condemned Iran in the strongest terms — while saying absolutely nothing about the strikes that killed Iran’s head of state.

Former PM Helen Clark called their statement a disgrace. Opposition leader Chris Hipkins called the strikes illegal. Te Pāti Māori drew the connection that needed drawing: powerful nations have always dressed aggression in the language of security, and it is always ordinary people who pay the price.

That silence from Luxon and Peters was not neutrality. It was a political choice — to align New Zealand explicitly with American and Israeli war aims, against the principles of international law New Zealand claims to uphold. NZ public opinion, consistently two-to-one in favour of sanctions on Israel, was ignored entirely.

Israel and the USA offered two pretexts. First, Iran’s nuclear programme — ignoring that it was Trump who tore up the 2015 Obama-negotiated JCPOA agreement and reimposed crushing sanctions, provoking Iran’s resumed nuclear activity. Israel itself has nuclear weapons, refuses to declare them, and has never been inspected. Second, democracy — something the USA has never once delivered in any country it has invaded. Their real goal is eliminating the one regional power that refuses their dominance, as they did to Gaddafi’s Libya when he moved to break from the US petrodollar system.

Washington has long dreamed of regime change in Iran — funding opposition groups, backing colour revolutions, and amplifying protests as the pretext for intervention, same as in Venezeula and multiple other sovereign states. Washington even backed Saddam’s invasion of Iran, then unlawfully invaded Iraq in 2003 when it no longer served their interests.

But poll after poll shows that most Iranians, whatever their frustrations with their own government, want far less U.S. interference, not more. Anti-American sentiment — rooted in the 1953 CIA coup, the decades of support for the Shah, and the sanctions that have strangled ordinary Iranian lives — runs deep.

There is a well-documented effect: when a state faces external attack, internal dissent fades and governments gain support — called “rally around the flag.” Washington’s bombs may have strengthened the Iranian government. This suggests the bombing campaign was itself a result of the failure to achieve regime change through the USA’s normal methods — covert operations, funded protests, and manufactured unrest.

An Empire in Its Death Throes

The United States has not formally declared war since 1941 — yet has conducted nearly 400 military interventions in 80+ countries and attempted 72 regime overthrows since World War II. It has never once produced a lasting democracy. What it has produced, reliably, is compliant governments and open markets for resources and American capital.

A deranged Trump, threatening to seize Greenland, blockade Cuba, and take over Venezuela, making open threats about Canada — these are not the actions of a confident superpower. They are the convulsions of an empire that no longer knows how to maintain dominance except through more force and intimidation.

“I was a racketeer for capitalism — a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, for the bankers” — USA General Smedley Butler, 1933

In 1953, Iran elected a democratic government that nationalised its oil. The CIA overthrew it and the oil companies returned. Iran got 26 years of U.S.-backed dictatorship, until their 1979 revolution. Today the same oil billionaires who funded Trump are the ones demanding war. Polls show 56-59% of Americans oppose it — Trump launched it anyway, without congressional authorisation.

The Wars Don’t Stop Themselves

Millions marched against Vietnam. Millions marched against Iraq in 2003 — the largest coordinated protest in human history. The wars continued until the cost of continuing them became too high. That cost is raised in the streets, not just in parliament.

The same Trump government bombing Iran is firing hundreds of thousands of union workers, cutting food and healthcare for the poor, and handing the profits to Big Oil. Our enemies are not in Tehran — they are in the White House and the corporate boardrooms.

Its time to march in the streets again.

NO WAR ON IRAN

U.S. AND ISRAELI FORCES OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST

NZ GOVERNMENT CONDEMN THE STRIKES

The world economic system is driven by West European capitalism, a system driven by growth, greed and individual competition. The ultimate competition is war. To end war, we need a new economic system based on cooperation not competition.

Capitalism and wage slavery is a system of exploitation, unsustainable growth and crises that creates inequality, poverty, crime, austerity, workers exploitation , alienation, drugs, wars, debt ,  and failing economies not meeting the needs of the vast majority of humanity and needs to be replaced now !

It’s an unjust system where 10% of New Zealanders own 50% of the wealth and three billionaires own more than the entire population of sub-Saharan Africa. While 1 child dies every 5 seconds as a result of hunger – 16,000 every day – 6 million every year ! Where failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions means that scientists now think that half the planet could simply become too hot for human habitation in less than 300 years.

A socialist society is one of co-operation where the means of production distribution and exchange are owned by everyone and the wealth of the world is shared more equally. It is a political and economic system that would be controlled democratically by all the people, through workers councils and community assemblies.

We fight for socialism from below.

However, we can’t fight that system on our own. Socialist organisations are necessary to overcome our individual powerlessness. Together we are strong. Join us.

Email: aksocialistaotearoa@gmail.com

Text: 029-4455-702

www.socialistaotearoa.org

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