EDITORIAL
Trump’s War on Iran—Dragging Us into the Next World War

Apr 12, 2026

The war that Trump and Netanyahu started against Iran and Lebanon is suppposedly paused for two weeks.

Truce or no truce, Israel continues to pulverize the southern part of Lebanon, including its capital, Beirut. Trump continues to make wild statements about his war—the latest being that his god supports the U.S. and Israel in their war.

This war has already cost thousands of civilian lives in Iran and Lebanon. Schools and hospitals in Iran are being destroyed. A million people in Lebanon have been forced out of their homes by Israel’s bombs. But, says Trump, “God is good, and he wants to see his people taken care of.”

At an Easter egg hunt on the White House lawn, Trump told children gathered there that he doesn’t like killing people, but he might have to do it, sending all the Iranian people straight to hell.

Trump may seem mad. Netanyahu may seem mad. But this war is not the product of one man’s wild delusions—nor of several madmen conspiring together.

It’s the economic and social system that is mad. This system gives a country’s presidency to such men. How crazy is that?

This latest war in the Middle East is the logical product of capitalism, a social system based on the exploitation of labor by a tiny minority. It rests on violence to maintain severe and growing inequalities—inequalities first of all between classes, but also between ethnic and racial groups. There are worsening inequalities between nations. And sitting on top of this mess of inequalities is the U.S. superpower, which came out of World War II holding most of the world’s wealth, the only nation having benefitted materially from the war.

Devastating the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and much of the civilian populations of Dresden and Milan, the U.S. superpower never looked back. Engaging itself in never-ending wars, the U.S. amassed millions of victims in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

In all the years since the last world war, the U.S. has been preparing for the next one—pushing new technologies, storing up armaments, building bases all over the world—more bases than all the rest of the world put together.

The U.S. spends on war—this is why the country’s medical system is inadequate, why many schools don’t teach, why many children can’t read, why public transit is a joke. Money for war is money not spent on the population’s needs.

We are going to war—make no mistake about it. We are being prepared to go to war.

Four months ago, Congress enacted a law making registration for Selective Service automatic, using Social Security at birth to do it. There is no draft yet, but its machinery is being set up.

In the country as a whole, repression is speeding up.

Trump’s government has been putting its hands on the media: TV, local radio, newspapers. Several reporters were threatened with prison. Social media companies were served with a demand for the names on all accounts criticizing this war.

Several college professors who expressed socialist views or opposition to U.S. wars found themselves sacked. People who opposed the swarm of ICE troopers invading their cities were called terrorists, charged with felonies. Lawyers defending Trump’s critics found themselves charged.

No, it’s not everyone—not yet. But the prosecution of some is the threat toward everyone. This is terrorism aimed at making everyone shut up.

ICE itself is a preparation for war. It invades cities, using military weapons and disdain for civil rights. ICE’s roundup of immigrants shows the whole population how quickly civilian society can be put under military control.

We will have war—unless this capitalist society, which is mad, is torn up and tossed out. We will have war—until working people regain confidence in the power of their own class to tear up capitalism, and to run a sane society serving us all.