Fascism and war are causing an imperialist conflagration in the Middle East Fight fascism and the danger of world war!

2. The background to the war is the open crisis of the reorganization of international production, which is visibly intensifying and deepening. Under penalty of demise, the imperialists are waging a battle of annihilation among themselves over who will rule the world politically, economically, and militarily. Trump and Netanyahu want to push back the influence of their imperialist rivals Russia and, above all, China, and reorder the region under their hegemony. The US is trying tooth and nail to assert its claim to world domination. This war over the resource-rich region represents a new quality of inter-imperialist contradictions: the US and Israel are consciously accepting the possibility of a military response from China and Russia. After all, Iran is their closest ally in the region. This could mean the beginning of a Third World War.

3. In Iran, a cruel fascist mullah regime has ruled for decades. Just because Iran is fighting the US does not elevate it to the status of an anti-imperialist force. On the contrary, in recent years it has developed into a new-imperialist power that exploits its own working class, commits massacres on mass demonstrations, and through capital export, arms and oil exports, and militias abroad asserts its interests. A country that is attacked in violation of international law has the right to defend itself militarily under Article 51 of the UN Charter. That does not give Iran any legitimation to attack numerous countries, and by no means only military bases, but also to target the civilian population. For the Iranian regime it is a matter of survival. Motivated by fanatical fascism, it is determined to involve more and more countries in the war and provoke a NATO alliance case under Article 5. It is doing so in the knowledge that this contradiction could lead to a split in NATO, because not everyone in NATO wants to support such an alliance case.

4. More and more countries are being drawn into the war; at least 15 countries are already involved, and the number is constantly growing. The entire region is on fire. Imperialist countries like Germany, Britain, France, and Turkey are also positioning themselves in the region. What will happen if, for example, Turkey or Britain trigger NATO's mutual defense clause? Israel has launched a ground offensive in Lebanon. All of this is extremely dangerous and has far-reaching global consequences: the impact on the environment is dramatic, as is the impact on the already aggravated social situation of the masses. Energy prices are already rising worldwide.

5. Of all people, the fascists Trump and Netanyahu present themselves as liberation fighters for the Iranian people. But choosing between two variants of fascist regimes is like choosing between the plague and cholera. The peoples of Gaza, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Iraq can tell us a thing or two about the freedom the imperialists have brought them. True liberation can only be achieved by the working class together with the broad masses, in Iran through an antifascist democratic revolution with the prospect of genuine socialism.

6. Present-day international law was also a lesson in democracy learned from World War II. It rightly prohibits preventive wars and violent encroachments on the territorial integrity of other countries. This international law, as much as it has already been watered down in recent decades, is now to be consigned to the history books once and for all according to German Chancellor Merz. The right of self-determination of every people must be defended.

7. Under Chancellor Merz and his supporters among the international supermonopolies, Germany is developing even more rapidly than before into a particularly aggressive warmonger on the world stage. “We are on the same side,” he sucks up to Donald Trump, turning things on their head. As if Israel and the US were the victims under attack. He does not want to “lecture” anyone on international law. Germany’s entry into the war is already being considered, euphemistically described as “defensive military measures” to “destroy at the source Iran’s capacity to launch missiles and drones.”¹ Does Merz want the German armed forces to participate in attacks against Iran’s military installations? This week, students in over 140 German cities took to the streets to express their justified refusal to go to war for such a government!

8. Those in power in the US, Iran, and Israel are under fire from the working class and the masses of the people: millions are forming up to resist, 30 million demonstrated against Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, hundreds of thousands against the ICE troops in the US or against the attacks on Rojava, and took to the streets against the massacre committed by the Iranian regime. With indomitable will to resist, courage, and determination, even to the point of defying death, they have stood up to fascist policies. In Germany, over the past two years seven million people have taken part in demonstrations against the AfD and the fascist threat. Around the globe, struggles against the warmongering of governments are developing. Workers' struggles are picking up. Dockworkers in the Mediterranean held an international day of strike action against arms deliveries. Imperialism is not all-powerful. In the long run, no war can be waged against the masses of the world. Humanity is not willing to perish in world war, barbarism, and fascism.

9. This development is destabilizing the entire imperialist world system at an accelerated pace. As dangerous as all this is, the ruling class is also digging its own grave. Sooner or later, this will result in the revolutionization of the masses around the globe. All over the world there is now a need for steeled Marxist-Leninist parties and a well-organized front against fascism, war, and environmental destruction. A front that overcomes fragmentation, in which the working class takes the leading role, in which a common strategy and tactics are developed, and which can convince the masses. The struggle for freedom and democracy by broad strata of society in Iran must include the perspective of socialism. Only socialist societies can bring lasting peace, freedom, democracy, and the unity of humanity and nature to the Middle East and the whole world. The progressive people of the world are called upon not to let themselves to be played off against each other or blinded by the demagogy of various imperialist powers, but to raise the banner of international solidarity together. To this end, it is necessary to overcome the petty-bourgeois fascist and petty-bourgeois anticommunist modes of thinking on a mass scale. Marxist-Leninist educational work and consciousness-raising are the key.

The MLPD demands an immediate end to the fascist war against Iran and the masses of the Middle East by the US and the Israeli government! Stop the brutal warfare, including that of Iran!

Fight fascism throughout the world, which provokes these wars and wages them in an inhuman manner!

Against any imperialist aggression!

Immediate stop to arms deliveries and cooperation by the German government for this war!

Break off all diplomatic relations with fascist-Zionist Israel and Iran and stop the profiteering of German monopolies there!

Support and promote with all our might the unification of the masses of Kurdistan, Palestine, Iran, and others to become a force superior to imperialism!

Strengthening of the revolutionary world organization ICOR and the United Front is the right way to go!

The MLPD calls for supporting progressive demonstrations, for strengthening alliance work to this end, and for using the Monday demonstrations and Easter marches to counter the acute danger of world war!

For a worldwide day of struggle of the world peace movement!

Neither mullah nor shah!

Democracy, freedom, and genuine socialism for the peoples of Iran!

Workers of all countries, unite! Workers of all countries and all oppressed, unite!

Forward to the united socialist states of the world!

Further information and dates and times of rallies: www.rf-news.de