Sunday 19 July , 2026 | 06:20
June, 23rd 2026
On Wednesday, June 17th, Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed remotely a “Memorandum of Understanding” to end the war launched by the imperialist power and Israel on February 28th. Trump did so at the Palace of Versailles, on the sidelines of the G7 summit, justifying his actions with an unfortunate comparison to President Herbert Hoover, during whose presidency the 1929 crisis began: “I didn’t want to see an economic catastrophe. If this had continued, that’s what would have happened.” The final signing was expected on Friday of that week, but Israel’s continued offensive against southern Lebanon led Iran to maintain its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz—one of the main issues the memorandum is intended to resolve. Finally, on Sunday, June 21th, negotiators from both sides met in Lucerne, Switzerland, at a property owned by Qatar, to effectively implement the agreements; on that occasion, both sides maintained rhetoric that was palatable to their domestic audiences. U.S. Vice President Vance emphasized the return of IAEA inspectors to Iran to verify compliance with the disposal of Iran’s enriched uranium and the monitoring of its nuclear facilities; while the Iranians set as conditions the lifting of the blockade on their ports, the lifting of sanctions on their oil sales, and the unfreezing of their assets in Qatari banks (The Guardian, 6/22). Throughout the day, the passage of four oil tankers through the strait was confirmed.
Acknowledgment of failure
The first thing that stands out to all analysts is that, with this agreement, Trump confirms the failure of the offensive launched alongside Israel in February. Moreover, it is a failure with high costs—not only because of the billions of dollars spent on military hardware unleashed upon the workers and people of Iran, but also because of the consequences of the double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz for the entire global economy. These economic consequences hit U.S. allies hard—and primarily within the imperialist metropolis itself—setting pressure on the administration to try to extricate itself from the problem before inflation and the looming recession squander any chance the Republicans have of retaining control of Congress after the midterm elections to be held in November.
One of the main contradictions of the memorandum—and what makes it extremely fragile—is that it imposes limits on Israel’s military offensive against Hezbollah and its invasion of southern Lebanon. At the time of writing this article, it remains unclear to what extent Israel will accept negotiations between the U.S., Iran, and Lebanon to resolve this issue without its participation. But the reactionary bourgeois nature of the Iranian regime is laid bare: it prioritizes its economic interests—as the real determining factor for implementing the agreement—over its unconditional defense of Lebanon’s territorial integrity, which appears as point 1 of the agreement, a point that has been postponed for future talks. This does not mean the problem is solved: we saw the insults Trump hurled at Netanyahu when trying to move the negotiations forward. Israel is clearly weakened, and the more cornered the Zionist occupying power feels, the more brutal its colonialist and genocidal policies will become in defense of its own survival.
The weaknesses of the memorandum also highlight the difficulties imperialism faces in withdrawing once it embarks on a military adventure. And this leads us to analyze the global situation as a whole: for Israel, the attack on Iran was an offensive aimed at sustaining its precarious position in the region; for the U.S., it was part of its policy of encircling China as part of its strategic plan to assimilate the former workers’ states. Iran is an important ally of China, both geopolitically and economically, as it is a linchpin of the New Silk Road initiative and a major supplier of raw materials, particularly hydrocarbons. The goal of toppling the Ayatollahs’ regime to impose an Iranian version of “Delcy Rodríguez” proved to be a miscalculation on the part of imperialism. Nor did Trump count on the resistance of the population of a vast country with a history of struggle and workers’ and popular organization. Viewed in this light, the memorandum appears to be the price imperialism is willing to pay to call a truce on this front of the all-out war it is preparing in an attempt to regain the initiative in the face of the crisis in the postwar balance of power and the erosion of its own hegemony—all against the structural backdrop of the system’s decomposition.
There is no truce in the offensive against the working class
The G7 summit showed that the U.S.-Iran memorandum is far from being a call for peace. NATO and European countries are accelerating rearmament and militarism; the Russia-Ukraine war is intensifying; Israel disregards any truce and is advancing its occupation of 70% of the Gaza Strip while extending the destruction to southern Lebanon and Beirut. Above all, the offensive against the working class is intensifying, with new attacks on living and working conditions, increased repression against immigrants, attacks on labor unions (as is happening in Italy against those who stand in solidarity with Palestine), and the push for labor and pension reforms. Our class is taking to the streets to fight back, as demonstrated by the general strike in Portugal, the actions in support of Palestine in Italy, the blockades against the government of Paz in Bolivia, and the organizing against ICE in the U.S.
In a dynamic leading toward widespread war, we revolutionaries stand for the defeat of imperialism against an oppressed nation like Iran, advocating for the need for our class to intervene through its own methods: strikes, blockades of military shipments, and sabotage of the imperialist war machine. Today, more than ever, the anti-imperialist struggle is inextricably linked to socialist tasks in order to provide a revolutionary and proletarian way out to the situation.
In the Middle East, it is necessary to expel the Zionist occupying entity—that is, to destroy Israel. This entails confronting the Arab governments that prop it up and fighting against the bourgeois states to establish a Federation of Socialist Republics in the region as the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. We must develop the anti-imperialist struggle in the U.S. and Europe by confronting the imperialist states themselves. In Russia and China, we must combat Putin and the counterrevolutionary leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, fighting against capitalist assimilation. In Latin America, we must confront imperialism’s main supporters in the region—the proponents of the “Shield of the Americas” such as Kast, Milei, and Paz—as well as the so-called progressives who negotiate a better position for their bourgeoisies in the exploitation of our class, such as Lula and Sheimbaum.
In a global situation marked by the collapse of the pre-existing balance of power and the threat of widespread war to establish new, likely even more brutal forms of capitalist exploitation, the world proletariat has the final say. It is on the battlefield of class struggle that we will be able to defeat our enemies’ plans for extermination. Rebuilding the Fourth International—the world party of the working class armed with the theory-program of permanent revolution—is the task of the hour for a new generation of revolutionaries forged in the heat of today’s fierce struggles. We Trotskyist currents that defend the program of the dictatorship of the proletariat must discuss how to intervene in the situation; to that end, we call for the urgent organization of an International Conference.