On 14 April, the Australian Liberal party announced a new immigration policy, which would elevate acceptance of “Australian Values” to a legal requirement for entry. The Department of Home Affairs already publishes an Australian values statement which can be optionally included when applying for a visa, but is not a legal requirement.
For over a month, Israeli and US strikes have targeted every major city and province across Iran. As of 13 April, the Iranian Red Crescent has confirmed 2,076 deaths, overwhelmingly of civilians, but the real figure is much higher as many are buried under rubble.
Following the US and Israel’s scandalous, unprovoked attack on Iran, we are republishing the following article, which was first written after the 12-Day War in June 2025. It remains every bit as true as then.
As it explains, communists must be absolutely clear on one thing: this is a predatory, imperialist war waged to subjugate or destroy Iran in the interests of US and Israeli capitalists. We say unequivocally: Hands off Iran! Down with Imperialism!
The war in Iran, which started as a reckless gamble on the part of Trump, is developing into a significant strategic defeat for US imperialism, which can have important consequences for the world economy, the position of America as a world power, and world relations in general.
“Total and complete victory. 100 percent. No question about it.” With these words, Donald Trump described the two-week ceasefire with Iran announced last night.
In the morning of Saturday 28 February, Tehran was shaken by a series of loud explosions as US and Israeli missiles struck the capital of Iran. Clouds of smoke were also seen rising from Tehran, Qom and other Iranian cities, announcing the commencement of war.
Storm clouds are gathering over the Middle East as Israel, backed by the western imperialist powers, pushes the region ever closer to a devastating all-out regional war, highlighting yet again the choice before humanity: either socialism or barbarism.
The Palestinian people were forcibly expelled from their homeland by Zionist armed militias in 1948, in an event which remains in their collective historical memory as the Nakba, or the Catastrophe. The Zionist project had always envisaged such a development, and all genuine revolutionary Communists had consistently been opposed to the Zionist ideology. Why then did Stalin abandon the position of one state for the two peoples, Palestinian and Jewish, and come out in support of partition in 1947, together with the subsequent setting up of a separate Jewish state?
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza is reaching a pivotal stage. The horrifying images of butchered civilians have provoked a wave of revulsion across the world. Thousands have taken to the streets in capitals throughout the Middle East, demanding action in support of Gaza, while hundreds of thousands of people in the West have protested the complicity of their governments in Israel’s crimes.
The war in the Middle East, ignited by the US and Israel’s full-scale attack on Iran, has dealt a hammer blow to the world economy. Asia, though bearing no responsibility for Trump and Netanyahu’s reckless adventure, is among the heaviest casualties of the economic fallout. As the war rages with no end in sight, Asian workers must be ready to resist any attempt by the ruling class to make them foot the bill.
The US-Israeli war on Iran exposes the depth of Australia’s integration into the global imperialist order. Behind the language of ‘security’ and ‘human rights’ lies a ruling class whose interests are tied directly to the global dominance of American capital.
