The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) strongly condemns the recent large-scale military attack carried out by the United States and Israel on Iran. This escalation opens a grave new chapter of imperialist confrontation and risks dragging the world into a far more dangerous and destabilising conflict. The attack represents a significant intensification of U.S. and Israeli military aggression in the Middle East and carries the real risk of broader regional and global instability.
Rather than an isolated act, this military offensive must be understood within the context of a deepening crisis of global capitalism and the strategic efforts by the United States to retain its position as the dominant global hegemon. Washington’s posture is not shaped by claimed security threats, but by its broader geopolitical imperative to assert control over energy routes, strategic territories and global financial power in the face of rising inter-imperialist competition, particularly from China and other emerging powers.
U.S. and Israeli Imperialism in an Era of Global Tension
The use of military force against Iran is part of a broader pattern of U.S. militarism and interventionism. Under the current administration, foreign policy has combined with economic coercion, sanctions, punitive tariffs and military threats to discipline states perceived to be outside Washington’s orbit.
This pattern has included punitive tariff regimes as instruments of economic warfare, open rhetoric about annexing Greenland in the name of strategic security, aggressive posturing toward Nigeria and other African states, and interventionist manoeuvres against Venezuela, including efforts to destabilise and remove President Nicolás Maduro. These actions are not isolated missteps; they form part of a coherent strategy aimed at preserving U.S. supremacy in a multipolar world.
The attack on Iran must therefore be read within this continuum of imperial assertion. It signals a desperate attempt to demonstrate continued military dominance in the Middle East, a region central to global energy flows and geopolitical leverage.
Imperialism and the Crisis of Global Capitalism
SAFTU recognises that this escalation reflects the deeper crisis of a global capitalist system in decline. Faced with slowing economic growth, the China’s rise in the global economy, mounting debt burdens, widening inequality and the erosion of its unchallenged post-Cold War dominance, the United States is increasingly resorting to militarism as a mechanism of control.
When economic hegemony weakens, coercive power expands. When financial leverage falters, military projection intensifies.
This is not about democracy or human rights. It is about preserving strategic advantage, protecting financial interests and containing rivals. The logic is systemic: in periods of capitalist instability, war and confrontation become instruments of geopolitical management.
The world’s working people must not be drawn into conflicts born of elite competition.
The Working Class Pays the Price
Wars are not fought by billionaires. Wars are fought by workers’ children.
When military tensions escalate:
- Food prices rise.
- Fuel costs surge.
- Supply chains fracture.
- Public budgets are redirected from healthcare and education to defence spending.
- Austerity deepens.
For countries like South Africa, already confronting mass unemployment, fiscal strain and service delivery collapse, global conflict compounds domestic crisis. Oil price spikes translate into transport inflation. Exchange-rate volatility increases debt-service costs. Development priorities are displaced by global instability.
Militarism strengthens arms manufacturers and financial speculators. It weakens workers, the poor and the Global South.
A Secondary but Troubling Context
SAFTU also notes that this escalation occurs at a time when serious and unresolved questions remain regarding the release and full disclosure of the so-called Epstein files, linked to the crimes of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his network of powerful associates.
While this is not the central driver of geopolitical conflict, history shows that embattled political elites have often resorted to external confrontation when facing internal crisis or reputational pressure. The sudden intensification of international tensions amid ongoing demands for transparency inevitably raises troubling political questions.
International conflict must never serve as a shield against accountability. War must never become a diversion from democratic scrutiny. Accountability and transparency remain fundamental to democratic governance, and no individual, regardless of office or status, should be beyond the reach of due process.
However, the deeper structural forces at play remain geopolitical and economic: the crisis of global capitalism and the struggle to maintain imperial dominance.
SAFTU’s Position and Call to Action
SAFTU calls for:
- Immediate de-escalation of military tensions.
- For the American working class to oppose Trump’s war of aggression against Iran
- An end to coercive economic and military interventions designed to preserve hegemonic dominance.
- Global solidarity among working-class movements against imperialist war.
The working class must not be used as a pawn in elite power struggles, whether geopolitical or domestic.
The world is already economically, socially and politically fragile. To inject reckless military escalation into this environment is to risk catastrophe.
Debt crises, climate breakdown, inequality and social unrest already define our era. Military confrontation only accelerates systemic breakdown.
People before empire.
Statement issued on behalf of SAFTU by the General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi.
For media inquiries contact, the National Spokesperson at Newton Masuku
newtonm@saftu.org.za
0661682157
Media Officer
Asive Dyani
0719019564
