There are no two sides to Western imperialism

“Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran [...] from further threatening international peace and security,” Prime Minister Mark Carney proclaimed after the U.S.-Israel bombing of Iran began on February 28, 2026.

The same genocidal playbook now being enacted in Iran and Lebanon is one we have witnessed in Gaza.

He claimed in a later statement to hold this position “with regret,” while reiterating that Iran is “the principal source of instability and terror throughout the Middle East.” A similar talking point has emerged within the Canadian left: the idea that the left cannot oppose the U.S.-Israeli intervention without also demanding the Islamic Republic be replaced.

Taking this position ignores that West Asia has suffered for decades under the boot of Western-sponsored terror and instability. Sanctions, covert operations, war, ethnic cleansing, and starvation have killed millions across our region. The same genocidal playbook now being enacted in Iran and Lebanon is one we have witnessed in Gaza

Positioned as nuanced reasoning, arguments that oppose U.S. intervention while demanding regime change erase important history, context, and material analysis, ultimately justifying that intervention, however indirectly.

Already, the recent U.S.-Zionist aggression has resulted in over 1,900 Iranians murdered, as reported to Al Jazeera by Iran’s deputy health minister Ali Jafarian, and civilian infrastructure targeted. On the first day of the attack, the U.S. targeted Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, massacring over 165 schoolgirls between the ages of seven and 12. 

In southern Lebanon, Israel has intensified its bombardment while targeting various areas across Beirut. As Zionist officials vow to ethnically cleanse and wantonly destroy Lebanon, over one million people have been forcibly displaced and Lebanon’s Ministry of Health reports over 1,000 murdered by Israel and the U.S. since February 28, 2026.

Liberation is not Western sponsored

Positioned as nuanced reasoning, arguments that oppose U.S. intervention while demanding regime change erase important history, context, and material analysis, ultimately justifying that intervention, however indirectly. U.S.-led sanctions, assassinations, covert warfare, regime change threats, and cyber attacks have crippled Iran for decades, making Western imperialism the principal contradiction (a term coined by Mao Zedong) to Iran achieving national sovereignty and independence. Imperial tactics, as Iranian legal scholar Helyeh Doutaghi writes, “work in tandem to create an environment of instability and distress within Iranian society, economy, and politics.”

In Iraq, then-U.S. president George Bush claimed they were bringing peace and democracy. In Syria, it was “dignity and freedom.”

Western intervention has only resulted in death, destruction, oppression, and the suppression of national sovereign aspirations. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, supported by Canada, resulted in a massive plunder of Iraqi resources, the de-development of infrastructure and institutions, and the murder of over one million Iraqis. As we have seen in occupied Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere, there has been a concerted effort to destroy the social fabric of these societies for imperial domination. 

In Iraq, then-U.S. president George Bush claimed they were bringing peace and democracy. In Syria, it was “dignity and freedom.” And in Iran, Western leaders, including Carney, made their rounds to claim that they are empowering the Iranian people to “determine their future.”

Resorting to reductive and constructed binary oppositions of “good vs. bad” or “people vs. regimes” must be abandoned for genuine solidarity.

Much of the left sees through the lie that imperial violence enacted by the U.S. and Israel has anything to do with human rights, dignity, or peace. Some, however, fail to understand that U.S. aggression on Iran is also an attack against Iran’s commitment to and support for anti-imperialism and Palestinian liberation. The subjugation and economic strangulation of Iran, as in Cuba and Venezuela, is precisely because it opposes U.S. and Western domination. 

Selective solidarity

To claim solidarity with Iranians while calling for the removal of their government plays into Western propaganda by justifying the collapse of the state in the name of the people. It separates the Iranian people from the state institutions and functions which make their survival possible and shield them from imperial violence and domination. 

As Palestinian writer and activist Bassel al-Araj wrote, “The beginning of every revolution is an exit, an exit from the social order that power has enshrined in the name of law, stability, public interest, and the greater good.”

Bikrum Gill, a scholar of political economy, writes “People do not exist in the abstract. The Iranian people, like all people, live within structures of power. And the Islamic Republic – whatever its internal contradictions – is fundamental to the structural challenge to U.S. imperialism and Zionism.” It is, in fact, the constant threat of Western imperialism which undermines the agency of Iranians. To weaponize the grievances of Iranians and disregard their agency in an attempt to deliberate on the Islamic revolution or government is disingenuous. Resorting to reductive and constructed binary oppositions of “good vs. bad” or “people vs. regimes” must be abandoned for genuine solidarity. 

To be truly anti-imperialist

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has posed a challenge to the Western agenda in the region through its staunch anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist stance. Iran’s defiant refusal to submit to U.S.-Zionist domination, its material support for resistance within West Asia, and its alliances with countries like China, Russia, Cuba, and the Alliance of Sahel States (Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso) is precisely why it is being subjected to this aggression.

The violence against Iran, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and Iran’s material and moral support for Palestinian resistance are inseparable. For over five decades, Iran has been a thorn in the imperialist-Zionist project in West Asia. 

As Palestinian writer and activist Bassel al-Araj wrote, “The beginning of every revolution is an exit, an exit from the social order that power has enshrined in the name of law, stability, public interest, and the greater good.” Indeed, Iran’s support for Palestinian liberation is an exit from colonial domination and Western imperialism; there is no room for hesitation or bothsidesing. To be truly anti-imperialist, the Western left must stand firmly against U.S.-Zionist imperialism and support both the government and people of Iran in that struggle.