Intro
On June 16, 2025, the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) countries, all of which possess nuclear arms with the exception of Canada and Japan, issued a joint statement blaming Iran for Israel’s attacks that began on June 13, under the pretense that in the near future Iran could develop nuclear weapons. The US, a member of the G7, is the only country in the world to have ever used nuclear weapons in warfare when it indiscriminately leveled the entire Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. Israel, an ally of the G7, maintains a secretive nuclear weapons program, and unlike Iran, is not a party to the nuclear weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The G7, at its recent meeting in Alberta, also showed total disregard for the lives and safety of Iranian, Palestinian, Yemeni, Lebanese and Syrian civilians, when it spuriously claimed that “Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror” rather than Israel and the G7 themselves.
Later at the same meeting, the Canadian Prime Minister pledged an additional $4.3 billion in aid for Ukraine (on top of the $4.5 billion in military assistance already committed since 2022) and condemned Russia’s “barbarism,” which, only last year hadn’t been quite barbaric enough to keep Canada from lifting sanctions on Russian titanium. In 2023, Canada and Ukraine cut a deal under which Canada will supply all of the uranium needed to fuel all nine of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors for 12 years.
For Canada, invasion and attacks are only wrong when it happens to allies like Ukraine, and aren’t even wrong enough to stop the purchasing of crucial Russian materials. When settler colonial allies like Israel perpetrate invasions and attacks on other countries, it’s claimed that they are in the right, and they are supplied with weapons, while their victims are thrown under the bus.
Meanwhile, Ukraine itself has purchased Israeli weapons for use in the Western-backed war against Russian invasion and occupation, and has consistently offered political support to Israel, indicating that it too only considers invasion and occupation to be wrong when it happens to themselves and considers Palestinians to be less human than themselves.
This all could be considered rank hypocrisy except for the fact that it represents the entirely consistent imperialist and militarist interests of the allied countries of the West. Just look at how Canada and the US treat the Indigenous peoples of North America, who are supposedly their “own” people, and you will see how much they really care about the safety and security of human lives around the world.
On June 21, 2025, the US, moving beyond its previous support for Israel, carried out airstrikes of its own on three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran. However, this attack was not without historical context.
In 2020, the US assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani with an airstrike in Iraq. The US still maintains military bases in Iraq more than two decades after its 2003 invasion and occupation of that country, an effort that was at first materially supported by Canada, Ukraine, and the UK, among other countries.
In its wars against Iraq launched in 2003 and 1991, the US used depleted uranium rounds, a type of ammunition that makes use of the byproduct of the production of nuclear weapons and energy. This ammo is a chemical and radioactive pollutant linked to birth defects and cancer amongst Iraqi civilians. More recently, the US has been supplying depleted uranium rounds to Ukraine. The US has the largest stocks of depleted uranium in the world.
During the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s, the US materially supported both sides, but primarily Iraq against Iran.
In 1953, a coup backed by the US and the UK overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed a regime more to the West’s liking. The 1979 Iranian Revolution, in turn, was something of a setback for the West.
In the present day, imperialism, militarism, ecological destruction and settler colonialism continue to threaten humanity, as well as other life forms, while capitalist democracy presents no solutions, its platitudes ringing hollower than ever as the catastrophe only escalates.
-Ed.
(Updated June 29, 2025, originally published June 19, 2025)
Reverse chronology
On June 25, 2025, Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Member of Ukraine’s Parliament and (ironically) the President of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, praised nuclear-armed Israel for attacking Iran and supposedly protecting human rights (Palestinians, Iranians and Afghan refugees in Iran apparently don’t count as human to him.) When subsequently interviewed by The Times of Israel about this speech, Goncharenko doubled-down, saying he could only assess Israel’s fight against Palestine “in the most positive terms,” and that he sees Israel and Ukraine as “fighting together against the global axis of evil” that includes Iran.
-Ed.
“SAIB [Stop Arming Israel Belgium] says Francken’s and Versluys’ responses ‘instrumentalise’ the war in Ukraine. ‘OIP is 100% controlled by Elbit, Israel’s largest private arms company. Every euro goes to fund a group up to its neck in genocide in Gaza and apartheid in the occupied territories […] We can support the Ukrainian people without collaborating in the genocide of the Palestinian people.'”
“In the immediate term, we must respond by unequivocally condemning the Israeli aggression and the US declaration of war, and we must do so without concession to any phony equivalence that ascribes blame to both sides.”
The Iranian people are confronted by enemies within and enemies without, by Amir Khadir (2025)
“These attacks, carried out by a nuclear-armed state against a non-nuclear signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), set a dangerous precedent.”
Statement on the U.S. Bombing of Iranian Nuclear Facilities, by Project Ploughshares (2025)
“Military action is not a viable or long-term solution to prevent nuclear proliferation.”
“Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said on June 22 that Iran’s nuclear program must be dismantled to prevent it from threatening the Middle East or the wider world, following U.S. air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.”
“She said she believed those who refused her entry to the shelter recognised her and knew that she worked at the local clinic – but turned her away anyway. She was wearing her medical uniform at the time.”
Palestinian nurse denied entry to Israeli bomb shelter by patients, by Lubna Masarwa (2025)
“It’s a long and complicated history, but let’s start in 1951 — when tensions between Iranians and foreign powers influencing the country first start to bubble.”
The US-Iran conflict: A timeline of how we got here, by CNN (2025/2020)
Editorial note: Perhaps it should go without saying that CNN is a source fully aligned with American imperialism and any use of its work as a reference point should be taken with a grain or two of salt.
“As the world focuses on Israel’s war with Iran, violence against Palestinians has scaled up in the occupied territories.”
Israel massacres in Gaza, locks down West Bank as attention shifts to Iran, by Al Jazeera (2025)
“But no state is entitled to use justice for Iranians as a pretext for advancing its own ambitions for domination…”
Canada must not be complicit in Israel’s war on Iran, by Amir Khadir (2025)
“The US-led invasion of Iraq followed soon after, but no weapons of mass destruction were found.”
Imminent threat for more than 30 years, by Al Jazeera (2025)
“But unlike Iran, Israel has not signed the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty], and is one of only five countries not to be party to the 1968 treaty. This means that the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] has no way to monitor or verify Israel’s nuclear arsenal.”
What do we know about Israel’s own nuclear weapons?, by Rayhan Uddin (2025)
“Israeli air strikes on Tehran have disrupted daily life, killing civilians and fuelling fears of a wider regional war.”
The human toll of attacks on Iran, by Al Jazeera (2025)
“And in common with most Palestinian-majority towns, Tamra does not have a single underground shelter. Like much else in Israel, there is nothing equal about the way death comes from the sky.”
“It also accuses civilians in Gaza of celebrating ‘atrocities’, appearing to justify Israel’s indiscriminate war against the Gaza Strip, which has so far killed over 55,000 civilians.”
Ukraine publishes history book that portrays Israel as ‘victim’, by The New Arab (2025)
“Spending by the nuclear armed states – China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the UK and US – increased by nearly $10 billion from 2023 with the private sector earning at least $42.5 billion from their nuclear weapons contracts.”
“Kyiv on June 13 expressed concern over the security situation in the Middle East after Israeli air strikes against Iran, but stressed that Tehran remains a ‘source of problems’ in the region ‘and beyond.'”
“In total, 164 export permits were used by Canadian companies to ship military goods to Israel, making it the third-most popular non-U.S. destination for Canadian suppliers last year.”
Canada Sold $18.9 Million Of Military Goods To Israel, Despite ‘Pause’, by Alex Cosh (2025)
“The current wars of occupation in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, in addition to the recent anti-colonial uprising in Kanaky (New Caledonia), make revolutionary defeatism more topical than ever.”
Anarchism and Revolutionary Defeatism, by K. C. Sinclair (2025)
“Under the agreement, the US government will distribute the propellant to both Ukraine and Israel.”
Canada under Contract to Supply the IDF with Artillery Propellant, by Kelsey Gallagher (2025)
“Of the more than 100 companies in Canada that produce components for the F-35 combat aircraft, Mississauga-based Magellan Aerospace is one of the largest.”
Winnipeg plant one of largest F-35 parts producers in Canada, by James Wilt (2024)
“Israel is also a leading buyer of U.S. weapons systems via traditional arms sales.”
U.S. Aid to Israel in Four Charts, by the Council on Foreign Relations (2024)
“Contrary to the contested use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons following the Iraq war in 2003, which led some nations to seek a ban on DU use and even eliminate their existing arsenals, there is now a growing tendency both toward the use and production of DU weapons, rendering such weapons as ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable.'”
“‘Israel and Ukraine have a common enemy, and this enemy is Iran,’ the head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying by the Maariv news agency.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister discusses regional and global threats with Israeli counterpart (2024)
“Compared to the political maneuvering needed to skirt South Korean arms transfer laws and undermine Pakistani democracy, a third major source of 155mm shells was comparatively straightforward: for decades, the United States has ‘prepositioned’ large stockpiles of weapons in Israel and, in early 2023, it transferred 300,000 155mm shells from this reserve to Ukraine.”
Imperialism’s Shell Game, by Darryl Li (2024)
“The companies listed here have provided Israel with weapons and other military equipment used in its attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria since October 2023.”
Companies Profiting from the Gaza Genocide, by the Action Center for Corporate Accountability (2024)
“U.S.-led naval forces seized the weapons and ammunition from four stateless ships sailing the waters of the Middle East from 2021 to 2023, the statement said.”
Seized weapons meant for Houthis transferred by US to Ukraine, by Stars and Stripes (2024)
“…Canadian troops stationed in Latvia took delivery of a rush order of the Israeli-made Spike LR2 anti-tank system.”
“As can be seen, the vast majority of Ukrainians – 69% – sympathize with Israel. Only 1% sympathize with Palestine. At the same time, 18% of respondents answered that they sympathize with both sides equally. The remaining 12% could not decide on their opinion.”
“Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process needed to create nuclear weapons.”
A look at the uranium-based ammunition the US is sending to Ukraine, by Tara Copp (2023)
How the purchase and use of Israel’s recoilless grenade weapon, RGW 90 (MATADOR), field-tested against Gazans in 2009, is helping Ukraine’s war effort, by Interesting Engineering (2023)
“Ukraine’s 12-year deal to buy enough uranium from Canadian miner Cameco Corp to power all of its nuclear reactors gives each side the right to change sales volumes with two years’ notice, the Ukrainian state-owned utility Energoatom told Reuters.”
Ukraine’s nuclear deal with Canada’s Cameco carries big risks, rewards, by Reuters (2023)
On Ukraine’s purchase, licensing and use of Israeli Tavor assault rifles, by the Armourer’s Bench (2022)
“In the decades since that fateful July morning in 1945, at least eight nations have carried out an estimated total of 2,056 nuclear tests – around one-quarter of them in the atmosphere – causing long-term harm to human health and the environment”
The Human Cost of Nuclear Testing, by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (2021)
“We share the view of fallen Black freedom fighter and Civil Rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. that ‘The greatest purveyor of violence in the world: my own government.'”
“The Greatest Purveyor of Violence”: Black Rose Statement on U.S. Aggression Against Iran (2020)
“So regardless of whether the US escalation with Iran triggers a ground conflict or leads to an occupation, it represents another step towards a US foreign policy that presumes and hastens a future of global civil war.”
Against All Wars, Against All Governments: Understanding the US-Iran War, by CrimethInc (2020)
Editorial note: More recently, CrimethInc republished a statement by Roja, “an independent leftist-feminist collective based in Paris, comprised of comrades from Iran,” which equates the Israeli settler colonial regime’s fraudulent claims to self-defense with those of the Iranian regime, without ever even mentioning the Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, on April 1, 2024, nor the American airstrike assassination of Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020, nor the American-backed coup of 1953. In this way, Israel and America’s responsibility for their own actions is displaced onto the Iranian regime, as is also the case later in the same statement, where Roja absurdly blames Iran for “diverting public attention from Gaza, which facilitated the Israeli operation against Rafah,” and for the US vetoing “UN recognition of Palestine as a state.” Opposition to the Iranian regime does not really require absolving Israel and the US of their actions. Such politics are simply imperialist campism, in this case, for the camp of the West.
-Ed. (2025)
The Specificity of Imperialism, by Salar Mohandesi (2018)
“There must be a way to think about earth and land and being that would make the idea of nuclear weapons impossible. And to think of the waters as well.”
The Irradiated International, by Lou Cornum (2018)
“In 1985, while Iran and Iraq were at war, Iran made a secret request to buy weapons from the United States.”
The Iran-Contra Affair, by PBS (2017)
“Yet Israel and South Africa broke the rules, but they did not face consequences.”
Why an apparent Israeli nuclear test in 1979 matters today, by Leonard Weiss (2015)
“Canada will join a training mission to help Ukraine’s military in its struggle against Russian-backed rebels, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday, following months of requests for assistance from Ukraine’s government.”
Ukraine crisis: Canada sending 200 trainers for Ukraine military, by CBC (2015)
“To research a possible link between US bombardment and rates of birth defects and pediatric cancer in Iraq is a moral imperative”
The victims of Fallujah’s health crisis are stifled by western silence, by Ross Caputi (2012)
“Most Canadians still proudly believe that their government refused to join the Iraq War. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Canada’s secret war in Iraq, by Richard Sanders (2008)
“What the Reagan administration did do to aid the war effort of Iraq was to share key battlefield intelligence, intelligence gleaned from satellite photos own by the United States with the Iraqis. And the US made available to Iraq hundreds of millions of dollars in food credits that permitted Baghdad to spend the revenues it might have needed for importing food on weapons.”
U.S. Links to Saddam During Iran-Iraq War, by Alex Chadwick and Mike Shuster (2005)
“As matters turned out, the overthrow of [Iranian Prime Minister] Mossadegh in August 1953 was much more an American operation than a British one.”
Iran 1953: Making it Safe for the King of Kings, by William Blum (2004/1995)
“Ukrainian troops surrendered the eastern [Iraqi] city of Kut to Shia militants yesterday, abandoning civilian officials, including 13 Britons who escaped under fire, coalition sources said.”
Shia militia takes city as Ukrainians flee, by The Telegraph (2004)
“Two Ukrainian soldiers were wounded on Monday when clashes erupted between Ukrainian forces and Iraqi police on one side and demonstrators demanding jobs, our correspondent reported.”
Ukrainian troops hurt in Iraq job riot, by Al Jazeera (2004)
“During this period a ‘record number of defections’ from Western imperialism occurred: Ethiopia in 74, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, leading up to Grenada, Nicaragua, & Iran in 79, & Zimbabwe in 1980.”
Against Imperialism: International Solidarity and Resistance, by Endless Struggle (1990)
“La question des libertés et la lutte contre la dictature sont ainsi liées, dans leur moment d’origine, à la question de l’indépendance nationale. Combattre le despotisme est une nécessité interne à la lutte anti-coloniale ou anti-impérialiste.”
Critique et Passion de la Révolution Iranienne, par Zahrâ Salmân (1983)
“Nuclear weapons development is not only a product of the military complex’s continual momentum to expand and build new weapons systems, but is also the final solution to the threat that Third World liberation movements pose to American and Soviet imperialism.”
How We See It, by the Vancouver Five (1983)
“Guided by Indian representatives from the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC), they saw the largest open pit uranium mine in the world, the Jackpile mine on the Laguna reservation, where Native American miners are on strike for a new contract.”
Japanese Delegation Supports U.S. Anti-Nuclear Movement, by Tom Barry (1978)
“Events in Persia have moved with a rapidity which has startled political commentators.”
New Phase in Oil Struggles, by Freedom (1953)
“The revelations about the ‘democratic’ States’ construction and ultimate employment of the two atomic bombs that alone caused the deliberate murdering of several hundred thousands of innocent men, women and children — ought to dispel once and for all time any illusion that the common man ever held of the ‘democratic’ State having any more regard for human life and welfare than the fascist, nazi or bolshevist State.”
Mankind and the State, by Marcus Graham (1946)
“So the conclusion is that, for an anarchist, the primary enemy is the oppressor who is closest to him, and against whom he can fight more effectively.”
Our Foreign Policy, by Errico Malatesta (1914)
“Isn’t imperialism derived from patriotism and militarism? These constitute the warp and woof from which the fabric of imperialism is woven.”
Imperialism: Monster of the Twentieth Century, by Kōtoku Shūsui (1901)
Also
Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) Movement
Anarchists & Fellow Travellers on Palestine
The April Uprising in Iraq (2004)
The Lebanon Crisis, by War Commentary (1943)
Long Live Free Algeria!, by the Federation Communiste Libertaire (1954)
Refusal/Desertion (If We Must Fight, Let’s Fight for the Most Glorious Nation, Insubordination)