Stop the Attack on Iran

SACC condemns the war of aggression initiated by Israel against Iran on 13 June, calls for the international isolation of Israel and particularly calls for an immediate and complete halt to all direct and indirect UK military  cooperation with or support for Israel, and a halt to any UK action against or interference in Iran. 

We note with alarm the strong indications that the US will join Israel's war. The war is a disaster for the people of the region. Any escalation will deepen and globalise the disaster. An Israeli victory, even if temporary, would be a still deeper disaster and would be a catastrophic setback for any prospect of Palestinian liberation.

We believe it to be beyond reasonable doubt that Israel's motive for starting the war was to create the conditions for the further intensification of its genocide and dispossession of the Palestinian people. The question of Iran's nuclear programme is a political pretext intended to hide the absence of even the flimsiest legal pretext for the war and to manipulate the US into joining the attack on Iran.

We believe that nuclear weapons are morally indefensible and strategically reckless. Any effect they may have in deterring large-scale war carries with it the possibility of global catastrophe and mass death should deterrence ever fail. We commend Iran's current policy against nuclear weapons.

Israel's substantial nuclear arsenal is an open secret that makes a farce of US statements about Iran's nuclear capabilities. Israels's nuclear weapons are a clear threat to world peace and have contributed to the unwillingness of countries around the world to stop Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The decommissioning of Israel's nuclear weapons and the creation of a nuclear-free Western Asia would greatly strengthen the peace and security of the peoples of the region and would be significant steps towards a nuclear-free world.

The US has its own reasons, semi-detached from its support of Israel, for its hostility towards Iran. From 1953 to 1979 Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi made Iran one of the closest US allies, perhaps more important than Israel. US control of Iran ended with the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but US hawks have never stopped dreaming of restoring Iran to client status. It is a fantastical goal, regardless of the destruction that the US may be able to wreak on Iran. But for some people in the "West" a client state disguised as democracy may appear to be a less immoral goal than the raw destruction sought by Netanyahu. Colonialism and genocide are siblings. We reject both of them and stand against any "Western" interference in Iranian affairs.

Trump has yet to make a clear public statement on whether he will take the US to war with Iran. But the military buildup for war is well underway and may be close to the level necessary for an attack. The US has always been reluctant to permit any pathway to peace once that kind of buildup has started, lest it appear weak to the world. A great and urgent global effort is needed to stop the drive to war. Clear statements from US allies that they will have nothing to do with Netanyahu's war might go some way to setting Trump's mind against war. We need to press our governments to make such statements. There may be very little time.

If you are in the UK, write to your MP and lobby them at their surgeries. Go on demonstrations against Israel's war on Iran. Go on demonstrations for Palestine and make sure that placards against the war on Iran are conspicuous. Press whatever organisations you are in to take a strong position against war. And do it quickly.

Note

SACC called for a halt to all UK military support for Israel in an earlier statement (31 October 2024). We re-affirm our support for the call by the BDS movement for “international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.”

More information

1. For an outline of the legal issues, see this Open Letter from International Lawyer Tayab Ali (17 June 2025).
2. For an assessment of Israel's nuclear weapons, see this House of Commons Research Briefing (16 June 2025) 
3. For some background on how Israel got its nuclear weapons, see this article by Victor Gilinsky and Leonard Weiss (21 March 2025)