On Tuesday March 3, approximately 100 students at San Diego State University demonstrated to express their opposition to the criminal war against Iran launched over the weekend by the United States and Israel in violation of international law.
The demonstration drew participation from students in the vicinity, several student organizations, and interest from dozens of students who could be seen standing at the windows of buildings near where speeches were taking place. Protesters rallied and then marched across campus. Students wore keffiyehs, carried Palestinian flags and handmade anti-war signs reading “I am not dying for the Epstein class,” “No war on Iran” and “End American Imperialism.”
The Trump regime has launched this war amid overwhelming popular opposition. Its outbreak is imparting renewed urgency to the reemergence of the student movement that began in 2023 against the genocide in Gaza and to the development of a mass anti-war movement rooted in the working class.
The US military has murdered vast swaths of the Iranian leadership, and set the entire region ablaze. Trump and company have set into motion a vast and illegal war against peace, which has spiraled far beyond their control. More than 1,000 civilians have been killed in Iran since the criminal war began on February 28, including at least 180 children, according to Iranian health authorities and humanitarian organizations.
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), which has a club at San Diego State University, intervened in the demonstration, distributing the Socialist Equality Party’s statement “Stop the criminal US-Israeli war against Iran!” to hundreds of participants and students. The IYSSE interviewed Sean, a student who denounced the war:
“I think the driving force is control, imperialism, I mean the Iranian government is one that is completely polarly unaligned with the US and the US wants control of that region, and wants to protect its ally Israel. It’s just an extension of other conflicts in the Middle East. It’s just an extension of the history of the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it threatens the lives of people everywhere. The ruling class doesn’t care what people think. It only moves to advance its own interests, and the only people that can stop it are the working class of people who actually provide the labor that fuels every aspect of life, including that war. So it takes people protesting, voting, but most importantly, like withholding their labor, because that is what drives the profit of the whole thing.”
The IYSSE addressed the audience, calling for a conscious political orientation to the working class: “[T]he vast majority of the country opposes this war… Normally when a war starts, it’s at the peak of its popularity, and over the course of it, the popularity declines. Right now, the ruling class is starting a war at only 21% popularity. This is going to produce a massive radicalization of the American working class. When the workers are mobilized, they can put a stop to the war.
“We have outlined the outrages. We have outlined the situation that is facing the country, and facing the country of Iran. But we need to discuss next steps: the first step needs to be to take this protest movement off the campuses and into the working class.
“We must fight to connect the issues of the exploitation of workers in the United States with imperialism. The same corporations and oligarchs that are exploiting American workers are the same corporations and oligarchs driving this country into war. So the working class has an objective interest in stopping war and they must be connected with a socialist perspective. And so that’s what I’m inviting you to do and join us.”
The lessons of the struggle against the genocide in Gaza must be studied carefully because the same methods for the destruction of Gaza are being applied to Iran. There has been an international experience of widespread massive outrage and protests. The lessons of these experiences prove that the decisive question is one of perspective.
Students and youth must grasp the origins of this war, the social forces driving it and the strategy required to stop it. The independent mobilization of the international working class is the most urgent necessity in the struggle against imperialist war.
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality at San Diego State University endorses and is fighting for the broadest possible audience for the emergency global webinar “Stop the imperialist war of extermination against Iran!” called for this coming Sunday, March 8, by the World Socialist Web Site.