Against the Stream

All the warning lights are flashing. With the US and Israel relentlessly bombing Iran for nearly a month and the Strait of Hormuz remaining closed, the economic consequences of the Iran war are spelling serious trouble for economies worldwide. Stagflation, factory shutdowns, falling crop yields, and rising interest rates are no longer hypotheticals – they are unfolding in real time, and growing more severe by the day.

Who will be hardest hit by the fallout from this US-Israeli aggression? As with any imperialist war, it is the working class who are made to pay the price. An estimated 45 million people are already projected to fall into severe poverty, pushing the figures to record highs.

In the advanced capitalist economies, any gains made by ordinary people since the end of the pandemic are being wiped out in an instant. Serious bourgeois economists and commentators are growing anxious – not because their own fortunes are at stake, but because of the revolutionary implications of a new global slump.

In this week's episode of Against the Stream, Hamid and Jorge examine the enormous economic fallout of the Iran war, and take on a viewer's question about whether socialism can be achieved through parliament.

New episodes of Against the Stream air every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

📖 RECOMMENDED READING 📖

International Debt Report 2025: When relief isn’t enough — LMICs face their largest external debt outflows in 50 years | World Bank
🔗https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/international-debt-report-2025--when-relief-isn-t-enough---lmics

Why the Middle East conflict threatens record levels of hunger | World Food Programme
🔗https://www.wfp.org/stories/why-middle-east-conflict-threatens-record-levels-hunger

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️

00:00 – Intro
01:10 – Developments in the war
18:05 – Impact on world economy
33:15 – The impending food catastrophe
43:54 – The crisis of debt
53:57 – Poor countries are hit hardest
01:01:52 – Q: Revolution through parliament?

🌐 LINKS 🌐

✊ Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443
📱 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/

"Head-spinning betrayal." These are the words of dissident Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene – and they are undoubtedly echoed by millions of Trump voters across America, who have watched their 'peace president' turn warmonger while they foot the bill at the gas pump and the grocery store.

Three weeks into the war with Iran, the costs – both material and symbolic – are becoming an unsolvable problem for Donald Trump. As Hamid Alizadeh and Jorge Martín discuss on this episode of Against the Stream, what appeared to be a solid and unified bloc when Trump was elected, has always been an illusion. MAGA is revealing itself as a heterogeneous movement of conflicting class interests, and the conclusions being drawn by ordinary people are anything but insignificant. The consequences for the American class struggle in the period ahead will be colossal.

In this week's episode, Hamid and Jorge dig into the profound domestic fallout of the Iran war, while also turning their attention to another front in Trump's campaign of imperialist bullying: Cuba, which now finds itself in grave danger.

New episodes of Against the Stream air every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

📖 RECOMMENDED READING 📖

The Economist – America’s friends must help extricate it from an unlawful war
🔗https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-friends-must-help-extricate-it-from-an-unlawful-war

The Guardian – UK security adviser ‘attended’ US-Iran talks and judged deal was within reach
🔗https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/17/uk-security-adviser-attended-us-iran-talks-and-judged-deal-was-within-reach

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️

00:00 – Intro
01:25 – Iran war and its impact
37:23 – Do MAGA supporters want peace?
48:03 – Cuba update

🌐 LINKS 🌐

✊ Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443
📱 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/

As the war on Iran enters its third week, US imperialism finds itself mired in a deepening crisis. What Trump envisioned as a swift decapitation strike is rapidly proving to be the gravest blunder of his presidency – and perhaps one of the most catastrophic miscalculations in the history of American foreign policy.

Iran, meanwhile, is raising the stakes. Oil and gas prices are soaring, and the spectre of a new global economic slump looms ever larger. Ordinary people are watching these events unfold with a mixture of shock, bewilderment, and rage.

The question of how to fight back against imperialism and put an end to its unrelenting cycle of violence is weighing on the minds of millions.

In this episode of Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh and Fred Weston examine how communists must take up the struggle against US imperialism today, contrasting the Marxist approach with the positions of both the reformist left and so-called third-worldism.

New episodes of Against the Stream air every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

📖 RECOMMENDED READING 📖

The war on Iran: where do communists stand?
🔗https://marxist.com/the-war-on-iran-where-do-communists-stand.htm

Trump’s massive Iran aggression gamble becoming a catastrophic miscalculation
🔗https://marxist.com/trump-s-massive-iran-aggression-gamble-becoming-a-catastrophic-miscalculation.htm

Financial Times – 'Iranians rethink the price of regime change'
🔗https://www.ft.com/content/4e048ed0-9bba-4392-8cee-7f1337c0b211

New York Times – 'Pace of Iran's retaliatory strikes appears to be slowing'
🔗https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/world/middleeast/iran-weapons-missiles-israel-gulf.html

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️

00:00 – Intro and updates to the situation
15:15 – What is imperialism?
29:45 – The reformist 'solution'
48:55 – The 'Axis of Resistance'

🌐 LINKS 🌐

✊ Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/

The United States and Israel have launched a war on Iran. Missiles and bombs are falling across Tehran and beyond, with strikes hitting schools, military installations, and government compounds throughout the country. Thousands of people are being killed and injured in yet another wave of imperialist bloodshed.

On today's episode of Against The Stream, Hamid Alizadeh is joined by Niklas Albin Svensson to analyse this major turning point in world events from a communist perspective. Already, things aren't going the way Trump had hoped, with Iran firing back, US munitions stretched thin, and the threat of a prolonged conflict the US cannot afford…

New episodes of Against the Stream air every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

📖 RECOMMENDED READING 📖

The war on Iran: where do communists stand?
🔗https://marxist.com/the-war-on-iran-where-do-communists-stand.htm

Trump’s massive Iran aggression gamble becoming a catastrophic miscalculation
🔗https://marxist.com/trump-s-massive-iran-aggression-gamble-becoming-a-catastrophic-miscalculation.htm

Alliance of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan statement
🔗https://x.com/PDKIenglish/status/2028556271700549982
🌐 LINKS 🌐

✊ Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/

Donald Trump is once again banging the war drums, threatening military action against Iran. He has now assembled the largest US naval build-up in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq – including two aircraft carriers and hundreds of fighter jets.

The recent kidnapping of Maduro appears to have emboldened Trump and the warhawks in Washington, convincing them they can dictate terms through sheer force. But a war with Iran would not be a simple show of strength; it would risk spiralling far beyond US control.

This looming conflict is not an isolated event, but the product of decades of US imperialist intervention that has sown chaos across the Middle East. As Ben Curry and Hamid Alizadeh discuss in this latest episode, new fault lines are opening, which threaten fresh and bloody clashes across the region. All this while crises at home, including the fallout from the Epstein files, expose the deep rot at the heart of American capitalism.Fittingly, this episode also tackles a key question sent in by a listener: will a revolution necessarily be violent

New episodes of Against the Stream air every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

📖 RECOMMENDED READING 📖

Red Sea rift: US allies split into armed camps
🔗https://marxist.com/middle-east-divide-fault-lines.htmThe establishment has been rocked before.

Epstein is an existential threat
🔗https://www.thetimes.com/uk/royal-family/article/epstein-king-charles-british-monarchy-d7nxllfgq?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqfauVuwblbIy7ObbYJ5jMpOy4JSsVK2VWzBII0HGdoA2-CILWfjl88pZFz3PVE%3D&gaa_ts=69a06606&gaa_sig=VxBVBRNrLEXvVW-tWp7tZ0xwCM7-Z6MjuWqKNJGscxX_5bQsVJaV5_Q673BjJE7n-nCzvPxbFQGUzbDIRq9WVg%3D%3D

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️

00:00 – Intro
01:15 – Iran military buildup
24:09 – Realignment of powers in the Middle East
46:48 – Epstein scandal out of control
01:04:16 – Question: do communists want violence?

🌐 LINKS 🌐

✊ Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/