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Ten days into the illegal US-Israeli war against Iran, opposition continues to be widespread among workers in the United States. A Quinnipiac poll released Monday found that 53 percent of registered voters oppose the war, and 74 percent opposed sending ground troops into Iran, which Trump is reportedly seriously considering. The same poll put Trump’s approval rating at only 37 percent.
Ty, a teacher from Alabama, told the WSWS she considers it “an unnecessary war, an unprovoked war and unjust war. They bomb people and boats, and there is no Congressional approval.
“It is a global attack,” she continued. “They are tearing everything to pieces; it is absolute chaos. Trump wants to use this to declare a state of emergency and take away voting. He established a ‘Board of Peace’ and immediately went to war.”
She added: “America is not the good guys. They are doing what they did in Gaza. But Iran is not Palestine. Iran has $30,000 drones, and the US is losing million-dollar weapons to go after them. The US will run out faster. This will be super ugly.
“We don’t have the right to tell the Iranians what to do. How is the US the moral compass? We have our own government dictating to us.
“The working class has to stop the war,” she added. “The Democrats are complicit. They are billionaires too. They talk on the newscasts like they oppose it—but show us with your vote. They voted to give Trump all the funds for war. They claim they are against ICE, but they gave ICE the funding.”
A Detroit IT worker told the WSWS, “This is a repeat of Iraq, and we don’t need to do that again. You think that we would have come further than this and at this point learned our lessons from Iraq. You’ve seen Iraq’s bloody toll. It’s staggering and heartbreaking. I couldn’t stand to see it again.
“These wars are about oil,” he continued. “It’s about putting down the Middle East and more economic wars with China. We could be just a normal country. That would be fine.”
Asked about the costs of the war, he said, “It’s all going to come out of our pockets. So we can pay both Israel and the US to go to war once again.” Turning towards the growing conflict with China, he added, “If China is able to build a better product than us, why would [the US] go out and try to bulldoze other countries until there is no one left to buy from China? There has to be another way that doesn’t involve sending our brothers, our cousins and sisters out to die in Iran.”
He expressed revulsion at the US missile strike on a school in Minab that killed 170 people, mostly Iranian school girls between 7 and 12 years old. “For them to say that that was an accident is absurd. It’s 2026, get real. Those things [weapons] are made to go to a very specific spot. It’s disgusting to act as if it’s going any other way.”
Asked what he thought had to be done to stop the war, he concluded: “Italy just had a general strike. If the Italians can do it, why can’t we?”
Catastrophic economic consequences being imposed on workers
The Quinnipiac poll also found that 74 percent of US voters are either very concerned or somewhat concerned about gas prices rising as a consequence of the war. On Monday, oil prices surged to $120 a barrel, before subsiding following hollow claims by Trump that the war would be over quickly, as well as plans by G7 governments to release oil from their strategic reserves as a stopgap. However, it is widely recognized that a war lasting even a few months risks sending oil past $200 a barrel and triggering a global recession.
As always, it is the working people who will be made to bear the cost through inflation and layoffs. Already, gas in the state of Michigan surged 60 cents to $3.58 a gallon, according to the Detroit Free Press. “Gas prices surged across Southern California this week, with the statewide average climbing above $5 per gallon and some drivers encountering prices more than $8 at the pump,” KABC in Los Angeles reported Sunday.
“It’s the working class who goes to war,” said Ty. “It’s our pockets and our taxes. Last week, gas was $2.40 a gallon [in Alabama], now it’s $2.99. That’s just the beginning. The prices for everything will increase. It’s all out of our pockets.”
Tony, a young skilled trades worker in Detroit, said, “I heard about the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. This is so directly Trump’s fault. We were already talking about everything being so expensive and wages not going up.” He called the war “disgusting” and the rationale for it “absurd to say the least.”
“I found out that Venezuela has one of the largest reserves of oil in world,” he continued. “Is the plan to take over Venezuela and flip oil for ridiculous prices?”
Tony added, “We are the richest nation in the world, and people are still struggling to feed themselves. We have the technology to feed everybody on the plant, but instead we just waste resources.
“I feel like this Iran war is going toward civil war [in the United States], especially if they try to send ground troops. I am one year out of draft age, but if it gets serious, they are going to try to draft me. I am not killing Iranian people. They have done nothing to me. I don’t support that at all. They are people like me. They are just trying to live their lives.”
A food service worker for the Minneapolis Public Schools who has been active in anti-ICE protests said, “The price hikes are just starting to hit. There is a looming sense of something bigger is coming, however, perhaps nuclear war. Maybe the Trump and Epstein cabal will be desperate enough to go that route. The things they’ll do to cover up the things they’ve done in the name of their power is horrifying.
“This war began with the murder of these school children with a Tomahawk missile. And that is just this war alone. What about Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and then Iraq again? And before that before that—Vietnam, Korea? Everywhere, the US has went under the Monroe Doctrine. We’re the global police, and behind the scenes, all the sick, sadistic stuff these people have been doing.
“This Christian nationalism angle better get this whole fiasco shut down officially,” he concluded, “otherwise unofficially the government is going to have a revolt on their hands.”
A General Motors worker from Flint said, “The war in Iran is abhorrent. Mass death is looming and the stress of what is on the horizon is affecting the world.
“Everyday, I go into the factory; all day on an assembly line is not an easy task. The labor is physically and psychologically exhausting and dirty. Every minute is spent looking at the clock, waiting for lunch time or a couple minutes’ break. With our working hands, we are creating profits we could never dream of having. The paycheck that I come home with is spent on bills and survival.”
She continued, “In a time of war such as now, my paycheck buys even less than last week. The rest of the profit me and my coworkers generate is spent by those who hold power—people I can’t relate to, like [GM CEO] Mary Barra and all the oligarchs. Our money is taken by the government to spend on war, killing workers, people exactly like me but from a different part of the world looking at the same clock.
“Yesterday, younger workers in my factory talked about how they will get drafted before getting hired in as full-time employees, sarcastically saying they won’t have to worry about retirement.
“We workers do not want to be a part of this war. We keep voting for the same politicians from the Democratic and Republican parties. Neither party has our interests in mind. It’s more apparent today than it has ever been in history, the working class of the world has to unite and start strategizing and making plans globally to put an end to this nightmare.”