The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality in Sri Lanka will hold an urgent public meeting on March 17 from 4–6 p.m. at the Public Library Auditorium in Colombo to discuss the escalating imperialist war against Iran and the tasks confronting the working class in Sri Lanka and internationally.

The US-Israeli war of annihilation against Iran is part of the drive of US imperialism for world hegemony. The US is using its superior firepower to reassert its world domination amid its continuing historic decline.

Before waging the illegal war on Iran, the Trump administration fully backed Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and militarily asserted its neo-colonial domination over Venezuela, by abducting President Maduro and compelling it to submit.

As the war against Iran enters its second week, more than a thousand people, including children have been killed, and the country’s infrastructure is being devastated. President Trump has declared that the war will only end with the Iran’s “unconditional surrender”.

This war is being waged not only against the people of Iran. It is part of an emerging global war against working people all over the world.

With the US sinking of Iran’s IRIS Dena frigate in the Indian Ocean, killing at least 140 sailors, the Trump administration has declared to the world that it is not bound by any law, convention, or civilised standard of conduct, but only by the imperatives of US imperialism.

The governments of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Sri Lanka are complicit in the US-Israeli war. Neither country has named, let alone condemned, the US and Israeli, instead issuing meaningless calls for restraint and deescalation.

The SEP stresses that this war will not be stopped by appeals to the fascistic Trump administration or any of the imperialist powers. The defence of the Iranian people and the defeat of the war criminals require the political mobilisation of the global working class against world capitalism. This can only be achieved on the basis of an international socialist strategy.

Speakers will discuss the causes of the war, its global implications, the historical and theoretical issues involved, and above all the necessity of the working class politically intervening to stop it.

We urge you to attend this meeting and participate in this important discussion.

Date: Tuesday, March 17
Time: 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Venue: Public Library Auditorium, Colombo