Iran war: a global environmental catastrophe

In the imperialist war initiated by the U.S. and Israel, the environmental consequences have been particularly vile for Iranian people. Although, at the moment of writing, a temporary and fragile ceasefire has been arranged, these consequences will last for decades and affect the whole region. Indeed, in the near future we can expect more environmentally destructive and ultimately pointless wars to be waged by U.S. imperialism, powered by AI and justified by genocidal rhetoric.

Tehran oil depot bombing

Israel’s bombing of Tehran’s oil depot on March 8 will be remembered as one of history’s worst environmental disasters and war crimes. Four storage sites and one logistics hub were hit, which caused huge amounts of oil to burn and enter the sky as thick black smoke. It returned to the Earth as acidic oil rain. This is because the oil chemically converts to sulfur and nitrogen compounds when mixed with rain.

Immediately, this resulted in life-threatening effects for working people, who were advised by Iranian health and environmental authorities to shelter indoors to protect themselves from the acid rain, protect or discard exposed food, and wear masks if it were necessary to go outdoors. Horrid accounts from working people (Tehran alone has a population of 10 million) complain of black rain, difficulty breathing, burning eyes and throats. One woman said that it was “apocalyptic” and “a crime against humanity”.

Much of the city was covered in a thin layer of soot. There are cancer risks associated with lung and skin exposure to fossil fuels and their byproducts, especially if these byproducts enter the municipal water system or exposed surface water (a problem for communities located near oil production in the U.S.).This attack also led to longer term environmental harms. The whole region will also have to contend with the possible long-term effects on agriculture. Several locals observed the disappearance of local wildlife, mainly birds.

Middle East conflagration spreads ecocide

Due to retaliatory attacks on regional oil production by Iran (not being in a position to directly retaliate against the U.S. militarily), these direct environmental harms have engulfed the Middle East. Fuel production in Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Oman have been attacked, as well as multiple tankers in the Persian Gulf. So besides the direct environmental harms to people described above, this war—whose responsibility lays totally at the feet of the U.S. and Israel—adds unacceptable levels of CO2 emissions to the Earths’ atmosphere as a whole, and thus represents an attack on the health of the whole planet, not simply on any given nation or set of nations.

The U.S. military is estimated to have released over 2 billion metric tons of CO2 during the war, so far. That is in military operations, not including the much higher emissions of exploded oil tankers. In a period when all the world’s nations should be working in concert to reduce fossil fuel emissions and safeguard the vitality of future generations, the insanity of capitalism leads us to do the opposite; fossil fuel pollution explodes, as do Israeli bombs, over the heads of the children of the Middle East.

Other pollutants: Plastics, rubber, metals and fallout?

Explosions and burning of industry or agriculture can release untold chemical compounds into the atmosphere or the soil. Experts are concerned by the possible long-term implications of hitting ammonia plants, rubber production, storage for fertilizers, burning building materials (like asbestos), etc. The U.S. to date has hit over 16,000 separate targets in Iran, and Iran in turn has retaliated on thousands of targets across the region.

The question of nuclear material still lingers. After all, the previous round of attacks on Iran in June 2025 were for the stated purpose of ending Iran’s nuclear program (a program they have every right to pursue!) which had only questionable success. After those strikes, Trump absurdly claimed on “Truth” Social that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated” and “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”

Vital water infrastructure threatened

Today, in 2026, both the Iranian authorities and Trump (in several harangues on Truth Social) have made threats against civilian infrastructure, notably water desalination plants and power plants. The people of the Gulf states, including Iran, live in arid climates, and it is a technical and cultural achievement in itself that millions of people can get potable water in a desert. That requires desalination plants, which take seawater and convert it to drinking water and the energy that keeps them going. Anyone attacking a desalination plant would be committing a war crime.

What’s worse is that the Persian Gulf states, including Iran, are facing an historic drought. Iran already claims that the U.S. attacked one desalination plant, so far. A mass attack on desalination plants and their power plants in Iran by the U.S./Israel would be a direct attack on the lives of the people of Iran. Furthermore, given Iran’s current position militarily and its prevailing tactic of targeting U.S. proxies in the region, such a move by the Trump administration could provoke a counterattack by Iran on desalination plants regionally.

It would constitute one of history’s worst humanitarian crises, laid again at the feet of the U.S. and Israel. Working people in the U.S. must oppose this with all their might!

Wildlife under attack; rainforests on the chopping block

In addition to humans, the animal and plant inhabitants of the region suffer from the war as well. Marine biologists are concerned for several critically endangered species of marine wildlife in both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Normal container/tanker traffic alone produces plenty of noise and collisions that injure or kill marine animals.

But exploding bombs and ships on the surface of the water produce enormous shockwaves that cause injury, disorientation, and even deafness in animals. Of course, if the ships carry oil, fertilizer or other chemical compounds not normally found in the ecosystem, this puts life at risk.

Several species that use the Strait of Hormuz as a migration route, such as whales, manatees, sharks, turtles, and dugongs are under attack. Species of fish vital to local fishing may be at risk too. The ecosystem of the Persian Gulf is also home to mangrove trees and seagrass.

Worse still is how war causes the economics of capitalism to chew away at the environment, which we see with global deforestation occurring because of the Iran war. How so? Because of rising fuel costs due to the war (and market volatility due to tariffs that impact U.S. farmers), the Trump administration is mandating a boost in biofuel production. Biofuels require the growth of more crops like soybeans and corn, crops which generally require the cutting of forests (and encroachment on prairie lands) to make room. The U.S. doesn’t have enough domestic production of vegetable oil and so must import vegetable oil. Research finds that this will encourage 7 million additional acres of global deforestation. Here’s the kicker: that would create more carbon emissions than the added biofuels would save.

Under global capitalism, nature is considered a “free lunch” as it were, external to production, rather than a vital component of reproduction. So go-getting entrepreneurs look at any war as another opportunity to make a profit, which our government encourages. Because ordinary people—the working class—do not control production democratically, the social and environmental consequences of capitalist production go continually out of control.

Workers’ organized response can stop the madness

One of the obvious evils of imperialism and Zionism is that these horrors are not a concern from their point of view. Their goal is the strategic defeat of “the enemy,” and the devastation to either civilian life (of which Israel and Trump make no distinction) or to the health of the Earth as a whole does not enter the calculation.

Only narrow strategic calculations matter to our immoral ruling class. Their outlook and their actions will by necessity lead to our mutual and collective destruction. The modern world cannot long survive this lack of wisdom and lack of respect for nature.

These ecological and humanitarian concerns are reason enough why working people in the United States must organize to dismantle the military machine and also end all aid to Israel. At the same time, Iranian workers need to mobilize in defense of their country. The warmongers who have rained death on Iran and who wish to plunder its resources and ravage its environment must be defeated in order to secure any sort of real freedom or liberation.

• Stop the war on Iran! U.S. Out of the Middle East!

• Dismantle the U.S. military! No to military AI!

• End all U.S. aid to Israel! Free Palestine! Free Lebanon!

• Victory to Iran’s working people against U.S./Israeli aggression! Women, life, freedom!

• No to attacks on life-giving infrastructure! Water is a human right!

• Protect Earth’s wildlife and ecosystems! For public control and management of all land and seas under workers, farmers, and Indigenous control to achieve real sustainability!

First published here by Workers’ Voice