“REGIME CHANGE AT HOME!”

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The title paraphrases the concluding words of Jane Fonda, actress and veteran anti-war campaigner, speaking yesterday1 at a downtown Los Angeles rally against the USA’s current war against Iran, in reference to current US President Trump’s regime.2

It is slogan the oppressed and exploited around the world might well adopt for ourselves, though Fonda may have meant only the replacement of Trump with a milder representative of US Monopoly Capitalism.

Though a long-time campaigner against US Wars, it is unlikely that Fonda was advocating the overthrow of the capitalist-imperialist system currently in power in most of the states around the world. But we might well invest that meaning in the call amongst ourselves.

History shows us that capitalism exploits our labour power and the fruits of our toil, even as it evolves into monopoly capitalism, squeezing hundreds of its weaker competitors out of business before going to war with other monopoly capitalists and states that resist being dominated.

OUR REGIME DRAGGING US INTO WAR

This is the kind of system in power in Ireland, though our ruling class is, unlike the rest of the European states, a client state. Typically, client states have one master – ours has three: British colonial-imperialism; US imperialism; EU imperialism.

The dominant states of British imperialism and EU imperialism, viz. the UK, France and Germany, issued a joint statement at the outbreak of this war. Not to condemn the US and Israel assassinations and other bombing attacks on a non-aggressing country but instead, the victim of aggression!3

The same states the leaders of which justified Israel genocide against those it oppresed as Israel’s “right to self-defence”, failed to accord the right of the Iranian people to defend themselves through the action of their state against unprovoked Zionist and imperialist attack.

These are the powers to which the Irish ruling neo-colonial class wants Ireland subsumed, to join our exploiters and colonial occupiers, states with a long history of colonial occupation and genocide, including ours, against people who do not threaten us and have never done us any harm.

It is their alliance into which our neo-colonial rulers are attempting to drag us, by lies and deceit and by scaremongering about danger from other states that have never threatened us.

Cartoon by Paul Cobaugh

WHAT THIS WAR AGAINST IRAN IS ABOUT

There must be very few people on this Earth who believe that the aggression against Iran is about restricting the state from developing nuclear weapons. The religious leader of Iran, Khamenei (assassinated by the USA), has long opposed the development of weapons of mass destruction.4

In fact, according to the Omani intermediary at the US-Iran talks on nuclear energy, Iran volunteered not to amass enriched nuclear material, to convert its stock of highly-enriched uranium to fuel, putting it beyond any possible use of weaponisation and submitting to inspections.5

In addition, the intelligence services of the USA and the monitoring by the IAEA6 have never found any evidence of such development.7 But in any cases, who are the USA and Israel, both states with nuclear weapons, to dictate to anyone else what weapons they may or may not have?

The USA is actually the only state in the world that has used atomic weapons against people, not once but twice: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with an estimated death toll through initial explosion of up to 140,000,8 with more dying of subsequent radiation.

Iran signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and agreed to inspections by the IAEA, whereas Israel refused to sign it or agree to inspections (or indeed to even admit to the well-known fact it has nuclear weapons, the only state in West Asia to possess such).

France and the UK, endorsing the current USA and Israeli war, also have nuclear weapons and the only reason Germany does not have one of its own (though many of the US on its territory) is that its European partners can’t trust it after two wars against them within only four decades.

Israel, the most warlike and expansionist state in the region, also demanded that Iran scrap its ballistic missiles and end its support for resistance organisations. Yet Israel and the USA support subversive organisations around the world, wherever they find their wishes obstructed.

More than that, the resistance organisations are fighting for the freedom of their people and, where they have one, the sovereignty of their state, whereas the terrorist organisations supported by the US and Israel seek fragmentation,9 collapse of independence and sovereign national resistance.

There is too a longer-term purpose in the attack on Iran, as on Venezuela, also recently attacked by the USA, and on Russia, currently in a war as a result of NATO encirclement Eastern Europe. All three are suppliers of oil and gas to China, an opposite poll to the bloc dominated by the USA.

As to Iran’s ballistic missiles, the fate of Syria once the Assad regime was overthrown – and Lebanon currently — illustrates starkly what happens to West Asian states that do not possess strong weapon defences against Israel (and its backer, the USA).

SOLIDARITY AND RESISTANCE

In the face of such naked aggression against a state merely for insisting on its sovereignty, our clearest path is that of solidarity. But also against our own state enlisting us in imperialist wars, making us accomplices and our children burnt offerings to place on the pyres of those wars.

Cartoon by D.Breatnach

Initially that path involves resistance to neo-colonial propaganda and measures of the State to remove the triple-lock from State legislation. But more, we need to remove the RAF from our skies, US military from our airports, UK Navy from our seas and NATO from the Six Counties.

The US and Israel have shown us the future cost of neglecting to undertake these measures. The colonial and gombeen neo-colonial system in Ireland needs to be overthrown. It is over time for REGIME CHANGE HERE!

End.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES & OTHER RELEVANT MATERIAL

Jane Fonda speech: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DVUoBZzjwG_/ and https://www.facebook.com/thejamiatimes/videos/jane-fonda-joins-los-angeles-protest-against-war-on-iran/857532880656063/

https://asiatimes.com/2026/02/before-trump-bombing-oman-fm-called-us-iran-deal-within-reach/

Solidarity call from Action for Palestine Ireland: https://www.instagram.com/p/DVUOeeGjNit/?igsh=Zm8zMGV5MTQ1M21r

Solidarity call from Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122303334872064879&set=a.122104218050064879 also on Telegram https://t.me/aiaireland/4517

128 February 2026

2https://www.instagram.com/reels/DVUoBZzjwG_/ and https://www.facebook.com/thejamiatimes/videos/jane-fonda-joins-los-angeles-protest-against-war-on-iran/857532880656063/

3https://www.deutschland.de/en/news/merz-macron-and-starmer-condemn-iranian-counterattacks

4His removal may strengthen the hand of any Iranians who wish their state to develop nuclear weapons.

5https://asiatimes.com/2026/02/before-trump-bombing-oman-fm-called-us-iran-deal-within-reach/

6The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 as an autonomous organization within the United Nations system;[4][5] though governed by its own founding treaty, the organization reports to both the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations, and is headquartered at the UN Office at Vienna, Austria. (Wikipedia)

7https://www.aljazeera.com/video/talk-to-al-jazeera/2025/6/19/iaea-chief-no-evidence-iran-is-building-a-nuclear-weapon

8https://thebulletin.org/2020/08/counting-the-dead-at-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/

9As has been done to Syria and as Israel has called for in Iran.

PACKED PICKET PROTESTS IRISH GOVERNMENT MILITARY ALLIANCE AGENDA

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

A packed picket yesterday evening protested plans of the Irish Government to sidestep the “Triple Lock” in the Irish State’s Constitutionin order to proceed to committing the State’s armed forces to a western imperialist military alliance.

Contrary to the belief of many, the Irish State is not constitutionally bound to neutrality but there is a constitutional defence against a Government making an executive decision to send its armed forces into a foreign conflict and it is this that is known as the “Triple Lock”.1

As things stand at present, in order to send more than 12 Irish armed forces on a military mission abroad (e.g. as peacekeepers), the conflict response would need to be approved

  • not only by the Irish Government but
  • also by the Oireachtas (the Irish Parliament)
  • and by the United Nations.

However legislation of the Cabinet is being drafted to change the number from 12 to 50 which many see as the thin edge of a wedge to gradually widen the gap through which the Armed Forces can be employed in conflicts abroad alongside imperialist forces of NATO or the EU.

I joined the protest yesterday evening for a little over an hour. Most of the participants were packed behind banners on the southern side of the main gates of Leinster House so that photos don’t perhaps give a true impression of the numbers.

The main and very long banner bore the slogan We serve neither King nor Kaiser, recalling the words on a banner displayed on the Irish Transport and General Workers’ HQ, Liberty Hall, in 19142. More problematic were the United Nation flags waved by a few, some also wearing blue berets.3

In addition there were a number of Palestinian flags and, indeed, the politicisation and drive to activity of the Palestine solidarity movement does seem to be having a spill over into other issues in Ireland. Surprising perhaps was the number of flags of the Social Democrats party.

Another banner called for “Peace keepers, not military groups”. “Peace-keeping” in UN deployment can often mean stabilising the imperialist status quo in regions and the inaction of the UN leadership in response to the genocide in Palestine by some of its members has been shocking.

On the northern side of the gates there were two protesters in hospital scrubs, displaying a Palestine national flag and a large placard bearing the image of Dr. Abu Safiya, Director of Kamala Adwan Hospital in Gaza who was taken from there on 27 and January and disappeared for a time.

Dr. Abu Safiya was later traced to the notorious Sde Teiman Detention Centre in Israeli custody, then Ofer Prison where his lawyer finally gained access to him and reported recently that the Doctor has a number of broken ribs and was being refused treatment for his heart condition.4

On 25th March Dr. Abu Safiya’s sentence of six months administrative detention, effectively internment without trial, was confirmed by an Israeli Court on the basis of alleged documentation that, as is the rule in such cases, neither Dr. Abu Safiy nor his lawyer were permitted to see.5

On 25th October Dr. Abu Safiya’s 15-year-old son Ibrahim was killed by an Israeli drone strike on the hospital’s entrance.

One can only imagine the furore to which such a case would give rise if the detaining authority were one of which the Western Powers did not approve: A Doctor? Head of a Hospital arrested? Broke his ribs? Sent him to jail without a trial or allowed to see the evidence? Murdered his son?!

Vigil in hospital scrubs presumably for Dr. Abu Safiya’s safety and release. Also numbers of Gardaí in response to the main demonstration. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

No doubt many who would have joined the health workers in solidarity protest were in the other group protesting an attempt to have the Irish state join imperialist war ventures.

JOINING NATO

The crowd were kept lively with songs, speeches and a series of caller-and-response chants of which I can only recall the following:

Caller: From Letterkenny to Killarney —
Crowd: We don’t want your EU army!
Caller: From Dublin, Cork or Donegal —
Crowd: No to NATO, No to War!

Caller: You can’t fool us with your lies —
Crowd: We won’t send our kids to die!

TD6 Paul Murphy of the People Before Profit – Solidarity party addressed the crowd at one point. Among the songs performed by Jimi Cullen were You Fascists Bound to Lose and his own We Are All Palestinians and I sang Pearse’s verses of Gráinne Mhaol, the crowd joining the chorus.

Jimi Cullen performing his We Are All Palestinians; in the background Fae Clarke who also sang. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Government, some other politicians and the media have for some time been building up a propaganda picture depicting Ireland as vulnerable to invasion by the Russian Federation and this has intensified with the USA’s Trump Administration’s comments about its contribution to NATO.

Even the blowing up of the Russian Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany7 – clearly an action that most benefited the USA, which also had the most opportunity and means to achieve — was used by the media to whip up fears of Russian (!) attacks on subsea cables to and from Ireland.

The war in the Ukraine was also used not only to drum up support for the US/NATO proxy Kyiv regime but to whip up fear of the Russian Federation and to suggest that rather than defending itself against US/NATO encirclement, the aim was to gradually invade all of western Europe.

The presence of a Russian Trawler in the Irish sea was also used in this regard with the assumption that it was spying on Ireland. If indeed spying, why could it not have been on the UK? Anyway, we are being intensely spied upon daily by at least the UK and USA as it is.

The irony of seeking to join the Irish State with NATO, of which the UK is a prominent member, seems to have escaped the intelligence of the Irish elite: a state which has been at war with the Irish people for 800 years and is currently in armed occupation of one-sixth of its territory.

The only Starry Plough flag I observed, here held by myself. ((Photo taken by a participant)

Indeed it may occasionally occur to some that Ireland could easily be thought of as Ironyland as on-line Irish-based media The Ditch not long ago revealed that the Irish Government secretly agreed to have the UK’s Royal Air Force patrol Irish skies for the State’s protection.

The Government refused to confirm or deny this even to an FOI request by a Senator Craughwell, who sought and was granted leave on 18 March to challenge that refusal in the High Court, despite an Irish Government defence that boiled down to: We don’t have to tell if we don’t want to.

More will come to light on this as time goes on and perhaps also about another Ditch revelation, i.e about arms for the genocidal Zionist state being flown through Irish airspace. And of course there is the open secret scandal of US military flights being refuelled at Shannon International Airport.

Another view of a section of the protest showing how closely they were packed. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

EU INSTEAD OF NATO?

The softer option to NATO might seem to join some European joint military organisation but the EU is dominated by imperialist states such as Germany — which is second supplier in quantity of arms to ‘Israeli’ Zionism’s genocide in Palestine — and France has colonies in parts of the world.

In addition, France, Spain, Italy and the UK contain other conquered nations which have at various times agitated for greater or total independence and it is standard practice since Imperial Roman times to send troops from different areas to quell unrest in regions.

Irish troops in an EU joint force could be sent to put down uprisings in Catalonia, the Basque Country or Sardinia, while Spanish, French or Italian troops might be deployed on our streets in protests upon which Irish soldiers might be reluctant to fire.

Or all could be happily deployed together against the oppressed people of the Middle East, Africa or Asia, in all of which most EU states, if not all, have economic, political and strategic stakes.

This struggle against the incorporation of the Irish State into western imperialist armed forces has been going on for years, alternating between greater and lesser periods of intensity but it may that for reasons in the international arena it is once again entering an intense phase.

At last week’s Wednesday evening’s protest there were less than 20 participating throughout; last night there were a couple of hundred present, some at quite short notice. The organisers announced tthat they intend these protests to take place daily for the near future.

End.

View northward close along the protest. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

FOOTNOTES

FURTHER INFORMATION

1Article 29, section 4, subsection 9° of the Irish constitution:

The State shall not adopt a decision taken by the European Council to establish a common defence pursuant to Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union where that common defence would include the State.

While Article 29.4.9° does not explicitly mention a referendum, the constitutional framework as a whole ensures that the government cannot join a common defence system without the consent of the Irish people, as expressed through a referendum.

This was originally inserted by the 2002 amendment ratifying the Treaty of Nice, updated by the 2009 amendment ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon. An earlier bill intended to ratify the Treaty of Nice did not include a common defence opt-out, and was rejected in the first Nice referendum, in 2001. (Wikipedia)

2The Irish Citizen Army was photographed in 1914 drawn up in front of Liberty Hall beneath the banner reading: We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland.

3The United Nations is a profoundly undemocratic and imperialist-dominated institution. Its only enforceable decisions are those made by five Permanent Members of the Security Council: the UK, France, United States, Russian Federation and China, each of which can nullify a decision by use of its veto. Its failure to act to prevent the genocide in Palestine, in which two of its members, the UK and USA are directly assisting, has been a disappointment to many.

4On 11 February 2025, Abu Safiya was allowed to meet his lawyer in Ofer Prison, located in the occupied West Bank. During their meeting, he reported being subjected to various forms of torture and abuse, including being forcibly stripped, tightly shackled, and forced to sit on sharp gravel for hours. He also endured violent physical assaults, such as beatings with batons and electric shock sticks. Abu Safiya described being held in solitary confinement for 25 days, during which he was subjected to nearly constant interrogation for 10 days. Despite multiple requests for medical care, Israeli authorities denied him treatment for his heart condition.[12][13]

5https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250326-israeli-court-upholds-6-month-detention-of-dr-abu-safiya/

6Teachta Dála, elected public representative to the Irish Parliament.

726 September 2022.