Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Pages 4 and 5 According to The Economist , the war that began on February 28th with the American and Israeli attack on Iran has rightly earned the label third Gulf War . A clarification is needed: the war between Iran and Iraq, from 1980 to 1988, cost at least half a million lives and left its mark on the Persian Gulf no less than the subsequent conflicts. However, if we consider only the wars initiated by the United States in an attempt to manage its own decline, the current conflict follows on from those of 1991 and 2003. Hence, the third Gulf War . The conflict has already transcended regional boundaries, involving all countries in the area; the unprecedented assassination of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s religious and political leader, on the first day of the war, was the turning point. The war’s objectives are unclear: it is a war without a strategy , writes The Economist . Behind the strike on Iran, followi...