Since it relatively lost some influence and since it suffered several defeats, the US imperialist rule over the world has become more brutal. Hence the hostility over multilateral negotiations and over the WTO, the multiplication of protectionist measures, the denunciation of previous treaties, raging militarism…
The US State cannot occupy militarily Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia and Iran, which rescued Syria’s torturer regime, have a significant influence, the Turkish Islamist regime, formerly central in the NATO, is increasingly hostile. These are some of the reasons why it US imperialism is more focused than ever on the Egyptian military regime, on the Saudi absolute monarchy and on the colonial State of Israel. It aims to overthrow the governments that challenge it in Western Asia and to counter its opponents, mainly the Russian and Chinese imperialisms, but also its official allies, the European States and Japan.
In return, Prince Ben Salmane and the monarchs in the Gulf can arrest, torture and murder their opponents. After funding Al-Qaida and the Islamic State, they still spread the most regressive and anti-Semitic version of Islam worldwide. They militarily intervene in Yemen, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Sudan. Netanyahu received the authorization to keep on colonizing Jerusalem and the West Bank, to keep on stifling the Gaza strip with the complicity of Marshal Sissi, to destroy periodically infrastructures, to slander its local population, to bomb regularly the Iranian troops in Syria.
The imperialist States that acquired the nuclear weapon did not request anything from Pakistan or from Israel when they did the same. Yet, they wanted to prevent Iran from doing it. The Vienna agreement (JCPoA) concluded between Iran and most of the world powers (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russian, United States) stated that the president Rohani agreed to renounce it, despite the hostility of the “Supreme Guide” Khamenei. Then, the Iranian people received the lifting of sanctions was with relief by, and the Iranian State had complied with its commitments.
During the 2016 US presidential election, the Republican Party’s candidate opposed the military interventions launched by the former president Obama (Democratic Party) abroad. However, Trump also said that the Vienna agreemen was a “disaster”, “the worst deal ever negotiated”.
On May 8th 2018, after cancelling the 2016 agreement with Cuba and before conducting a coup d’État in Venezuela in 2019, President Trump, together with his counsellor John Bolton, with the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, with the Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, rejected the JCPoA with Iran. They declared economic sanctions again and they threatened the firms that would make business with Iran or invest in Iran. The EU protested but the European firms surrendered.
On April 8th 2019, the Pasdaran (Guardians of the Revolution), which are the main military power in Iran, which intervene in Syria and which partly own the Iranian economy, have been classified as “terrorist”. On May 2, the US government tightened the sanctions: no more exemptions on import of Iranian oil for several countries (including India); ban on steel, aluminum, copper exports… As usual, the workers are the main victims of the exchange restriction, of the economic stranglehold, of the production fall, of the runaway inflation.
On May 5, under the unproved pretext of “troubling and escalatory warnings”, the White House announced the deployment of an aircraft career and of four nuclear-powered bombers in the area.
In 1964, the (Democratic Party) US President started the Vietnam War under the same kind of pretext, as military threats in the Tonkin Gulf. It has now been made clear that it was a falsification, as well the pretext of Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” invented by Bolton, among others, in 2003. Trump’s military counselor has long been in favour of a war against Iran and a supporter of the exiled monarchists (around Reza Pahlavi) and of the People’s Mujahedin that are related the Iraqi regime and then to US imperialism (Radjavi’s WIPO).
The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what’s necessary. Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran’s opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran. (John Bolton, To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran, 26 March 2015)
Since then, the armoury was strengthened in the Mediterranean Sea, under the pretext of Iranian ships’ “anomalous naval activities”.
At a meeting of President Trump’s top national security aides last Thursday, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said. (New York Times, 13 May 2019)
Without being invited, Pompeo intruded into a Meeting of EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs on May 13, and he unsuccessfully tried to get support on his policy of aggression over Iran. On the same day, the Spanish press published a secret letter from the US State that denounced the EU project for a European army. On May 19, the US President wrote a hawkish message: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again”.
The Ayatollahs’ regime was born as a result of the crushing of the 1978-1979 revolution, it killed thousands of labour activists, preserved capitalism and got incorporated into it, suppressed the strikes, oppresses the women and the national minorities. The most advanced workers of the world are favourable to his overthrow. However, no other greedy bourgeoisie, like Netanyahu’s or Trump’s, can do this. The foreign measures and threats actually strengthen the Islamic regime, and particularly its most repressive wing.
Mr Rouhani’s conservative rivals, long suspicious of his attempts to repair relations with America, feel vindicated. (The Economist, 11 May 2019)
The working class and the oppressed in Iran are the ones that must hunt the capitalists and the Islamic persecutors. The best help they can receive is that the workers’ movement in the United States, in Israel and in all the countries opposes any military intervention against Iran and demands the immediate lift of the US blockade.
May 30st 2019