"...and to the Republic for which it stands."
I'm deeply troubled over being expected to pledge allegiance to a Flag
dripping in blood of countless innocent people around the world,
murdered either by our troops or our bombs and weapons. And now we
are "led" by a president who tells the world of his love for the
tyrants of the Philippines, North Korea and Saudi Arabia.
Back in the Fifties, People chanted, "My country, right or wrong",
and, "Love it or leave it!"
Have we really gone full circle? This is my homeland, but I feel like
a child whose parents are slugging it out with the neighbors because
our dog pooped on their lawn. It's a Hell of a place to be.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/8/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://themilitant.com/2018/10/06/us-russian-rulers-tehran-and-tel-aviv-vie-in-mideast/
US, Russian rulers, Tehran and Tel Aviv vie in Mideast
By Seth Galinsky
Vol. 82/No. 38
October 15, 2018
S-300 surface-to-air missiles, like those the Russian rulers just
delivered to Syrian regime.
RT
S-300 surface-to-air missiles, like those the Russian rulers just
delivered to Syrian regime.
As the civil war in Syria winds down, with dictator Bashar al-Assad
still in power, Washington, Moscow and the rival capitalist rulers in
the region are maneuvering to protect their economic, political and
military interests. And the long-simmering dispute between the
capitalist governments of Israel and Iran is heating up.
Iran’s rulers consolidated power after years of stifling the popular
revolutionary uprising of working people that overthrew the U.S.-backed
rule of the shah in 1979. Workers and farmers had not been able to
replace the shah with their own government, but the reactionary regime
was unable to smash the working class.
To maintain its hold on power inside Iran, the regime pushes its
reactionary influence and program from Lebanon and Syria to Iraq and
Yemen, and calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.
“Israel will do whatever it must do to defend itself against Iran’s
aggression,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his
speech to the 73rd United Nations General Assembly Sept. 27. “We will
continue to act against you in Syria. We will act against you in
Lebanon. We will act against you in Iraq.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad replied the next day, saying that
Israel is the only country in the region with an “actual atomic arsenal.”
These are not just a war of words. The Israeli army and air force have
carried out more than 200 attacks on Iranian-connected weapons convoys,
troops and military bases in Syria over the last couple years. The
Israeli government is especially concerned about Iranian shipments to
Lebanon’s Hezbollah that could give them precision rockets and missiles.
Hezbollah, which means Party of God, was founded in Lebanon in the 1980s
on the Iranian rulers’ initiative. Tehran and thousands of Hezbollah
combatants played a key role in preventing the Assad regime from being
overthrown after the popular uprising against his rule broke out in
2011. But it was Russian air power that was decisive in retaking
territory from armed opposition groups in the civil war that followed
the crushing of the mobilizations.
Moscow and Tel Aviv
Even as it collaborated with Tehran to shore up Assad — at the price of
more than 350,000 Syrian dead and millions displaced — Moscow maintained
relations with Tel Aviv. Under a 2015 accord Moscow said it would not
interfere with Israeli strikes aimed at Iranian-backed militias and
weapons shipments in Syria and the Israelis agreed not to strike targets
that would put Russians at risk nor aid the fight to overthrow Assad.
On Sept. 16 the Israeli Air Force attacked an Iranian convoy headed to
Lebanon. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, “Syrian air defenses
started to go berserk, firing 27 missiles every which way,” shooting
down a Russian plane by mistake.
Moscow charged that the Israelis had not given them sufficient notice to
get their plane out of the way and announced it would provide
sophisticated S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to the Assad regime.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the U.N. Sept. 29 that
the first of the batteries had been delivered. The missiles make any
Israeli air attack riskier.
The U.S. capitalist rulers are also determined to stay the advance of
Tehran. In May the White House abrogated the nuclear pact the Barack
Obama administration had reached with Tehran, also signed by London,
Berlin, Paris, Moscow and Beijing. Since then, Washington has launched
deep sanctions against Iranian capitalists’ exports that have slashed
oil sales and sent their currency into a tailspin. The effects hit
working people there the hardest.
Russian and Iranian competition
While Moscow and Tehran both help keep Assad in power, they also have
competing interests.
As Iran’s exports of oil plummet under expanding U.S. sanctions,
Moscow’s are soaring.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran’s export of crude oil has
dropped by a third since June to 1.5 million barrels a day. Meanwhile,
Moscow has increased its oil output by 250,000 barrels a day, most of it
going to those who used to purchase from its erstwhile ally Iran.
Over the last year tens of thousands have taken to the streets in Iran
to protest the government’s intervention in the wars in Syria, Iraq and
elsewhere, and its impact on the economic crisis facing working people.
This includes the province of Khuzestan, which has some 70 percent of
Iran’s oil reserves and is home to Iran’s Arab minority.
Tehran charged that a deadly Sept. 22 attack on a military parade in
Ahvaz, Khuzestan, was directed by Washington and the Saudi regime,
although Islamic State claimed credit. The terror group posted pictures
on the internet of those who it said were its members carrying out the
assault.
In retaliation, Tehran fired six ballistic missiles Oct. 1 into the
sliver of remaining Islamic State-controlled territory east of the
Euphrates River in Syria. The missiles flew nearly 400 miles over Iraqi
airspace, striking IS targets not far from U.S. military bases there.
Reportedly, the Iranians wrote “death to America,” “Death to Israel,”
and “death to al-Saud” on the missiles.
Washington has over 2,000 troops in Syria, along with massive air power
in the region. National Security Adviser John Bolton said U.S. troops
will remain in Syria “as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian
borders.”
In response to the shifting political situation in Iran and the Middle
East, the Socialist Workers Party issued a statement in December 2017,
“For Recognition of a Palestinian State and of Israel.”
“In opposition to Washington, to bourgeois governments and political
organizations across the Middle East, and to the middle class left here
in the United States,” the party said, it “has a different starting
point: the class interests and solidarity of workers and toiling farmers
across the Middle East — be they Palestinian, Jewish, Arab, Kurdish,
Turkish, Persian or otherwise, and whatever their religious or other
beliefs — as well as working people in the United States and around the
world.
“We are forwhatever helps working people organize and act together to
advance our demands and struggles against the capitalist governments and
ruling classes that exploit and oppress us and their petty bourgeois
political servants and media apologists,” the statement says. “We
areforwhatever renews our class solidarity and self-confidence,
advancing us along a revolutionary course toward a united struggle for
workers power.”
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •North Carolina workers confront social disaster
•US, Russian rulers, Tehran and Tel Aviv vie in Mideast
•‘Working class needs to build a labor party’
•Join SWP door-to-door campaign to boost ‘Militant,’ books, party fund!
•Help fight Florida prison officials’ ongoing censorship of ‘Militant’
•Trump pushes US rulers’ interests vs. rivals at UN General Assembly
Feature Articles •Presumption of innocence is crucial right for working
class
Also In This Issue •NY: Cuba president calls for end to US gov’t embargo
•‘Anti-gentrification fight’ is pretext for attack on art, culture that
workers need
•Argentina: ‘Abortion must be legal, in the hospital!’
On the Picket Line •Uber drivers protest low pay, as bosses pit them vs.
taxi drivers
•Tomato cannery strike leaders win jobs back
Books of the Month •How Cuban workers and farmers took power in 1959
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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