US vs Iran? If I had my "druthers", I'd rather be on the side of
Progressive People Worldwide.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/31/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://socialistaction.org/2020/01/30/u-s-vs-iran-which-side-are-you-on/
U.S. vs. Iran: Which side are you on?
Socialist Action
/
24 hours ago
By JEFF MACKLER
On the brink of war with Iran the Trump administration presented to the
American public and to the world the following stated or implied theses:
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• That the U.S. was a civilized nation intent on preventing “terrorist
nations” like Iran from destroying the world with nuclear weapons.
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• That as the chief spokesperson of the U.S. President Trump was a sane
and rational person in pursuit of rational objectives as opposed to the
insane,
if not demonic and terrorist-oriented leadership of the Iranian
government, which was intent on violently imposing its will on the U.S.
and its allies
in the Middle East.
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• That in pursuit of its peaceful objectives the U.S. had the absolute
right to abrogate negotiated treaties with Iran, plan and prepare for
war, murder
Iranian leaders, employ cyber warfare and missiles to destroy Iranian
uranium enrichment facilities, assassinate Iranian scientists, and
impose crippling
economic sanctions aimed at destroying the Iranian economy.
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• That U.S. intervention and war in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and beyond was
fully justified in achieving its objective of defeating Iranian
influence in these
nations.
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Let us examine these theses with a bit of history in mind.
American satirist Mark Twain once said “A lie can travel halfway around
the world while truth is putting on its shoes.” Those words could be
applied to
Twain’s all-but-banned essay King Leopold’s Soliloquy, in which the
Belgian king recounts his genocidal slaughter of 12 million Congolese
during the colonization
of that country. While Leopold enslaved Congo to extract its rubber and
ivory resources, he was forced to concede the subterranean mining rights
to two
U.S. corporate behemoths, the Rockefellers and the Morgans, today united
in the J.P. Morgan Chase global empire. To this day this trillion-dollar
enterprise
retains its “interests” in that war-torn nation. It was only a
half-century later, in the early 1960s, that Leopold’s U.S.-abetted
horror came to light,
albeit a dim light indeed.
Similarly, former Federal Reserve Bank chairman Alan Greenspan in his
2007 book The Age of Turbulence famously admitted the true nature of the
1953 U.S.
secret war against Iran, in which CIA operatives dressed in Arab garb
forcefully entered Iranian government facilities to arrest and depose
the elected
head of state President Mohammad Mossadegh. Explaining U.S. imperialist
actions in the Middle East 54 years later, Greenspan justified this
“regime change”
coup by acknowledging the undeniable presence of an “800-pound gorilla”
in the room: Middle East oil, which he defined as a “U.S. national
security” interest.
Imperialist war for oil has been front and center of U.S. policy since
1953 and long before.
A bit more Iranian history is in order to drive this point home. After
undoing Mossadegh’s oil nationalizations and transferring Iranian oil
rights to
U.S. corporations, the U.S. invaders installed Shah Reza Pahlavi and his
CIA-trained terrorizing national security agency, the SAVAK, which
proceeded to
incarcerate and torture 70,000 Iranians – the largest number of
political prisoners in the world. With full U.S. support, the Shah
amassed the fifth-largest
army in the world.
Twenty-six years later, Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
announced from his exile in Paris that he would return to Tehran to
depose the U.S.-installed
Shah. In the face of one of the most well-armed and repressive
governments on Earth, few observers at that time believed that
Khomeini’s statement was
anything but boastful hyperbole. All were proven wrong. Upon his arrival
at Tehran airport he was met by crowds estimated at seven million
people, the
largest revolutionary mobilization in human history. In the face of
these mobilizations, the Iranian army and police disintegrated, often
turning over
their weapons to the enraged masses while abandoning their uniforms and
headquarters. It is not our intention here to review the details and
class contradictions
in this extremely popular 1979 revolution that ousted the U.S.-installed
dictator, other than to note that among the new Khomeini government’s
first acts
was to nationalize Iran’s vast oil resources, that is, to remove them
from U.S. ownership and control.
The Iran-Iraq War
The U.S. government response? Within months top U.S. officials brokered
a secret deal with Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein, a deal that armed to
the teeth
then-ally Hussein for a war to remove the Khomeini government. This
secret U.S.-financed eight-year war against Iran (1980-88) took the
lives of one million
Iranians and 800,000 Iraqis! It took place in the context of the
corporate media-promoted demonization of the Khomeini government. Only
later did it come
to public attention through the Iran-Contra affair that Ronald Reagan’s
national security adviser Oliver North had been selling hundreds of TOW
anti-tank
missiles and similar numbers of anti-aircraft missiles, not to Iraq but
rather to the “arch-demon” government of Ayatollah Khomeini.
A 2019 New York Times Opinion Page editorial summarizes the matter quite
clearly: “The main details of Iran-Contra are straightforward. In 1982,
the United
States began backing the contras, the right-wing paramilitary opposition
to Nicaragua’s left-wing Sandinista government. Late in 1983,
controversy over
this assistance led Congress to pull its support. President Ronald
Reagan, determined to stop what he saw as the spread of communism in
Central America,
directed his national security adviser, Robert McFarlane, to ‘keep the
contras together body and soul’…U.S. officials would work to circumvent
Congress’s
prohibition on American involvement [the Boland Amendment to a House
appropriations bill], first through fund-raising — soliciting $32
million from Saudi
Arabia over several years — and then through illegal arms sales to Iran,
spearheaded by a National Security Council staff member, Oliver North.
In 1986,
the scheme exploded into public view after the Lebanese magazine Al
Shiraa published the story of the arms sales to Iran and Sandinista
forces downed a
cargo plane carrying weapons and other supplies for the contras.”
The Times continued: “The scandal implicated top cabinet and
administration officials, with strong evidence tying Vice President
George H.W. Bush to the
conspiracy as well. Figures with direct involvement, like North and Adm.
John Poindexter (who succeeded McFarlane as national security adviser),
altered
records and lied to Congress in an attempt to stymie investigators and
insulate the president from culpability.”
We will only add here another reason for the illegal and covert arms
sale to Iran other than the funding of the Nicaraguan Contras to
overthrow or destabilize
the revolutionary Sandinista government: the U.S. sought to prolong the
Iran-Iraq war in order to keep both nations’ oil resources off world
markets, thus
increasing the value of U.S.-owned and dominated fossil fuel resources.
From war against Iran to war against Iraq
Just a few years after orchestrating the Iran-Iraq War, U.S. warmakers
turned their attention to the demonization of their former touted ally,
Saddam Hussein.
This was followed by two U.S. wars against Iraq. The first began with
the 1991 saturation bombing of Iraq and ended with the U.S. imposition
of massive
sanctions. Some military experts have asserted that the U.S. bombing was
the most intense in world history, perhaps an intentional display of the
real
power of U.S. weapons of mass destruction. Defenseless Iraq had
virtually no military counter. The daily and nighttime bombing was
televised around the
world with U.S. military officials dutifully reporting to the media the
number of sorties flown daily along with televised coverage of unimpeded
bombs
and missiles devastating Iraqi cites.
The Second Iraq War began in 2003 with yet another massive bombing
campaign, followed by the military occupation of Iraq and then the U.S.
imposition of
a series of puppet governments—coupled with the U.S. overseeing the
transfer of Iraq’s major oil rights to U.S. corporations. That war is
universally understood
as among the major foreign policy “mistakes” in U.S. history.
The most significant military opposition to the U.S. ground war and
conquest of Iraq was led by Iraq’s Shia militias led by Muqtada al-Sadr.
Qassim Suliemani’s
Iranian Quds Force fighters also stood out as heroes of the resistance
to the U.S. invasion and conquest. They remain so to this day. This
“mistaken” U.S.
war and imposition of sanctions took the lives of 1.5 million Iraqis.
Fifteen years later, a May 30, 2018 Washington Times article reported
“Muqtada al-Sadr, whose party finished first in Iraq’s national
elections last year,
is calling the U.S. military an ‘invader,’ raising fresh concerns that
the Pentagon may face another demand to leave the country before the
military mission
against Islamic State and other jihadi groups is complete.”
The article continued: “With Mr. al-Sadr scrambling to form a new
government following his political bloc’s surprise recent victory in
parliamentary elections,
his words have carried increased weight about a nationalist backlash
about the U.S. presence in Iraq. A fierce critic of the U.S.-installed
government
after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Mr. al-Sadr declared Tuesday
that ‘the U.S. is an invader country,’ and that his newly empowered
Sairoon political
alliance will “not allow [the U.S.] to interfere at all.’”
This second U.S. war against Iraq was justified by falsified reports
that the Saddam Hussein government was secretly manufacturing “weapons
of mass destruction”—specifically
nuclear weapons—that it planned to launch against the U.S. The massive
U.S. initial bombing led to an agreement with the Hussein government to
allow untold
numbers of “inspectors” around the world to determine the truth of the
U.S. accusation. The inspectors, with access to every Iraqi facility,
found no such
terrible weapons. The U.S. nevertheless broadcast live and nationwide
Secretary of State Colin Powell’s UN presentation affirming in great
detail their
existence. Powell later repudiated his own report, claiming that he had
been lied to by administration officials. No such weapons ever existed!
Iran and the U.S. war against Syria
We have written volumes on the U.S./NATO/Gulf State
monarchy-orchestrated war aimed at toppling the Syrian government of
President Bashar Assad. (See:
Syria: Anatomy of Another U.S. Imperialist War, 2017, By Jeff Mackler,
socialistaction@xxxxxxx). Here we will limit our commentary to noting
that almost
immediately after Syria’s brief 2011 Arab Spring demonstrations for
democratic rights, the U.S. government orchestrated a massive
intervention in Syria.
This combined billions of dollars in expenditures to finance and
organize a U.S.-controlled army for the overthrow of the Assad
government with a reliance
on Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf State monarchies to send in their
own forces as well. The U.S. also collaborated with the Turkish military
to organize,
arm and train at U.S. bases in Turkey jihadist forces from some 70
nations to do the same.
The highpoint in this endeavor was the occupation by ISIS and other
U.S.-abetted forces of almost two-thirds of Syria. ISIS, Al Qaeda and
Nusra Front forces,
all foreign to Syria and financed outside of Syria, were the central
occupiers. Often backed by U.S. airpower. By 2016 they were poised to
capture Damascus.
So potent and imminent was this U.S. intervention that then-U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry served as the convener, if not arbitrator
among the various
regional forces that met in open conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and
elsewhere to determine how Syria was to be divided between various
contending factions
of the anti-Assad cabal. It was in this context that the Syrian
government called on its allies for support – support for its right to
self-determination,
that is, to be free from the U.S.-NATO “coalition” imperialist
intervention.
The response of the Iranian government was immediate, sending Quds Force
fighters under the command of Qassim Suleimani. Lebanese Hezbollah
fighters, who
had previously defeated the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, also agreed to
defend Syria. Together they challenged the full-force U.S.
imperialist-backed invasion.
At the invitation of the Syrian government Russia too agreed to help.
The combination of these forces, together with the Syrian Army, which
had already
lost 50,000 fighters to the U.S.-backed war, was decisive in defeating
the invaders. But as with all imperialist wars, the cost was enormous.
An estimated
500,000 Syrians lost their lives. As with the corporate media’s
demonization of Suleimani, and all others who resist imperialist
intervention and war,
Bashar Assad was labeled the “Butcher of Syria.” The Gallop polling
organization’s British affiliate, ORB International, which does polling
for Western
nations including the U.S. government, reported otherwise. ORB polls
across Syria recorded that the majority of the Syrian people supported
the Assad government
while less than ten percent supported the U.S.-led “coalition.” This
“coalition,” according to the ORB poll, included all of the reactionary
forces allied
with the U.S.
Today, Syria has recovered most of its historic territory, except for
the isolated, routed ISIS and associated forces who remain in the Idlib
province
in northwestern Syria, which borders on Turkey. All Syrian efforts to
remove these forces have been met with dire threats of massive
retaliation from the
U.S. and its NATO allies. Trump’s more recent assertions that he will
withdraw from Syria have proven to be lies.
An October 29, 2019 NYT article was emphatic:
“In recent days,” said The Times, “Mr. Trump has settled on Syria’s oil
reserves as a new rationale for appearing to reverse course and deploy
hundreds
of additional troops to the war-ravaged country. He has declared that
the United States has ‘secured’ oil fields in the country’s chaotic
northeast and
suggested that the seizure of the country’s main natural resource
justifies America further extending its military presence there.”
The Times’ coverage continued: “‘We have taken it and secured it,’ Mr.
Trump said of Syria’s oil during remarks at the White House on Sunday,
after announcing
the killing of the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Mr. Trump
went on to remind his audience of how, during the Iraq war, he called
for selling
off Iraq’s oil to defray the conflict’s enormous cost.”
In all these matters U.S. policy had little or nothing to do with Iran’s
alleged support to terrorism anywhere in the world or Iran’s alleged
intention
to develop nuclear weapons. Both these U.S. pretexts for endless war
have been repeatedly refuted by authoritative sources across the globe.
In the case
of the U.S. charge that Iran violated the terms of the 2015 Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly know as the Iran nuclear deal,
all the signatories,
except the U.S. have refuted this accusation. The signatories today
include the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, France, China, the European
Union and
Iran.
Clearly, Mark Twain’s century old assertion that the truth usually lags
far behind the world’s liars is far from absolute. Within days Trump’s
lies have
been exposed as such before the entire world.
We conclude our refutation of Trump’s and U.S. imperialism’s central
theses, stated or implied, with our own theses:
list of 1 items
• We unconditionally support the right to self-determination of Iran and
all other oppressed nations facing imperialist intervention in all its
manifestations.
This simple thesis is best expressed in the U.S. antiwar movement’s
central demands, “U.S. Out Now!” and “Hands Off Iran!”
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• The right of poor and oppressed nations to self-determination
necessarily includes their right to seek and accept the support of other
nations in opposing
imperialist war and intervention in their countries.
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• On nuclear weapons, we stand for the abolition of all nuclear weapons,
beginning with the U.S. —whose arsenal includes more than 6,000 nuclear
weapons
and whose future plans include the manufacture and use of literally
thousands more in the form of ”tactical” nuclear weapons. In this
context, any imperialist-imposed
ban on nuclear weapons, should Iran decide to embark on this project,
must be rejected.
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• Socialist Action’s unconditional support to self-determination for
Iran, Syria, Iraq and all other poor and oppressed nations is not at all
synonymous
with our political support to the governments or regimes of these
oppressed nations. Socialists have no illusions that any capitalist
government on Earth
can be the vehicle to achieve an egalitarian society that advances the
interests of the working-class and peasant majority toward socialism. In
this context,
the removal of any capitalist government on Earth is the sole
responsibility of working people and their oppressed allies—and never
U.S. imperialism and
its reactionary allied forces.
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• We stand 100 percent opposed to today’s U.S. wars and threats of war
against Iran, Syria and Iraq. In accord with our support to the right to
self-determination
of all oppressed nations, even those under capitalist rule, we are for
the defeat of U.S.-backed imperialist intervention in all its forms.
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• Socialists include in this strategic orientation the absolute
necessity of workers and peasants in all nations, however difficult and
distant under the
present circumstances, to struggle to form their own independent
fighting revolutionary socialist parties, aimed not only at opposing all
imperialist wars
and interventions but at establishing socialist societies where
capitalist exploitation and oppression are forever ended.
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January 30, 2020
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Uncategorized.
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___
Sam Harris
“ I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its
people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs. ”
― Sam Harris,