February 1, 2012

Once again the United States and its little imperialist stooges like the UK, France and Canada are about to create another bloodbath in the Middle East, as they prepare for war and destruction against Iran. Iran is an independent sovereign country, whose heroic people have stood up for more than three decade against the U.S. and other imperialist countries’ aggression and intimidation. The Iranian people have been targeted simply for exercising their inalienable right to self-determination and living with dignity by rejecting imperialist bullying and domination. For more than thirty years, the U.S. and its allies have imposed all kinds of sanctions, war, sabotage and terror on the people of Iran, but they have never been able to force them to accept the terms and rules of imperial powers.

Iran is the most important target of the U.S. in the Middle East and North Africa. Without bringing Iran to its knees it is not possible for imperialists to roll back the dynamism of growing anti-imperialist sentiment in the whole region. The United States’ fundamental goal is for regime change in Iran. With a politically independent Iran, a powerful country in the Middle East, imperialists are not able to bring back their total hegemony to the Middle East, like they had before the great Iranian revolution of 1979. That revolution changed the relationship and balance of forces, if not completely, than indeed significantly, in favour of oppressed and working people of the Middle East, South Asia, as well as East, West and North Africa. Today, the message of the Iranian people to all oppressed nations of the world is much more powerful than anytime before. If thirty years ago the message was that it is possible to overthrow imperialist domination and get rid of puppet regimes; today the message is that countries under all kinds of imperialist pressure can advance independently in medicine, higher education and all practical and theoretical fields of science. This is what is frightening imperialists the most: that we do not need them for our development. Waging war with Iran is not only for restoring imperialist hegemony in the region and/or paving the road for the grand strategy of the US and Europe to move and isolate their powerful rivals, China and Russia. It is also to make sure the message of the Iranian people does not become a further aspiration for all oppressed nations to confront imperialist domination like we saw in last year in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Morocco and Algeria. Today imperialists are frightened and shaken to their bones!

In order for the U.S. and other imperialists to conduct a bloody war against Iran, they need to manipulate and shape public opinion in their respective countries and around the world. The ugly and completely deceptive campaign against Iran has moved from a hideous campaign to a tragicomedy. For decades Western powers filled our ears with how important and decisive it is to fight Iran, as the so-called centre of training and exporting terrorists, and put Iran with North Korea and Iraq in an “Axis of Evil”. For a decade now they have been drumming up fear about the danger of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities. Ignoring that even if Iran somehow obtained an atomic bomb, how could they possibly use it against the 400 Israeli and 2,000 American nuclear warheads and their sophisticated nuclear defence technology? However, apparently this manipulation is not enough, now we have very recently learned from Mr. Panetta, the U.S. Secretary of Defence, that the United States is under threat of attack from Iran! So we are seeing the victimizer trying to paint itself as the victim and turning the victim into a menace. Ironically and hypocritically Israel, who is warning other countries of the region and the whole world about the dangers of Iran, is not a signer of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which does not seem to matter to any of its allies. Shouldn’t we be more concerned about a heavily nuclear-armed Israel, which has established itself as an aggressor and war monger against Palestinian and Arab countries for more than 6 decades?

We need to realize by now that the U.S. and other imperial countries' ugly and untruthful campaign against Iran, is precisely the same as their world wide racist campaign of Islamophobia. It is all about domination and imperialist hegemony for the elimination of all resistance against imperialism that is gaining popularity in countries with Muslim populations. We have to be vigilant about imperialist tricks and manipulation while we are fighting back against war mongers. The focus today is not the nature of this or that regime, in this case namely Iran, but to oppose an immanent imperialist war drive against Iran. Like their campaigns against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, as well as Syria, the U.S. policy of “regime change” can only bring devastation to the people of oppressed nations. To call for a dictatorial regime to be condemned or for regime change in Iran, from outside that country, is against the principal of self-determination of sovereign nations. Self-determination means it is up to the Iranian people to decide how to conduct their internal affairs including the form of government and social order. For those who are, out naivety or desperation, focusing their campaign against the government of Iran- we must remind them that true regime change from outside of Iran is only possible through imperialist military intervention, period. Therefore no matter what nice words they use against sanctions and military intervention as soon as they are distracted from the main focus against foreign intervention, and begin talking about regime change, they are willingly or unwillingly on the same side as the imperialist campaign for the destruction of Iran.

Iran is not a threat to anyone. Iran is simply the target of imperialist powers because of its independence, geographical importance and political weight and influence in the whole region and beyond. Iran is surrounded by dozens of U.S. military bases all for their preparations to attack Iran. We must demand unconditionally that the U.S., UN Security Council, and EU end their sanctions on Iran. Stop assassinations of Iranian scientists and stop intervention in Iran. We must demand U.S., NATO and all imperialist out of the Middle East and North Africa and as well as an immediate end to the occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq and ending of interference in Pakistan, Libya and Syria.

U.S. Hands Off Iran!
U.S. Out of the Middle East and North Africa!

Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO)
www.mawovancouver.org
Iranian Community Against War (ICAW)
www.icawvancouver.com