Alert: U.S. Ratchets Up War Threats Against Iran

July 23, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On Sunday night, July 22, the Trump/Pence regime ratcheted up its gangster threats against Iran to new, even more dangerous levels. In response to the Iranian regime’s warning against the U.S.’s moves toward war, Trump tweeted out that Iran would “SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.” Trump was threatening Iran and its 80 million people with war and mass murder. This came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo compared Iran’s Islamic Republic to the “Mafia” and threatened a “pressure campaign” against it.

Iran’s regime is repressive and reactionary. But who has been—and is—the world’s number one oppressor, its biggest war monger, mass murderer, and promoter of ignorance and repression? Who is the number one threat to the future of humanity? The United States of America!

The U.S. imperialists have oceans of Iranian blood on their hands. In 1953, the CIA overthrew Iran’s nationalist government and installed a barbaric puppet—the Shah—who ruled with an iron fist for two and a half decades, arresting, murdering, and torturing opponents. From 1980-88, America fueled a war of bloody slaughter between Iran and Iraq—to weaken both—which left a million dead or wounded. This included tens of thousands of Iranians killed by Iraqi gas attacks that the U.S. directed. In 1988, the U.S. warship Vincennes “accidentally” shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all 290 passengers and crew on board.

And now, once again America is threatening to unleash war and spill even more blood. In May, the Trump/Pence regime took the belligerent step of unilaterally pulling out of the nuclear deal that the U.S. (and other world powers) negotiated with Iran in 2015. Since then, the Trump/Pence regime has been moving to strangle Iran’s economy with tighter sanctions—bringing great hardship to the masses of people in Iran—and launched a campaign to foment “unrest” in Iran. In the face of this, Iran’s president warned the U.S. against starting a war—and Trump with his all-caps tweet, claimed it was Iran that was threatening the U.S.!

No! U.S. imperialism is the most aggressive, predatory “Mafia” power on the face of the Earth. The U.S.—with a monstrous fascist regime at the helm—isn’t targeting Iran to liberate anyone; it’s targeting Iran to strengthen its own gangster death grip on the Middle East and the planet. As Bob Avakian has said, “These imperialists make the Godfather look like Mary Poppins.” (BAsics 1:7)

What we pointed out in the wake of Trump’s summit with Putin also applies to ramped-up threats against Iran: “These actions of Trump are in fact extremely dangerous for the masses of people, here and worldwide. The logic of Trump’s foreign policy increases the likelihood of war, including catastrophic nuclear war.”

The U.S. war threats against Iran must be broadly condemned and actively resisted, as part of a movement to actually drive out the Trump/Pence regime through massive, sustained, nonviolent political protest before they can carry out even greater horrors against humanity than they already have. The heightened possibility of a U.S. war on Iran also underscores, once again, the urgency of organizing for an actual revolution aimed at overthrowing this capitalist-imperialist system, which spawns endless wars and carries out towering crimes against humanity—when the necessary conditions (a revolutionary situation and a revolutionary people in the millions) have been brought into being, as set forth in HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution.

STOP Wars of Empire, Armies of Occupation, and Crimes Against Humanity!