Let's talk about the Open Letter published in the Guardian on August 20, signed by a number of prominent left-wing intellectuals. It’s a solidarity letter to political prisoners in Iran being trapped between "two blades of a scissors," between murderous U.S./Israeli war of aggression and the Islamic Republic's repressive prisons, with their sham trials, torture, and executions. It calls for support of the prisoners who are opposing the brutality of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s regime and it demands a stop to the brutal Iranian prison system AND to brutal U.S. war and sanctions.

This should've been applauded. But instead a bunch of so-called "anti-imperialists" attacked the Open Letter—and those who signed it. In most cases they don't even bother disputing the facts about Iran's mass executions, but they insist that now is not the time to make an internal criticism of the Iranian regime.

And in a show of shameless lack of principle, several of the signers then took their names off the letter—some without even saying why.

Meanwhile, Iran’s political prisoners stay locked behind bars facing bombs from the U.S. and Israel AND repression and execution from the regime.

Let's look at the "Marxist" intellectual Vijay Prashad's critique of the Guardian letter. First, as you can see from the title, “Against the False Symmetry of the Scissors: An Open Letter While Iran Resists an Illegal War of Aggression,” he claims that this Open Letter presents a false symmetry between the brutality of the U.S. imperialist aggressor and the brutality of the Iranian regime resisting that aggression. But the Letter never uses the language of equivalence. It describes two forms of oppression, both of which are very real. And I know it's hard for some people to comprehend this, but two things can be true at the same time. 

And the truth is the U.S. is the world's biggest oppressor, but Iran is not a force for liberation. It is a capitalist theocracy, built on misogyny, which brutally oppresses minorities, and has the highest execution rate in the world. And while it opposes the U.S. and Israel, it is not anti-imperialist. In fact, it is allied with Russia and China, both of whom are also imperialist powers.

For more than four decades, since the revolutionary uprising of the Iranian people was hijacked by reactionary Islamic fundamentalist forces in 1979, the revcoms have been very clear about, and have consistently exposed, the highly oppressive nature of this regime in Iran, and have supported mass resistance against it—at the same time as we have supported the revolutionary communists in Iran who have been working consistently for the overthrow of this regime, and they have faced the most terrible torture and slaughter at the hands of the regime, again going back for more than four decades.

And we've done so while exposing the fact that the U.S. and Israel are terrorist states that have carried out crimes against humanity on a scale that the Islamic Republic of Iran could only dream of.  We’ve done so while acting on our greatest internationalist responsibility to work for a revolution to overthrow U.S. capitalism-imperialism.

Prashad insists that "a third space does not exist in the midst of a war of aggression." In other words, you're either with the Islamic Republic of Iran or you're with the imperialists. But this is a trap that will never lead to liberation, and it reflects how locked into thinking and acting on the terms of this system Prashad is. No! We do not have to choose between big and little oppressors. A third way has to get fought for—and it means standing with the people of the world, not their governments of capitalist repression. 

That's what was positive about the Guardian Open Letter. And that's what's so shameful about these so-called "leftists" trying to force us all to choose between reactionary oppressors. 

No, don’t fall for it. Stop the U.S./Israeli war on Iran! No to the Islamic Republic of Iran! Free ALL the political prisoners in Iran!