Pompeo Issues Ultimatum to Iran:
Only America Can Have Troops in Syria, Bully Iraq, Bomb Yemen, Support Reactionary Thugs, Wield Nukes, and Dominate the Middle East!

May 28, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Speaking on May 21 before the American Enterprise Institute, the Trump/Pence regime’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, issued a bellicose ultimatum to Iran: immediately cease and desist from 12 activities (some real, some alleged), or else! This came within days of Trump/Pence’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal that the U.S. and other world powers signed with Iran in 2015 (which Iran had been abiding by).

Among other things, Pompeo demanded that Iran immediately:

• “Withdraw all forces under Iranian command from Syria”—a country America has bullied and threatened for the last half-century, where America stoked a reactionary seven-year civil war that has left over 400,000 dead and created 12 million refugees, where it now has at least 2,000 troops, and where it has carried out over 11,000 airstrikes in the last four years.
• “Respect” Iraq’s sovereignty—meanwhile, America has repeatedly violated Iraq’s sovereignty with invasions, wars, sanctions, and interventions, killing at least four million people since the 1960s; America has occupied Iraq with tens of thousands of troops for over eight years and is still trying to dominate it with boots on the ground (5,200 troops at last count), planes in the air, and its global capitalist-imperialist clout.
• End its military support for the Houthi movement in Yemen—meanwhile, America is backing Saudi Arabia’s barbaric war in Yemen with billions of dollars in weapons and by fueling Saudi bombers, directing their air attacks, and supporting their naval blockade. This American-backed war is by far the greatest cause of the mass hunger and disease stalking Yemen, where at least eight million face starvation and one million have been infected in the worst cholera epidemic in history.
• “End support to Middle East terrorist groups,” including in Palestine—this, as America supports the ethnic-cleansing, terror state of Israel to the tune of $3.8 billion a year and arms jihadist and other reactionary fighters in Syria and elsewhere.
• Stop nuclear enrichment, never develop nuclear weapons, and end its ballistic missile programs—while America upgrades its 4,000 nukes, along with tens of thousands of other bombs and missiles that can strike anywhere on Earth and are being used, or have recently been used, in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere.

The Trump/Pence regime is spreading lies and disinformation about Iran’s nuclear program, implying that Iran is already a nuclear weapons threat or soon will be, when in fact there is no evidence for that claim.¹ While the Islamic Republic is a reactionary, oppressive regime, and it supports reactionary, oppressive forces across the region, America isn’t demanding an end to oppression and reaction! It’s demanding a monopoly on oppression and reaction! It’s declaring that only America can deploy troops in Syria, bully and intervene in Iraq, support reactionary forces wherever it sees fit, back the genocidal war in Yemen, and possess—and wield—nuclear weapons. All so America—not Iran or anyone else—will dominate the Middle East. And as we made clear in the list above, the horror already unleashed by the U.S. dwarfs anything Iran’s Islamic fundamentalist regime could even dream of doing.

The U.S. has already ratcheted up what Pompeo called “unprecedented financial pressures” on Iran, and it’s preparing to do much, much worse. The imperialist Godfather is making Iran an “offer”: surrender on your hands and knees or else face the prospect of war. Forced to choose between those two, Iran’s rulers will likely calculate that they have no choice but to risk war to ensure their survival. So the Trump/Pence regime’s demands are deliberately setting the stage for escalating U.S.-Israeli-Saudi aggression and quite possibly a devastating war against Iran.

Leading Democrats Criticize Trump... for Putting U.S. Gangsterism in “Weaker Position”!

And what was the response of the leading Democrats to Pompeo’s savage warmongering that puts 80 million Iranians in the crosshairs? The ranking Democrat in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs said Pompeo “isn’t wrong” about Iran, but complained that pulling out of the nuclear deal put the U.S. in a “weaker position” to deal with its “aggressive behavior.” In other words: “Here’s how we should be more effective imperialist gangsters”!

What kind of a system dominates the Middle East for some 70 years through wars, invasions, interventions, coups, sanctions, and backing of tyrannical “allies”... leaving this region of more than 300 million people with ongoing ethnic cleansing in Palestine; shattered societies in Libya, Syria, and Iraq; millions dead and tens of millions of refugees; brutal torturers in power; women chained and suffocated by patriarchy; the rampant spread of Dark Ages religious fundamentalism—all while America plunders its resources, especially oil?

And what kind of system now declares it’s ready to go to war to maintain its stranglehold and keep doing what it’s been doing?!

This is a system that is utterly worthless. A system that cannot be reformed. A system that needs to be overthrown and dug up by the roots, with a whole new society built in its place, so that humanity—all of humanity—can breathe free.

1. Pompeo claimed that Iran lied about having a nuclear weapons program, implied that it remains eager to pursue nuclear weapons, and that this is the real purpose of its uranium enrichment program. The claim that Iran had a nuclear weapons program (prior to 2003) rests on widely debunked “intelligence,” probably fabricated by Israel and opponents of the Iranian regime. Iran has abided by the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement, and there is no evidence at this point that it aims to develop nuclear weapons. Iran does have the right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for non-military purposes, such as generating energy and for medical purposes.  [back]

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