America—the Lying, Deal-Breaking Aggressor in the Persian Gulf

July 15, 2019 | revcom.us

 

In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear agreement with the U.S. and five other world powers (China, Russia, France, Germany, and Britain).¹ During his campaign, Trump denounced the deal and in May 2018, after becoming president, he withdrew the U.S. from the agreement. Since then, the U.S. has sharply escalated its punitive sanctions, military deployments and threats of war against Iran.²

After the U.S. unilaterally pulled out and imposed sanctions, Iran continued to abide by the agreement and its terms. Then early this month, it announced it had stepped up its uranium enrichment and had exceeded some of the limits placed on it by the 2015 nuclear deal.

The U.S.—in an act and with the rhetoric of gangster-logic hypocrisy—reacted with outrage, denouncing Iran for not abiding by the nuclear agreement—as if Iran is the deal-breaking aggressor here, and not the U.S.! Trump threatened Iran it had “better be careful” and that it was “playing with fire.” The bourgeois media, by and large, never clearly refutes this lie and sets the record straight for the public.

Instead of this upside-down view, let’s look at the reality:

First, in 2015 the U.S. and its allies forced Iran to sign this treaty through sanctions and military threats. The deal they imposed was seen as benefiting the world’s big powers, particularly the U.S. Iran, headed by reactionary theocrats, would radically cut back its nuclear enrichment program and allow the most intrusive inspections in history in return for the lifting of sanctions and more normalized trade and investments, as part of the global capitalist-imperialist system.

Iran kept its word and upheld its end of the deal. America did neither, keeping with its founding principles and ethos, and its long and genocidal history of breaking every treaty it entered into with the Native peoples.

In 2017, the fascist Trump/Pence regime broke the treaty by withdrawing from it and re-imposing sanctions, which were supposed to be lifted. Then it bullied other countries into breaking the deal—and potentially gutting the whole agreement—by threatening them with sanctions if they honored the nuclear agreement’s promise of increased investment and trade with Iran!³

Now as Iran starts increasing its uranium enrichment since the treaty is no longer binding with the U.S. having broken it, the U.S. turns around and denounces Iran’s move as “nuclear extortion.” This, even though it is Trump and the U.S. that are threatening Iran with “obliteration”—in other words, a nuclear holocaust! (Note: the U.S. has thousands of nukes, Iran has zero.)

On July 1, the U.S. imperialists took their history and gangster-logic of mega, up-is-down and left-is-right lying to a whole new level. The White House issued a statement claiming, “There is little doubt that even before the deal’s existence, Iran was violating its terms.”⁴ How is it possible to violate a deal before there even is a deal?? What outrageous, twisted lie will these monsters come up with next to justify their monstrous crimes?

So who’s the lying, double-crossing, deal-breaking, war-threatening aggressor in the Persian Gulf? AMERICA...No one else!!

The U.S.’s sanctions are having a punishing effect on the people of Iran (see accompanying box on sanctions). The U.S.’s military moves are ratcheting up the threats of war, a war that would be devastating and catastrophic in its death and devastation.⁵

The Democrats Are a Party of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

Where is the outrage and opposition to all this from the Democrats? Some have introduced resolutions in Congress demanding Trump consult with them before waging war with Iran (which have gone nowhere). But let’s look at the position of two of their leading lights:

First, Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate: When the nuclear deal was first struck in 2015, Schumer opposed it and voted against it. He said that the agreement was not severe, intrusive and punitive enough against Iran on the nuclear aspects—and on the non-nuclear aspect of extending its influence in the region, Iran would “redouble its efforts to create even more trouble in the Middle East, and perhaps, beyond”—imperialist “double-speak” for contending and competing with U.S. interests.⁶

This is exactly the argument, logic and rationale of the fascist Trump/Pence regime in breaking this deal!⁷

Second, Cory Booker, one of the 24 #BEB Democratic candidates for president: When asked in a recent debate whether he would rejoin the deal, Booker answered: “We need to renegotiate and get back into a deal, but I’m not going to have a primary platform to say unilaterally I’m going to rejoin that deal. Because when I’m president of the United States, I’m going to do the best I can to secure this country and that region and make sure that if I have an opportunity to leverage a better deal, I’m going to do it.” [Emphasis added]

Again, this is a key dimension of what is now being done by the fascist Trump/Pence regime with its deadly sanctions and economic warfare against Iran, forcing it to bend to a “better deal” with Trump and the U.S.—even while the threat of open all-out war remains a looming, constant and intensifying danger.

What about the other leading Democrats? Are they loudly telling the truth about what’s taking place—that the U.S. is the lawless, war-mongering aggressor and treaty breaker here? NO! Are they demanding that the sanctions, which—by their scale, scope and nature of their effects on the Iranian people—are a crime against humanity, be ended right now? NO! Are they demanding that people massively protest against these unjust, murderous, and extremely dangerous moves? NO!

Instead, they agree with Trump that U.S. imperialism has the right to dominate the Middle East, or in Booker’s words “secure the region”—and the world—and that Iran is creating problems for it—it’s just that Trump isn’t dealing with this problem in the most effective way!⁸

In the face of these horrific sanctions and escalating war threats, as we have written previously, it is even more critical that:

All moves and actions the U.S. is undertaking in the Middle East, from economic to open warfare, be resolutely opposed by people in this country.... AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY “ENOUGH!”? This is a question—of morality, of humanity—to be asked of all.... [What it will take] for people to do what is needed, to stop relying on the Democrats, to act, to step outside the “normal channels”?

Communists must go further and instill in people a sense that not only are the interests of the U.S. rulers NOT our interests, but the best possible outcome would be a defeat for the U.S. in whatever unjust military action it undertook.⁹ At the same time, people need to question... why does this system wage war over and over and over...what will it take to end America’s unending wars...and what is their responsibility in the face of this—including to repudiate American patriotism and to do all they can to end this scourge on humanity?¹⁰

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1. See “U.S.-Iran Nuclear Deal: 6 Points of Orientation,” revcom.us, 7/20/15 [back]

2. “Iran Downs U.S. Drone…U.S. Attack Reportedly Called Off: Trump’s “Restraint” Masks Heightened Danger of Devastating U.S. War against Iran…” revcom.us, June 24, 2019; “How Long Must This Go On? Tankers Damaged in Persian Gulf—America Again Ratchets Up Threats, Danger of War Against Iran,” revcom.us, June 17, 2019 [back]

3. And this isn’t the half of it.  The 2015 agreement contains provisions entitling Iran to resume enrichment if another party or parties to the agreement violate it.  And according to a former Carter administration official, Gary Sick, because the Iran deal was ratified by the UN Security Council it constitutes “accepted international law,” which the U.S. is breaking.  The U.S. has also even “tried to prevent Iran from complying with it by preventing other countries from purchasing [Iran’s] excess fissile material, thereby forcing Iran to exceed the limits of the agreement.” [back]

4. “Statement from the Press Secretary,” issued July 1, 2019 [back]

5. “Iran Downs U.S. Drone…U.S. Attack Reportedly Called Off: Trump’s “Restraint” Masks Heightened Danger of Devastating U.S. War against Iran…” [back]

6. Senator Charles E. Schumer, “My Position on the Iran Deal,” August 6, 2015 [back]

7. “Mike Pompeo speech: What are the 12 demands given to Iran?” Al Jazeera, May 21, 2018; “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!” revcom.us, May 28, 2018 [back]

8. Meanwhile, the Democrats are busy supporting Trump's tariffs and other imperialist moves and war-like threats against China!  At the first Democratic “debate,” many of the contenders energetically joined with Trump in calling China one of the gravest “national security” threats the U.S. faces.  And Democrat leader Schumer recently counseled Trump to "hang tough on China" because "strength is the only way to win with China." [back]

9. This is the principle of revolutionary defeatism. “Revolutionary defeatism means that, for people in an imperialist country—or in any country where the government is carrying out an unjust war, a war of domination and plunder, a reactionary war that serves only to fortify oppression, or to replace one oppressive power with another—you must put special emphasis on opposing your own government in that war, even if the enemy of your government in that war is equally reactionary. It means that you must refuse to support your government in such a war and, beyond that, you must have a basic orientation of welcoming the setbacks and defeats of your government and making use of them to build opposition to your government and its reactionary war, in accordance with and guided by the objective of making revolution right within your own country and contributing all you can to the international revolutionary struggle. But revolutionary defeatism does not mean that you should actually support the enemy of your government if that enemy and the war it is waging is equally reactionary. Obviously, this can be complicated, and in order to correctly apply this orientation it is necessary to make a concrete analysis of the concrete situation while remaining firmly grounded in basic principle." Bob Avakian, from "The New Situation and Great Challenges." [back]

10. Watch Bob Avakian’s Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution [back]