International coalitions work to stop attack on Iran

Kolkata, India, on Aug. 2. Photo: AIAIF

Anti-imperialists around the world paid close attention to the Aug. 2 Stop War on Iran actions taking place in the United States, and in some places they joined these actions. A picket in Vienna on July 11, an action in Östersund, Sweden, on Aug. 1, a vigil in Norwich, England, and a march of 1,000 in Kolkata, India, on Aug. 2 and many actions throughout Canada were some of them.

Statements of solidarity from three international coalitions showed resonance with the U.S. anti-imperialists’ call.

Jose Maria Sison, chairperson of the International Coordinating Committee of the International League of Peoples Struggle and a renowned leader of the Philippines movement for self-determination, wrote the following in his July 31 statement:

“Once more as in the case of the war on Iraq the U.S. is using as pretext for a war of aggression against Iran and the Iranian people the false charge that the Iranian government is engaged in a program of nuclear weapons development, despite negative results of very intrusive inspections by the U.N. nuclear inspection mission. Both U.S. imperialism and Zionist Israel are beating the drums of war to threaten Iran and the Iranian people and prepare for a war in violation of the Iranian people’s national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of their country.

“The [U.S.] American people need to be vigilant, resolute and militant against the aggressive imperialist character of the U.S. government, which is nothing but an instrument of the monopoly bourgeoisie for subjugating other peoples and seizing territory for economic exploitation. It is not only the power-crazed and overreaching neo-conservative clique attached to the Republican Party but also most importantly the oil monopolies and entire military industrial complex that are always trying to use both the Republican and Democratic parties in devising a bipartisan policy for dominating the entire Middle East and controlling its oil resources and other economic aspects. ...

“We regard the August 2 nationwide demonstration in the U.S. as a signal for a worldwide campaign to stop the war on Iran before it starts.”

West Bengal workers’ leader Manik Mukherjee of the International Anti- Imperialist People’s Solidarity Coordinating Committee wrote the following on July 28, five days before his organization’s Aug. 2 march in Kolkata:

“There is only one government that has used nuclear weapons against civilian populations, and that same nation has the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction on the planet. Most dangerous and incredible, it is at this very moment developing a new generation of tactical nuclear weapons that it intends to use, not merely to threaten. That country is, of course, the United States. Shouldn’t any real discussion of the dangers of nuclear weapons include the weapons stockpiled by the Pentagon and the history of U.S. aggression and interventions?

“Iran has suffered greatly at the hands of the U.S. We recall the U.S. overthrew the democratically elected government of Dr. M. Mossadegh and returned the shah to the Peacock Throne—’the proudest achievement of the CIA.’ For 25 years the shah ruled Iran with an iron fist for the benefit of U.S. oil corporations before the people of Iran, in the millions, overthrew his tyranny at a terrible cost in lives. For the past 27 years U.S. sanctions have impeded Iran’s right to development and brought great suffering to the people.”

The Anti-Imperialist Camp, based in Europe, wrote the following on June 28:

“After Palestine, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq it is now the turn of Iran. Tehran has been long named head of the ‘axis of the evil,’ but Washington had other pressing bellicose needs on the way to global predominance. ...

“The U.S. and its allies keep turning the spiral of escalation. This time they have learnt their lesson from their hubris of omnipotence and have brought their European allies on board. It is actually Germany, France and England who are preparing the aggression. We have to build a broad movement against the warmongers, defending Iran’s national sovereignty, drawing also the lessons of the Iraq war, namely, that it will not be the Europeans to stop the U.S. but the resistance of the aggressed peoples themselves which we must support.”

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