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EDITORIAL

Terrorism against Iran

Published Oct 29, 2009 8:33 PM

What was Washington’s role in the Oct. 18 bombing in Iran that killed 29 people? Among the dead were a top officer and four other senior officers of the Republican Guard who were meeting with Sunni and Shiite leaders in Sarbaz, a city in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan near Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

An anti-government group named Jundallah, based over the Pakistan border, claimed responsibility. When Iranian officials blamed the attack on the U.S. and Britain for backing groups like Jundallah, spokespeople for these imperialist governments denied any involvement. The bulk of the imperialist media treated the Iranian claims with their usual disdain.

But a look at the record shows that Iran’s accusations are perfectly reasonable.

As 2007 was ending, the U.S. Congress approved and funded a Bush administration plan to support, with logistics and money, organizations inside Iran—and those operating in border areas—that take direct action against the Iranian government. In other words, the U.S.—and one can assume the British, too—bankroll anti-Iran groups that the U.S. itself lists as “terrorists” in order to destabilize Iran.

A Seymour Hersh article in the June 8, 2008, issue of the New Yorker magazine cited a conversation with former CIA clandestine officer Robert Baer that made it specific: “According to Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefiting from U.S. support.” Other armed groups were also getting U.S. aid, and there is nothing to show that the aid has stopped under the new U.S. administration. Hersh’s sources were not the only experts to have exposed U.S. contacts with such terrorist groups.

Following the Iranian election last June, the U.S. government and corporate media gave wall-to-wall support to the unsubstantiated charge that the election was fraudulent. It was another orchestrated attempt to destabilize Iran’s government. Washington also made sure that Twitter didn’t shut down for maintenance during the demonstrations in Tehran, as the Internet service was useful to those organizing protests. But this latest bombing is evidence that U.S. intervention doesn’t stop at Twitter. It involves a constant threat of massive bombardment, joint military maneuvers with the Israeli air force, economic sanctions, continuous anti-Iranian media coverage and the funding of armed terrorist groups.

Never to be forgotten is the economic motive behind such devious and violent behavior: The imperialist drive for superprofits that would flow from control over the vast riches, especially sources of energy, in the Middle East and Central Asia. And every dollar the multibillionaire class gains abroad is used to increase their domination over the workers at home, who are forced to pay for these imperialist adventures and reap nothing but more layoffs, foreclosures and budget cuts.

That’s why we say: U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran!