Condemn terrorist attack and murder of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakriadeh!

Statement by Struggle-La Lucha newspaper and the Socialist Unity Party

The Socialist Unity Party and the publication Struggle-La Lucha send our deepest condolences to the Iranian people, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and to the family and loved ones of scientist Mohsen Fakrizadeh Mahabadi, murdered in a terrorist attack by agents of the Israeli government. The regime in Tel Aviv is a tool of U.S. imperialism, which provides billions of dollars in financial and military aid to keep the Israeli occupation of Palestine afloat.

Fakhrizadeh served as the head of the Research and Innovation Organization of the Defense Ministry.  This made him a major target for Israeli’s intelligence services, who have a track record of killing Iranian scientists. His murder comes on the heels of the illegal assassination of beloved Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Qassem Soleimani in January, ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump.

What hasn’t been publicized widely by the U.S. media is that Dr. Fakhrizadeh helped to develop a homegrown COVID-19 test kit, a fact that the United Nations recognized and applauded. 

This is of incredible importance. Iran has suffered under harsh U.S. sanctions that have prevented it from getting crucial medical aid and other necessities during the global pandemic. As a result, children are dying and people are unable to get the medical care that was once taken for granted. Sanctions are another form of war meant to subjugate and destroy sovereign countries. 

What is taking place is not about Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program. The continuing war on Iran is part of a broader strategy to protect U.S. oil and energy profits at the expense of the people, both at home and abroad. At this moment, the oil, gas and fracking industry is desperate to stave off collapse.

What is needed now is not to continue this war on the people of Iran, but rather to build global solidarity to fight a health crisis that has left nearly 1.5 million people dead so far. In the United States alone, which leads the world in COVID cases, at least 267,000 people have perished. 

The shameful and cowardly attack on Iran’s scientist Fakhrizadeh and other war provocations come at a time when the fight to end the scourge of racism and police violence in the U.S. is far from finished and when workers throughout the capitalist world are facing mass evictions, hunger and joblessness.

We call on the anti-imperialist and anti-war movement, on workers and community organizations in the U.S., to join us in demanding:   

• Stop the U.S./Israeli war on Iran
• End all sanctions — Reparations for damages
• End all aid to the racist state of Israel — Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions now
• All U.S. troops, ships, planes and spies out of the ‘Middle East’
• Bring home the Fifth and Sixth Fleets. Shut down the U.S. Central Command
• End all arms sales to Saudi Arabia
• Fight COVID and racism, not wars for oil profits
• Money for stimulus and people’s needs, not war!

Dec. 1, 2020