Real goal is regime change to maintain U.S. global domination
Israel’s missile strikes and internal sabotage against Iran, launched on June 13, were carried out with the full agreement of their U.S. masters in the Pentagon. The Israelis executed the attacks with direct help from U.S. intelligence technology. And following Iran’s defensive counterattack, the U.S. has also helped Israel intercept missiles.
The Pentagon maintains troops in Iraq and the region. It’s been reported that these troops are virtual sitting ducks, in harm’s way with inadequate defenses, similar to how Israel’s military targets are embedded in populated areas. Both of these things could provide a pretext for full-scale U.S. involvement.
What Washington’s saying
Trump, Pete Hagseth and other U.S. officials have made contradictory statements. “Israel did this on their own,” “No they didn’t,” “Yes they did.” What’s undeniable is that U.S. imperialism has put the world on a perilous road. This could develop not only into a regional war, but one with worldwide consequences.
Yesterday, Trump refused to sign onto a very weak statement calling for de-escalation between Israel and Iran, prepared by the G7 at the summit in Alberta, Canada. Instead, he abruptly left the summit early.
When questioned by reporters on his Air Force One flight back, Trump stated, “I don’t care what she said, I think they were very close to having it.” (He was referring to National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who stated Iran is not building a nuclear weapon). He continued, “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, it’s very simple,” and “I’m not too much in the mood to negotiate.”
Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric on social media, proclaiming, “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” Tehran is home to almost 10 million people.
Simultaneously, the Pentagon has repositioned warships and military aircraft in the region in preparation for possible U.S. escalation.
While Israel’s sneak night attack caused damage to Iran, Iran was able to launch a counterattack, demonstrating that it could not be picked off so easily. (See: Iran was supposed to fold — instead, it’s exposing U.S. & Israeli military limits.)
This brings us to the next, more dangerous stage. Will war now widen?
Capitalist West using Iran’s nuclear program as a ruse
There are no credible claims, even by Western capitalist sources, that Iran has actually built a bomb or is in the active process of doing so. As referenced earlier, Tulsi Gabbard, in March, stated that spy agencies assessed that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”
What has been reported in the mass media are sensationalized accounts from Israel, continuously repeated over and over. It echoes the fake accounts of “weapons of mass destruction” used by the U.S. to launch the destructive war on Iraq.
More importantly, what right do the U.S. imperialists have to make demands on the Iranian people, or their government, around Iran’s right to possess nuclear defenses, let alone to develop nuclear energy?
The U.S. military is the only country to have actually used nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese were already planning to surrender when Truman ordered the U.S. military to drop the bombs that killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians. This criminal act of unbelievable destruction was unleashed as a warning to the then Soviet Union.
The press is silent on Israel’s nuclear weapons. This, despite declassified documents showing that, in 1975, Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres offered to sell them to South African Defense Minister P.W. Botha, during the white-supremacist apartheid regime’s conflict with the ANC.
Real aim is regime change
Israel’s cowardly act was meant to cause internal chaos, aimed at provoking division and regime change. It failed, and is not a new strategy.
In 1953, the U.S. government and the CIA, in collaboration with Britain, orchestrated a bloody coup to depose Iran’s progressive and charismatic Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. This action was taken to reinforce the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Under the Shah’s regime, the infamous SAVAK (Bureau for Intelligence and Security of the State) became notorious for its torture and murder of students, workers, and opposition figures.
Mossadegh’s real crime was the nationalization of the Abadan oil fields. The U.S State Department had wider fears that the actions of the Iranian people to take possession of their own resources would encourage the masses of the entire region.
U.S. bankers, oil barons and imperialist bosses had cause for concern. On July 26, 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, asserting Egyptian sovereignty, which touched off war involving Israel, France and Britain.
Finally, in 1979, the Iranian Revolution brought the Shah’s bloody rule to an end. Following the Shah’s overthrow and the formation of the Iranian Republic, the imperialists have continually tried to destabilize the Iranian government, whether through color revolutions or with disabling sanctions aimed at creating internal divisions.
Root cause: U.S. imperialist decay and its world position
In a Nov. 14, 1979, article entitled “The Iranian crisis: the core of the problem,” Marxist thinker Sam Marcy outlined the extent of the capitalist crisis during that period. He asserted that Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the appointed Deputy Minister of Finance of Iran’s new revolutionary government, went to the core of the problem.
Marcy wrote:
“In his letter to the United Nations Security Council requesting a meeting of that body, the new foreign affairs director of Iran, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, made a scathing indictment of U.S. policy toward Iran and pointedly attacked the U.S. government for attempting to create a war psychosis against Iran and pushing the world to the brink of war.
“The imperialists tried to picture the complaint against U.S. war preparations as a mere diversionary tactic from domestic problems in Iran. While few if any of the capitalist press published the entire text of this important letter, which details all the criminal activities not only of the Shah but of the U.S. itself in relation to the Iranian people, none referred to what is truly the core of the broad problem facing American finance capital, which Bani-Sadr pointedly made reference to.”
Marcy quotes Bani-Sadr:
“Mr. Secretary General,” said Mr. Bani-Sadr, “I am well equipped because of my scientific knowledge to know that the weakness of the American economy (at the present) and the weak position of the dollar has forced on America a grave economic and political crisis.
“Is America trying to reestablish the position of its money by putting world peace in peril?”
While today’s stakes are higher, the question remains the same.
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