The USA Has Wanted To Attack Iran For Decades

The mainstream media would like you to think history started last week. Many commentators and even people on the left are going on about Israel “pulling” the US into conflict with Iran. But this reverses reality.

Israel is the attack dog, the US is the master - and that master has had his eyes on Iran for a long, long time.

You see it started in 1953 when democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now called BP). Putting your people before corporate profits didn’t sit well with the USA. So they decided to overthrow this government.

The CIA worked with the British to launch a coup. According to the CIA’s own declassified documents criminal gangs in Tehran were hired by the CIA to stage pro-shah riots.

In 1954 the US demanded removal of the Anglo Iranian Oil Company’s monopoly. Five American oil companies, Royal Dutch Shell, and the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, were to draw Iran’s petroleum after the coup.

The CIA sent Major General Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. to train the ruthless security forces, known as SAVAK.

Those who were arrested for opposing the coup were treated to sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, standing in one place for hours on end, nail extractions, snakes, electrical shocks with cattle prods, often into the rectum. Prisoners were humiliated by being raped and urinated on.

In 1957 the Shah’s plans for a nuclear Iran got the support of the USA. He was their puppet after all. The US even built a reactor for Iran.

In late 1978 the people had had enough of the Shah’s brutality and the humilation of rule by the USA. Massive strikes and protests broke out leading to a revolution in 1979. A strike wave built throughout 1978 culminating in and general strike in November 1978 and the revolutionary events of 1979.

The revolt was led by the working class, who even took over workplaces and formed “Shora” or workers’ circles, like the Soviet assemblies of the Russian Revolution, but without a clear revolutionary leadership of their own the revolution was taken out of their hands by the clerics.

But control by the imperialism was broken and the US decided to act in the most brutal way - they encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Iran which led to an almost decade long war that saw around half a million deaths from each country.

Of course, the USA later “rewarded” Saddam - as they do many of their puppets - by stabbing him in the back and bombing Iraq into oblivion.

While the US was busy supporting war, sponsoring terrorism and overthrowing left wing governments across South America Ronald Reagan decided to label Iran as a “state sponsor of terror”.

Behind the scenes Reagan was willing to sell arms to Iran to fund his war on the left in South America. It was known as the “Iran-Contra” affair. The Contras were fascist Nicaraguan paramilitaries waging war against the left wing Sandinista government.

Reagan also believed the arms sales would encourage a more moderate Iranian governing faction to emerge. But the carrot and the stick approach just means that imperialism offers you a concession of some kind while preparing to murder you.

The US had first imposed sanctions on Iran in 1979, these were tightened by Bill Clinton. His executive orders banned US companies from dealing with Iran. Sanctions are the modern equivalent to putting a castle under siege to starve the population out, weaken the enemy before attack and encourage people to revolt.

George W. Bush called Iran part of an “Axis of Evil” while the UN hit Iran with further sanctions. Because of the sanctions the people of Iran can’t access drugs to treat cancer and other illnesses. Children with painful skin conditions can’t get the treatments they need.

In 2013 there were talks between the US and Iran where the US offered to relax the state of siege in return for a promose that Iran wouldn’t develop nuclear weapons but Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018.

In 2020 the US assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Baghdad in a drone strike. This assassination was ordered by Donald Trump.

In March this year Trump wrote a letter to the Iranian government giving them 60 days to do what the US wanted or there would be trouble. Israel asnwered their master’s call and Israel launched strikes across Iran a day before the sixth round of Iran-US talks.

Then the US launched air strikes on Iran.

Imperialism is no accident of personality. Corporate competition spills over into military competition as the biggest economic players demand their nation state acts to defend their greed and desire for control over resources.

This is why we have to defend Irish neutrality tooth and nail. Our establishment want to act as junior players in the bloody imperialist game - at the cost of the lives of our sons and daughters.

You can’t have peace and live under capitalism. The only contribution workers in Ireland can make to a world without war is to overthrow our criminal regime at home and establish Ireland as a beacon of anti-imperialism in the world.