Posted by: John Phoenix
British workers are duty-bound to stand with the Iranian people, who are under attack from the same imperialist class that subjects, exploits and impoverishes us.
Download this leaflet as a pdf.
Imperialist war criminals
In the early hours of Saturday 28 February, the US regime and its Israeli zionist stooges launched yet another illegal, aggressive, unjust war against a sovereign nation in the middle east. For the second time in eight months, they chose to launch bombs in the midst of a duplicitous ‘negotiation’ process, hoping in this way to catch the Iranian side off-guard.
The US ruling elites thus proved conclusively that they are indeed “agreement incapable”, and that they have no regard whatsoever either for the officially-recognised system of ‘international law’ and UN diplomacy, or for their own much-vaunted constitution. And so the lesson was once more slammed home: in a class society, the state and its institutions serve only one purpose: to uphold the domination of the exploiting class. Any ‘rule’ or ‘law’ that gets in the way of this aim will be ignored.
As they did last June, the imperialists launched what they believed would be a ‘short, sharp’ regime-change operation, assassinating every political and military leader they could locate. This time, that included the 86-year-old supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had refused to go into a shelter and was martyred alongside many members of his extended family, including his baby granddaughter.
The attackers also murdered scientists, and capped their criminality by carrying out a double-tap strike against a girls’ primary school. This heinous act, carried out by a US war plane, killed 170 little girls and their teachers. Apparently, Washington’s ‘war planners’ believed that such a loss would demoralise their opponents, but they could not have been more wrong.
These acts have convinced many liberal-leaning Iranians that the west cannot be negotiated with, creating an unprecedented level of national unity. Millions have taken to the streets every night since the war began: defying the bombardment, mourning their many martyrs, expressing support for their government, and standing in defence of Iranian sovereignty and opposition to the imperialist/zionist genocidaires.
Having been unable to locate Iran’s well-concealed underground missile silos, the imperialist effort has continued to focus on the collective punishment of civilians. If anyone needs convincing that the genocidal behaviour of Israel in Gaza is not an aberration but the imperialist norm, the incessant bombing of homes, markets, schools and hospitals in Iran and southern Lebanon is providing plenty of fresh proof.
Iran’s real nuclear option
The imperialists seem to have been taken aback by the response to their latest vicious aggression, but in fact Iran has made it abundantly clear over many years how it would answer such an attack: by blockading the Hormuz strait (through which 20 percent of the world’s oil supplies flow); by targeting the USA’s military and intelligence network across the region; by destroying Israel’s military capabilities; and by carrying out reciprocal responses against Israel for every attack on civilian infrastructure in Iran.
In fact, the escalation to a region-wide war was guaranteed from the moment the imperialists began their assault, since the USA has constructed a massive network of bases and ports across the Gulf from which it wages its wars and dominates the region, and all of which are ultimately aimed at any country or people who strive for sovereignty.
Iran and every thinking person in the region knows full well and from bitter experience that they will never be able to achieve peace, security or sovereign development while this Sword of Damocles is suspended over their heads. Nevertheless, the incredible precision and accuracy of Iran’s missiles has stunned the west. They have effectively blinded both Israel’s and the USA’s warning systems, emptied their military bases, dismantled their logistics, depleted their arsenals, and destroyed much of their spy machinery.
Recognising that Iran’s fight is existential to all those who oppose the Gaza genocide and long for freedom from the imperialist jackboot, the resistance movements in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen are all joining the war effort. And mass protests are revealing just how unpopular and exposed are the various Gulf autocracies and client regimes, from Bahrain, UAE and Qatar to Jordan and Lebanon – all of which now face the stern reality that without US protection, their days as local overlords are numbered.
British complicity
As with the Gaza genocide, the Labour government’s claim to be ‘non-participant’ or acting only ‘defensively’ in the war are subterfuges to fool the public. While there has been some disagreement over whether this was the ‘right moment’ for an attack, the imperialist camp is united in its criminal desire to destroy Iranian sovereignty and take control of Iranian resources. They also hope that gaining complete domination over the region’s oil might enable them to strangle China’s economic development.
British planes have been engaged from day one in assisting with Israeli air defences, and British bases in Diego Garcia, Cyprus and Gloucestershire have all been participating, as have MI6, British ships and other naval assets. All those involved are thus guilty of war crimes, while British locations such as RAF Fairford and GCHQ in Gloucestershire have become legitimate targets for Iranian attack.
As with Nato’s war against Russia in Ukraine, every rise in inflation and every shortage in essential goods must be blamed firmly on the aggressors, along with the growing cascade of side-effects – shortages not only of fuel but of fertiliser, plastics and other products linked directly or indirectly with petrochemicals. These effects will become worse the longer the war goes on – and Iran has made it clear that, while it did everything possible to avoid a confrontation, now that it has been forced into war, it will not end its own campaign until its demands have been met, the primary one being an end to the imperialist presence in the region.
No cooperation!
British workers must stand with the Iranian people, who are under attack by our own ruling class. And we must organise ourselves, harnessing our collective power to compel an end to British participation in the war.
This means transforming our trade unions and antiwar organisations, removing the Labour-aligned bureaucracies who currently control them, and using them instead in our own class interests. And it means building a campaign of mass non-cooperation with every aspect of the British, US, Nato and zionist war machine.
The sooner we learn to stop cooperating with the criminal activities of our exploiters elsewhere, the sooner will we be able to break their power to subject, exploit and impoverish us at home!
Our demands:
- Join the European dockers to build a mass campaign of non-cooperation with the imperialist war machine and its zionist proxy, including: refusing to make or move weapons and other supplies; refusing to provide support services or logistics; refusing to participate in technological or civil cooperation; refusing to distribute Israeli goods and services; and refusing to write, broadcast or distribute the propaganda lies that justify illegal wars.
- An end to all military, intelligence, academic, scientific, cultural and diplomatic cooperation with the genocidal zionist regime.
- A mass campaign to publicise the plight, fund the defence, and overturn the convictions or sackings of those who have been targeted by the state or by their employers for standing with Palestine or Iran.
- A mass campaign to overturn the terrorism legislation that is being used to criminalise opposition to the Gaza genocide and the imperialist war machine.
- A mass campaign to reinstate our democratic rights to free speech and freedom of assembly.
- A tribunal to hold every British official who has been complicit with the genocide in Gaza and the war on Iran to account.
- The disbanding of the criminal and aggressive Nato military alliance, which is spreading fascism and war across the globe, from south Korea to Iran and Palestine, and from Venezuela to the Donbass.
- The dismantling of all British bases overseas and of all US bases in Britain, and an end of all support for proxy forces anywhere in the world.