The most worrisome aspect of these developments is that they might lead to catastrophic consequences and full-scale war. That would in turn overshadow the wave of uprisings that have broken out in the Middle East and North Africa region in 2019, from Sudan and Algeria to Iraq, Lebanon and Iran.
January 3, 2020
In the early morning of January 3, at the order of U.S. president Donald Trump and without any authorization from the U.S. Congress, U.S. airstrikes targeted a convoy near the Baghdad airport in Iraq and killed Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Mauhandis , top Iraqi militia commander/founder of Kataib Hezbollah militia and at least six others. The U.S. Department of Defense stated that this attack was in response to Iranian-orchestrated attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq during the past few months, including a December 27 attack on an Iraqi military base near Kirkuk which killed a U.S. contractor and wounded 4 U.S. soldiers. There are currently 5300 U.S. troops in Iraq. 3000 more are on their way to the Middle East. 14,000 additional troops have been sent to the region since May 2019.
The idea of assassinating Qassem Soleimani was publicly endorsed by a December 31 Wall Street Journal editorial statement which also called on Trump to attack Iranian militias in Syria. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-iranians-escalate-in-baghdad-11577837753?mod=opinion_lead_pos3) Soleimani himself had challenged Trump in July 2019 by addressing him in a statement and saying that “I and the Quds force are your contenders.” (https://www.radiozamaneh.com/482272?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+radiozamaneh%2Fcom+%28%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%DB%8C%D9%88+%D8%B2%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%87%29)
This action by the U.S. follows a December 31 assault by thousands of protesters mobilized and organized by pro-Iranian militias known as “al-Hashd al-Sha’bi” (also known as Popular Mobilization Forces) entering Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone and breaking into the U.S. embassy and burning the reception area, in response to December 29 U.S. airstrikes on Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia bases on the Iraq and Syria border which killed 25 and injured 50 militia members.
Earlier in June 2019, Trump had cancelled a U.S. military assault on Iran which had aimed to respond to Iran’s shooting down a U.S. drone. His administration decided not to respond to Iran’s September 14 airstrikes on Saudi oil facilities and earlier attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf region attributed to Iran. Trump himself had recently emphasized that he was no longer interested in “regime change” in Iran but wanted to continue imposing the backbreaking sanctions on Iran to force the Iranian government to change its behavior.
However, what the latest ominous developments reveal is that regardless of what imperialist leaders might wish, the compulsion of capitalist-imperialist powers to compete and show their superiority has a logic of its own.
For the Iranian government, Qassem Soleimani was the top commander, second important leader after Ayatollah Khamenei, and architect of Iran’s bloody intervention in Syria as well as the main decision maker in Iraq. Iran has promised “harsh revenge.” Its ally, the Lebanese Hezbollah has issued a similar threat. Israel has been engaged in low-intensity war with Iran for some time by targeting Iranian bases in Syria and Iraq, and the Lebanese Hezbollah. Israel might strike Iran itself if necessary.
The most worrisome aspect of these developments is that they might lead to catastrophic consequences and full-scale war. That would in turn overshadow the wave of uprisings that have broken out in the Middle East and North Africa region in 2019, from Sudan and Algeria to Iraq, Lebanon and Iran. All of these uprisings have opposed imperialism, authoritarianism, neoliberalism, poverty, corruption, religious fundamentalism and sectarianism. Women have been active participants and often in the forefront. The participants are mostly working-class and unemployed youth. They are not content with the ouster of individual ruling figures but want to change the socioeconomic and political system. For all these reasons, the revolts could mark the beginning of a new progressive and revolutionary chapter for the region as a whole, although significant difficulties and challenges exist.
Authoritarian rulers and systems however, will not be easily pushed back. In Iraq, a wave of popular protests that began on October 2 in Baghdad and the Shi’a south have been brutally attacked by the Iranian-backed Iraqi government with support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian sponsored Shi’a fundamentalist militia, al-Hashd al-Sha’bi which includes the Kataib Hezbollah. Small but increasing expressions of support for the uprising have emerged in majority Sunni and Kurdish areas. 500 protesters have been killed and over 19,000 injured.
In Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other government forces brutally suppressed the nationwide popular protests that broke out on November 15 in opposition to a rise in the price of petroleum and called for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and an end to its military interventions in the region. According to Reuters, at least 1500 protesters were killed in four days. Between 8000 and 10,000 mostly young protesters have been arrested and most have not been heard from. Many political prisoners, including labor, feminist, and oppressed minority activists languish in prison from previous protests. These and revolutionary protesters in Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan and Algeria are the forces that socialists around the world need to reach out to and support.
The joy expressed by some at the death of the criminal reactionary Qassem Soleimani is understandable, given his role in repressing revolutionary popular classes in Iran, Syria, Iraq and in expanding Iran’s militarism and influence in the region. However, his assassination represents nothing affirmative for the popular uprisings in Iraq and the region.
This U.S. imperialist action was not done to empower the people of Iraq. On the contrary, the result of this imperialist action could actually increase the risk of derailing the popular uprising in Iraq. The threat is not necessarily that the current Iraqi protest movement would concentrate solely on opposing the United States after this assassination. Up to now, the majority of protesters have clearly opposed all foreign influences, especially Iran and the USA. However, they might now be overwhelmed by another movement controlled and organized by pro-Iranian militias, which uses this assassination to make the departure of Americans the only demand , while not challenging the current sectarian and crony capitalist system. The risk is that the new U.S.-Iranian escalation will dictate all internal issues in Iraq and make Iraq the site of a direct confrontation between the U.S. and Iran.
The popular uprisings in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon will all suffer while the rulers who have been condemned by the protesters try to instrumentalize the crisis in their effort to remain in power.
The reactions of Iraqi officials and political personalities close to Iran point in this direction. Iraqi prime minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi who had earlier announced his upcoming resignation in face of the mass protests, condemned the killings as a violation of the conditions of the U.S. military presence in Iraq and an act of aggression that breached Iraq’s sovereignty and would lead to war. Iraqi Shi’a cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr on his side, ordered his followers to be ready to defend Iraq, while mourning the death of Soleimani.
In the face of all these developments, opposition to U.S. imperialism’s air strikes and war threats against Iran and Iraq can only be effective when rooted in solidarity with the progressive and revolutionary forces in the Middle East and North African region and full opposition to all the authoritarian governments and imperialists powers in the region.
We oppose all global and regional imperialists and authoritarians
Solidarity with the popular uprisings in the MENA region and elsewhere
Our destinies are linked
Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists
Greek Translation:
Chinese Translation:
Posted by 中文馬克思主義文庫 on Friday, January 17, 2020
Italian Translation:
Excellent and important
Very important analysis
Balanced and poignant
I endorse this statement. It is by far the best statement in the Marxist community on Iran.
-Art Francisco, co creator of The Marxist Line
I endorse this statement from Mark Briggs.
This is a good statement, but it has some problems, as explained by Joseph Green on the Detroit/Seattle Workers’ Voice list:
About the AMENAS statement
by Joseph Green, Detroit Workers’ Voice
The AMENAS statement is important because it dwells on the relationship of the current war danger to the people’s uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. US imperialism and Iranian expansionism may quarrel with each other, but they are both oppressors and have both trampled on the people’s movements against dictatorship, corruption, and deprivation. The only serious opposition to the path of escalation into a full-scale war between the US and Iran would be to denounce the bloody brinkmanship of both sides and to support the real opponents of war and dictatorship — the mass protest movements in Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere in the region. There is no real opposition to US imperialism and its brutal interference in the Middle East unless there’s support for the determined people’s movements that are going on now, prior to an all-out war between the US and Iran. And if there should be an all-out war, it will be even more important to support the people’s movements.
Yet the demonstrations Friday, January 4, against the threat of a war between the US and Iran generally ignored these uprisings. That’s partly because a narrow-minded approach has become almost universal in the pacifist coalitions. And it’s partly because a number of groups, like the Workers World Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the ANSWER anti-war coalition, and too many others, back the theocratic Iranian regime, the Assad dictatorship in Syria, and other bloodstained reactionary forces, presenting this stand as anti-imperialism. The influence of Stalinism and Trotskyism has helped hamstring the anti-war movement, so that it often washes its hands of the real forces that stand against the oppressors and militarist, and instead backs one reactionary power against the other.
In this situation, the AMENAS statement is refreshing, because it points to the connection between war and the efforts to suppress the people’s movements. The bourgeois press doesn’t talk much about this; instead it is full of criminal chatter about whether it will be useful to imperialism to assassinate this or that individual, and about minor differences between the bourgeois politicians over whether to assassinate now or later. But there is no way a serious anti-war movement can ignore the mass struggles around the world. If it does so, it will become irrelevant to the major class forces that are growing underneath the weight of imperialist and class oppression.
I do have some differences with the AMENAS statement. For example, it gives the impression that the mass uprisings that broke out in 2019 already back the revolutionary goals that AMENAS has. This is not so. The masses want change, but there are differences among them as to what change means. In Iraq, demonstrators came out into the streets day after day for three months, demanding social services, an end to corruption, the removal of all the old parties and politicians from office, and an end to the sectarian Iranian influence in Iraq. But, aside from basic democratic demands, there wasn’t clarity about what a new system would be and how it would achieve the desired economic changes. And this is common to what is seen elsewhere. Even in the midst of brave protests against particular imperialist atrocities or economic privation, there isn’t necessarily opposition to imperialism or capitalism in general. Nevertheless, the success of these uprisings would break down the old barriers that have suppressed the rights of the working people for so long. We in the Communist Voice Organization don’t have to idealize these movements in order to see their importance. Their success would be an important step forward; and it would pave the way for a deeper struggle against capitalism and imperialism; it would create room for the development of revolutionary organization among the masses and the deepening of the class struggle. The idea that liberation comes all at once is an empty dream which goes against everything that Marxism-Leninism has shown about the working class movement, and it holds back activists from realizing the need for the independent organization of the working class within the general democratic movement.
That said, the statement by AMENAS is a contribution to understanding what’s going on in the present war crisis, and we hope it spreads widely among activists and workers. Solidarity with the mass uprisings that are taking place against the forces that have bound and gagged the masses for all too long!
Equating the imperial monster with a besieged regional power is mistaken, IMO.
While “they are both oppressors and have both trampled on the people’s movements against dictatorship, corruption, and deprivation,” one has at least 800 military bases around the world while the other has a handful of allies in other countries. One has surrounded the other and mounted campaigns with the worst autocracy and the only nuclear-armed state in the region, while the other operates defensively in its own borders and a few adjacent states.
Isn’t this like talking about Israel and Palestine as equivalent forces?
I endorse this statement. AFSCME 3506, retired.
This war like all wars for profit should be stopped before people yearning to be free of their oppressors are bulldozed over.
This is a very good statement, which was helpful to me and will be helpful to many others, as it helps everyone to understand these events in class terms rather than as simply contradictions between countries.
I endorse this statement.
Andrew Gilberds, co-creator of The Marxist Line
Thank you for this statement. From the right wing critics of Trump’s terrorist assassination like Max Boot, to the left liberals like Amy Goodman to the “peace and justice” groups like Code Pink – they all ignore the single critical factor, which is the role of the workers and oppressed masses in countries like Iraq and Iran. Thanks for reminding us of that role.
It is time for all the Nations to take action to save out planet. Invest in education, science and sustainable plans. We do not have time for a war.
I agree with this statement and have reposted it onto the oaklandsocialist blog site. Things moved quickly since then, and it now seems that an all out war, including a US bombing campaign on Iran, is unlikely. It seems that it was worked out between the Trump and Khameini/Rouhani governments that the latter would respond without killing any US forces. This would allow them both to save face. In the two instances where Trump bombed Assad facilities, they let Assad’s forces know in advance by warning Russia. In this case, something similar was done by Iran warning Iraq. The main ones to lose in Trump’s assassination of Soleimani has been the movement of workers and the oppressed against the Iraqi and Iranian governments. Possibly the movement in Lebanon. I’m quite sure that Trump, too, is not sad about that.
For a more full perspective, see https://oaklandsocialist.com/2020/01/08/us-and-iran-open-war-now-seems-unlikely/
“Iran’s September 14 airstrikes on Saudi oil facilities”
Has this been proven? Last I heard, Iran denied it and the Houthis claimed credit.
To Eric: Comparing the Iranian government, a regional imperialist power, with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, is not appropriate. The Alliance of MENA Socialists is opposed to all global and regional imperialist powers. We do not practice selective anti-imperialism. As we said in the above statement, we strongly oppose a U.S-Iran war.
A bit late now, but for anyone who wants to distribute physical copies, a shortened version of this statement has been designed as a leaflet along with a graphic from Marjane Satrapi/Crimethinc: http://libcom.org/library/internationalist-leaflets-against-war-iran
Responding to your appeal, we, International Labor Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba, have delivered a message to the world: “Stop U.S. Imperialist War on Middle East! Never let Japanese Imperialism dispatch Self-Defense Forces to Middle East! Let’s fight in solidarity with the uprisings in Iran, Iraq, and the rest of Middle East!”
PS:
National Railway Motive Power Union of Chiba goes by the name of “Doro-Chiba”, and the “Chiba” is the name of prefecture in proximity to the metropolitan Tokyo in Japan.