Hands Off Iran!

Issued by the MN Anti-War Committee *  May 21, 2018

The Anti-War Committee opposes the ongoing and increasing vilification of Iran as inherently unjust to the Iranian people, and as a danger to world peace and stability.  Even a positive step, the signing the Iran Nuclear Deal in July 2015, was undermined because the U.S. “quietly” continued to strangling Iran with economic sanctions in violation of the deal.  Now that the Trump administration has openly broken the Iran Nuclear Deal in May 2018, U.S. war-mongering towards Iran has escalated.

War hawks throughout Donald Trump’s cabinet threaten war against Iran citing “democracy” as a reason for U.S. aggression.  Iran is yet another target of Trump’s bigoted narrow-mindedness, and is included in the racist Muslim Ban. We must raise our voices calling on the media, our members of Congress, and the Trump Administration to cease the U.S. aggression on Iran. We demand that  Iran be treated with dignity as a sovereign nation and that the U.S. respect mutual treaties with Iran.

Since 2001, the U.S. has demonized Iran as a part of the ‘axis of evil,’ but the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal was widely viewed as a step forward.  The JCPOA was an agreement between Iran, China, France, Russia, Britain, U.S., Germany and the European Union. In the JCPOA, Iran agreed to hypocritical U.S. demands including comprehensive inspections of top-secret military facilities.  Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were allowed into areas of Iranian national security concern, despite constant U.S. war threats. These IAEA inspectors continuously and universally certified that Iran complied with the terms of the JCPOA.

Other countries recognizing Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA began normalizing relations.  The U.S., almost immediately began reimplementing sanctions in violation of the JCPOA, once again demonstrating the ugly U.S. history replete with bad faith attacks and broken agreements.  This U.S. history undermines the very concept of diplomacy between nations. With every Trump tweet, off-the-cuff remark about North Korea, or appointment of war-mongers (Haspel, Pompeo, Bolton), it is less likely that Iran, Korea, or other countries beleaguered by the U.S. will trust a diplomatic solution for international conflicts.  Countries that are targets of U.S. belligerence, have no incentive to do anything but increase their defense capacity as the only means of staving off U.S. aggression and national self-determination.

To justify pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, Trump has repeatedly and continuously vilified Iran.   His most recent appointee for National Security Advisor, John Bolton, has said that he hoped the Irani government would be toppled by 2019, and has links to Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a mercenary grouping that has committed terrorist attacks against Iran.   U.S. meddling in Iran has a long history, including the CIA coup in 1953 which overthrew a democratically-elected Iranian government, U.S. support for the murderous Shah installed in the coup, provoking and fanning the flames of war between Iran & Iraq in the 1980’s, and the destructive Stuxnet cyber attack in 2010 against Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities.  The U.S. sanctions regime in direct violation of the Iran Nuclear Deal is just the latest example of aggression targeting Iran.

The U.S. is interested in Iran for its geopolitical significance.  Iran is commercially and militarily important because of its location bridging the Middle East and Asia.  Iran is a country with vast oil and gas reserves which the U.S. has in its sights. The U.S. opposes the Iranian government because it dares to control its own natural resources and attempts to use those resources for social programs rather than “give-aways” to foreign companies.   Iran also resists the U.S.’ imperialist agenda, and is an ally to others in the region like Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria. Iran’s resistance to the U.S. and Israeli intervention keeps it in the crosshairs of U.S. aggression.

In 2017, Trump placed Iran on the list of  countries targeted by his racist Muslim ban.  The Trump administration has issued three different versions of the Muslim ban in an effort to try to make it appear constitutional; each version has included Iran.  Iran is on this list as a way to promote the U.S. myth of Iran being a “terrorist state” and to justify continued U.S. intervention against Iran.

This year, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, claimed to be concerned about democracy in Iran, “We must not be silent. The people are crying out for freedom. All freedom loving people must stand with their cause.”  In reality, the U.S. is sabotaging Iran economically through sanctions, and politically through misinformation, in an effort to overthrow the Iranian government. The U.S. breaks treaties and agreements, attempting to terrorize Iran and other countries in the world with threats of “preemptive” military attacks.  The U.S. is barring the door to Iranians wishing to travel and live in the U.S. in an act of collective punishment and Islamophobic provocation. We stand in solidarity with the Iranian people, and demand the Trump Administration end calls for war and support the right of Iran to determine its own future without influence.