Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no. 4, May/June 1980
Friday 25 April saw the complete failure of American imperialism’s first effort at direct military intervention against the Iranian Revolution since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. That American imperialism has been reduced to this blundering display of sabre rattling is a tribute to the determination of the Iranian people.
The American military operation made it clear that the real issue was not, and is not, the ‘hostages’. The real issue is the re-establishment of imperialist domination in Iran.
Throughout the world imperialism is fighting a rearguard action to preserve its existence in the face of mounting victories by the oppressed. The attack on Iran was one effort to reverse the tide. Everything else had failed. Only military threat remained open. The Iranian people have already shown that this too will fail because they understand that the future of their revolution is at stake — and they will defend it with their lives.
The issue for communists in Britain is clear: defend the Iranian revolution against imperialist attack. This is the key task. Yet the petit bourgeois left in response to American imperialist aggression has whined about the threat to, not the Iranian Revolution, but so-called ‘world peace’.
This is how the Morning Star writes about possible British involvement in the invasion:
‘The point is, however, that whether the government was informed, consulted, or in some other way found out, Mrs Thatcher knew what Carter had in mind and that it could be the first step in the nuclear suicide of Britain. And she did nothing to stop it. What a patriot!’ (Morning Star 28 April 1980)
In other words, the CP’s Hands Off Iran campaign has nothing to do with the interests of the Iranian people but rather with the protection of Britain — to be more precise the British petit bourgeoisie — from nuclear war. The eruption of ‘concern’ for Iran turns out to be nothing but panic — the panic of a hysterical petit bourgeoisie half-crazed with visions of a nuclear holocaust. The attack on the Iranian Revolution becomes a threat to ‘world peace’. ‘World peace’ is not an abstraction – imperialism is constantly at war against the oppressed. The only road to world peace is through the destruction of imperialism — which is what the Iranian masses are fighting for.
These hypocrites who now call for Hands Off Iran have consistently refused to call for Hands Off Ireland and to support those who are fighting to get British Hands Off Ireland. The Iranian people will judge the British left by the role it plays in opposing British imperialism and supporting all those who fight British imperialism. Until those who are now calling for Hands Off Iran also call for Hands Off Ireland and give unconditional support to the Irish people’s struggle, we will continue to believe that they are simply worried about their own skins.
The American invasion was an attempt to intimidate the Iranian people. Although why anyone should think that the spectacle of ‘highly-trained’ American troops playing terminal dodgems with each other in the Iranian desert should frighten a people who survived the long years of torture and murder under the Shah is anyone’s guess.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! extends its fraternal solidarity to the people of Iran. We have every confidence that they, supported by the growing world wide anti-imperialist movement, will defeat any attempt to re-establish imperialist control and bring their revolution to a successful conclusion.
