Socialist Worker and IRI “Antiwar” Lobby Network

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Saturday August 25, 2007 18:49 by Borhan Azemi and Reza J.

Here a group of Iranian antiwar activists make clear their feelings about Iran and the support it gets from some on the left. They say: Iran is part of the world imperialist-capitalist system And its contradictions with U.S. imperialism will not change the nature of this regime.

Recently we read an article “Standing up to Islamophobia” published in Socialist Worker Online (US). As a group of Iranian antiwar activists, we respond to this article concerning the direction of the antiwar movement. We think that the position of SW(US) is not in the interest of international proletarian revolution and must be opposed based. The position that the ISO is theorizing asserts that the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) regime is a progressive and anti-imperialist in nature. We do not believe so, and intend to show that IRI regime is dependent and part of the world imperialist-capitalist system. Its contradictions with U.S. imperialism will not change the nature of this regime.

U.S. Imperialism is trying to prevent the Middle Eastern people from making revolution and overthrowing the reactionary states in the region, by imposing a selection between two poles of “U.S. progress or religious fundamentalism.” We have seen the outcome of those two poles in Iraq. The objective reality in Iraq is that, since the oppressed Iraqi people couldn’t organize their independent force and action-independent from both Imperialists and reactionaries, and couldn’t achieve their struggle for freedom and liberty around a clear revolutionary political vision, they are being destroyed in the press between imperialists and Islamic fundamentalists. We, the Iranian revolutionaries and progressive forces, are determined to prevent that from happening, and people being squeezed between these two reactionary poles. The people must struggle for liberty independent of both imperialist and reactionary lines.

We, the revolutionary and freedom loving communists and leftists of Iran are the spokespeople of such a people’s line and are struggling to shape and broaden that task amongst the Iranian people. We are getting united among ourselves to carry out this historic task, and we implore international forces in the antiwar, anti occupation and anti globalization movements to reinforce and support this policy, and just this policy.