15-04-2024: The April 1^st strike by the Zionist Israeli state on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus was unprecedented. Perhaps apart from the US (United States of America) bombing of the Chinese embassy in Serbia in 1999, this was the first deliberate strike on diplomatically protected territory in other states since the signing of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. This convention,[1] which outlines the basic protections for embassies and consulates, their staff and all personnel within its grounds in foreign states, has effectively been shredded by the Israeli government. It also makes a mockery of the Western imperialist powers’ “rules based international order”, which they are so keen to enforce on the globe, given that the Israeli state is their number one proxy force in the Middle East. The act was a complete and total violation of the sovereignty of both Iran and Syria, and once again highlights the seeming impunity of the Israeli state no matter what crimes it commits.

Silence from the West

The April 1 Israeli air strike killed at least 7 people, including two generals of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) – Commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi and his deputy Mohammad Hadi Hajriahimi.[2] Barely a week after the attack, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in Damascus, where Amir-Abdollahian inaugurated a new consulate building for Iran. He asserted that the “terrorist act of the Zionist regime once again proved that this regime does not adhere to any international standards and any human values….and….the Israeli regime will be punished and will receive the necessary and firm response.”[3] The IRI and the Syrian Arab Republic are the strongest of allies and have been co-operating in heading the “Axis of Resistance” to US-led imperialism throughout the Middle East, especially during the 10 plus year Western led regime change war against Damascus from 2011 onwards. Iran and Syria understandably view the Zionist Israeli state and the US state as one military and political foe to be combatted for their own survival.

The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, described the airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus as a terrorist attack committed by the Israeli government. He also said it was an “ugly and criminal step” in relation to the sovereign states of both Iran and Syria.[4] Given the historically close relationship between Russia and Israel, this was a sign that even the Russian Federation is finding it difficult to maintain relations with the Zionist state. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) also denounced the murderous Israeli strike. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin stated that “China condemns the attack…the security of diplomatic institutions cannot be violated..and…Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity should be respected.”[5] The governments of Iraq, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all issued statements condemning the attack. However, there was stony silence from all Western governments, who could not bring themselves to even criticise an act which is universally acknowledged – or at least not denied – to be carried out by the Israeli state.

Provocation upon provocation

The silence of the US government and its European allies points again to its complicity in the attack, which almost all objective observers conclude was an attempt to draw Iran into a regional war in the Middle East – ultimately at the behest of Washington. The April 1 provocation comes some six months after the October 7 provocation, with both heinous crimes being committed with the same aim of triggering a regime change war against Tehran. On October 7, imperialism used both the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) and its terrorist creation Hamas to set off a conflict[6] which they assumed would lure Iran to intervene on the side of Palestine. Wisely, the Iranian state did not respond to October 7 by waging a frontal assault on Israel, and it is unlikely to do so in response to April 1. Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamanei did vow revenge, but other Iranian officials have indicated that Tehran would not change the approach it has adopted since October 7 of avoiding direct conflict with Israel and the US, while simultaneously backing its allies who have struck Israel, US troops in the region and US and European shipping in the Red Sea.[7]

Despite enormous pressure to come to the direct aid of Palestine, Iran’s leaders know well that to respond to a provocation in the way your enemies want you to respond, is to hand the upper hand to your attacker. The Israeli state, moreover, has nuclear weapons and is backed by the US which is also a nuclear power. This is one reason for the extreme reluctance of Iran’s government to be drawn into a war at the time of the choosing of the US/Israeli front. Another reason is that Iran is actually winning on the ground throughout the region in any case. The Iranian state has built up alliances with Shia resistance forces in the region over several decades, and these forces are in the process of waging a successful guerilla type war mainly against the presence of US troops in Syria and Iraq. The “Axis of Resistance”, which is more or less coordinated by the IRGC, includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Ansar Allah (Houthis) in Yemen and the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) in Iraq.

In addition to the ongoing guerrilla style pot shots on US troops in the region by Shia resistance militias allied to Iran, Iran itself has the conventional missile capability to strike every US base in the Middle East – especially those in Iraq and Syria.[8] The Ansar Allah blockade of Western shipping attempting to traverse the Bab Al-Mandab Strait into the Red Sea en route to Israel,[9] is most likely carried out with weapons supplied by the IRI. Four years ago, IRGC Commander Amir-Ali Hajizadeh declared that the Axis of Resistance is 3000 kilometres wide and stretches from Yemen to Lebanon.[10] This has been painstakingly assembled by the IRI for the last several decades, and is a major factor of what enables Iran to be in the position it is in now. It strategically prepares itself and its allies for a methodically planned defensive against the reckless but ongoing US/Israeli led provocations.

BRICS

On top of the Axis of Resistance, Iran today also has the major world superpowers of Russia and China as strong allies. Iran is a full member of the BRICS alliance, a groundbreaking non-imperialist bloc, alongside Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, the governments of nations such as Algeria, Indonesia, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Venezuela and Cuba have submitted applications to join BRICS.[11] Even before this comes about, as of 2023, the BRICS share of global GDP (Gross Domestic Product) surpassed the GDP of the G7 imperialist powers (US, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada) in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP – the amount of goods and services which can be purchased for a given amount of currency).[12] Anchoring BRICS is the gargantuan industrial and manufacturing expansion still taking place in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as one result of its public ownership of the major means of production combined with a planned economy.

The PRC’s unstoppable growth is a major concern of US imperialism, as evidenced by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent visit to Beijing. Yellen attempted to warn the PRC against “dumping” products in US markets, and against “overcapacity” – particularly with the production of EVs (electric vehicles) and solar panels.[13] In other words, the rapidly declining industrial base of the US and Western countries as a consequence of faltering capitalism cannot compete against socialistic production in the PRC. So much for free markets!! Not only is the PRC a co-member of BRICS with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the PRC and Iran signed a landmark 25 year strategic deal in 2021, which includes Beijing investing $400 billion in Iran in exchange for oil, allowing Iran to escape some aspects of crippling US sanctions.[14] The deal also includes military co-operation, which, alongside military cooperation with the Russian Federation, ensures Iran is no longer facing the threat of US/UK led regime change war alone. In fact, Iran as a full member of the BRICS ensures it is in a stronger position to resist imperialist war threats than it has ever been.

With the world on the brink of a catastrophic US/Israeli war on Iran, one might expect an anti-war movement to be marching up and down the streets of the capitals in the West. However, this is far from the case, due to the fact that almost all of the faux left in the West is in some way in favour of regime change in Iran – while imagining that their regime change is somehow entirely different from the regime change sought by US imperialism. In September and October of 2022, much of the liberal Western left pushed for regime change in Iran in response to the death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody. Despite their being no evidence of Ms Amini being mistreated, and even video evidence showing that she unfortunately collapsed without a hand being laid on her, much of the Western left echoed imperialism’s false cries about “women’s rights” in Iran. They then backed clearly Western sponsored ultra-violent riots, where pro-US Iranians attacked and sometimes killed army officers as well as Basij personnel.[15] The Basij is a volunteer organisation, perhaps tens of thousands strong, which defends the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the republic which emerged from it. Washington and its allies have been desperately seeking the reversal of 1979 for more than four decades.

“Left” fixated on Palestine

Workers internationally should be clear in relation to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Imperialism remains the first contradiction. While socialists are not in favour of religious based or theocratic states, Iran must nevertheless be defended against imperialist war, externally and internally. The only possible political movement inside Iran that could be supported by socialists internationally would be one which defends the gains of 1979, and which is definitively more anti-imperialist than the government of the Islamic Republic itself. In addition, it would, at the very least, have no connection whatsoever to the various intrigues of Western imperialism, via its many fronts. It may be difficult for such a movement to come about, but the worst error to make is to shill for regime change in Iran while imagining that operatives of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency of the US) and the MI6 (British intelligence) are “just one part” of political upheaval in Iran, which intervenes alongside a real political movement. A genuine workers’ uprising cannot and would not include violent riots and deliberate destabilisation.

Instead of organising opposition to a US led war on Iran, the supposed left in the West is irrationally fixated on the fate of Palestine only. Yes, there must be a movement to stop the Zionist Israeli states’ terror bombing of Gaza, but the connection to the other theatres of imperialist war must be made. In addition, it must be linked to the dramatic cost of living crisis for working people in the West, struggling with the cost of food, housing and basic necessities. Workers can scarcely take action on moral imperatives alone. Many of them understand that war is hell and must be avoided. At the same time, the ostensible left in the West have apologised or even justified the blatant terrorism of Hamas – even if it is acknowledged that the war crimes of the Israeli state are on another scale. The main material reason for this is that much of this feigned left were on the side of Hamas, the IDF (Israeli Defence Force), ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and Al Qaeda during the 10 plus year war of regime change against Syria. In fact, this alleged left stood for regime change in Libya before they stumped for imperialist backed regime change against Syria, and still do. To make matters worse, they also back regime change in Iran, Russia and China.

In fact, arguably the reason for the October 7 Hamas led terrorist attacks on Israel was to open up another war front for US imperialism given that NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) is clearly losing its proxy war against Russia via the arming of Nazis in Ukraine. It is doubtful that October 7 could have been carried out without the complicity of both Hamas and the IDF.[16] Moreover, this devastating conflict was aimed from the start at drawing Iran into a war which would lead to its destruction. Despite a historic 75-year injustice being perpetrated against Palestine, imperialism is using this tragic history for its overall aim of war on Iran and Russia and China. The Middle East, Ukraine and the South China Sea are but three fronts in a single imperialist war on the BRICS powers.

Prior to World War II, Russian revolutionary leader L Trotsky wrote that imperialist wars are nothing else than the detonations of the productive forces against the nation state borders.[17] Today, the West cannot restart production at home, and cannot compete with Eurasia economically – so war is its only option. Peace is possible, but only if the working class can cohere a political leadership based on the determination to put a final end to capitalism and its wars at home and abroad. Marxist vanguard parties must be forged to help lead the working class to power in its own name.

Workers League  

www.redfireonline.com  

E: workersleague@protonmail.com

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[1] www.legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf (10-04-2024)

[2] www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/1/several-killed-in-israeli-strike-on-iranian-consulate-in-damascus-reports (10-04-2024)

[3] www.thecradle.co/articles/israel-will-be-punished-iran-fm-says-from-damascus (10-04-2024)

[4] www.rt.com/russia/595291-naryshkin-israel-syria-terrorist-attack/ (10-04-2024)

[5] www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3257605/china-joins-chorus-condemnation-over-israeli-attack-iranian-consulate-syria (10-04-2024)

[6] www.redfireonline.com/2023/10/16/the-west-ignites-another-proxy-war-in-the-middle-east/ (10-04-2024)

[7] www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-embassy-strike-shows-israels-growing-reach-mideast-boils-2024-04-04/ (10-04-2024)

[8] www.globalresearch.ca/war-propaganda-intensifies-us-mainstream-media-calls-war-iran-stop-axis-resistance/5846323 (10-04-2024)

[9] www.globalresearch.ca/che-guevaras-slippers-yemen-houthis-defense-gaza/5843781 (10-04-2024)

[10] http://www.sputnikglobe.com/20200215/irgc-commander-boasts-of-3000-km-wide-axis-of-resistance-stretching-from-yemen-to-lebanon-1078324480.html (10-04-2024)

[11] www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-brics-expansion-in-4-charts/ (10-04-2024)

[12] www.statista.com/chart/30638/brics-and-g7-share-of-global-gdp/ (10-04-2024)

[13] www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3257994/janet-yellen-china-overcapacity-high-agenda-secretary-takes-swipe-exports (13-04-2024)

[14] www.timesofisrael.com/iran-china-sign-major-25-year-strategic-cooperation-agreement/ (13-04-2024)

[15] www.redfireonline.com/2022/09/25/iran-western-sabotage-in-the-name-of-womens-rights/ (13-04-2024)

[16] www.redfireonline.com/2023/10/16/the-west-ignites-another-proxy-war-in-the-middle-east/ (13-04-2024)

[17] www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/04/marxism.htm (13-04-2024)

Image: Emergency and security personnel extinguish a fire at the site of the strikes which hit a building annexed to the Iranian embassy in Syria’s capital Damascus. http://www.themirror.com