Last week, Trump’s lawyer and close ally Rudy Giuliani made a speech which celebrated the poverty and suffering that American sanctions have created for the people of Iran. Said Giuliani: “We saw a sign of a man trying to sell his internal organs for five hundred American dollars — probably a fortune in Iran today! This is truly pitiful. These are the kinds of conditions that lead to successful revolution, and God willing, non-violent revolution.”
This was a bluntly phrased endorsement of the strategy that the United States has taken on for instigating regime change in Iran. As congress’ rejection this May of an Iran military operations bill showed, even the most pro-war politicians see an invasion of Iran as unrealistic. And they think this with good reason; several months ago, many media headlines pointed out that the U.S. would need to reinstate the draft in order to win a military war with Iran. Since a draft would create an explosion of popular resistance, U.S. imperialists have instead chosen the route of trying to destroy Iran through economic and political sabotage.
And despite the attempts from Trump administration officials to deny that they’re working towards this goal, their actions tell us otherwise. For one piece of evidence, a Reuters report from July quoted U.S. officials as having said that “The Trump administration has launched an offensive of speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and help pressure Iran to end its nuclear program and its support of militant groups.”
This claim is confirmed by the U.S.’ brutal recent economic sanctions against Iran, Trump’s sabotage of the nuclear deal, the direct efforts from Mike Pompeo and others to help anti-government Iranians, and the covert operations that the CIA has been carrying out in Iran. Trump’s threats against Iran at his recent U.N. speech, along with the new bogus claim from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu about an Iranian nuclear threat, show where the U.S./NATO axis of evil plans to take this campaign of aggression.
The anti-war journalist Caitlin Johnstone has astutely summed up what to think of the U.S.’ claim that it isn’t aiming for Iranian regime change: “as we saw them do with Libya and as we’ve seen them attempt with Syria, the US government has ever since the disastrous Iraq invasion had a standing policy of denying that it is pushing for regime change in key strategic regions while doing exactly that.” And we can get a sense of this operation’s potential timetable by looking to the infamous “Free Iran” speech that John Bolton made last year, which promised that Iran would be overthrown by 2019.
In short, an illegal and potentially catastrophic breach of sovereignty is being carried out, and the centers of power are trying to divert people’s attention elsewhere. It’s sadly ironic that the leaders of the Democratic anti-Trump movement have threatened mass mobilizations in defense of the Russiagate probe, while the Trump administration’s egregious actions in Iran, Syria, Yemen, and other places have been largely ignored or supported by these “Resistance” leaders. And it’s telling that Russian collusion is a still unproven charge which helps the agenda of the military/intelligence complex, whereas opposing Trump’s foreign aggressions would harm American imperialism.
We need to get past all of the political distractions and organize towards shutting down the rampage of the American empire. As the empire loses its dominance, it’s carrying out increasingly large and desperate war campaigns around the world to try to regain its former power. And as Americans, we can do a favor for the world by restraining the empire until it collapses completely.
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