Imperialism Is the Main Enemy of the People of Iran

There has also been much criticism from Maoist forces, including from Iranian Maoists, of Iran’s using its “defiance” of the so-called “international community,” i.e., imperialism, with regard to the fabricated “nuclear crisis,” to gain public favor at home.

It is a lesson of the Iraq war that disarming before imperialism only invites aggression. It is the lesson of the north Korean “crises” over the years that arming in the face of imperialist threats raises the costs to imperialism of launching aggression, and averts war. Of course, ultimately, people and not weapons are principal. People’s war is a “magic weapon” in the face of a better-armed enemy. But it must also be remembered that China under the leadership of Mao Zedong pursued and acquired a nuclear weapons deterrent. In 1964 it successfully tested an atom bomb. Three years later, in the midst of the Great Cultural Revolution, it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. It launched its own satellite, which transmitted the tune “The East Is Red.” The achievement of military parity with Israel on the part of a regional state outside the orbit of imperialism would have the effect of aiding the Palestinian national liberation struggle, and would also serve to, once again, raise the price imperialism has to pay for launching wars of aggression.

Communists should resolutely oppose unequal treaties like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which serve to maintain the military hegemony of imperialism in the world. Revolutionaries should not accept the credo of the ruling classes about “weapons of mass destruction.” Imperialism has no hesitation in acquiring and indeed in using all manner of weapons in pursuing its strategic objectives. What the imperialists fear is the proliferation of more powerful weaponry internationally, not just in the hands of the third world governments, but also and especially in the hands of the masses of people in those countries.

The Iranian regime is without doubt a reactionary one, of the worst variety. It is a regime with the blood of countless progressives and revolutionaries on its hands. But it also without doubt that Iran, at the present time, is directly in contention with international forces of imperialism, which are threatening war against the people of Iran. It is the foremost duty of communists in the heart of imperialism to oppose aggression against peoples, nations, and also countries under threat, such as Iran.