Iran was justified

According to a social media meme, “We are not starting a war with Iran. Iran has been at war with the U.S. for 41 years. Just once, we fought back.” Nonsense.

Toward a contextual understanding of this latest crisis, I offer the following information to all draft-age men.

In 1951, Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq nationalized Iran’s oil reserves and began to use the wealth derived for the benefit of the Iranian people rather than Western oil capitalists. In 1953, the U.S. government, specifically then-Secretary of State John Dulles, and his brother - then-CIA Director Allen Dulles overthrew Mosaddeq. The U.S. government replaced Mossadeq with the brutally repressive dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (aka “the Shah of Iran”).

Pahlavi’s brutality, which saw to the torture and murder of tens of thousands of Iranians from 1953 to 1979, was facilitated by his CIAtrained

secret police, the

SAVAK.

That was the context behind the Iranian takeover of the American embassy in Tehran, Iran (1979). In brief, the Iranian people were justifiably upset with the U.S., which was directly responsible for the Shah’s barbarity.

In addition, the Dulles brother’s law firm represented standard oil, whose assets were threatened by the nationalization of (Iran’s) oil. Moreover, the overthrow of Iran’s government is not the only example of the U.S. toppling a democratically elected government at the behest of capitalists. Other samplings include Guatemala (1954), Congo (1960), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), Grenada (1983), Honduras (2009), etc.

So, in reality, it is the U.S. that has been at war with Iran for some 70 years. Iran is, therefore justified by its military actions against the United States. And American workers need to resist the U.S. war machine and allow capitalists to fight their wars themselves.

Guy Marsh

Lancaster