The Scottish Socialist Party utterly condemns the American and Israeli aggression against Iran. It has no foundation in international law, but when has the United States or Israel ever concerned themselves with international law? The claim that they are acting in the interests of the Iranian people is ludicrous. The United States is entirely motivated by its desire to impose a pro–American puppet regime on the people of Iran similar to the one imposed under the Shah. The Trump administration is also using this situation to create an emergency crisis as a diversion from its domestic problems with the Mid Term elections just a few weeks away.
For the Israeli Government, that other great friend of the Iranian people, this is simply the latest in their strategy of perpetual war. In the last 12 months Israel has attacked Iran, Lebanon, Syria and now Iran again while continuing its aggression against Gaza and the West Bank. It is a military superpower whose defence bill is paid for by a foreign power. It has unlimited military capacity and the desire to use it to keep the region in a constant state of instability and to provide a false narrative to the Israeli people that its actions are all about keeping Israel secure in a hostile world.
The Iranian people are between a rock and a hard place. There is a real desire for democratic and social change against a corrupt, theocratic dictatorship which increasingly uses mass terror to hold onto power. Yet its so-called ‘liberators’ are two countries which have long proved themselves the enemies of Iran and the Iranian people.
In fact, the main card played by the regime is that it needs to stay in power to protect the country from foreign aggression. What the current US/Israeli aggression shows is that this has never been about Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. There has never been any evidence produced that Iran is developing such weapons or that such a development is imminent. This has always been ‘weapons of mass destruction’ propaganda.
This aggression against Iran will not result in regime change. The United States and Israel can inflict huge economic, military and infrastructure blows against Iran but this will not lead to the overthrow of the regime. This cannot be achieved without a full scale military invasion of the country; something the United States simply would not contemplate. It would be messy, unpredictable and costs the lives of American soldiers. At some stage the United States will announce ‘victory’ and walk away while the Israelis will move on to their next target. All leaving the regime in power and the Iranian people having to deal with that power.
Social and political change in Iran will only come through the mass actions of the Iranian people themselves. In this they will have the complete support of the Scottish Socialist Party.