A new period of confrontation of the people and the Islamic regime is starting
The firing of missiles by the Iranian regime on two American bases in Iraq revealed more than any time before the weakness and deadlock of the Islamic Republic.
After three days of national mourning, body parading, war cries and threats against the slayers of the ‘national commander’, a number of missiles were fired at American military bases, and it was claimed ‘we have taken our revenge’! They said this was a defensive and final response proportionate to the American ‘terrorist attack’, and that now the ball was in the USA’s court. It then emerged that the US government had been forewarned about the missile attack through the Iraqi government. Indeed, media outlets like the CNN carried reports citing informed sources that the strike had been intentionally so planned as to avoid any American casualties!
Khamenei called their response a slap in the face of the USA, vowing to seek their revenge in other ways. However, this was more like putting on a brave face rather than a slap in the face of the opponent. The possibility that the regime may attempt other vexatious actions still exists; however, judging from the action so far, it’s clear what any future acts of revenge will look like.
The purpose of such operations for the regime is above all an anti-American window dressing, rather than seeking a military showdown or provoking a war. Strategically, neither side wants nor can start an all-out war. In the past few months, both sides have repeatedly stated that they are not seeking war. The series of events of the past week leading up to the killing of Soleimani and his companions by American drones has not changed the two sides’ avoidance of war and a military confrontation. There was a rise in war tension and climate, but this was more a political and propaganda manoeuvre, rather than a drive towards an all-out military encounter.
As far as the Islamic Republic is concerned, the target of its warlike, anti-American blusters was not Trump, but the masses of the people in Iran, Iraq and the region. The Islamic Republic is faced with a mass uprising in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon and needs war tension and propaganda – and not war itself – in order to try to drive back a people who have risen up to seek its expulsion from Iraq and its overthrow in Iran. Over the past week, the regime by beating the hollow drum of anti-Americanism, tried to turn the massive tide of protests in Iran and Iraq towards hostility with the USA. However, these attempts failed. The revolutionary people of Iraq, by street celebrations following the killing of Qasem Soleimani, a man who had a direct role in the massacre of the people of Iraq, particularly during the protest movement of the past few months, and by storming the offices of Hashd al-Shaabi militia in Nasiriyah and other cities and by declaring as invalid the bogus Iraqi parliament in response to its pro-Islamic Republic vote against the US forces, gave a fitting response to the recent manoeuvres of the Islamic regime of Iran. The recent developments have made the Iraqi people more insistent and more determined in their call for the expulsion of the Islamic Republic from Iraq.
In Iran too, the super-reactionary climate of mourning, death and grief that the regime launched following the killing of Soleimani is rapidly fading. The regime’s missile attack, which could not even hold the façade of its anti-American window dressing, marked the end of this imposed short spell of grief, mourning and martyr-worship and the end of its war cries and anti-American rants. A new period of confrontation of the people with the regime is starting. The fundamental, unresolvable economic, political and social crises of the regime in Iran, Iraq and the whole region, crises which after the recent developments will greatly deepen, will engender a new wave of mass protests against poverty, lack of rights and repression; a wave which can and must go as far as sweeping the Islamic Republic off the face of Iran, Iraq and the whole region.
Down with the Islamic Republic!
Power to the solidarity in struggle of the people of Iran, Iraq and Lebanon!
Worker-communist Party of Iran
9 January 2020
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