Groups demand U.S. hands off Iran

Stop the campaign of terror against Iran and its scientists

The following statement was issued by Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general and co-founder and representative of the International Action Center:

Another Iranian scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, has been assassinated in Iran by a car bomb. This is the fifth Iranian scientist targeted by assassins working in Iran in two years. Four attacks succeeded. This is a deadly escalation of the covert criminal activities conducted by the U.S., Israel and their terrorists and domestic spies in Iran against the government and people of Iran.

While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has denied any U.S. involvement, the important and undeniable truth is that the governments of the U.S. and Israel have openly declared Iran as an enemy and have publicly stated that they will use all means necessary, not excluding military attack, to change the Iranian government using Iran’s efforts to produce nuclear energy as an excuse.

The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists is an effort to create fear in the Iranian people, opposition to their own government and to monopolize nuclear research and development of nuclear power. The aim is to stop Iran’s drive for industrial and technological independence on which the independence of Iran and the freedom of its people depend.

Those who forget the past are condemned to its repetition. Do we remember that the Shah, who ruled Iran for 25 years on behalf of the U.S., had a huge nuclear energy program intended to replace depleted fossil fuels? Do we realize his billions of dollars of arms purchased from the U.S. with the wealth of the Iranian people helped fund the U.S arms research, development and production that now threaten Iran?

In the decades since the Shah fled, sanctions, sabotage and threats have escalated into dangerous new decisions to send a U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier, destroyers and nuclear submarines into the Persian Gulf and impose harsher sanctions on trade, and an oil embargo. All of these threats are threats against peace and violations of international law.

A just society can have no interest in stopping the peaceful progress of other nations and peoples.

No to another war for oil, no to foreign government domination and foreign corporate exploitation of Iran, or any other country.

We urge all who oppose another war of ever greater massive destruction and death to speak out in this hour of maximum peril.

UNAC statement on assassination of Iranian scientist and growing U.S. war threats

The following is an edited excerpt from a statement issued Jan. 16 by the United National Antiwar Coalition:

Another Iranian scientist has been assassinated in Iran by a car bombing. ... This is a dangerous escalation of the covert activities conducted by the CIA and Israeli intelligence and their domestic spies in Iran against the government and people of Iran.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, “I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran.” However, both the Israeli and the [U.S.] governments have admitted to covert activity in Iran. Irrespective of the actors, the assassinations of law-abiding scientists living and working in Iran is a reprehensible act that should be condemned by all.

Considering that Hillary Clinton threatened Iran with military attack, it is disingenuous for her to state that the U.S. denies involvement in any act of violence within Iran. A military attack on Iran, especially an attack on Iran’s nuclear energy facilities, would produce results similar to a nuclear attack (U.S. Concerned Scientists report). It would be the most violent act against the people of Iran, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.

It is extremely important that all international and especially U.S. antiwar and progressive organizations condemn these acts of assassination of innocent citizens and all forms of violent and aggressive actions by the U.S., Israel and the Iranian opposition.

Condemn the assassination of Iranian scientists. End all sanctions against Iran. End covert activities inside Iran. End all war threats against Iran.