Stop the war on Iran before it starts!

As of Aug. 8, the Pentagon has deployed 3,000 Marines and sailors to the seas near Iran, some on civilian vessels. Three weeks earlier, the U.S. “Secretary of Defense” Lloyd Austin, sent “the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, F-35 fighters and F-16 fighters to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility to defend U.S. interests …” (ABC News, Aug. 7)

As usual, the U.S. military and civilian spokespeople cloak their military maneuvers with lies, claiming their target is an enemy engaged in aggression. It is safe to assume that this is a Big Lie, just like the Big Lies regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia, Vietnam and Korea — and that’s the short list.

The truth is clear: U.S. imperialism is an oppressor country that imposes class exploitation on the workers of the world and plunders the natural resources of nations unable to compete with guns, finances or production. These days, when U.S. capitalism is declining, Washington uses the Pentagon and its more than 800 military bases worldwide and at home to maintain or regain domination. Or as the Pentagon calls it, “to defend U.S. interests.”

This year Washington, which has been waging a proxy NATO war in Ukraine against Russia, is sailing warships in the seas near Taiwan and Korea to target China and North Korea, and is poised to intervene in the Sahel region in Africa. Now Iran is on the list.

With regard to Tehran, the Donald Trump administration broke a treaty and reimposed sanctions. President Joe Biden’s group has continued the sanctions. These economic sanctions hurt trade, disrupt the Iranian economy and make Iranians suffer. 

There is a simple way to prevent conflict: Get rid of the sanctions!

Instead, Biden and company have greeted the legitimate Iranian resistance by escalating the war danger. Sending sailors and Marines to this hot region puts these troops in danger, risking their lives to create a pretext for an attack on Iran — invented by the Pentagon propaganda machine, if necessary (remember the Gulf of Tonkin, August 1964).

For anti-imperialists, for those of us in the movement who have absorbed the lessons first taught by the Russian revolutionary V.I. Lenin during World War I, there is no need to wait for a whistleblower like the late Daniel Ellsberg to know the class truth of these latest U.S. war moves against Iran.

Pull the sailors and Marines out of the seas near Iran. End the economic sanctions against Iran. Stop the imperialist war before it starts!