Barry Sheppard
More than a month after the United States and Israel launched an illegal war on Iran, killing and injuring hundreds and displacing thousands of innocent civilians, US President Donald Trump is focused on the Straits of Hormuz and the impact of the war on the price of oil. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is laser focused on regime change and expansion.
Israel is targeting and killing Iran’s leaders. This cannot succeed in regime change by itself. The assassination of individuals only leads to their replacement from among the regime’s leadership — which is broad and deeply rooted in the country.
Contrary to the opinions of some commentators on the left, Netanyahu needs Trump’s approval for any such actions — not the other way around. When Trump decides the war is over he will tell Netanyahu to stand down.
Israel is banking on a massive invasion of Iran by US troops — which is being discussed. To succeed, such an invasion would end in the occupation of Iran and a prolonged war. The perils for the US in doing this have been demonstrated by the failed US wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bombing alone cannot achieve regime change, and only hardens the Iranian people’s hatred towards the US and Israel. Iranian’s support for Trump’s war is almost totally confined to Iranians in exile who have no credibility inside the country.
Zionist Expansion: “Greater Israel”
Israel’s war against Iran is part of Israel’s project to establish “Greater Israel”. Israel’s attacks and occupation of Southern Lebanon is a step in that direction, as is its genocidal war on Gaza — both backed by the US.
Israelis’ support for the war on Iran is overwhelming. According to a survey conducted in early March by the Israel Democracy Institute, a large majority of the Jewish public (93%) support Operation Roaring Lion (Israel’s label for the Iranian slaughter), with 76% of Jews identifying as being on the “left” in support.
Lebanon’s largest political party, Hezbollah, and its armed wing are resisting Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah as well as Hamas in Palestine are backed by Iran. This is another reason why Netanyahu is intent on regime change.
Israel sees its best hope in the US reestablishing control over Iran, which was overturned by the massive and unprecedented uprising of the Iranian people in 1979 against the US-installed monarchy headed by Shah (king) Reza Pahlavi. This 1979 Iranian Revolution saw seven million Iranians mobilize to welcome exiled Iranian cleric, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini back to the country. The result was astonishing. The Iranian Army, near-instantly disintegrated, with the soldiers turning over their weapons to the mobilized masses and the US/CIA -created murderous SAVAK and its torture chambers, similarly disintegrating. Iranian jails, incarcerating the largest number of political prisoners in the world, were virtually emptied. The Shah fled to the US. Today, Trump cites the Shah’s son, living in the US, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as his possible choice to lead Iran following the imperialist warmonger’s projected victory.
US-Israeli bombings have damaged Iranian cultural and heritage sites, such as Tehran’s Golestan Palace, dating to the 14th century, and the 17th-century Chehel Sotoon Palace in Isfahan. But rather than demoralize the Iranian people, these attempts at cultural erasure have only hardened their resolve.
Greater Israel is an ideological concept based on biblical references to the so-called “Land of Israel”, extending from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq and encompassing all or parts of Egypt (the Sinai), Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
In July last year, the Knesset (Israeli parliament) adopted a motion calling for the annexation of the entire West Bank, declaring it an “inseparable part of the Land of Israel”. Israel’s defense minister also announced that Israeli forces would remain indefinitely in parts of Gaza, Lebanon and Syria under the justification of creating so-called “security zones”.
The chair of the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting human rights in the Occupied Territories, told the UN General Assembly in November that such moves, along with attempts by Israeli settlers to sell Lebanese land and establish illegal outposts in southern Lebanon, demonstrates Israel’s willingness to indulge the “Greater Israel” ideology.
Israel has never recognized the boundaries established by the UN in 1948 in historic Palestine, nor the borders established in 1949, following the Arab-Israeli war — commonly known as the “Green Line”. Through force, occupation and illegal settlements, it has continued to expand, including occupying the Golan Heights in Syria, and parts of Egypt in 1967 and continuing to expand illegal settlements and military land grabs following the 1993 and 1995 agreements reached as part of the Oslo Peace Accords.
Revolutionary socialists have never recognized the legitimacy of the racist, colonialist, apartheid, settler Zionist entity, in the same manner that they have rejected all other colonial conquests engineered by the various imperialist nations as they conquered and divided up the poor nations of the world.
Israel is now occupying southern Lebanon and has bombed the capital, Beirut, killing more than 1000 people and driving more than a million from their homes — the Gaza model.
Israel appears to be immediately aiming to permanently occupy southern Lebanon, south of Beirut. An Israeli push further into Syria may be next.
In point of fact, Zionist Israel is US imperialism’s central enforcer in the Middle East and beyond, historically, usually surreptitiously, providing troops and weapons to enforce US interests across the globe. In the 1980s Israel secretly partnered with the CIA and the Colombian-based Medellin Cartel in procuring crack cocaine for sale to Black youth in Los Angeles and other US cities to raise funds for the Nicaraguan Contras when US law banned such aid.
Today, the Zionist entity openly partners with US imperialism to rain death and destruction on the Iranian people as well as all other Middle Eastern forces that dare to defend the beleaguered Iranian masses.
Today’s antiwar and social justice movements have a critical responsibility to mobilize to defend Iran’s right to self-determination and Palestinian freedom demanding:
US Hands Off Iran! US Out Now! Bring All US Troops Home Now! Free Palestine!
Not One Penny For the US War Machine! End All US Aid To Zionist Israel, Military, Financial and Diplomatic!
$Trillions for Human Needs Not Endless US Wars
Abolish ICE! No Human Being Is Illegal!
End the Fossil Fuel Disaster! Stop the Destruction of the Environment!
