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Vol. 73/No. 39      October 12, 2009

 
No to sanctions against Iran
(editorial)
 
Working people should oppose the drive for new and tougher sanctions against Iran that the rulers in Washington, London, and Paris are seeking to impose. Moscow has expressed more openness to go along with harsher sanctions. The Obama administration seeks to justify these moves with the announcement that a new, unpublicized nuclear facility has been “discovered” in Iran. The U.S. government has known of the facility for at least two years.

Escalating sanctions pose the threat of future military action, despite comments by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that this is not currently being considered. Washington imposed sanctions against Iraq in 1990, kept them in place, and invaded the country in 1991 and again in 2003 when the sanctions proved insufficient to bring the Saddam Hussein regime to heel.

The Iranian government says its program of uranium enrichment is for peaceful use of nuclear energy to develop the country’s infrastructure. Expanding electrification, including through the use of nuclear power, is a necessary step for any country to advance industry and agriculture as well as medicine and culture. Imperialism’s drive to block this—whether in Iran, North Korea, or anywhere else in the world—aims to maintain the economic underdevelopment and dependence of semicolonial countries. It must be opposed by working-class fighters everywhere.

It’s the height of imperialist arrogance for Washington to insist that nuclear “non-proliferation” means nations without nuclear weapons cannot have them, while those that do possess them just need to reduce the number in their arsenal. Washington maintains thousands of nuclear warheads and has no intention of eliminating them all in “disarmament” talks. While the U.S. government demands assurances that Iran’s nuclear program cannot be used to develop nuclear weapons, it turns a blind eye to nuclear arsenals in Israel, India, Pakistan, and that of apartheid South Africa before its overthrow.

Recent protests in Iran to defend and expand democratic rights, like the ones September 18 involving tens of thousands, help stay the imperialists’ hands. Opposition by working people around the world to imperialist intervention in Iran buys valuable time for these popular protests to strengthen and deepen, opening up political space for the toilers in the city and countryside to advance their interests and act independently of the capitalist rulers in Iran. That is the only road to prevent an imperialist assault. Hands off Iran!
 
 
Related articles:
U.S. gov’t leads push for new Iran sanctions  
 
 
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