A lull in Lebanon

Everyone will welcome the ceasefire in Lebanon – not least the people of the south who have bourne the brunt of the Israeli incursion that has cost countless lives of innocent Lebanese civilians and wreaked havoc on the villages and towns of the borderland. How long it will last is, of course, another matter.
The fact that the temporary truce was imposed by the United States shows who ultimately calls the shots in Tel Aviv. And the fact that Donald Trump had to do it to get the Iranians back to the negotiating table shows that the Americans have lost the initiative in this war that they started.
Trump gave them his best shots starting with a treacherous surprise attack followed by the assassination of the Islamic Republic’s leaders in a terror bombing “shock and awe” campaign that the Americans and their lackeys thought would force the Iranians to beg for mercy in a matter of days. But the Iranians gave as good as they got laying waste to America’s ring of bases across the Middle East and giving the Israelis a taste of their own medicine with wave after wave of missile attacks that has left much of Tel Aviv in ruins.
Trump open talked of regime change à la Libya and Iraq. Netanyahu bragged about a future “Greater Israel” that the Zionists believe will stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates. Both conjured up armies of traitors and quislings that they imagined would take to the streets of Tehran to do their bidding and welcome the imperialists with open arms.
But none of this happened. The Iranians stood firm and so did their Arab allies in Yemen, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon – the axis of resistance that refuses to submit to the Americans, the Israelis or and their feudal Arab lackeys.
The Iranians throttled the Big Oil corporations when they closed the Persian Gulf. They watched US imperialism’s allies wash their hands on the American-Israeli offensive in Iran. They ignored Trump’s empty threats of annihilation and they’ve laid down their own terms for ending the conflict – terms that China, Russia and most of the Global South have endorsed as the basis for ending the conflict.
But in Europe the leading members of the European Union have openly refused to join in Trump’s crusade. In Britain the Starmer government sits on the fence, distancing itself from Washington over Iran while still supplying arms to the Zionist entity and allowing the American air-force to use some of the RAF’s bases in operations against the Islamic Republic.
These are volatile times.The old order is being challenged – and not just in the Middle East.
On the street the masses have broken the bourgeois consensus that rarely goes beyond endless “debates” on immigration and the European Union, mealy-mouthed reforms and Atlanticism. The issues of war and peace, imperialism or socialism are, once again, back on the agenda...

One step forward…

 While victory celebrations in Tehran may be premature the sombre faces in the corridors of power in Washington and Tel Aviv tell another story – one of hubris, humiliation and defeat.
Last week Donald Trump ranted and raged against the Iranians. They were going to be wiped out if they didn’t end their blockade of the Persian Gulf and hand over their nuclear plants and oil industry to the Americans. A few days later he’s agreeing to a Pakistani-brokered cease-fire that pivots on the Islamic Republic’s ten point terms for ending the war.
In Washington the blame game has begun. Trump’s friends say their leader was misled by the Zionists and the fools that surround him in the White House. They’re  already pointing the finger at Pete Hegseth, his useless minister of war, and the Israeli premier, Benjamin Netanyahu. Other insiders, mindful of their political futures in the post-Trump world, are telling tales to the mainstream media of a senile old man in the White House whose delusions of grandeur have plunged the capitalist world into a crisis not seen since the height of the Cold War.
No-one can believe a word the US president says. Donald Trump is an incorrigible liar. His agreements are not worth the paper they’re written on. Nevertheless Trump’s minions, led by Vice-President JD Vance, are now in Pakistan for talks with the Iranians. 
The ceasefire, a two-week truce to pave the way for negotiations, is on a knife-edge. The Israelis, who were not party to the secret American parleys with Pakistan, are out to sabotage the peace talks. They’ve stepped up their offensive in southern Lebanon claiming they’re not bound by the terms of the truce the Americans signed up for. The Lebanese resistance and their north Yemeni allies have hit back with a volleys of missiles and drones. 
In Israel they’ve been taught no end of a lesson – getting a taste of their own medicine that has left their capital in ruins and forced hundreds of thousands of Israelis to flee to safety in  Europe and the United States. And needless to say the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to imperialist shipping. 
On the diplomatic front the European powers are rapidly distancing themselves from the United States. France joins Russia and China in blocking an American manoeuvre on the UN Security Council designed to endorse “international” action against Iran in the Persian Gulf while Starmer poses as non-interventionist to curry favour with his old friends in Brussels.
American and Israeli air-power has failed to crush Iran. The Islamic Republic, on the other hand, has destroyed all the American bases on the Arabian peninsula. US troops have been forced to flee to hotels. Others have been evacuated back to the United States.  America’s much-vaunted nuclear aircraft-carriers retreat under fire. Their commando raids are beaten back. The myth of American invincibility has been shattered. The dream of a “new world order” is over.

Defend the Islamic Republic

Millions upon millions have taken to the streets of Britain and throughout the rest of the world to demand an end to the imperialist war on Iran. Donald Trump and the fools he surrounds himself  with talked about   a “decapitation” victory. Benjamin Netanyahu thought his dream of a “Greater Israel” from the Nile to the Euphrates was about to come true. The Americans and their Israeli and feudal Arab lackeys thought that Stealth war-planes, missiles and drones would soon have the Iranians on their knees begging for mercy.  But it didn’t happen. The dream of The Donald died in the smoke of burning American bases and the bombed out  ruins of Tel Aviv.
The leaders of the European Union have wisely spurned Trump’s call for help to break the Iranian blockade of the Persian Gulf. So has Starmer who’s now trying to rebuild the links with his old mates in Brussels while still keeping sweet with the Americans and the oil sheikhs.
The bourgeois media talk about the crisis in the Persian Gulf that threatens Western supplies of oil and gas – and indeed that is a crisis for them, Soaring energy prices could plunge the imperialist world into a slump of 1929 proportions – but re-opening the waterway won’t solve the underlying problems that once again set the Middle East on fire.
The immediate issue is to end the fighting, lift the imperialist sanctions on the Islamic Republic and recognise Iran’s right to control its own economy and develop a nuclear energy programme. But the heart of the matter is Palestine. The legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs must be recognised including the right of return for the millions of Palestinians whose families were driven from their homes by Zionist terror in the 1940s and the equally legitimate right of the Palestinian Arabs to self-determination and the independent state they were promised when Palestine was partitioned in 1947. 
UN resolutions have provided the basis for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. First of all Israel must totally withdraw from all the occupied territories seized in 1967, including Arab East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. The Palestinians must be allowed to establish a state of their own on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinian refugees whose homes are now in Israel must be allowed to return or, if they so wish, be paid appropriate compensation in exchange. And all states in the region should have internationally agreed and recognised frontiers guaranteed by all the Great Powers.

Defend the right to protest

Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal and Stop the War vice-chair Chris Nineham have been found guilty of breaking the Public Order Act this week. Though their punishment – they were fined and conditionally discharged – was not severe they shouldn’t have been in court in the first place. These were clearly trumped up charges designed to stifle the massive Palestinian solidarity movement that has swept the country in recent years. The two campaign leaders have made it clear that they will appeal and so they should. This is an attack on civil liberties. It affects us all. The verdict raises huge concerns about any further powers granted to the police through the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently progressing though parliament. It confirms the view that these proposed increased powers represent a seismic threat to democratic freedoms.

The edge of the precipice

Guns blaze to the roar of drones and rockets as the flames of war spread across the entire Middle East. The Iranians are throttling the Western energy market with their blockade of the Persian Gulf. Americans and their Israeli lackeys are intensifying their attacks on a broader range of industrial and economic targets in Iran. The Islamic Republic is paying them back in kind with devastating missile attacks on Israel and America’s feudal Arab puppets in the Gulf. And Trump’s response has been a mixture of meaningless peace offers coupled with the usual threats that he thinks is what negotiations are all about that has spiralled the price of oil and gas that has raised the spectre of an energy crisis not seen since the October 1973 oil crisis . No wonder there’s panic in Westminster and the other chancelleries of Europe. 
Who is fanning the flames is clear to all. Whether the American president is senile or clinically insane is, of course, a matter for medical opinion. Whatever, those behind him – those sections of the American ruling class that represent manufacturing, Big Oil and the high-tech industries clearly thought they knew what they were doing when they gave the nod to the treacherous attack on Iran that has plunged the Western world into economic chaos.  
Though grovelling to the Americans comes as second nature to the leaders of Western Europe the  Spanish have become outright opponents of Trump’s war and the French, Germans and Italians are washing their hands on the American-Israeli onslaught. 
Of course the real opposition to the war is from masses on  the street and the leaders of the Global South. As a responsible major power, People’s China firmly stands on the right side of history. China's foreign minister has continued his diplomatic efforts to end the fighting and  promote de-escalation and peace. The special envoy of the Chinese government on the Middle East crisis has visited the region to help ease tension. China has also voiced principled positions at platforms such as the UN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, defending international fairness and justice. 
China has always advocated harmony and believes that strength of force does not equal strength of reason. It insists that hotspot issues should be resolved through equal dialogue and political solutions - a reflection of historical clarity and long-term vision.
Keir Starmer, to his eternal shame however, wants it both ways. He aligns himself with  Franco-German imperialism to get better terms for the UK’s realignment with the European Union while crawling to Trump by allowing American war-planes to use British bases for their operations against the Islamic Republic. No-one’s fooled by this. The Europeans take no notice as they don’t think he will remain in office after the regional and local elections in May. On the other hand Trump, with his strange and childish comments on social media, does little to mask his contempt for the Prime Minister.
Starmer likes to wave the flag and claim he’s ‘standing up for Britain’. He could start by cancelling the King’s visit to the United States in April.

The Madness of King Trump

Rambling speeches, delusions of grandeur, unhinged threats to friend and foe alike,,,and now a demand for “unconditional surrender” as his offensive against Iran falters in the first week of open combat. The Iranians have crippled the American military network across the Middle East, cut off the Persian Gulf to all Western shipping while giving the Israelis a taste of their own medicine with daily drone and missile strikes on Tel Aviv and other cities across the Zionist entity. America and Israel’s “achievements” so far have been the killing of 165 school-kids in an air-raid last week and the sinking of an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean.
Trump’s team initially believed that they could wipe out the Iranian leadership and force the Islamic Republic to beg for mercy in a matter of a few days. Their treacherous attack in the midst of negotiations to end the crisis neither shocked nor awed the Iranians. They killed some but not all the Iranian leaders. They destroyed some but not all of Iran’s stockpile of drones and missiles.
The Iranians, enraged at the death of their Supreme Leader and many others in the leadership vow to fight on no matter what the Americans or Israelis throw at them. Their Arab allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, north Yemen and the Palestinian resistance are joining in to help them. The Iranians have cut off the Persian Gulf and the Yemenis are blocking the Red Sea to all Western shipping. The spot oil price is soaring. The stock markets of the imperialist world are jittery amid fears that a massive hike in the price of oil on the open market will trigger another global slump. The longer the war goes on the more likely that will be, And even the Americans are now talking about a five or six week campaign.
In Britain the Tories and the Faragists are predictably rooting for a Trump triumph. So are Starmer & Co and the ageing Blairites he surrounds himself with. Jeremy Corbyn warns that “we cannot let Keir Starmer drag this country into another illegal war. That’s why I tabled a Bill to require Parliamentary approval for the foreign use of British bases” – a view supported by the Greens, the Bennite rump on the Labour back-benches and beyond.
Starmer’s bid to allow the Americans to use British bases for their war effort has been blocked by four Cabinet ministers, led by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.  
Starmer is still trying to appease The Donald and the feudal Arab oil princes who invest in Britain but depend on American guns to keep them on their thrones. But wiser counsel has prevailed in Europe. None of the members of the European Union, apart from the Baltic States which are little more than American protectorates, have shown any enthusiasm to join the Trump crusade against Iran. And Spain’s social-democratic government has taken a more principled position, refusing to allow the United States to use its military bases for attacks on Iran and condemning the strikes as unjustified and outside international law.
And this is what Britain must also do. The mass movement, the millions who’ve marched for Palestine are now demonstrating to stop any British involvement in imperialist aggression, stop the bombing and end the cycle of violence that threatens to plunge the entire world into flames. Stop bombing Iran! Stop Trump’s war!

After the guns fall silent…

...real negotiations must begin – and not just on the thorny issue of Iran’s nuclear energy industry. The American-inspired truce that some say was brokered at Israel’s request may have put the Israeli-Iranian conflict on hold but it hasn’t stopped the fighting in Palestine. In occupied Palestine Zionist gangs spread terror in the West Bank while the Palestinian resistance fights on against a brutal foe who kills scores of civilians every day in what is clearly an attempt to drive the Palestinian Arabs out of their Mediterranean enclave to make room for more Zionist settlement.
Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian leader who signed the Camp David surrender treaty, with Israel once said that the United States held “99 per cent of the cards” in the Middle East and that he relied on the Americans to advance the peace process in the region by “bringing Israel to reason”. The Arab traitor, who was assassinated by Islamic militants in October 1981, was wrong.
Sure – recent events have shown that the United States can bring “Israel to reason” any time they like as the Zionist entity is a total dependency of the United States. But the Americans, who certainly hold 99 per cent of the cards in Tel Aviv, have little or no sway in the corridors of power in Tehran let alone the Palestinian resistance. 
Despite all the talk of “Zionist lobbies” and the “Jewish vote” only the Americans count in Tel Aviv. The Israelis are American puppets that, until recently, enabled the Americans to pose as friends of the feudal Arab kings who allow the Big Oil corporations to plunder their oil in return for a juicy cut and American protection.
Likewise the Zionist leaders who strut the world posing as independent politicians are just alibis for American aggression in the Middle East. US imperialism provides the military and economic support that keeps Israel going. The country is an American protectorate and their leaders will ultimately do whatever America wants.
Iran is perfectly entitled to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. While Trump and his Israeli and European followers bleat on about Iran’s supposed nuclear bomb project the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that the claim by Israel and the USA that the Islamic Republic is secretly building a nuclear weapon is false. Likewise the continuous monitoring of Iranian nuclear activities by the agency has not unearthed any evidence of departure from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) that Iran has signed. 
The war goes on in Gaza because that’s what American imperialism wants. They want the fighting to continue until Hamas is crushed – because Hamas stands in their way, because the Palestinian resistance sabotaged the American plan for NATO expansion in the Middle East when it launched its raid into Israel in October 2023.
But what the Americans want and what they get is another matter altogether. They failed in Iraq. They failed in Afghanistan. They will fail in Syria and they will fail in the rest of the Middle East.
The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 led to the expulsion of nearly a million Palestinians from their homes. The war continues to this day. The Palestinians fight on and they will continue the struggle until their legitimate rights are restored.
UN resolutions have provided the basis for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. First of all Israel must totally withdraw from all the occupied territories seized in 1967, including Arab East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. The Palestinians must be allowed to establish a state of their own on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian refugees whose homes are now in Israel must be allowed to return or, if they so wish, be paid appropriate compensation in exchange. And all states in the region, including Israel, should have internationally agreed and recognised frontiers guaranteed by the Great Powers.

Stop the drive to war

Trump walks out of the G7 conference in Canada. He threatens to kill the Iranian leader and join Israel in its offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran. All in all it seems that the American establishment, the “deep state” or war lobby that cuts across the bogus political spectrum in the United States, that represents the most venal and aggressive sections of the American ruling class is back in charge if the mercurial acts of the man in the White House is anything to go by these days. That, of course, we won’t know for sure as Trump’s bargaining style is a heady mixture of lies, bluff and threats What we do know is that the entire Middle East will be set ablaze if US imperialism does openly join in the war to save the skin of its Israeli puppet.
That’s why the Stop the War movement and the rest of the Palestine solidarity coalition has added the slogan No War on Iran as part of its mobilisation for the big national demonstration in London this weekend. That’s why we, as communists, must also help in the effort to stop British involvement in any future American aggression in the region.
The Americans will almost certainly want to use Diego Garcia, the Anglo-American military base in the Indian Ocean, as a staging post to conduct strikes on Iran. They may also want the RAF squadron in Cyprus to join them in what the Israelis are openly calling “regime change” in Iran. 
Crawling to the Americans is second nature to Labour and Tory politicians who still drone on and on about trans-Atlantic “partnership” and the “special relationship” to justify British imperialism’s slavish support of American power throughout the world. So we shouldn’t expect much from the Starmer government that bleats on about “de-escalation”, says Iran must never have a nuclear bomb while supporting Israel’s supposed “right to defend itself” whenever anyone demands a serious response to Zionist war-crimes from the British government. 
Stop The War convener Lindsey German says Trump has “absolutely no business bombing or attacking the country in any way. To do so would be a completely illegal war crime which will cause misery to millions and drive the world into the worst Middle East war ever.
“The claims that Israel is simply defending itself against the attacks by Iran over the last week are completely false. 
“We know from the past 20 months of Israel’s assault on Gaza they’re not defending themselves, they’re engaged in an aggressive and genocidal war, and they intend the same for Iran”.
 In Britain the ruling class would have us believe that we live in what the Americans call the “free world”; that the USA is some sort of democratic utopia and that anyone who opposes imperialism is evil, mad or both. Backed by bought and paid-for Labour leaders and a daily dose of lies from the bourgeois media they think they can play this cynical game for ever and ever. We must prove them wrong and stop this war.

The struggle of the people against imperialism must be strengthened!

 Joint Statement of Communist and Workers’ Parties

The Communist and Workers’ Parties signing this Joint Statement strongly condemn the US attack on Iran, which escalates the military offensive already launched by Israel.
After Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and the ongoing genocide in Palestine, the USA and its allies are now shedding the blood of yet another country in the Middle East. This imperialist aggression is plunging people into war across a wider region and threatening to destroy humanity as a whole.
The Communist and Workers’ Parties are demanding an immediate end to the escalation of the war against Iran by the USA, NATO and Israel. We also call on people to strengthen their struggle against war, foreign military bases, troop deployments abroad, military equipment and nuclear weapons.
Solidarity with the people of Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and all other peoples in the region must be strengthened.
 
SolidNet Parties

• Communist Party of Albania
• Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism
• Communist Party of Armenia
• Communist Party of Australia
• Party of Labour of Austria
• Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain
• Communist Party of Bangladesh
• Brazilian Communist Party
• Communist Party of Britain
• New Communist Party of Britain
• Communist Party of Canada
• Communist Party of Chile
• Colombian Communist Party
• Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
• Communist Party of Bohemia & Moravia
• Communist Party of Denmark
• Communist Party of El Salvador
• German Communist Party
• Communist Party of Greece
• Communist Party of India
• Iraqi Communist Party
• Tudeh Party of Iran
• Communist Party of Ireland
• Workers Party of Ireland
• Communist Party of Israel
• Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
• Communist Party of Mexico
• New Communist Party of the Netherlands
• Communist Party of Norway
• Communist Party of Pakistan
• Palestinian Communist Party
• Palestinian Peoples Party
• Paraguayan Communist Party
• Peruvian Communist Party
• Philippines Communist Party [PKP 1930]
• Communist Party of Poland
• Romanian Socialist Party
• Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• Communists of Serbia
• South African Communist Party
• Communist Party of the Workers of Spain
• Communist Party of Sri Lanka
• Communist Party of Sweden
• Syrian Communist Party
• Swiss Communist Party
• Communist Party of Turkey
• Communist Party of Ukraine
• Union of Communists of Ukraine
• Communist Party USA
• Communist Party of Venezuela

Other Parties

• Argentinian Communist Party
• Revolutionary Brazilian Communist Party 
• Communist Workers' Party – For Peace and Socialism (Finland)
• Communist Revolutionary Party of France 
• Communist Party (Germany)
• Communist Front (Italy)
• Communist Workers' Platform USA

Israel lights the fuse

The Israeli attack on Iran is the opening shot of a war that could plunge the whole of the region into flames. The Israelis originally said their objective was to destroy Iran’s atomic energy industry, which they claim is a cover for efforts to produce nuclear weapons. Now they’re calling on the Iranian people to overthrow their government.
These have always been the objectives of Benjamin Netanyahu and the rabid Zionist leaders of the parties in his coalition government. More to the point they are also the objectives of American imperialism that has long worked for regime change in the Islamic Republic. 
Netanyahu’s coalition is deeply divided over moves to end Orthodox Jews exemption from conscription. Some of the Ultra-Orthodox parties have threatened to resign over the issue which would bring down the government and lead to fresh elections – elections Netanyahu would almost certainly lose.
Israel is in a quagmire of its own making fighting a war in Gaza it cannot win amidst rising inflation and economic stagnation. Many Israelis think Netanyahu is indifferent to the fate of the remaining Israelis held by the Palestinian resistance. Public opinion polls show a growing number of Israelis support the anti-war movement while calls for army reservists to refuse service have also been increasing.  So while doing the Americans bidding war with Iran provides a new prop to hold Netanyahu’s coalition together.
Though there is a growing peace movement in Israel the Netanyahu government thinks it can do whatever it likes regardless of the consequences because it believes that the Arabs and the Iranians are weak and that the United States will always be there to lend a hand when the going gets tough.
What they didn’t take into account was the Iranians’ ability to withstand their first wave of attacks. Nor did they foresee the devastating missile response which has shattered the myth of the so-called “Iron Dome” defence and left parts of Tel Aviv in ruins. Neither did Trump.
The ludicrous dreams of the US president of winning a Nobel Peace Prize have died in the dust of the streets of Gaza and the rubble in Tel Aviv. The Iranians say that as the Americans are the main supporter of Israel, the United States "will also be responsible for the dangerous effects and consequences" of Israel's attacks. Even some of Trump’s closest supporters have broken ranks with him over Iran including Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News anchorman, who says his former icon was  “complicit” in Israel’s attacks on Iran. Carlson says “Washington knew these attacks would happen. They aided Israel in carrying them out. Politicians purporting to be America First can’t now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it”.  Or as Mollie Hemingway, another Republican pundit, put it: if Trump gave Israel the “green light” to target Iran, it “would be seen as an unforgivable betrayal by millions of American voters”.
 Israel has not been able to kill or drive out the defiant Arab population of the Gaza Strip. Gaza is not going to become a Trump-style American leisure resort. The Palestinians fight on. And so do the Iranians.

Early days for Joe Biden

THE LABOUR movement in the USA largely backed the Democrat drive to dump Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election, and their leaders welcomed the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in January. Getting rid of Trump was, of course, a victory for American workers.
    The march of the most reactionary and racist elements of the US ruling class and the degenerates they mobilised to build the Trump movement has been stopped – at least for the time being – by the mass movement that grew from the Black Lives Matter movements and the rage on the street at the Trump government’s indifferent response to the coronavirus plague that is sweeping through the USA.
    Reversing Trump’s immigration laws and re-joining the Paris agreement on climate change may have won the praise of the environmentalist lobby, but on the left, few seriously expect much from the new administration apart from the usual platitudes that the Democrats dish out to keep their blue-collar voters sweet.
    The new US administration is naturally focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic that has already claimed some 480,000 American lives whilst the stimulus plan seeks to revive the country’s ailing economy. Whilst there are some very modest concessions to the working class, Republican Senators, with Democratic support, have stalled the proposed plan to double the minimum wage – which now looks likely to be replaced with staged increases over the next four years.
    On the world stage, Joe Biden clearly wants to continue where his predecessor, Barack Obama, left off. His first task is to restore US imperialism’s hold over its European NATO allies to restore US hegemony throughout the capitalist world and lead a global imperialist front to confront Russia and People’s China.
    Although talk about “regime change” is no longer fashionable in Washington, the Americans haven’t abandoned the dreams of world domination that they once called the “new world order” or “globalisation”.
    The US-led economic blockade of Cuba and Democratic Korea continues, and new sanctions are applied to Russia and China. American dollars prop up puppets in Ukraine and the Caucasus and the reactionary separatist movements in China.
    In the Middle East, Biden tells the Palestinians that he supports a “two state” solution and that the USA is ready to resume aid that Trump cut to their “autonomous” government in the West Bank. He tells Iran he wants to revive the Iran nuclear deal that Trump tore up in 2018.
    But Biden wants the Iranians to agree to new terms and conditions before lifting sanctions on the Islamic Republic and tells the Palestinians that he will not reverse Donald Trump’s contentious US embassy move to Jerusalem.
    Biden’s team no longer call for the outright overthrow of President Assad’s popular front government in Syria – Russian intervention put a stop to that nonsense a few years ago. Now they seek to partition the country through a bogus “federal” plan that would legitimise the US occupation of the Kurdish region in eastern Syria.
    They’ve changed tack on Yemen. Trump backed the disastrous Saudi intervention in the civil war. Now Biden says he’s going to end all US support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales. But he’s only doing this because the Saudi intervention has backfired, bringing death and destruction to Saudi Arabia that threatens the House of Saud and the vast oil industry that serves US imperialism.
It is indeed ‘business as usual’ in Washington these days.

Joint Statement: On the criminal attack of the USA in Middle East

The Communist and Workers’ Parties denounce the new criminal military attack of the USA on the ground of a foreign country in the international airport of Iraq, under Trump’s command, which resulted in victims, with officials of Iraq and an Iranian General among them. This constituted a flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Iraq.

We denounce the appeals of the US towards the further involvement of NATO in Middle East, along with the sanctions against Iran which reinforce the dangers of a general conflagration in the wider region.

The fierce competition, which is unfolded for the control of markets, energy sources and their transportation routes, is very dangerous for the peoples.

The pretexts used by the US, NATO and the EU, in order to to “whitewash” the new imperialist attack, have been also used in the imperialist wars, against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, and they constitute a provocation against the peoples. We reiterate our solidarity with the peoples of Iran and Iraq, condemn the inhumane sanctions against the Iranian people and any foreign interference within the two countries.

We support the right of the peoples of Iran and Iraq to fight and claim their demands against the antipopular policy, we condemn the repression measures and demand that they be stopped immediately.

We express our sorrow for the tragic human loss due to the downing of the Ukrainian plane.

We express our warm solidarity with the peoples who face the imperialist attacks. We call upon the peoples of our countries in all over the world to condemn decisively the new imperialist crime, to demand from the governments of their countries no support of, no involvement in imperialist plans, to shut down all the bases-launching pads for this kind of attacks of the US, NATO, in all the countries.

Solidnet parties signing:

1. Communist Party of Argentina
2. Communist Party of Armenia
3. Communist Party of Australia
4. Party of Labour of Austria
5. Communist Party of Bangladesh
6. Communist Party of Belgium (PCB-CPB )
7. Brazilian Communist Party
8. Communist Party of Britain
9. New Communist Party of Britain
10. Communist Party of Bulgaria
11. Communist Party of Canada
12. Communist Party of Chile
13. Socialist Workers Party of Croatia
14. AKEL, Cyprus
15. Communist Party in Denmark
16. Communist Party of Ecuador
17. Egyptian Communist Party
18. Communist Party of Finland
19. Communist Party of Greece
20. Communist Party of India [Marxist]
21. Communist Party of India
22. Tudeh Party of Iran
23. Workers Party of Ireland
24. Communist Party of Ireland
25. Communist Party of Israel
26. Communist Party (Italy)
27. Hungarian Workers Party
28. Jordanian Communist Party
29. Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
30. Lebanese Communist Party
31. Socialist Party (Lithuania)
32. Communist Party of Malta
33. Communist Party of Mexico
34. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
35. Communist Party of Norway
36. Communist Party of Pakistan
37. Palestinian Communist Party
38. Palestinian Peoples Party
39. Paraguayan Communist Party
40. Philippine Communist Party [PKP 1930]
41. Communist Party of Poland
42. Romanian Socialist Party
43. Communist Party of the Russian Federation
44. Union of Communist Parties - Communist Party of the Soviet Union
45. Russian Communist Workers Party
46. Communist Party of the Soviet Union
47. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
48. Communists of Serbia
49. South African Communist Party
50. Communist Party of the Workers of Spain
51. Communists of Catalonia
52. Sudanese Communist Party
53. Communist Party of Swaziland
54. Communist Party of Sweden
55. Syrian Communist Party
56. Communist Party of Turkey
57. Communist Party of Ukraine
58. Union of Communists of Ukraine
59. Communist Party USA

Other Parties signing:

1. Party of Communists USA

No to Sanctions! No to War!

 The deranged actions of Donald Trump threaten to plunge the entire Middle East into flames. The assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, whom the Iraqis say was lured into an American trap in Baghdad, has led to inevitable Iranian reprisals against the US military presence in Iraq.

Trump didn’t bother to tell Britain or his other European allies that he had ordered Soleimani’s death although he did, apparently, inform the Israelis. That’s not surprising because the US war-lord takes all his European NATO allies for granted and he knows he can always count on the grovelling support of the Johnson government.

Appeasing the USA is second nature for the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and indeed many of the Blairite dregs in the Parliamentary Labour Party. The Labour leader, however, has publicly condemned Trump’s criminal actions.

Jeremy Corbyn said: “The US assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani is an extremely serious and dangerous escalation of conflict in the Middle East with global significance.” And in parliament Corbyn asked how the assassination was justified under international law.

The mealy-mouthed answer from the Defence Secretary was simply to repeat the nonsense coming from the White House.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: “From the information and intelligence I have seen it is clear that there is a case for self-defence to be made, about an individual [Soleimani] who had come to Iraq to co-ordinate murder and attacks on US citizens,” whilst Corbyn’s comments were dismissed as “anti-America, anti-imperialistic guff” and the “usual tripe”.

Trump’s troops prop up the feudal Arab princes who do the USA’s bidding in return for a slice of the oil profits that rightly belong to the Arab masses. Trump’s administration continues to support the feudal Saudi king’s war in Yemen that has cost tens of thousands of lives and brought the country to the brink of the worst famine it’s seen in 100 years.

Trump destroyed all hopes for peace in the Middle East when he tore up the nuclear deal with Iran and told the Palestinian Arabs to accept his worthless “deal of the century” that gives the Zionists everything they want. Now he’s taken the region to the brink of a new war that imperialism can never win.

Last year communist and workers’ parties, including the New Communist Party of Britain (NCP), “condemned the US administration and its hawkish representatives such as Mike Pompeo and John Bolton for initiating the rising tension and threats of military action on Iran, as well as the use of economic sanctions as a means of starving the people of Iran into submission. They further believe that these actions are having a disastrous impact upon the continuing struggle of the Iranian people for peace, sovereignty and social justice, as well as for human and democratic rights.

“The aim of US policy regarding Iran is to secure the undisputed domination of US imperialism and its allies in the region. The actions and policies of the US administration on Iran have been and continue to be co-ordinated with those of the governments of Israel and Saudi Arabia…the future of Iran and its political system is a matter that should be determined by the Iranian people and them alone. The communist and workers parties, together with all progressive forces in Iran, reject foreign intervention in their country under any pretext.

“They call on all forces campaigning for peace and disarmament globally to condemn the US administration and its Saudi and Israeli allies’ politics of confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran in contravention of the UN Charter. No to Sanctions and No to War on Iran!”

A wise decision

The seizure of an Iranian oil tanker on the high seas off the Rock of Gibraltar was one of the last acts of Mrs May’s government in July. The decision of her successors to release it is one of the first by the Boris Johnson team. The new Prime Minister has clearly heeded wiser counsel this time round.

 Technically it was a Gibraltar court that ended the crisis. But Gibraltar is only an autonomous “overseas territory” much like the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

 Ultimately the decision came from the London Government.

The seizure of the Iranian vessel was a rash act that was plainly done at the bidding of US imperialism. It was a provocation that led to further confrontations between the Iranian authorities and Western shipping in the Persian Gulf while undermining European efforts to salvage the nuclear deal that the Americans walked out of in May 2018.

The May Government said the ship was bound for Syria but this wasn’t true. Her ministers said that the Royal Marines were enforcing European Union sanctions against Syria. This wasn’t true either.

Everyone knows that the ship was detained at the request of the Americans who have stepped up their economic warfare against the Islamic Republic in a renewed bid to provoke regime-change in Iran. But the detention of the ship and its crew in Gibraltar only heightened tension in the Persian Gulf.

 The Iranians first response was to call for the immediate and unconditional release of their ship and its crew. The second was the seizure of a British vessel with the warning of plenty more to come if their demands were not heeded.

Last weekend’s decision by the Gibraltar Supreme Court to ignore last minute American objections and release the tanker on assurance that the cargo will not be sent to Syria will, hopefully, lead to the release of the British ship held by the Islamic Republic and close this fraught chapter in Anglo-Iranian relations.

The Iranian ship should never have been seized in the first place. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.