The Party of Labor of Iran (Toufan) on the assassination of Qassem Soleimani

Below is a statement from the Party of Labor of Iran (Toufan; www.toufan.org/ ) on the January events.

Statement of the Party of Labor of Iran (Toufan) on the Recent Developments in the Middle East Region

The assassination of Qassem Soleimani by the U.S. and the Iranian and the world response to it, has prompted our Party to reaffirm its principled stance on the matter and investigate the effects of this U.S. terrorist action on Iran and the world.

General Soleimani was a commander who voluntarily went to war against the Iraqi’s military invasion of Iran, defended the territorial integrity of the country, and gradually became a prominent military strategist. Qassem Soleimani also took the lead in the fight against ISIS, especially at the time when the U.S. backed terrorists made their way to Baghdad with the hope of coming to Tehran. General Soleimani defeated the murderous attempts of ISIS by establishing a united front and founding the para-military group Hashad al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) in Iraq.

Qassem Soleimani, as an experienced military man and a diplomat, was a popular and respectable army general not only to a large section of the Iranian society, but also to the entire region and many world leaders.

According to documents released by the international press and by the statement of Iraqi Prime Minister Adel al-Mahdi, Soleimani had traveled to Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government in order to facilitate negotiation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In a press interview, al-Mahdi unmasked the U.S. lies that “We had the exact information that Soleimani had come to assassinate the Americans in Iraq”.

Al-Mahdi declared: “For the record, I say that at eight o’clock in the morning, I had a meeting with General Soleimani. I wanted to give him the Saudi letter that was about the developments in Iraq and peace in the region.”

The fact is that the Iranian government has long been trying to put an end to the turmoil that the U.S. has created in the region. U.S. imperialism coming from 8,000 kilometers away has built dozens of military and terrorist bases around Iran, has occupied the territories of the region, is plotting and sabotaging against the formal, legal and legitimate governments of the region, and is causing tension in the Middle East. The Policy of the Iranian government in the region includes the removal of tension in the region, prevention of war and destruction, demands for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the region, and the establishment of a partnership agreement with the Persian Gulf states that guarantees security in the region. If implemented, these policies would primarily serve the national interest and the interest of the working class and the people of Iran.

Israel is the only country that benefits from the chaos in the region and wants to interrupt any attempts at reconciliation, cooperation, and peace. Continued provocative Israeli actions in Iraq, the bombing of Syria, targeting Iranian ships in the Red Sea with its missiles and accusing Saudi Arabia for it, and other Israeli acts of sabotage in the Persian Gulf are in the service of preventing the Arab countries from getting close to Iran. This proximity is of strategic importance in the region, reinforcing the Palestinian Liberation Movement, curtailing Israeli so that it fails to exploit divisions in the region for the benefit of its own expansionist and tension-creating goals. That is why political analysts reiterate that Trump has been used by his Zionist adviser and has fulfilled Israel’s wish without thinking about the consequences of his actions. In the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, you see the filthy hands of Israel Zionism.

The Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan) strongly condemns the Trump–ordered assassination of Qassem Soleimani, a well-known Iranian official, who had traveled to Iraq for negotiation with Saudi Arabia. This is a manifestation of state terrorism in the world. This criminal act by Trump is a clear violation of the rights of nations, universally recognized norms and standards, and a trampling on achievements of humanity and global agreements.

The right to national sovereignty is a democratic right that all countries of the world are entitled to regardless of ideology, the size of country, the nature of state, religion, race, language, and so on. President Trump, by an assassination order, has thrown this important achievement of mankind into a landfill. All countries in the world, with the exception of Israel, condemned this terrorist act. Trump’s hideous crime was condemned by the UN Secretary General.

National sovereignty or democratic rights are the rights that are independent of the nature of governments. Democratic rights are not divisible. Only tyrants and fascists do not recognize these universal rights in the present world. The rights of men and women are equal whether they are from working-class or from the bourgeoisie. This is also true of the national sovereignty and rights that our country Iran has. One cannot use the form and ideology of the government in Iran to deny the rights that belong to Iran as a country with a long history.

When the news of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani reached Iran, the society boiled over because our awakened nation did not condone the humiliation and violation of Iran’s national sovereignty. Millions of people took to the streets of many cities to protest and participate in the funeral procession. A nation that came to the streets for the love of its country in November 2019 and lost its sons and daughters in the fight against the repressive regime of the Islamic Republic, refused to undermine the interests of his country for the sake of revenge and vengeance on the ruling regime and to dance for Trump’s act of terrorism. The punishment of the Iranian government for its crimes must be determined only by the Iranian people, not by Trump or Netanyahu. This message was sent by the Iranian nation to all the world’s bullies and to the Iranian sellout opposition. The people of Iran love their country, are full of national pride, differentiate Iran from the Islamic Republic, and are ready to carry out a unified resistance to any foreign aggression.

Everyone heard Trump‘s announcement that he will destroy Iran’s cultural heritage. This is the very same man that labeled the Iranian people as terrorists. Immediately after the announcement was made, the pro-U.S. and pro-Israeli Iranian opposition, who had realized the extent of the criminality of the announcement, started to rephrase it. They claimed that Trump did not even understand his words and that he meant “religious sites“, and the “Qom seminary”. To say that Iranian centuries-old mosques are not part of Iran’s cultural heritage: how much a brain must be infected to think so! This
outrageous claim was declared by the Iranian mercenary opposition to deceive the public when all press in the world criticized Trump’s announcement and defended Iran’s cultural heritage and when UNESCO chief at the United Nations declared it criminal act of war.

Not war, No sanction, No military aggression.

Our Party opposes the destruction and disintegration of Iran and fights against the complicity of Iranian mercenary opposition with imperialism and Zionism. Setting the account with the capitalist regime of the Islamic Republic is the duty and the work of the Iranian people. Opposing sanctions and war does not mean accepting humiliation. The Iranian regime is said to be seeking talks with the United States behind the scenes. This is a bourgeois principle of diplomacy in the world and it is not a big problem here. What matters is what comes out of this compromise. If the opposition to the assassination of Qassem Soleimani and the pressure of Iran and the world on the United States lead to
the implementation of the nuclear deal, lifting of sanctions, and the return of Iran’s illegally seized assets, it would naturally be in the interest of Iranian people, but if these negotiations take place for the purpose of killing time and violating Iran’s rights, it will be considered a treacherous act by the  regime of the Islamic Republic. Today, the U.S. imperialists and their allies have become increasingly isolated in the world and in the region. If the United States of America does not give concession in today’s conditions, it will never give any concession, and the risk of war will increase. The interest of our homeland is to retreat so long as the gains listed above are achieved, and if not, all the interests of imperialism in the region must be endangered.

What is to be done?

The first step towards a political solution to the current impasse in our country is to form a popular, revolutionary front. The formation of such fronts is only possible through drawing a transparent demarcation between friends and enemies of the Iranian people. In our view, this transparency separates the ranks of those who go hand in hand with the imperialists from the forces loyal to the people. Any economic sanction and military intervention should be condemned. Neoliberal economic policies, corruption and embezzlement, and political repression should be opposed. Any political change must be considered an internal task of the Iranian people. The tie between the struggle for the
democratic rights of workers and toilers and for social justice and the struggle against imperialism and its mercenaries defines the identity and character of such a revolutionary and popular alternative.

There is no doubt that the assassination of Qassem Soleimani and the danger of a foreign war has affected the class struggle and has given the regime a break, but these effects are short-lived. Deprived of their rights and faced with poverty, discrimination, and repression, the masses will rise again. Foreign threats have always been used by the authorities of the Islamic Republic to unite the people behind their power. These threats justify the concentration of power in the hands of a few authoritarians and transform society into a war-time society. In fact, the threats by imperialists objectively serve the continuation of despotism in Iran and reinforce the regime of Velayat-e Faqih (the rule of Supreme Leader).

The elimination of external danger and lifting of illegal sanctions are in favor of the movement of workers and toilers, and they provide the conditions for the advancement of the class struggle.

Shooting Down of the passenger aircraft

The warmongering, aggressive, tension-creating, law-violating policies of U.S. imperialism have created an atmosphere of insecurity around the world. No one anywhere in the world enjoys the legal security and universal protection of the United Nations. Language of force and bullying are the last word. A valid law in the world has become the Genghis law: he who has more power has more right. This insecurity and tension was the rule not only in the Iran-Iraqi airspace and when an Iranian official in Iraq was assassinated or when a Ukrainian passenger aircraft in Iran was hit by missiles.

In 2014, a Malaysian passenger aircraft also became a victim of the NATO terrorist atmosphere in the conflict zone of Ukraine, an atmosphere which was the product of clear aggression and interference by NATO and the U.S. in Ukrainian internal affairs and the  creation of a warlike atmosphere.

The catastrophe of downing the Ukrainian aircraft in Iran, which also killed many of our compatriots, is neither the first nor the last in the tension-escalated climate that is the product of U.S. policy. The American administration is directly responsible for these catastrophic events. As far as the regime of Iran is concerned, the lack of transparency and lying about the event has made many Iranians angry. These liars will never regain the trust of the Iranian people. The People of Iran worry when they see that the American, Canadian, and Australian intelligence agencies knew all the secrets of the regime in this event even sooner than many high-ranking authorities. The Iranian people have a right to fear such insecurity; they want to know whether the regime is competent or only boastful when they claim to have the ability to defend Iran’s airspace against U.S. cruise missiles. The people have the right to demand the resignation of the regime’s incompetent Islamic officials. The great Iranian nation is prepared to fight against U.S. aggression despite the domestic repression it has been facing for 40 years. Imperialists are also exploiting the chronic inadequacy and lies of the regime. As the repetition of the Syrian experience, the British ambassador participates in a student protest and President Trump sends a Farsi message to students telling them to count on the support of the U.S. administration. It is unclear what mysterious hands have informed the British ambassador so that he can participate in the protest. Now we have to wait for the work of imperialist hand-picked sharpshooter agents in Iran!

Our Party calls for the resignation of the incompetent officials. We call for a public trial for these officials with the presence of world-wide mass media. The high tension and insecure atmosphere created by Trump administration that resulted in the tragedy of downing the Ukrainian aircraft must be brought to light in the courtroom. Assassinations by the imperialists and their lack of respect for human life must be exposed in a public tribunal. We strongly condemn the U.S. intervention and Trump’s speech and the shameless presence of the British ambassador in anti-regime demonstrations in Iran. These interventions damage the democratic struggles of the Iranian people for freedom because they are hypocrisies and sow the seeds of division and repression. The people of Iran, not President Trump or the British ambassador, must seek justice and force the regime of the Islamic Republic to respond to their demands. Imperialist conspiracies aimed to destroy or disintegrate Iran must be exposed and discarded.

We support the revolutionary struggle of the Iranian people against the capitalist rule of the Islamic Republic for the freedom, democracy, social justice, and respect for the right of national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran!

We demand that the liar and braggart Iranian authorities be brought to an open trial, and the role of the U.S. imperialist in breaking international law and creating hostilities be exposed!

We demand an end to the presence of imperialist forces and to interference in the internal affairs of the countries in Middle East!

We say “No” to war, sanctions, and to all aggression against the countries in the Middle East!

The U.S. imperialists must keep their hands off Iran and Iraq!