signatories
http://bit.do/fjY5e
As anti-imperialist activists, scholars, artists and lawyers located in the United States, we stand in solidarity with the peoples of Latin America, Africa and Asia in their calls to end imperialism, sectarianism and neoliberalism, and we view the recent protests in Iran within this broader international context of resistance.
The global turn to the right has led to the increasing liberalization of the international economy and worsening political repression in countries throughout the world. From Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Haiti to Guinea, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, people have put their lives on the line to confront the twin evils of monopoly capital and U.S. imperial domination, manifesting in different forms including coup governments, war mongering, and sanctions regimes.
As part of the current U.S. imperial project, President Trump has imposed the most severe sanctions regime in world history on Iran, seeking to choke the economy of the Islamic Republic out of existence. But it is the people of Iran who suffer. They no longer have proper access to medical supplies, industrial equipment and basic food staples. The air quality has hit an all-time low, resulting in high levels of illness, and inflation is worse than it has ever been.
In 2018, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) developed a restructuring plan to address the economic shortfalls created by the sanctions regime. In this plan, the IMF recommended “mobilizing tax revenue, removing exemptions, reducing fuel subsidies, and reforming the pension system”, alongside a “medium-term debt management strategy.”1 The IMF claimed these policies should be pursued “despite the challenging domestic and geopolitical environment” that the nation faces, with the overall objective of supporting Iran as it “transition[s] to a market-based monetary policy framework.”2
Just weeks ago, the Islamic Republic succumbed to one of the most severe proposals in the IMF plan, announcing a more than 100 percent increase in the cost of fuel on the first 60 liters purchased, and a 300 percent increase on anything above 60 liters. This reduction in subsidies has led to massive protests throughout the country because Iranians recognize that it would lead to a dramatic and sudden decline in their standard of living.
In essence, the United States’ imperial sanctions regime has opened the space for neoliberal economic institutions such as the IMF to facilitate the ravaging of the Iranian economy.
This project is not without its Iranian native informants and cheerleaders, who serve as functionaries of U.S. imperialism. These functionaries seek regime change no matter the cost, even though Iran has only recently stabilized after the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War. If Iran loses its sovereignty and descends into civil war like its immediate neighbors Iraq and Afghanistan, or proxy war like Syria and Libya, it is worth the cost because these functionaries stand to profit and benefit from war, reconstruction, and the exploitation of the nation’s resources.
Such functionaries are supported in their cause by Iranian native informants, so-called intellectuals who opportunistically appropriate the protests under the guise of supporting human rights and liberal democracy, when in fact what they seek is a return to neocolonial governance in the form of a U.S.-backed regime, not unlike that of the deposed monarchy, or a regime led by the National Council of Iran, a front organization for the U.S.-backed fringe group Mojaheddin-e Khalq, also trained by the CIA to execute the demands of the U.S.
We believe that if the Islamic Republic falls under the weight of the U.S. sanctions regime or as a result of Israeli and American aggression, not only will the Iranian nation suffer catastrophic losses, but whatever form of government that follows will be far more violent and destructive, considering all the external pressures on Iran.
The people of Iran are resisting the economic, political and militaristic violence imposed on them both by international and domestic elites. The majority of the Iranian people do not seek regime change because they have already lived through two monumental events that destabilized their lives – the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the Iran-Iraq War that lasted from 1980 until 1988. The elder generations can still recount the horrors that followed the toppling of Prime Minister Mossadegh during the U.S. and British-backed coup of 1953.
Iranians seek economic and political stability, and above all, they seek to maintain their national and individual dignity. We stand by them and their calls for domestic reform, and as people in the United States, we demand the end of the sanctions regime and U.S. and Israeli interference in the lives of the Iranian people.
CO-OP NEWS 