The Iraqi invasion of Iran is a new attack on the Iranian revolution. It serves the interests of imperialism, which aims to weaken and eventually crush the revolution through the imposition of an openly pro-imperialist regime of counterrevolutionary terror.
Washington, London, and Paris—while professing “neutrality’—are building up their forces in the region under cover of the Iraqi attack, and are threatening direct military intervention (if they estimate they could get away with it) under the pretext that their “economic interests” are threatened. Carter has reinforced the military machine of the Saudi dictatorship, which has aligned itself with Iraq, in preparation for a possible widening of the attack on Iran. Significant American, British, and French naval forces are concentrated at the mouth of the Gulf.
Any direct imperialist military intervention, under any pretext including that of defending oil supplies, would be nothing less than an armed attack on the Iranian revolution, just as the American raid at Tabas was.
Revolutionary Marxists in Iran and throughout the world condemn the Iraqi military offensive, and demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Iran. We denounce the maneuvers of Washington, London, and Paris, demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the imperialist naval fleets, condemn the sending of imperialist arms to Saudi Arabia, and warn against the danger of further imperialist actions. “Imperialist Hands Off the Iranian Revolution!”
Iraq has provided sanctuary for officers and soldiers loyal to the old Iranian monarchy, trained and organized under the leadership of Oveissi, Palizban, and Bakhtiar. They are trying to form a “white army” supported and armed by imperialism, capable of intervening in Iran.
In any coup attempt, this counterrevolutionary force in exile would team up with plotters within the Iranian army, and within the rest of the state apparatus inherited from the shah’s regime, who have important networks of support among the large property owners of the cities and countryside. Only a section of these plotters were uncovered in the foiling 1100 of preparations for a coup last July. In this regard, those in Iran seeking closer ties with imperialism may try to utilize the Iraqi attack to explain that for “military reasons” (arms supplies) it is necessary to normalize relations with imperialism.
Revolutionary Marxists call for and help mobilize the workers and peasants of Iran to militarily defend Iran against the Iraqi invasion. We fight alongside the Khomeini regime against any attempt by imperialism, Iraq, or the Iranian counterrevolution to overthrow it. As long as the masses of workers and peasants are not yet capable of replacing the present capitalist regime with one of their own, any overthrow of the Khomeini/Bani-Sadr government by these forces would signal the beginning of bloody terror, the reversal of the gains of the Iranian revolution, and the crushing of the masses.
Military defense of the present Iranian regime does not mean political support for it or for the institutions of the Islamic Republic, which remain capitalist. In fact, the orientation of the present regime has undermined the most effective military defense of the revolution, including in the following ways:
e It has attempted to preserve the military hierarchy of the old army, which has shown itself to be a breeding ground for military plots and preparations for a counterrevolutionary coup. A purge of all reactionary officers by the rank and file could only strengthen the war effort.
e It has attempted to block, including through the use of troops, the right of selfdetermination of the oppressed minorities, especially in its bloody military assault on the Kurdish people. This has weakened the unity, against imperialism and imperialistbacked attacks such as that of Iraq, of all the revolutionary peoples of Iran. A firm stand in support of the right of selfdetermination of the oppressed nationalities would not only generate great enthusiasm from the majority of Iranians who are non-Persian, it would also undermine further the threadbare Iraqi claim to be their saviors and boost the Kurdish resistance to the Baathist regime in Iraq itself. We support the call for the “army of 20 million.” This will be most effective in defending Iran if the enthusiasm of the Iranian people is awakened through the formation of democratically organized militias by the organizations of the toilers, and the establishment of rank-and-file committees in the armed forces as occurred in the February 1979 insurrection. This would help block any coup plots by their monarchist officers.
Further steps to defend the gains and deepen the Iranian revolution can be made through developing the independent organization of the toiling masses through the workers shoras and the peasant committees and through the extension of their rights in the factories and on the land, and their rights of expression and organization. The satisfaction of the needs and demands of the workers and peasants, including self-determination of the oppressed nationalities, can only raise their revolutionary commitment and readiness to fight against all counterrevolutionary attacks.
The Baghdad regime has used as its pretext for its attack on Iran the 1975 treaty between Baghdad and the shah. But this treaty itself signaled a turn by Baghdad towards collaboration with the shah. The shah agreed to stop all aid to the Kurdish rebels in Iraq in return for the division of the Shatt al-Arab waterway and renunciation of Arab sovereignty over three islands in the Gulf seized by the shah in 1971. This agreement had farreaching consequences. Iraq also agreed to halt its “subversive” propaganda in the Gulf emirates and toward the Arab minorities in Iran, to cut the flow of arms to South Yemen and then to the Dhofar rebels fighting against the sultan of Oman, and to stop aiding the rebels in Baluchistan. At the same time Iraq began to open up its economy to foreign capital. The net result was a growing pattern of collaboration between the Iraqi regime and the shah. Numerous Iranian oppositionists who had sought refuge in Iraq were handed over to the shah’s executioners. Finally, as the revolt in Iran assumed mass proportions in October 1978, Iraq expelled Ayatollah Khomeini as a token of goodwill to the shah.
Baghdad's objectives in the present war are to contain and weaken the Iranian revolution, to overthrow the Iranian government if it can, and to increase its own power in the region. These objectives are presently supported by imperialism. The Iraqi regime feels directly threatened by the possible spread and deepening of the Iranian revolution. Its example can be contagious, and not only among the Shi'ite majority in Iraq. Since the overthrow of the shah, Baghdad has taken some distance from the USSR and has sought closer relations with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. If the declared objectives of the agreement between Iraq and the Gulf Intercontinental Press states is opposition to the Camp David agreements, it is obvious that the major question for all of them is opposing and containing the Iranian revolution.
At the same time, Iraq hopes to take advantage of the weakening of Iranian military power to increase its own role in the Gulf. Imperialism’s attitude to this possible outcome of the Iraqi attack was reflected by the Wall Street Journal, which wrote, “With revolutionary Iran creating so much tension in the Middle East, Washington would clearly welcome any role that the Iraqis might play in stabilizing the Persian Gulf.”
The solution of the real problems faced by the Iraqi masses—in a country which despite the oil boom has been incapable of overcoming underdevelopment and where the Baathist regime exercises a ferocious dictatorship against the masses, including the religious and national minorities—is not to attack the Iranian revolution, but to support it and extend it to Iraq through the overthrow of the Baathist dictatorship.
The initial hopes of both Baghdad and imperialism for a swift Iraqi victory were thwarted, thanks largely to the mobilization of the Iranian masses against the Iraqi attack. The designs of imperialism in the region can be countered by urgently raising as widely as possible the demands: Iraqi troops out now!
Imperialist hands off Iran!
Full support for the efforts of the Iranian masses to defeat the hand of reaction!
Defend the Iranian revolution!