At a meeting in Derby on 16 March, Navid Shomali, International Secretary of the Tudeh Party of Iran, denounced the latest in the attempts of US to subjugate Iran in order to plunder its huge oil and other mineral resources, and to utilise its key geopolitical position linking Asia, Europe and Africa – extremely important to the USA in its ongoing ambition to dominate the world, militarily, economically, and politically.
Tracing the imperialist plans for Iran throughout the 20th and 21st centuries he focused particularly on the history since the 1953 coup – orchestrated by the US CIA (Operation AJAX) and the British MI6 (Operation Boot) against the democratic government of Mohammad Mosaddegh who had “threatened” their interests with oil industry nationalisation.
The coup ushered the Shah into power, who repaid his debt with 26 years of loyalty to imperialism – until the people’s popular revolution of 1979 put an end to his rule. But not to be outdone the US and British provoked the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980 – providing Sadam Hussein with several billion dollars’ worth of economic aid, dual-use technology, intelligence sharing and special operations training. The invasion was intended to destabilise the revolution, and by 1983 power and control lay in the hands of reactionary Islamism – and many of the 1979 revolutionaries were its victims – including the deaths of Navid Shomali’s brothers, and his own forced exile, which has continued for over 40 years. Throughout that time Navid has continued the struggle on the international stage.
In reply to an interruption from someone in the audience – an Iranian Monarchist keen to disrupt the meeting with support for the current US bombing campaign and potential invasion, Navid stressed that he had every reason to hate the current Islamic Republic – but that its demise should not be the result of foreign imperialist invasion and control, with the installation of a puppet regime
He described the current US bombing campaign as barbarous, based on Trump’s expectation that he could bring about a quick collapse, and regime change – but also described the spirit and determination of the whole Iranian people, asserting that Trump had made a great mistake in thinking that they would submit. He described Trump’s international isolation, and the growing opposition to him in the USA which his reckless and stupid acts of aggression will only encourage to develop, as they cause further splits in the imperialist camp.
Navid concluded by reflecting on the fact that he was born in 1953 – the year of the US-British coup for oil and imperialist control – and that his life had kept pace with the challenges of the struggle in Iran and across the world ever since. The conclusions and truths he’d learned were now being again reinforced by the current very dangerous situation and the drive to war. If we want a world at peace and with prosperity for its people, we need to defeat imperialism, defend independence and sovereignty, and fight for socialism.
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The event was organised as part of Derby People’s Assembly’s Peoples Café series.
This meeting was organised by local Liberation Journal readers & Derby Stop The War Coalition
