[T]he true gain of the [Islamic] revolution is the autonomy of Iran, which is anathema to imperialism and must be protected at all costs. Its stability and victory will filtrate into social progress for the region. It is wrong to assume that Iran is an all-socially perfect country, especially as it struggles to muster resources against the ongoing US offensive, encirclement, and imminent attack. The social issues of Iran do not resolve analytically on the pages of academic books or magazines. They emerge from the defeat of imperialism whose social repression is a money-making business.
Janna Al Kadri; Iranian Hijab: Working-class symbol in an anti-imperialist class war (Source)
Part 1—The Arab Spring and “regime change”
In 2010, a series of so-called “organic uprisings” began in the SWANA region. These riots and protests would eventually become known as the Arab Spring. At the time of the Arab Spring, imperialist media outlets and NGO’s and organizations of all political flavors supported the “fight against authoritarianism.”
Just like what is happening right now with #OpIran cyberwarfare, hacker activists CIA program Anonymous lent a “helping hand” to these protests:1
On January 2, 2011 Anonymous initiated “OpTunisia” after the government blocked Wikileaks from the Internet and they continued to offer aid as street protests more strongly swept the country. In keeping with tradition, they DDoSed government and tourist websites, but also funneled videos of the street violence out of Tunisia and created packets for Tunisian cyberactivists and protesters providing information for evading governmental surveillance.
…
Since this period, Anonymous has continued to initiate a diverse range of operations. As Tunisia helped spark the astounding protests in Egypt, Anonymous’ attention also moved there. Along with operations in Libya and New Zealand among many other places…
"Activists” were taught how to use the Department of Defense developed TOR proxy services to evade government internet shutdowns.2 New York Times (!) even published a 2011 article titled "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings".3
The CIA and monopoly capital—through organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the State Department’s Agency for International Development Open Society, the Ford Foundation, and the Oslo forum (to name a few)—funded NGO’s and trained ‘activists’ how to use social media to effectively inspire mass movements against their government. Many of these U.S.-trained activists became leaders of the Arab Spring in their respective countries. There are dozens of sources about this.4
According to western media, women were "leading the Arab Spring”. In Yemen, imperialist media lionized NED grantee Tawakkol Karman as a "peace activist."5 In her interviews and articles, Tawakkol makes every effort to slander the Ansarullah movement and paint them as "Islamists."
What happened to women’s rights following the Arab Spring? The Arab Spring did not improve the lives of women in these countries. Investigative researcher Julia Kassem writes6:
Ten years after the onset of the Arab Spring, the Arab countries are unarguably worse conditions than they had been in 10 years ago. Poverty in Egypt has increased from over a quarter of the population in 2015 to over a third in 2018, despite ‘economic reforms’ raking in increasingly unequal profits.
Libya has since been transformed by NATO from the African nation with the highest standard of living on the continent into an open-air slave market. Even Tunisia, hailed by East and West alike as the only salvageable outcome of the Arab Spring, has suffered from increasing unemployment and poverty in city peripheries and rural areas alike. Geopolitical hostilities and conflict, spurred on mainly by Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen, the US’s deepened involvement in Syria and Iraq, renewed settlement expansions and assault on the Palestinians by the Zionist entity[.]
Those who were a genuine geopolitical threat to the empire and its plans—Libya, Syria, and Ansarallah in North-West Yemen—their “Arab Spring” was a strategic pretext for devastating wars of aggression that have killed and displaced tens of millions of people.7 The volatile riots, promoted by imperialist governments, enabled proxy forces like the Free Syrian Army and Islamic State in Syria; and Saudi Arabia in Yemen to wage these wars on behalf of their imperial financiers.8
The 4th Reich and its NATO-Nazi army never passes up a chance to exploit the weakness of its enemies. It’s goal is quite clear: countries who do not bow down to the empire must be destroyed and thrown into chaos.
The United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center even admitted that the "Arab Spring" was Unconventional Warfare (UW) (our emphasis)9:
“The 2011 Arab Spring revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East were engineered through citizen-centric computer and cellular-phone technologies that streamed web-enabled social exchanges. The Arab Spring has profound implications for the U.S. special-operations mission of unconventional warfare. This article posits that the study, practice and successful execution of future UW must deliberately account for and incorporate social media.
...
Unconventional Warfare encompasses activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary and guerrilla force in a denied area. …UW is not a mechanism for creating revolutionary conditions — rather, it seizes on and supports existing political, military and social infrastructure to accelerate, stimulate and support decisive action based on calculated political gain and U.S. national interests.”
Imperialist Leftists who promote color revolutions live in fairy-tale land that has no relationship to history or geopolitics. They purposefully ignore the tactics and strategies of the United States military apparatus. They support “Women’s Rights” but never talk about what “overthrowing the regime” (their words) actually means.
What about the Women’s Rights of the 5 million Syrian refugees when they freeze to death in Eastern Europe, drown in the Mediterranean, are imprisoned in Turkish detention centers, and die from Cholera in squalid refugee camps in Lebanon?10 The Women and Children subjected to sexual violence and slavery by the Islamic State?11 What about the Women’s Rights of the 400,000 Yemeni's who have died from the Saudi war of aggression or the 17 million Yemeni people at risk of starvation under imperialist blockade? 12
The so-called “Arab Spring” caused untold suffering and horror on a massive scale—that is the historical precedent of these “organic uprisings” in West Asia in the 21st century. If the 2022 foreign-backed riots in Iran had successfully overthrown the Iranian government, then this is what would await the Iranian people: devastation on an incomprehensible scale.
Part 2 —Mahsa Amini & 2022 Riots in Iran
The US government, Saudi Arabia, UK, and “israel” are deeply and directly involved in the riots that began after the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022. They began with a lie the Mahsa Amini was beaten to death by police; this was proven false by medical examination and CCTV footage. By the time that lie was disproven it didn’t matter because the imperialist machine had already run with it and manufactured their regime change narrative.
While the “anti-war” movement proclaims “solidarity with Iranian women” they also say “no US war on Iran”. These two positions are in absolute contradiction. The riots, the information warfare, the sanctions, the cyber attacks, the terrorist attacks… all of these are part of an imperialist Hybrid War being waged against Iran. Hybrid Warfare is “the combination of multiple conventional and unconvential tools of warfare.”
Color Revolutions are the acute culmination of multiple Hybrid Warfare strategies designed to create, exacerbate, and exploit the real internal contradictions that exist within all societies and states. “The goal is to induce a state of chaos inside the target nation in order to contain, according to the amercan definition, and domesticate them.”13
In 2009, the US government commissioned think tank The Brookings Institute to write policy analysis on how to finally answer the “Iran Question” once and for all. They published a book titled “Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American Strategy Toward Iran” (pdf is free here) where they outline exactly the policies for hybrid war against Iran. Below is the table of contents:
Throughout summer 2022, the US and Iran were discussing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement to lift US sanctions on Iran. However, the US de facto backed out after they could not force Iran to accept an unfair deal.14 The empire resorted to Part III of the Brookings plan: "Toppling Tehran". Two points stand out:
The United states could play multiple roles in facilitating a revolution. By funding and helping organize domestic rivals of the regime, the United states could create an alternative leadership to seize power. As Raymond Tanter of the Iran Policy Committee argues, students and other groups “need covert backing for their demonstrations. They need fax machines. They need internet access, funds to duplicate materials, and funds to keep vigilantes from beating them up.”
Beyond this, U.S.-backed media outlets could highlight regime shortcomings and make otherwise obscure critics more prominent. The United states already supports Persian- language satellite television (Voice of America Persian) and radio (radio Farda) that bring unfiltered news to iranians (in recent years, these have taken the lion’s share of overt U.S. funding for promoting democracy in Iran). U.S. economic pressure (and perhaps military pressure as well) can discredit the regime, making the population hungry for a rival leadership.
They following chapter is a proposal of how to support armed insurgents and which groups to support. A short excerpt:
The United states could also attempt to promote external Iranian opposition groups, providing them with the support to turn themselves into full-fledged insurgencies and even helping them militarily defeat the forces of the clerical regime. The United states could work with groups like the Iraq-based National council of resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its military wing, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK)… The core concept lying at the heart of this option would be for the United states to identify one or more Iranian opposition groups and support them as it did other insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Kurdistan, Angola, and dozens of other locales since the second World War. The United states would provide arms, money, training, and organizational assistance to help the groups develop and extend their reach.
They conclude that a fusion of these policies and others would have the greatest chance of succeeding in destroying the Iranian government. Crucially, they state that even if the government is not overthrown, such policies may accomplish other goals such as 1. stopping the Iranian nuclear program 2. Limiting Iranian support to regional allies that are also fighting against the US/’israel’ 3. limit the funding that Iran can dedicate to its missile programs that substantially threaten US and ‘israeli’ military bases.
We don’t have to look very hard to see that the Brookings Institute strategy exact strategy is what is happening today.
Attack on Shiraz
On the evening of October 26th in the city of Shiraz, protestors began rioting which prompted the local security forces to mobilize. Less than two hours after the rioting began, ISIS gunmen stormed the local Shāh Chérāgh shrine and murdered 15 civilian worshipers, wounding 40 more. One of the terrorists would later testify that he was given orders from his foreign handler to carry out the attack at the time the riots were happening. When ISIS claimed responsibility, much of the world was silent.
Why would the US government or the EU condemn the attacks? We know that they created ISIS and we know that they use GLADIO/B organizations like ISIS, OUN, Grey Wolves, etc as "irregular soldiers".15 It was later revealed that all 26 of the terrorists involved were "non-Iranian and are from the Republic of Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan."16 Foreign terrorists, exactly as the Brookings Institute prescribed.
The US Government and the Left in the imperial core, who had for weeks been blasting statements about “Solidarity with Iranians”, said nothing about the horrific mass shooting. They do not care about those Iranians who were slaughtered by imperialist proxies. They only ‘care’ about the Iranians who fit their vicious imperialist narrative. For the imperialist left, the martyred families are not even worth acknowledging.
Contrary to the misanthropic “Left” in the empire, the Palestinian communist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) clearly linked the attack in Shiraz to the imperialist hybrid war on Iran and West Asia17 (machine translated, our emphasis):
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine condemned on Thursday the terrorist attack that took place in the Iranian city of Shiraz, which led to the death of 15 people and injured more than 45 others.
The people stressed that this tragic attack is not separate from the American and Zionist incitement campaign against Iran, to block its efforts to develop and progress for the welfare of the Iranian people, and to encircle its role of resistance and rejection of the Zionist project and American plans in the region.
The front expressed its full solidarity and solidarity with the families of the victims in the Islamic Republic of Iran, stressing that Iran will emerge stronger after facing these tragic events and this aggression in its various forms."
The attack in Shiraz is not the only one of its kind this year. On November 16th, gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a market in Izeh martyring 5 civilians and wounding more than 10 others; ISIS claimed responsibility. On September 30th when another Wahhabist terrorist group attacked police stations and other government buildings martyring 20 people.
Inducing Chaos
During these 2022 riots: Rioters set fire to the office of Qeshm’s Friday Prayer Imam, torching it along with a memorial to martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war. No Iranian, no matter how psyopped, would support burning that memorial.
They burned city buses and ambulances —remember that Iran is under brutal sanctions. Rioters torched banners of Imam Hussein and set fire to mosques—this has nothing to do with the government and is downright sacrilege. Western media portray the situation as “peaceful protestors being gunned down by police” but do not show the armed insurgency burning down civilians homes (with the inhabitants inside).
The brutal murders of Basij security forces and police officers are not a natural phenomenon of any kind. Imperialist media portrays “widespread hatred of the police” but in reality 85% of Iranians trust the police and 83% trust the judiciary (see graph below). These polls are taken by imperialists at the Atlantic Council so it cannot be written off as “Iranian propaganda”.
Americans who remember the 2020 George Floyd protests and repeat such empty slogans as ACAB (All Cops are Bastards) celebrate these murders of Iranian security. They pretend that the police in Iran are the same as the police in Amerika, but in reality the two have radically different lineages.
The police in amerika began as brigades to hunt Natives and catch enslaved New Afrikans. The police in Iran emerged to protect the Iranian people from US backed terrorists such as the MEK and Mossad.
In one circumstance, the US government was carrying out its centuries tradition of brutalizing Black people. In the other, the US government is giving guns to ISIS and MEK to burn down Iranian Mosques and kill Iranian government officials during "protest". Iran defending itself from US imperialism is quite literally the opposite of the US police counterinsurgency crushing protests.
How do we know the US is arming the protestors? John Bolton the former head of National Security bragged that weapons are being imported for the riots in order to provoke regime change.
In response to the chaos, Iranian police have arrested many protestors, although opposition newspapers report that 90% of those arrested are released within 24 hours.18 Nonetheless, the imperialist information warfare apparatus has spread lies about how “15000 Iranians will be sentenced to death”. An investigation by The Cradle disproves this:
The misleading allegations largely stem from a 6 November report by the UK-based and Saudi-funded Iran International news outlet regarding a letter signed by a majority of Iranian lawmakers.
…
In reality, no such vote has taken place in Tehran, as signing a letter does not constitute passing a law. Moreover, the Iranian parliament does not issue sentences, as the judiciary is laid out as a separate branch of government in the Iranian Constitution.
Chapter 11 of the constitution further lays out the judiciary’s role as an independent power.
Further muddying the waters, the figure of 15,000 protesters detained by Iranian authorities originates from the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
US-based HRANA is the media arm of the Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI), a group that receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – a CIA soft power front that has for decades funded regime-change efforts across the globe.
Officially, Iran has so far sentenced one protester to death on charges of “disturbing public peace and order, assembly and conspiracy to commit a crime against national security and corruption on earth,” state news agency IRNA reported on 14 November.
The person reportedly set a government center on fire in Tehran province.
Five others were given between five to 10 years in prison under charges of “assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security and disruption of public order and peace.”
Late last month, Iran’s Judiciary announced that 1,000 people would be tried in public in Tehran for their participation in the riots.
The reality is that the overwhelming majority of Iranians do not want this chaos and in fact strongly support the measures being taken by police to defend their nation. In 2017 there were similar protests Iran to the 2022 protests. Following those protests, the same imperialist organizations polled Iranians and found they overwhelmingly rejected the protests. In an analysis of those polls, Sharmine Narwani wrote19:
[O]ver 66 percent of respondents believed their police forces handled the protests very well (34.5 percent) or somewhat well (31.8 percent), compared to 23.7 percent who said demonstrations were managed somewhat or very badly.
…
That trend continues with 68.3 percent of respondents agreeing that protesters “chanting slogans against Iran’s political system” should be prosecuted, and a whopping 62.5 percent insisting that protesters burning Iran’s flag should be “prosecuted and punished harshly.” Almost the same numbers demanded prosecution and punishment for those attacking the police (63.9 percent) and damaging public property (59.7 percent).
Overall, 84.5 percent of Iranians strongly agreed (63 percent) or somewhat agreed (21.5 percent) that “the government should be more forceful to stop rioters who use violence or damage property.”
We can conclude that, at most, 10-15% of Iranians support these kinds of protests. The vast majority of Iranian society recognizes that they are an attempt to destabilize their country and destroy the nation. This is quite visible by the millions of Iranians who participated in counter-protests against the chaos.20
These images will never be shown in imperialist media because it contradicts their agenda of regime change. The imperialist information warfare apparatus has been mobilized to psyop everyone—Iranians and non-Iranians—against the Islamic Republic.
Psywar and Information War
A juggernaut of information warfare has been mobilized against Iran over the past few months. (An entire book could be written about this so we will limit this section to a few small bits and link important investigations below.) We have previously written on a central contemporary imperialist psychological warfare strategy:
When imperialists, through their sophisticated propaganda system mass-disseminate images of atrocities allegedly committed by their antagonists, the result among the captive audience is disorientation culminating in an intensely emotional and (preferably) material rallying for “solidarity” and “mutual aid” with US-backed proxy forces.
Weaponized Diaspora
The first tool in this information war has been weaponized Iranian diaspora who are mobilized and often paid to spread lies about Iran in English and in Persian. Massih Alinejad is easily the most high profile example and an incredible amount of research has already been done on her. Investigative Reporter Mona Issa writes in an article titled Dirty money: Meet the US agent driving the CIA-led riots in Iran21:
Operating from an FBI safehouse, Alinejad has been living in the US for the past decade working as a full-timer for VOA Persia – or, Voice of America, Persia – Washington's propaganda mouthpiece funded directly by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a soft power arm of the empire fully funded by US Congress, made to capitalize on harmful narratives in favor of Washington’s corporatocracy.
…
Between 2015 and 2022, the US Agency for Global Media paid Alinejad over $628,000 to harass veiled women, spew propaganda, and demand more sanctions against her country (not a very patriotic thing to do). Alinejad has been doing everything in her media power to isolate her country, attempting to render it a pariah state banned from all diplomatic, economic and political privileges in the global arena. Indeed, a champion for imperialism, Alinejad is on a fat CIA payroll to incite violence and lies.
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Washington for long has tried to mobilize Iranians against their government, either through media propaganda, or through sanctions. The chaos brewing is a dream come true for Alinejad, a byproduct of over decades of work. A Wikileaks cable from 2009 sent to the US State Department wrote about a dissatisfied Alinejad complaining of a “lack of cohesion among reformists” which was impeding Washington’s plans and interests.
Alinejad has been a central figure on the dod-controlled social media networks particularly twitter but she is not the only one. The US & UK state media and Saudi media outlet “Iran International” have promoted a whole host of weaponized Iranian diaspora who live comfortably in the West and are more than happy to receive fame and profit by turning against their own nation.
Social Media Infowar
Imperialists weaponizing social media is not a new phenomenon, in the case of Iran there is well documented evidence of the MEK using twitter bots to foment unrest in Iran in 2016.22 Kit Klarenburg in ‘Decoding the Pentagon’s online war against Iran’ writes23:
A key strategy employed by US military psyops specialists is the creation of multiple sham media outlets publishing content in Farsi. Numerous online channels were maintained for these platforms, spanning Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and even Telegram.
In some cases too, fake journalists and pundits, with numerous “followers” on those platforms emerged, along with profile photos created via artificial intelligence.
To get an idea for the scale of this24:
Between September 20th, and October 20th alone, more than 50,000 new Persian users with fake identities were created on Twitter to work against the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is despite the fact that before that, a maximum of four thousand Persian language users were created on Twitter per month. …Twitter exerted its utmost effort to help magnify and highlight fake news and intensify the combined war against the Persian-speaking community around the world.
Julia Kassem writes in her investigation25 that
Twitter bots working overtime produced 76 million hashtags by 462,000 accounts in just a few days. To put that into perspective, Iran's total population is estimated at just over 80 million.
She goes on to give multiple examples of how those bots then were used to spread photoshopped images and other forms of disinformation to promote the protests amongst western and Iranian audiences.
The western left happily plays along with the information war. For instance: Candian Marxists published this piece citing CIA asset Massih Alinejad and reposting videos from a Mossad media operation called “Iran Workers”.26
Amidst the claims that Iranian security forces are shooting protestors with live rounds, one case stands out. The death of Kian Pir-Falak, aged 9, on November 16th in Izeh. The Western Media immediately claimed the child was killed by Basij security forces but an investigation by Fereshteh Sadeghi at The Cradle shows a different story. Video evidence shows that ‘protestors’ were armed with firearms and the Basij security were only given paintball guns—moreover that it was those protestors who were shooting at vehicles.
The 6 other people who were shot dead on that day were all killed by “protestors” as well. But none of this stopped the Saudi and EU/US media outlets running hit pieces about how Iran is “murdering children”. In fact, we could easily surmise that the western-backed insurgents are purposefully shooting civilians to increase the death toll so that the anti-Iran news outlets and social media bots can claim that the police is killing civilians.
The imperialist media and its social media army will have you cheering on murderers and demonizing their victims. One telling example is the case of Majid Reza Rahnavard who was executed on December 12. Imperialist propaganda pieces made claims that “Iran is executing protestors” when in reality he stabbed 6 people, murdering 2 of them. Video footage shows that the two Basij officers he murdered were unarmed. During his public hearing, Majid said:
"I was influenced by the fake news that was published on social media regarding the riots, which pushed me to stab two members of the security forces, as well as passersby, with a knife," Rahnavard said during the hearing.
"When I left my doorstep, I stabbed the first person I saw. Believe me, I do not know how many people I stabbed. I stabbed every person that tried to calm me down,"
This is incredibly telling about the power of the information warfare apparatus. Not only have they convinced the imperial core but their psyop is even effective at turning Iranians against their own people. This is what makes it so incredibly dangerous.
This topic is incredibly complex so we have compiled a list of further resources here before continuing on:
Twitter army and terror squads: Iran’s latest 'revolution' shows its true colors by Julia Kassem
Decoding the Pentagon’s online war against Iran by Kit Klarenberg
Disinformation campaign targeting Iran over Mahsa Amini's death by Bahia Halawi
Dirty money: Meet the US agent driving the CIA-led riots in Iran by Mona Issa
Pressing the “riot” button in Iran: The US and Zionist role by David Miller
German embassy played a pivotal role in the riots by Al Mayadeen English
What is Really Behind Iran's Unrest? by The New Atlas (video)
Iran’s protests spark regime change campaign by The Grayzone (Video)
“Israel and Mahsa Amini deception” interview by Palestine Declassified (video)
“Iran’s protests: a different view from the ground interview” with Setareh Sadeghi (video)
Feminism and NGO’s
One of the primary narratives that has been pushed is that the riots are about “women’s rights”. They use this slogan “Woman Life Freedom” which originated from Abdullah Oclan and the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) who have been collaborating with the CIA and US government for over 20 years and helped the imperialists in their initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.27 The first tweet of this slogan on twitter (with more than a few dozen engagements) was from the organization called "Women's Committee NCRI."28 the NCRI or "National Council of Resistance of Iran" is the "diplomatic wing" of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK). The MEK is a terrorist organization has killed over 17,000 Iranians since 1980 and it openly works with the United States and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.29
Amerikans repeat propaganda pieces from the MEK because they are “Marxist-Leninist”. But, the MEK has offices on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC and closely collaborates with Amerikan military and intelligence agencies.30 That doesn't sound very communist.
It isn’t surprising to see this “Women’s committee” holding events featuring such speakers as the German Minister of Defense and former prime minister of Kanada.31 The Womens Committee NCRI advertises its relationship with "Women's NGO's" in Iran and in diaspora. Let's investigate that.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a key player in the NGO game. The NED is an arm of the CIA and the US government. They sponsor NGO’s in countries across the planet to carry out work promoting US interests. They call it “Democracy”.
A brief search on the NED website shows that between 2017-2021 the NED has sent 4.5 million dollars to NGO’s in Iran. (Keep in mind that this number doesnt include the other sources of shadow funding from sources like Ford Foundation, Open Societies, and imperialist sources outside of the US such as the EU and Saudi Arabia.)
The Abdorraham Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC) openly states that it receives over 93% of its funding from North America and Europe.32 It's no surprise that they state their primary goal is "democratic transition in Iran" which is the same thing the US State Department wants: Regime Change.
Another organization is the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). Most of their board of directors are former employees of Human Rights Watch (HRW) a global “Human Rights NGO” that claims to be “independent” but is majority financed by the Ford Foundation and according to their own website, originated in 1978 to “support dissident movements inside the Soviet Union”. This is the kinds of people who run these organizations.
CHRI purposefully obfuscates the source of their financing and the only clues are hidden in unreadable font in their annual reports.33 That is because, they are a nexus in the complex web of relationships between "Human Rights NGO's", terrorist organizations like the MEK and the KDPI, imperialist intelligence agencies, and monopoly capital.
These organizations that serve as an unofficial arm of the empire are the sources of every “Human Rights Report” that the imperialist media rolls out to spread lies about the Islamic Republic of Iran. Reports on “racism against Kurdish people” or “Iran is Raping Protestors” or “Iranian women are slaves” are complete fabrications. Upon investigation they always inevitably stem from weaponized NGO’s that are fundamental to the information warfare apparatus both inside and outside of Iran.
The Tudeh Party of Iran cites the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) extensively to lie about the circumstances about Mahsa Amini’s death in their pro-regime-change political statements.34 Tudeh is an ostensibly communist party that exists purely in exile (in the EU no less) and has no relationship with the Iranian masses. And HRANA openly advertises their extensive relationship with the NED.35 Despite this, the Western Left promotes regime change by citing Tudeh as representing the working class of Iran.36
So-called “Feminist” organizations funded by the US government are paid to infiltrate Iran to “promote grassroots women’s rights activism” and other such nebulous concepts that really means spread dissent and recruit US/EU/Mossad intelligence assets and build protest networks and wage information warfare/psywar against Iranians.
NGO’s, funded by imperialist intelligence agencies and staffed by regime change specialists are injecting liberal imperialist feminism to promote false narratives that the Hijab is the enemy of women. They will never mention the real primary contradiction of imperialism. The United States government does not care about “women’s rights.” It does not care about “LGBT rights.” It does not care about “Democracy”. If it cared about any of those things it would end its sanctions on Iran.
In the article Twitter army and terror squads: Iran’s latest 'revolution' shows its true colors, Julia Kassem lays this out quite clearly:
What the corporate Western media and its sponsors tend to overlook or disregard are the decades of cruel US sanctions that have had a devastating impact on Iran’s economy, and killed tens of thousands of people, including children. Complete sanctions removal [is] the only legitimate demand Westerners and foreigners should make on Iran at this point.
Again, the move should be total and not selective - rather than advocating the partial removal of sanctions to allow the US to easily penetrate Iran’s internet, with Elon “We Can Coup Whoever We Want” Musk even making an idle boast on Twitter to impose upon Iran’s airwaves his Starlink system.
When Iranians demanded, in one voice, that the murderous US sanctions be lifted, or when Iranians from all social denominations flooded the streets in every city (even BBC couldn’t deny its scale and magnitude) against the diabolical US murder of top anti-terror commander Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Whenever Iranians came together to demand an end to the US-Zionist occupation and intervention in the region in protests that far outnumber and are far more representative of the will of the Iranian people, they were conveniently ignored, in yet another testament of Western hypocrisy and blatant double standards when it comes to Iran.
As we shall see, the Islamic Revolution of Iran—in spite of brutal sanctions— has been incredibly successful at improving the lives and and well-being of the Iranian people which includes tens of millions of Iranian women. “Feminists” who say otherwise and call for regime change are nothing more than imperialist running dogs.
Part 3: The Enduring Legacy of the Islamic Revolution
Iran at 43: Linking with & learning from the world’s other great revolutions
Effect and influence of the Iranian revolution on global geopolitics
There are a few groups and individuals in the imperial core who correctly identify the 2022 riots as part of a US "regime change strategy". However, very few (if any) of them go so far as to defend the Islamic Republic of Iran or recognize its incredible accomplishments. They refuse to recognize the progressive character of the revolution.
How should we understand what it means to be"progressive"? Obviously liberalism is not the answer. The United States is not "progressive" because of its liberalism and bourgeois "civil rights". The so-called “liberal democracies” of the world are in fact the most regressive and counter-revolutionary forces on the planet.
What then does it mean for a movement or a country to be progressive?
Progressive forces DO NOT sell out their people to multinational monopoly capital.
Progressive forces DEFEND their nation from foreign domination by any means necessary.
Progressive forces DO NOT collaborate with or normalize imperialists.
Progressive forces DO engage in genuine internationalism with the revolutionary forces of other oppressed nations.
By these standards, the Islamic Republic of Iran could easily be seen as one of, if not the most, progressive forces in the world.
The Islamic Revolution—Domestic Devlopment
The Islamic Revolution has massively improved the quality of life for its people over the past 43 years. As of 2022, “the literacy rate is 96.2 percent, which increases by 0.5 percent every year.”37 Compare this to a measly 36% literacy rate during the Pahlavi regime in 1976.38 For context, during the last 43 years, the world literacy rate increased by 20% but the Iranian literacy rate increased by 60%.39 Based on UN data, no country in the world increased women's literacy more than Iran during this time period.40
This enormous increase is the consequence of a sustained Literacy Movement that began in December 1979 the same month the Islamic Constitution was approved overwhelmingly through a democratic vote.41 Reporter Marzieh Hashemi describes how Mosques became central to the Iranian literacy campaign that was specifically targeted towards women and girls.42 Women's literacy and education has been a crucial feature of the Islamic Revolution.
Contrary to the slanderous statements by imperialists, Iranian women have significant access to higher education. Over 66% of high school graduates in Iran attend higher education43 and over 70% of Iranian graduates with STEM degrees are in-fact women.44 The US claims to be a bastion of women’s rights yet women only make up 1 in 4 STEM graduates.45 The Islamic revolution has also brought in an incredible rise of female doctors and medical specialists. Women make up 59% of all medical professionals in residency, 40% of all medical professionals total and and 98% of all OB-GYN doctors.46
Since 1987, the Islamic Republic has not only legally acknowledged the rights of transgender people but even pays for a significant portion of citizen's transition related surgeries.47 Iran is even a “medical tourism” destination for foreigners to receive such procedures.48
The imperial core emphasizes women’s rights in a liberal and bourgeois way, that denies the basics. For instance:
Women in Amerika are 5.5 times more likely to be incarcerated than women in Iran. That number goes up to 6.18 when compared to Black women in amerika.49 Nearly 1 in 3 of all incarcerated women in the world are in amerikan prisons.50
Women in Iran are guaranteed 6 months maternity leave but women in Amerika have 0 guaranteed maternity leave.
Women in the United States are 3 times more likely to die as a result of childbirth than women in Iran. That number goes up to 7.8 when compared to Black women in Amerika.51
All people in Iran are covered by Universal Health Coverage (it is enshrined in the constitution) including over 170,000 refugees52, but in Amerika 30 million people have no healthcare coverage.53
Overall, the Islamic Revolution has seen the significant advancement of women's rights in line with the Islamic Republic’s “Charter of Women’s Rights and Responsibilities”54 which includes:
Women’s right to benefit from good health (such as health in the working environment, etc.), information and the necessary means for education
Women’s right to participate in politics, legislation, management, and the implementation of and supervision over health and treatment, specifically that of women
Women’s right to have access to public education and to benefit from educational betterment and various means of education
Women’s right to acquire skills and expertise – both in numbers and in quality – at the highest levels
As much as the West wants to portray the Iranian government as “woman hating”, they dismiss the actual words of Supreme Leader Khameini who emphasizes55:
Women play a role in social, political, scientific and economic activities. From the viewpoint of Islam, the field for women’s scientific, economic and political activities is completely open. If someone tries to deprive women from doing scientific work and economic, political and social endeavors on the basis of some supposedly Islamic viewpoint, they have acted against the divine decree.
Another massive success for the Islamic Revolution has been providing healthcare to the Iranian people. Increasing the life expectancy from 56 years during the Pahlavi regime to over 77 years today. According to UN data, this improvement significantly outpaces every other country with similar income levels.56 This is due to many dedicated efforts including the development of “health houses” for rural Iranians “reducing child mortality rates by 69% and maternal mortality in rural areas from 300 per 100,000 births to 30. There are now 17,000 health houses in Iran, covering more than 90% of its rural population of 23 million.” These programs have been so successful that Mississippi health officials even requested Iran help them in developing such a program.57
Part of the US genocidal sanctions campaign was designed to stop Iran from getting much-needed medicine. To combat this, the Islamic Republic now manufactures 97% of its own medicines domestically and even exports them to other countries targetted by sanctions.58 For instance, Iran is giving a million doses of their domestically developed Barakat Covid vaccine to the Republic of Mali (which is currently fighting imperialist ECOWAS sanctions).59 The nuclear program that is so maligned by the West is the source much-needed medicines for imaging and cancer treatments.60
It is difficult to understate how incredible these feats are. A recent news program Marzieh Hashemi interviewed severely disabled individuals in Iran who are quite literally dying because the United States does not allow Iranian hospitals to buy wound dressings and bandages.61 When asked what she would say to Amerikans she answers:
"As EB patients, what do we have to do with politics? With your enmity towards Iran? Your problem is with Iran, correct? What am I to do as an EB patient? Shall I perish because of your enmity?! … My friends are dying because of [your] sanctions on wound dressings!"
If it were up to the United States, all people in Iran who need medical care would perish. But the Islamic Revolution is doing incredible feats for its people in providing medical care in spite of this. The statistics prove this to be true.
Another component of this economic development has been the creation of almost 100 thousand(!) workers cooperatives that encompass a wide range of employment sectors and account for 7-8 % of the whole GDP.62 Workers cooperatives are enshrined in the Iranian constitution as one of the 3 pillars of the economy and economic planning.63 These co-operatives are designed to disrupt the accumulation of capital into the hands of elites and to promote environmentally friendly economic development that works in close collaboration with the community.64
The Islamic Revolution has also made incredible military advances in the areas of UAV’s, missiles, ships, submarines, cyberwarfare, and more. Such military advancements have been crucial to maintaining the sovereignty of Iran against the imperialist onslaught. And they are already being used to drive out the zionist entity and other imperialists from West Asia. (See below: internationalism).
Mythbusting
Those in the imperial core seem to be captivated under a myth that the Islamic Republic of Iran is an anti-people “authoritarian state” ruled entirely by the Ayatollah. Journalist Sharmine Narwani of The Cradle tells a different story65:
There is no single authority in the state. Decisions are either made collaboratively or in heated and often very public disputes that play out in the Iranian media, in parliamentary debates, or behind closed doors.
In essence, Iran has three main power centers today: First, the Supreme Leader and his various state revolutionary organs that include the army, the police force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and the millions-strong volunteer Basij forces.
Second, Iran’s government and its state institutions that include the elected president, his cabinet, the country’s ministries, and parliament.
And third, the hawza (seminary) of Qom, Iran’s religious center, which consists of thousands of Shia scholars, authorities, and influencers who impact the interpretation of religion, actions, and behaviors for the Islamic Republic.
All three power centers impact state policy in varying ways, and their fortunes have all ebbed and flowed at different times. Within each of these centers exists a vast network of supporters, institutions, media, economic interests, and influential personalities. They, as in other democratic societies, vie for their perspectives to be taken into account and put into action.
To imagine for a second that a single person or decision-making body can issue a directive on an issue as complex and symbolic as the hijab, is to be absolutely clueless about the intricacy, contradictions, and diversity within the Islamic Republic’s body politic.
The possibility that Iran is a democracy, or that Iran’s democracy includes religious leaders is so unfathomable to the western left that, under the name of liberalism or communism or anarchism or whatever, they promote this absurd myth of “supporting people not states”. In Islamic Resistance, Principle Contradiction and ‘War on Terror’, Comrade Ajith (Communist Party of India (Maoist)) breaks down this chauvanism66:
What is the class composition at the core of Islamic fundamentalist movements or of fundamentalist movements in general in the oppressed countries? It can very well be petty bourgeois, rural and urban, even ‘modern’ in education. Marxism, and the facts of life, shows us that the petty bourgeoisie of an oppressed country is an important national force, by no means outmoded historically though quite capable of being reactionary. Historical experience also teaches us that it can at times lead national movements. The petty bourgeois class composition of the core is one important reason why some fundamentalist movements are able to connect with the broad masses and don the mantle of legitimate resistance.
But if analysis is guided by moral repugnance, the whole lot will just be seen as a bunch of outmoded reactionary strata, period—no suppositions to the contrary allowed. This may make it convenient in immediate terms to gain an audience among those put off by the reactionary views and practices of Islamic fundamentalists. But it won’t help Maoists in understanding and grappling with this phenomenon or mobilizing a revolutionary mass on that basis, either in the oppressed countries or the imperialist ones. Dismissing the resistance in countries like Iraq as a clash between two reactionary strata amounts to imperialist economism, precisely because the aspect of national resistance contained in it is denied.
The western left routinely engages in this “imperialist economism” that repeats Islamophobic propaganda promoted by the US State Department for its “War on Terror”. They say that the “people of Iran are under attack from Islamic fascism and Imperialism” tacking on imperialism as if it is not the primary contradiction. Imperialism and its hybrid war on Iran (and the world) is the Primary threat to all the people of Iran and the region. Fascism is defined by a relationship to monopoly capital and Iran is not fascist. Whether the Iranian Revolutionary Government is capitalist or not is not the primary contradiction. The real question is what is the government doing to defend its people and the region from imperialist devastation?
Iran has no relationship with European/Amerikan imperialist business ventures that plunder land and people. The Revolutionary Government of Iran does not normalize with Israel nor does it collaborate with any other tendrils of the empire.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been under siege by imperialist forces since its very inception. Immediately after the revolution in 1980, the Reagan regime began backing Iraq and promoting the devastating Iran-Iraq war under a strategy that would later be called “dual containment”. Following the conclusion of that horrific war imperialists used sanctions and assassinations and terrorist attacks and color revolutions and every tool available in its hybrid war against the people of Iran.
The Iranian Revolution has defended its people incredibly well from these barrage of attacks. Social contradictions obviously still exist inside of the country. But the imperialist forces are exacerbating them in every way possible and use every opportunity to exploit those contradictions for regime change. Poverty and inflation remain high in Iran but that can hardly be blamed on the government when it is under the most severe sanctions campaign in the world.
Leftists in the imperial core repeat this meaningless phrase “Back the striking Iranian workers” but don’t think too much about why they are striking. Julia Kassem wrote in 201867 :
News of sporadic labor strikes, such as those in the steel industry in Ahvaz, conveniently coincided with each round of sanctions: both in early November and in August. As Iran’s industries, including steel, sugar cane, and automotive, become amongst many taking significant hits following US sanctions, coverage of the protests, with sources almost exclusively by pro-NCRI and pro-Gulf media outlets, frame this as evidence of government corruption and mismanagement rather than an effect of sanctions co-opted for regime change narrative purposes.
The liberals and the Left in the imperial core repeat moralist claims against the Islamic Revolution. But, moralism doesn’t liberate land and people. National development of agro-ecology and economic sovereignty supported by self defense capacity does. All liberation movements, especially those that take state power and thus become responsible for the livelihoods of millions of people make heinous compromises to better concentrate forces on the principal contradiction. We should always be aware of our principles while not being idealist and advancing beyond the objective conditions. There is a fundamental difference between a compromise forced on a liberation movement by objective conditions (whose principle we never accept) and one where they join the bandits in their global looting. The Islamic Republic of Iran has never joined the imperialist bandits but has instead positioned itself firmly against them.
General Soleimani and the Quds Force
In debunking the prolific lies of the world imperialist forces, special attention must be paid to the legacy left by Major General Hajj Qassem Soleimani. Amerikan media is deliberate in portraying Soleimani as a heel, a murderer, and a war criminal. He was martyred by the Pentagon in a targeted drone strike assassination at Baghdad International Airport on January 3rd, 2020. In a disturbing manifestation of genocidal amerikan chauvanism, the best-selling video game in the US during 2022, Call of Duty, allows players to re-enact their government’s war crime.68
But who was the martyr Qassem Soleimani? In an excellent short biography entitled General Soleimani, the revolutionary, the martyr, the legend, Ali Jezzini writes:
Born to a poor farmer in 1957, Soleimani joined the Ranks of the IRGC following the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. He quickly moved up the ranks as he was described as shrewd and courageous by his peers, even commanding a full division, the 41st Tharallah Division, during the Infamous Iran-Iraq war of the 80s when he was only in his 20's.
After the US-instigated war on the nascent revolution, Soleimani became the Head of the well-known al-Quds elite force in the IRGC in 1997. His main aim was focused on creating a regional basis from which the peoples of the region could rise and resist the western dominion that only produced war, death, and destruction for these people and their livelihood.
Soleimani is remembered fondly by people around the world as a hero of the Iranian Revolution and a defender of genuine progressivism and liberation. His true internationalism has protected tens of millions of lives in the SWANA geopolitical region against world imperialist violence.
Lebanon
In 2006, the US and ‘israel’ conspired to break up the Hezbollah-aligned communities of Southern Lebanon in what became the 33-Day Israel-Hezbollah War. For context, from 1975-1990 the CIA, MI6, and the zionist entity had backed various fascist groups in the Lebanese Civil War that led to the deaths of over 100,000 Arabs. Since 1978 “israel” had invaded and occupied Lebanon with the invasion expanding to occupy Beirut in 1982. In 1993 the zionist entity invaded in the 7-day war. In 1996 the zionist entity bombed southern Lebanon in the April War.
The 2006 war was different. In the 33 Day War the forces of Hezbollah & aligned Lebanese popular resistance successfully drove the zionist forces from their lands and dealt such a debilitating blow to ‘israel’ that the occupation has not dared invade so brazenly since then. What was the difference? Why did Hezbollah defeat the zionists so soundly in 2006?
Answer: Soleimani and the Quds Force. Beginning in the year 2000, Soleimani led an incredible campaign to arm Hezbollah and mobilize the Lebanese resistance enabling them to determine their own destiny. Missiles, small arms, and ATGM’s changed the terms of combat and the zionist entity suffered incredible losses.
In a long form documentary titled "He was With Us", Hezbollah leader Sayyed Nasrallah said that Soleimani gave international aid without conditions, in the spirit of solidarity between fellow opponents of Zionism and the USA69:
In the 22 years that I knew Gen. Soleimani, he [nor] the Islamic Republic of Iran never asked anything from us ever…Neither Iran nor Haj Qassem ever asked anything from us in return. Haj Qassem was the faithful messenger of the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, yet he never reminded us of this favor. Instead, he used to say ‘this is my duty in front of Allah and I am your servant’. This is a rhetoric that many people today will not understand. It is unreal or divine for them. Yes, there is a leadership in Iran in the era of Imam Khomeini and the era of Imam Khamenei that thinks about the oppressed people from a religious, moral, and humanitarian eye, and believes that it has the duty to offer support without anything in return. This is something the US and many others in the world will not understand, this is why they dub the resistance movements as ‘tools of Iran’ — they don’t understand the loving and friendly relationship.
Soleimani told Sayyed Nasrallah that he would stay in Lebanon to help with strategy, and he remained at Nasrallah’s side through the US-Israel bombardment. After the war ended he procured financial aid and helped rebuild the south of Lebanon in an act of real internationalism. Nasrallah said: “Martyr Qassem Suleimani stood by many countries in the region in the face of global arrogance, and he was the best of whom raised the slogan of resistance in the region, as he established special and strong bonds with Hezbollah leadership until we felt he was one of us.”
Now that the 'israelis' can no longer openly invade Lebanon, they have resorted to different types of hybrid warfare. The people of Lebanon have been facing a severe energy crisis especially since 2019 when the Lebanese bank system, which is controlled by imperialist powers, collapsed (was destroyed).70 In addition, Lebanon has never fully rebuilt after the israeli invasion and occupation, especially 2006. There’s sanctions on actual rebuilding and more recent genocidal sanctions on Syria and other countries (Syria is only non Zionist-occupied land border) meaning Lebanon is also more sanctioned. US regime, French, Saudi, Zionist strategy is to weaponize the ensuing economic collapse to push for a political regime who will start civil war to disarm and destroy the Lebanese Islamic resistance.
Since the 2006 war, the Quds force has continued to support the Lebanese resistance forces to build up their own capacities for governance, social services, and defense against imperialist military invasions. For example, working with Hezbollah to import Iranian hydrocarbons and provide much needed energy to Lebanese people.71
Venezuela
Soleimani’s internationalism was not limited to his regional allies: Nicolas Maduro revealed in 2022 that he had met Soleimani in 2019 while Venezuela was being heavily targeted by imperialist forces to overthrow the democratically elected government. Readers will remember the usurper Juan Guaidó whose illegal coup phony "government" is backed by the United States. At the same time, the US military was sabotaging Venezuelan power grid and carried out at least 4 attacks during the first half of 2019.72 Some of these attacks left millions of people, over 70% of the entire country, without power.73
Following these attacks, Soleimani and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) worked with Venezuela to strengthen their infrastructure against EMP (electronic disabling warfare) and Cyberwarfare. The CIA plans for regime change were thwarted and Venezuelans were not subjected to a coup by a US puppet.
When discussing Soleimani, Maduro credited their nations’ “unique and exemplary relationship” on the Major General’s fraternal solidarity with Venezuelans, his quickness to act materially in their defense. Maduro said of the Quds Axis:
The Axis of Resistance exists throughout the world. It exists in Africa, in Asia, in the Middle East, in Latin America and in the Caribbean. The Resistance also belongs to the people who are fighting against neoliberalism, racism and various forms of colonization, political, economic, cultural colonization and cyber colonization. Cyber colonization is something that is now on the rise by way of the social media … All of us who fight against colonialism, all of us who fight to decolonize our minds and our people, are part of the Axis of Resistance that stands against the methods of the imperialists for imposing a hegemony on the world. The 21st century is our century. It is the century of the unity of the people. It is the century in which people will be liberated. It is the century of justice and truth. Empires are in decline, and people’s projects for well-being, development and greatness have just begun. This century is our century.
Under the internationalist relationship fostered by Soleimani and Maduro, Iran has recently announced plans to establish a joint technology and science campus in Venezuela. The two nations will soon engage in science and tech exchange that will, in a very real way, help protect the people of Iran and Venezuela from their common enemy.74
Soleimani worked with anti-imperialist resistance forces in multiple other countries including Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.75 Each of those are incredibly important, however we will focus the remainder on his role in Palestine.
Palestine: From the River to the Sea
Before we discuss the relationship between Iran and Palestine it is critical to understand what is actually meant when we discuss the Liberation of Palestine. In 1969, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) laid out quite clearly what is meant by this76:
The Palestinian Liberation Movement’s object is to destroy the state of Israel as a military, political and economic establishment that rests on aggression, expansion and organic connection with imperialist interests in our homeland. It is against Zionism as an aggressive racial movement connected with imperialism, which has exploited the sufferings of the Jews as a stepping stone for the promotion of its interests and the interests of imperialism in this part of the world that possesses rich resources and provides a bridgehead into the countries of Africa and Asia.
…
The Palestinian liberation movement is a progressive national movement against the forces of aggression and imperialism. The fact that imperialist interests are linked with the existence of Israel will make of our struggle against Israel a struggle against imperialism, and the linking of the Palestinian liberation movement with the Arab liberation movement will make our struggle against Israel the struggle of one hundred million Arabs in their united national effort for liberation.
The Liberation of Palestine will only come through protracted armed struggle. Meanwhile the Western “solidarity movement” are caught in a psyop that focuses on such absurd goals as “visibility” and “ending apartheid”. They prioritize the legal struggle and carry out useless demonstrations and college divestment campaigns. They portray Palestinians as permanent victims who are helpless victims under zionist oppression. They believe that solely through BDS and convincing the UN and foreign countries to “put pressure on israel’ will lead to Liberation.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, the Palestinian people are fighting an armed struggle and a war of national liberation. Not only are they fighting, but they are winning. In May 2021, while the western Palestine Solidarity Industrial Complex was pushing an endless stream of suffering and trauma porn, the Palestinian Resistance was carrying out the operation The Sword of Al-Quds. In the article “From Stones to Missiles”, Hussam Abdel Kareem explains:
Within a few days, thousands of missiles were successfully launched from Gaza and reached their targets deep inside “Israel”. The Palestinian movements also formed a joint operation and command room to coordinate activities and responses. The Israeli army, and its “Iron Dome” defense system, failed to down the Palestinian rockets. “Israel” didn’t dare to carry out ground operations in Gaza and was no longer able to sustain prolonged military operations due to the internal turmoil caused by the Palestinian missiles which practically “froze” the Israeli economy for days. A state of deterrence was established with “Israel” as if it were between two armies. That was a remarkable success for the Palestinian resistance. The days when the Israeli army was able to wander in Gaza without expecting a damaging response were long gone. The Palestinian resistance was able to impose new realities on the ground. It’s a new era, that of the “missile” resistance. No more knives or stones throwing.
Seif Al-Quds or the Sword of Al-Quds was a real strategic victory on the part of a unified front of armed factions. There are many reasons for that success, however two primary ones stand out.
First was the regional collaboration of multiple allies in support of Palestine. Recently, Hamas revealed that Hezbullah and the IRGC played a crucial role in planning the operation and co-ordinating with the united front of Palestinian resistance.77 This is the result of a co-ordinated effort on behalf of the martyr Soleimani who was dedicated to the liberation of Palestine from imperialism. Palestinians recognize Soleimani for the role he played in bringing his Quds Force and Palestinian-Lebanese factions like Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad into a greater level of coordination in the 21st century, refusing to allow them to be scattered and divided despite their common enemy.
For two decades Soleimani had been working with Palestinian Resistance forces to build their capacity. Again, Iran asked for nothing in return. Abu Ahmad Fuad, Deputy Secretary of the PFLP, said of Hajj Qasem: “He did not differentiate between sects and ideologies — only between the factions who wanted to fight the occupation and who would surrender.”
“Any Palestinian faction, under the title of requiring weapons for resistance — Hajj Qassem did not show fault in shipping weapons,” ~ Osama Hamdan, a senior member of Hamas.78
It was under Gen. Soleimani’s advisement that Gaza begin fabricating its own offensive tools, such as their famous rockets. Soleimani is responsible, too, for the planning and creation of the sophisticated system of tunnels in the Gaza strip which the Quds Axis has used for many years to transport heavy weapons thousands of miles into occupied Palestine. The Zionist entity launched the 2014 Gaza War to put a stop to the use of these tunnels, yet despite their best efforts, use of the underground passages continues to this day.
In 2006, Hamas was democratically elected as the government of the Palestinian Authority. In 2007 they took power but a US-israeli backed coup by collaborationist Fatah-controlled ‘PLO’ succeeded in recapturing the West Bank infrastructure of the PA while Hamas defeated the coup in Gaza. This moment marked the beginning of genuine self governance for the Palestinians in Gaza. In 2008, the zionist entity began an operation to invade Gaza with the intent to remove the democratically elected government. The US, zionist entity and neocolonial Egyptian regime imposed a complete air, sea and land blockade against Gaza but a series of zionist ground invasions were driven back.
In 2014 after the occupation was repelled, IOF spokespersons and other zionist analysts openly stated “concerning developments” regarding Hamas military and especially their use of “Kornet” Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) systems.79 Their armored tanks and troops are helpless to defend against these. Consequently, the occupation has given up its plan to invade Gaza. Those Kornet ATGM were smuggled into Gaza because of resistance networks organized by Soleimani.80
The resistance in Palestine today is considerably stronger than it has ever been. 2022 has seen the emergence of autonomous guerillas such as the Lion’s Den of Nablus. Guerilla fighters in Jenin have been subjected to constant invasions and raids, yet they continue to inflict heavy losses on the occupation forces and drive the IOF back from the city. The Lions Den in particular identifies itself as “a phenomenon of continuous resistance derived from its unity on the ground, and from the roots of the past revolution.” In an interview with The Cradle, a leader of the Lion’s Den said:81
“the arrogance of the occupation impose on us as resistance fighters renewed battles, the shape of which the occupation may not expect, especially since this organized and self-managed resistance is able every day to renew the blood in the veins of the resistance in many forms and methods.”
He also reminded fellow members “not to leave the gun under any circumstances and to direct it at the occupation, its settlers, and those who collaborate with the enemy,” and called on their “brothers in the [PA] security services to unite and direct our guns toward the occupation only.”
This is what self-determination for a National Liberation Struggle looks like.
The people of Palestine have been subjected to horrific crimes by the occupation. The forces of imperialism have been murdering and terrorizing Palestinians for over a hundred years. But the things are different this time. This time, the Palestinian people have co-ordinated regional allies and financing and an incredible arsenal on their side. This time, the Palestinian people—with the help of their regional allies in Hezbullah, Ansarahllah, Syria, and of course Iran—will break the back of the zionist occupation.
In the words of Hamas Political Chief Ismail Haniyeh82:
"The normalizers and those who betrayed the Palestinian cause see that victory and liberation are far-fetched, but we see it as imminent… Following years of security cooperation and conspiracies from those far and near, Jenin is once again uprising and raising the banner of resistance. … Gaza, which is embargoed by land, sea, and air, has been in battles and wars, and it raised the sword of Al-Quds in the face of the occupation. Through its resistance and people, it is preparing for a strategic battle with ['Tel Aviv']."
That victory will only come through unity of the Palestinian nation and the Arab nation against imperialism. As stated recently by Deputy Secretary-General of the Popular Front, Comrade Jamil Mezher at the 55th anniversary of the founding of the PFLP83
Today, the slogan of our launch is the resistance, to confirm that our path towards Palestine will not be accomplished except through rifles, martyrs, and stabbing and run-over operations, because this path is what brings us glory, dignity, and liberation.
The path of unity based on partnership is the shortest way to Jerusalem, ending the division, forming the unified leadership of the popular resistance, and supporting and strengthening the steadfastness of our people is the gateway to victory and liberation.
…
Our people will be victorious sooner or later, and we will return home, and the enemy will leave from whence it came, and we will live with pride and dignity.. This is the covenant and oath until victory, liberation and return.
The islamophobic western left, the liberal “solidarity movement”, and the non-profit opportunists have no role in the struggle. If anything they are actively sabotaging Liberation efforts. While they argue with zionists on the dod-controlled social media and share videos of suffering Palestinians “in solidarity”, the Forces of Revolution are mobilizing. Those forces, the Axis of Resistance, are led by Iran. Any who call for the end of the Islamic Republic may as well be calling for the extermination of Palestinians.
Western propaganda depicts the peoples of Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the Arab Region as defenseless, but they are not. Their power is manifest in their popular support for internationalism with nations like Iran and leaders like Qassem Soleimani and Hassan Nasrallah—agents which materially support their liberation and defend them against the US and NATO so they can work out their internal contradictions and promote progress for their people.
The Liberation of Palestine is no longer a dream or a wish, it is an inevitability. And none of this would be possible if not for the sustained genuine internationalism of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Indeed, this is the reason why the United States and its allies have gone ‘all in’ on their attempt to sabotage and overthrow the Iranian government. They see the writing on the wall. Ali Al’shaab writes84:
This link between Islamic (Republic of) Iran, which stands steadfastly in the trench of national liberation, and in the Palestinian trench in particular, and is clashing with the American and Israeli occupation in the region. [This is] concurrent with with Russia, which has risen up to enter into a broad and violent clash with NATO militarily and with the Western cultural system. Also, to restore consideration for the Russian historical, civilizational, and political position that is independent of the West and its culture, and that threatens its colonial economic structure. Understanding this link is necessary to understand why the Americans, and the West in general, will play all its cards in this fight with Iran before their shadow vanishes from the area completely and forever.
Conclusion
In this article we have made our case for a few points:
First that the so-called “Arab Spring” was a series of color revolutions that were part of US/NATO strategy of unconvential warfare. All in the name of feminism and democracy, the protests and riots have caused extreme suffering and mass death in the entire SWANA region and beyond.
Second, that the current riots in Iran are fundamentally the same strategy of unconvential warfare as the so-called “Arab Spring”. That the riots themselves have been manufactured and stoked by the forces of imperialism. And that the riots have served as a cover to cause as much death and terror against the Iranian people as possible, in an effort to overthrow the government of Iran.
Third, we have dispelled many myths propagated by the imperialist media about Iran. In spite of being subjected to the very worst hybrid warfare strategies available, the Islamic Revolution has lived on and has done an admirable job providing for its people. The revolution in Iran and indeed West Asia has an Islamic character that cannot be denied.
Fourth, we have shown that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a driving force of anti-imperialist revolution on a regional and global scale. The Liberation of Palestine is possible, inevitable even. And that is, in large part, because of the genuine internationalism of Iran and the greater Axis of Resistance.
With this, we offer an open challenge to the western left: Stop Lying on Iran. And more than that, re-orient your very conception of Revolution to centralize the struggle against imperialism. Dogmatism, moralism, and chauvanism contribute nothing to the real-existing global anti-imperialist struggle happening today. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a vanguard in global revolution and it must be defended. Those who deny this are choosing the side of empire. Moreover, in order to contribute as partisans in this global hybrid war will require the western left to engage with the tough and necessary critiques of modern liberalism and neo-colonialism.
In the article From “Fundamentalists” to “Islamists”: Is there a problem of Islamophobia on the “left” David Miller notes that the "left" has embraced Islamaphobic languages and ideas that were created by zionists.85 He concludes:
This is not just a question of language, but a tendency on the left to see specifically Muslim involvement in politics as problematic unless it conforms to Western secularist tenets of belief, tenets which only really apply to – or at least emerged from – a critique of Christianity specifically. This is to say that it is not only the “pro-war” (secular) left with which there are problems but also parts of the “anti-war” (secular) left. If we are to foster an international realist anti-Imperialist movement, we will need to leave Islamophobic ideas and conceptions behind and develop a more thoroughgoing critique of Western culture and society.
This final point is critical. The “left” and its obsession with demonizing the Islamic Republic of Iran functionally excludes their participation in the global anti-imperialist struggle. Such behaviors preclude the possibility of building genuine internationalism of any kind with Palestine and many other places in the world. Those who continue to lie on Iran (and martyrs like Soleimani) are doing the work of the US government and they will find themselves completely isolated from everyone except for the controlled-opposition and its neo-colonial lapdogs.
Why Islamic State militants remain a threat in war-torn Libya
The nucleus of the [Islamic State] movement in Libya emerged in the years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with would-be militants making use of existing Salafi-jihadi networks to establish their power.
Honari, A., & Alinejad, D. (2022). Online Performance of Civic Participation: What Bot-like Activity in the Persian Language Twittersphere Reveals About Political Manipulation Mechanisms. Television & New Media, 23(8), 917–938. https://doi.org/10.1177/15274764211055712
The “Iran Workers” Social media just posts videos of riot porn coming out of Iran and most of its engagement comes from bots or US think tanks.
Their tweets are always retweed by @NatsecJeff who is the deputy director of two NATO Thinktanks called the Midstone Centre and Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism. @AminSabeti who works at an Israeli Cybersecurity company called CERTFA Lab. Below is a collage of other bot accounts that share the “Iran Workers” tweets.
The ingenious US plan was put to work in 1998, by offering the two leaders (Barzani and Talabani) eleven million dollars in bribes to stop the conflict and sign a peace agreement.20 Under the agreement, the warring parties were committed to power sharing, as well as not to allow the return of the Iraqi army to Kurdistan, the United States commited to protect the Kurds from any possible future aggression by Saddam Hussein, and the Kurdistan’s air space was declared the “non-flying zone”.21 Such “independence” of Iraqi Kurdistan meant the exemption from sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1992, which are responsible for the deaths of half a million Iraqi civilians22 , thus the standard of living in the northern province has greatly improved, and a large number of foreign companies rushed to oil-rich province, to grab their part of the pie. The US military Special Forces have been given the task of organizing and training Kurdish fighters called the “Peshmerge”, who in 2003, during the US invasion of Iraq, took part in the fighting against the Iraqi regime on the side of the imperialists.
NCRI-Women International Solidarity with the women of Ukraine and Iran
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, German Defense Minister (2019-2021), also addressed a message of support to the gathering in which she said: “We are talking about strong women in Iran. If we talk about women’s rights, we are talking about the rights of half of the Earth’s population.
Page 43 of the CHRI annual report for 2018
https://www.tudehpartyiran.org/en/2022/09/20/statement-of-the-tudeh-party-of-iran-down-with-the-dictator-there-is-no-end-to-the-regimes-murderous-thuggery/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=statement-of-the-tudeh-party-of-iran-down-with-the-dictator-there-is-no-end-to-the-regimes-murderous-thuggery
Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) shared this article citing the Tudeh Party.
Iran Primer by United States Institute for Peace
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS?end=2016&locations=IR-1W&most_recent_value_desc=false&start=1976&view=chart
The official vote count for creating the Islamic Republic of Iran was over 99% in support of the constitution. Even imperialist historians admit that this vote was democratic and the overwhelming support was real. Iran Data Portal
Imperialist Source: How Iranian immigrants can be role models for diversity in STEM
Remarkable Achievements of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Improving the Status of Women and Family
Page 454 — Tabatabai, Shima & Simforoosh, Nasser. (2020). Health Care and Medical Education to Promote Women’s Health in Iran; Four Decades Efforts, Challenges and Recommendations. Archives of Iranian Medicine. 23. 469-479. 10.34172/aim.2020.44. (Link)
Women of all races in Amerika are incarcerated at a rate of 77 per 100,000.
https://www.jrsa.org/pubs/factsheets/jrsa-factsheet-women-girls-in-corrections.pdf
New Afrikan women in Amerika are incarcerated at rate of 83 per 100,000. As per 2019.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/818001/rate-of-imprisonment-in-the-us-by-race-and-gender/
As of 2020 according to UN, Iran incarcerate 189 000 people of which 3% are women. 85 million people in Iran and about equal gender split. This means the incarceration rate is about 13.5 per 100,000
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/479593/Build-the-world-we-want
London Times Archive (paywalled)
Article 43 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran: “Ensuring conditions and opportunities of employment for everyone, with a view to attaining full employment; placing the means of work at the disposal of everyone who is able to work but lacks the means, in the form of cooperatives, through granting interest-free loans or recourse to any other legitimate means that neither results in the concentration or circulation of wealth in the hands of a few individuals or groups, nor turns the government into a major absolute employer. These steps must be taken with due regard for the requirements governing the general economic planning of the country at each stage of its growth”. (Source)
Call of Duty is a Government Psyop: These Documents Prove It
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hezbollah-brings-iranian-fuel-into-lebanon-al-manar-tv-says-2021-09-16/
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Lights-on-in-Caracas-and-Venezuela-After-Latest-Blackout-Attack-20190723-0023.html
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14374
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/sardar-soleimani-the-revolutionary-the-martyr-the-legend
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/yemen:-soleimani-al-muhandis-reinforced-the-axis-of-resistan
http://pflp-documents.org/strategy-for-the-liberation-of-palestine-english-1969/
https://thecradle.co/Article/news/11011
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/blog/soleimanis-effective-role-in-palestine-from-resistance-to-li
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/0725/Why-Hamas-is-a-more-formidable-foe-in-Gaza-this-time
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/blog/soleimanis-effective-role-in-palestine-from-resistance-to-li
https://thecradle.co/Article/Investigations/17037
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/liberation-victory-imminent-unlike-what-traitors-believe:-ha
https://hadfnews.ps/post/110323/%D8%A8%D9%85%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%83%D8%A9-%D8%B9%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A2%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%81-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B9%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%8A%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D9%8455-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%85%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%85%D8%B1%D9%83%D8%B2%D9%8A-%D8%A8%D9%85%D8%AF
https://t.me/pflpgaza1/8801
https://www-al--akhbar-com.translate.goog/Opinion/350087/%D8%A5%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%88%D8%B6%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A8%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%82%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%84-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%B1-%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B7%D9%86?_x_tr_sl=ar&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp