Anti-War Protesters - No More Trumplomacy

SAN FRANCISCO (03-01) – As Americans and the world ended February with the news that Israel and the US had begun their illegal war with an aerial attack on Iran, anti-war activists across the globe hastily organized protests to this latest aggression in resistance to yet another resource war. Without a stated plan and lacking Congressional approval by ignoring the War Powers Act of the Constitution, President Trump sanctioned the unprovoked attack that has resulted as expected in spillover across the region and the very dominant possibility of America engaging in yet another “endless war.”

To the delight of some, the first casualty in the opening salvo was that of its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death. By cutting off the head of a snake, a power vacuum in forcing regime change often results in much greater turmoil, instability and further deaths and destruction as various factions vie for control. Trump related to Iranians that Khamenei’s death now is an opportunity for them to “rise up and seize your destiny,” a simplistic encouraging idea that has myriads of complexities beyond imagination in the destabilization of the entire region. Iran’s destabilization will negatively impact the global oil market along with the world economy as a result. That was the case as oil prices have risen thirteen percent on Sunday the day after the attack from $73 a barrel on Friday to $82 on Sunday as stock futures begin to tumble.

Anti-war activists held more than 100 protest rallies across the US on February 28, calling for resistance to and in ending the war with Iran while warning of the looming dangers now imposed on the region and the world. For several hundred anti-war activists assembled at a protest organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), outside of the Federal Building in San Francisco, several orators spoke about those very real concerns, including ending forever wars, the erosion of our democracy by a president who acts with impunity, and in calling for a halt in his illegal wars of aggression.

This unprovoked attack on Iran is first and foremost nothing more than a war about controlling oil resources, the region and in ending Iran’s nuclear program. Any other explanation – freedom, democracy and choosing the countries destiny – is a smoke screen. The naked aggression of the oil corporations’ interests in pursuit of market dominance, control and profits cannot be overlooked and are reflective of the recent invasion of Venezuela. Ending the nuclear threat was the point of negotiations that were curtailed by the invasion as they were perceived by Trump to be going too slow in meeting his demands.

With all the initial joy of some celebrating the attack, the “Jeffery Epstein effect” of destruction from the grave will be reflected in events moving forward. As history has shown with US interventions in Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela and elsewhere, our military incursions, unfortunately, have had greater success in nation-destruction with little gain since WWII in nation-building.

Angela, an organizer at PYM in speaking on the US/Iran negotiations, called it a “charade of diplomacy” as the US bombed Iran “after claiming of being open on diplomatic talks.” This pattern is not unknown with the approach that Mr. “Art of the Deal” Trump has taken since becoming president. “President Trump has leveraged his diplomatic prowess to secure trillions of dollars of investment into our country…,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly recently said in lauding Trump’s diplomatic skills. His “success” being measured solely in economic terms.

In describing exactly how the US attack on Iran “makes its intentions for empire clearer,” Angela said the “US and Israel’s goals are fascism and imperialism” to gain greater control over the region. “We know this is not just a war on Iran, this is not a war against Palestine and a wider region, this war is for profit and repression of the masses. For we have seen that new bombs and technology are first tested in Palestine then shipped around the world and sold for profit and used against marginalized communities everywhere.”

Coupled with Trump’s overturning and destruction of legislation aimed at reducing America’s carbon footprint through renewable energy to create a greener and more eco-friendly environment, we continue to see oil wars as a natural extension of supporting additional resource development for the fossil fuel industry’s profits and its insatiable thirst for black gold to drive the increasingly dependent fossil fuel economy. These short-sighted gains and profits for an industry that sees no value in reducing fossil fuel consumption and disavows climate change, stand solely against public interest to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Analogous to Trump’s aggressive hatred of all renewable energy and “windmills,”— an old-fashioned term for modern wind turbines — is the image of would-be knight, Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes’ The Ingenious Knight of La Mancha (1604). Don Quixote, when first seeing giant hulking windmills on the horizon, tells his loyal servant, Sancho Panza, that he will attack them and “With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.” Not unlike Trump’s “tilting at windmills” in fighting the “injustice” of profit loss threatened by renewable resources in favor of fossil fuel.

Richard Becker, West Coast Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition, said that Fox News had broadcast during the night that the immediacy of over 100 anti-war protests having been organized across the country was due to “Chinese gold.” He went on to say that “listening to the media even for a few minutes was really disgusting…This is what they do when war comes. All the differences go out the window. And the only voices you hear, whether its FOX, CNN or MSNBC, are the voices of war. The voices for war who fully support this. This is how it has always been with the ruling class of the United States.” He noted that both Democrats and the Republicans are being loyal to imperialism and capitalism.

Becker reflected on the history of the oil industry in Iran by remembering that in 1951 after half a century of the British Empire’s dominance of the resource first through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) founded in 1908 and later the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in 1935, the first democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh, in an anti-colonial move nationalized the IAIOC for benefit of the country. As a result, the US and British boycotted Iranian oil and undertook a coup d'état in 1953 by the “CIA and British intelligence that overthrew the government.” The country then endured 25 years of the Shah’s regime “that made the Shah and his family very rich, but made the US oil companies even richer” until the “anti-imperialist” Iranian revolution in 1979.

“So, we have seen over the last months and years, the preparation for a new war for regime change…a repeat of what happened in 1953 to have a new form of US and British domination” which he termed a “Class A war of aggression” launched without justification of self-defense, intended to seize territory or dominate another state.

No matter what side of this war one may be on or how one views Iran, regional destabilization portends to spiral out of control bringing down regional and global economic stability that will result in numerous negative outcomes. Reminding one of the 1960s oft repeated anti-war peace mantra by American artist Lorraine Schneider, that “War is not healthy for children and other living things.”

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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