Letter to BS: US responsible for conflict, escalation of situation in Iran

The mounting tension in West Asia following the assassination of Iran’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, an immensely popular figure in his country, by the US is cause for concern for the international community. It is rapidly reaching a flashpoint. It is a highly volatile situation from which a full-scale war might develop. Looked at objectively, the US is squarely responsible for the conflict and its escalation in the region.

It is legitimate to ask why there are US troops in the region and no Iranian or Iraqi soldiers in the US soil to understand who is violating the principle of sovereignty of nations with impunity. Just because of US pre-eminence on the international stage, we should not shy away from some straight talking. As an imperialist power, currently led by a bellicose President, the US has brought the Gulf region to the brink of war.

The Trump administration has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed economic sanctions and sought a “regime change” in Iran. It has downplayed the assassination of Soleimani as part of Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign”. But the US has once more shown that its foreign policy is based on the principle of “might is right”.

The US is duplicitous and speaks in a forked tongue; it says it favours de-escalation and talks and then threatens “to target 52 sites” in Iran representing 52 Americans taken hostage on November 4, 1979. The series of tweets from Donald Trump cast him as a war monger. There is a deep sense of loss and anger over the assassination of Soleimani as is evident from the chants of “Death to America” and “We will take revenge” and burning of American and Israeli flags by crowds of people in the funeral processions.

Pushed to the wall, Tehran could act in unpredictable and ingenious ways to defend itself from the US aggression. The US seems to think that anyone who seeks to resist its military and economic expansionism is expendable. For it, anyone who is not on its side in its pursuit of self-interest is a “terrorist”.

The international community must raise its voice against the US for its rash and reckless acts such as the assassination of Soleimani in the belief that the targeted countries cannot exact revenge because of its military might (it is not enough to do nothing beyond denouncing them as “short-sighted”) and rein it in through all possible means from destabilising the world and making it more insecure.

G David Milton, Maruthancode

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