Our foreign policy would be solidarity, not domination and aggression
In an attempt to maintain domination in the Middle East, the Biden administration has moved closer to widen the U.S.-Israeli genocidal aggression against the Palestinian people of Gaza, to include Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
On Jan.1 the Pentagon directly attacked and sunk three Yemeni boats that were showing solidarity with Gaza by stopping ships headed to Israel via the Red Sea.
On Jan. 2, Israel, the Pentagon’s proxy in the Middle East, used U.S. supplied weapons to bomb Beirut, killing Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in a neighborhood governed by Hezbollah.
On Jan 4, the U.S. bombed Iraq, killing an important leader and other members of the Popular Mobilization Forces – a force established to fight ISIS that is also an ally of the Palestinian resistance and officially part of the Iraqi government
These are extremely dangerous moves. Should they widen the conflict, it can only bring new suffering to working people in the Middle East — on top of decades of U.S. intervention. It means continuing to siphon resources from schools, healthcare and housing to pay for bombing people abroad. And if the war widens, it will not be the children of ruling-class politicians who are sent to kill and die.
Our campaign wants to stop Pentagon aggression in its tracks.
The U.S. government has been at war more than it has had peace. In fact, the foreign policy of the U.S. has been one of permanent aggression and domination. Pentagon wars of conquest and control have targeted the oil rich and strategic Middle East with especially extreme brutality.
A CIA coup overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 because it nationalized its own oil, and today Washington sanctions that country. The U.S. invaded Lebanon twice, in 1958 and 1983, to keep the government there under its thumb. Iraq was also devastated by the Pentagon twice, in 1991 and 2003, and U.S. troops are still there. Today a third of Syria, including its oil deposits and most fertile land, are under the control of the Pentagon and its allies.
Over the years the U.S. has provided the Israeli government with tens of billions in advanced weaponry to murder and jail Palestinians. It not only gave Saudi Arabia all the weapons it needed to blockade and bomb Yemen for seven years, but provided the bombing coordinates, and refueled the planes that dropped the bombs.
Millions of people in the Middle East have been murdered over the years to bring billions of dollars in profits to oil companies and the military industrial complex.
Our campaign would dismantle the Pentagon. We would use the money that goes to bombs to instead rebuild our communities at home. We would end the domination of U.S. weaponry and the straightjacket of neoliberal economics abroad that does nothing but strangle the international working class.
The people of the Middle East are fighting to regain control of their countries and their national resources. They pose no threat to working people here – they should be able to control their own destinies.
Our foreign policy would be one of solidarity, reparations and peaceful cooperation, a total reversal of this imperialist legacy that would permanently change the relationship between the U.S. and the rest of the world.
