West has long history of vilifying Iran

In 1953, Britain and the United States worked together to overthrow the democratically elected, secular government in Iran.

Shockingly, this intervention did not end up being the advent of a long and fruitful friendship between Iran and the U.S. Instead, as so often happens when imperialist actors impose their will on foreign nations, it fostered a deep resentment amongst the Iranian populace.

This malignant animosity was a primary ingredient to the social climate which brought us the Islamic revolution of 1979, when the current regime seized power.

And an undeniably brutal regime it has been.

My personal suspicion was that the U.S. and Israel were going to use the recent atrocity of Iran’s slaughtering protesters as an excuse to swoop in and remove the regime, thus saving the innocent Iranian people. But so far, as of this writing, that has barely even been offered as lip service for the justification.

It would seem that this machine of war is not interested in such a sophisticated operation, and prefers instead to do as little separating the citizenry from the regime as possible as they drop bombs and level the nation indiscriminately, evidenced by how an elementary school full of girls aged seven to 12 was one of the first, killing dozens. Apparently their goals are such that humanizing Iranians would complicate them.

But if not to save the Iranian people, then what justification does this war have?

Both U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney released statements in which their primary rationale framed Iran as a belligerent villain bent on creating nuclear weapons to threaten the region and entire world.

This, despite that Iran had signed a treaty in 2015 limiting their capacity to create a nuclear weapon which regular United Nations inspections found they were completely in compliance with. A treaty that Trump himself tore up in 2018 for no discernible reason. And Iranian diplomats have been desperately working with the Trump administration in recent months to get a new deal in place to avoid exactly this sort of attack.

Never mind the fact that Trump’s own intelligence department determined last March that Iran was never working on a nuclear weapon. Or that a few months later Trump launched a strike on facilities that he claimed left Iran’s nuclear program “totally obliterated.”

This sort of incoherent flailing makes the sell job for the Iraq war look downright Machiavellian. And our supposedly stalwart prime minister is accepting it like Trump’s lapdog.

It is very clear to any honest person that the motivations for attacking Iran have nothing to do with protecting anybody.

In fact, Iran has historically shown immense restraint in not retaliating to aggression committed against them. Take, for example, the U.S. shooting down Iranian Air flight 655, killing all nearly 300 passengers, including 66 children — an act that the U.S. government has never apologized or acknowledged wrongdoing for. Or the assassination of Iran’s top general Qasem Soleimani, seemingly for no better reason than Trump had an itchy trigger finger.

America has pushed into the territory of unapologetic violence so many times, and always Iran has done at most a symbolic retaliation at minor targets which are given ample warning to avoid casualties. Which of these actors is actually the belligerent in the region when examined objectively? It’s actually astonishing that they haven’t been pursuing a nuclear deterrent. If nothing else, this current wanton assault shows they probably would have been wise to.

Sure, some may point out to Iran’s “proxy warfare” in the region. Though what we are told constitutes a proxy is often as flimsy as that the Iranian regime sold weapons to some such militia at any point, or perhaps material support not even related to combat. And of course we only classify them as such when referring to Iran.

If we were consistent in holding regimes responsible for the actions of all the militant outfits they offer such support to, Iran would be a regional bit player compared to the global crimes of the United States and its proxies.

We can expect to be subjected to a barrage of pro-war propaganda in coming months, framing the Iranian regime as a unique evil that must be purged. And given that our leaders are forgoing even symbolic expressions of concern for Iranian citizens, we will likely be inundated with images of Iranians marching in the streets chanting “death to America” and perhaps such pithy explanations from our politicians as “they hate us for our freedom.”

But the disdain for the west among Iranians is what happens when you scapegoat a nation for decades as a pariah state.

This war is the culmination of a campaign that the war hawks have been fomenting since the ’80s, and it is up to us to stand up and say that the Iranian people are not our enemy. To resist the propaganda and insist on the humanity of these people half a world away. To call out our leaders for the vile campaign of violence they are prosecuting and never let them forget every drop of blood that now stains their hands.

The political class is telling us that war is peace and two plus two is five.

Don’t let them.

Alex Passey is a Winnipeg writer.