By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
July 31, 2008

We of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) hereby express our wholehearted endorsement and support for the campaign to stop the war on Iran before it starts. We are in full solidarity with the American people and organized forces that are set to demonstrate in more than 65 cities of the US on Saturday, August 2. We are happy to announce that the ILPS member organizations in the US are joining this historic event.

Once more as in the case of the war on Iraq the US is using as pretext for a war of aggression against Iran and the Iranian people the false charge that the Iranian government is engaged in a program of nuclear weapons development, despite negative results of very intrusive inspections by the UN nuclear inspection mission. Both US imperialism and Zionist Israel are beating the drums of war to threaten Iran and the Iranian people and prepare for a war in violation of the Iranian people’s national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of their country.

The American people need to be vigilant, resolute and militant against the aggressive imperialist character of the US government which is nothing but an instrument of the monopoly bourgeoisie for subjugating other peoples and seizing territory for economic exploitation. It is not only the power-crazed and overreaching neoconservative clique attached to the Republican Party but also most importantly the oil monopolies and entire military industrial complex that are always trying to use both the Republican and Democratic parties in devising a bipartisan policy for dominating the entire Middle East and controlling its oil resources and other economic aspects.

The threat of aggressive war against Iran and the Iranian people is immediate. At the least, it is calculated to bend the current Iranian government towards supporting the security and economic agreements being forged between the US and the Iraqi puppet government, which has Shia and Kurdish reactionary blocs lording over the Sunni bloc. The US message to the Iranian government is to bend fast or else. At the same time, the preparations for aggressive war are meant in the long term to tighten control over Iran and bind it in the strategic scheme that the US wants for the entire Middle East.

While the American people and the rest of the people of the world are rising to oppose the threat of US aggression against Iran, the Iranian people and their revolutionary forces must build their own independent strength in the struggle for national liberation, democracy and social justice and must maintain independence and initiative in building patriotic and progressive alliances against US imperialism and its lackeys.

We regard the August 2 nationwide demonstration in the US as a signal for a worldwide campaign to stop the war on Iran before it starts. We wish the American people and their organized forces to have resounding success in their mobilization efforts and thus deliver the strongest possible message to all anti-imperialist and democratic forces and people of the world to join the campaign. We of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle will exert all possible efforts to expand and intensify the campaign. ###