Imperialism And Resistance

Imam Khomeini did not just “lead” a revolt against US imperialism, and its puppet the “shah” – his efforts led to a a revolutionary reclaiming of Islam as a force for liberation. Not liberation in the Marxist materialist sense of the word, but something much more comprehensive that encompasses all aspects of human nature. It is true that Imam Khomeini was not the only one who contributed – but he provided a profound level of leadership. Beginning from years in Qum and Najaf, where he led efforts to revitalize the scholarship of Islam, to the early years of the Islamic Revolution, until he met his Creator.

via Muslimedia.com

Being cautious in the forthcoming presidential elections in the Islamic Republic

The Islamic Republic of Iran, government and people, are gearing up for presidential elections that are scheduled for the first half of June 2009. There appear to be two prime candidates for the presidency: Mr. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Mr. Mir Hossein Moussavi. Both fine men are qualified beyond doubt to lead the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Movement of the world during the coming four-year term, which will probably be the most challenging time in the history of the Islamic Movement and state. From our position, we are concerned about the contingents and complements that come with these two proven personalities.

We already know the corps and full complement that comes with Mr. Ahmedinejad as they are in place today: advisers, cabinet members and other public servants who constitute the current government of the Islamic Republic. But we are not sure about the staff and personnel who will be brought in if Mr. Moussavi is elected president of the Islamic Re-public. There are telltale indications that some of Mr. Khatami’s “reformists” will be included in a Moussavi government. This is cause for concern. The years in which Mr. Khatami steered the Islamic state eclipsed the transnational and trans-sectarian character of the Islamic Revolution and Republic. During Mr. Khatami’s time and because of some of the individuals who were entrenche in his administration, the Islamic Revolution of al-Imam al-Khomeini’s global horizon was being boxed into the nation-state frontiers of Iran. The trend was so bad that Hizbullah in Lebanon was urged to become a political party first and an Islamic resistance second. We fear not the election of Mr. Moussavi but what his election would bring to bear on the Islamic State and the Islamic Movement by those individuals in Iran who want Islam for Iran but not Iran for Islam.

There is this false notion among some political simpletons that a “moderate” president has been elected in the United States and therefore a non-radical presidency should be elected in Iran. This perception comes from people who no longer want to carry the responsibilities of Islam unto the world. We remind these psychological lightweights that the real election was not in imperialist America, the real election was in Zionist Israel. In Zionist Israel a fanatical, racist, and warmongering gang of politicians was elected. And these are the ones who will be calling the shots in the coming four years. Obama will have to report to Netanyahu; not the other way around.

The message is loud and clear: PREPARE FOR WAR. The slave-masters in anti-Semitic Israel are giving this order to their political slaves in pro-Zionist America.

People in Iran who are going to vote for Moussavi because of Obama have lost sight of the real danger; they have taken their eyes off the Israeli nuclear fanatics in Tel Aviv who are preparing for war against the Islamic State. Before he/she casts his/her vote, the Muslim voter in Iran may want to take notice of these war preparations: the stealth deployment of Patriot missile systems around key oil fields up and down the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf. There are scores of high-brass Arabian military officers streaming into Washington in preparation for what they see, and are told, is an imminent outbreak of hostilities between the Zionist State and the Islamic State. The signs are in the air: the Israeli war-hawks in power now are no longer interested in a Palestinian state and the Annapolis agreement. The Israeli foreign minister who is Hillary Clinton’s foreign minister says for the record [and we hope the Islamic Movement and State can understand this], “We are no longer bound by the previous government’s undertakings for the negotiation of a Palestinian state.” This person, Avigdor Lieberman, who should not be confused with the American Lieberman, wants to take away Israeli citizenship from Palestinians born and living in “Israel.” His fanatical rumblings have disclosed his propensity to expel Palestinians from “Israel.”

President Obama, the first American president to utter the words “the Islamic Republic of Iran” is also the first American president to have an administration working overtime to split Syria from Iran. The American foreign policy establishment will run into Israeli intransigence and stubborn refusal to give back the Golan Heights to Syria. And if you wait and see, you will not be surprised to see the US cave in to Israel’s diktat for the first time after thousands of previous times.

We know that we break new ground when we say that Israel’s nuclear arsenal, nuclear military, and nuclear industry are an existential threat to Islamic self-determination. We are a lonely voice in a propaganda noise factory that keeps on raising the decibel level saying that Israel is facing an “existential threat” by Iran acquiring nuclear power. The tables have to be turned against this predictable Israeli dupery.

The hysterics by the media warriors for Israel are so exposed: Israel has all the nuclear bombs it can handle but all the blame for nuclear guilt has to go to Iran. Israel committed all the war crimes it can handle in Ghazzah but all war crimes have to be placed on ‘Umar Hasan al-Bashir, the president of Sudan for tribal skirmishes that have been going on in Darfur ever since recent history has been written.

Not to be sidetracked by the political show in America, the voters in the Islamic Republic of Iran should take into consideration the official Egyptian cavalry charge against al-Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah and Hizbullah. Anyone who knows anything about Egypt knows that the toady regime there responds and obeys all signals coming from its financiers and awliya’ in Washington and Tel Aviv. Less than a couple of months ago the Moroccan monarch tried to stir up Sunni-Shi‘i conflict in his kingdom. Morocco has the largest Jewish minority in the Islamic East, including scores of governmental officials whose loyalty to Israel supersedes their loyalty to Morocco. The US and Israel have thousands of undercover agents stretched from all Arabian kingdoms to all Arabian republics. The US fifth fleet is housed and sheltered in the tiniest monarchies of Arabia, with all the off-shore “privileges” and “freedoms” granted to sailors.

Qatar launches words from its flagship TV station al-Jazeerah, but is home to one of the world’s longest military runways; it is the forward headquarters for the US Central Command. This is not to mention the whole set of US policies that have been in place against the economy of the Islamic State.

We do not want to interfere with the free and fair elections in the Islamic Republic which no other country in the Islamic East has. Those individuals and classes of people who vote “Iran first” may have legitimate arguments, but only when they exclude the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the Seerah from their vocabulary. It is not easy being and becoming the first Islamic State in modern times. It is not easy continuing to build and spread out the liberty and freedom from imperialism and Zionism by this Islamic State. But committed Muslims have no choice. We love the freedom that comes from being liberated from Zionism and imperialism — and only Islamic Iran in today’s world is liberated from Zionism and imperialism. The world will be watching, the Muslims will be watching, and Allah (swt) will be watching when the only independent Islamic State goes to the poll and elects its next president.

(parts 2 thru 7 are available on the Shia TV site). This is an excellent documentary for Urdu speakers on the history, and ideological background of the Islamic Revolution.

Thirty years after…

By Iqbal Siddiqui

When Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president of the United States of America in January 1981, Iran and its recent Islamic Revolution was an obsession for the US and all in it. Almost 30 years later, little has changed in that regard. Although much has been made in some circles of the inauguration of Barack Obama as US president in place of George W. Bush, and of his eye-catching reversals of some of Bush’s most unpopular policies, the fundamentals of American foreign policy are unlikely to change.

The US has always demonized foreign powers as threatening bogeymen to justify its global hegemony, from the Soviet Union to Saddam Hussein, to Iran in the last years of the Bush regime; and with many Americans tired of foreign adventures and expecting Obama to focus on domestic issues, Washington will need to focus attention on a new enemy sooner rather than later. Although Obama’s tone in inaugural address was conciliatory, in line with his desire to come across as the anti-Bush in every possible way, his reference to the need to counter Iran’s nuclear program was a clear sign of where his foreign policy team are looking. The Bush regime chose Iran’s nuclear energy program as the pretext for its war-mongering against Iran, which came close to military action until the US intelligence community publicly contradicted the regime late in 2007, in order to ensure that the neocons could not take the US into another unwinnable war. Obama will not want a war that the US cannot afford, but needs an enemy nonetheless; and it appears that the nuclear pretext will be wheeled out again.

Such political considerations apart, the underlying reasons for US enmity to Iran are not difficult to see. The Islamic Revolution in 1979 overthrew a major US ally in the Muslim world, and the Islamic State’s survival for three decades has conclusively proved that it is possible for a Muslim country both to try to guide its own development in lines with Islamic principles in the modern world, and to survive outside US hegemony and overlordship. Although there have been many different factors in the US’s convoluted policies in the Middle East region in recent decades, not least oil geo-politics and zionist influence, the desire to counter the influence of the Islamic state has clearly been one of them. Through the 1980s, the US supported Iraq in its war on Iran, and the establishment of a massive US military presence in the Persian Gulf after the first Gulf War was explicitly targeted as much at Iran as it was at Saddam Hussein. The rise of sectarian salafi movements in the Muslim world has been partly the result of anti-Shi‘i propaganda promoted by the US and its allies to counter Iran, and the desire for platforms from which to attack Iran in future was among the reasons for the US’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the Islamic State celebrates its 30th anniversary, there are some suggesting that the election of Barack Obama represents an opportunity for improved relations with the US. This is to profoundly misunderstand the reasons for the US’s enmity, and risks laying Iran open to American political maneuverings. There can be no doubt that Obama will prove as dangerous a foe as Bush was before him, not least because of the influence of zionists in his team, and all in Iran must remain on guard. Fortunately, Iran’s successful countering of the neocons’ machinations suggest that they are well equipped to resist whatever Obama comes up with.

And once again, Iran will need the support of Muslims elsewhere in the world, who have sometimes been too easily diverted from supporting the Islamic State. Iran’s long record of support for Hamas, in contrast to virtually every other Muslim state, and particularly in the context of the recent Israeli attack on Ghazzah, should remind us all of its credentials and its importance to all Islamic movements. Spurious sectarian issues and the propaganda of Iran’s enemies should not persuade any Muslim to question the centrality of Iran to the Islamic resistance movements struggling against the power of the West and its allies and agents in the Muslim world.

What Iran’s Islamic movement achieved in 1979 is what other Islamic movements the world over are trying to achieve in their own countries. If Iran falls, the task facing movements elsewhere will become much more difficult even than it is now. This is something we cannot afford to allow to happen.

Iqbal Siddiqui publishes a personal blog, A Sceptical Islamist.

First in a series of posts commemorating 30 years of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

“It is important to follow up on the issue of bringing leaders of the Zionist regime [of Israel] to trial because they committed war crimes [during their recent military campaign against the besieged Gaza],” Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said in a Sunday (2/1/09) meeting with Hamas political leader, Khaled Mashaal, in Tehran.

Iranian students (Basij) present a wreath of flowers to the Venezuelan Embassy, thanking the Bolivarian Republic for their acts of solidarity with Palestine.

The following is Hamas leader  in which he appreciates Iran’s support for the people of Palestine.

In the Name of God the Compassionate and the Merciful

To the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei

“Peace be unto you and so may the mercy of Allah and His blessings”

It is with great honor that I extend the appreciation of the government and the nation of Palestine as well as the wounded but victorious Gaza to your Excellency for your courageous and exceptional stance which indicated the wisdom of Islamic Iran’s leadership and the compassion of the Iranian nation.

Your words and messages before the offensive against Gaza and during the difficult days of war breathed the spirit of resistance, dignity and pride into the people of Gaza and its resistance fighters, encouraging them to stand firm against the enemy.

Under your guidance, the Islamic Republic of Iran played an active role in issues such as the Doha Summit on Gaza. These efforts came to the aid of the defenseless people of Palestine and brought them new hope.

With its all out support, Iran has helped the people of Palestine on the path of resistance. The victory of Gazans in the recent war, is in fact, the second victory for the Islamic resistance, the first being that of the 2006 war on southern Lebanon. May God bless you and the Iranian nation for your efforts and for your support.

The Iranian nation in light of your leadership has made every effort to come to the aid of Palestinians. These efforts make us proud and we are grateful for them.

The people of Palestine and especially Gazans are now in dire need of political and non-political as well as popular support in order to reconstruct Gaza.

The Palestinian nation desires a life of freedom and dignity, a life free of occupation and blockades. In order for us to achieve this, aside from divine assistance, the continuum of your Excellency’s and the Iranian nation’s support is required to enable us to stand against the US and the criminal Zionist regime.

Once again, I would like to extend the Palestinian nation and my own appreciation to your Excellency and the nation of Iran.

Your brother Ismail Haniya,

Prime Minister

via Press TV – Ismail Haniya’s letter to Iran .