No to war against Iran! - we receive and publish for info-debate

Statement from the Revolutionary Communist League, Norway (RK)
August 6th, 2024.
In the past week, Israel has killed three key leaders of Hamas, including Ismail Haniyeh,
the top leader of Hamas' political wing. On July 30th, one of the top leaders of the
Hezbollah militia was also killed in an Israeli bomb attack on Beirut. Iran, an ally of Hamas
and Hezbollah and the main challenger to Israeli hegemony in the Middle East, has
promised to respond to Israel's attack.
There is a real danger that the conflict between Israel and Iran will develop into a major
regional war or, in the worst case, a world war. Israel is so far the only nuclear power in the
Middle East, backed by the superpower USA. Iran, for its part, has a strong military force
and is allied with Russia and China, which have nuclear weapons.
This is all part of the larger rivalry between imperialists for the redistribution of the world.
On the one hand, there is the US and its allies, fighting to maintain American hegemony,
defend Israel's status as a "watchdog" in the Middle East and ultimately secure the
revenues of Western corporations. Ever since the "Islamic Revolution" in 1979, it has been
a stated goal of the US to overthrow the Iranian government and reinstate a pro-Western
regime.
Iran has great military influence in the region, but is not itself an imperialist power. Instead,
Iran is a junior partner in the emerging economic and military bloc led by imperialists
Russia and China. In recent years, Iran has developed close military cooperation with
Russia and it is economically dependent on trade with China. The conflict between Israel
and Iran is therefore not an isolated regional conflict, but must be understood as part of the
growing rivalry within the imperialist system, where the battle is mainly between the US
and its allies on the one hand, and China and Russia and their allies on the other.
We do not provide any political support to the Iranian regime, and we do not side with any
of the imperialist war blocs: neither the "Western" bloc led by the US, nor the "Eastern"
bloc led by China and Russia. If full-scale war breaks out between Israel, Lebanon and
Iran, we will support the right of the Iranian, Lebanese and Palestinian peoples to defend
themselves, and wish defeat for Israel. To the extent that the war weakens the presence of
US imperialism in the Middle East, we welcome this.
Norway is "in on it", and we communists in Norway have a
responsibility
Norway is not a "neutral" or "outside party" - on the contrary! Norway is part of NATO, an
important trading partner for both the US and Israel, and an independent imperialist state
with its own interests in the Middle East. In December 2023, Norwegian officers were sent
to the Red Sea as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect merchant ships from
attacks by the Houthi militia. Norwegian officers and soldiers are already stationed in a
number of countries in the Middle East, where they contribute to the training of local (US-
allied) forces, including in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
Norway is also a world-class war profiteer. The Norwegian Oil Fund has ownership
interests in arms manufacturers that sell weapons to Israel, and both the Oil Fund and
Norwegian banks invest in companies that contribute to the settlements on the West Bank.
The Norwegian-owned company Nammo sells weapons to Israel, and Kongsberg Gruppen
sells weapon components that are sold on to Israel through third countries.
In other words, Norway is already practically involved in the war, on Israel's side. It is
therefore crucial that communists in Norway pursue a correct anti-imperialist policy: Our
main line must be to work for the defeat of our own imperialist bloc in this war, and at the
same time utilize the war conditions to prepare for revolution in our own country - the
greatest contribution we can make in the fight against world imperialism.
In 1912, two years before the outbreak of the First World War, delegates from the socialist
parties of Europe met for an extraordinary congress in Basel. We believe, like Lenin, that
the manifesto of this congress still expresses the correct communist attitude to imperialist
wars:
If a war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working classes [...] to exert
every effort in order to prevent the outbreak of war by the means they
consider most effective, which naturally vary according to the sharpening of
the class struggle and the sharpening of the general political situation.
In case war should break out anyway it is their duty to intervene in favor of its
speedy termination and with all their powers to utilize the economic and
political crisis created by the war to arouse the people and thereby to
hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule.
RK demands:
- Stop all Norwegian arms exports!
- Bring home all Norwegian soldiers and officers from the Middle East!
- Norway out of NATO!