There is a trend now for some political forces on the “left” to portray the Iranian regime as a force for liberation. And too many honest people who hate U.S. imperialism are allowing themselves to be duped. For instance, one video shows an Iranian missile flying through the air as somehow embodying the aspirations of the Vietnamese peasants who inspired the world with their fight against the U.S. imperialist war waged on their nation.

Really? A “force for liberation” that makes repressive religious law based on a non-existent god the law of the land? A “force for liberation” that forces women to dress a certain way and deprives them of equal rights in every sphere? A “force for liberation” that beats, imprisons and hangs those who come into the streets around the simple demand that women not be forced against their will to wear a head scarf? A force for liberation that keeps minority nationalities within its own country (the Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis) in a state of subjugation?

A “force for liberation” that consolidated power by hanging thousands in the 1980s for the supposed “crime” of being communist?

To be clear, none of those horrors somehow excuse the actions of the infinitely more criminal U.S. Indeed, while we have consistently exposed this regime, 

we have never allowed the highly oppressive reactionary nature of the Islamic regime to obscure the fact that the whole history and present role of U.S. imperialism in relation to Iran has been in fundamental opposition to the basic interests of the Iranian people, and has been responsible for horrendous suffering inflicted upon them. A major factor in enabling the rise to power of the reactionary Islamic regime in Iran was the role of U.S. imperialism in overthrowing the popular (and not Islamic fundamentalist) Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953, installing in its place the bloody regime of the Shah and fully backing that regime of the Shah for decades (a regime which, along with its ongoing brutal repression and torture, not incidentally also slaughtered thousands of Iranians who rose up against it in the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s). Nothing good can come from the actions of the U.S., along with Israel—and those, like the son of the Shah, who act as agents of those bloodthirsty forces.

The overthrow of the reactionary Islamic regime in Iran, and the possibility of something truly positive emerging from this, can only be realized through a genuinely revolutionary uprising of the masses of Iranian people, conscious of the actual nature of and resolutely opposing not only the oppressive Islamic regime but all oppressive and reactionary forces in the region and the world, especially Israel and the even more powerful and destructive force behind it, U.S. imperialism. (from “Three Dividing Lines: From the Revcoms, on the U.S.-Israeli War Against Iran”)

And as we have also said: 

It is crucial that protest against this massive war crime, committed by the U.S. and Israel, be manifested, as powerfully as possible, in a timely way—and every political force needs to be evaluated in terms of where it stands, and what it does, in regard to this. 

And it is crucial that people look seriously into the deeper problem in the system that is driving this madness, and the revolutionary solution to bring about a radically different and far better world.