The MDSO condemns the US intervention in Iraq and the escalation of US-Iran tensions via the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, ordered by President Trump on Friday, Jan 3, 2020 in Baghdad.

We reject this and other warmongering actions of the United States and extend solidarity to the people of Iraq, who have long suffered under US occupation and military intervention.

The peoples of the entire world are put at risk by the endless wars of imperialist aggression throughout the Middle East. The people of the Middle East are caught in the crossfire between regional powers — Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Iran — who jockey for territory and hegemony in the context of a fierce struggle between the imperialist powers, including the United States, the EU, and Russia. The imperialists use every means to extend their own military and economic domination, whether through client states and local militias or by way of direct military intervention. The imperialist state machine engages in aggression and war abroad in order to defend and secure the interests of the monopoly bourgeoisie at home.

Wherever the imperialist powers undertake military adventures, it is always the people who pay the price in blood and misery.

As we state in our program, we do not take sides in the struggles between capitalist states, but rather we extend “international support for all peoples, not states. Support for all peoples fighting against imperialisms (US, EU, Russian, Chinese, etc.), national oppression, and reaction.”

We support recent popular protests in both Iran and Iraq for basic democratic rights, brutally suppressed by the reactionary Iranian regime and its proxies. Over the past few months, forces directed by Gen. Soleimani have murdered hundreds of protesters in the streets.

We support the independence of Iraq and its freedom from all interference, whether by the US or by Iran.

Above all, we support all popular efforts to drive the US out of Iraq and the region, because the facts have shown, time and time again, that US Imperialism is the most ferocious enemy of the people.