Adopted unanimously (one abstention)
In the context of an American imperialist offensive, of UN economic sanctions and a flood of bellicose declarations against Iran relayed in the Middle East by Israel, the Fourth International declares that the liberation of the peoples of Iran from the dictatorial regime of the Islamic Republic can only come as a result of the mobilization of these peoples. We condemn the policies of imperialist war, occupation and intervention and place ourselves on the side of peoples who struggle for their freedom and independence.
Since 13 June 2009 and the fraudulent presidential elections, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been plunged into a regime crisis without precedent, who opened a space which young people, women and workers have entered en masse to express their democratic aspirations. For the past eight months, the peoples of Iran have massively expressed their anger with cries of “Down with the dictatorship!”From an electoral challenge to a rejection of the very foundations of the Islamic Republic, the process has continued to grow and radicalize.
Brewing conflicts between the different factions that have shared power since 1979 have become an open war. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Ahmadinejad and the Pasdaran leadership have decided to take full control of oil revenues and to consolidate their economic and financial interests. In refusing to be evicted from the power, the clan incarnated by par Moussavi, Karoubi et Rafsandjani, associated ton the bloody balance sheet of the Islamic republic accentuated the crisis.
The population’s determination to remove this stifling deadweight and to put an end to the daily repression against young people and women fighting for their rights has become increasingly intertwined with the specific demands of workers.
For the past eight months, young people, women and workers seize every opportunity to defy the military-theocratic regime. Their courageous mobilization has accentuated the divisions within the government and weakened the Islamic Republic.
Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and the Pasdaran have met the legitimate social and democratic aspirations of the peoples of Iran with violent repression. The Islamic Republic of Iran has sought to stamp out the protest movement with mass arrests, show trials, rapes of detainees and executions. But this has not worked. Opposition to the existing government is deep-seated; repression will not snuff out the anger and determination of the regime’s opponents.
A new phase of struggle has begun in Iran, in a context where political crisis is combined with economic crisis. In the face of unemployment, layoffs, privatizations and runaway inflation, the country has seen a number of strikes, especially for the payment of unpaid wages and for the right to organize unions. The regime has not forgotten the wave of strikes in 1979 that played a major role in the fall of the monarchy; it therefore brutally puts down working-class struggles.
Our support goes to women, workers, youth and all those defying the Islamic Republic. The coming together of democratic aspirations with the social demands of workers will be the decisive factor. With the working class entering the fray, the current movement may acquire the necessary coherence and strength to overthrow the Islamic Republic and establish a social, democratic and secular Republic genuinely opposed to imperialism and Zionism.
Robust international solidarity is required for the struggle for real democratic rights, for the liberation of political prisoners and the abolition of the death penalty, for the right to association and to strike, for free elections, for the rights of national minorities and for social justice, and for equality between women and men.
Their struggle is our struggle!
27th February 2010