FOLLOWING US President Donald Trump’s ever more violent threats to ‘destroy Iranian civilisation’ with hints about using the US nuclear option, he has been forced to accept a humiliating peace deal and defeat with a victorious, undefeated and defiant Iran, to stop the war.
Due to be signed in Switzerland on Friday after months of tortuous negotiations, Qatari mediators travelled to Tehran on Sunday to finalise terms of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding. They, along with Pakistan, have been a key diplomatic channel.
Qatar has close contacts with leaders in Tehran and shares access to the world’s biggest field of natural gas deposits with Iran.
People across Iran have continued nightly demonstrations in support of the Islamic Republic ever since the US and Israel launched their war on February 28.
Celebrating the victory yesterday, Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters declared that the nation, through its steadfastness and resilience, had imposed its will on its enemies, leaving them with no choice but to accept defeat and surrender.
Its statement, after the memorandum of understanding was finalised between Tehran and Washington to permanently end the war, commended the ‘resilient and proud people of Iran, and their brave and courageous sons in the country’s powerful Armed Forces and the Resistance Front’ who had ‘proved with strength that the humiliated American and Zionist enemies have no choice but to accept defeat and surrender.’
The Central Headquarters has repeatedly warned against all forms of aggression against Iran and elsewhere in the region, emphasising that the resistance is the only path to victory.
Yesterday, the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) of Iran also issued a statement regarding the Pakistan-mediated memorandum of understanding (MoU) to end the war between Iran and the United States, emphasising that, under the terms of the MoU, the war and military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, will cease immediately and permanently starting Sunday night. In addition, the naval blockade against Iran will be lifted immediately and in full.
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the unprovoked and illegal US-Israeli war against Tehran, closed a vital oil and gas supply to the global economy, causing global fuel and fertiliser shortages and surging inflation. Millions of workers demonstrated everywhere to stop the endless bombardment and global austerity crisis.
However, the after-effects of the energy shortages will continue for a long time, as it will take many, many months to repair the war damage in the region and reestablish supply chains.
But Trump’s defeat and capitulation has enraged Israel which refuses to adhere to the peace deal. In a major split with Washington, Israel has now changed from being Trump’s loyal ally and rabid military attack dog to becoming a huge liability.
Refusing to endorse the deal, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz declared that the Israeli army will remain in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza ‘indefinitely’. ‘The Israeli Defence Forces will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza – indefinitely – to defend the border and Israeli communities against jihadist elements,’ the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported yesterday.
The far-right Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the framework peace deal is ‘bad for Israel’ and ‘the entire free world’. In a post on X he wrote: ‘We will have to continue the campaign to topple the regime ourselves and in creative ways, and ensure that Iran will never have nuclear weapons.’
At least 3,711 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since the start of the war on 2nd March, according to the country’s health ministry. Israel’s renewed war on Lebanon was launched after the US and Israel killed the former Iranian supreme leader in Tehran on 28 February.
As well as killing many civilians, the Israeli assault on the country has led to the widespread demolition of homes in southern Lebanon and triggered a refugee crisis in which hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee in response to sweeping evacuation orders often given at little or no notice.
With this major defeat for a weakened imperialism, now is the time to deal with those capitalist regimes – in the US, Israel and elsewhere – which supported the illegal war, with general strikes to overthrow these war criminals with socialist revolutions.
Support for the struggle for a Palestinian state against the genocidal Israeli state itself must be escalated by bringing down the Israel-supporting and crisis-wracked Starmer Labour government in Britain with general strike action which the TUC must be forced to call and organise.
Forward to a workers’ revolutionary government and socialism in Britain and worldwide to avoid economic depression and continuous imperialist wars caused by the death agony of the capitalist system.
