By Bill Dores – Oct 7, 2020
Iran completes second fuel delivery to Venezuela in defiance of U.S. sanctions
Well, first, congratulations on the tankers going through. It’s a great victory, not only for the people of Venezuela and Iran but for the people of the world. It is a defeat for US energy monopolies, who dream of restoring the control they once had of the world’s energy resources. The interests of the monopolies and Wall Street banks are at variance with those of the people of the United States. We have no need for permanent war just to keep some corporations wealthy and to keep the wealth of the world pouring into Wall Street. The people of the United States would benefit from cooperation with the people of the world.
What President Rouhani at the UN General Assembly last week said was in such contrast President Trump’s hate-filled rant, where he bragged about ordering the murder of General Soleimani and imposing “crippling sanctions” on the people of Iran. He also called Covid 19 the “China virus.”
President Rouhani on the other hand spoke of resistance and resilience and against racism war and hatred. He compared the boot of US power on the people in the world to the knee of the Minneapolis cop who murdered George Floyd.
As you know we have a major uprising here in this country against racism, police brutality and injustice. There should be solidarity between the people of this country and the people of Iran and everyone else who is fighting an unjust global order, an unjust order both here and in the world.
The Trump regime in particular represents oil and gas interests. It is pursuing confrontation with Iran and Venezuela because it wants US oil monopolies to again be the center of the world economy. The only way to defeat them is to keep challenging them.
Their imperialist system is in decline, in crisis, which is why someone like Trump is in the White House. People here are rising up against that unjust system. And inside the ruling class they are fighting each other.
A thousand years ago King Canute of England went to the sea and ordered the waves to roll back. He was showing he didn’t have absolute power because of course the waves didn’t roll back. Trump seems to actually believe he can order the waves of change to roll back, but he can’t. Nor can Biden or anybody else in Washington.
The world is changing, and it’s in the best interests of the majority of people in the United States to embrace that, to live in peace and solidarity with the people of the world. Bring all the troops and warships and planes home. Stop funding Israel. We don’t need any more wars for corporate profit.
Featured image: Picture provided on June 1 shows a Venezuelan Navy diver at work while Iran’s Faxon fuel tanker is docked off the Latin American country’s coastline during a fuel delivery mission.
Bill Dores
Bill Dores is a long time member of the Workers World Party. He became active in Youth Against War and Fascism in 1968, after the Tet Offensive — when the Vietnamese National Liberation Front "stunned the then half-million U.S. troops by seizing major parts of the country for a few weeks in February" — and the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April.
