Translated "Avante!"article by Ângelo Alves, Member of the PCP Political Committee
According to media reports, the world may have been on the brink of a US attack against Iranian territory. The bombing of several Iranian targets was imminent. It was cancelled just ten minutes before.
Trump invoked an estimate of Iranian casualties in order to cancel the attack. It is obvious that the decision had nothing to do with concerns about Iranian casualties. Trump had these data when he ordered the attack. But…and we only have to look at the track record of the US aggressions … Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, among others – to understand that this was not the concern of those who carried out true massacres and admit the use of nuclear weapons.
This provocation holds a strategy of pushing to the maximum the tension and pressure against Iran. What is more, the news of a US cyber attack against computers that operate Iranian defence systems soon after the cancellation of the “conventional” attack proves this.
What is really in progress is the fact that a hybrid war designed according to the manuals and plans of US falcons and which entered a new stage with the Trump Administration´s decision of abandoning the so-called “Nuclear Agreement” signed in 2018. The sanctions, attempts of internal destabilisation and now a set of provocations that aim to further increase the tension and at the same time try to restrain Iran’s role in the Middle East (namely the final solution for the Syrian issue) and the development of its relations both with Russia and China ( it is important to remember that Iran is part of the project “one belt, one road” and participated, as an observer, in the last Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit) as well as with European countries. As always, what is also at stake is the fact that the US is trying to keep its domination on the control of the production and route of hydrocarbons coming from the region, in which the Ormuz Strait (through which flows 33% to 40% of oil shipping) has a very important role.
The issue is not the possibility of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports prove that Iran complied with its commitments, since 2015, date of the signature of the so-called “Nuclear Agreement”. And much less the decision to attack oil tankers in the Ormuz Strait, actions that, on the eve of several international summits, would have been a real diplomatic suicide. These are operations, of a “false flag”, as proved by Japanese reports that the attacks“came from the air”, defeating the theory of “Iranian mines “. The US decision of flying over Iranian territory with two military airplanes (the drone that was shot down and a manned spy plane, with over 30 soldiers on board that Iran decided not to bring down) proves the degree of provocation. Probably, the US actions only aim to gain space in the Middle Eastern political and geostrategic game board, in a framework of several negotiations. But its modus operandi, besides being extremely dangerous, proves where in fact lies the danger for international peace and security. In view of such an ignoble strategy, of lies and provocations that can result in a conflict of huge dimension, it is very serious that the UN, the European Union and, in our case, the Portuguese government, submit themselves to Trump’s war games.