Cardiff protest as public turns against Iran airstrikes and wider war

Anti-war protesters are set to march through Cardiff this weekend in a major demonstration against US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, as public opposition to the conflict grows across Britain.

The march, organised by a coalition of peace groups, trade unions, anti-racist organisations, students and community activists, will gather at 1pm on Saturday 21 March at the Aneurin Bevan statue on Queen Street before moving through the city centre.

It forms part of a UK-wide Day of Action and is expected to be one of the largest anti-war protests in Wales since tensions in the region escalated.

The mobilisation comes as opposition to the war continues to harden. The latest YouGov poll shows support in Britain for US strikes on Iran has fallen sharply, with just 25% backing the war while 59% are opposed.

Campaigners say this reflects public scepticism over the arguments given for the war, growing unease at the scale of civilian deaths and fears of the longterm consequences of a regional war.

Adam Johannes of Cardiff Stop the War Coalition said the human cost of the war is already devastating. “By last week already nearly 1,300 civilians had been killed in US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, including 175 schoolgirls and staff who died when missiles struck a primary school.”

“In Lebanon, hundreds more people have been slaughtered by Israeli airstrikes with a major ground invasion threatened to re-occupy the south of the country. Over a million people have already been displaced from their homes.”

He warned that the conflict is rapidly expanding. “What is unfolding is an ever widening regional war, which Israel is also using as cover to continue its assault on the Palestinian people,” he said.

“This is not a war to liberate the Iranian people. It is a war to reshape the Middle East in the interests of the US and Israel, with ordinary people paying the price, a war that will further destabilise the region and the wider world.”

Illegal

Trade union leaders are also backing the march. Marianne Owens, PCS union vice president, condemned the airstrikes in strong terms:

“PCS condemns the illegal wars on Iran and Lebanon carried out by the US and Israel and demands a return to diplomacy. We also call on the UK government to end its involvement,” she said.

“We are appalled by reports of civilian casualties and the bombing of schools, hospitals and medical centres across the region. Forced displacement of civilian populations is a war crime. Targeting medical staff and hospitals is a war crime. The deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime. ”

“We have seen the devastation caused by Western imperialist wars before in Iraq and Afghanistan – wars that brought nothing to ordinary people except death and chaos. No one has ever been liberated by bombs.”

Cardiff Stop the War Coalition also argued that ordinary people in Britain would be forced to bear the economic consequences of the conflict:

“As the Iran war drives global energy prices upwards, La France Insoumise, the main party of the left in France, has tabled a parliamentary bill demanding price freezes on household electricity bills. They are right to do so. When elites choose war, they too often expect the working class to foot the bill,” they said.

“Here in Britain, we should be demanding the same of our MPs. The majority of people oppose another illegal war in the Middle East, yet we are told to just accept the rising living costs and higher household bills that will come with it. If the costs of war appear in our electricity bills, then resisting those costs becomes part of resisting the war itself.”

Speakers at the rally are expected to draw parallels with past foreign interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya that did not result in stable democracies.

Hussein Said of Black Lives Matter Cardiff and Vale pointed to the legacy of regime-change wars: “I am an Iraqi who was told in 2003 that regime change would bring democracy and freedom… But what followed was sectarianism, militias, chaos and a country that fell to its knees,” he said.

“The only people who can free Iranians are people in that country, not external actors who claim to fight for their interests when in reality they’re only fighting for a regime change that benefits them.”

Organisers say the breadth of support for Saturday’s march reflects growing concern that the conflict is spiralling out of control.