The turmoil that has been sweeping Syria since January, when demonstrators caught the fever of the Arab spring revolutionary movement, is reaching a climax.
On Friday, tens of thousands protested against President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime in Aleppo, Suweida, Deraa and near Damascus on Syrian Independence Day. At least 22 are said to have been killed when security forces opened fire in Deraa.
The anti-government movement has deepened the crisis of the 40-year-old Assad dynasty. It is disrupting the mosaic of national, religious, ethnic, and oil politics together with big power interests. In response to the power of Friday’s Day of Rage, al-Assad promised to lift Syria’s emergency laws which have been in force since 1962.
To add to complexities, yesterday saw the publication of US embassy cables, released by WikiLeaks .They reveal that the US State Department has been promoting various “civil society strengthening initiatives”, such as the Movement for Justice and Development to the tune of $12m between 2005-2010.
The US has had an on-off relationship with Damascus over the decades, partly because of its anti-Zionist stance and partly because it is viewed as a cat’s paw for Iranian interests in the area. At the same time, the Bush administration used Syria to torture people as part of its “extraordinary rendition” programme. The US re-opened relations with Syria in 2010, appointing a ambassador to Damascus for the first time for five years.
In a desperate measure to satisfy protesters, al-Assad promised to lift the emergency laws that have ban gatherings of more than five people by Monday 25 April. Assad took over after his father Hafez al-Assad, who died in 2000, continuing the “hereditary dictatorship” that has kept Syria under the grip of state security forces. Amongst other authoritarian measures, the regime banned Facebook in attempts to stop anti-government blogging. In desperate moves to cling on to power he has been firing ministers and making promises and concessions (at least on paper) over the last couple of months.
But even while pledging to lift the state of emergency, al-Assad threatened: “We will not tolerate any attempts at sabotage.” So far over 200 people have been killed during the unrest, including four in the last 24 hours. Many were murdered by pro-regime thugs wielding revolvers, stun guns and batons.
Al-Assad and his brutal secret police will no doubt seek to exploit the WikiLeaks revelations to discredit those seeking reforms and/or to topple his regime. Like his fellow tyrants in the region, Assad seeks to rally support against his opponents by painting them as agents of foreign oppressors.
But rather than revealing the power of US imperialism, WikiLeaks cables actually show the state of disarray within Washington’s ruling circles, the divisions between the presidency and covert operations machinators. The US wants to maintain its cosy relationship with the feudal Saudi monarchy and keep the oil flowing, but at the same time manipulate the rulers of less powerful states like Syria, which they see as unreliable and too close to Iran.
It is not an unwillingness to sacrifice and even risk death that holds back the the hundreds of thousands who have espoused the cause of the Syrian revolution. They include, amongst others, the Youth of 4-5 February movement, the Syrian Days of Rage and the Syrian Revolution Facebook which has nearly 120,000 followers.
US support for the anti-regime movements in Syria as elsewhere in the Middle east and north Africa has produced a sorcerer’s apprentice. No one is truly in control. In Egypt, the army has arrested former president Mubarak in a desperate bid to retain control of the revolution. In Libya, the West’s intervention has helped create a stalemate and tainted the opposition to Gaddafi. The challenge for revolutionary forces is to create a secular Pan-Arab leadership that can unite the masses and build for the next stage of the Arab Revolution, whose aim has to be social revolution.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Monday, April 18, 2011
Monday, February 01, 2010
Obama waves big stick at Iran
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of Tony Blair’s appearance before the exceptionally tame Iraq war inquiry was his pointed remarks about Iran being next in line for military action. And it seems it was more than the usual Blair “I’d do it again” bravado and that his connections to the White House are as strong as when he was prime minister.
For almost at the same time as Blair told the inquiry he didn’t have a single regret about invading and occupying Iraq, despite the absence of weapons of mass destruction, Washington was announcing a major shift in its military posture towards Iran. After a year of megaphone politics directed at Tehran, president Obama has given up the ghost (just like he’s done on Israel-Palestine).
So now the US is to provide new anti-missile systems to at least four Arab countries, and help Saudi Arabia triple the size of the 10,000 strong force that protects key installations. The US navy will also deploy ships capable of intercepting medium-range nuclear missiles off the Iranian coast on a permanent basis. The same ships will, of course, have offensive capability too.
All this suggests that a pre-emptive attack on Iran by US forces is being prepared. Ostensibly it would be aimed at Iran’s nuclear installations but ultimately it is another episode of regime change in the making. In the fantasy world of Washington, the Islamic republic would give way to some kind of Western-style democracy (the Gulf states about to receive US military help are, of course, exempt from this project because they have oil and are pro-Washington).
The danger of an international conflict is made more likely by the fact that China is a major ally of Iran (it needs the country’s oil). Washington has also decided to sell arms to Taiwan despite China’s protest that this threatens the integrity of its own borders with the island state that Beijing claims as part of its territory.
How the Israelis must be enjoying all this. A mere hint that they would attack Iran unless the US got its act together was enough to send Obama scurrying into the hands of the military. Israel’s own nuclear weapons are, of course, not talked about in polite circles. And Iran serves a convenient diversion from the accelerated ethnic cleansing taking place in Jerusalem and full-scale apartheid on the West Bank.
The noted Middle East commentator Robert Fisk asks why Washington and London are turning a blind eye to the destruction of the peace process, adding:
“This majority of the West Bank – known under the defunct Oslo Agreement's sinister sobriquet as ‘Area C’ – has already fallen under an Israeli rule which amounts to apartheid by paper: a set of Israeli laws which prohibit almost all Palestinian building or village improvements, which shamelessly smash down Palestinian homes for which permits are impossible to obtain, ordering the destruction of even restored Palestinian sewage systems. Israeli colonists have no such problems; which is why 300,000 Israelis now live – in 220 settlements which are all internationally illegal – in the richest and most fertile of the Palestinian occupied lands.”
The double standards applied are consistent with US policy down the ages and Obama has fallen into line, chastened by the crisis within his own presidency. Iran is not a pleasant place to be right now, to say the least. The execution and torture of supporters of democratic change by the reactionary theocratic state play right into the hands of Washington. Nonetheless, we should oppose any military attack on the country or the imposition ofsanctions. The Iranian people themselves must be free to determine their own history.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
For almost at the same time as Blair told the inquiry he didn’t have a single regret about invading and occupying Iraq, despite the absence of weapons of mass destruction, Washington was announcing a major shift in its military posture towards Iran. After a year of megaphone politics directed at Tehran, president Obama has given up the ghost (just like he’s done on Israel-Palestine).
So now the US is to provide new anti-missile systems to at least four Arab countries, and help Saudi Arabia triple the size of the 10,000 strong force that protects key installations. The US navy will also deploy ships capable of intercepting medium-range nuclear missiles off the Iranian coast on a permanent basis. The same ships will, of course, have offensive capability too.
All this suggests that a pre-emptive attack on Iran by US forces is being prepared. Ostensibly it would be aimed at Iran’s nuclear installations but ultimately it is another episode of regime change in the making. In the fantasy world of Washington, the Islamic republic would give way to some kind of Western-style democracy (the Gulf states about to receive US military help are, of course, exempt from this project because they have oil and are pro-Washington).
The danger of an international conflict is made more likely by the fact that China is a major ally of Iran (it needs the country’s oil). Washington has also decided to sell arms to Taiwan despite China’s protest that this threatens the integrity of its own borders with the island state that Beijing claims as part of its territory.
How the Israelis must be enjoying all this. A mere hint that they would attack Iran unless the US got its act together was enough to send Obama scurrying into the hands of the military. Israel’s own nuclear weapons are, of course, not talked about in polite circles. And Iran serves a convenient diversion from the accelerated ethnic cleansing taking place in Jerusalem and full-scale apartheid on the West Bank.
The noted Middle East commentator Robert Fisk asks why Washington and London are turning a blind eye to the destruction of the peace process, adding:
“This majority of the West Bank – known under the defunct Oslo Agreement's sinister sobriquet as ‘Area C’ – has already fallen under an Israeli rule which amounts to apartheid by paper: a set of Israeli laws which prohibit almost all Palestinian building or village improvements, which shamelessly smash down Palestinian homes for which permits are impossible to obtain, ordering the destruction of even restored Palestinian sewage systems. Israeli colonists have no such problems; which is why 300,000 Israelis now live – in 220 settlements which are all internationally illegal – in the richest and most fertile of the Palestinian occupied lands.”
The double standards applied are consistent with US policy down the ages and Obama has fallen into line, chastened by the crisis within his own presidency. Iran is not a pleasant place to be right now, to say the least. The execution and torture of supporters of democratic change by the reactionary theocratic state play right into the hands of Washington. Nonetheless, we should oppose any military attack on the country or the imposition ofsanctions. The Iranian people themselves must be free to determine their own history.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Friday, September 25, 2009
Ahmadinejad undermines Palestinian cause
One of the many terrible things about Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is how his denial of the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis enables Israeli leaders to claim the moral high ground even while they systematically repress the Palestinian people.
Such was the case at the United Nations yesterday where Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu came to the podium to attack delegates who had not joined the walk-out when Ahmadinejad spoke the previous night. “Have you no shame?” “Have you no decency?”, said Netanyahu.
Coming from a man whose country stands accused of committing war crimes in Gaza in a UN report into its assault on the territory last year, and ignores all calls to halt settlement building on occupied Palestinian land, this is rich indeed.
Netanyahu was given the golden opportunity to portray Israel as the wronged party by Ahmadinejad’s speech in Tehran last week. Ahmadinejad, who himself clings to his country’s presidency by naked repression following the disputed election earlier this year, is an out-and-out Holocaust denier. And he was at again on a day set aside by Iran to mark the plight of the Palestinians.
Israel, claimed Ahmadinejad, was an “historical fabrication … based on a lie". And the “lie”? After accurately describing how the British, who had the mandate over Palestine, stood by as Zionists bought up land in the inter-war period, Ahmadinejad then went overboard, claiming: “… After the second world war they created the story of Holocaust … and then they made hundreds of films and wrote hundreds of books to argue they have suffered and need a home … This is a myth and Zionists are criminals, and corrupt."
For good measure, when he addressed the UN this week, Ahmadinejad alluded to a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, saying; "It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks."
These are the dangerous and confused ranting of a man who almost certainly stole the Iranian election and has had his thugs beat up, arrest and kill young people who oppose the regime. All his speeches do is weaken the Palestinian cause and strengthen the hand of Netanyahu and his ilk.
Israeli leaders, for example, never tire of lumping together anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, when they are clearly different and Ahmadinejad comes in handy here because he makes no distinction. Yet there is absolutely nothing wrong in being against or hostile to Zionism – which historically campaigned for a Jewish state in Palestine – so long as it seen as just a political movement. This does not make you anti-Jewish. Far from it because many Jews, perhaps even most, do not consider themselves Zionists.
Fortunately, unlike Ahmadinejad there are movements that can make this distinction. Spain has expelled a group of Israeli scientists from a state-funded solar energy competition because they are based in occupied areas of the West Bank.
The team was from the Ariel University Centre of Samaria and was taking part in Solar Decathlon Europe. Their expulsion follows hard on the heels of the decision by the Trades Union Congress in Britain last week to campaign for a boycott of goods produced in and exported from the Occupied Territories.
These are just some of the ways to isolate the Israeli regime and support the Palestinians which are a million times more progressive than anything Ahmadinejad can utter.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Such was the case at the United Nations yesterday where Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu came to the podium to attack delegates who had not joined the walk-out when Ahmadinejad spoke the previous night. “Have you no shame?” “Have you no decency?”, said Netanyahu.
Coming from a man whose country stands accused of committing war crimes in Gaza in a UN report into its assault on the territory last year, and ignores all calls to halt settlement building on occupied Palestinian land, this is rich indeed.
Netanyahu was given the golden opportunity to portray Israel as the wronged party by Ahmadinejad’s speech in Tehran last week. Ahmadinejad, who himself clings to his country’s presidency by naked repression following the disputed election earlier this year, is an out-and-out Holocaust denier. And he was at again on a day set aside by Iran to mark the plight of the Palestinians.
Israel, claimed Ahmadinejad, was an “historical fabrication … based on a lie". And the “lie”? After accurately describing how the British, who had the mandate over Palestine, stood by as Zionists bought up land in the inter-war period, Ahmadinejad then went overboard, claiming: “… After the second world war they created the story of Holocaust … and then they made hundreds of films and wrote hundreds of books to argue they have suffered and need a home … This is a myth and Zionists are criminals, and corrupt."
For good measure, when he addressed the UN this week, Ahmadinejad alluded to a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, saying; "It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks."
These are the dangerous and confused ranting of a man who almost certainly stole the Iranian election and has had his thugs beat up, arrest and kill young people who oppose the regime. All his speeches do is weaken the Palestinian cause and strengthen the hand of Netanyahu and his ilk.
Israeli leaders, for example, never tire of lumping together anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, when they are clearly different and Ahmadinejad comes in handy here because he makes no distinction. Yet there is absolutely nothing wrong in being against or hostile to Zionism – which historically campaigned for a Jewish state in Palestine – so long as it seen as just a political movement. This does not make you anti-Jewish. Far from it because many Jews, perhaps even most, do not consider themselves Zionists.
Fortunately, unlike Ahmadinejad there are movements that can make this distinction. Spain has expelled a group of Israeli scientists from a state-funded solar energy competition because they are based in occupied areas of the West Bank.
The team was from the Ariel University Centre of Samaria and was taking part in Solar Decathlon Europe. Their expulsion follows hard on the heels of the decision by the Trades Union Congress in Britain last week to campaign for a boycott of goods produced in and exported from the Occupied Territories.
These are just some of the ways to isolate the Israeli regime and support the Palestinians which are a million times more progressive than anything Ahmadinejad can utter.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Monday, June 22, 2009
Getting it right about Iran
A little humility is called for in making an assessment of what is at stake in Iran, not only for the sake of the courageous students and others who are in the firing line of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s thugs and secret police. Getting it right about the essence of independent mass movements is not just an Iranian question.
Ahmadinejad’s slogan of “death to US imperialism” and the attacks on Britain are being churned out as a desperate ploy to hold sway over a rebellious population who want their basic democratic rights and to come out of the shadows of a theocratic state. In Iran, as in Britain, there is a crisis of legitimacy for the state regime and all sorts of devices, including nationalism, are being used to prop up the political system.
Supporters of Mir Hossein Moussavi are continuing to defy the government-imposed ban on demonstrations, arrests, riot police and the thugs of the Basiji militia but now under conditions of fear and terror. Photographs and videos are having to be smuggled out since the regime has clamped down on the internet and live reporting.
On Saturday the state media said that 13 died in clashes with riot police, bringing the official death toll to at least 20. At least 457 people have been arrested, including the family of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani, who is 75, heads the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body which has the power to dismiss or appoint the Supreme Leader, a post presently filled by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has staked his position on suppressing the demonstrations.
As the unresolved issues from the 1979 revolution that toppled Shah Reza Pahlavi rumble through all levels of society, the seismic shocks of a new mass popular movement are exposing those who, behind their “left” words, reject the ability of the masses to make a challenge for political and state power. Amongst them is Guardian “left” journalist Seumus Milne, who has suggested that the anti-government movement led by Mousavi is simply a US-Western inspired attempt to “neutralise” Iran, thus echoing the words of Khamenei who has denounced Britain as a conspirator against his rule.
Milne and his co-thinkers in the “anti-imperialist” camp seem to have missed the fact that young people inside Tehran are desperately pleading for support. Among those who Milne dismisses as “the gilded youth” of Tehran are students who are laying down their lives.
As an Irish blogger notes: “I wonder if it ever occurred to the likes of Milne that the men and women protesting in Iran are not ‘gilded youth’ but people who are frustrated not only by what they see as a blatantly fraudulent election; they are frustrated by life in an oppressive society, frustrated at being second class citizens (in the case of many of the women, frustrated at high inflation, frustrated at high unemployment). They are angry and they want change.”
Milne is not the only voice on the “left” that finds it impossible to believe that millions are ready to risk all to rid themselves of the backward nationalism and anti-Semitism that characterises the Ahmadinejad regime. As blogger Bill Weinberg notes, other lefts such as “the retro-Stalinist Workers World and its International Action Center” and “Monthly Review and the World Socialist Website have weighed in for Ahmadinejad and dissed the protesters as dupes or pawns of US imperialism. How interesting to see these supposed ‘leftists’ making common cause with right-wing cheerleaders for authoritarian regimes...”
The divisions within the top of Iranian society – Mousavi held leading posts in the Islamic Republic after the revolution of 1979 – reflect the deep movements below in society at large. A secular way forward towards a democratic society based on common ownership and control of the country’s resources is what’s at stake.
Achieving that will require a new, revolutionary leadership in Iran, as elsewhere. A mass movement against the state such as has emerged in Iran, with its growing independence from old leaders, has to be supported, not for what might be achieved in the short term in terms of the disputed presidential election but for the prospects that it holds for deep-going transformation in the longer term.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
Ahmadinejad’s slogan of “death to US imperialism” and the attacks on Britain are being churned out as a desperate ploy to hold sway over a rebellious population who want their basic democratic rights and to come out of the shadows of a theocratic state. In Iran, as in Britain, there is a crisis of legitimacy for the state regime and all sorts of devices, including nationalism, are being used to prop up the political system.
Supporters of Mir Hossein Moussavi are continuing to defy the government-imposed ban on demonstrations, arrests, riot police and the thugs of the Basiji militia but now under conditions of fear and terror. Photographs and videos are having to be smuggled out since the regime has clamped down on the internet and live reporting.
On Saturday the state media said that 13 died in clashes with riot police, bringing the official death toll to at least 20. At least 457 people have been arrested, including the family of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani, who is 75, heads the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body which has the power to dismiss or appoint the Supreme Leader, a post presently filled by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has staked his position on suppressing the demonstrations.
As the unresolved issues from the 1979 revolution that toppled Shah Reza Pahlavi rumble through all levels of society, the seismic shocks of a new mass popular movement are exposing those who, behind their “left” words, reject the ability of the masses to make a challenge for political and state power. Amongst them is Guardian “left” journalist Seumus Milne, who has suggested that the anti-government movement led by Mousavi is simply a US-Western inspired attempt to “neutralise” Iran, thus echoing the words of Khamenei who has denounced Britain as a conspirator against his rule.
Milne and his co-thinkers in the “anti-imperialist” camp seem to have missed the fact that young people inside Tehran are desperately pleading for support. Among those who Milne dismisses as “the gilded youth” of Tehran are students who are laying down their lives.
As an Irish blogger notes: “I wonder if it ever occurred to the likes of Milne that the men and women protesting in Iran are not ‘gilded youth’ but people who are frustrated not only by what they see as a blatantly fraudulent election; they are frustrated by life in an oppressive society, frustrated at being second class citizens (in the case of many of the women, frustrated at high inflation, frustrated at high unemployment). They are angry and they want change.”
Milne is not the only voice on the “left” that finds it impossible to believe that millions are ready to risk all to rid themselves of the backward nationalism and anti-Semitism that characterises the Ahmadinejad regime. As blogger Bill Weinberg notes, other lefts such as “the retro-Stalinist Workers World and its International Action Center” and “Monthly Review and the World Socialist Website have weighed in for Ahmadinejad and dissed the protesters as dupes or pawns of US imperialism. How interesting to see these supposed ‘leftists’ making common cause with right-wing cheerleaders for authoritarian regimes...”
The divisions within the top of Iranian society – Mousavi held leading posts in the Islamic Republic after the revolution of 1979 – reflect the deep movements below in society at large. A secular way forward towards a democratic society based on common ownership and control of the country’s resources is what’s at stake.
Achieving that will require a new, revolutionary leadership in Iran, as elsewhere. A mass movement against the state such as has emerged in Iran, with its growing independence from old leaders, has to be supported, not for what might be achieved in the short term in terms of the disputed presidential election but for the prospects that it holds for deep-going transformation in the longer term.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The uprising in Iran
The titanic struggle on the streets of Iran unleashed by the disputed results of the presidential election contain a revolutionary essence that has the potential to take on a momentum all of its own.
To march in their hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, through the streets of the capital in defiance of the authorities, to gather in the universities to denounce president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a dictator, to use social networking and Internet sites to mobilise and to reach the outside world amounts to a significant challenge to the state which not even the killing of seven marchers can halt.
The marchers chanted defiant slogans as they moved down Azadi Street yesterday towards an iconic monument built by the country’s former despot, the Shah. "Death to the dictator", "Death to the lying government" the chants rang out. "Iranians, why are you silent," went another slogan. "Iran has become Palestine. We will take back our votes even if they kill us," was another.
Masses of people believe that their votes have been stolen. They cannot credit that Ahmadinejad won almost two-thirds of the votes in last week’s presidential election, defeating former prime minister Hossein Mousavi. Whether Ahmadinejad did or not is now irrelevant, however. The decision today of the powerful Guardian Council to authorise a partial recount will not suffice. Even Mousavi has rejected the move, with a spokesman saying that nothing less than re-run of the election will do.
In 1979 millions rose up to overthrow the US-backed Shah’s dictatorship. To the shock of many liberal Westerners, the revolution took hold under the auspices of an Islamic clergy and took refuge in the safety of the mosques to escape the notorious Savak, the Shah’s secret police.
Now the momentum is towards the completion of that revolution through establishing popular, secular power. Mousavi will not be able to deliver anything like because he is also part of the state establishment which tries to balance between the masses and capitalism. That is what has come unstuck.
Motivation for the present upsurge is all too apparent. Despite being the world’s fourth largest oil producer, Iran is suffering from massive inequalities and a denial of basic democratic rights. About half its 71 million people are under 25. But more than a fifth of them are unemployed. Soaring unemployment has led to a "brain drain" from the country, leaving it short of (among others) health professionals, particularly doctors and dentists. Annual inflation is more than 25%. The wildly fluctuating price of oil is adding to the crisis facing the state.
The 1979 revolution was part of a great tide of national struggles throughout the world against imperialism for independence and self-determination. In the 21st century, these are beginning to assume a more definite social, anti-capitalist character as, for example, in Venezuela and other parts of South America.
In Iran, an election has re-opened the floodgates of mass confrontation in the streets between the state forces who back Ahmadinejad and the millions who voted for Mousavi. As commentator Robert Fisk, who watched yesterday’s mobilisation in Tehran, remarked: “Government is not about good guys and bad guys. It is about power, state and political power – they are not the same – and unless those wanly smiling riot police move across to the opposition, the weapons of the Islamic Republic remain in the hands of Ahmadinejad's administration and his spiritual protectors.”
As Ahmadinejad hob-nobs it with Russian and Chinese leaders – who know a thing or two about putting down social unrest – the momentum is running against him. Whether or not the present struggle succeeds in forcing the Holocaust-denier Ahmadinejad out, Iran can never be the same again.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
To march in their hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, through the streets of the capital in defiance of the authorities, to gather in the universities to denounce president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a dictator, to use social networking and Internet sites to mobilise and to reach the outside world amounts to a significant challenge to the state which not even the killing of seven marchers can halt.
The marchers chanted defiant slogans as they moved down Azadi Street yesterday towards an iconic monument built by the country’s former despot, the Shah. "Death to the dictator", "Death to the lying government" the chants rang out. "Iranians, why are you silent," went another slogan. "Iran has become Palestine. We will take back our votes even if they kill us," was another.
Masses of people believe that their votes have been stolen. They cannot credit that Ahmadinejad won almost two-thirds of the votes in last week’s presidential election, defeating former prime minister Hossein Mousavi. Whether Ahmadinejad did or not is now irrelevant, however. The decision today of the powerful Guardian Council to authorise a partial recount will not suffice. Even Mousavi has rejected the move, with a spokesman saying that nothing less than re-run of the election will do.
In 1979 millions rose up to overthrow the US-backed Shah’s dictatorship. To the shock of many liberal Westerners, the revolution took hold under the auspices of an Islamic clergy and took refuge in the safety of the mosques to escape the notorious Savak, the Shah’s secret police.
Now the momentum is towards the completion of that revolution through establishing popular, secular power. Mousavi will not be able to deliver anything like because he is also part of the state establishment which tries to balance between the masses and capitalism. That is what has come unstuck.
Motivation for the present upsurge is all too apparent. Despite being the world’s fourth largest oil producer, Iran is suffering from massive inequalities and a denial of basic democratic rights. About half its 71 million people are under 25. But more than a fifth of them are unemployed. Soaring unemployment has led to a "brain drain" from the country, leaving it short of (among others) health professionals, particularly doctors and dentists. Annual inflation is more than 25%. The wildly fluctuating price of oil is adding to the crisis facing the state.
The 1979 revolution was part of a great tide of national struggles throughout the world against imperialism for independence and self-determination. In the 21st century, these are beginning to assume a more definite social, anti-capitalist character as, for example, in Venezuela and other parts of South America.
In Iran, an election has re-opened the floodgates of mass confrontation in the streets between the state forces who back Ahmadinejad and the millions who voted for Mousavi. As commentator Robert Fisk, who watched yesterday’s mobilisation in Tehran, remarked: “Government is not about good guys and bad guys. It is about power, state and political power – they are not the same – and unless those wanly smiling riot police move across to the opposition, the weapons of the Islamic Republic remain in the hands of Ahmadinejad's administration and his spiritual protectors.”
As Ahmadinejad hob-nobs it with Russian and Chinese leaders – who know a thing or two about putting down social unrest – the momentum is running against him. Whether or not the present struggle succeeds in forcing the Holocaust-denier Ahmadinejad out, Iran can never be the same again.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Oil, Iran and a British coup
Whatever Iran’s motives for seizing British military personnel, it’s not difficult to fathom out why Teheran is so jumpy. There is the UK-US occupation of neighbouring Iraq, where American forces recently seized – and still hold - Iranian officials, barely-disguised plans to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, the presence of a massive hostile naval force in the Persian Gulf - plus plenty of alarming history. In 1951, the democratically-elected government of Mohammad Mossadeq defied Britain and nationalised Iran’s oil resources. When the British, who had previously exercised effective control over both the country’s oil and revenue, objected, Mossadeq (pictured) went to the United Nations and told the General Assembly: "My countrymen lack the bare necessities of existence. Their standard of living is probably one of the lowest in the world. Our greatest natural asset is oil. This should be the source of work and food for the population of Iran. Its exploitation should properly be our national industry, and the revenue from it should go to improve our conditions of life. As now organised, however, the petroleum industry has contributed practically nothing to the well-being of the people or to the technical progress or industrial development of my country." British appeals to reverse the decision fell on deaf ears.When the Tories were returned to power later in 1951, Prime Minister Churchill decided that a coup should be organised to effect a regime change in Iran. He won the support of the Americans and from November 1952, the CIA and MI6 began a systematic campaign to destabilise Iran. In the crisis of 1953, the Shah of Persia fled the country after his troops opened fire on protestors. But by August, a faction in the army in the pay of the Americans staged the coup which led to Mossadeq’s arrest and the restoration of the Shah. A CIA file detailing how the coup was planned and carried through, written in 1954, was published by the New York Times in 2000. Mossadeq was jailed and such was his popularity that when he died, he was allowed no funeral, and was buried underneath the floorboards of a room in his house. With the Shah back in control and parliamentary elections abandoned, Western oil companies were free to exploit Iran’s oil once more. The brutality of the Shah’s regime eventually produced a build-up of opposition that led to the Islamic revolution of 1979. When the masses took to the streets, many carried posters with the picture of Mossadeq as a symbol of national sovereignty and independence from colonial powers. On the 12th anniversary of Mossadeq's death, in 1979, an estimated 1 million political pilgrims filed to his home in Ahmad Abad, to pay homage. After the establishment of the Islamic Republic, oil was nationalised once more. Now the wheel of history is turning again. Iran’s oil is crucial to the global capitalist economy but a lack of foreign investment is apparently taking its toll. The country possesses facilities to process only 60% of its own fuel needs and UN-imposed sanctions will make matters worse. The British and American fleets are in the Persian Gulf to protect the West’s oil supplies and are part of yet another plot to destablise Iran. As for Britain’s presence in the disputed Shatt-al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq, it is simply another provocation that Teheran has responded to in kind.
Paul Feldman, communications editor
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Marketing Star Wars
To justify spending more than $18 billion on a missile defence system that is unproven requires a "threat". Just like the sale of any other commodity, marketing is essential to create an irresistible desire to buy and consume. The marketing in this case centres around the "threat" from Iran. Poland and the Czech Republic were not too keen to be part of Washington’s anti-ballistic missile defence system, aka Star Wars. They knew it would anger Russia, who rightly perceive Star Wars as a threat to their own security and the trigger for a new arms race. Step up Iran, with its alleged plan to build nuclear weapons. It doesn’t matter that evidence is scant to non-existent about an Iranian nuclear weapons’ programme. Marketing is, after all, all about perceptions. ''This is all a result of Iran,'' explains Tim Williams, a European security analyst. ''Governments see that Iranian missiles can hit Europe, and suddenly they are very worried about the threat from ballistic missiles.'' Prime minister Blair is begging Washington to place part of the system in Britain to strengthen his "legacy". If that comes to pass, it will ensure that Britain is a key target for anyone with a missile to spare. You can add that to the fact that Britain is now a No.1 target for terror attacks thanks to New Labour’s imperialist foreign policies. These include the decision to spend countless billions on replacing the Trident nuclear missile system as well as the policy towards Iran. It is a little known fact that the British navy’s presence in the Gulf has doubled since October, joining American fleets in what amounts to a stand-off with Iranian warships in the same area. Commodore Keith Winstanley, who serves as deputy commander of coalition maritime operations for US Central Command, said: "There have been a series of Iranian exercises in the northern Gulf to the point that it's a bit like with the Russians at the height of the Cold War. We just have to hope that's not a recipe for miscalculation." Actually, that is just what Washington and London are hoping for. The Iranian regime is divided amongst itself and could easily fall for a provocation in and around its territorial waters. That would be the signal for an attack on Iranian targets such as nuclear facilities. Star Wars and the aggression towards Iran are further evidence that the American and British regimes are driving the world towards deeper into a period of military instability and potential catastrophe. A return to nuclear brinkmanship combined with a permanent state of war against nations with politics that don’t fit in is a frightening prospect.
Paul Feldman, communications editor
Paul Feldman, communications editor
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Legal advice at any price
Is Tony Blair planning to go out with a bang in the shape of an unprovoked Anglo-America air attack on Iran? If he is, one thing is certain - he can count on the support of Lord Goldsmith, his Attorney-General. Goldsmith does what he is told by No.10 and will the provide legal cover required to justify attacking Iran. Before the invasion of Iraq, Goldsmith ignored international law and gave Blair the green light.
That, you will remember, led to the resignation of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the deputy legal adviser at the Foreign Office. Her letter of resignation did not mince words: "I cannot in conscience go along with advice ... which asserts the legitimacy of military action without such a resolution, particularly since an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression." Goldsmith was at it again before Christmas, this time over the planned prosecution for corruption of British executives in the bribes-to-Saudi affair. By all accounts, Blair leant on Goldsmith to declare that a prosecution would not succeed and the case was abandoned, much to the annoyance of the Serious Fraud Office.
The chances of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities are building by the day. In Washington, Blair’s White House co-conspirators have ratcheted up the rhetoric against Teheran over its alleged involvement in Iraq (a bit rich that, coming from a country with 160,000 troops in illegal occupation). Scott Ritter, the former UN inspector who proved before the 2003 invasion that Iraq had no “weapons of mass destruction”, has joined the chorus of opposition to a an attack on Iran. Ritter laments the pathetic stance of the Democrats, who allowed Bush to invade Iraq and applauded Bush when he put Iran in the frame during his recent State of the Union address. Ritter warns: “As things currently stand, the Bush administration, emboldened with a vision of the unitary executive unprecedented in our nation's history, believes it has all of the legal authority it requires when it comes to engaging Iran militarily. The silence of Congress following the President's decision to dispatch a second carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf has been deafening.
The fact that a third carrier battle group (the USS Ronald Reagan) will probably join these two in the near future has also gone unnoticed by most, if not all, in Congress." Ritter says that just as Iraq has severely damaged the Republican Party, Iran would break the Democratic Party if it sat back and allowed Bush to proceed.
Not only that, such an attack would fatally undermine the substance of the American constitution which has separation of powers between the three branches of government at its heart. In Britain, parliamentary democracy has gone the way of the Dodo; in the United States, Congressional paralysis has created a White House that rules unchallenged and by decree. The case for transforming the existing political system in favour of an alternative, truly democratic set-up is irresistible on both sides of the Atlantic.
Paul Feldman, communications editor
That, you will remember, led to the resignation of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the deputy legal adviser at the Foreign Office. Her letter of resignation did not mince words: "I cannot in conscience go along with advice ... which asserts the legitimacy of military action without such a resolution, particularly since an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression." Goldsmith was at it again before Christmas, this time over the planned prosecution for corruption of British executives in the bribes-to-Saudi affair. By all accounts, Blair leant on Goldsmith to declare that a prosecution would not succeed and the case was abandoned, much to the annoyance of the Serious Fraud Office.
The chances of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities are building by the day. In Washington, Blair’s White House co-conspirators have ratcheted up the rhetoric against Teheran over its alleged involvement in Iraq (a bit rich that, coming from a country with 160,000 troops in illegal occupation). Scott Ritter, the former UN inspector who proved before the 2003 invasion that Iraq had no “weapons of mass destruction”, has joined the chorus of opposition to a an attack on Iran. Ritter laments the pathetic stance of the Democrats, who allowed Bush to invade Iraq and applauded Bush when he put Iran in the frame during his recent State of the Union address. Ritter warns: “As things currently stand, the Bush administration, emboldened with a vision of the unitary executive unprecedented in our nation's history, believes it has all of the legal authority it requires when it comes to engaging Iran militarily. The silence of Congress following the President's decision to dispatch a second carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf has been deafening.
The fact that a third carrier battle group (the USS Ronald Reagan) will probably join these two in the near future has also gone unnoticed by most, if not all, in Congress." Ritter says that just as Iraq has severely damaged the Republican Party, Iran would break the Democratic Party if it sat back and allowed Bush to proceed.
Not only that, such an attack would fatally undermine the substance of the American constitution which has separation of powers between the three branches of government at its heart. In Britain, parliamentary democracy has gone the way of the Dodo; in the United States, Congressional paralysis has created a White House that rules unchallenged and by decree. The case for transforming the existing political system in favour of an alternative, truly democratic set-up is irresistible on both sides of the Atlantic.
Paul Feldman, communications editor
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