Given this debate I thought I would post this excellent article which first appeared in Workers Action
By Darren Williams
At the time of writing, there is something of a lull in the diplomatic stand-off between Iran and the so-called ‘G6’ (the five permanent UN Security Council members, plus Germany). The Iranian Government is considering the offer of technical assistance and diplomatic concessions presented on 6th June in a bid to secure the termination of its uranium enrichment programme. For its part, the United States’ agreement on 31st May to participate in talks represented a significant climbdown from its renewed rejection of negotiations less than a week earlier. Nevertheless, there are strong indications that the Bush administration remains committed to a military attack on Iran, with the possible acquiescence of the British Government. US aggression against the Islamic Republic has seemed a real possibility ever since Bush included Tehran, together with Baghdad and Pyongyang, in the so-called ‘Axis of Evil’ in his State of the Union address on 29th January 2002. In recent months, US rhetoric directed against Iran has become increasingly strident and its persistent, wide-ranging accusations disturbingly recall the build-up to war in Iraq in 2002-03. The danger that Iran, like Iraq before it, may be subjected to the might of US imperialism is ever present. Readers of Workers Action will hopefully not need to be persuaded of the imperative to oppose any military attack but it may nevertheless be useful to address systematically the arguments being presented in support of US intervention, to assist in building the opposition to war over the coming months.
1. There is no clear evidence that Iran is seeking to produce nuclear weapons
It is important to spell this out, as the constant accusations and insinuations, coupled with the general demonisation of the Iranian government, are likely to promote the idea that there is ‘no smoke without fire’. Iran may be seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but we should not assume this to be the case simply because the US and its allies say so. Iran announced on 11th April that it has enriched uranium to 3.5% - slightly more than the level necessary for energy purposes but a long way short of the 85-90% required to produce weapons-grade uranium. The rigorous inspection regime applied by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to which Iran voluntarily submitted in December 2003, has failed to turn up any hard evidence of a weapons programme. The US Government has questioned why a country with so much oil needs nuclear energy but the Iranian population has doubled since the 1979 revolution, increasing domestic demand, and it is estimated that the country will become a net oil importer in less than twenty years if current consumption trends continue.
The Iranian nuclear programme actually predates the Islamic Republic, having begun under the Shah in the 1950s with technology provided by the United States. Subsequently abandoned by Ayatollah Khomenei as ‘un-Islamic’, it was later re-commenced, initially in secret. It was only this failure to report that the programme was underway, that represented an infringement of Iran’s international obligations. Uranium enrichment itself is explicitly allowed by article 4 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran is a signatory, which allows states to develop nuclear power if they agree not to acquire nuclear weapons, or to take steps to give up those they already possess (Iran did voluntarily suspend its right to enrichment in December 2003 and again in November 2004, in an agreement with Britain, France and Germany that it abandoned when the latter backtracked on their side of the bargain.) Of course, the nuclear weapon states that have signed the NPT have – so far from giving up their weapons – regularly re-stocked their arsenals – the latest example being Britain’s plans to replace Trident. The hypocrisy of Iran being cajoled and threatened over its nuclear programme by states with their own nuclear weapons – including Israel, which has not even signed the NPT – surely does not need to be underlined.
2. Even if Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, this is not in itself evidence of aggressive intent
Iran has a reasonable desire for self-defence – surrounded as it is by nuclear powers (India, Pakistan, Russia, China and Israel) and by US bases in Qatar, Iraq, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. It has also suffered the effects of foreign intervention in the recent past: the United States and Britain engineered a coup that overthrew the country’s first democratic government in 1953, initiating the dictatorship of the Shah. It sustained hundreds of thousands of casualties in the 1980-88 war with Iraq, during which the Reagan administration supported Saddam with arms, destroyed almost half of the Iranian navy and shot down a civilian passenger plane.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hostility towards Israel is cited as evidence of aggressive intent – in particular, his supposed threat last October to "wipe Israel off the map". In fact, as Jonathan Steele has pointed out in The Guardian, after consulting experts on Farsi, what Ahmadinejad actually said was: ‘the regime occupying Jerusalem must be wiped from the page of time’. As Steele concludes: ‘He was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupation of Jerusalem at some point in the future.’
[1] In response to UN Security Council criticism of Ahmadinejad’s statement, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said, ‘Iran is loyal to its commitments based on the UN charter and it has never used or threatened to use force against any country.’ Ahmadinejad has denied promoting ‘A fight between Judaism and other religions,’ and explains that conflict in the Middle East ‘will be over the day a Palestinian government, which belongs to the Palestinian people, comes to power; the day that all refugees return to their homes; a democratic government elected by the people comes to power.’
[2]By contrast, both the US and Israel have openly threatened to attack Iran and given their past record, these threats should be taken seriously. In January of this year, for example, Vice-President Dick Cheney said that Iranian nuclear advances were so pressing that Israel “may be forced to attack facilities”, as it did in Iraq in 1981. In March, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, gave visiting members of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee a detailed description of the form that military action could take.
3. There is no imminent danger to other countries
The handling of the Iranian nuclear issue by the US and other ‘G6’ members has imparted a sense of imminent crisis. In March, the UN Security Council gave Iran thirty days to end its enrichment programme; when it failed to comply with this (non-binding) deadline, the Security Council discussed – albeit inconclusively – a resolution that would have insisted on a mandatory suspension of the programme. Now the US is demanding an urgent Iranian response to the offer currently on the table – no later than the G8 summit in St. Petersburg in Mid-July, whereas Iran intends to give its answer on 22nd August. The US offer to negotiate is contingent on the suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment. The impression created by all this is that every day is precious as diplomats struggle to prevent an Iranian acquisition of WMDs, which could – it has been stated in some quarters – happen ‘within months’.
This alarmism is at odds with all the expert assessments of the timescale – including the US Government’s own. In August 2005, the Washington Post reported that a major US intelligence review, presenting the consensus view of all US intelligence agencies – the first on Iran since 2001 – concluded that Iran was unlikely to be able to produce a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium to produce nuclear weapons until ‘early-to-mid next decade’.
[3] A paper produced for the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in January estimated that ‘Iran could have its first nuclear weapon in 2009’ at the earliest and acknowledged that several analysts considered it more likely that technical difficulties would cause further delays.
[4] The ISIS authors anticipated an early completion of the enrichment process, consequently their timetable may be considered unchanged by the Iranian announcement of 11th April.
[5]4. The US Government’s actions suggest that it has an ulterior motive for pursuing a confrontation with Iran
Throughout its supposed membership of the ‘Axis of Evil’, the Iranian government has consistently been willing to negotiate over contentious issues; not so the Bush administration. In May 2003, according to Flynt Leverett, then a senior official in Bush’s National Security Council, Iran proposed an agenda for talks to resolve all its bilateral differences with the United States – including WMDs, a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the future of Lebanon’s Hizbullah organisation and co-operation with the UN nuclear safeguards agency. The US refused and reprimanded the Swiss diplomat who conveyed the offer. A year later, the EU and Iran agreed a temporary suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, in exchange for European assurances of no US/Israeli attacks on Iran. Europe withdrew under US pressure and Iran renewed its enrichment processes. More recently, Ahmadinejad’s open letter to Bush was also an invitation to dialogue, albeit one couched in somewhat elliptical terms. The US recently agreed to hold direct talks with Iran for the first time since 1979 – but only about Iraq, refusing to discuss the nuclear programme, as Iran wanted – then, on 24th May, withdrew its agreement to talk to Iran at all. Finally, it agreed to negotiations, together with Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, but only on condition that Iran suspend its nuclear programme – and still refused to rule out a military attack.
Meanwhile, the US Government has taken measures that suggest that its bellicose language is not empty rhetoric. In the summer of 2004, Congress passed a resolution authorising ‘all appropriate measures’ to prevent the Iranian weapons programme. More recently – on 27th April this year – the House of Representatives passed the Iran Freedom Support Act, making permanent US sanctions against Iran under the 1996 Iran Libya Sanctions Act, unless there is a change of government in Tehran. The Democratic congressman, Dennis Kucinich, who opposed the bill, argued: ‘this is a stepping stone to the use of force, the same way that the Iraq Liberation Act was used as a stepping stone.’
An article in The New Yorker (17th April) by the veteran investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, based on interviews with senior figures in the US military and political establishment, claims that the White House is set on the use of force, not just to wipe out Iran’s nuclear facilities, but to secure ‘regime change’ in the country.
[6] ‘Current and former American military and intelligence officials’ told Hersh that
Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups.
A former defence official explained that the administration believed that ‘a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.’ The use of tactical nuclear weapons (‘bunker-busters’) is even being considered, to destroy underground installations. The US Government has recently allocated $75 million to promote ‘democracy’ in Iran by broadcasting propaganda, funding NGOs and promoting ‘cultural exchanges’. US officials have also reportedly been working covertly with the armed Iranian exile group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK; ironically, once a Marxist group), and leading neo-cons have been lobbying for the MEK to be taken off the State Department’s list of terrorist organisations.
‘This is much more than nuclear issue,’ a high-ranking diplomat told Seymour Hersh. ‘The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.’ Iran is
OPEC's second largest oil producer and holds 10% of the world's proven oil reserves. It also has the world's second largest
natural gas reserves (after
Russia). The United States has not purchased Iranian oil since the Revolution and Iran’s principal customer is now China – the main economic competitor to the US in the long-run. Iran also plans to establish a new
International Oil Bourse on the island of Kish in the Persian Gulf, trading oil priced in euros (rather than dollars, as in all other markets). If successful, this could strengthen the status of the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency and cause a major currency flight from the dollar to the euro, threatening the status of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and causing major economic problems for the US.
[7]A shorter-term consideration is the fact that the worsening disaster in Iraq and the deaths of more than 2,500 US military personnel have seriously damaged Bush’s domestic support; an apparently ‘successful’ strike against a popularly-reviled external ‘threat’ could boost his popularity in time for November’s mid-term elections.
5. The British Government has failed to distance itself from US belligerence
Britain has echoed US condemnation of Iran, albeit while promoting a negotiated settlement more assiduously. While Blair has sought to discourage speculation about military means, his commitment to the ‘Special Relationship’ and his track record in Afghanistan and Iraq suggest that British forces might well be involved in any attack. In April, Jack Straw dismissed the idea of military action against Iran as ‘inconceivable’ and said that any nuclear attack on the country would be ‘completely nuts’. His subsequent replacement as Foreign Secretary by Margaret Beckett has prompted speculation that Blair was seeking to assure Bush of continued British support for US policy. Certainly, Beckett refused to rule out military action quite as emphatically as her predecessor when asked to do so after a meeting with UN Security Council colleagues. (The furthest she would go was to say: ‘No-one has the intention to take military action. That was not discussed, it's not an issue.’) The revelation that, in July 2004 British officers took part in a US war game aimed at preparing for a possible invasion of Iran, hardly eases concerns.
6. Any military attack on Iran would be disastrous for the Iranian people
The death toll resulting from any aerial bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities would be in the thousands, with ‘many hundreds’ of civilian casualties, according to a report produced in February by Prof. Paul Rogers for the Oxford Research Group. His conclusions were based on the fact that most of the facilities are in densely populated areas and the likelihood that the US would launch a surprise attack, leaving no time for evacuations or other precautions. Rogers’ estimate may even be conservative, since he cites a relatively small number of likely targets, whereas a US military analyst who taught at the National War College told Seymour Hersh that ‘at least four hundred targets’ would have to be hit.
While a military attack would undoubtedly cause chaos and suffering, the idea that it would precipitate a popular rebellion seems an example of neo-con strategic thinking being clouded by ideological delusions. One might imagine that the experience of Iraq would have taught them that they cannot expect to be treated as liberators when they lay waste to cities and slaughter civilians – but apparently not. Iran, although facing significant economic problems (including an unemployment rate unofficially estimated at around 25%), is in nowhere near as desperate a state as Iraq in 2003. Moreover, it is far more ethnically and religiously homogeneous than Iraq. And, while there is widespread popular opposition to the authoritarianism and repression of the Islamic Republic, that opposition would be weakened, rather than strengthened, by a military attack, with most Iranians putting aside their differences in defence of their homeland. Already, Ahmadinejad has seen his popularity boosted by the resolute stance he has maintained in the face of diplomatic bullying and threats. An opinion poll conducted in Iran in February showed that 85% of those surveyed supported the continuation of the nuclear enrichment programme, and 75% would do so even if it meant Security Council sanctions.
How should socialists balance their duty to oppose imperialist aggression with the need to support progressive forces in Iran, which currently face repression by the Islamic regime?
Clearly, there can be no weakening of our defence of women’s rights, our opposition to official homophobia, our condemnation of human rights abuses or our support for the (illegal) workers’ organisations, whose resilience was demonstrated in December by the strike by 3000 bus drivers in Tehran. The Islamic Republic is fundamentally reactionary – born out of the eradication of the progressive forces in the 1979 Revolution. Any real political progress on the part of the Iranian working class and its allies will involve a frontal challenge to the present theocratic state. The class struggle is also, however, played out at the global level, between states. Any political destabilisation that might result from external pressure – whether military, diplomatic or economic – would surely deliver no lasting benefits to the Iranian people. It would more likely strengthen US hegemony, by weakening Iranian autonomy and promoting US proxies within Iran or among its neighbours. Moreover, it would represent a victory by imperialism over all the subaltern states of the so-called ‘Third World’. To the extent, therefore, that Ahmadinejad is playing an anti-imperialist role, by facing down the threats of the US and its allies, he deserves the support of socialists and progressives around the world.
It should also be said that the political character of Ahmadinejad’s government is by no means clear. His election last year provoked alarm, not just in the seats of government and the stock exchanges, but among liberals and the left; he was widely portrayed as a dangerous, reactionary demagogue, in contrast to his main rival, the ‘moderate’ and ‘pragmatic’ ex-President, Hashemi Rafsanjani. Much of Ahmadinejad’s support comes from the poor and the unemployed, however, and was secured by promises to ensure that Iran’s oil wealth is more equitably distributed. Rafsanjani, on the other hand, was seen by many as a corrupt plutocrat (he is the country’s richest man) who promoted the IMF agenda of privatisation and deregulation during his previous two terms in office (1989-97) – as, to a lesser extent, did his reformist successor, Mohammed Khatami. As the US-based Iranian writer, Rostam Pourzal, explains:
‘To millions of voters of modest means, Ahmadinejad symbolizes resistance to the anti-democratic global free-trade elite with whom the relatively secular reform movement has aligned itself.’
[8]Ahmadinejad has angered the Iranian establishment by sacking senior ministers, officials and diplomats and replacing them, in many cases, with former comrades from the Revolutionary Guard. He has criticised privatisations set in motion by his predecessors and boosted economic support for Iran’s most impoverished regions. And, while he remains a religious and social conservative on most issues, he has sought to allow women the right to attend football matches (only to be overruled by the clerics). Ahmadinejad’s increasingly friendly relations with left-wing, anti-US leaders like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez is also significant. While it seems a gross exaggeration to call him, as some left-wing commentators have done, ‘Iran’s Chavez’, Ahmadinejad shares with the Venezuelan leader an nationalist-populist approach to the economy, based on a determination that the people should benefit from their country’s natural resources, rather than allowing them to be looted by global capitalists. It is to be hoped that his association with the progressive, anti-imperialist forces in world politics will exert a positive influence on Iranian domestic politics.
Speculation about the future direction of Iran must, however, be secondary to mobilising opposition against an imperialist assault. While the immediate threat may have temporarily receded, it would be over-optimistic to imagine that the US Government will desist from its attempts to impose its will on the country. The growing charge-sheet should set off alarm-bells about US intentions: in addition to the nuclear issue, Iran has recently been accused of being the leading state sponsor of international terrorism, of stirring up the ‘cartoon’ protests in Denmark and elsewhere and of providing weapons and bomb training to anti-U.S. insurgent groups in Iraq. Many of these claims have as little substance as the accusations of links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda and of his supposed attempts to obtain uranium from Niger, etc. Nevertheless, they are likely to be pursued as vigorously as the US pursued its war-drive 3-4 years ago.
In this context, socialists need to be actively building the campaign to prevent another war, through the Stop the War Coalition and Labour Against the War. We should be winning the backing of trade union bodies and demanding that Labour MPs give assurances that they will vote against any moves to deploy British military force. Finally, we should be building links, especially at local level, with individuals and organisations in the Iranian community in Britain. We need to assure them that the left will work to prevent any attack on their country, while also supporting their aspirations for democracy and civil rights.
