Why We Oppose War and Sanctions
By Afshin Nikouseresht from Iran solidarity melbourne
February 16th, 2010
People who have been following the debates in the Iranian pro-democracy movement during the last few months might have come across some of the recent accusations that some sections and individuals from the various reformist oriented factions of the movement have made against the more revolutionary sections of the movement. More specifically, some people who believe that the movement should restrict itself to reforms within the framework of the Islamic Republic have been leading a campaign to discredit those people who are asking for an end to the rule of the Islamic Republic as a prerequisite for democratic reform in Iran.
One well known religious nationalist thinker Mr Sahabi, last month berated Iranians overseas for their heavy use of slogans against the Islamic Republic, and Akbar Ganji, another well known religious reformist thinker and activist, was rumoured to have, in a speech in London a couple of weeks ago, accused Iranians who support the overthrowing of the Islamic Republic through revolutionary means of supporting the invasion of Iran by foreign powers such as America or Israel. Now the actual transcript of his speech has not been made available so we can not verify this but the point is that these tensions between the two currents in the movement are resulting in all sorts of unfounded accusations being thrown around. And furthermore these unfounded accusations are playing into the hands of the enemies of the movement who have linked the movement to foreign plots and implicitly or explicitly have accused it of being an American or Israeli fifth column paving the road for a military strike on Iran.
This idea is actually more widespread than we may realise, especially outside Iran which makes the issue even more important for us who wish to engage with non-Iranians as well as Iranians. Apart from people like Khamenei and Ahmadinejad who accuse the people’s movement of being a foreign plot, the “green movement” has come under attack by all sorts of loony conspiracy theorists from the western left to the right as well as Arab and Islamic groups in the Middle East such as Hezballah and third world “socialists” such as Chavez.
For example after the outbreak of the protests after the rigged elections Hezbollah deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, accused the West of fomenting protests in Iran over the presidential election. He said: “The extent of Western and American involvement in Iran’s internal affairs is now clear”.
This Analysis was echoed by the darling of the western left, Hugo Chavez, who also said that he believes the United States and European countries have had a hand in stirring up protests in Iran.
There are also many journals, blogs, propaganda papers and YouTube channels which are dedicated to attacking and discrediting the Iranian people’s movement for democracy.
For example historian and journalist William Engdahl, author of full spectrum dominance, Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, states that what is happening in Iran is another coloured revolution like what the West orchestrated in Georgia, which is exactly what Khamenei and the nu-fundamentalists are saying about the movement.
And just to put things in perspective for you this same person also doubts that oil is made of fossil remains and believes that the planet is actually cooling instead of warming. It is perhaps good to add here that Engdahl is not qualified to comment on geology, climate science or Middle Eastern politics.
In another example, the World Socialist Website echoes the words of Khamenei by calling the protest movement an “imperialist plot”, while a self styled Maoist paper Free Media Productions declares its “…unwavering and unquestionable support for the Islamic Revolutionary government of Iran and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad…” It sent on to say that “In the Islamic Republic of Iran the working masses have shown their support not for an insurrectionary revolutionary movement against the Islamic government, but instead voiced majority support for the recently re-elected President Ahmadinejad.” It then went on to conclude that “Finally, given Iran’s need to defend its interests against US and Zionist imperialism, the current material conditions (as they exist now) dictate that an internal revolutionary insurrection would only destabilize and threaten the overall security of the Iranian people. Such adventurism would be easily exploited by Iran’s enemies who eagerly wait on the edge of their seats for such a situation to arise.”
We can content ourselves with the knowledge that some of these western left wing news papers and analysts are on the extreme fringes of the political spectrum, and have no mass following or popular recognition. But the problem is that the kind of people that these organisations attract, i.e. people who consider themselves to be progressive and defenders of liberty and freedom are the same people that we want to win over to the Iranian movement. If we want any hope of working with progressive political organisations outside of Iran it is not going to be helpful if they think that the movement against the Iranian regime is orchestrated by MOSAD or the CIA and is an advocate of American military intervention.
Our message to these people and anybody who might be attracted to their ideas is that these accusations are completely unfounded. And I believe that that much is obvious to the people reading this article. And for the record Iran Solidarity can declare that all its members are 100% in support of the demands of the Iranian people and are completely opposed to any military campaign against or the imposition of economic sanctions on Iran.
I will now break the rest of the article into two sections, the first explaining why we should oppose war and sanctions and the second trying to explain why there is so much support for the Islamic Republic amongst certain groups outside of Iran.
So you might ask; if we’re against the Islamic Republic then why do we oppose war and sanction? Some people will answer that simply because the high human and material cost of such a campaign does not morally justify this action even if it does lead to the overthrowing of the Islamic Republic.
While I can agree with that sentiment, I believe there is more to the question and I will attempt to touch on some of the less emotive and more political aspects of this question today.
Firstly remember that the United State’s priority in Iran is not the establishment of a democratic and humane regime. Even if Bush pretended and uttered a couple of words here and there about the democratic aspiration of the people, Obama has put all such pretences aside, and is instead only worried about halting Iran’s Nuclear Enrichment program. A program that as it happens is perfectly legal.
Secondly, the hypothetical scenario that admittedly a small minority of Iranians hope for where U.S ground forces invade and occupy the country and impose a “democratic” government or at least a “secular” government only exists in the over imaginative minds of those individuals who have such wishes and actually has nothing to do with reality.
Nobody in their right mind in the U.S establishment is advocating such a campaign, instead the “military option” that Bush kept reminding us was always on the Iran-related table of options was and still is a quick and targeted air/missile strike operation aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure. Such an attack is not aimed at ridding the people of Iran of the regime and instead will only bring death and destruction. And in the same way that the gulf war of 1991 entrenched Saddam’s rule in Iraq for another 12 years and led to the butchering of the opposition, it is possible that the same would happen in Iran as the Islamic Republic would be able to play the role of the victim of aggression and rally support both from inside and outside of Iran. Therefore such a military strike would be a huge setback for our movement.
Also looking at history, we can see that acts of aggression against the Iranian state have been counterproductive and have only made it more dangerous for people to resist the tyranny of the regime. Let us not forget that it was Iraq’s attack n Iran that provided the opportunity for the Islamic Republic to secure its hold on power and to butcher the remnants of the opposition on the gallows and on the front lines. By rallying the people against the “external enemy” and declaring all acts of agitation inside the country ‘high treason’ or in Iranian terms ‘waging war against God’ the Islamic Republic effectively sidelined and destroyed the Iranian opposition, an act that still has ramifications for today.
Likewise aggressive posturing by the United States has never aided the people of Iran in their struggle against dictatorship either. The 2002 “Axis of Evil” speech of Bush is widely believed to have sealed the coffin of the then “reform” government and greatly strengthened the rise of the nu-fundamentalists, as hardliners seized the opportunity to show that despite Iran’s cooperation with the U.S in Afghanistan and its condemnation of the September 11 attacks the U.S was in no mood to reconcile with Iran and that Iran was right to take a more aggressive posture internationally. It was exactly this American sabre rattling that paved the way for the rise of Ajmadinejad. Make no mistake about it, Ahmadinejad was the direct answer to Bush, and his Holocaust denial rants a direct answer to the “Axis of Evil” rants of George Bush.
As for economic sanctions, history shows that the imposition of sanctions not only does not overthrow dictatorial regimes instead it entrenches them and impoverishes and demoralises the population. This is evident in North Korea and was evident in Iraq as well. Despite being under various sanctions for half a century, the North Korean dictatorship looks as entrenched as ever while its population remains one of the most impoverished on the planet with very little will or capability to challenge the government. The fact is that a population that feels economically besieged is far less likely to be able to muster the necessary courage to fight for its rights. The amount of poverty in Iran, and the hardship that will be brought on some of the more desperate sections of the population, will only create an ever growing pool of desperate people whom the regime, already discredited, can begin to build a new base of support on, as desperation and unemployment will drive these people into the ranks of the Basiji and the government will be able to successfully divert their frustrations outwards towards “external” enemies.
It is therefore my opinion that the best thing the west can do to help the people of Iran is to lift its sanctions on Iran and stop threatening the people of Iran with war while at the same time refusing to recognise the government in Tehran as the true representatives of the people. Such a move would pull the rug from under the feet of the Islamic Republic Ideologues who thrive and like parasites feed off the external threats of other powers. In the absence of such threats the Islamic Republic could no longer paint the United States as a threat to the security of the people and itself as the defender of the people against such threats and would lose the last remaining arguably legitimate reason for its existence.
Now I just want to briefly explore why this support for Ahmadinejad’s government exists outside of Iran.
So first, the important question needs to be asked; why are some people who usually defend justice, freedom and democracy siding with the most anti-human, anti democratic and unjust regime in the world?
The answer lies in the simplistic worldview that these people subscribe to. This worldview dictates that we live in a two dimensional world where groups of “Imperialist” nations fight with each other to dominate and subjugate groups of “oppressed” nations in a great game called “imperialism”.
And the argument goes that these “imperialist” powers have achieved such unprecedented destructive capabilities that they pose an existential threat to the entire human race and therefore are the number 1 concern for humanity today. Then from this sincere concern for the preservation of life and peace in the world these people come to support the “oppressed” nations in their struggles against the “oppressor” or “imperialist” nations.
This interpretation of the world is then applied to the current standoff between the U.S (the world’s biggest super power) and Iran, which in the minds of many people, especially in the Arab World, epitomizes the “oppressed” nation fighting the evil empire.
Unfortunately despite the good intentions of these people, there are a few things wrong with this world view:
1) The world isn’t just divided into “imperialist” and “oppressed” nations
And
2) Even if it were Iran is clearly not one of those subjugated or “anti imperialist” nations
And
3) This interpretation of the world only sees the struggle against imperialism as a struggle of governments against governments, of military versus military, and does not take into account the human agency and the dynamics of those societies and the impact that workers, students, social movements and so on can have on world politics. This kind of outlook reduces the sophistication of society to that of a computer game or an action blockbuster.
In response to the first point I would like to offer a different framework for assessing the Iran situation. That is instead of seeing the world as divided between “imperialist” nations and “oppressed” nations it is more useful to take into account those nation states that can be considered as “lesser imperialist” nations, or those who are actively seeking to dominate and influence other nations but for whatever reason may not have the capacity to do so as effectively as they like. Countries like Iran, China and Russia I feel fit perfectly into that category. The Imperialist game is just as much about dominating lesser nations as it is about nations aspiring to become the dominant players in the game. To try to force a two dimensional straightjacket on this reality is to force people to take sides in conflicts where aspiring or “lesser” imperialist nations rise to challenge the dominant imperialist powers of their time not for the purpose of liberating any oppressed people but for the purpose of becoming looters and plunderers themselves. To apply this thesis retrospectively would be to take the side of a country like Nazi Germany in WW2; a conflict where an imperialist power that was economically and militarily weaker than the other world powers at the time, U.S.A and the U.K, found itself at war with these powers in its pursuit of a share of the colonial booty. Now don’t get me wrong I am not suggesting that the Iranian regime is anywhere as militarily capable as the Nazis but the point is that it is still a lesser imperial power and to me it is not clear where the line is drawn between the good fight of the “oppressed” nation and the evil war of the “lesser Imperial” power in the international arena.
Furthermore there is nothing “anti-Imperialist” about the regime in power today in Iran. The false notion that Iran is an “anti-imperialist” country is connected to the false notion that Iran is a “subjugated” country. Most people look at the 1979 revolution against the shah in the same way that they look at other 3rd world anti-colonial struggles such as the one in Vietnam or India that drove out the colonial masters in those countries who were blatantly subjugating those countries. But Iran was nothing like these cases; Iran was a client state with its own regional agenda, an agenda which was best served through a close military alliance with the U.S. It wasn’t a colony subordinate to the wishes of a coloniser. By the 1970’s the Shah had been able to build his armed forces and secret police on the back of rising oil prices and American help and project his own power in the region and so long as this suited the aims of the Americans in the Cold War they helped him, but paradoxically this relationship also allowed the Shah to become more independent from both foreign and domestic influences and helped transform him into an autocrat who by the end even stopped taking the advice of the Americans. Advice that was very much intended to keep him in power.
After the Shah was overthrown this client state statues was removed but the regional ambitions of the new regime were just as strong as that of the old regime. In fact the new Islamic Republic became the most successful Iranian regime in 300 years in promoting Iran’s political influence in the region.
One of its first successes was the destroying of Kurdish aspirations for autonomy through a brutal campaign of terror in the aftermath of the revolution. The second achievement was breaking the back of pan-Arabism by defeating Saddam Hussein in the Iran Iraq war which admittedly was short of the stated aim of capturing Karbala and toppling the Ba’ath party. This led to the subsequent events which led to the eventual overthrowing of the Ba’ath regime in Iraq; removing from power one of the greatest obstacles to Iranian hegemony in the region.
Even today the Islamic Republic is not against “Imperialism”, it has close political and economic ties to China and Russia two of the major Imperial powers after the United States. Iran also materially aided the Sri Lankan government’s genocidal war against the Tamils, a war which was widely condemned by progressive and left wing groups in the west.
So, defenders of the regime paint a picture of a valiant oppressed and anti-imperialist Iran standing up to the hegemonic powers of “Imperialism”. The reality however is that regardless of how one looks at the world, Iran is not an “oppressed” or “subjugated” nation. Iran has always both under the Pahlavi regime and during the Islamic Republic has had regional imperial aspirations. Aspirations that were to some extent thwarted after Iran failed to take Karbala in the Iran-Iraq war but have resurfaced again in the wake of the war on terror.
Furthermore Iran’s claim that it is a defender of the rights of Muslims also does not hold any water. Leaving aside the fact that it routinely tramples on the rights of Muslims who live inside the country, Iran barely uttered a word of condemnation when the Russians were waging a brutal war against the Muslim Chechens or when the Chinese Han participated in a state sponsored pogrom against the Muslim Uyghur’s of Urumqi. And in the bloody conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the after math of the breakup of the Soviet Union, Iran openly backed and supported the Christian Armenians against the Muslim Azeri’s. And at home Iran uses land forcibly taken from displaced Iranian-Ahwazi Arabs to train Hezbollah fighters, an irony considering the organisations alleged commitment to the rights of Arabs.
But perhaps most importantly Iran fully cooperated with the U.S in conducting the war on terror in Afghanistan and toppling the Taliban; an achievement which benefited Iran just as much as the Americans. In fact, despite occasional grumblings, Iran has been the biggest regional winner in the war on terror so far because its two biggest regional rivals, the Ba’ath and the Taliban regime, have been ousted from power allowing Iran to assert its influence in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
All of this paints a picture of an Iran that isn’t principally “anti-Imperialist” but is instead just another pragmatic state seeking to pursue its own regional interests and is willing to cooperate even with the “Great Satan” himself to do so.
Now coming back to the third point I raised earlier, most of the people who look at Iran’s government as an “anti-imperialist” government that must be supported against all criticism, fail to recognise both the demands of the people of Iran themselves and fail to recognise them as legitimate political actors whose actions can have an impact on the struggle against Imperialism.
I wholeheartedly believe the victory of a democratic and popular movement that brings down the Islamic Republic is the best hope we have in stopping a possible future conflict with Iran. The people of Iran, through the sacrifices that they have made in the last 7-8 months have been able to shatter the stereotype image of the fanatical and backwards Muslim that is so prevalent in the minds of the average western person in a way that the left could not have done through years of anti-war campaigning on university campuses. CNN despite the neo-con agenda so apparent in its zealous coverage of the post-election uprising is actually doing the hawks a disservice by showing the world that Iranian people have the same basic democratic and freedom loving desires as the rest of the world and are actually willing to sustain a fight for their rights without any help from foreign powers.
It will now be far more costly politically to attack Iran and I would argue it will also be much easier to campaign against war and economic sanctions outside Iran because the human face of Iran has been illuminated in the media spotlight. And if the movement was to succeed and Iran was to have a much more humane and democratic regime, a future military attack would completely discredit the U.S as a promoter of democracy in the region, a process that has already began to take place after the failures of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.
In addition the end of the Islamic Republic will spell the end of the dominance of Political Islam in the Middle East. Having been somewhat of a regional political trend-setter since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a significant role in establishing the hegemony of political Islam over other political currents in the Middle East. The failure of Islamic Republicanism in Iran will open up space for debating the future political direction of the other justice seeking movements in the region. Whether they are Egyptians fighting for democracy in Egypt, or Palestinians fighting for their basic right to self determination, the question will surely be asked “is political Islam going to provide the answers to the problems of the brutalised and oppressed people in the Middle East?”