Revolution #031, January 22, 2006, posted at revcom.us
Over this past week, tensions between the U.S. and Iran got
ratcheted up. Iran’s government removed seals that kept Iranian
scientists from accessing uranium enrichment equipment at Iran’s Natanz
nuclear facility. Those seals were part of a special deal that Iran’s
rulers made with European powers for inspection and supervision of
Iran’s nuclear power program–a deal that provided for much more
supervision than is called for in existing international agreements
governing the development of nuclear power plants. In response,
European powers, including Russia, cut off their cooperation with
Iran’s nuclear development program.
The tension surrounding these developments comes from the fact that
the U.S. and its regional enforcer, Israel, have been increasingly
making threats against Iran, and a real danger of a widely escalated
war in the Mid-East looms behind the charges and counter-charges
surrounding Iran’s nuclear program.
Readers might find it hard to imagine, given how bogged down the
U.S. is in the Iraqi quagmire, that even Bush and his crew would charge
off into a much wider war, with even more dangerous implications. But
powerful forces within the Bush regime, as well as a powerful
underlying logic, are driving events in a direction where such a
conflict is a real danger.
Nuclear Thugs Cry “Nu-cu-lar Terror”
In his 2002 State of the Union speech, Bush placed Iran in the “axis
of evil” along with Iraq and North Korea. We know where that led with
Iraq. In that speech, Bush said, “Iran aggressively pursues [nuclear]
weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian
people’s hope for freedom.”
Here, as with so many of Bush’s accusations in the “war on terror,”
the hypocrisy is off the charts. Even setting aside who’s calling who
“election cheaters” and “implementers of domestic repression,” which
country is it that is right now in possession of over 10,000 nuclear warheads? And the U.S.–not
Iran–has declared its right to attack anyone, anywhere with those
weapons, with Bush himself having his finger on what he calls the
“nu-cu-lar” trigger.
And in the Middle East, acting as a U.S. enforcer, Israel’s nuclear
weapons arsenal is the world’s worst kept secret. Estimates by the
Natural Resources Defense Council and the Federation of American
Scientists put the number of nuclear weapons in Israel’s hands in the
range of 300-400.
Iran in the Crosshairs of the Ever-Expanding “War on Terror”
One year ago, writer Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker Magazine
(1/24/05) that a former high-level intelligence official told him,
“This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The
Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone.” And the
former high-level official told Hersh, “Next, we’re going to have the
Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they
are, are the enemy.”
As we have continually pointed out, the so-called “war on terror” is
in fact a war for unchallenged U.S. domination of the planet, even
while it takes the form, now, of targeting Islamic fundamentalist
forces, and is focused on the Middle East. A key element of this is to
lock down strategic control of the main source of world oil. In
addition, Bush and his inner circle have identified the potential and
need to radically tear up the status quo in the region to create more
stable and reliable conditions for more brutal and efficient
exploitation of the people and resources (this being the essence of
Bush’s calls for bringing U.S.-managed democracy to the Middle East).
Over the past few years, U.S. moves in the region have been been
challenged not only by Islamic fundamentalist forces, but also in the
form of complex contention with European powers like France, Russia,
and also China. This contention was the main reason why the U.S. could
not get the UN to endorse its war on Iraq.
Within this mix, Iran is a big factor. Iran is a large nation–three
times as populous as Iraq. High oil prices have provided its rulers
with cash to build up some elements of a national infrastructure, and
the regime–while widely hated–has a social base, and might well be
able to mobilize even sections of people who oppose it within the
country in the event of an attack by Israel or the U.S.
In the 1970s, Iranians were oppressed by a brutal pro-U.S. dictator,
the Shah, who was promoted by Jimmy Carter as a model of “Human
Rights.” During that time, Iran served as a second pillar (along with
Israel) of U.S. domination in the Middle East. A nuclear-armed Iran
would be a major factor in the balance of power in the region, looming
over U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia, and even having the potential to
challenge Israel’s monopoly of nuclear terror in the region. That
potential poses a problem for the U.S. agenda in the Middle East, to
say the least!
The European governments have maneuvered in this mix by pushing for
inspections by international agencies, while the U.S.–as one might
guess–is itching to enforce gangster law in gangster style, and even
with gangster rhetoric. In his New Yorker piece last year, Seymour
Hersh quoted a senior official of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (I.A.E.A.) saying: “The neocons say negotiations are a bad
deal…. And the only thing the Iranians understand is pressure. And
that they also need to be whacked.”
Iran Breaks the Seal
Why did Iran move now to break off its agreement with the European
powers by unsealing nuclear byproducts that they had previously agreed
not to access? Iranian authorities contend that they need to do this to
develop the technology to manage their nuclear facilities, instead of
relying on Russia and others as they currently do. But it is also the
case that access to these nuclear power byproducts is a component of
developing nuclear weapon technology and expertise. Iran’s rulers might
feel that if a showdown must come, then sooner–while the U.S. is so
bogged down in Iraq–would be better than later for them.
As Iran cut the inspection seals, Condoleezza Rice jumped on the
phone to line up representatives of European powers and Russia, who are
reportedly close to joining the U.S. to bring charges against Iran
before the UN Security Council–a move disturbingly reminiscent of the
way the U.S. attempted to align other world powers to support their
invasion of Iraq.
One factor pushing the U.S. towards a clash with Iran is the way
that the rise of Iran intersects the situation in Iraq. The U.S.’s goal
is an Iraq that is thoroughly under U.S. domination but with enough
stability and internal cohesion to act as a counterweight to Iran and
something of a base area for the U.S. in the region. To say that this
is not going well for them is an understatement. The scope and ferocity
of resistance has compelled the U.S. to rely on and unleash Shi’a
fundamentalist militias. These militias, and the puppet Iraqi army in
which they play a major role, have a dual nature. They are working
under U.S. sponsorship to carry out attacks on Sunni forces opposed to
U.S. occupation. But they also have ties to the Shi’a theocratic regime
in Iran.
Within the bigger context of conflict between the U.S.’s wild
ambitions in the Middle East and the rise of Iran, the increasing
influence of Iran in Iraq is a factor tending to push Bush to up the
ante, roll Iran and Iraq into a big ball, and try to settle the whole
situation decisively with an attack on Iran.
Holding… and Playing? The Israel Card
One form that attack might take is for the U.S. to set its regional
attack dog, Israel, against Iran. Last year the British newspaper The
Times reported that “Israel has drawn up secret plans for a combined
air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy fails to halt the
Iranian nuclear programme.” The Times reported that “The inner cabinet
of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave ‘initial
authorization’ for an attack at a private meeting last month on his
ranch in the Negev desert.” That story also reported that Israeli
forces used a mock-up of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the
desert to practice destroying it through a combination of attacks by
Israel’s Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets
using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.
Right after Bush’s second term began, Vice President Dick Cheney
give Israel a public “wink and nod” to attack Iran. In an interview on
MSNBC (Jan, 2005), he said: “One of the concerns people have is that
Israel might do it [attack Iran] without being asked… Given the fact
that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction
of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the
rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess
afterwards,”
Deciphering this statement, former National Security Adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski told PBS that Cheney “in fact used language which
sounds like a justification or even an encouragement for the Israelis
to do it.”
A Wild Mix of Contradictions
There are obvious dangers for the U.S. in an attack on Iran, even in
the form of an Israeli air strike. Iran has many options for
responding, and is a much larger, stronger country with a much more
powerful military than Iraq was on the eve of the U.S. invasion. And
Iran, along with forces it influences in the region, could strike at
U.S. forces in Iraq. Congressman John Murtha has been loudly raising
the alarm that the U.S. military in Iraq is ‘broken.” Some commentators
have speculated that the emerging calls for impeachment [see “The âI’ Word Surfaces: New Openings and New Challenges,”
Revolution #30] are linked to forces in the power structure who are
getting nervous about the emerging danger of war with Iran.
Overwhelmingly though, “opposition” voices in Congress and in the
Democratic Party argue that even though Iraq was a “mistake,” we have
to “stay the course.” This so-called opposition is within, and accepts
an imperialist framework that cannot allow the U.S. to “lose” Iraq,
much less allow the emergence of Iran as a regional power, let alone a
regional nuclear power, that could tilt the balance of forces in this
region.
In any event, the noise emanating from the halls of power indicates
that the “Iran hawks” are at the wheel. Nobody can predict exactly how
this will turn out, but a course is being set towards some form of U.S.
attack on Iran, with the potential to unleash great suffering,
destruction, and chaos in the region. Any moves by the U.S. against
Iran must be opposed by people in the U.S. They are driven neither by a
“war on terror,” nor by a desire to prevent nuclear war, but by a
frenzy to expand empire.
It is also important that the Iranian people, suffering under the
oppressive rule of theocratic Mullahs, see a powerful movement to drive
out Bush, making clear that Bush and his crew do not speak for the people in this country. That we do not accept
and will not go along with this “war on terror” and instead we oppose
“our own” regime. Such a movement will make a statement to the people
of Iran that huge numbers of people in this country are opposed to
Bush, and that terms of this conflict are not “Islam versus the Great
Satan.” No! Neither side in this conflict can be allowed to impose
those terms as the only options in this situation.
In this context, opposing U.S. aggression against Iran helps create
better conditions for progressive forces, including communist
revolutionaries in Iran, to unite with the anger of the people in Iran
towards the fundamentalist Mullahs, and their anger at U.S. imperialism, and lead that anger in a genuinely revolutionary direction.
Nuclear Hypocrisy
Enforcement of nuclear power development rules is about as consistent
as foul-calling in the NBA, or refereeing in pro wrestling. Pakistan
and India, for example, have not even signed international nuclear
development treaties, and they both receive ongoing assistance in their
nuclear technology development from the U.S. A World To Win News
Service (10/31/05) exposed that that “Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh visited Washington in July [2005] and signed a “strategic
partnership” agreement with the U.S.. In this context, President George
W. Bush promised India access to American nuclear technology. In
return, Singh agreed that India would support the U.S. against Iran at
the UN.” That same article pointed to the hypocrisy in in the U.S.
policy towards Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program: “UN weapons
inspectors had found traces of enriched uranium [used for making
nuclear weapons] on nuclear centrifuges Iran had bought second-hand.
The regime claimed it had not used them to obtain the advanced levels
of enrichment necessary for making weapons. For many months the U.S.
used this as its main argument why Iran should be punished. But it
turned out that the traces on the centrifuges came from Pakistan’s use
of them to make enriched uranium for bombs before they sold the
centrifuges to Iran. Instead of criticizing Pakistan for doing what the
U.S. forbids Iran to do, the U.S. dropped the whole matter. Pakistan’s
Islamic military dictatorship is now also an important American ally,
along with its rival India–and while the U.S. has always encouraged
that rivalry to facilitate its domination of both countries, the U.S.
intends to keep both regimes in its pocket.”