By Larry Everest, Revolution #78, February 11, 2007
The Bush regime is “surging”-escalating-in Iraq.
And it’s launched an even more ominous escalation toward Iran that
may lead to military attacks-or all-out war. There are increasing
reports in both the bourgeois and the alternative press that war preparations
are underway and that the U.S. and/or Israel could attack Iran within
the next several months. This follows last year’s revelations by
journalist Seymour Hersh that the Bush administration was engaged in military
planning for war on Iran, possibly including bunker-buster tactical nuclear
weapons.
In the past several weeks, following Bush’s January 10 escalation
speech (see “Bush’s
New Plan: More Troops, More Death, More-and Wider-War,”)
and amplified in his January 23 State of the Union address, the U.S. has
both increased its combat forces in Iraq and rapidly ramped up its military
preparations, political and economic pressure, and propaganda offensive
against Iran.
* The U.S. dispatched a second aircraft carrier battle group to the Persian
Gulf, equaling the number in the Gulf during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Anti-missile Patriot missile batteries are also being deployed in the
region to protect U.S. allies against possible Iranian retaliatory strikes.
* The U.S. has shaken up its military command and for the first time
put an Admiral, William J. Fallon in charge of Centcom. Centcom commands
all U.S. forces in the Europe-Middle East region. Coming at a time when
the U.S. is fighting two ground wars-in Iraq and Afghanistan-this
move is widely understood as signaling a naval and air assault on Iran.
* The U.S. imperialists tightened the economic vice on Iran by pressuring
international banks and financial institutions to stop lending it money.
Using its ally, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. has pushed down the price of oil
from $77 to $50 a barrel, significantly cutting into the oil revenues
Iran’s government and economy depend on.
* The Bush regime has launched a full-court propaganda offensive against
Iran reminiscent of the deluge of lies which preceded the Iraq war. The
U.S. and Israel continue to claim that Iran is actively pursuing and close
to building nuclear weapons. The Bush crew has produced no proof to back
up this claim, and most weapons experts insist it will be at least a decade
before Iran could build a nuclear weapon-if it is indeed pursuing
them. Britain’s Observer (1/28) reports that “Iran’s
efforts to produce highly enriched uranium, the material used to make
nuclear bombs [and fuel nuclear reactors], are in chaos and the country
is still years from mastering the required technology.”
In his State of the Union address, Bush stated: “It has also become
clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who”take
direction from the regime in Iran. The Shia and Sunni extremists are different
faces of the same totalitarian threat.” This brings Iran back into
the sights of Bush’s ideological “holy war.”
In his January 10 speech, Bush claimed, “Iran is providing material
support for attacks on American troops,” and since then one official
after another has repeated this charge-although none has provided
a shred of evidence. Even bourgeois media outlets (L.A. Times, 1/23) report: “Scant evidence found of Iran-Iraq arms link.”
The charge is exercise of naked lying and contorted logic: “some
99 percent of all attacks on U.S. troops occur in Sunni Arab areas and
are carried out by Baathist or Sunni fundamentalist (Salafi) guerrilla
groups,” Professor Juan Cole points out. “If Iran is providing
materiel to anyone, it is to U.S. [Shi”ite] allies.”
* Hours before Bush’s January 10 speech, the U.S. staged a provocative
raid and arrested a number of Iranians in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.
It turns out they were officials invited by the Iraqi government, yet
some are still being held.
* Bush also issued shoot-to-kill orders against Iranians “trying
to harm our troops, or stop us from achieving our goal, or killing innocent
citizens in Iraq.” There are thousands of Iranians in Iraq at any
given time-religious pilgrims, businessmen, diplomats, people with
relatives in Iraq-and the rationale of shooting Iranians for stopping
the U.S. “from achieving our goal” is so broad it could make
any of them a target-and serve as a tripwire or pretext for an attack
on Iran.
Deeper Difficulties, Growing Necessity
Overthrowing the Islamic Republic of Iran has been a U.S. strategic objective
since Bush labeled Iran a member of the “axis of evil” in
2002. It’s considered a key component of the Bush post-9/11 global
strategy of radically reshaping the world, beginning in the Middle East-Central
Asian region, in order to solidify the U.S.’s position as the world’s
sole imperialist superpower, an unchallenged and unchallengeable empire.
In particular, regime change in Iran is viewed as crucial to striking
a decisive blow against anti-U.S. Islamic fundamentalism, which has emerged
as the main obstacle to U.S. designs.
This is why Bush’s 2006 National Security Strategy refers
to Iran 16 times and states: “We may face no greater challenge from
a single country than from Iran.”
The urgency of taking action against Iran has been heightened by the
ways in which the U.S. war has backfired. The invasion of Iraq was designed-in
part-to pave the way for weakening, and perhaps toppling, Iran’s
government. Instead, it removed one of Iran’s main enemies in Saddam
Hussein (after another of Iran’s adversaries, Afghanistan’s
Taliban, was also driven from power by the U.S.). The U.S. has been forced
to rely on Iraq’s pro-Iranian Shia parties to try to rule and stabilize
the country. Overall, the U.S.’s gathering debacle in Iraq has weakened
U.S. influence, fueled the spread of Islamist trends, and bolstered Iran’s
regional influence. If Iran ever gained nuclear weapons the regional equation
would shift further in its favor, whether it used them or not.
Over the summer of 2006, all this became more pronounced (especially
after Israel’s war on Lebanon which failed to dislodge or weaken
Hezbollah). U.S. officials reportedly decided, according to the Washington
Post (1/26), that “a more confrontational approach was necessary,
as Iran’s regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared
to be failing.” The U.S. began trying to forge an anti-Iran alliance
with Israel and reactionary Sunni Arab states aimed at rolling back Iran’s
influence in Iraq and the region, and taking aggressive action against
Iran itself.
The need here to “escape forward” through the growing contradictions
the U.S. is facing is also driven by the U.S.’s need to stay on
the offensive, and maintain the momentum of its overall global agenda
and the power of the Bush cabal, or risk having the whole high-stakes
gamble unravel or derail-including possibly by growing divisions
in the ruling class itself and/or growing resistance by the people.
Bush and other officials claim “we are not planning for war with
Iran,” and that their military buildup is only aimed at giving them
diplomatic leverage. But, as we saw with the invasion of Iraq, claiming
to want peace and going through the motions of diplomacy are also needed
to try and blame the other side for starting the battle. So they”re
an essential part of imperialist war preparations.
The Paralysis of the Democrats and the Urgency of Mass Resistance
In the face of this rapid and threatening escalation, the Democrats approved
Bush’s new war cabinet, while proposing a nonbinding resolution
criticizing Bush’s troop surge (not the war as a whole). After a
compromise with Republican Senator John Warner, the resolution now specifically
opposes cutting off war funding, which is one of the few ways Congress
could stop Bush. (And Bush will soon be asking for another $100 billion
for the Iraq war, on top of the $380 billion Congress has previously approved.)
Some Democrats have also introduced, again, nonbinding resolutions against
war on Iran. Others demand that they be consulted. “We do not
want to see precipitous actions that have not been thought through, have
not been discussed, have not been authorized,” said Senator Barack
Obama.
Meanwhile, leading Democratic Presidential candidates are amplifying
the drumbeat of war against Iran. Hillary Clinton recently told a pro-Israel
audience that Iran must not be allowed to have nukes and “no option
can be taken off the table.” And listen to the “anti (Iraq)
war” candidate John Edwards speaking to a similar audience: “At
the top of these threats is Iran”To ensure that Iran never gets
nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table. Let me reiterate
– all options.”
(There is speculation that Bush may encourage Israel to attack Iran first
to further undercut any Democratic opposition and to sell the war as the
“defense” of a crucial ally.)
These aren’t the actions of a party with no “spine.”
They”re the actions of an imperialist party just as concerned about
maintaining U.S. global power and domestic political stability as Bush
is, even as they worry that Bush is driving the whole system off a precipice.
These interests defended by the Democrats are imperialist interests;
they are not the interests of the vast majority of people in this country,
let alone around the world, who have no stake in the U.S. war against
Iraq and now its threatened invasion of Iran-but who do
have a stake in fighting for a more equitable and just world.
All this speaks to the urgent need for a force of mass resistance to
emerge, now, not beholden to the politics of global domination and empire,
capable of resolutely opposing America’s ongoing-and escalating-criminal
wars of aggression.