 Anti-imperialist Iran
From the day that the Iranian people overthrew the regime of US imperialism's most beloved puppet, the Shah, the US has maintained a stand of unrelenting aggressive hostility towards the Iranian regime, even through the past decade, in which Iranian foreign policy has been characterised by a policy of efforts to mend its relations with imperialism.
Nothing Iran did, however, prevented the US from designating Iran a part of the 'axis of evil'; that is to say, a country where the US proclaimed itself to have the right to use 'pre-emptive strikes' to bring about regime change.
This is why today the US is trying, through the UN Security Council and threatened sanctions, to prevent Iran developing its nuclear industry, since an Iranian nuclear industry could be a precursor of Iran having the ability to develop nuclear weapons to act as a deterrent to such 'pre-emptive strikes'.
With the election of Ahmadinejad as the new president of Iran, the Iranian policy of appeasement has come firmly to a close. The national aspirations of the Iranian people have come to the fore once more, and these are aspirations that can only be met at the expense of imperialism.
The signs are that, in Ahmadinejad, the Iranian people have elected a president who is going to be prepared to lead them in a fight for their rights, and in particular in a struggle to ensure that Iran's massive oil profits are used for the development of the Iranian economy, rather than for the enrichment of imperialist multinational companies.
Defending independence
Aware, however, that such ambitions make his regime very evil indeed in the eyes of the imperialist governments, Ahmadinejad has no choice but to look to his defences.
From the moment of his election he made it clear that Iran was going to restart its nuclear programme, as is its perfect right in international law to do.
Not only do the imperialists wish unlawfully to curtail the independent development of nuclear energy technology by Iran, but they are also fearful that future attempts at bullying Iran could be met by Iran departing from its peaceful nuclear programme to develop a nuclear deterrent, which would be a serious impediment to an imperialist attack on Iran, should the imperialists consider such an attack necessary.
As a result, the imperialists have been seriously examining the possibility of either invading Iran or launching a strike, maybe even a nuclear strike, against its nuclear facilities. Indeed, Israel has recently been provided with bunker busting bombs by the US, and it is difficult to see that they can have any other purpose than attacking Iran.
If, however, in their desperate pursuit of profit, the imperialists do commit to the madness of attacking Iran, they will certainly live to regret it, even as today they regret embarking on their mad adventure against Iraq. The imperialist forces are too overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan to make the invasion of Iran for the purposes of regime change a wise choice from the imperialist point of view.
Furthermore, strife in the region has already diminished world oil supplies, leading to record oil prices, and any measures taken against Iran could only make matters infinitely worse. The imperialist world needs Iran's oil, as a result of which, the UN Security Council would not even be able to impose sanctions on Iran without shooting its imperialist supplicants in the foot.
War still possible
If the imperialists cannot defeat the Iraqis, they will certainly not be able to win a war against Iran, which has a population three times the size, aflame with anti-imperialist fervour.
Any war launched by imperialism would lead to imperialism's ignominious defeat, but at the cost of millions of lives and livelihoods. Even so, with the bourgeoisie split right down the middle on the question of a military strike against Iran, it is impossible to predict whether it will take place or not.
Imperialism is damned whatever it does. If it allows Iran to develop a nuclear deterrent, it will lose its power to control Iran through military threats. It could wait to see if the Iran leadership loses its popular support and it is able to persuade Iranians that submission to unbridled imperialist superexploitation is the only solution to their problems, but that will take time and, besides, there is no certainty of the intended outcome being reached.
If it tries to intervene militarily to stop Iran developing a nuclear deterrent, such a course carries with it incalculable risks and might end up by setting the entire Middle East aflame with fires that could turn into a gigantic crematorium for the invaders.
The proletarian viewpoint
The working class in this country needs to look exclusively to its own class interests. It opposes war against Iran, as against Iraq, not least because it is the working class and the oppressed people who are the cannon fodder.
Failure on the part of the working class to oppose such a predatory imperialist war would simply make the proletariat an accomplice of its 'own' ruling class, when it should instead be joining in a common front with the oppressed peoples of the world against the British imperialists who oppress them all.
While opposing all such wars, the proletariat needs to concentrate all its forces on the destruction of capitalism at home and expropriate the blood-sucking imperialist bourgeoisie. That is the surest guarantee of meaningful prosperity for the working class.
If our bourgeoisie was expropriated by the working class, and all means of production were as a result put to work to produce for the purpose of meeting the needs of the working people, the working class in this country would be far better off than it is now, even though imperialist superprofits enable even working-class people in this country to enjoy a higher standard of living than they would have if they were living and working in oppressed countries.
The British working class therefore has no objective long-term interest in imperialist wars, and no interest in perpetuating the superexploitation of the working masses of other countries.
Our duty is clear: to oppose all and any imperialist wars, including any war that might break out against Iran, and to support wholeheartedly and without reservation the resistance of oppressed peoples, including the people of Iran, against imperialist aggression. |
