News
Analysis
On the Situation in Iran
Iran held presidential elections on June
12, with incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
running against three other candidates, including Mir-Hossein
Mousavi, the former prime minister. Opinion polls
conducted by an American polling agency three weeks prior to the election
predicted that Ahmadinejad would win with a
two-thirds majority. The day after the elections the Iranian electoral board
announced that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won the election
with 63 percent of the votes cast. Mr. Mousavi contested
the results, claiming widespread fraud. His claims were echoed by the European
Union, Britain and a number of other governments, as well as by most western
news agencies.
Almost immediately after the vote was
announced, pro-Mousavi protests broke out in Tehran
and other major Iranian cities and continued for several weeks. Many of the
protests were violently attacked by the police and between 30 and 70 people
were killed. Many opposition politicians have been arrested and charged with
instigating the protests. Most western governments have condemned the
suppression of the protesters by the Iranian state, while the most reactionary
circles in the U.S. and Israel have used the violence as an excuse to renew
calls for the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities. The Iranian government
accuses the U.S. and other western governments of interference in Iranian
affairs and of complicity in organizing the protests.
The progressive forces are divided on
the issue of whether to support the protests or not. Some cite the anti-U.S.
positions of the Iranian government and prior U.S. and European involvement in
so-called “colour” revolutions as reasons to oppose
the protests and support the Iranian state. Others claim that the protests
represent the desire of the Iranian people for democracy and deserve support
regardless of the fact that the U.S. and others are trying to use the situation
to destabilize Iran and install a regime more favourable
to the West.
Of course, any person of conscience must
condemn the deadly violence used by the Iranian state against its people. However,
the situation is much more complex than the way it is presented by those
demanding that everyone should line up behind one side or the other. First,
while the government of Iran since the revolution of 1979 has taken consistent
stands against the interference of U.S. imperialism in its internal affairs, it
cannot be said that it has taken consistent anti-imperialist stands. For
example, it supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It would be more accurate to
describe the stands taken by Iran as nationalistic stands connected with its
own desire to establish itself as a regional power within the imperialist
system of states. This does not mean that Iran’s defence
of its own national sovereignty is worthless or reactionary, only that it must
be assessed within the proper context; it does not automatically make Iran a
force for human progress.
By the same token, the claims by the
opposition leaders and their supporters at home and abroad that they stand for
democracy must also be viewed with a skeptical eye. Of course the people of
Iran, like people everywhere, aspire for democracy. However, the opposition
leaders are all members of the ruling clerical elite. In fact, all candidates
for the presidency had to be approved by the Guardian Council and numerous
candidates were disqualified from running because they did not meet that body’s
criteria. So, whatever contradictions exist between Ahmadinejad
and the opposition leaders are contradictions within the ruling elite and both
sides are trying to mobilize sections of the Iranian people behind themselves. Those
contradictions include what attitude to take towards relations with the West,
as well as what attitude to take towards the Iranian people. Some of those
opposition leaders, including former president Hashemi
Rafsanjani, are extremely wealthy and have an interest in increasing trade with
the West. They also oppose the populist politics of Ahmadinejad
who has increased his popular support by distributing some of Iran’s oil wealth
amongst the lower economic strata of Iranian society. Some point to this to
suggest that Ahmadinejad is some kind of closet
socialist and compare him to Hugo Chavez. Yet he continues to enjoy the
unwavering support of the most powerful of Iran’s mullahs, so clearly his “socialist”
tendencies serve the long-term interests of the Iranian ruling class and not
the interests of the working class and people.
There is a problem with the kind of
thinking that says that anyone who opposes U.S. imperialism is progressive and
deserves support, just as there is a problem with the kind of thinking that
says that anyone who opposes the interests of the U.S. is anti-democratic and
pro-terrorist. This kind of black-and-white thinking is a holdover of the Cold
War mentality “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. It is this kind of thinking
that has put the progressive forces in its current dilemma regarding what stand
to take towards Iran and the Iranian elections. On the one hand there is the
“anti-imperialist” and “pro-worker” Ahmadinejad whose
state is clubbing and killing protestors. On the other hand are the
“pro-democracy” opposition leaders who are calling for fair elections and
“human rights”, but aligning themselves with the West and opposing Ahmadinejad’s “share the wealth” domestic policies.
Furthermore, in the past, they too used the Iranian state to brutalize and kill
those who disagreed with the policies of the regime.
Apart from those involved in the
conflict in Iran, the main pressure to take sides in this dispute comes from
various Western governments and the Western news media, which have an ongoing
campaign to weaken and destabilize Iran. The pressure does not come from the
Iranian working class and people whose struggles alone can bring democracy and
progress to Iran. Unfortunately, due to a number of factors, not the least of
which was the devastating Iran-Iraq war unleashed on the people of Iran and
Iraq by the imperialists and their agents, the Iranian working class is
temporarily weakened and unable to lead the struggle for democracy. Some
organizations claiming to speak on behalf of the Iranian working class have
used this weakness as an excuse to call for foreign (i.e. U.S.) military
intervention to overthrow the current regime, effectively putting them on the
same side as the U.S. and Israel.
One Iranian organization pointed out
that both Ahmadinejad and the opposition leaders
represented the interests of the ruling elite and called on the Iranian people
to oppose both sides. From the point of view of the working class, this is
undoubtedly a correct position to take within the country,
however, the progressive forces outside Iran cannot simply condemn everything
done by both sides without effectively allying with one or another imperialist
power in the process. The issue for us is to support those stands of the
Iranian government which tend to strengthen the international struggle against
imperialism and oppose those stands which tend to weaken that struggle. There
is also an issue that progressive people everywhere should support countries,
such as Iran, against big power bullying, regardless of whether or not we agree
with the ideology or internal policies of those countries. But it is neither
necessary nor wise to take sides in a domestic dispute that reflects
contradictions within the ruling class, particularly when the working class
stands to gain nothing from the victory of either side. Our support is for the working
class and people of Iran against the machinations of the U.S. and other
imperialist powers, as well as against the reactionary and anti-democratic rule
of the Iranian ruling class. In 1979 the Iranian working class and people
overthrew one of the most powerful U.S.-backed dictatorships in the world. We
are quite confident that, when the conditions are right, they will repeat that
feat and establish a genuine democracy in Iran through their own struggles.