Workers Resistance

Category: Iran

  • AAWL Public Meeting: Free Our Comrades!

    Labour movement activists organise against exploitation every day. In every country, workers are discouraged from demanding their rights by capitalists and governments. This pressure can be applied in many ways, either via fines, dismissals, beatings, rapes or even murder. Many activists end up in jail because of their organising activities. How can we organise internationally so that our campaigns to free our jailed brothers and sisters can become more powerful? One such comrade is Reza Shahabi, leader of a bus workers union in Tehran, who is currently on hunger strike.

    Public meeting
    6.00 pm Wednesday the 2nd of July,
    Trades Hall, Melbourne Victoria

  • PFLP: Iran agreement is a counterweight to advocates of aggression, war and occupation

    Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Nov. 25 statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

    The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine welcomes the agreement on the Iranian nuclear file, and views it as a step in support of security and stability in the region, countering the advocates of occupation, war and aggression.

    The essence of the conflict of the region is the Palestinian cause and the Arab-Zionist conflict, despite the efforts of the occupation and its supporters to replace these fundamental conflicts with the so-called “Iranian nuclear file” and the “Sunni-Shiite conflict.” There have been many attempts to blur this reality and to block the struggle for the Palestinian rights to return, self-determination, independence, and our capital in Jerusalem.

    The Front notes that this agreement confirms that resilience and rejection of imperialism and Zionism is the only way to protect legitimate rights and interests and to open the door before the solidarity and mutual progress of the people of the region, their freedom, development, justice and human dignity.

  • Imperialism and War: Syria and the Middle East

    Fight Back News Service is circulating the following speech given by Joe Iosbaker to the Sept. 29 Chicago conference against drone warfare. Iosbaker, a member of the Chicago Anti-War Committee, was one of the main organizers of the massive march on the NATO Summit. He is also one of the anti-war and international solidarity activist raided by the FBI in 2010. 

    Introduction 

    At the start of this month, the whole world was tense as the U.S. proclaimed it was going to start missile strikes against Syria. It seemed likely that the U.S. wouldn’t stop after a few days of war, but would continue to attack Syria and cause as many deaths as the puppet FSA [Free Syrian Army] had caused in two and a half years.

    Then Russia proposed a diplomatic solution to take Syria’s chemical weapons and, to the surprise of all, President Obama accepted it. 

    But then John Kerry said that the U.S. would only go along with putting Syrian’s weapons under international control if there was the threat of force in a UN resolution. Then this Friday, the U.S. had to back down on that in the United Nations Security Council resolution on eliminating Syrian chemical weapons. They had to drop the threat of force if Syria doesn’t comply.

    Stepping back, we can see that for two and a half years, the U.S. has funded and directed forces to intervene, with the Gulf Cooperation Council, NATO and Israel playing roles; on the other hand, the U.S. has refused direct military action [such as]bombing, invasion. 

    What explains this contradiction? Why couldn’t the U.S., the most powerful military might on earth, carry out war on this small nation?

    There other developments about the U.S. intervention in Syria that seem contradictory:

    The U.S. has spent two and a half years funding and helping to direct an armed attack on the Syria’s government and the people of Syria. They intervened during the Arab Spring, the moment there was a mass protest movement there against unpopular policies of opening the economy to investment and then the resulting austerity measures.

    They armed the only forces they found, including forces aligned with the Salafist movement, Al Nusra Front and other Al Qaeda linked groups.

    On Sept. 26, we learned that the most significant of the ‘moderate’ armies fighting the Syrian government have quit the U.S. puppet FSA and joined forces with Al Nusra. They have called for an Islamic front, instead. 

    But in the Sept. 26 issue of Foreign Policy magazine, the most influential publication on the topic in D.C., they put out that they think Assad will go and be replaced by former Defense Minister, Ali Habib. The article reflects thinking in the White House about how to resolve the Syrian conflict, as well as the worries in Washington and Israel that the sectarian, foreign-led and dominated armies aligned with Al Qaeda would come to power if the U.S./Israel succeed in forcing out Assad. 

    How come the U.S. says that its main mission on earth is to fight Al Qaeda, but then it arms Al Qaeda against countries that have never attacked the U.S. Isn’t this a contradiction, too?

    Let’s answer that by looking at some general questions: What is the status of U.S. power in the world today? What factors is the U.S. dealing with? And what determines U.S. policy in a particular country?

    U.S. is weaker and there’s a rising trend toward independence from their control

    The world has changed since the days after 9/11. The camp of resistance is growing and U.S. influence is in decline. 

    The economic crisis gets part of the credit for that. Although the capitalists don’t suffer like we do when there’s a crisis, it has weakened the power and prestige of the rich countries and the corporations.

    But even before that, Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the Cheney/Rumsfeld plan to go after “Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan” had all been an effort by the U.S. to turn back the hands of time, to put the U.S. back on top of the world they had ruled in the 1950s and 1960s.

    The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ended in defeat and stalemate. One clear consequence: the U.S. can’t use the method of massive invasions any more.

    And the role of Russia in the struggle over Syria shows that the U.S. has to deal with rising powers, like the BRIC nations. Russia and China made it clear the U.S. wouldn’t get a United Nations Security Council vote for this war.

    The people of the U.S., Britain and the other members of the NATO are sick of war and they’re sick of being lied to. When the U.S. upped the ante on Syria, things came to a head. President Obama found himself isolated on the world stage and domestically.

    So the sudden changes in U.S. plans around Syria are a result of contradictions: first, the U.S. puppet army is losing to Syria’s army and militia; second, there’s a contradiction between the U.S. and Russia, which is no longer standing aside while the U.S. wages war; and third there’s a contradiction between the U.S. and it’s NATO allied governments and the peoples of those countries.

    U.S. objectives remain

    Of course, the changes in military form haven’t changed the underlying content of U.S. objectives: this place is an empire. The rulers want cheap labor and control of natural resources in other lands. They are like vampires – they have to have it.

    On the one hand, the U.S. is weaker and unable to get what they want; on the other hand, they are compelled to keep trying. Rumsfeld’s vision of invading Syria is gone, at least for now. 

    But the arming of Al Qaeda armies is not a contradiction. U.S. imperialism will back whoever and whatever serves its interests. In one country, Al Qaeda linked is the worst threat to humanity; in the next country, they are recipients of arms and intelligence to fight a government that the U.S. has determined must go.

    New focus on Iran

    These losses have made the U.S. focus more on Iran. A new president in Iran doesn’t change that. The U.S. has adopted the stand toward Iran that they won’t accept an independent power in the Middle East. Syria is aligned with Iran, and so the fate of the two countries is tied together in the view of the empire.

    The Arab Spring: A threat, then an opportunity

    But right now the U.S. can’t handle a war of a similar or greater scale than Iraq. That’s why the U.S. was both anxious and excited by the Arab Spring. They used the dissatisfaction throughout the region, which was aimed squarely at U.S. puppets in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, to go after governments with a history of independence from the U.S.: Libya and Syria. The U.S. maneuvered to take control of the situation and develop contradictions in their favor in Libya. With the success of their operation there, they felt they were in a much better position step up their attempts to topple the government of Syria.

    As in Libya, they offered support to the Islamists, even though supporting them in Libya resulted in ‘blowback,’ in the attacks on Western oil installation in Algeria and the U.S. embassy. 

    Summation

    The U.S. seems to be acting in a contradictory way in Syria, but something unites their decisions in every action they take: is it in the interests of U.S. imperialism?

    They want to go to war with Syria and Iran, but they don’t have the support or the resources for an invasion. 

    They want to bomb Syria, but they can’t get support at home or in Britain and more countries are standing up to them.

    They are willing to back any force against Assad, even though they worry about Israel, for example,being attacked by the mercenary armies they have created.

    New Tactics

    Invasions aren’t popular, and the U.S. can’t rely on an Arab Spring to emerge everywhere.

    If you can’t invade, how does an empire achieve its objectives of punishing independent people or rebellious populations? The answers: proxy armies, drone warfare and special operations. Proxy armies are being used in Syria and before that Libya. Drone warfare first emerged in use against Pakistan, because the Pashtun people that have been the main base of the national resistance live on both sides of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. The Obama administration then has taken the technology to Yemen, Somalia, Mali and Iran. We know that they intend to use it even more in the future because one growth area in the Pentagon’s otherwise shrinking budget is the budget for drones.

    Conclusion

    In our work against U.S. wars, we have to stand against threats to arm puppet armies; to assassinate or back coups; to carry out bombing and missile attacks; and we have to oppose drone warfare, as it is the most popular form of their undeclared wars.

  • Going to Tehran: A must-read for anti-war activists

    The dogs of war in the U.S. media bark and, in true Don Quixote fashion, it’s a sign that authors Hillary and Flynt Leverett are on the move. In their electrifying new book, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the former National Security Council experts – who were forced out of their positions for their opposition to Washington’s war-mongering and occupation – take on the growing myths told by the U.S. government about Iran.

    Liberals, conservatives and centrists in the U.S. media hysterically attacked Going to Tehran as soon as it came out. The Wall Street Journal derided the Leveretts as “Washington’s most outspoken defenders of the mullahs,” in a particularly nasty hit-piece called “I Heart Khomenei.” Laura Secor of the New York Times called the book “one-sided” and a “mirror image” of the anti-Iran propaganda churned out by the U.S. government. Foreign Affairs claims they “overargue” their case for ending U.S. hostilities. The Weekly Standard accused them of “paranoid dogmatism,” and The New Republic called the book “an act of ventriloquism,” presumably with the Iranian government as the puppet master.

    When I see a book receive universal condemnation from the corporate-owned media, I take it as a sign that I need to read it. And ultimately every anti-war activist in the U.S. owes it to the people of Iran to check out this well-researched, persuasive and highly readable case against war with Iran. After all, we live in a country where Argo, a ludicrous xenophobic hit-piece on the Iranian Revolution, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 2012 Oscars. As the Leveretts show in their book, the U.S. government and the corporate media work hand-in-glove to dominate the narrative on Iran, telling and repeating all sorts of myths and falsehoods to build the case for war against a large, independent, oil-producing country in the Middle East. Going to Tehran sets the record straight.

    The book focuses on dispelling three elements of the U.S. mythology around Iran, breaking each into three-chapter parts. First, it challenges the myth that Iran is an irrational state “incapable of thinking about its foreign policy interests,” arguing instead that the Islamic Republic is incredibly rational in its fight for survival as a revolutionary state in a region historically dominated by U.S. imperialism and Israeli militarism. Second, it unravels the myth of Iran as an illegitimate state, by showing the overwhelming popularity of the Iranian government and refuting the unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud in 2009. Finally, it challenges the myth that the U.S. can – or should – topple Iran through sanctions, diplomatic isolation and the threat of war.

    The Iranian Revolution was a strike against imperialism

    The Leveretts devote a serious chunk of their book to tracing the roots and trajectory of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and detailing the history of U.S., Israeli and Iraqi aggression against the Islamic Republic. They contextualize Ayatollah Khomenei’s Shi’a Islam, which strongly focused on social justice and anti-imperialism, and they detail the Iranian people’s history of resistance to the brutal U.S.-backed Shah monarchy. Khomenei’s thought and popularity casts a long shadow, even into Iranian society today, and the Leveretts give him appropriate treatment. Agree or disagree with their analysis, you have to admit that it’s a far cry from the cynical chauvinism of most Western commentators, who paint a crude (and often racist) caricature of the leading figure in Iran’s revolution.

    Equally important is their handling of the Iran-Iraq War – called the ‘imposed war’ by Iranians. In that war, then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched a U.S.-backed war of aggression against Iran. The Iranian people, inspired by the revolution’s promise of self-determination, sacrificed dearly to defend their country, with well over a million killed from both sides in the eight-year war. The Leveretts show how the ‘imposed war’ still impacts Iranian policy today, seen in the election and re-election of war veterans, like current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for political offices.

    U.S. policymakers constantly refer to Iran as a theocratic dictatorship, but the Leveretts expose this argument as baseless, chauvinistic and out of touch with ordinary Iranians. They write, “Most Middle Easterners do not think that the Islamist features of Iran’s political system make it undemocratic…For most Egyptians and other Middle Easterners, the ‘main division in the world’ is not between democracies and dictatorships but between countries whose strategic autonomy is subordinated to the United States and countries who exercise genuine independence in policymaking. For most people in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic is on the right side of that divide.” The Leveretts argue that this divide between imperialist and anti-imperialist countries explains Iran’s rising stock in the Middle East. After decades of U.S. wars and occupations, people in the Middle East support those forces that resist imperialism, rather than the Gulf monarchies that kowtow to Washington’s agenda.

    Counter-revolution defeated: The ‘Green Movement’ and the 2009 presidential elections

    It does not seem like four years ago that Iran held its last presidential election, which triggered the so-called ‘Green Movement’. With the 2013 elections just behind us, the Leveretts revisit some key facts about the election in 2009 that were overlooked and distorted by the U.S. media. By examining polls, debate transcripts, voting patterns and Iranian election law, the Leveretts prove that Ahmadinejad legitimately won the 2009 election. They write: “The facts were evident for anyone who chose to face them: neither Mousavi nor anyone in his campaign nor anyone connected with the Green Movement ever presented hard evidence of electoral fraud. Moreover, every methodologically sound poll carried out in Iran before and after the election – fourteen in all, conducted by Western polling groups as well as by the University of Tehran – indicated that Ahmadinejad’s reelection, with two-thirds of the vote (which was what the official results showed), was eminently possible.”

    Far from the popular rebellion that the U.S. media portrayed, the Green Movement receded just weeks after its beginning. The Green Movement represents the interests of businessmen tied to Western banks and corporations, well-off students, urban intellectuals and professionals, rather than the majority of Iranians. Many Iranians view the Green Movement as an attempted counter-revolution – backed by the U.S. – aimed at destabilizing a popular government that supports the Palestinian liberation struggle, Hezbollah in Lebanon and other resistance forces which the Leveretts examine in detail. The Leveretts show how the U.S. media wholly fabricated stories of brutality to delegitimize Iran. For instance, social media and the U.S. news heavily covered the supposed death of Neda Soltan by security forces, but they refused to retract the story when proof emerged that Neda “was very much alive and well” and directly asked the media to stop using her picture.

    Even if the U.S. media refused to acknowledge the truth, the Iranian people clearly understood that the Green Movement was a threat to the independence of Iran. A Charney Research poll from 2010 found that “59% of responders said the government’s reaction had been ‘correct’; only 19% thought it ‘went too far.’” According to the opposition’s numbers, about 100 people died in clashes with security forces. The Leveretts show that the protests regularly led to opposition-instigated violence, to which the state then responded. Most insightful of all, the Leveretts compare the hypocritical reaction to the Green Movement by the U.S. to the violent crackdown on African American and Latinos outraged at the 1992 Rodney King verdict. The State of California sent in the National Guard and killed 53 people for demonstrating against this racist miscarriage of justice, but rather than condemning government violence, the U.S. media called the uprising a ‘riot.’

    Why did a solid majority of Iranians support Ahmadinejad in 2009 and approve of the government’s harsh response to the attempt at counter-revolution? The Leveretts argue in chapter four, entitled “Religion, Revolution and Roots of Legitimacy” that the Iranian people, especially poor farmers and workers, experienced real progressive gains from the revolution in 1979. In spite of economic sanctions and external threats, “the percentage of Iranians living in poverty – less than 2% by the World Bank’s $1.25-per-day standard – is lower than that in virtually any other large-population middle-income country,” including Brazil, India, Mexico and Turkey. Iran’s rapidly expanding public and low-income health care services have increased life expectancy by 21.9 years since 1980, according to the UN Development Programme. This serves as a model that even universities and NGOs working in Mississippi are implementing. Literacy rose from 40% under the Shah to 99% in the present-day Islamic Republic; voting suffrage is universal and religious minorities have guaranteed representation in the Majlis (parliament).

    Despite Western Islamophobia, women’s rights in Iran are drastically improved. In addition to six months of paid maternity leave – far higher than the U.S. – “the majority of university students in Iran [and] the majority of students at Iran’s best universities are now female.” Some of the evidence the Leveretts present around issues of gender will genuinely surprise readers. For instance, they say that “rulings from [Ayatollah] Khomenei recognizing transgendered identity as biologically grounded, today provide the legal basis for free elective gender-reassignment surgery.”

    While Iran still has many contradictions, related to gender and the role that working people play in society, the Leveretts argue that the Iranian people elect to build on the progressive gains rather than overturning them. The Green Movement represented a step backwards in the history of Iran, and the majority of Iranians recognized that.

    Setting the record straight on Iran and the U.S.

    The Leveretts won themselves no friends in the political establishment with their chapter entitled “Myths and Mythmakers.” By far the strongest section of the book, they analyze the neo-conservatives, liberal interventionists, the Israel lobby and the Iranian expatriates as four distinct but inter-related groups that fuel anti-Iranian sentiment in the media and in Washington. Many of these so-called ‘experts’ monopolize the corporate-owned press in the U.S., despite having never read a word of Farsi. Although these groups do not all outwardly advocate U.S. military intervention, the Leveretts show how even the more well-meaning liberal critics repeat the same myths told by the neo-cons and war-mongers, effectively strengthening their case for a strike on Iran. It is disturbing to think that the U.S. media still gives a platform for the most vocal cheerleaders of the disastrous Iraq War – Thomas Friedman of the New York Times and the xenophobic CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack – to spew their venom against Iran.

    Even readers convinced that Tehran has nefarious intentions would benefit from the Leveretts’ book. In 1987, current Ayatollah Khamenei delivered a speech to the UN laying out a fundamental distinction between opposition to U.S. imperialism and support for the people, saying, “This indictment is directed against the leaders of the United States regime and not against the American people, who, had they been aware of what their governments have done against another nation, would certainly endorse our indictment.” Facing the hostile threat of a nuclear-armed Israel, and the U.S. military occupation of Iran’s next-door neighbors – Afghanistan, and previously Iraq – the people of Iran want peace and solidarity with the people of the U.S., not another war.

    Going to Tehran is written primarily to persuade policy-makers to abandon the current U.S. strategy of toppling the government of Iran. Throughout the whole book, the Leveretts seem frustrated at the very likely possibility that their well-researched case against war with Iran will go unread by politicians. However, the primary audience that will benefit from Going to Tehran is not lawmakers, but rather anti-war activists. Anti-war organizers could use the book as a starting point for reading groups and teach-ins about the nature of U.S. aggression.

    The disorganized response by the U.S. anti-war movement to NATO’s attack on Libya proves the need for a unified, principled, anti-imperialist opposition to war that seeks to build meaningful international solidarity. And in 2013, Going to Tehran is an important contribution to that struggle.

  • Utah anti-war rally against U.S. war and drone strikes

    Salt Lake City, UT – Anti-war activists and students in Utah took their message directly to the U.S. government’s doorstep on April 11 with a rally in front of the Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building.

    Roughly 30 people attended, calling for an end to U.S. occupation and military intervention, as well as an end to drone strikes like the one that killed 11 Afghan children on April 8.

    “President Obama is the Drone Ranger,” said Utah Valley University professor Michael Minch. “The self-described ‘Vulcans’ who ran George W. Bush’s White House must be green with envy, for Obama has killed far more people, personally authorizing their use, than Bush might have even imagined killing with this killing system.”

    The crowd was adamant that the U.S. get out of Afghanistan and stay out of Syria and Iran. Many also voiced their opposition to ongoing threats and war rhetoric against Democratic Korea.

    “People on both the right and the left have criticized north Korea for their military first policy,” said Dave Newlin, member of the October 7th Anti-War Committee, who organized the event. “I ask you, what about U.S. military first policy? What about U.S. endless hunger for weapons of mass destruction, for drones and for world dominance?”

    Newlin pointed out that the U.S. spent almost $1.5 trillion on wars, military and defense support. That is more than any other U.S. expense and more than any other country. Those in attendance called for that money to be spent on things like education, jobs and health care, rather than war.

    Organizer Tess Vandiver, who recently spent time in occupied Palestine, read a moving poem given to her by a Palestinian boy that read, “I feel like I am in a cemetery when I am in my own town.”

    Vandiver condemned U.S. support for the Israeli occupation and called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel: “This issue isn’t about a group of people being better than another; this isn’t about whose land is whose, the Old Testament, or the Qur’an. It is about basic human rights and the suffocation of a society.”

    The Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building houses both the offices of Utah Senator Mike Lee and the local FBI offices. Protesters took the opportunity to condemn the repression of anti-war activists throughout the U.S. by the FBI and called on Senator Lee to end his support for drone strikes and foreign intervention.