Stephen Zunes claims that "In an effort to head off such a popular uprising and discredit pro-democracy leaders and their supporters, Iran's reactionary leadership has been making false claims, aired in detail in a series of television broadcasts during the third week of July, that certain Western nongovernmental organizations that have given workshops and offered seminars for Iranian pro-democracy activists on the theory and history of strategic nonviolent struggle are actually plotting with the Bush administration in offering specific instructions on how to overthrow the regime" ("The United States and "Regime Change" in Iran," 7 August 2007, <http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/4456>). Just which "Western nongovernmental organizations" does he have in mind? And what television broadcasts? Zunes doesn't spell them out, but since he confidently says that "Iran's reactionary leadership has been making false claims" about them, the impression left in the reader's mind is that the nameless Western NGOs are doing either good things or at least harmless things, not at all linked to the US government.
But doesn't Zunes actually mean the NGOs named in _In the Name of Democracy_, featuring Haleh Esfandiari, Kian Tajbaksh, and Ramin Jahanbaglou, which was indeed aired on Iranian Channel 1 on 18-19 July according to Western media reports? Like the Soros Foundation? Now, Zunes suggests that those who object to the activities of the Soros Foundation and the like are only doing so because they "have actually bought into these claims by Iran's hardline clerics." That is not the case. An increasingly prominent role played by Western NGOs such as the Soros Foundation* in the "soft power" varieties of regime change campaigns first came to light regarding Central and Eastern Europe, especially Yugoslavia, and, needless to say, leftists' concerns about them _long predate_ any claim made by any Iranian official and have nothing to do with any Iranian broadcast that few here watched anyway.
* <http://www.monthlyreview.org/1206sussman.htm> The Myths of 'Democracy Assistance': U.S. Political Intervention in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe by Gerald Sussman
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Today, the U.S. government relies less on the CIA in most cases and more on the relatively transparent initiatives undertaken by such public and private organizations as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Freedom House, George Soros's Open Society, and a network of other well-financed globetrotting public and private professional political organizations, primarily American, operating in the service of the state's parallel neoliberal economic and political objectives.
On 9/9/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> On Sep 9, 2007, at 11:27 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > Oddly, the same dichotomy surfaces even in the far left rhetoric:
> > e.g., "Under increasing pressure from the US government, which has
> > classified Iran as part of its 'axis of evil', there has been a recent
> > escalation of conflicts within the Islamic regime" (Justus Leicht,
> > "Social Tensions Escalate Conflicts within Iranian Regime," 6
> > September 2002,"
> > <http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/iran-s06.shtml>).
>
> You forgot to quote these bits:
>
> > In recent months the governmental right wing had gone on the
> > offensive. Liberal newspapers were banned, journalists and
> > intellectuals locked up and whipped, cultural meetings suppressed
> > and youth terrorised by religious militias for all sorts of
> > "immoral behaviour"—from having parties, to holding hands or
> > wearing headscarves secured "too loosely".
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > He pointed out that the judiciary banned newspapers and jailed
> > intellectuals behind closed doors, without a jury and
> > unconstitutionally. The media—with the state radio and television
> > all in the hands of the right-wing hardliners—had repeatedly
> > published the accusations levelled against those accused, but never
> > printed the arguments of the defence.
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > The election of Khatami was the result of a broad desire for
> > democratic reforms. Under conditions where the only candidates for
> > the election were those ratified by the Guardian Council, Khatami
> > seemed to be the best guarantor for a policy aimed at loosening
> > somewhat the dictatorship of the conservative clerics. In his five
> > years in power, however, Khatami has proved to be incapable of
> > fulfilling the hopes invested in him. He revealed himself not as a
> > fighter for democracy, but rather as a left fig leaf for the ruling
> > clerics, with the task of intercepting and neutralising the
> > democratic opposition.
> >
> > Far more than their right-wing opponents, Khatami and his
> > supporters fear a genuine popular mobilisation for democratic
> > rights. Protesting workers and students—who have been beaten up by
> > the police and militia, then arrested, locked up, tortured and
> > murdered—were denounced by Khatami as "hooligans", "traitors" and
> > "provocateurs", even when they had taken to the streets bearing his
> > picture and shouting his name, as in July 1999.
These bits mainly serve as evidence that, contrary to the impression that Marvin had, far leftists, like many hard-line opponents of the Islamic Republic to their Right, did not support Khatami when he was its President.
> Apparently you're incapable of opposing war on Iran, or even Bush-
> style regime change, and at the same time acknowledging that the
> Iranian state is run by authoritarian mullahs. Instead, you suggest
> (or publish works by that apologist Pourzal suggesting) that
> feminists aren't beaten, merely arrested, and that bus drivers trying
> to form a union are puppets of Langley.
I've said that "The government of Iran, of course, should _not_ arrest [Vahed bus company labor leader Mansour] Osanloo nor any genuine labor activists, much less illegally as it did Osanloo; and Iran's workers, beginning with Osanloo, should publicly repudiate symbolic and material support offered by the empire with ulterior motives" (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20070730/014240.html>).
If you disagree, let's hear what you really find wrong with it, as well as what you have actually done for Iran's workers that you think is a better way to go.
On 9/9/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> What rubs you the wrong way is the idea that there are a substantial
> number of Iranians who don't like being ruled by reactionary
> theocrats - especially now that your boy Ahmadinejad has delivered
> little more than 15-20% inflation.
As far as inflation is concerned, Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval say in The Venezuelan Economy in the Chávez Years (July 2007, <http://cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_2007_07.pdf>) that inflation, currently running at 19.4 percent, exceeds the government's target in Venezuela but that "it should be emphasized that double-digit inflation rates in a developing country such as Venezuela are not comparable to the same phenomenon occurring in the United States or Europe," pointing out that Venezuela had seen far worse inflation in the 1990s (p. 2). The same can be said about Iran. Too bad that leftists generally do not examine Iran's economy in the way that Weisbrot and Sandoval do Venezuela. Leftists are interested only in a demolition job, rather than any constructive criticism, when it comes to Iran, thus making the job of Iranian and Western neoliberals, such as Khamenei, Rafsanjani, and assorted right-wing exiles, easier. -- Yoshie