> Regarding Iran, what most leftists in the West do is what Ellner calls
> "opposition criticism." Opposition criticism from those who live in
> the country whose government is bent upon destruction of social gains
> in Iran through regime change or worse can't be very welcome in that
> country and is unlikely to get a wide hearing...
Doug replied:
> what's wrong with oppositional criticism of a capitalist
> state, even if it is anti-imperialist?...
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I'd take it a step further and ask what's wrong with outside criticism of
any state, even one that is anticapitalist?
Recall that the Trotskyists and other leftists in Europe and America criticized the Stalinist and Maoist regimes in the USSR and China, for which they were slandered as anti-Soviet and anti-China, agents of Western imperialism and fascism, saboteurs and counter-revolutionaries etc. I think the criticism aimed at these regimes, notwithstanding their overall progressive character, was proper at the time and, in retrospect, mostly valid.
It's no less legitimate for Western leftists to criticize the Islamic Republic whose politics, if anything, are even more remote from their own, without being accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. These criticisms may sometimes be exaggerated or out of context or just plain wrong, but so what? The critics can be corrected without their motives being made suspect.
In fact, the historical record shows that criticism of antiimperialist regimes from all but right-wing social democrats has invariably been accompanied on the left by uncompromising defence of them against imperialist efforts to subvert them.
As a practical political matter, also, you have to question whether sparking debate about the leftist bona fides of the critics has sharpened the focus on imperialist attempts to destabilize these foreign governments. I think it's a distraction, and can be a dangerous one at that.