An Anti-Imperialist Case Against a Nuclear Iran Iran's Nuclear Program
By REZA FIYOUZAT
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Because of these increasing threats against Iran in rhetorical and diplomatic forms, with the poised fist of the gunboats parked off the Gulf coast directed at the livelihoods of millions of Iranians and Arabs in the region, a sense of panic has beset a lot of us.
In the fog of justifiable panic, some good comrades, friends and allies are prone to (and do) argue the following: Because the Iranian regime is under fire by the imperialists, we must support whatever the mullahs do, unconditionally. That regime is involved in a fundamental conflict with the imperialists, and all other conflicts (those involving the civil and social rights of the Iranian people vis-à-vis their state) must take a backseat to this supreme conflict.
Instead of building real alliances and solidarities between the peoples of the Middle East and the peoples of the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, etc., and instead of leading a spirited and effective fight against these western states' aggressions against the lives and resources of the peoples of the Middle East, these comrades, feeling virtuous on our behalf, ask the Iranian people to likewise push for no demands on their state, either. Worse, our good friends warn, any serious attempt to build social movements for such demands for more civil, human and workers rights is just not a good idea right now. Why? Because, you idiot, it aids and abets the imperialists!
Refusing to do the hard work, some of us have consequently fallen back on 'my enemy's enemy is my friend, god be dammed!' type of thinking; a mentality that, when adopted previously by western leftists, led to their defeat in one battlefield after another during the Cold War; failed to set a different tone for the direction of social change after the Cold War; and will be ineffective in producing any realistic alternatives for peace and justice during these hot war years.
In some permutations of this argument, the line proceeds to discard the great abyss separating the overwhelming majority of the people of Iran from the current government of Iran. Victors write the history, and lazy leftists buy the story.
A fact these leftist friends refuse to see is that the current Iranian regime is in fact the result of the victory of the counter- revolution launched during the very process of the revolution by the traditional ruling classes: the bazaar merchants and the mullahs, both of whom have been two of the three pillars of the traditional ruling classes (the third being the monarchial dynasties), for at least a millennium. In the process of organizing their counter- revolution, the mullahs stole two of the Iranian left's most popular slogans: anti-imperialism and support for the Palestinian people. It is the adoption of these two slogans that has since sent knee-jerk leftists off the track and chasing their own tails (not excluding some Iranian leftists).
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The Left currently has little impact on the actually existing political reality, so the only things we can bring to the political table are ideas: questions, critiques, persuasive explanations, occasional inspirations, maybe some good suggestions, and if we are spirited enough, some fun and delight; and in all these, we most definitely must stick to our principles.
Now, since we are in the realm of ideas, why be so stingy? Where has your imagination gone? Why be so morose? Why not wish for environmentally healthy, socially just, empowered Third World societies capable of putting up a real fight against the imperialists, in full international solidarity with each other and with the working peoples of the First World?
Fifth, and finally, those arguing in support of Iranian regime's nuclear program are not only capitulating to an imperialist-dictated frame of debate, they aid and abet a theocratic regime so reactionary that it stones human beings, while buried waist-deep, to death; for the 'crime' of loving another human being.
If you want to defend the people of Iran (which is what we have been doing), do so based on principles and not based on some realpolitik knee-jerk, bankrupt Cold War mentality that ends you up in bed with reactionaries.
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