U.S. imperialism has begun a new round of criminal wars against the people of the Middle East, and Iran is in the midst of it. The U.S. wars in the Middle East are a continuation of its policy of imperialist oppression against the people of this region.
While oppression is imperialism's permanent and structural relationship with countries of the “Third World,” at times it takes the form of more direct interventions that range from military coups to reshuffling a regime, to outright military aggression. Imperialism has the permanent necessity to impose “national” subjugation, because dominating countries and their huge populations of oppressed people is a vital and strategic component of the imperialist capitalist system, and an integral part of its metabolism.
Different classes and strata in the dominated countries have varying reactions to this subjugation. Too often in response to this oppression, the masses of the people chase after this or that political trend which claims to fight against imperialist oppression, unaware that the platforms of those trends will never lead to liberation from this subjugation.
Today, we are at a critical juncture in the history of Iran. The oppressed and exploited strata of our society, the workers and toilers, and the middle strata of society—especially the students—must be aware of, and be able to identify, which “paths” or political platforms can lead the struggle against imperialism to achieve real liberation from this system, and which cannot. Theory and historical experience have proven that there is only one platform that can create a force able to pave the way for liberation from this imperialist oppression: and that is to advance the anti-imperialist struggle in the framework of a communist revolution for the establishment of a socialist state and society. At this historical juncture, any underestimation of this path and its road map will, once again, result in the destruction of the actual and potentially progressive forces in society.
The misfortune of the Iranian people is that, at this juncture, Iran’s ruling regime is also under attack by the [U.S.] imperialists. So, on the one hand, the regime whose 45-year rule has been drenched in the blood of the masses, is now shamelessly trying to win the support of these same masses by fomenting a sense of reactionary nationalism. And on the other hand, the U.S. and Israeli imperialists are attempting to capitalize on the Iranian people's hatred of the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] to gain support for their crimes in the Middle East, up to and including any attack or possible war they may start against Iran. In contrast to these two death traps, there is but one emancipatory program and path before us, that has two decisive and inseparable aspects: to overthrow the IRI and to wage a fierce struggle against imperialist oppression.
The contradictions between U.S. imperialism and the IRI should never hide the reality that the domination of Iran—implemented through covert schemes, economic bullying, military attacks, and invasions by the U.S. and other powers—has been deeply woven into the fabric of global imperialism for more than 100 years. This relationship and history is the main factor underlying any war that may be started by U.S. imperialism in Iran, whether directly or through its proxy, Israel.
Throughout the entire post-World War II period, the U.S. has been involved in all the political events that have shaped the situation in Iran. For example, one of the major concerns of the United States was the suppression of peasant uprisings. (This is documented in the book The Revolt of the Shekaryan Peasants, 1952-1953 by Amir Hassanpour). Another example of U.S. involvement is the coup against [elected Prime Minister] Mossadegh. The real motive behind this August 19, 1953 coup was spelled out in a CIA document: “[to] bring about the fall of the Mossadegh's government and replace it with a Western-oriented government to be led by the Shah with [General] Zahedi as prime minister.” The 1953 coup paved the way for the U.S. to become the dominant force [in Iran]. In the wake of the 1953 coup, all of Mossadegh's plans for nationalization [of the oil industry] were halted, and then cancelled. The U.S. oil giants took over Britain's seat at the banquet table, feasting on its plunder of Iran, and reaping huge profits. This coup also announced that the U.S. was now the biggest imperialist bully in the Middle East, and served as a warning to other regimes in the region. The establishment of the colonial state of Israel in the Palestinian territories served the same purpose.1
The U.S. played an important role in crushing the revolutionary uprising against the [Mohammad Reza] Shah's regime. Alarmed by the rise of political struggles against the Shah's regime that culminated in the 1978 uprising, U.S. imperialism, together with the Group of Seven industrialized countries of the West, paved the way for the Islamic fundamentalists’ rise to power, with Khomeini at the helm. These imperialists could see that the Shah’s regime was no longer able to safeguard their dominance in the Middle East, and decided to instead entrust the Islamic fundamentalists with Iran’s state structure, economic infrastructure, and the military and security backbone that they built up under the Shah. They regarded the Islamic fundamentalists as allies because they were as committed to the murder of communists and the suppression of uprisings by workers and peasants and women, and movements of students, intellectuals and oppressed nationalities, and they would also present a barrier to the expansion of Soviet imperialist interests, which were challenging U.S. dominance in the Middle East.
The Islamic fundamentalists, led by [Ayatollah] Khomeini, quickly unleashed a bloody slaughter on the masses of every strata, even showing no mercy to the Soviet-affiliated trend [e.g., the Tudeh Party] that had “pledged its loyalty” to the IRI. Everyone knows this history. Not only did the IRI not break with the global capitalist system, but it also integrated Iran more deeply into it, and increasingly established and consolidated itself as the state of the big capitalist class, dependent on the global capitalist system.
In spite of all this, it was never acceptable to the U.S. that the IRI won legitimacy by presenting itself as “anti-American.” Nor was it acceptable that the IRI acted to strengthen the Shiite fundamentalist forces in the countries dependent on the U.S. Most unacceptable to the U.S. was for the IRI to target Israel—the U.S.’s principal military garrison in the region—as “usurping Islamic lands.” On top of that, over the past ten years, [Iran] has been moving towards an alliance with two of [U.S.] rivals, the imperialist powers of China and Russia.
Harmful and Retrograde Political Polarization
The contradictions between the IRI and U.S. imperialism has intensified at various times, causing U.S. imperialist wars in the Middle East to expand to encompass Iran. Today, we are at another such juncture. These contradictions have always been a source of confusion among the masses of people about the nature of the IRI and the nature of U.S. imperialism and, more significantly, confusion among the intellectuals and various political trends. Some have seen the IRI as a wall of “resistance” against imperialist oppression, while others see U.S. imperialism and other Western imperialist powers as purveyors of “democracy” and a source of “freedom and prosperity.” The relative influence that one pole or the other among the masses of the people has fluctuated over time, and the fluctuations have occurred among intellectuals and political activists.
Specifically, hoping that the imperialists would get rid of the IRI was a powerful trend during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising, and even before that—not only among the angry masses but also among human rights activists and various social movements (to say nothing of those political currents affiliated with Western imperialists such as the Reza Pahlavi [son of the former Shah]). With the onset of the genocide in Gaza and Israel's attacks on the Islamist forces of Hezbollah in Lebanon, we see that there are many among the masses of people who support Israel and the U.S. and want them to “attack Iran.”
On the other hand, among the students and democratic intellectuals, a tendency to ally with the “anti-imperialist resistance” of the IRI, Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon is becoming consolidated, as reflected in the “Collective Call to Action: Against the ‘New Order’ Being Imposed on the Middle East.”2 Here, we are not talking about the [state actors] of the “Axis of Resistance,” but about a “national consensus” being forged between a section of political activists and intellectuals opposed to the government, the “Axis of Resistance,” and reformists within the government, that is reflected in the “Collective Call to Action,” which the regime is touting and circulating in the state-sponsored media.
Simply put, both the imperialists and the IRI are endeavoring to win the support of society’s intellectuals and opinion makers. This has resulted in a polarized political alignment that works powerfully against the interests of the people, and against the kind of future that is the shared aspiration of many of the same democratic intellectuals who signed the “Collective Call to Action.”
In the history of the Middle East, and the “Third World” in general, resistance to imperialist oppression, coups, and imperialist wars, even when it was progressive, has been doomed to fail. For example, in Iran, the target of the imperialists’ 1953 coup d'état was the resistance of the National Front government of Dr. Mossadegh, whose platform was to achieve a nationalist capitalist society that would operate within the West’s imperialist capitalist system. The Vietnam War [of liberation against the U.S.], led by the Vietnam Workers Party and Ho Chi Minh, had a revolutionary character. Although that party and its leaders were not revolutionary communists, they were allied with [then revolutionary] socialist China. Nonetheless, despite immense sacrifice by the masses of people, the goal and framework [of the Vietnam Workers Party] resulted in the creation of a society dominated by and dependent on the global capitalist system, and reproducing those social relations. In Chile, the target of the U.S. coup d'état was Dr. Allende, who was assassinated while resisting. Like Mossadegh, Allende and his platform were not able to confront the U.S. and break with the imperialist capitalist system. All these resistance struggles were progressive but did not have the revolutionary goal of totally rupturing with the imperialist capitalist system and with the capitalist class in these countries that is dependent on the system of imperialist capitalism. It is enough to look at the horrific oppressive societies created by the “anti-colonial fighters” in Africa and the Middle East to see that this assessment is also true of the post-World War II anticolonial struggles overall.
The only anti-imperialist resistance that was carried out on the basis of a revolutionary platform and succeeded was the Chinese Revolution [led by Mao Zedong] which was carried out on the basis of the goal of establishing a socialist society, with a strategy able to achieve this goal, and a [communist] leadership for this goal. It proved that liberation from imperialist oppression, in this era, is only possible on the basis of the strategy of the communist revolution and the creation of a socialist society.
What Is to Be Done? How to Open the Way for a Real Revolution?
Changing people's thinking about all of the above facts, at a scale of millions, is a matter of the primary and foremost importance. The people must be warned against lending any support to the crimes being committed in Palestine and Lebanon by Israel and the U.S.—without being influenced by the hypocritical tricks of the IRI, and without retreating from criticizing the reactionary outlook of Hamas and Hezbollah, without retreating from the goal of overthrowing the IRI. The people must be frankly spoken to: If you are not sickened by every massacre in Gaza, you must be told to wake up! Gaza is not very far from Tehran. But even if it happened to be in Latin America (and not the Middle East), it is better for us—and the rest of the world—to know what is getting cooked in the boiling pot of this capitalist-imperialist system. The imperialism of the U.S. and Israel will come for all the people, everywhere in Iran. And by then it will be too late to understand the reality of this world and try to save not just the Iranian people, but all of humanity, from this absolute horror.
Joe Biden is one of the most criminal presidents in U.S. history. He has deliberately allowed Israel complete freedom to slaughter the people of Gaza. In the space of a year, he has provided Israel with 50,000 tons of lethal weapons and more than 70,000 tons of bombs in order to advance the massacre of the people of Gaza. Imperialism means sucking the last drops of life from billions of working people throughout the world; it means using violence and brutality to suppress the anger of this oppressed and exploited humanity. The cruel, ruthless and rotten nature of the IRI is a small sample of what imperialism produces. The violence and cruelty of imperialism ranges from the establishment of repressive regimes, to mass murder with the most advanced weapons of mass slaughter, to reducing big cites to a pile of dust and twisted metal in which even rats won’t nest. Of course, they also make empty promises that they—after, yes, leaving behind scorched earth, dismembered bodies, and homeless and displaced people—will bring “prosperity” and “democracy” to those who survive. The bragging of IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] commanders and the disgusting posturing of [Ayatollah] Khamenei's fascist disciples who cheer the IRI for launching dangerous missile barrages, the rotten mullahs who have gassed school girls with chemical bombs now say, “So what if half of the world's people die!” This is infuriating and hateful, and so is its mirror image—the ignorant celebration and foot-stomping in support of Israel's crimes. The people should be told: This kind of sentiment and ideology is worthy of your oppressors, not you! Launching a mass and serious movement against the warmongering of Israel and the U.S., and any move of the IRI to enter a war with Israel and the U.S., must be accompanied by the exposure and criticism of all the cultural and superstructure manifestations of the actors in this war. In this regard, the policy of the IRI in “supporting the Palestinian people” should be exposed, including how it has turned the aspirations of an oppressed colonized nation into a gambling chip that it leverages to expand its influence in the region and compete for power with its counterparts in other Islamic countries. Down with this kind of rotten and reactionary “resistance"!
Criticism of the “Anti-Imperialist” Tendency that Pours Gasoline into the IRI's Gas Tank
The intellectuals opposed to the regime, whose anti-imperialist tendencies are within a narrow nationalist framework (reflected in the “Collective Call to Action: Against the 'New Order' Being Imposed on the Middle East”) must be warned that they cannot be anti-imperialist yet remain silent in the face of the reactionary content of the resistance waged by the IRI and its proxies in the “Axis of Resistance,” especially Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon. This silence on the part of the Iranian intellectuals is very harmful to the people of the world and is a betrayal of the Palestinian people and of those who see the reality of Israel's oppression and occupation.
They consider it impossible to create a revolutionary leadership and to rely on genuine mass initiatives at the heart of the Palestinian movement. They resort to what exists, i.e., to the reactionary “Axis of Resistance” trend, whose godfather is the IRI, and which has today become a pawn on the chessboard of Chinese and Russian imperialists in their competition with U.S. imperialism. Issuing this kind of “Call to Action” is to enlist in the very strong anticommunist current prevailing among the world's intellectuals, and to enter into the fatal dichotomy of imperialism/Islamic fundamentalism, rather than to break with this dichotomy.
Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Taliban, and the fake “resistance” fronts formed here and there by such forces, must be exposed. We must demonstrate how the ideas, values, and relations that they defend and represent are in direct opposition to the interests of the masses of people, just as we do about imperialism. These reactionaries and their power bases must be overthrown, because they, like Israel, are pillars of the ruling order.
Everywhere, the [current] polarization acts in the interest of reactionaries, in Iran, Europe, the U.S. and so on. It is reactionary [interests] that are polarizing the people. Many intellectuals and those who really want to fight against global capitalism and its crimes succumb to supporting the status quo. The reason is that they only see what “is” and not the potential at the heart of the situation. Disrupting this situation requires a great war of ideas. We must fight for a line that realizes the emancipatory potential. This potential is not at all obvious, and requires intervention with a correct political and ideological line: one that scientifically reflects the reality of the situation and a political strategy that will open the way for a real revolution. With regard to this “line” and its theoretical backing (the new communism [developed by revolutionary leader Bob Avakian]), a great struggle must be waged in order to produce a force in society that is able to confront the horrors that are coming, and out of which it is possible to wrench a fundamentally different future for the people of this society, the Middle East, and the world.
A worldwide criminal competition race is underway, and it is up to us to stop it. All of the intellectual and political frameworks that have been produced by the ruling system must be discarded, and fast. We say again, times a million: The only way to end this terror is through a communist revolution.