The intense contention between the U.S. and Iran is once again escalating.

A number of bourgeois commentators are warning that the current negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over its nuclear program are not going well. They further warn that if the talks fail there’s a real possibility that the conflict could escalate to a military clash or even outright war in the coming period.  

In a lengthy assessment in the New Yorker (“The Looming Threat of a Nuclear Crisis with Iran,” December 27), Robin Wright reports that according to a senior Biden administration official, “if diplomacy stalls and Iran continues to accelerate its nuclear program ... the U.S. could face a nuclear crisis in the first quarter of 2022.” She then warns of the potential for war:  

… a full-scale military campaign by Israel or the U.S. would almost certainly trigger a regional war on multiple fronts. Iran is better armed and its military and political powerbrokers more hard-line than at any time in its modern history. The nuclear deal could be just the beginning—and the easier part of the Iran challenge for an eighth American President.”¹

While Wright does not speak for the ruling class, she is a respected, well-connected journalist, and her warning should be taken seriously. Should such a war break out it would indeed be serious—and potentially catastrophic.²

We’re going to get more deeply into the dynamics described by Wright and others shortly, but before we do, it’s necessary to pull the lens back, to see the real framework in which all this takes place.

Background and Context: Who Has Unleashed the Most Violence and Poses the Greater Danger to the Region—and World?

After World War II, the U.S. brought the Middle East and Central Asia under its grip. In the 70 years since, American wars, coups, proxy wars, sanctions, support for repressive (but obedient-to-America) regimes, and drone strikes have led to the deaths of literally millions of people in those regions and destroyed the lives of multiples more. To get a beginning sense of the scope and scale of this American violence, go here.

Now, the regimes and many of the movements opposed to the U.S. are reactionary. And the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is an extremely oppressive fundamentalist theocracy that exploits Iran’s people, enforces harsh patriarchal strictures against women, violently suppresses expressions of protest and dissent, and over the years has arbitrarily imprisoned, tortured, and executed thousands of political prisoners. For all its anti-U.S. rhetoric, the IRI has never been about breaking with global capitalism-imperialism, but just redefining Iran’s place in that system and expanding its reactionary influence across the Middle East and beyond.

But who is doing the greater harm—many times over? Who is the real “threat to peace”? Who is and has been wreaking mayhem and chaos all over the region on an enormous scale, for decades, on a scale unmatched by any other force in the world?

The blood-soaked U.S. imperialists and their savage allies!

The revolutionary leader and author of the new communism Bob Avakian has analyzed the dynamic at work here:

What we see in contention here with Jihad [Islamic fundamentalism] on the one hand and McWorld/McCrusade [increasingly globalized western imperialism] on the other hand, are historically outmoded strata among colonized and oppressed humanity up against historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system. These two reactionary poles reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. If you side with either of these "outmodeds," you end up strengthening both.

While this is a very important formulation and is crucial to understanding much of the dynamics driving things in the world in this period, at the same time we do have to be clear about which of these "historically outmodeds" has done the greater damage and poses the greater threat to humanity: It is the historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system, and in particular the U.S. imperialists. (BAsics 1:28)

U.S.-Iran Nuclear Negotiations—A Clash of Outmoded, Reactionary Forces

The U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations illustrate the terrible dynamics of this reactionary clash and the dangers it poses for humanity and the planet.

In 2015, Iran, the U.S. (under Obama-Biden) and other world powers³ signed an agreement under which Iran would limit and roll back its nuclear enrichment program in return for the lifting of harsh U.S. and global economic sanctions. This was not a step toward peace or resolving the antagonisms between the parties: it was an agreement they all signed to advance their respective—thoroughly reactionary—interests, and it did not break the deadly dynamic between them.⁴

Iran adhered to the terms of the agreement. But in 2018, just three years later, the fascist Trump unilaterally tore it up because he and others in the U.S. ruling class (and Israel) thought it gave Iran too much and hurt U.S. imperialist interests. Trump then reimposed over 1,000 different sanctions, which increased poverty, suffering and sometimes death among ordinary Iranians. The U.S. at the same time carried out other belligerent actions against Iran (or supported those by Israel)—actions such as assassinating high government officials and important scientists, actions which were, quite literally, war crimes.

These U.S. moves quickly intensified antagonisms once again. The IRI responded by continuing to build up its regional network of allies and military proxies. It has reportedly vastly expanded its missile arsenal and accelerated its nuclear program, exceeding 60 percent enrichment—moving closer to the 90 percent needed for a nuclear weapon⁵ (even if it doesn’t build one), as leverage and insurance against imperialist attacks, to preserve its existence and power, and as a threat to regional rivals. Iran’s regime now has more backing from Russia and China than it did nearly seven years ago when the treaty was signed. And hardcore fundamentalist theocrats more hostile and less trusting of the West now control Iran’s government, thanks in part to Trump’s move.

The Democrat imperialists opposed Trump’s abrupt withdrawal from the nuclear deal. So after Biden took office, he restarted intensive negotiations to restore some form of the 2015 agreement, negotiations which are now underway.

But the ground has shifted, and the talks are much more fraught now. The U.S. rulers are now so sharply divided they cannot promise Iran that any agreement would not be broken by a future president. The U.S. has been defeated in both Afghanistan and Iraq and that, together with the rising challenges it faces from Russia and China, has forced it to reduce its “military footprint” in the region. And the Biden team now shares many of the Trump regime’s concerns about the original 2015 deal.

Overall, and strategically, the U.S. and Israel have made it clear they are determined not to allow the Islamic Republic to acquire nuclear weapons or even the ability to make them and are prepared to use covert operations, assassinations and/or military force to prevent it. Iran will “never get a nuclear weapon on my watch,” Biden declared this past June.

So even while diplomacy is being pursued, the U.S. has the military option “on the table” to push towards a resolution “favorable” to its predatory interests, a posture which also heightens the danger of miscalculations and war.

All this has increased the distance between the U.S. and the IRI and appears to be making it more difficult to come to an agreement. Meanwhile, both Israel and Saudi Arabia are extremely hostile to the IRI and not fully in synch with U.S. policy. So, all in all, the danger of military conflict has heightened, especially if the talks break down!

All this—on both sides—is very dangerous and has NOTHING to do with the interests of the masses. In fact, it is putting huge sections of humanity at tremendous risk!

Internationalism, Revolutionary Defeatism, and Bringing Forward Another Way

How then should revolutionaries and all who yearn for human emancipation view and act in relation to this grave situation?

For starters, as Bob Avakian has said, “American Lives Are Not More Important Than Other People’s Lives.” (BAsics 5:7)

And no, America is not a force for good. Its rulers are not well-meaning people “doing their best” to make the world a better place. They’re a pack of mass murderers who preside over and represent a global system of vicious exploitation, oppression, and plunder—check out the American Crime series at revcom.us and see for yourself. They shouldn’t be supported in anything they do—they need to be opposed, because their actions are unjust and because defeats they suffer weaken their empire’s predatory grip on the people and the planet. So we should not only welcome those defeats, but train—and struggle hard with—others to do so as well, with the stand of seizing on their defeats to bring the revolution closer. (None of this means you’re supporting reactionary oppressors like Iran’s theocrats, or big power oppressors like Russia and China; that kind of stance would just be the inside-out, or the “flip side,” of going along with the U.S.)

That’s not all. To again quote BA, internationalism means “the whole world comes first.” (BAsics 5:8) It means standing with the masses all over the world against all forms of oppression and against all oppressive, outmoded regimes—whether Western imperialists or, in the oppressed countries or the Third World, Islamic fundamentalist theocracies like Iran’s or any other reactionary regime. It means fighting to bring forward another way—revolution on the communist road, as a radical emancipatory alternative to both imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism. And it means welcoming, supporting, and building solidarity with revolutionaries on that road and other forces standing against oppression all over the world.

These revolutionary forces include the Communist Party of Iran-Marxist-Leninist-Maoist and the newly formed Movement of the New Communism of Afghanistan, which are fighting to apply the new communism and making great sacrifices in the struggle to do so. And it means joining with groups like the Burn the Cage / Free the Birds movement in Europe, which has been fighting for freedom for Iran’s political prisoners and calling on others around the world to do likewise.

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The current conflict between the U.S. and Iran is fraught with danger. Moreover, whatever comes out of the immediate crisis around the nuclear negotiations, in the period ahead there are a whole range of international contradictions that are politically explosive and could erupt at any time.