Revolutionary Worker #1204, June 22, 2003, posted at rwor.org
We received the following from A World To Win News Service:
9 June 2003. A World to Win News Service. The United States has intensified its bullying against Iran in recent days. This is nothing but the continuation of their attempt to tighten their grip on the Middle East. U.S. officials, including Bush, Powell and Rumsfeld, have warned Arab and Middle East regimes to act according to "the new reality." This "new reality" is the occupation of Iraq and the presence of huge numbers of U.S. soldiers.
Against the backdrop of this "new reality," the U.S. is setting a trap for Iran, putting forward charges that they are "developing an alarming nuclear program," harboring al-Qaeda militants, providing sanctuary for the Riyadh attackers, and interfering in Iraq by supporting Islamic clerics there.
The Iranian government has so far rejected all these charges. But still there are serious reasons to doubt that these denials are enough to prevent the American aggressors from finding a pretext to go ahead with regime change.
Why is the U.S. bullying Iran right after moving into Iraq? One reason is that the U.S. has to solve some of the contradictions it created. After the occupation of Iraq, the U.S. has put itself into the dangerous vortex of hostility of the masses in the Middle East more than ever before. The U.S. has been receiving forceful opposition from Iraqis. The charge that Iran is supporting Iraqi clerics shows that the U.S. feels it may not be able to "stabilize" its occupation of Iraq without destabilizing the Iranian regime. Secondly, with Iraq occupied and Syria apparently cowed, Iran has come to the fore as a leading obstacle to U.S. plans in the region. Thirdly, "regime change" in Iran is extremely necessary for the U.S. because its occupation of Iraq and military presence in the Middle East is part of a process through which U.S. imperialism is seeking to achieve worldwide uncontested hegemony. When the U.S. accuses Iran of failing to honor nuclear accords and supporting Iraqi clerics, the real accusation is that the Iranian regime is trying to preserve some independence and power in the region instead of completely giving in to U.S. wishes. The Iranian regime has been able to avoid becoming totally subservient to America by striking deals with other imperialist powers. This, too, for the U.S., is no longer acceptable. Thus the U.S. is seeking a pretext for regime change. Iran's nuclear program is a perfect excuse.
What is the Iranian regime's position in the face of these boiling contradictions? Despite its anti-U.S. rhetoric, it is a neo-colonial regime. Further, it has not been the case that the Islamic regime does not want to capitulate to U.S. imperialism. In a bid to serve U.S. imperialism, Teheran supported the U.S.-led war against Afghanistan and apparently assisted the U.S. in practical ways. It publicly promised the U.S. it would fight al-Qaida and turned over more than 500 people to the U.S. and its allies following the September 11, 2001 New York attacks. The Teheran regime even asserted on May 31, 2003 that Iran should generate 6,000 megawatts of power in the next 20 years, and any country can turn in tenders for construction of power plants in Iran. Like Saddam, the mullahs are ready to let U.S. imperialism rape their country if they can save their own regime.
The crux of the problem is that the U.S. has serious problems with those regimes that seek bargaining despite being subordinate to imperialism. The clerics want to capitulate with conditions, while the U.S. doesn't want to accept any conditions.
U.S. imperialism has been hostile to the present Iranian regime since the revolution of 1979 that overthrew the Shah (king) of Iran, who was a U.S. puppet. The CIA put him in power in 1953 when it or- ganized a coup d'etat to overthrow the elected government of Mohamad Mossadeq. But the theocratic regime of the mullahs that replaced the Shah did nothing to free Iran from its dependence on imperialist capital and the imperialist-controlled world oil market. Their backward rule led by the religious leader Khamenei is hated by the masses in Iran. Like the Shah, under their rule Iran has been a torture chamber for the Iranian people. But the fact that the regime is run by tyrannical religious fanatics is not enough to qualify them to be stooges of the tyrannical religious fanatics of Bush and his gang. U.S. imperialism wants a puppet regime, not one that tries to bargain, blackmail or arm wrestle with their imperialist masters. They want obedience to imperialist rule, wholehearted, immediate and active. One easy way they think they can achieve this is by reinstating the backward feudal dynasty of the Shah. That is why U.S. officials are talking about bringing back the son of the old Shah to be the best flunkey of U.S. imperialism and replace Khamenei and Khatami. That's the U.S.'s "regime change" in Iran.
In the face of growing pressure from U.S. imperialism, the Iranian regime has been more and more submissive to it. In fact, the Iranian regime cannot resist U.S. imperialism by uniting the country as a whole against the bullying enemy. Resisting imperialism would be possible not by seeking a deal with imperialism itself, but only by completely democratizing the country and putting complete power in the hands of the people. But the class character of the theocratic regime of this semi-feudal, semi-colonial country does not allow the people to have political power. The people of the 21st century are forced to accept a medieval theocratic regime. Women, half of the population, are severely suppressed under the brutal Islamic laws. The national economy has been subjugated by imperialism. Thus the Iranian people are deprived of all political, economic and social rights. The U.S. wants to take advantage of this fragile political situation for its own reactionary purposes, not to help emancipate the people but to press them down even further.
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