26 March 2012. By Samuel Albert. Nadine Hammam knows something about tank girls. She was one of the iconic young women who scrambled onto a tank in Tahrir Square in January 2011, during the 18-day revolt that brought down Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
The protesters welcomed the soldiers. They thought the army was coming to their defence against Mubarak's murderous police and his civilian thugs hurling cinderblocks and rocks down on the square from the safety of surrounding rooftops and a motorway overpass. With hopes born of equal parts of illusion and desperation, many demonstrators chanted, "The army and the people are one hand." Yet the military failed to stop the rooftop assaults by surrounding and searching the buildings and overpass, or arresting the killers standing in plain sight. Instead soldiers stood by and watched.
Since Mubarak's resignation, the army has taken over the job of killing, torturing and imprisoning Egyptian youth and others who defy the ruling power in the streets. Those who risked and sacrificed so much for what they hoped would be a revolution have seen, instead, the spectre of an unholy, if uneasy and unpredictable, alignment between the US, the Muslim Brotherhood, remnants of the old regime and the military junta.
Hammam, an Egyptian artist born in 1974, says she'd like to take back her gesture of a year ago. "We were naïve to think the army was there to protect us." But in revisiting that moment in her current solo show at the Gallery Misr in Zamalek, across the Nile from Tahrir Square, she is not just looking back at lost illusions. The image of a young woman riding a tank that is the show's centrepiece reflects more than the bitter frustration of a revolt that got rid of a hated head of state but not the state structure he sat on and the economic and political relationships it represents. Her work also announces a determination to continue rebelling against much that is unacceptable in Egyptian society and the world. At a time when some people are saying that the Tahrir youth went too far and brought on themselves the backlash they now face, this piece is unrepentant.
Tank Girl, a large painting installation, has a room to itself in this show. The pink outlined figure of a pony-tailed young woman, done in smooth acrylic paint and shiny foil that suggests the muscles and blood vessels under her skin, sits astride the turret of a pink tank. The only detail in this silhouette portrait is her bright red bra. All Egyptians would understand this is a reference to – and joyous transformation of – the so-called "girl in the blue bra", the young woman stripped of her abaya and headscarf by military police who beat her with long batons and stomped on her chest in a Tahrir square protest against military rule last December.
This tank girl is not a humiliated victim. She has not lost her "honour" – her nakedness proclaims it. She and the stencilled tank are the same size; she not only rides it but has conquered it. From its cannon between her legs spurts a stream of rats, running down the side of the painting and the wall beneath, and fleeing across the gallery floor.
Hamman has offered different explanations of the significance of the rats, once saying that the military are rats and another time that the rats represent the country's panicked billionaires whom Mubarak and now the military serve and protect.
The artist wrote a statement on this piece: "You can beat us, strip us, gas us and virginity-test us, but in the end we will prevail."
The show also includes a series of paintings called Heartless, five silhouettes of women made of silver foil that speak to the way the reduction of women to their body parts impedes the human relationships they long for. These pieces are pretty in form, in a customary "feminine" style (in the choice of colours and the jewel trimmings highlighting the women's desirability and value), and violent in their content.
While Egyptian art has long included nude paintings of women by men, the situation has changed lately. Religiously-sanctioned "temporary" and secret "second" wives have been added to the possibilities offered rich men alongside Western-style mistresses. Females covered from head to toe are for sale on Cairo's streets. While women are still supposed to be sexual playthings (and breeders) in private, in public – and now often in the arts – they must cover the hair that assaults men with sinful thoughts. The bodies for which they are prized are considered dangerous to public order.
There is a growing, widely-felt danger that whatever some people consider Islamic standards are going to be enforced on all, by law, intimidation or simply the silent acceptance of custom and tradition. A photographer documenting a traditional neighbourhood's history found that he could not make portraits of women for public display – his show includes pictures of local women in decades past but not today. Adel Imam, one of Arab cinema's most famous actors, has been convicted in absentia and sentenced to three months hard labour for “offending Islam” in his film and stage roles. The late Nobel prize-winning novelist Naguib Mafouz is reviled as simply a purveyor of pornography.
In part this is because the morality associated with the West and Mubarak's regime has become so utterly exposed and hated, but what's being offered, supposedly in opposition, is also reactionary. It's not a minor fact that Persepolis, an autobiographical animated film recounting the violent collision between a rebellious Iranian girl from a secular family and the Islamic Republic, can no longer be shown in Egypt or Tunisia, banned not by law or decree, or even, ostensibly, because of its political content, as in Iran, but by social pressure because it is considered "blasphemous". Under the cover of not "offending" religious sensibilities, many people who seek social change confuse people's right to practice their religion with religion's demand for the "right" to define society.
On occasion this has provoked women artists and other women in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries to portray themselves naked as a scream of protest. When the blogger and political activist Alias El-Mahdy posted a photo of her naked self online last October, she was denounced as if she had committed the worst crime imaginable, an evil much of the country could unite against, as if a woman taking off her own clothes was far more dangerous to the prevailing society than what soldiers have been doing to women in public and private. Women in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East, including Iran and Israel, posted group portraits of themselves naked and holding banners in solidarity with her.
It tells us something about the current cowardice among some Egyptian intellectuals that Hammam's show has been attacked for dealing with sex and nudity, not just from the predictable religious authorities but also from some cynical critics identified with global art culture and Western publications. They accuse her of choosing her topics because "sex sells" and her work is selling very well right now, along with setting off a big ruckus in the media.
But as the other work in this exhibition underlines, this is more than topical art, and the opposite of porn, soft-core or otherwise. The flatness and anonymity of her female figures – ironically achieved only by many layers of paint – references the way that women are flattened by the dominant role played by the men in their lives from birth to death, and robbed of their identity as they are turned into fungible commodities. Even in her more "sexual" two previous gallery shows in Cairo, Aikl Aish (Making a Living, 2008) and I'm for Sale (2010), her portrayals of women as they have been rendered by the male gaze are more disquieting than erotic. They challenge the prevailing relations between men and women by revealing the power relations and commodity exchange that shape them.
Hammam's work is closely linked to its context. Her exhibition is taking place in a city where the tanks and armoured cars have now become a common sight downtown. It opened on 8 March, International Women's Day, as hundreds of women marched on parliament. Their official demands were confined to admitting more women to the committee writing a new constitution (in which a main debate is preserving the unbearable status quo for women or instituting Sharia law) and a parliament that has been little but a fig leaf for the military and its increasing subservience to the US. But video footage of the marchers, covered and uncovered alike, and interviews, seem to reveal a deeper and potentially explosive dissatisfaction.
Shortly after, on 11 March, an army court acquitted a military doctor accused of performing "virginity tests" on seven women arrested when the army broke up a Tahrir sit-in a year ago. Few people expected any other outcome from a trial of the military by the military (lawyers for the civilian plaintiffs were not allowed to take part). The military has concluded that a civilian court ruling that the army must cease these deliberately degrading practices cannot be applied because now it has been "proven" that they never happened in the first place!
A military spokesman reaffirmed that the army will continue to regard women taking part in political activity as suspected prostitutes and "who knows, even spies". To hide its obsequiousness to the US, the military often labels its critics Israeli agents. This is especially convincing to people who consider that the essence of the Palestinian question is Israel versus Islam, so that anyone considered anti-Islamic must be pro-Israel.
Yet at the same time Hammam's work is not narrowly topical at all. It can have universal meaning, long after today's events. In part, this is because it strains against a fatally false dichotomy that has become all too widely accepted: either you are a "real Egyptian" (and therefore worship all the backward institutions and traditions that weigh down on the people, and in fact have often been bolstered by the country's occupiers and oppressors, including the US today), or you are subservient to the fashions and values prevailing in the West and don't care for the Egyptian masses.
One of the striking features of Hammam's work, as textured intellectually as it is technically, is that she links the particular situation of women in Egypt with women's universal status as lesser beings. If anything, in addition to deliberately riling up backward forces in her own country, her work is especially critical of Western culture, where women's worth is even more clearly determined by their value as commodities, often even in their own eyes.
Artists and the art public may be a very small segment of Egyptian society (as some critics take malign pleasure in pointing out), but the issues Hammam addresses touch all women and are basic to the question of what kind of society Egypt will be. What has been identified as an upsurge among Egyptian artists a year after Mubarak's downfall may be happening now because they were too busy in the streets to work in their studios until today's relative lull. It is also, very likely, an explosion of expression in the field of art of sentiments that have been deeply frustrated and, right now, are having difficulty finding a political outlet.
….....
Cairo artists have launched a campaign to "open" the seven concrete barricades the military erected around the Ministry of the Interior and other sinister sites of power by "painting through the walls." They called on neighbourhood residents to come into the streets to take part starting on 9 March, the anniversary of the day when the army first attacked Tahrir square and inflicted the "virginity tests". Hammam's work and some of these wall paintings can be seen and are discussed on the following English-language Web sites:
- http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/5/25/36357/Arts--Culture/Visual-Art/Tank-Girl-challenges-military-rule,-patriarchal-so.asp
- http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/5/35/36132/Arts—Culture/Stage--Street/Activists-and-artists-to-paint-protest-murals-on-S.aspx
- http://www.cntraveler.com/arts/2012/03/egypt-cairo-revolution-women-in-art#slide=1
- http://artforum.com/words/id=30394
- http://www.almasryalyoum.com/node/700566
- www.egyptindependent.com/node/70469
- www.egyptindependent.com/node/723496
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Montag, 2. April 2012
Sonntag, 25. März 2012
Women and the "Arab Spring"
19 March 2012. A World to Win News Service. After the collapse of long-time dictators kept in power by the support of the imperialists, the struggle of women and the people as a whole in North Africa and the Middle East did not end. The thieves of the people's struggles who are women's oppressors too emerged and claimed the fruits of the people's struggle.
Since 8 March 2011 concerns about women's rights, their marginalisation in those countries on the one hand, and on the other their struggle to defy these attacks and struggle for their rights, have reverberated internationally. The various assaults on women and the protest of thousands of women in Cairo on 21 December 2011 are some of the highlights of these developments.
Tahrir square in Cairo, which inspired millions of people all over the world during the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, has also been the site of some of the ugliest attacks on women during the following months.
On 8 March 2011, women attempted to hold a demonstration to celebrate International Women's Day, in hopes of playing a more active part in their society. However, they found themselves surrounded and attacked by a group of hundreds of men, possibly a combination of Islamists and pro-Mubarak forces. While the role of the army is not clear, at a minimum it did not intervene.
A witness who described the scene said unidentified men attacked the women, "forcing some to the ground, dragging others out of the crowd, groping and sexually harassing them as police and military figures stood by and failed to act… As I struggled to stay upright, a hand grabbed my behind and others pulled at my clothes." (Guardian, 9 March 2011)
This was a clear warning to all people that Mubarak may be gone but others who might look different but are made of the same stuff are still very powerful, and they are particularly opposed to women playing an active role in society.
On 9 March 2011, a day after this incident, at least 18 women along with 200 men were arrested by the army during a protest in nearby Tahrir Square. They were subjected to torture, including electric shocks. The women were transferred to a military detention centre and forced to take their clothes off before being subjected to a forced "virginity test". One of the victims, Samira Ibrahim 25, describes the assaults: "The person that conducted the test was an officer, not a doctor. He had his hand stuck in me for about five minutes. He made me lose my virginity. Every time I think of this, I don't know what to tell you, I feel awful… I know that to violate a woman in that way is considered rape. I felt like I had been raped." (Guardian, 11 October 2011)
In another show of brutality against women, on 17 December 2011 the people of the world saw a video of soldiers beating a young woman and stripping her down to her bra, outside the Cabinet offices near Tahrir Square.
This gave rise to the demonstration of thousands of women in Cairo angrily protesting this brutality against women.
This demonstration, which according to some observers was the largest march of women the country had ever seen, included women from all walks of life, young and old, daughters and mothers, Muslims, Christians and secularists. The importance of this demonstration cannot be explained by its numbers alone. It highlighted the determination of women in Egypt to fight back for their rights. It was a clear statement by the women that they are not an easy target, as some people might think, and if the army and the Islamist forces intend to suppress women and send them back home to play the role of wife and mother, they had better be prepared for a fight with women.
All this has been only one of the fronts on which women in Egypt have been attacked. Other developments that have made women in the Middle East and North Africa concerned about their rights and their future role in society include the advance of Islamist forces in Egypt and Tunisia and other countries in the region where the people have been revolting.
In the Egyptian parliamentary elections last December, the Muslim Brotherhood won half of the seats, and the more fundamentalist Salafists won another fifth. In Tunisia, the Islamist party Ennahda won 40 percent of the seats in the Constitutional Assembly.
The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists in Egypt and the Ennahda party in Tunisia played little or no role in the people’s revolts and are far from being the real representatives of the people's basic interests. With the help of the imperialists and powerful financial backing from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, they have been taking advantage of the people's religion. In no small part because of the weakness and/or absence of revolutionary forces, they have become the most organised forces in those countries and have unexpectedly come to play a central role in the emerging new governments.
As the Egyptian author Nawal al-Saadawi wrote in a statement on International Women's Day this year, "We were able, by the power of the united millions, to remove the head of the regime (Hosni Mubarak) on 11 Februray 2011, but the body of the regime is still in power, supported by the American colonial government and its Egyptian allies in the High Military Council, in the post-revolutionary government, in big business and the ultra-rich elites, in the big media, in the old liberal political parties and the new fanatical religious groups (which gained more and more power since the Sadat era during the seventies and his submission to the Israeli regime and the American military and economic aid).
"Since then poverty and women's oppression increased under... increasing religious fundamentalism and class exploitation. Women are half of society. They cannot be liberated in a country which is not liberated. We combine our liberation from patriarchy with the liberation of our country from both colonialist and religious oppression." (The full statement can be found on Nawal al-Saadawi's Facebook page, posted 5 March.)
The US and other imperialists who wanted to protect the dominant structure of these countries before the people’s revolts deepen cut a deal with forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Ennahda who, they thought, could better guard and represent the state and old economic and political relationships that serve their interests.
While the Salafists have openly declared their aim of establishing strict Sharia law (similar to Saudi Arabia, where in most situations women have to cover themselves with a niqab – full face covering – and are excluded from the life of the society, the two main Islamic parties in Egypt and Tunisia have said that they are "encouraging traditional roles but respecting women’s career choices." (The New York Times, 9 January 2012)
The experience of Islamic forces in power in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (especially under the Zia regime) and other countries shows that their "Islamic values" are mainly centred around the role of women in society and the family, and that the women are not considered equal to men. They clearly state that a woman should be considered as half a man in many situations, that women should be covered by a veil and be mainly good mothers and wives, and in the final analysis, that women are owned by men. Women's role in society should be eliminated where possible or reduced. If those parties are not going to implement these Islamic laws, fully or partially, then why did they enter into the world of political Islam in the first place?
To explain this contradiction, some observers have come to the conclusion that the Islamic forces don't believe that the people, and especially women, are in a mood that would welcome the full expression of the Islamist views. Further, they don't have enough forces to move from a position of strength. So they have to deceive people and consolidate their position, and then they take further steps.
If we look at the experience in Iran, in order to win over the people and other political forces, Ayatollah Ruholah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamist forces, promised equal rights for women and freedom for all political forces, including the communists. However, after they took over the government, the first attack was against women. When they tried to make the hijab (head covering) compulsory, women fought back with an historic five-day outburst of protest. Khomeini had to retreat and wait for another time. He found that moment when the Islamist forces consolidated their political power.
Egypt is a conservative society. Women have been under pressure, and most, especially in the countryside, have been kept out of social and political activity. About 42 percent of women cannot read and write and only about 25 percent work outside the home. While these figures might be high in comparison with some other countries in the region, still they indicate the existence of obstacles to women who want to go beyond the household walls. Genital cutting is still widespread, especially in rural areas, despite the Mubarak government's claim to have combated it. The level of sexual harassment against women has risen to a terrifying degree. Whether veiled or not, unaccompanied women can expect verbal harassment and being groped in crowded spaces.
However during the uprising of the people in Egypt and especially the 18 days in Tahrir Square, this situation changed. Women took part in the protests and played a much more active role. This also reflected the women's abhorrence of the situation, especially young women.
Hadeer Ahmad is a 20-year-old woman from a Salalfist family. Her mother covers her face and entire body. After taking part in the protest that toppled Mubarak, the young woman was inspired to take off her scarf.
"I realized that I believe in complete equality with men… I used to think that I could get married and stay at home, and now I think that I belong to this society and that I want to contribute to it. A number of my female friends decided after the revolution that they wanted to leave their homes, to live independently from their families. The revolution gave us energy and power.” (NYT, 21 November 2011)
And this is how the women changed. Women from all walks of life participated in those unforgettable days of Egyptian history. According to some accounts, despite the constraints, nearly a quarter of those protesting in Tahrir Square were women.
Women's satisfaction with and enjoyment of the important role they were playing made many think that they had defeated familial, social, cultural, traditional and religious limitations and constraints. In fact they were able to push back these obstacles for that period of time, but that victory was not finalised. The guardians of the backward relations soon started to counter-attack.
The regime that replaced Mubarak was not what the people were fighting for. The imperialists had to give in to the downfall of their man, Mubarak, but they also had to try and limit the extent of the blow to the state structure and the social and economic relations serving world imperialism. So they helped piece together a combination of forces, mainly the army and Islamists.
The rise of the Islamists has added to women's concern about their future. There are also fears that even existing rights, though mostly they exist only on paper, are threatened. Human rights activists and women’s groups have confirmed the assault on women and the backlash against their political participation by those in power and their unofficial thugs. For example, in Egypt Salafist men have been accusing women in villages and small towns of "disrespectful" behaviour. However in some cases they have been confronted with the women who fought back and made them flee.
The unity of Egyptian reactionary forces against women
The coalition of the army and the Islamists is determined to protect the old system with all its values centred on anti-women policies. It seems that both factions are most united when it comes to anti-women policies. The army is using violence against women and wielding the state apparatus to humiliate them, while the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to use and strengthen backward traditions, so-called culture and religion, and Salafists are using unofficial thugs to harass and attack women in the streets. All three forces are working towards the same end, even if approaching it from different directions.
Why are all these reactionary forces so anti-woman? Apart from the general view they all share, that women should be defined as wives and mothers, in backward countries where pre-capitalist modes of production or some aspects of them still persist, men's ownership of women shapes policies regarding women in the family and society.
But there is another important reason. Women's increasing role in recent years and especially in Tahrir square inspired women to take more active part in society and fight for their rights. Many women do not want to put this important experience behind them and go back to their traditional role, but to learn more and go even further.
But the guardians of the old system and old relations, the generals and various Islamic and religious forces, want women to go back to their traditional role and can't tolerate their enthusiasm. The brutality is an indication that they have seen that the genie is out of the bottle.
Some wrong thinking regarding raising the oppression of women
While determination is essential for women to fight for their liberation, it is not enough. It is important to be clear and see where the subordinate role of women originated and how this has been reinforced by all class societies and the exploiting nature of the ruling classes throughout history.
If Mubarak and a few figures around him are removed but the main structure of the old system remains untouched and is even protected by the institutions that actually were and still are running the country, the old values and the same differences and discrimination, the same oppression and exploitation will remain in place. The old system will continue to function, even though there might be a brief interruption in some parts of it. And even if those institutions are abolished, there is no guarantee that exploitation and oppression, including the oppression of women, will be vanquished. A revolution replaces those old institutions with a new state, one that establishes a new mode of production and works for a society without classes, gender oppression or antagonistic social differences of any kind, a society that needs and makes possible the work, efforts and conscious participation of all people.
However, among those who demand respect for women' rights and the end of violence and discrimination against women, some people believe that it is possible within the existing system, and even that it can be achieved by respecting religion and the existing traditions. Yet not only are such goals not achievable in a system based on exploitation that requires the oppression of women for its functioning, but furthermore, religion and traditions work in the superstructure of society to reinforce and consolidate the system of oppression and exploitation. Consequently tailing religion and tradition can only preserve the oppression of women. This is why the Islamist parties are accepted at the top of the pyramid of such a system, and why they are willing to work at the top of such a system. This is why the top of the pyramid is united to oppress and marginalize women.
Women's oppression in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and other countries in the region has taken specific forms for many reasons, including the fact that tradition and Islam play a powerful role in their own right. But most fundamentally these traditions and religion reflect the oppression maintained by imperialism and its local backward allies, and outmoded modes of production – pre-capitalist production relations – whose persistence is related to the subordination of these countries to imperialist capital.
Let's put it this way: the oppression of women in Islamic countries does not mean that women in Western countries are not discriminated against or that their rights are not violated. Even more fundamentally, the equality in the eyes of the law that prevails in most Western countries has not and cannot lead to the emancipation of women, who remain subjugated, lesser beings in every country in today's world. But at the same time the form of oppression of women in Western countries should not be used to justify any kind of oppression, or allow Islamist forces to impose their own particular brand of oppression of women. Furthermore, the oppression of women in any form will strengthen, instead of challenge, the economic and social relations that facilitate imperialist domination.
So women in North Africa and the Middle East, as in all countries, have a responsibility to fight against imperialism and the relations of production that pave the way for the oppression of women, and that means they have a responsibility to fight against ideas and views that help to reinforce those modes of productions and the oppression of women. So the separation of religion from state is an initial and a basic demand for the liberation of women. Clinging to religion can never and will never result in women's liberation.
Another wrong notion about women that is very common everywhere, even among some left-minded people and groups, is the tendency to ignore the woman question or oppose emphasizing it under the pretext that it is not the main aspect of the revolution. This view tends to leave women's demands for a later time, which indirectly helps prolong the oppression of women. Such views seem to have influence in Egypt too. A young Egyptian journalist worried about women's rights reports:
"I have attended rallies for the Islamist parties dominating the elections and I have talked to many of their voters. And they all tell me that my fears as a working independent woman who likes her life exactly as it is are secondary to more important pressing issues for the future of this country. I'm secondary to the reconstruction of Egypt and my fears are trivial compared to crucial matters such as security, the economy and the power struggle between the ruling military council and the Tahrir Squares around the country." (Mayye El-Sheikh writing in the NYT, 15 December 2011)
This kind of thinking is also common among some leftists who think that it is futile and misleading to fight for women's rights in capitalist society, since the liberation of women can only be realized by socialist revolution. Therefore, they argue, women's demands are secondary, and this is not the time to raise them.
"Ola Shahba, 33, a socialist who, during the uprising, joined the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth, took a break from organizing a protest of teachers' unions to describe her frustrations with feminism.
"'I think I am too socialist to be a feminist,' Ms Shahba said. Though she believes in women's empowerment, she said, she feels that in present-day Egypt, an explicit focus on women's rights just serves to isolate women further. The Egyptian labour movement, she pointed out, has long had powerful female leaders." (NYT, 21 November 2011)
Though it is true that women's liberation can only be fully achieved in a communist society, that doesn’t mean the struggle for women's rights should be abandoned and left for after the revolution. In fact, the other side of this is that without the vast participation of women in struggles, a socialist revolution can never happen. It is true that there have been women leaders in the communist movement, but the women leaders and activists have never been nearly as many as is needed. So to encourage women in an organized way and organizing them around their demands is an integral part of the revolution.
The abolition of the oppression of women is not a single event that can happen the day after the revolution. It is a process that can and should be initiated from the first day that struggle starts.
Overall the uprising of the people in the Middle East and North Africa, while it brought the collapse of some dictators and is shaking others, has taken place in conjunction with other developments, including the rise of Islamists, in some cases with the cooperation of imperialist forces. We have seen from the day they enter government that they are pressing to give Islam a commanding force in social life, and push women back into their traditional subjugated role. This has provoked grave concern.
Of course women in this region have shown great courage and determination. Their worry is an indication of their awareness of their rights and a sign that they are not going to give in easily, at least not without a fight.
Since 8 March 2011 concerns about women's rights, their marginalisation in those countries on the one hand, and on the other their struggle to defy these attacks and struggle for their rights, have reverberated internationally. The various assaults on women and the protest of thousands of women in Cairo on 21 December 2011 are some of the highlights of these developments.
Tahrir square in Cairo, which inspired millions of people all over the world during the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, has also been the site of some of the ugliest attacks on women during the following months.
On 8 March 2011, women attempted to hold a demonstration to celebrate International Women's Day, in hopes of playing a more active part in their society. However, they found themselves surrounded and attacked by a group of hundreds of men, possibly a combination of Islamists and pro-Mubarak forces. While the role of the army is not clear, at a minimum it did not intervene.
A witness who described the scene said unidentified men attacked the women, "forcing some to the ground, dragging others out of the crowd, groping and sexually harassing them as police and military figures stood by and failed to act… As I struggled to stay upright, a hand grabbed my behind and others pulled at my clothes." (Guardian, 9 March 2011)
This was a clear warning to all people that Mubarak may be gone but others who might look different but are made of the same stuff are still very powerful, and they are particularly opposed to women playing an active role in society.
On 9 March 2011, a day after this incident, at least 18 women along with 200 men were arrested by the army during a protest in nearby Tahrir Square. They were subjected to torture, including electric shocks. The women were transferred to a military detention centre and forced to take their clothes off before being subjected to a forced "virginity test". One of the victims, Samira Ibrahim 25, describes the assaults: "The person that conducted the test was an officer, not a doctor. He had his hand stuck in me for about five minutes. He made me lose my virginity. Every time I think of this, I don't know what to tell you, I feel awful… I know that to violate a woman in that way is considered rape. I felt like I had been raped." (Guardian, 11 October 2011)
In another show of brutality against women, on 17 December 2011 the people of the world saw a video of soldiers beating a young woman and stripping her down to her bra, outside the Cabinet offices near Tahrir Square.
This gave rise to the demonstration of thousands of women in Cairo angrily protesting this brutality against women.
This demonstration, which according to some observers was the largest march of women the country had ever seen, included women from all walks of life, young and old, daughters and mothers, Muslims, Christians and secularists. The importance of this demonstration cannot be explained by its numbers alone. It highlighted the determination of women in Egypt to fight back for their rights. It was a clear statement by the women that they are not an easy target, as some people might think, and if the army and the Islamist forces intend to suppress women and send them back home to play the role of wife and mother, they had better be prepared for a fight with women.
All this has been only one of the fronts on which women in Egypt have been attacked. Other developments that have made women in the Middle East and North Africa concerned about their rights and their future role in society include the advance of Islamist forces in Egypt and Tunisia and other countries in the region where the people have been revolting.
In the Egyptian parliamentary elections last December, the Muslim Brotherhood won half of the seats, and the more fundamentalist Salafists won another fifth. In Tunisia, the Islamist party Ennahda won 40 percent of the seats in the Constitutional Assembly.
The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists in Egypt and the Ennahda party in Tunisia played little or no role in the people’s revolts and are far from being the real representatives of the people's basic interests. With the help of the imperialists and powerful financial backing from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, they have been taking advantage of the people's religion. In no small part because of the weakness and/or absence of revolutionary forces, they have become the most organised forces in those countries and have unexpectedly come to play a central role in the emerging new governments.
As the Egyptian author Nawal al-Saadawi wrote in a statement on International Women's Day this year, "We were able, by the power of the united millions, to remove the head of the regime (Hosni Mubarak) on 11 Februray 2011, but the body of the regime is still in power, supported by the American colonial government and its Egyptian allies in the High Military Council, in the post-revolutionary government, in big business and the ultra-rich elites, in the big media, in the old liberal political parties and the new fanatical religious groups (which gained more and more power since the Sadat era during the seventies and his submission to the Israeli regime and the American military and economic aid).
"Since then poverty and women's oppression increased under... increasing religious fundamentalism and class exploitation. Women are half of society. They cannot be liberated in a country which is not liberated. We combine our liberation from patriarchy with the liberation of our country from both colonialist and religious oppression." (The full statement can be found on Nawal al-Saadawi's Facebook page, posted 5 March.)
The US and other imperialists who wanted to protect the dominant structure of these countries before the people’s revolts deepen cut a deal with forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Ennahda who, they thought, could better guard and represent the state and old economic and political relationships that serve their interests.
While the Salafists have openly declared their aim of establishing strict Sharia law (similar to Saudi Arabia, where in most situations women have to cover themselves with a niqab – full face covering – and are excluded from the life of the society, the two main Islamic parties in Egypt and Tunisia have said that they are "encouraging traditional roles but respecting women’s career choices." (The New York Times, 9 January 2012)
The experience of Islamic forces in power in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (especially under the Zia regime) and other countries shows that their "Islamic values" are mainly centred around the role of women in society and the family, and that the women are not considered equal to men. They clearly state that a woman should be considered as half a man in many situations, that women should be covered by a veil and be mainly good mothers and wives, and in the final analysis, that women are owned by men. Women's role in society should be eliminated where possible or reduced. If those parties are not going to implement these Islamic laws, fully or partially, then why did they enter into the world of political Islam in the first place?
To explain this contradiction, some observers have come to the conclusion that the Islamic forces don't believe that the people, and especially women, are in a mood that would welcome the full expression of the Islamist views. Further, they don't have enough forces to move from a position of strength. So they have to deceive people and consolidate their position, and then they take further steps.
If we look at the experience in Iran, in order to win over the people and other political forces, Ayatollah Ruholah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamist forces, promised equal rights for women and freedom for all political forces, including the communists. However, after they took over the government, the first attack was against women. When they tried to make the hijab (head covering) compulsory, women fought back with an historic five-day outburst of protest. Khomeini had to retreat and wait for another time. He found that moment when the Islamist forces consolidated their political power.
Egypt is a conservative society. Women have been under pressure, and most, especially in the countryside, have been kept out of social and political activity. About 42 percent of women cannot read and write and only about 25 percent work outside the home. While these figures might be high in comparison with some other countries in the region, still they indicate the existence of obstacles to women who want to go beyond the household walls. Genital cutting is still widespread, especially in rural areas, despite the Mubarak government's claim to have combated it. The level of sexual harassment against women has risen to a terrifying degree. Whether veiled or not, unaccompanied women can expect verbal harassment and being groped in crowded spaces.
However during the uprising of the people in Egypt and especially the 18 days in Tahrir Square, this situation changed. Women took part in the protests and played a much more active role. This also reflected the women's abhorrence of the situation, especially young women.
Hadeer Ahmad is a 20-year-old woman from a Salalfist family. Her mother covers her face and entire body. After taking part in the protest that toppled Mubarak, the young woman was inspired to take off her scarf.
"I realized that I believe in complete equality with men… I used to think that I could get married and stay at home, and now I think that I belong to this society and that I want to contribute to it. A number of my female friends decided after the revolution that they wanted to leave their homes, to live independently from their families. The revolution gave us energy and power.” (NYT, 21 November 2011)
And this is how the women changed. Women from all walks of life participated in those unforgettable days of Egyptian history. According to some accounts, despite the constraints, nearly a quarter of those protesting in Tahrir Square were women.
Women's satisfaction with and enjoyment of the important role they were playing made many think that they had defeated familial, social, cultural, traditional and religious limitations and constraints. In fact they were able to push back these obstacles for that period of time, but that victory was not finalised. The guardians of the backward relations soon started to counter-attack.
The regime that replaced Mubarak was not what the people were fighting for. The imperialists had to give in to the downfall of their man, Mubarak, but they also had to try and limit the extent of the blow to the state structure and the social and economic relations serving world imperialism. So they helped piece together a combination of forces, mainly the army and Islamists.
The rise of the Islamists has added to women's concern about their future. There are also fears that even existing rights, though mostly they exist only on paper, are threatened. Human rights activists and women’s groups have confirmed the assault on women and the backlash against their political participation by those in power and their unofficial thugs. For example, in Egypt Salafist men have been accusing women in villages and small towns of "disrespectful" behaviour. However in some cases they have been confronted with the women who fought back and made them flee.
The unity of Egyptian reactionary forces against women
The coalition of the army and the Islamists is determined to protect the old system with all its values centred on anti-women policies. It seems that both factions are most united when it comes to anti-women policies. The army is using violence against women and wielding the state apparatus to humiliate them, while the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to use and strengthen backward traditions, so-called culture and religion, and Salafists are using unofficial thugs to harass and attack women in the streets. All three forces are working towards the same end, even if approaching it from different directions.
Why are all these reactionary forces so anti-woman? Apart from the general view they all share, that women should be defined as wives and mothers, in backward countries where pre-capitalist modes of production or some aspects of them still persist, men's ownership of women shapes policies regarding women in the family and society.
But there is another important reason. Women's increasing role in recent years and especially in Tahrir square inspired women to take more active part in society and fight for their rights. Many women do not want to put this important experience behind them and go back to their traditional role, but to learn more and go even further.
But the guardians of the old system and old relations, the generals and various Islamic and religious forces, want women to go back to their traditional role and can't tolerate their enthusiasm. The brutality is an indication that they have seen that the genie is out of the bottle.
Some wrong thinking regarding raising the oppression of women
While determination is essential for women to fight for their liberation, it is not enough. It is important to be clear and see where the subordinate role of women originated and how this has been reinforced by all class societies and the exploiting nature of the ruling classes throughout history.
If Mubarak and a few figures around him are removed but the main structure of the old system remains untouched and is even protected by the institutions that actually were and still are running the country, the old values and the same differences and discrimination, the same oppression and exploitation will remain in place. The old system will continue to function, even though there might be a brief interruption in some parts of it. And even if those institutions are abolished, there is no guarantee that exploitation and oppression, including the oppression of women, will be vanquished. A revolution replaces those old institutions with a new state, one that establishes a new mode of production and works for a society without classes, gender oppression or antagonistic social differences of any kind, a society that needs and makes possible the work, efforts and conscious participation of all people.
However, among those who demand respect for women' rights and the end of violence and discrimination against women, some people believe that it is possible within the existing system, and even that it can be achieved by respecting religion and the existing traditions. Yet not only are such goals not achievable in a system based on exploitation that requires the oppression of women for its functioning, but furthermore, religion and traditions work in the superstructure of society to reinforce and consolidate the system of oppression and exploitation. Consequently tailing religion and tradition can only preserve the oppression of women. This is why the Islamist parties are accepted at the top of the pyramid of such a system, and why they are willing to work at the top of such a system. This is why the top of the pyramid is united to oppress and marginalize women.
Women's oppression in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and other countries in the region has taken specific forms for many reasons, including the fact that tradition and Islam play a powerful role in their own right. But most fundamentally these traditions and religion reflect the oppression maintained by imperialism and its local backward allies, and outmoded modes of production – pre-capitalist production relations – whose persistence is related to the subordination of these countries to imperialist capital.
Let's put it this way: the oppression of women in Islamic countries does not mean that women in Western countries are not discriminated against or that their rights are not violated. Even more fundamentally, the equality in the eyes of the law that prevails in most Western countries has not and cannot lead to the emancipation of women, who remain subjugated, lesser beings in every country in today's world. But at the same time the form of oppression of women in Western countries should not be used to justify any kind of oppression, or allow Islamist forces to impose their own particular brand of oppression of women. Furthermore, the oppression of women in any form will strengthen, instead of challenge, the economic and social relations that facilitate imperialist domination.
So women in North Africa and the Middle East, as in all countries, have a responsibility to fight against imperialism and the relations of production that pave the way for the oppression of women, and that means they have a responsibility to fight against ideas and views that help to reinforce those modes of productions and the oppression of women. So the separation of religion from state is an initial and a basic demand for the liberation of women. Clinging to religion can never and will never result in women's liberation.
Another wrong notion about women that is very common everywhere, even among some left-minded people and groups, is the tendency to ignore the woman question or oppose emphasizing it under the pretext that it is not the main aspect of the revolution. This view tends to leave women's demands for a later time, which indirectly helps prolong the oppression of women. Such views seem to have influence in Egypt too. A young Egyptian journalist worried about women's rights reports:
"I have attended rallies for the Islamist parties dominating the elections and I have talked to many of their voters. And they all tell me that my fears as a working independent woman who likes her life exactly as it is are secondary to more important pressing issues for the future of this country. I'm secondary to the reconstruction of Egypt and my fears are trivial compared to crucial matters such as security, the economy and the power struggle between the ruling military council and the Tahrir Squares around the country." (Mayye El-Sheikh writing in the NYT, 15 December 2011)
This kind of thinking is also common among some leftists who think that it is futile and misleading to fight for women's rights in capitalist society, since the liberation of women can only be realized by socialist revolution. Therefore, they argue, women's demands are secondary, and this is not the time to raise them.
"Ola Shahba, 33, a socialist who, during the uprising, joined the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth, took a break from organizing a protest of teachers' unions to describe her frustrations with feminism.
"'I think I am too socialist to be a feminist,' Ms Shahba said. Though she believes in women's empowerment, she said, she feels that in present-day Egypt, an explicit focus on women's rights just serves to isolate women further. The Egyptian labour movement, she pointed out, has long had powerful female leaders." (NYT, 21 November 2011)
Though it is true that women's liberation can only be fully achieved in a communist society, that doesn’t mean the struggle for women's rights should be abandoned and left for after the revolution. In fact, the other side of this is that without the vast participation of women in struggles, a socialist revolution can never happen. It is true that there have been women leaders in the communist movement, but the women leaders and activists have never been nearly as many as is needed. So to encourage women in an organized way and organizing them around their demands is an integral part of the revolution.
The abolition of the oppression of women is not a single event that can happen the day after the revolution. It is a process that can and should be initiated from the first day that struggle starts.
Overall the uprising of the people in the Middle East and North Africa, while it brought the collapse of some dictators and is shaking others, has taken place in conjunction with other developments, including the rise of Islamists, in some cases with the cooperation of imperialist forces. We have seen from the day they enter government that they are pressing to give Islam a commanding force in social life, and push women back into their traditional subjugated role. This has provoked grave concern.
Of course women in this region have shown great courage and determination. Their worry is an indication of their awareness of their rights and a sign that they are not going to give in easily, at least not without a fight.
CPI(M): "Condemn the arrests and torture of Maoist activists in Kolkata and Mumbai!"
12 March 2012. A World to Win News Service. India has been on a fast track to playing a more major role in the global economy. Indian and international corporations are itching to tear up the land inhabited by tribal peoples to get their hands on the riches that lie under them, minerals like bauxite, coal and iron ore. The Indian government cannot tolerate the fact that large swaths of the country are not under their control, and are determined to crush any resistance that stands in their way, especially the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the masses hungry for radical change who make up the army they lead. In late 2009, with an array of military forces and the utmost cruelty, the Indian government unleashed a war on the people called Operation Green Hunt. Following is a press release dated 2 March, 2012 from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), signed by its spokesman, Abhay.
In the last week of February 2012, the police have arrested activists of our Party, including some senior cadres from Kolkata and Mumbai. On the specific intelligence inputs provided by the murderous Andra Pradesh Special Intelligence Bureau (APSIB), joint forces of police and Special Task Force (STF) of Andra Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal have raided the shelters of our comrades in Kolkata and Mumbai suburbs and arrested at least nine comrades, including two women comrades. Comrades Sadanala Ramakrishna, Deepak Kumar Pargania, Sukumar Mandal, Bapi Mudi and Sambhu Charan were arrested from Kolkata, while Comrades Dinesh Wankhede, Aasimkumar Bhattacharya, Suman Gawde and Paru Patel were picked up from Thane in Maharashtra.
Comrades Sadanala Ramakrishna alias Santosh (62) and Aasimkumar Bhattacharya (65) were the seniors among the arrested. Senior comrade Sadanala Ramakrishna has been working for the revolution for at least four decades. He has been ailing with serious health problems for so many years. A mechanical engineer graduated from the prestigious Regional Engineering College (REC) of Warangal where other martyred leaders like Surapaneni Janardhan and Azad emerged as great revolutionaries of their times, Comrade Ramakrishna sacrificed his bright life for the cause of the liberation of the downtrodden.
Both the two women comrades arrested – Vijaya and Suman – have been undergoing medical treatment for some time, staying in the shelters outside the struggle zones. Particularly, comrade Vijaya has been suffering from serious heart problems.
The police forces, known for worst kind of cruelty, have been torturing these comrades mentally and physically while in custody. They have foisted several false cases against these comrades so that they could be languished behind bars forever.
On one hand the ruling classes are asserting that these arrests are a big success for them, and on the other hand, they are trying to portray our comrades as dangerous criminals, claiming that they have recovered huge amounts of cash and other material that is used for making arms.
These arrests are nothing but a part of Operation Green Hunt (OGH), i.e. the "War on People" which has been underway since 2009. The comprador ruling classes, in connivance with their imperialist masters, particularly with the US imperialists, have unleashed this brutal war of suppression in the poorest parts of India so that their neo-liberal policies of plunder of resources could go unhindered. They are particularly targeting the revolutionary leadership and eliminating them. As the Pentagon itself claimed recently, the US Special Forces are not only actively involved, but also assisting their Indian counterparts on the ground in the counter-insurgency operations aimed at eliminating the revolutionary leadership. This fact also shows us that the US has been patronizing in the ongoing Operation Green Hunt, making the values such as the freedom, independence, and sovereignty of our country a joke. The exploiting rulers of our country are daydreaming that this movement can be suppressed if its leadership is wiped out.
The revolutionary movement cannot be crushed with arrests and murders. The bars of the dungeons cannot restrict the revolutionary ideas from spreading among the vast masses.
The CC of CPI (Maoist) strongly condemns these arrests and the inhuman torture being inflicted on them. We demand immediate and unconditional release of these comrades, as well as all of the political prisoners languishing in various jails in all corners of our land. We also demand the lifting of all the false cases foisted against these comrades.
In the last week of February 2012, the police have arrested activists of our Party, including some senior cadres from Kolkata and Mumbai. On the specific intelligence inputs provided by the murderous Andra Pradesh Special Intelligence Bureau (APSIB), joint forces of police and Special Task Force (STF) of Andra Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal have raided the shelters of our comrades in Kolkata and Mumbai suburbs and arrested at least nine comrades, including two women comrades. Comrades Sadanala Ramakrishna, Deepak Kumar Pargania, Sukumar Mandal, Bapi Mudi and Sambhu Charan were arrested from Kolkata, while Comrades Dinesh Wankhede, Aasimkumar Bhattacharya, Suman Gawde and Paru Patel were picked up from Thane in Maharashtra.
Comrades Sadanala Ramakrishna alias Santosh (62) and Aasimkumar Bhattacharya (65) were the seniors among the arrested. Senior comrade Sadanala Ramakrishna has been working for the revolution for at least four decades. He has been ailing with serious health problems for so many years. A mechanical engineer graduated from the prestigious Regional Engineering College (REC) of Warangal where other martyred leaders like Surapaneni Janardhan and Azad emerged as great revolutionaries of their times, Comrade Ramakrishna sacrificed his bright life for the cause of the liberation of the downtrodden.
Both the two women comrades arrested – Vijaya and Suman – have been undergoing medical treatment for some time, staying in the shelters outside the struggle zones. Particularly, comrade Vijaya has been suffering from serious heart problems.
The police forces, known for worst kind of cruelty, have been torturing these comrades mentally and physically while in custody. They have foisted several false cases against these comrades so that they could be languished behind bars forever.
On one hand the ruling classes are asserting that these arrests are a big success for them, and on the other hand, they are trying to portray our comrades as dangerous criminals, claiming that they have recovered huge amounts of cash and other material that is used for making arms.
These arrests are nothing but a part of Operation Green Hunt (OGH), i.e. the "War on People" which has been underway since 2009. The comprador ruling classes, in connivance with their imperialist masters, particularly with the US imperialists, have unleashed this brutal war of suppression in the poorest parts of India so that their neo-liberal policies of plunder of resources could go unhindered. They are particularly targeting the revolutionary leadership and eliminating them. As the Pentagon itself claimed recently, the US Special Forces are not only actively involved, but also assisting their Indian counterparts on the ground in the counter-insurgency operations aimed at eliminating the revolutionary leadership. This fact also shows us that the US has been patronizing in the ongoing Operation Green Hunt, making the values such as the freedom, independence, and sovereignty of our country a joke. The exploiting rulers of our country are daydreaming that this movement can be suppressed if its leadership is wiped out.
The revolutionary movement cannot be crushed with arrests and murders. The bars of the dungeons cannot restrict the revolutionary ideas from spreading among the vast masses.
The CC of CPI (Maoist) strongly condemns these arrests and the inhuman torture being inflicted on them. We demand immediate and unconditional release of these comrades, as well as all of the political prisoners languishing in various jails in all corners of our land. We also demand the lifting of all the false cases foisted against these comrades.
Are women considered human yet?
Living Dolls, by Natasha Walter, Virago, 2010
5 March 2012. A World to Win News Service. With the approach of 8 March, International Women's Day, marked by revolutionary mobilizations in many countries, we are reprinting the following book review by Lindsay Wright which first appeared in the 11 October 2010 AWTWNS. We welcome book and film reviews and other articles that express our readers' opinions.
It can be easy for those of us who grew up in the 60s to believe that in the West much of the battle to win equality between the sexes has been won. Living in London in 2010, my gas engineer is a woman and the midwife a man; I can obtain as much free contraception and abortions as I require; most schools now provide childcare from 8 am to 6 pm, allowing mothers to work full-time; and the social controls attempting to prevent women having sex before marriage appear to have been lifted with young women appearing to be having sex whenever they want, with whom ever they want.
However, a deeper look at reality shows that the inequalities that women rebelled against in the 60s are alive and well, even if in some countries these inequalities are taking different forms. Living Dolls exposes extremely well the inequalities that exist between men and women in 21st century England and how these inequalities are (pseudo) "scientifically" explained away and justified by the current revival of biological determinism.
Most of us were brought up in the 50s and 60s grew up with societal norms that said that only bad girls had sex before marriage and that sex, when it did occur, was about ensuring the man's pleasure. In Living Dolls Walter illustrates how young women today are exposed to just as heavy societal pressures and norms as we were then, except now they face extreme pressure to have sex whenever the men in their life want it. So, in the middle of the 20th century women were under extreme pressure to not have sex before marriage and then to stay with their husbands "until death thy do part"; now young women are under extreme pressure to have sex and are commodified as much as they ever were. Physical appearance and the ability to satisfy men still determine a woman's value.
Walter argues very convincingly that women and girls, "are encouraged to see their sexual allure as their primary passport to success." Today's society equates women's empowerment and liberation with sexual objectification, women are encouraged to look like Barbie dolls and to see their value by how well they meet the sexual needs of others. She quotes UK research from 2006 that found that half of the teenagers surveyed would consider becoming fashion models and half see Jordan (a glamour model famous for her huge breast implants) as a role model!
Walter exposes how the "marketplace" reinforces certain acceptable behaviours for women and makes it hard for women, particularly young women, to behave differently or to seek their empowerment in ways that are not about being sexually promiscuous. She states that, "Many young women seem to believe that sexual confidence is the only confidence worth having, and that sexual confidence can only be gained if a young woman is ready to conform to the soft-porn image of a tanned, waxed young girl with large breasts ready to strip and pole dance… the constant reinforcement of one type of role model is shrinking and warping the choices on offer to young women."
Chapter 2 focuses on pole-dancing and prostitution, and Walter exposes the impact of these on both the individual women involved and on the community as a whole. For example, she quotes research from the Lilith Project in Camden Town in north London that found that in the three years after four lap-dancing clubs opened in Camden Town the "incidents of rape and sexual assault rose in the area". She believes that lap-dancing clubs are responsible for changing cultural attitudes towards the greater objectification of women. She notes that in the 21st century prostitution, rather than being shameful, is now increasingly seen as an aspirational career choice for women, yet the misogyny expressed by the men who use prostitutes remains ugly and the stories told by the many prostitutes remain disturbing. She notes that the standardised mortality rates for sex workers in the UK are six times higher than the general population.
Chapter 3 focuses on young girls, in particular, how "the main journey for a young girl is expected to lie along her path to winning the admiration of others for her appearance." So that it is becoming more and more prevalent for girls as young as eight or nine to become involved in "'the body project'", i.e., being "expected to devote energy to dieting, grooming and shopping…The imperative is to better oneself not through any intellectual or emotional growth, but through physical remaking." So from this viewpoint, one achieves empowerment only through physical perfection. One study, reported in 2005, found that most six year-olds "would prefer to be thinner than they are", and another in 2006 found that one in four girls were considering plastic surgery by the age of sixteen.
Kidscape (a UK children's charity) reports have gone from receiving 2-3 calls a year to their helpline regarding sexual bullying to receiving 2-3 calls per week in 2009. With ready access to pornography on the internet (which is easily printed) and via mobile phones, boys can regularly bring porn into school to "tease and discomfort" girls. Walter quotes Hannah White of Womankind Worldwide (who runs a project aimed at tackling sexual bullying) who says that sexual bullying has "been normalized in this generation in a way that makes it very hard to challenge."
The most important fact quoted by Walter to indicate that young girls are not in control of their sexual behaviour is a survey from 2000 that found that 80 percent of girls who had their first sexual experience aged 13 or 14 regretted it (this compares to 50 percent in 1990). As Walter points out, "since one in four girls has sex below the age of sixteen, that's a lot of regrets."
Chapter 4 examines women's sexual behaviour and the desire of the second wave of the feminist movement in the 1970s to encourage women to lay claim to their own desires and pleasures rather than being held back by traditional social expectations and simply subsuming their own sexual desire into that of their partner. Feminists of the 1960s and 1970s fought hard to undermine bourgeois marriage and to bring about freer sexual relationships in which women focused on their own sexual needs. However, although the second feminist movement "undoubtedly created a real shift in the way that women saw their sexuality", this movement mainly failed because women's sexuality is still very much about doing what pleases men. The forms this takes may have changed (the greatest status is no longer attained via virginity but through having lots of sexual experience); however, fundamentally many women are still not taking full control of their own sexuality.
Walter acknowledges the improvements in Western societies, where (unlike traditional societies) a woman's honour is no longer tied to virginity and monogamy. Feminism in many ways released women in the West from the repression of the old societal conventions around sex. However, Walter raises concern over many of the new societal conventions around sex. For example, the "the cultural shift towards embracing sex with no emotional commitment" leading to an increasing separation between sex and emotion – something never intended by the feminist movement. Walter interviewed many women for her book, many of whom seemed "to feel that their lives had been impoverished by the devaluation of sex into exchange and performance rather than mutual intimacy."
Chapter 5 looks at pornography. The Internet has meant that pornography, including hard core pornography, is readily available. Walter quotes a Canadian study that found that amongst 13-14 year-olds 90 percent of the boys and 70 percent of the girls have viewed pornography. In a UK study one out of four adult males aged 25-49 had viewed hardcore online porn in the last month, and 40 percent had viewed some kind of porn in the previous year. Walter reviews the criticisms historically raised by feminists, and how the old feminist positions have been discredited. She laments that these days we rarely hear any condemnation of pornography or even any discussion of the effects of pornography, concluding that, "This means that men are still encouraged, through most pornographic materials, to see women as objects, and women are still encouraged much of the time to concentrate on their sexual allure rather than their imagination or pleasure. No wonder we have seen the rise of the idea that erotic experiences will necessarily involve, for women, a performance in which they will be judged visually." Hence, the rise in the demand for plastic surgery, including to the labia! Pornography encourages the view that there is only one correct way for a woman and her labia to look.
Not only does much of the porn available today still rely on depicting male domination, but it actually is becoming increasingly demeaning of women. The abuse of women and violent painful acts, acts that used to be the exception, are becoming the norm. Further, porn not only increases the objectification of women, but threatens intimacy in real relationships, with sex becoming "something that has to be performed, not felt". Yet, at this time, pornography is becoming an increasingly accepted part of life, and there is less and less criticism of it. Walter argues that sex should be about intimacy and emotion, not exchange and performance.
Chapter 6 is entitled "Choices" and examines the claim that the inequality between the sexes can be explained as the result of gender differences in personal choices. Walter argues that not only is our hypersexual culture "rooted in continuing inequality, it also produces more inequality".
Women are chosen for their looks, so that the older, life-experienced woman will be overlooked in favour of a younger, more beautiful but less sophisticated woman. For example, the television show Strictly Come Dancing replaced their only female judge, the hugely experienced and knowledgeable Arlene Philips, with the much younger and inexperienced, but very beautiful, Alesha Dixon. Even women working in high-powered jobs will still be judged by their appearance before their ability and will have to weather comments about their appearance.
Likewise at the Wimbledon tennis tournament, who plays on the coveted centre court is determined by attractiveness not tennis rankings. Walter argues that, in the current context of women being valued for their sexual allure, certain choices made by women are celebrated whilst others are marginalized, which has major effect on the choices women make, as well as having an effect on men. She writes, "The objectified woman, so often celebrated as the wife or girlfriend of the heroic male rather than the heroine of her own life, is the living doll who has replaced the liberated woman who should be making her way into the twenty-first century."
Biological determinism (which sees behaviour as being determined by genes and hormones rather than societal norms and the internalisation of stereotypes) now reigns supreme in many university departments and in the media when it comes to explaining differences between men and women. Biological determinism is used to uphold and encourage more traditional gender roles, and argues that traditional femininity is biologically rather than socially constructed, and leads to the fatalistic belief that sex inequality is inevitable and unchangeable.
This "scientific" justification for inequalities between the sexes needs to be exposed and challenged. Part II of Living Dolls, although not the most thorough criticism of this trend, does provide some valuable exposure of the inadequacies of this perspective. Walter argues convincingly that to uphold biological determinism, as much of the media and many researchers do, means to see the status quo of relations between men and women as natural and unchangeable rather than as something to be challenged and changed.
Biological determinism is used to "explain away" the inequalities between men and women, so that these inequalities become the natural consequence of evolution, genes and the differing hormonal levels between the sexes. Biological determinism sees human biological make-up as fixed, yet Walter refers to some really interesting research that shows how behaviour and experience can actually change biological make-up, including the size of anatomical structures in the brain.
Her most impressive example is some research looking at the posterior hippocampus part of the brain in London (taxi) drivers. This research found that the posterior hippocampus was larger in cab drivers with over two years' experience than in controls. Further, the greater the number of years of taxi driving, "the bigger the posterior hippocampus, so that as they went on adding detail to their knowledge of the city, their grey matter grew. Since the volume of grey matter in this part of the brain correlated with the amount of time spent as a taxi driver, this suggests that the human brain can change physically in response to the environment, even during adulthood." This example convincingly suggests that rather than biology being responsible for the differences seen between men's and women's brains, these differences could be explained by differences in upbringing, behaviour and experience. Walter also examines research exposing how expectations, power differences and culture can determine behaviour.
Walter exposes how the power held by biological determinists in academic circles is reflected in the fact that research papers showing traditional sex differences are more likely to get published than those that fail to provide evidence of sex differences. Furthermore, even where sex differences in activation and structure between men's and women's brains are found, Walter argues, "there is nothing to prove as yet that these must be put down to innate differences rather than differently learned behaviours."
Walter also looks at the role of sexual stereotyping in determining the differences found between the sexes in levels of such things as empathy and mathematical ability. Society expects to see good little sensitive, sociable girls and aggressive little boys, and for girls and boys to have very distinct styles to their play and choice of different toys. Even when children deviate from the stereotype, this does nothing "to dent the strength of the stereotypes". Walter argues that these stereotypes are stifling children's "true variability, their true individualism, their true flexibility", and these parental and societal stereotypes lead to many of the differences seen in adulthood between the sexes.
She reports research from 1984 showing that if children aged 3-5 are exposed to a non-sexist curriculum, they show significantly less preference for sex-stereotyped play. Yet such research is largely ignored in preference for biological determinist explanations for gender differences in play. Looking at the role of hormones, she surmises that, "What we may think is evidence of the effects of testosterone may in fact be evidence of the effects of societal expectations." For example, research interviewing men and women after they have played aggressive computer games has found that women used the same level of aggression as men during the game, but when interviewed afterwards the women (unlike the men) will attempt to hide their levels of aggression. Likewise research looking at mathematics ability has shown that on average women will perform worse than men will, but if they are told that women will perform as well as men, then there was no difference in performance. Walter concludes that even "supposedly objective tests may not be a reflection of pure ability" but rather the enactment of expectations derived from stereotypes. She goes on to discuss research that illustrates how "the operation of stereotypes in the wider culture can constrain the choices we make in our real lives."
Walter argues that biological determinism blinds us to the true variability that exists among men and women. Those "tiny" average differences that have been found between men and women as groups pale in comparison to the "vast differences" found among individuals of the same sex, e.g. gender accounts for only 1 percent of the differences found in verbal skills. Walter concludes that, "instead of a recognition of the true variability of men and women, we are presented simply with stereotypes" of male and female behaviour. Walters also laments that masculinity and femininity are seen as mutually exclusive. There is no room for a person to decide to combine the best of masculinity with the best of femininity. The differences seen in male and female roles are put down to personal choice rather than cultural grooming. Both men and women lose out by the promotion of distinct roles for men and women.
The full title of her book is Living Dolls – The Return of Sexism, but it is clear that sexism has at no time ceased and, therefore, cannot be considered to have returned. Reading this book, one can only conclude that "sexism" is very much alive and well and, at this time growing from strength to strength.
Although she is only looking at mainstream UK society (she does not even look at ethnic minorities within the UK), her observations have global implications and are as valuable for people in the East as in the West. After all, if women are not free even in the most developed countries, if they are oppressed in both "traditional" and "modern" societies, if "modern" conventions and values are in many ways a continuation of the most backward patriarchal rules and beliefs, then "modernity" or modern society as it is practised, for instance, in the UK, is most certainly not the answer. Many readers will draw the conclusion that radical change – a different kind of society – is the only realistic alternative.
Walter's own suggested solutions are based on her belief that the current system can be reformed to end the oppression of women. This does not meet the test of reality that she herself insists on and that allows her to so thoroughly expose 21st-century sexism, the impact of sexual stereotyping and the falsity of biological determinism.
We can all wholeheartedly agree with her hope that, "one day women and men will be able to work and love side by side, freely, without the constraints of restrictive traditions" when "rather than modelling themselves on the plastic charm of a pink smiling doll, women can aim to realize their full potential".
5 March 2012. A World to Win News Service. With the approach of 8 March, International Women's Day, marked by revolutionary mobilizations in many countries, we are reprinting the following book review by Lindsay Wright which first appeared in the 11 October 2010 AWTWNS. We welcome book and film reviews and other articles that express our readers' opinions.
It can be easy for those of us who grew up in the 60s to believe that in the West much of the battle to win equality between the sexes has been won. Living in London in 2010, my gas engineer is a woman and the midwife a man; I can obtain as much free contraception and abortions as I require; most schools now provide childcare from 8 am to 6 pm, allowing mothers to work full-time; and the social controls attempting to prevent women having sex before marriage appear to have been lifted with young women appearing to be having sex whenever they want, with whom ever they want.
However, a deeper look at reality shows that the inequalities that women rebelled against in the 60s are alive and well, even if in some countries these inequalities are taking different forms. Living Dolls exposes extremely well the inequalities that exist between men and women in 21st century England and how these inequalities are (pseudo) "scientifically" explained away and justified by the current revival of biological determinism.
Most of us were brought up in the 50s and 60s grew up with societal norms that said that only bad girls had sex before marriage and that sex, when it did occur, was about ensuring the man's pleasure. In Living Dolls Walter illustrates how young women today are exposed to just as heavy societal pressures and norms as we were then, except now they face extreme pressure to have sex whenever the men in their life want it. So, in the middle of the 20th century women were under extreme pressure to not have sex before marriage and then to stay with their husbands "until death thy do part"; now young women are under extreme pressure to have sex and are commodified as much as they ever were. Physical appearance and the ability to satisfy men still determine a woman's value.
Walter argues very convincingly that women and girls, "are encouraged to see their sexual allure as their primary passport to success." Today's society equates women's empowerment and liberation with sexual objectification, women are encouraged to look like Barbie dolls and to see their value by how well they meet the sexual needs of others. She quotes UK research from 2006 that found that half of the teenagers surveyed would consider becoming fashion models and half see Jordan (a glamour model famous for her huge breast implants) as a role model!
Walter exposes how the "marketplace" reinforces certain acceptable behaviours for women and makes it hard for women, particularly young women, to behave differently or to seek their empowerment in ways that are not about being sexually promiscuous. She states that, "Many young women seem to believe that sexual confidence is the only confidence worth having, and that sexual confidence can only be gained if a young woman is ready to conform to the soft-porn image of a tanned, waxed young girl with large breasts ready to strip and pole dance… the constant reinforcement of one type of role model is shrinking and warping the choices on offer to young women."
Chapter 2 focuses on pole-dancing and prostitution, and Walter exposes the impact of these on both the individual women involved and on the community as a whole. For example, she quotes research from the Lilith Project in Camden Town in north London that found that in the three years after four lap-dancing clubs opened in Camden Town the "incidents of rape and sexual assault rose in the area". She believes that lap-dancing clubs are responsible for changing cultural attitudes towards the greater objectification of women. She notes that in the 21st century prostitution, rather than being shameful, is now increasingly seen as an aspirational career choice for women, yet the misogyny expressed by the men who use prostitutes remains ugly and the stories told by the many prostitutes remain disturbing. She notes that the standardised mortality rates for sex workers in the UK are six times higher than the general population.
Chapter 3 focuses on young girls, in particular, how "the main journey for a young girl is expected to lie along her path to winning the admiration of others for her appearance." So that it is becoming more and more prevalent for girls as young as eight or nine to become involved in "'the body project'", i.e., being "expected to devote energy to dieting, grooming and shopping…The imperative is to better oneself not through any intellectual or emotional growth, but through physical remaking." So from this viewpoint, one achieves empowerment only through physical perfection. One study, reported in 2005, found that most six year-olds "would prefer to be thinner than they are", and another in 2006 found that one in four girls were considering plastic surgery by the age of sixteen.
Kidscape (a UK children's charity) reports have gone from receiving 2-3 calls a year to their helpline regarding sexual bullying to receiving 2-3 calls per week in 2009. With ready access to pornography on the internet (which is easily printed) and via mobile phones, boys can regularly bring porn into school to "tease and discomfort" girls. Walter quotes Hannah White of Womankind Worldwide (who runs a project aimed at tackling sexual bullying) who says that sexual bullying has "been normalized in this generation in a way that makes it very hard to challenge."
The most important fact quoted by Walter to indicate that young girls are not in control of their sexual behaviour is a survey from 2000 that found that 80 percent of girls who had their first sexual experience aged 13 or 14 regretted it (this compares to 50 percent in 1990). As Walter points out, "since one in four girls has sex below the age of sixteen, that's a lot of regrets."
Chapter 4 examines women's sexual behaviour and the desire of the second wave of the feminist movement in the 1970s to encourage women to lay claim to their own desires and pleasures rather than being held back by traditional social expectations and simply subsuming their own sexual desire into that of their partner. Feminists of the 1960s and 1970s fought hard to undermine bourgeois marriage and to bring about freer sexual relationships in which women focused on their own sexual needs. However, although the second feminist movement "undoubtedly created a real shift in the way that women saw their sexuality", this movement mainly failed because women's sexuality is still very much about doing what pleases men. The forms this takes may have changed (the greatest status is no longer attained via virginity but through having lots of sexual experience); however, fundamentally many women are still not taking full control of their own sexuality.
Walter acknowledges the improvements in Western societies, where (unlike traditional societies) a woman's honour is no longer tied to virginity and monogamy. Feminism in many ways released women in the West from the repression of the old societal conventions around sex. However, Walter raises concern over many of the new societal conventions around sex. For example, the "the cultural shift towards embracing sex with no emotional commitment" leading to an increasing separation between sex and emotion – something never intended by the feminist movement. Walter interviewed many women for her book, many of whom seemed "to feel that their lives had been impoverished by the devaluation of sex into exchange and performance rather than mutual intimacy."
Chapter 5 looks at pornography. The Internet has meant that pornography, including hard core pornography, is readily available. Walter quotes a Canadian study that found that amongst 13-14 year-olds 90 percent of the boys and 70 percent of the girls have viewed pornography. In a UK study one out of four adult males aged 25-49 had viewed hardcore online porn in the last month, and 40 percent had viewed some kind of porn in the previous year. Walter reviews the criticisms historically raised by feminists, and how the old feminist positions have been discredited. She laments that these days we rarely hear any condemnation of pornography or even any discussion of the effects of pornography, concluding that, "This means that men are still encouraged, through most pornographic materials, to see women as objects, and women are still encouraged much of the time to concentrate on their sexual allure rather than their imagination or pleasure. No wonder we have seen the rise of the idea that erotic experiences will necessarily involve, for women, a performance in which they will be judged visually." Hence, the rise in the demand for plastic surgery, including to the labia! Pornography encourages the view that there is only one correct way for a woman and her labia to look.
Not only does much of the porn available today still rely on depicting male domination, but it actually is becoming increasingly demeaning of women. The abuse of women and violent painful acts, acts that used to be the exception, are becoming the norm. Further, porn not only increases the objectification of women, but threatens intimacy in real relationships, with sex becoming "something that has to be performed, not felt". Yet, at this time, pornography is becoming an increasingly accepted part of life, and there is less and less criticism of it. Walter argues that sex should be about intimacy and emotion, not exchange and performance.
Chapter 6 is entitled "Choices" and examines the claim that the inequality between the sexes can be explained as the result of gender differences in personal choices. Walter argues that not only is our hypersexual culture "rooted in continuing inequality, it also produces more inequality".
Women are chosen for their looks, so that the older, life-experienced woman will be overlooked in favour of a younger, more beautiful but less sophisticated woman. For example, the television show Strictly Come Dancing replaced their only female judge, the hugely experienced and knowledgeable Arlene Philips, with the much younger and inexperienced, but very beautiful, Alesha Dixon. Even women working in high-powered jobs will still be judged by their appearance before their ability and will have to weather comments about their appearance.
Likewise at the Wimbledon tennis tournament, who plays on the coveted centre court is determined by attractiveness not tennis rankings. Walter argues that, in the current context of women being valued for their sexual allure, certain choices made by women are celebrated whilst others are marginalized, which has major effect on the choices women make, as well as having an effect on men. She writes, "The objectified woman, so often celebrated as the wife or girlfriend of the heroic male rather than the heroine of her own life, is the living doll who has replaced the liberated woman who should be making her way into the twenty-first century."
Biological determinism (which sees behaviour as being determined by genes and hormones rather than societal norms and the internalisation of stereotypes) now reigns supreme in many university departments and in the media when it comes to explaining differences between men and women. Biological determinism is used to uphold and encourage more traditional gender roles, and argues that traditional femininity is biologically rather than socially constructed, and leads to the fatalistic belief that sex inequality is inevitable and unchangeable.
This "scientific" justification for inequalities between the sexes needs to be exposed and challenged. Part II of Living Dolls, although not the most thorough criticism of this trend, does provide some valuable exposure of the inadequacies of this perspective. Walter argues convincingly that to uphold biological determinism, as much of the media and many researchers do, means to see the status quo of relations between men and women as natural and unchangeable rather than as something to be challenged and changed.
Biological determinism is used to "explain away" the inequalities between men and women, so that these inequalities become the natural consequence of evolution, genes and the differing hormonal levels between the sexes. Biological determinism sees human biological make-up as fixed, yet Walter refers to some really interesting research that shows how behaviour and experience can actually change biological make-up, including the size of anatomical structures in the brain.
Her most impressive example is some research looking at the posterior hippocampus part of the brain in London (taxi) drivers. This research found that the posterior hippocampus was larger in cab drivers with over two years' experience than in controls. Further, the greater the number of years of taxi driving, "the bigger the posterior hippocampus, so that as they went on adding detail to their knowledge of the city, their grey matter grew. Since the volume of grey matter in this part of the brain correlated with the amount of time spent as a taxi driver, this suggests that the human brain can change physically in response to the environment, even during adulthood." This example convincingly suggests that rather than biology being responsible for the differences seen between men's and women's brains, these differences could be explained by differences in upbringing, behaviour and experience. Walter also examines research exposing how expectations, power differences and culture can determine behaviour.
Walter exposes how the power held by biological determinists in academic circles is reflected in the fact that research papers showing traditional sex differences are more likely to get published than those that fail to provide evidence of sex differences. Furthermore, even where sex differences in activation and structure between men's and women's brains are found, Walter argues, "there is nothing to prove as yet that these must be put down to innate differences rather than differently learned behaviours."
Walter also looks at the role of sexual stereotyping in determining the differences found between the sexes in levels of such things as empathy and mathematical ability. Society expects to see good little sensitive, sociable girls and aggressive little boys, and for girls and boys to have very distinct styles to their play and choice of different toys. Even when children deviate from the stereotype, this does nothing "to dent the strength of the stereotypes". Walter argues that these stereotypes are stifling children's "true variability, their true individualism, their true flexibility", and these parental and societal stereotypes lead to many of the differences seen in adulthood between the sexes.
She reports research from 1984 showing that if children aged 3-5 are exposed to a non-sexist curriculum, they show significantly less preference for sex-stereotyped play. Yet such research is largely ignored in preference for biological determinist explanations for gender differences in play. Looking at the role of hormones, she surmises that, "What we may think is evidence of the effects of testosterone may in fact be evidence of the effects of societal expectations." For example, research interviewing men and women after they have played aggressive computer games has found that women used the same level of aggression as men during the game, but when interviewed afterwards the women (unlike the men) will attempt to hide their levels of aggression. Likewise research looking at mathematics ability has shown that on average women will perform worse than men will, but if they are told that women will perform as well as men, then there was no difference in performance. Walter concludes that even "supposedly objective tests may not be a reflection of pure ability" but rather the enactment of expectations derived from stereotypes. She goes on to discuss research that illustrates how "the operation of stereotypes in the wider culture can constrain the choices we make in our real lives."
Walter argues that biological determinism blinds us to the true variability that exists among men and women. Those "tiny" average differences that have been found between men and women as groups pale in comparison to the "vast differences" found among individuals of the same sex, e.g. gender accounts for only 1 percent of the differences found in verbal skills. Walter concludes that, "instead of a recognition of the true variability of men and women, we are presented simply with stereotypes" of male and female behaviour. Walters also laments that masculinity and femininity are seen as mutually exclusive. There is no room for a person to decide to combine the best of masculinity with the best of femininity. The differences seen in male and female roles are put down to personal choice rather than cultural grooming. Both men and women lose out by the promotion of distinct roles for men and women.
The full title of her book is Living Dolls – The Return of Sexism, but it is clear that sexism has at no time ceased and, therefore, cannot be considered to have returned. Reading this book, one can only conclude that "sexism" is very much alive and well and, at this time growing from strength to strength.
Although she is only looking at mainstream UK society (she does not even look at ethnic minorities within the UK), her observations have global implications and are as valuable for people in the East as in the West. After all, if women are not free even in the most developed countries, if they are oppressed in both "traditional" and "modern" societies, if "modern" conventions and values are in many ways a continuation of the most backward patriarchal rules and beliefs, then "modernity" or modern society as it is practised, for instance, in the UK, is most certainly not the answer. Many readers will draw the conclusion that radical change – a different kind of society – is the only realistic alternative.
Walter's own suggested solutions are based on her belief that the current system can be reformed to end the oppression of women. This does not meet the test of reality that she herself insists on and that allows her to so thoroughly expose 21st-century sexism, the impact of sexual stereotyping and the falsity of biological determinism.
We can all wholeheartedly agree with her hope that, "one day women and men will be able to work and love side by side, freely, without the constraints of restrictive traditions" when "rather than modelling themselves on the plastic charm of a pink smiling doll, women can aim to realize their full potential".
The imperialist threat and the Islamic Republic of Iran 33 years after its foundation
27 February 2012. A World to Win News Service. By N. Peyman. The threats against Iran, the sanctions and other economic pressures and the military movements and manoeuvres all testify to the intensification of the contradictions between the US and Iranian regime, 33 years after its foundation. These contradictions have reached such a critical point that an air strike or other form of military intervention against Iran by the US and some of its allies has become a clear possibility.
Why have relations between Iran and the Western powers, especially the US, been so tense for most of the last three decades, and why are they now fast approaching such a dangerous point? What are the forces driving the imperialist powers to another war in a region that is already overloaded with various wars?
These questions are even more striking if we take into account the fact that both the Western powers and the Iranian regime are undergoing crises internally.
According to the constant barrage from the mainstream media, the main concern of the Western powers is Iran's nuclear programme. They argue that the Iranian regime intends to build nuclear weapons. So the Western imperialists are pushing harder and harder to force the Iranian regime to stop enriching uranium, while Iran denies this charge and claims its nuclear programme is for purely civilian purposes.
The pressure so far has included UN Security Council approval for several rounds of economic sanctions against Iranian institutions and the personnel involved in its nuclear programme. Now the US and EU have taken it upon themselves to impose further sanctions against Iran's central bank. On July 1 of this year a ban on the importation of Iranian oil will take effect. These measures are meant to block Iranian exports and make it impossible for the country to import for lack of foreign currency.
But is the US and Western powers' concern about Iran's nuclear programme the real driving force behind the current crisis?
Despite the claims of the mainstream media and political officials whose job is to repeat and spread Western imperialist ruling class propaganda, the claims about the Iranian regime's nuclear programme are highly questionable. In fact their assertions have repeatedly been challenged by genuine experts, investigative reporters and observers familiar with the issue.
First of all, the Western powers and the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have not, so far, been able to provide any credible evidence, let alone proof. Even their intelligence and military officials have not been able to back the claims of their leaders. So they seem to be making so much noise and heading toward war based on a case built on the "suspected intentions" of the Iranian regime that no one has been able to prove.
The US and its allies also claim if Iran succeeds in making nuclear bombs, it would start attacking other countries, especially Israel, and endanger American and Western security.
There seems to be a consensus among experts, however, that even if the US and its allies are right about the Iranian regime's intentions, it could become capable of making only one or a very few bombs in the near future. There is no way that it could match the nuclear arsenal of Israel, said to include more than 200 warheads, let alone the nuclear capability of the imperialist powers. According to experts, this cannot change the military balance of power in the region.
There is also the argument put forward by some imperialist apologists that if Iran goes nuclear, that would start a nuclear arms race in the region, so that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other countries would have to compete. First of all, experts familiar with the region's economic and political situation argue that political problems in some countries such as Egypt and the lack of infrastructure in others such as Saudi Arabia would make it impossible for them to undertake full-scale nuclear programmes. Secondly, this nuclear arms race has already been started with India and Pakistan. Thirdly, countries such as Turkey are not waiting for Iran to go nuclear. They are already working on it.
So not only is there no definitive evidence that Iran is making nuclear bombs, the arguments about the danger that an Iranian nuclear programme would represent for the security of the world and the stability of the region are exaggerated and do not match the reality. In fact, these arguments are little more than justifications for a hidden agenda – the preparations by the US and its allies for a war against Iran.
Also, as everyone now knows, or should know by now, the US and its allies have repeatedly made up various excuses to start wars in different parts of the world. The most memorable example is the 2003 invasion of Iraq under the cover of accusations about the Saddam Hussein regime's possession of weapons of mass destruction that proved to be a pure invention by George W. Bush and Tony Blair. This has cast even more doubt on the Western powers' real intentions. Many people all over the world simply don't trust the US imperialists and their allies on this issue.
Thus it is not difficult to conclude that even if the Iranian regime's nuclear programme is a concern, it is not the main issue. It cannot, in itself, explain the US's agenda – why it is intensifying the contradictions with Iran and building a case for and preparing military intervention.
If that is not the real issue, what are the real contradictions that are pressing so hard on both sides, and what are its real sources? Why are the US and its allies unhappy with the Iranian Islamic regime?
Some points on the real contradictions between the US and the Islamic Republic and their sources
Anti-Americanism has been a feature of the Iranian Islamic regime over the last three decades. Its content should be more deeply discussed and understood. Yet no matter how much the US might have had difficulty with this feature, still it has gone along with the regime for most of the last three decades. At the same time the history of the relationship between the Iranian Islamic regime and the US over these three decades has been very complex and full of contradictions and compromises that can hardly be explained by noting one or two simple contradictions.
In fact, over the last three decades the world has been in a state of great turbulence. To be more precise, there have been various factors shaping and effecting the relations between the US and the Iranian regime. Among the most important factors are the history of US interference in Iran and the Iranian clergy's attitude towards the US during the reign of the Shah. Another very important factor, one that in most cases has been decisive, is that it has been the world situation that has influenced the relationship between the US and the Islamic regime of Iran. Also this relation has been affected by the contradiction between the US and Islamic fundamentalists that was much intensified for a time.
The 1979 Iranian revolution was not the first time that a popular uprising forced the Shah to abandon his throne and flee the country. He was overthrown by another uprising in 1953 under the nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, and brought back to power by a CIA-backed coup d'état. The Shah launched a reign of terror, including the imprisonment, torture and murder of leftist and nationalist activists. The coup and the following 25 years of the Shah's rule, backed and supported by the US, instilled a deep hatred among the Iranian masses for both the Shah and the US. This played a powerful role in the 1979 revolution.
The early 1960s saw a growing contradiction between the clergy and the Shah and the US. This led to the emergence of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and later his exile to Najaf, in Iraq. However, this contradiction was of a very different nature than that between the people and the Shah and the US. The clerics mainly did not support the 1953 uprising of the Iranian people; in fact, they supported the Shah's coup. (Ayatollah Abolghasem Kashani, the most prominent religious representative of the clergy, supported the coup and became the head of the Shah’s Parliament afterward.) That position was never refuted or countered by Khomeini or any of the leaders of the Islamic regime.
The primary reasons for the clerical establishment's opposition to the Shah had to do with aspects of the Shah's 1962 reforms (the so-called "White Revolution") in the country's social and economic structure. These US-backed reforms were meant to more fully integrate Iran's relatively closed economy into the network of world capital. The Islamic forces had a strong connection to the land and feudalism. They particularly did not like the partial land reforms and the rights given to women to vote and hold office, which they saw as a threat to women's traditional status and traditional society in general. They blamed the Shah and the US for opening the country to Western culture, which they saw as anti-Islamic.
During the 1979 Iranian revolution two different contradictions became entangled: on the one hand the people's struggle against the monarchy and the US that supported it, and on the other the contradiction between the clerics and the Shah and the West. This interference paved the way for Khomeini and the clerics to steal the leadership of the revolution and abort it. The overthrow of the Shah was a blow to US interests. But the West was also aware that they could better tolerate the Islamist forces than a revolutionary left that could possibly grow through the continuation of the revolution and take the lead. The West was also very concerned about Soviet influence and pro-Soviet forces such as the Tudeh Party, which had also influenced the Fedayeen guerilla organisation. So the US and other Western powers were quick to limit the extent of the Iranian revolution and the blow to their interests by negotiating the Islamists into power before the revolution got deeper and even more out of hand.
Khomeini and his followers claimed to be the manifestation of the people's revolution, but with their backward ideology they were in fact the thieves of the Iranian revolution and their rise to power was the result of a compromise between backward, reactionary forces and various imperialist powers seeking to put an end to the Iranian revolution.
Clearly one of the main concerns for the US and the West was Soviet influence and the possibility of a Soviet takeover of Iran after the revolution. So they rushed to cut a deal with the Islamists – in other words, the contradiction between the East and West blocs ended up playing a decisive role in this situation. But the East/West conflict over Iran did not end with the bringing of the Islamists to power. In fact, this contradiction continued to colour Iran's political sky over the next decade.
The Soviets saw that an opportunity had opened for them to influence the political scene in Iran and the Middle East, and they did not want to let it pass. They already had the Tudeh party, with its experienced leaders and cadres whom the USSR had trained for years. Through the Tudeh party they were able to split the Fedayeen and pull the majority section to their side, and retain some influence on the other faction as well. Both through the Tudeh party and other channels the Soviets were also influencing some factions of the Islamic forces in power.
During the first eight months of the Islamic regime, its relationship with the US was not acute. There even seem to have been some diplomatic contacts. The occupation of the US embassy in Tehran by so-called pro-Khomeini students had a dramatic effect on this situation. Khomeini subsequently supported the occupation, leading to the collapse of the first Islamic government, which had been formed by the religious nationalists.
While some observers try to explain the US embassy occupation as a spontaneous move by pro-Khomeini students, others believe hidden forces were also at work, or at least taking advantage. For example, some people interpret this move as part of a power struggle between the clerics and the religious nationalists. Others see it as a result of the influence of the Tudeh Party or Soviet influence through other channels. Whatever the real story behind the occupation, the opening for the Soviet Union to enter Iran's political sphere had widened. At the same time, some of the most vicious elements of the Islamic regime, such as the ayatollahs Beheshti, Rafsanjani and Khamenei, became stronger and played a bigger role in the regime. Some clerics, especially those in contact with the students, seemed to have adopted a pro-Soviet tone. This is not to say that Beheshti, Rafsanjani or Khamenei were associated with the Soviet bloc, but at that time there was common ground between them and the pro-Soviet elements and others who wanted to oust the religious nationalist government.
After the US embassy occupation, anti-US slogans became a hallmark of the regime. The revolutionary movement came under even more serious attack by the reactionaries in power. They tried to pin the label of pro-US or US spies on the revolutionaries who had been fighting the Shah and the US, even as negotiations between the US and some elements of the Islamic regime regarding the hostages and how to release them continued. While the Islamic regime claimed to be "neither East nor West", in fact some elements within the regime tended towards the Western bloc and others the Eastern imperialist bloc. In other words, the acute contradiction on the world level had its impact on the Islamic regime.
Ten months after the occupation of the US embassy in Tehran, the Iran-Iraq war started. Again this was the result of a combination of contradictions. This time the US, which encouraged and fuelled this war for eight years, had multiple goals: to eliminate the pro-Soviet elements of the Iraqi regime, to regain the initiative in Iran's internal affairs, and, most importantly, to attack whatever was left of the revolution's achievements.
Doubtlessly there was an implicit unity between the US and the Islamic regime on the issue of suppressing the revolution. In fact, from very early on the Islamic regime used the war to suppress the revolutionary movement and unify and consolidate the regime around the Khomeini, Rafsanjani and Khamenei gang. This lead to the coup by Khomeini and the Islamic Republic Party on 20 June 1981, nine months after the start of the war.
Because of the rivalry between the superpowers and their respective attempts to grab Iran, and also the existence of the forces within the Iranian regime who had tendencies towards the West and the East, the Islamic regime was able to swing between the West and East bloc.
During the following years of terror and the suppression of the people and revolutionaries, tens of thousands of communists and other revolutionaries were murdered and many more imprisoned. Tens of thousands were driven into exile. During this period, the silence of the US and the West was deafening. This was an indication that they were satisfied with the brutality they saw the Islamic regime carry out.
The end of the war brought the consolidation of the Islamic Republic. The vast majority of the remaining political prisoners were executed in 1988. Western media and officials began talking about what they saw as the regime's stability. The end of the war meant an era of reconstruction for the Islamic regime. To accomplish that, it had to more fully integrate the country into the world economy and establish close relations with imperialist financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. Ali Akbar Rafsanjani became president and his supporters gave him the name of "commander of reconstruction".
This period coincided with the beginning of the collapse of the Eastern bloc. The closing of the gap between the East and West began to limit the Islamic Republic's ability to manoeuvre between the two blocs. The elements close to the Soviets became weaker and had to change their position. At the same time the need for capital to build up the war-ravaged infrastructure and economy based on a new imperialist-dependent bourgeoisie exerted a Westward pull on the Islamic regime.
Due to the history of the relations between the West and the traditionalist Islamic clergy and the memory of the American embassy occupation, on the one hand, and on the other the Iranian people's hatred for US imperialism, it was impossible for the process of normalisation between the Islamic regime and the West to go smoothly. There were many contradictions and obstacles.
In fact, anti-US gestures and slogans had allowed the Islamic regime to gain many things, including stealing and then suppressing the revolution and murdering and imprisoning the revolutionaries, and consolidating its power and achieving a kind of legitimacy both in Iran and in the region. It was not easy for them to abandon such slogans, even though they had already taken up many aspects of imperialist dependency.
During Rafsanjani's presidency, relations with the West increased mainly through economic and financial cooperation. The export of oil to Western countries returned to its pre-revolution level. Trade with US allies in the region as well as European countries such as Germany and Italy also increased.
In the mid 1990s a regime faction that had helped it consolidate through the years of terror and suppression won the presidential election under the banner of reformism. Mohammad Khatami became the president and subsequently this faction won the majority in parliament.
They started to increase and improve Iran's relations with Western countries. Aiming to normalize relations with the West and Europe in particular, Khatami visited Germany, France and Italy. Germany and Italy became Iran's main trade partners. The giant French oil company Total invested a huge amount of capital in Iranian oil fields. The European countries objected to and defied the US law that would punish foreign companies for doing business with Iran.
France, Germany and UK even formed a team to negotiate with Iran on its nuclear programme, mainly to cool down the US approach towards Iran and prevent a possible military intervention.
With the reformist faction running the government, the power struggle within the Islamic regime sharpened. The conservative faction fought with all its might to regain the initiative. During this period the Islamic regime laid the basis to move towards a more defined relationship with the West. However this development was influenced not only by the regime's internal power struggle, but also, in a different sphere, the 11 September 2011 events in the US, the contradiction between the US and the Al-Qaeda Islamic fundamentalists, and the subsequent American strategy for the region. Along with Iraq and North Korea, Iran was termed part of the "axis of evil", countries the US accused of supporting terrorism.
After Khatami's two terms as president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president with the help of the Basij (a paramilitary force) and the Pasdaran (the so-called Revolutionary Guards). He won a second term through a rigged election with the support of Ayatollah Khamenei, the spiritual leader of the Islamic regime after Khomeini. This sparked a massive protest movement that lasted for months and brought millions into the streets of Tehran and other cities. This power struggle within the Islamic regime was resolved violently with the elimination of the reformist faction of the ruling party from the regime and the imprisonment or exile of many of its leaders and members. As the reformists were sidelined, relations with the Western powers, in particular the Europeans, also went into decline.
Since then, Iran has strengthened its economic, political and military relations with China and Russia. During the last three years China became Iran's leading economic partner by far. China imports 22 percent of Iranian oil exports, whereas before the oil embargo all the EU countries combined were importing 18 percent. Overall, Asian countries, including China, India, Japan and South Korea, account for 60 percent of Iran's oil exports. Iran has increasingly conducted its currency transactions through Russian and Chinese banks. During the first four months of 2011, 80 percent of the regime's income from oil and gas exports went through Russian and Chinese banks. Other reports indicate that Iran is calling on Chinese and Russian oil companies to invest in its oil and gas industry.
While the Iranian economy has been increasingly integrated into the world capitalist system and this course has accelerated with today's globalization, at the same time the world situation has allowed its Islamist rulers to bounce between different imperialist powers. If the bouncing during the 1980s was between the US and Soviet blocs, after the collapse of the Soviet Union it has been first between the US and European countries, and then between the West on the one hand and Russia and China on the other.
This change of direction by the Iranian regime is not unrelated to the orientation of different factions who have benefited from establishing relations with various imperialist powers. At the same time this approach also explains the Europeans' tougher position on the Iranian nuclear programme in the last few years.
Some points on the recent crisis
Going back to the recent crisis and the intensification of the contradiction, both the West and the Islamic regime are in the middle of economic and political crisis. The question is why both sides are heading towards a confrontation in such a situation.
The US and the West as a whole are pursuing their global interests in terms of control over the world, the new order that the US has been seeking to establish and stabilise for nearly two decades. Control of the Middle East and its oil is crucial and central to this world order. In fact, to secure its long-term position as the chief of the imperialist system in the present world situation, the US needs a regime in Iran that would cooperate with the American regional programme. Because of its nature, its factions and its historical formation, the Islamic regime refuses to play the classical role that the US requires in the region. Moreover, seeking allies it can rely on, it has increasingly distanced itself from the West and become oriented towards Russia and China in recent years. This is something that the US and the West cannot tolerate any longer and why they are running out of patience.
In addition to the crisis in the Islamic regime's relations with the US and the West, it is facing deeper internal crisis, too.
The regime's economic, political and ideological policies have reached their limits and put tremendous pressure on the masses. The uprising of the Iranian people after the rigged election showed the depth of discontent with the regime. The Iranian economy, driven by the interests of a narrow section of the ruling class inside the country and the world capitalist system, was in crisis even before the current sanctions. These sanctions imposed by the Western powers, particularly the boycott of Iranian oil and gas, will surely magnify the pressure on the country's economy, due to Iran's dependency on world imperialism.
Another crisis the Iranian regime is struggling with is the growing contention among its various factions. The most important aspects of this political crisis are the regime's chronic inability to unite its various factions and the loss of legitimacy among the masses. Both aspects have intensified in recent years. The ousting of the regime's reformist faction after the rigged election was considered a coup, but the elimination of the reformists did not result in unity among the other factions. On the contrary, it ignited a factional fight within the conservative sections of the ruling power structure. This has led to the formation of various military and security centres within the same state, leaving it weaker than ever, with no prospect of regaining its lost strength.
While the US is counting on the regime's weaknesses to make regime change possible now, despite the dangers inherent in an attack from abroad the Iranian regime might also be counting on it as a way to resolve its internal crisis, at least temporarily. It is already using the current threats and sanctions to unite its ranks and the masses, even if temporarily, and justify the economic crisis that is making people's lives harder and harder. In short, it is trying to use these various contradictions as a way to navigate safely through the current crises.
The people and the threat of a war
In this situation, both the imperialists and the Islamic regime are trying to fool the people and win their support. Some anti-regime forces call on people to support an invasion by the US and other imperialists to get rid of it. There are also those who oppose the US and call on the people to support the regime. Neither stance considers the people as a potentially independent force that can free itself from both the imperialists and the backward, reactionary Islamic regime.
The various contradictions in Iranian-US relations have been complex and involved compromises. But the contradiction between the people of Iran and US imperialism is not the same as the contradiction between the US and the Islamic Republic. At the same time the contradiction between the people and the Islamic regime is not the same as the contradiction between the US and the Islamic regime. If the people tail any of those forces, they will end up oppressed and exploited by one or both of them.
The Islamic religious regime is brutal, ideologically backward and anti-women. It is economically dependent on world imperialism and belongs to the past. The various factions within the regime are seeking to gain the upper hand over one another by relying on different big powers so as to be able to impose their rule over the people for the long term.
The people of Iran and the real anti-imperialists have no interest in siding with any of those forces. Their interests lie in fighting them all.
Why have relations between Iran and the Western powers, especially the US, been so tense for most of the last three decades, and why are they now fast approaching such a dangerous point? What are the forces driving the imperialist powers to another war in a region that is already overloaded with various wars?
These questions are even more striking if we take into account the fact that both the Western powers and the Iranian regime are undergoing crises internally.
According to the constant barrage from the mainstream media, the main concern of the Western powers is Iran's nuclear programme. They argue that the Iranian regime intends to build nuclear weapons. So the Western imperialists are pushing harder and harder to force the Iranian regime to stop enriching uranium, while Iran denies this charge and claims its nuclear programme is for purely civilian purposes.
The pressure so far has included UN Security Council approval for several rounds of economic sanctions against Iranian institutions and the personnel involved in its nuclear programme. Now the US and EU have taken it upon themselves to impose further sanctions against Iran's central bank. On July 1 of this year a ban on the importation of Iranian oil will take effect. These measures are meant to block Iranian exports and make it impossible for the country to import for lack of foreign currency.
But is the US and Western powers' concern about Iran's nuclear programme the real driving force behind the current crisis?
Despite the claims of the mainstream media and political officials whose job is to repeat and spread Western imperialist ruling class propaganda, the claims about the Iranian regime's nuclear programme are highly questionable. In fact their assertions have repeatedly been challenged by genuine experts, investigative reporters and observers familiar with the issue.
First of all, the Western powers and the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have not, so far, been able to provide any credible evidence, let alone proof. Even their intelligence and military officials have not been able to back the claims of their leaders. So they seem to be making so much noise and heading toward war based on a case built on the "suspected intentions" of the Iranian regime that no one has been able to prove.
The US and its allies also claim if Iran succeeds in making nuclear bombs, it would start attacking other countries, especially Israel, and endanger American and Western security.
There seems to be a consensus among experts, however, that even if the US and its allies are right about the Iranian regime's intentions, it could become capable of making only one or a very few bombs in the near future. There is no way that it could match the nuclear arsenal of Israel, said to include more than 200 warheads, let alone the nuclear capability of the imperialist powers. According to experts, this cannot change the military balance of power in the region.
There is also the argument put forward by some imperialist apologists that if Iran goes nuclear, that would start a nuclear arms race in the region, so that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other countries would have to compete. First of all, experts familiar with the region's economic and political situation argue that political problems in some countries such as Egypt and the lack of infrastructure in others such as Saudi Arabia would make it impossible for them to undertake full-scale nuclear programmes. Secondly, this nuclear arms race has already been started with India and Pakistan. Thirdly, countries such as Turkey are not waiting for Iran to go nuclear. They are already working on it.
So not only is there no definitive evidence that Iran is making nuclear bombs, the arguments about the danger that an Iranian nuclear programme would represent for the security of the world and the stability of the region are exaggerated and do not match the reality. In fact, these arguments are little more than justifications for a hidden agenda – the preparations by the US and its allies for a war against Iran.
Also, as everyone now knows, or should know by now, the US and its allies have repeatedly made up various excuses to start wars in different parts of the world. The most memorable example is the 2003 invasion of Iraq under the cover of accusations about the Saddam Hussein regime's possession of weapons of mass destruction that proved to be a pure invention by George W. Bush and Tony Blair. This has cast even more doubt on the Western powers' real intentions. Many people all over the world simply don't trust the US imperialists and their allies on this issue.
Thus it is not difficult to conclude that even if the Iranian regime's nuclear programme is a concern, it is not the main issue. It cannot, in itself, explain the US's agenda – why it is intensifying the contradictions with Iran and building a case for and preparing military intervention.
If that is not the real issue, what are the real contradictions that are pressing so hard on both sides, and what are its real sources? Why are the US and its allies unhappy with the Iranian Islamic regime?
Some points on the real contradictions between the US and the Islamic Republic and their sources
Anti-Americanism has been a feature of the Iranian Islamic regime over the last three decades. Its content should be more deeply discussed and understood. Yet no matter how much the US might have had difficulty with this feature, still it has gone along with the regime for most of the last three decades. At the same time the history of the relationship between the Iranian Islamic regime and the US over these three decades has been very complex and full of contradictions and compromises that can hardly be explained by noting one or two simple contradictions.
In fact, over the last three decades the world has been in a state of great turbulence. To be more precise, there have been various factors shaping and effecting the relations between the US and the Iranian regime. Among the most important factors are the history of US interference in Iran and the Iranian clergy's attitude towards the US during the reign of the Shah. Another very important factor, one that in most cases has been decisive, is that it has been the world situation that has influenced the relationship between the US and the Islamic regime of Iran. Also this relation has been affected by the contradiction between the US and Islamic fundamentalists that was much intensified for a time.
The 1979 Iranian revolution was not the first time that a popular uprising forced the Shah to abandon his throne and flee the country. He was overthrown by another uprising in 1953 under the nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, and brought back to power by a CIA-backed coup d'état. The Shah launched a reign of terror, including the imprisonment, torture and murder of leftist and nationalist activists. The coup and the following 25 years of the Shah's rule, backed and supported by the US, instilled a deep hatred among the Iranian masses for both the Shah and the US. This played a powerful role in the 1979 revolution.
The early 1960s saw a growing contradiction between the clergy and the Shah and the US. This led to the emergence of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and later his exile to Najaf, in Iraq. However, this contradiction was of a very different nature than that between the people and the Shah and the US. The clerics mainly did not support the 1953 uprising of the Iranian people; in fact, they supported the Shah's coup. (Ayatollah Abolghasem Kashani, the most prominent religious representative of the clergy, supported the coup and became the head of the Shah’s Parliament afterward.) That position was never refuted or countered by Khomeini or any of the leaders of the Islamic regime.
The primary reasons for the clerical establishment's opposition to the Shah had to do with aspects of the Shah's 1962 reforms (the so-called "White Revolution") in the country's social and economic structure. These US-backed reforms were meant to more fully integrate Iran's relatively closed economy into the network of world capital. The Islamic forces had a strong connection to the land and feudalism. They particularly did not like the partial land reforms and the rights given to women to vote and hold office, which they saw as a threat to women's traditional status and traditional society in general. They blamed the Shah and the US for opening the country to Western culture, which they saw as anti-Islamic.
During the 1979 Iranian revolution two different contradictions became entangled: on the one hand the people's struggle against the monarchy and the US that supported it, and on the other the contradiction between the clerics and the Shah and the West. This interference paved the way for Khomeini and the clerics to steal the leadership of the revolution and abort it. The overthrow of the Shah was a blow to US interests. But the West was also aware that they could better tolerate the Islamist forces than a revolutionary left that could possibly grow through the continuation of the revolution and take the lead. The West was also very concerned about Soviet influence and pro-Soviet forces such as the Tudeh Party, which had also influenced the Fedayeen guerilla organisation. So the US and other Western powers were quick to limit the extent of the Iranian revolution and the blow to their interests by negotiating the Islamists into power before the revolution got deeper and even more out of hand.
Khomeini and his followers claimed to be the manifestation of the people's revolution, but with their backward ideology they were in fact the thieves of the Iranian revolution and their rise to power was the result of a compromise between backward, reactionary forces and various imperialist powers seeking to put an end to the Iranian revolution.
Clearly one of the main concerns for the US and the West was Soviet influence and the possibility of a Soviet takeover of Iran after the revolution. So they rushed to cut a deal with the Islamists – in other words, the contradiction between the East and West blocs ended up playing a decisive role in this situation. But the East/West conflict over Iran did not end with the bringing of the Islamists to power. In fact, this contradiction continued to colour Iran's political sky over the next decade.
The Soviets saw that an opportunity had opened for them to influence the political scene in Iran and the Middle East, and they did not want to let it pass. They already had the Tudeh party, with its experienced leaders and cadres whom the USSR had trained for years. Through the Tudeh party they were able to split the Fedayeen and pull the majority section to their side, and retain some influence on the other faction as well. Both through the Tudeh party and other channels the Soviets were also influencing some factions of the Islamic forces in power.
During the first eight months of the Islamic regime, its relationship with the US was not acute. There even seem to have been some diplomatic contacts. The occupation of the US embassy in Tehran by so-called pro-Khomeini students had a dramatic effect on this situation. Khomeini subsequently supported the occupation, leading to the collapse of the first Islamic government, which had been formed by the religious nationalists.
While some observers try to explain the US embassy occupation as a spontaneous move by pro-Khomeini students, others believe hidden forces were also at work, or at least taking advantage. For example, some people interpret this move as part of a power struggle between the clerics and the religious nationalists. Others see it as a result of the influence of the Tudeh Party or Soviet influence through other channels. Whatever the real story behind the occupation, the opening for the Soviet Union to enter Iran's political sphere had widened. At the same time, some of the most vicious elements of the Islamic regime, such as the ayatollahs Beheshti, Rafsanjani and Khamenei, became stronger and played a bigger role in the regime. Some clerics, especially those in contact with the students, seemed to have adopted a pro-Soviet tone. This is not to say that Beheshti, Rafsanjani or Khamenei were associated with the Soviet bloc, but at that time there was common ground between them and the pro-Soviet elements and others who wanted to oust the religious nationalist government.
After the US embassy occupation, anti-US slogans became a hallmark of the regime. The revolutionary movement came under even more serious attack by the reactionaries in power. They tried to pin the label of pro-US or US spies on the revolutionaries who had been fighting the Shah and the US, even as negotiations between the US and some elements of the Islamic regime regarding the hostages and how to release them continued. While the Islamic regime claimed to be "neither East nor West", in fact some elements within the regime tended towards the Western bloc and others the Eastern imperialist bloc. In other words, the acute contradiction on the world level had its impact on the Islamic regime.
Ten months after the occupation of the US embassy in Tehran, the Iran-Iraq war started. Again this was the result of a combination of contradictions. This time the US, which encouraged and fuelled this war for eight years, had multiple goals: to eliminate the pro-Soviet elements of the Iraqi regime, to regain the initiative in Iran's internal affairs, and, most importantly, to attack whatever was left of the revolution's achievements.
Doubtlessly there was an implicit unity between the US and the Islamic regime on the issue of suppressing the revolution. In fact, from very early on the Islamic regime used the war to suppress the revolutionary movement and unify and consolidate the regime around the Khomeini, Rafsanjani and Khamenei gang. This lead to the coup by Khomeini and the Islamic Republic Party on 20 June 1981, nine months after the start of the war.
Because of the rivalry between the superpowers and their respective attempts to grab Iran, and also the existence of the forces within the Iranian regime who had tendencies towards the West and the East, the Islamic regime was able to swing between the West and East bloc.
During the following years of terror and the suppression of the people and revolutionaries, tens of thousands of communists and other revolutionaries were murdered and many more imprisoned. Tens of thousands were driven into exile. During this period, the silence of the US and the West was deafening. This was an indication that they were satisfied with the brutality they saw the Islamic regime carry out.
The end of the war brought the consolidation of the Islamic Republic. The vast majority of the remaining political prisoners were executed in 1988. Western media and officials began talking about what they saw as the regime's stability. The end of the war meant an era of reconstruction for the Islamic regime. To accomplish that, it had to more fully integrate the country into the world economy and establish close relations with imperialist financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. Ali Akbar Rafsanjani became president and his supporters gave him the name of "commander of reconstruction".
This period coincided with the beginning of the collapse of the Eastern bloc. The closing of the gap between the East and West began to limit the Islamic Republic's ability to manoeuvre between the two blocs. The elements close to the Soviets became weaker and had to change their position. At the same time the need for capital to build up the war-ravaged infrastructure and economy based on a new imperialist-dependent bourgeoisie exerted a Westward pull on the Islamic regime.
Due to the history of the relations between the West and the traditionalist Islamic clergy and the memory of the American embassy occupation, on the one hand, and on the other the Iranian people's hatred for US imperialism, it was impossible for the process of normalisation between the Islamic regime and the West to go smoothly. There were many contradictions and obstacles.
In fact, anti-US gestures and slogans had allowed the Islamic regime to gain many things, including stealing and then suppressing the revolution and murdering and imprisoning the revolutionaries, and consolidating its power and achieving a kind of legitimacy both in Iran and in the region. It was not easy for them to abandon such slogans, even though they had already taken up many aspects of imperialist dependency.
During Rafsanjani's presidency, relations with the West increased mainly through economic and financial cooperation. The export of oil to Western countries returned to its pre-revolution level. Trade with US allies in the region as well as European countries such as Germany and Italy also increased.
In the mid 1990s a regime faction that had helped it consolidate through the years of terror and suppression won the presidential election under the banner of reformism. Mohammad Khatami became the president and subsequently this faction won the majority in parliament.
They started to increase and improve Iran's relations with Western countries. Aiming to normalize relations with the West and Europe in particular, Khatami visited Germany, France and Italy. Germany and Italy became Iran's main trade partners. The giant French oil company Total invested a huge amount of capital in Iranian oil fields. The European countries objected to and defied the US law that would punish foreign companies for doing business with Iran.
France, Germany and UK even formed a team to negotiate with Iran on its nuclear programme, mainly to cool down the US approach towards Iran and prevent a possible military intervention.
With the reformist faction running the government, the power struggle within the Islamic regime sharpened. The conservative faction fought with all its might to regain the initiative. During this period the Islamic regime laid the basis to move towards a more defined relationship with the West. However this development was influenced not only by the regime's internal power struggle, but also, in a different sphere, the 11 September 2011 events in the US, the contradiction between the US and the Al-Qaeda Islamic fundamentalists, and the subsequent American strategy for the region. Along with Iraq and North Korea, Iran was termed part of the "axis of evil", countries the US accused of supporting terrorism.
After Khatami's two terms as president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president with the help of the Basij (a paramilitary force) and the Pasdaran (the so-called Revolutionary Guards). He won a second term through a rigged election with the support of Ayatollah Khamenei, the spiritual leader of the Islamic regime after Khomeini. This sparked a massive protest movement that lasted for months and brought millions into the streets of Tehran and other cities. This power struggle within the Islamic regime was resolved violently with the elimination of the reformist faction of the ruling party from the regime and the imprisonment or exile of many of its leaders and members. As the reformists were sidelined, relations with the Western powers, in particular the Europeans, also went into decline.
Since then, Iran has strengthened its economic, political and military relations with China and Russia. During the last three years China became Iran's leading economic partner by far. China imports 22 percent of Iranian oil exports, whereas before the oil embargo all the EU countries combined were importing 18 percent. Overall, Asian countries, including China, India, Japan and South Korea, account for 60 percent of Iran's oil exports. Iran has increasingly conducted its currency transactions through Russian and Chinese banks. During the first four months of 2011, 80 percent of the regime's income from oil and gas exports went through Russian and Chinese banks. Other reports indicate that Iran is calling on Chinese and Russian oil companies to invest in its oil and gas industry.
While the Iranian economy has been increasingly integrated into the world capitalist system and this course has accelerated with today's globalization, at the same time the world situation has allowed its Islamist rulers to bounce between different imperialist powers. If the bouncing during the 1980s was between the US and Soviet blocs, after the collapse of the Soviet Union it has been first between the US and European countries, and then between the West on the one hand and Russia and China on the other.
This change of direction by the Iranian regime is not unrelated to the orientation of different factions who have benefited from establishing relations with various imperialist powers. At the same time this approach also explains the Europeans' tougher position on the Iranian nuclear programme in the last few years.
Some points on the recent crisis
Going back to the recent crisis and the intensification of the contradiction, both the West and the Islamic regime are in the middle of economic and political crisis. The question is why both sides are heading towards a confrontation in such a situation.
The US and the West as a whole are pursuing their global interests in terms of control over the world, the new order that the US has been seeking to establish and stabilise for nearly two decades. Control of the Middle East and its oil is crucial and central to this world order. In fact, to secure its long-term position as the chief of the imperialist system in the present world situation, the US needs a regime in Iran that would cooperate with the American regional programme. Because of its nature, its factions and its historical formation, the Islamic regime refuses to play the classical role that the US requires in the region. Moreover, seeking allies it can rely on, it has increasingly distanced itself from the West and become oriented towards Russia and China in recent years. This is something that the US and the West cannot tolerate any longer and why they are running out of patience.
In addition to the crisis in the Islamic regime's relations with the US and the West, it is facing deeper internal crisis, too.
The regime's economic, political and ideological policies have reached their limits and put tremendous pressure on the masses. The uprising of the Iranian people after the rigged election showed the depth of discontent with the regime. The Iranian economy, driven by the interests of a narrow section of the ruling class inside the country and the world capitalist system, was in crisis even before the current sanctions. These sanctions imposed by the Western powers, particularly the boycott of Iranian oil and gas, will surely magnify the pressure on the country's economy, due to Iran's dependency on world imperialism.
Another crisis the Iranian regime is struggling with is the growing contention among its various factions. The most important aspects of this political crisis are the regime's chronic inability to unite its various factions and the loss of legitimacy among the masses. Both aspects have intensified in recent years. The ousting of the regime's reformist faction after the rigged election was considered a coup, but the elimination of the reformists did not result in unity among the other factions. On the contrary, it ignited a factional fight within the conservative sections of the ruling power structure. This has led to the formation of various military and security centres within the same state, leaving it weaker than ever, with no prospect of regaining its lost strength.
While the US is counting on the regime's weaknesses to make regime change possible now, despite the dangers inherent in an attack from abroad the Iranian regime might also be counting on it as a way to resolve its internal crisis, at least temporarily. It is already using the current threats and sanctions to unite its ranks and the masses, even if temporarily, and justify the economic crisis that is making people's lives harder and harder. In short, it is trying to use these various contradictions as a way to navigate safely through the current crises.
The people and the threat of a war
In this situation, both the imperialists and the Islamic regime are trying to fool the people and win their support. Some anti-regime forces call on people to support an invasion by the US and other imperialists to get rid of it. There are also those who oppose the US and call on the people to support the regime. Neither stance considers the people as a potentially independent force that can free itself from both the imperialists and the backward, reactionary Islamic regime.
The various contradictions in Iranian-US relations have been complex and involved compromises. But the contradiction between the people of Iran and US imperialism is not the same as the contradiction between the US and the Islamic Republic. At the same time the contradiction between the people and the Islamic regime is not the same as the contradiction between the US and the Islamic regime. If the people tail any of those forces, they will end up oppressed and exploited by one or both of them.
The Islamic religious regime is brutal, ideologically backward and anti-women. It is economically dependent on world imperialism and belongs to the past. The various factions within the regime are seeking to gain the upper hand over one another by relying on different big powers so as to be able to impose their rule over the people for the long term.
The people of Iran and the real anti-imperialists have no interest in siding with any of those forces. Their interests lie in fighting them all.
Donnerstag, 23. Februar 2012
Syria: no to Assad, no to foreign intervention!
13 February 2012. A World to Win News Service. The US military has "begun to review potential military options" in Syria, according to The New York Times (12 February). An unnamed American military official told this authoritative newspaper, "We're looking at a whole range of options, but as far as going to one course of action, I haven't seen anything." The report says the "possible options" that would be considered include "everything, from doing nothing to arming rebels to covert action, airstrikes or deploying ground troops."
This admission comes as the US is already backing various forms of intervention in Syria, including Turkey's efforts to use Syrian military opposition elements to form an army under its control, and the money and arms allegedly pouring into the country from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are almost undoubtedly backing fellow Sunni Islamic fundamentalists, as they have everywhere else.
The US followed an often ambiguous policy toward Syria for many years, working to isolate and weaken the regime while also recognizing its importance in preserving the status quo in the region at times when that has been a prime American goal. Bashar al-Assad's father Hafez crushed the revolutionary Palestinian movement then centred in Lebanon in the 1970s, enforced peace with Israel despite the Zionist occupation of Syria's Golan Heights since 1967, and supported the US during the 1991 invasion of Iraq.
When the Syrian revolt broke last March, inspired by similar spontaneous revolts that toppled Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali, the US did not support its main demand, the fall of the regime. Instead Washington called on Assad to implement economic and political reforms meant to appease the movement while making it easier to pull Syria into the US orbit.
That revolt, Salameh Kaileh, a prominent Arab Marxist from Palestine living in Syria, told AWTWNS in an interview last August, was unleashed by the middle strata in the countryside. In smaller provincial cities, it now involves all social classes, including the merchants and local capitalists, Kaileh said.
"There are reasons why Damascus and Allepo haven't moved," he said at that time. "First, the concentration of security forces there makes any protest very difficult. Further, these two cities have benefited from economic changes during the preceding period. Thus we've seen Aleppo profit from the economic opening to Turkey and Iraq. Damascus, for its part, has profited from development of the service and tourism economy. But nevertheless in these two cities there are many poor sectors who are starting to move."
This situation has been complicated by the danger of the revolt being dragged down and degenerating into ethnic and religious conflict. The regime draws its core forces mainly from among Alawi (a branch of Shia Islam) clans with support from Christian forces, a configuration whose domination of the country was inherited from the French occupation. The revolt has been mainly rooted among the Sunni majority, as well as Kurds. Unforgivably, the regime has also enjoyed the support or neutrality of almost all of Syria's so-called left, which unlike in Tunisia and Egypt have played little role in the mass movement.
The revolt has often raised slogans and made gestures emphasizing the unity of the Syrian people against the regime, while it has been the regime that has most fanned the sparks of ethnic conflict to pose itself as the only alternative. But clearly the regime is not alone in seeing the potential of conflicts among the people as a way to achieve reactionary goals.
It was not until 18 August that Washington called for Assad to go. This was not because the Obama government had suddenly found out how bloodthirsty the Syrian regime is. There had already been five months of massacres of unarmed civilian demonstrators, and for years the US had turned over prisoners to Syria precisely in order that they be tortured. But the US saw both necessity and opportunity in the current situation.
As Kaileh said, the US was now seeking regime change, but a controlled regime change, hoping to avoid unleashing uncontrollable forces, including the masses of Syrian people themselves, that might lead to an outcome that would destabilize the whole US-dominated structure of region, including the regimes in neighbouring Turkey and Jordan.
"Following the Tunisian and Egyptian model, this change (sought by the US in Syria) would not be a radical one but a change within the regime itself", Kaileh said. One possible form would be a split within the power structure, particularly the armed forces and a coup, spurred on by or even possibly brought about by foreign military intervention.
The necessity was to step in a resolve a situation – a popular uprising – that imperilled American interests. The opportunity was that it had become possible to envisage taking out a formerly stable regime that formed a bloc with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Palestinian Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, posing serious problems for the US and threatening its reactionary regional allies. It is no coincidence that the US's eagerness to bring down Assad comes amid heightened US threats to attack Iran and/or back Israel in attacking it.
Even as the popular revolt in the Middle East and North Africa continues to acutely challenge some of the existing regimes and forms of imperialist domination, and the genie of the peoples' awakening has been released from the bottle, instead of giving in to the popular will and or even retreating slightly, the US has worked to advance its interests amid these turbulent waters.
To the so-called Tunisian and Egyptian models has now been added the "Libyan model" in which the US and the European powers (acting both in concert with the US and also out of rivalry with the US and each other) basically invaded (if mainly from the skies) and brought down the Gaddafi regime. This show of force was meant not only to assert control of Libya but also proclaim and maintain regional dominance in the face of both the peoples and other rivals, including Russia and China.
The foreign interference and stoking of civil war by the US and its allies in Syria is exactly the kind of thing the UN supposedly exists to prevent. A few years ago the US blustered threats against the Assad regime for interfering in Lebanon and demanded that the UN step in. For the US, UK and France, the question is not what is morally right or legal according to international law but what serves their imperialist interests.
Now that these powers have taken the opposite position regarding Syria: outside interference can be justified because Assad is "killing his own people". Further, if it is true that forces linked to Al-Qaeda in Iraq are now fighting in Syria, this is not unrelated to the Gulf states' backing of other Islamic fundamentalist forces there. The point, for the West, is that their interference (or moves backed by them) is good, while anyone else's is an excuse for... Nato intervention.
As Robert Fisk pointed out in the UK Independent, one particularly sharp illustration of the hypocrisy of the US and Europe is that the absolute monarchs of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are now portrayed as the region's best champions of "democracy" in Syria. The fact that the Saudi regime sent in troops to put down a rebellion by the Shia majority in Bahrain and is shooting Shia demonstrators in Eastern Saudi Arabia has been politely overlooked.
The increasing importance of the alliance between the US and the reactionary Gulf states – driven by the dread that the "Arab Spring" inspires in them all – is exemplified by the fact that they were able to change the position of the Arab League overnight, from one of at least apparent neutrality toward the Assad regime to putting forward a stunningly arrogant and detailed plan for what should happen next in Syria, beginning with a transfer of power from Assad to others within his regime, with or without a military coup.
The Arab League has called for a "joint Arab-UN peacekeeping mission" in Syria, but this isn't about peace. It called for providing "all forms of moral and material support" to opposition forces, but this isn't about helping the advance of what has been the main thrust of the people's revolt so far, an end to oppression.
What it resembles more closely is the 19th-century "gunboat diplomacy" when Western powers used their warships to force those local governments not already under colonial control to comply point-by-point with an imposed agenda. The fact that these demands come from Arab mouths does not change the fact that the US wrote the script, or at least gave it the green light. How could the Gulf monarchies threaten Syria without the spectre of Western gunboats (and aircraft and armies) looming just behind them?
With the pretext that Saddam Hussein was "killing his own people", two invasions separated by a decade of murderous sanctions not only led to the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people but also plunged the Iraqi people into as dark a night as they have ever faced before, a situation very unfavourable for revolt. Then, on the same pretext, came the "Libyan" model, in which a regime that had become highly compliant with Western (and especially British and Italian) interests was brought down amidst the unleashing of all sorts of reactionary interests and forces, making life in Libya today as great a hell as ever before.
Right now the US is in no position to mount another large-scale invasion, thanks not to any sudden change of heart but the way the American projects in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned out. On the other hand, the kind of "cheap" war in Libya (cheap to the US and other Nato members, not to the Libyan people who are still paying a horrendous price) may not be possible in Syria, where the last five months of revolt have shown that the regime reactionary does have a stronger social base as well as a real army.
American strategists (see, for example, Foreign Policy.com) bemoan the fact that an "air exclusion zone" would have little affect in Syria, where the regime hasn't been using war planes, and that air power cannot be applied to aid anti-regime forces because to the extent that combat is going now, it is in densely populated cities. "What is presented as an alternative to military intervention [on the ground] is more likely to pave the way to such intervention once it fails," Marc Lynch warns in that publication.
Will a coup provide them with a solution? That's one possibility, but Syria is not like Tunisia and Egypt, whose militaries were closely tied to and trusted by the US and not totally identified with the regime in the public mind. The Syrian military has run up huge blood debts with major sections of the people.
We can't predict what will happen – how the US and its allies might try to solve their dilemma and make a grab for Syria. But we should know by now, after all that we've seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and so many other places, that what the imperialists are capable of is sometimes worse than we can imagine – and the results of their intervention are always disastrous for the people.
This admission comes as the US is already backing various forms of intervention in Syria, including Turkey's efforts to use Syrian military opposition elements to form an army under its control, and the money and arms allegedly pouring into the country from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are almost undoubtedly backing fellow Sunni Islamic fundamentalists, as they have everywhere else.
The US followed an often ambiguous policy toward Syria for many years, working to isolate and weaken the regime while also recognizing its importance in preserving the status quo in the region at times when that has been a prime American goal. Bashar al-Assad's father Hafez crushed the revolutionary Palestinian movement then centred in Lebanon in the 1970s, enforced peace with Israel despite the Zionist occupation of Syria's Golan Heights since 1967, and supported the US during the 1991 invasion of Iraq.
When the Syrian revolt broke last March, inspired by similar spontaneous revolts that toppled Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali, the US did not support its main demand, the fall of the regime. Instead Washington called on Assad to implement economic and political reforms meant to appease the movement while making it easier to pull Syria into the US orbit.
That revolt, Salameh Kaileh, a prominent Arab Marxist from Palestine living in Syria, told AWTWNS in an interview last August, was unleashed by the middle strata in the countryside. In smaller provincial cities, it now involves all social classes, including the merchants and local capitalists, Kaileh said.
"There are reasons why Damascus and Allepo haven't moved," he said at that time. "First, the concentration of security forces there makes any protest very difficult. Further, these two cities have benefited from economic changes during the preceding period. Thus we've seen Aleppo profit from the economic opening to Turkey and Iraq. Damascus, for its part, has profited from development of the service and tourism economy. But nevertheless in these two cities there are many poor sectors who are starting to move."
This situation has been complicated by the danger of the revolt being dragged down and degenerating into ethnic and religious conflict. The regime draws its core forces mainly from among Alawi (a branch of Shia Islam) clans with support from Christian forces, a configuration whose domination of the country was inherited from the French occupation. The revolt has been mainly rooted among the Sunni majority, as well as Kurds. Unforgivably, the regime has also enjoyed the support or neutrality of almost all of Syria's so-called left, which unlike in Tunisia and Egypt have played little role in the mass movement.
The revolt has often raised slogans and made gestures emphasizing the unity of the Syrian people against the regime, while it has been the regime that has most fanned the sparks of ethnic conflict to pose itself as the only alternative. But clearly the regime is not alone in seeing the potential of conflicts among the people as a way to achieve reactionary goals.
It was not until 18 August that Washington called for Assad to go. This was not because the Obama government had suddenly found out how bloodthirsty the Syrian regime is. There had already been five months of massacres of unarmed civilian demonstrators, and for years the US had turned over prisoners to Syria precisely in order that they be tortured. But the US saw both necessity and opportunity in the current situation.
As Kaileh said, the US was now seeking regime change, but a controlled regime change, hoping to avoid unleashing uncontrollable forces, including the masses of Syrian people themselves, that might lead to an outcome that would destabilize the whole US-dominated structure of region, including the regimes in neighbouring Turkey and Jordan.
"Following the Tunisian and Egyptian model, this change (sought by the US in Syria) would not be a radical one but a change within the regime itself", Kaileh said. One possible form would be a split within the power structure, particularly the armed forces and a coup, spurred on by or even possibly brought about by foreign military intervention.
The necessity was to step in a resolve a situation – a popular uprising – that imperilled American interests. The opportunity was that it had become possible to envisage taking out a formerly stable regime that formed a bloc with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Palestinian Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, posing serious problems for the US and threatening its reactionary regional allies. It is no coincidence that the US's eagerness to bring down Assad comes amid heightened US threats to attack Iran and/or back Israel in attacking it.
Even as the popular revolt in the Middle East and North Africa continues to acutely challenge some of the existing regimes and forms of imperialist domination, and the genie of the peoples' awakening has been released from the bottle, instead of giving in to the popular will and or even retreating slightly, the US has worked to advance its interests amid these turbulent waters.
To the so-called Tunisian and Egyptian models has now been added the "Libyan model" in which the US and the European powers (acting both in concert with the US and also out of rivalry with the US and each other) basically invaded (if mainly from the skies) and brought down the Gaddafi regime. This show of force was meant not only to assert control of Libya but also proclaim and maintain regional dominance in the face of both the peoples and other rivals, including Russia and China.
The foreign interference and stoking of civil war by the US and its allies in Syria is exactly the kind of thing the UN supposedly exists to prevent. A few years ago the US blustered threats against the Assad regime for interfering in Lebanon and demanded that the UN step in. For the US, UK and France, the question is not what is morally right or legal according to international law but what serves their imperialist interests.
Now that these powers have taken the opposite position regarding Syria: outside interference can be justified because Assad is "killing his own people". Further, if it is true that forces linked to Al-Qaeda in Iraq are now fighting in Syria, this is not unrelated to the Gulf states' backing of other Islamic fundamentalist forces there. The point, for the West, is that their interference (or moves backed by them) is good, while anyone else's is an excuse for... Nato intervention.
As Robert Fisk pointed out in the UK Independent, one particularly sharp illustration of the hypocrisy of the US and Europe is that the absolute monarchs of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are now portrayed as the region's best champions of "democracy" in Syria. The fact that the Saudi regime sent in troops to put down a rebellion by the Shia majority in Bahrain and is shooting Shia demonstrators in Eastern Saudi Arabia has been politely overlooked.
The increasing importance of the alliance between the US and the reactionary Gulf states – driven by the dread that the "Arab Spring" inspires in them all – is exemplified by the fact that they were able to change the position of the Arab League overnight, from one of at least apparent neutrality toward the Assad regime to putting forward a stunningly arrogant and detailed plan for what should happen next in Syria, beginning with a transfer of power from Assad to others within his regime, with or without a military coup.
The Arab League has called for a "joint Arab-UN peacekeeping mission" in Syria, but this isn't about peace. It called for providing "all forms of moral and material support" to opposition forces, but this isn't about helping the advance of what has been the main thrust of the people's revolt so far, an end to oppression.
What it resembles more closely is the 19th-century "gunboat diplomacy" when Western powers used their warships to force those local governments not already under colonial control to comply point-by-point with an imposed agenda. The fact that these demands come from Arab mouths does not change the fact that the US wrote the script, or at least gave it the green light. How could the Gulf monarchies threaten Syria without the spectre of Western gunboats (and aircraft and armies) looming just behind them?
With the pretext that Saddam Hussein was "killing his own people", two invasions separated by a decade of murderous sanctions not only led to the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people but also plunged the Iraqi people into as dark a night as they have ever faced before, a situation very unfavourable for revolt. Then, on the same pretext, came the "Libyan" model, in which a regime that had become highly compliant with Western (and especially British and Italian) interests was brought down amidst the unleashing of all sorts of reactionary interests and forces, making life in Libya today as great a hell as ever before.
Right now the US is in no position to mount another large-scale invasion, thanks not to any sudden change of heart but the way the American projects in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned out. On the other hand, the kind of "cheap" war in Libya (cheap to the US and other Nato members, not to the Libyan people who are still paying a horrendous price) may not be possible in Syria, where the last five months of revolt have shown that the regime reactionary does have a stronger social base as well as a real army.
American strategists (see, for example, Foreign Policy.com) bemoan the fact that an "air exclusion zone" would have little affect in Syria, where the regime hasn't been using war planes, and that air power cannot be applied to aid anti-regime forces because to the extent that combat is going now, it is in densely populated cities. "What is presented as an alternative to military intervention [on the ground] is more likely to pave the way to such intervention once it fails," Marc Lynch warns in that publication.
Will a coup provide them with a solution? That's one possibility, but Syria is not like Tunisia and Egypt, whose militaries were closely tied to and trusted by the US and not totally identified with the regime in the public mind. The Syrian military has run up huge blood debts with major sections of the people.
We can't predict what will happen – how the US and its allies might try to solve their dilemma and make a grab for Syria. But we should know by now, after all that we've seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and so many other places, that what the imperialists are capable of is sometimes worse than we can imagine – and the results of their intervention are always disastrous for the people.
The new imperialist provocations against Iran and the possible consequences
6 February 2012. A World to Win News Service. By A. Peyman. Since the new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Yukiya Amano presented his report on Iran's nuclear programme last November, harsh words have been exchanged between the Western powers and the Islamic Republic of Iran. These tensions have the potential to create another war in the Middle East, a volatile region of the world already racked by several wars and violent conflicts.
The latest IAEA report accused Iran of efforts to enrich uranium to the 20 percent level, carrying out research on the production of warheads and planning to manufacture missiles capable of carrying those warheads. This has been the toughest report on Iran's nuclear programme so far and could be considered a leap in the agency's position on the issue.
The previous IAEA report referred to what it called obscure points and unanswered questions in regard to the Iranian nuclear programme but never accused Iran of actually taking steps to produce nuclear weapons or claimed that there was evidence that the regime intended to do so. The shift in the IAEA's stance does not represent new evidence, but a change in political position.
The credibility of the IAEA report has been attacked by many technologically and politically knowledgeable people, including the prominent journalist Seymour Hersh, who has been investigating possible military action against Iran for the last decade. He argues that the new report cites little the intelligence material produced after 2003 – and points out that a still-secret but well known 2007 US intelligence assessment concluded that Iran abandoned some apparently weapons-related programmes that year. ("Iran and the I.A.E.A.", New Yorker, 18 November 2011).
In fact, the IAEA report's conclusions were directly contradicted by the Institute for Science and International Security (Isis) founded by nuclear weapons expert David Albright, who formerly worked with the IAEA. In a recent draft report Isis wrote, "Although Iran is involved in nuclear hedging" (seeking the ability to produce and deliver nuclear weapons if and when it chooses to do so), "no evidence has emerged that the regime has decided to build nuclear weapons." The Guardian article revealing on this document adds, "The report tracks closely with what is known of official US government assessments." (Isis-online.org, Guardian 25 January 2012)
This was indirectly confirmed by no less than US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta. On 18 December last year he told the CBS TV network that Iran is less than a year away from the capability to make a nuclear weapon. However in an interview with the same network on 8 January 2012, he said, "Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? no. But we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capacity. And that's what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon."
Sanctions and provocations
In fact, the recent IAEA report provides the excuse that US and its allies were waiting for to intensify their pressure, including sanctions, at a much higher level, and could even be taken as a pretext for military action against Iran.
At the end of 2011 US President Barack Obama signed into law legislation that would generally deny access to the American financial system for foreign financial institutions that do significant business with Iran's Central Bank, the government agency that usually collects payment for most of Iran's oil and other commodity exports.
This could be considered an effective embargo not only on Iran's oil sales, but also any kind of trade with Iran. The European Union approved an even stricter total ban on oil imports from Iran as of next July.
This puts tremendous pressure on Iran's financial system and the country's economy.
After years of negotiations in which Britain, Germany and France failed to compel the Iranian regime to halt its uranium enrichment programme, the issue was referred to the UN Security Council. The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions against Iran so far. At the beginning they claimed that the sanctions were designed not to harm the masses of people but only targeted the nuclear programme and those involved. But now the Western powers are broadening the sanctions to a degree meant to bring the Islamic regime to its knees, and this will surely have a drastic effect on the Iranian people.
When Russia and China declared their opposition to any further sanctions against Iran, blocking any more Security Council resolutions, the US and EU went ahead with their unilateral plans to turn up the heat on Iranian regime.
Amidst the rise of concerns about possible military action against Iran, various politicians in the West and even some Israelis officials have continued to insist that they have no desire to launch military action against Iran – that they are stepping up the pressure to make military action unnecessary. For example, in his later CBS interview Panetta said, "the responsible thing to do right now is to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them."
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague told Parliament that "all options remain on the table" but that his government did not "want to see military conflict over this" (BBC, 24 January) German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle declared that his country would not take part in any discussions related to military intervention, saying that such action would be "counterproductive". Alan Juppe, the French Foreign Minister, warned that military intervention would be the worst thing and it would "drag us into an uncontrollable spiral." (AFP, 14 November)
It seems that the Western power politicians are assuring the people they are not for a military option, at least at the present time. But forms of pressure short of war can pursue the same aims as larger-scale military actions and could prepare the terrain for them.
First of all, the sanctions are taking dimensions that would increasingly effect everyone in Iran and ruin the economy in a way that would hurt ordinary people the most. The imperialists hope this will make it easier for them to interfere in the country's internal affairs.
Secondly, the pressure has not been limited to economic sanctions or the so-called diplomatic isolation of the Islamic Republic, but also includes activities such as sabotage, assassination and other covert operations.
On 11 January this year, Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, an Iranian nuclear scientist, was killed by a magnet bomb stuck onto his car by two motorcyclists as he was being driven to work in morning rush hour traffic. The Iranian regime and some media accused the US and Israel. While the US government officially condemned the killing, high-ranking Israeli intelligence service (Mossad) officials bragged about the effectiveness of the terrorist campaign that has killed four other Iranian nuclear scientists in similar circumstances over the last few years. (The New York Times, 29 January)
At an Iranian missile base on 12 November an explosion killed the Pasdaran commander in charge of Iran's missile programme, Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, along with 16 other men, and destroyed much of the base. Such actions are consistent with Israel's practices in the past.
Despite the US government's attempts to distance itself from this campaign, some people believe that the US might have provided the intelligence that made these attacks possible and left the dirty work to the Israelis.
It is now clear that one of the tasks being implemented by the American military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan is to spy and to carry out other covert operations inside Iran. The downing, deep within Iran, of a US RQ-170 drone that can fly at high altitude to avoid radar detection brought some such operations to light last December. Washington also recently admitted that it is flying drones from American installations in Iraq. The Iranian Fars news agency (2 January) quoted a senior Revolutionary Guards air force wing commander who said that while the US was mainly using its drones over Afghanistan and Iraq, "some" had entered Iranian air space. He claimed that Iran had shot down "many" over the Persian Gulf.
Members of US think tanks openly discuss the advantages of covert operations inside Iran iand sabotage instead of full military engagement, at least for the time being. For example, Patrick Clawson, director of the Iran Security Initiative at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said, "Sabotage and assassination is the way to go, if you can do it. It doesn't provoke a nationalist reaction in Iran, which could strengthen the regime. And it allows Iran to climb down if it decides the cost of pursuing a nuclear weapon is too high." (NYT, 11 January 2012)
In addition to these covert actions, it has been reported that on 12 January the US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, equipped with 80 jet fighters and helicopters, was in the Arabian Sea on its way to the Persian Gulf, also the destination of the carrier US Abraham Lincoln, usually based in the Indian Ocean. On 17 January it was reported that the British Navy's HMS Daring left the UK for the Persian Gulf. Despite Paris's stated loathing of the "military option", the American and British vessels were joined by a French warship that sailed between the Straights of Hormuz.
So as economic pressure is being applied to Iran, it seems that preparations for a war are also taking place.
However whether or not all this will lead to a war against Iran is not clear. In fact, given the present economic and military situation for the US and the West as a whole, and some opposition within the ruling circles of the imperialist powers including the US, the current provocations may not necessarily lead to a war or open military action against Iran at the present time. But "all options are on the table" means exactly what it says. And given the sensitivity of the region and the tensions in the relations, things could get out of hand despite anyone's intentions.
Whatever happens in this current round of tension, what the imperialists are doing today could be considered preparation for war and helping to pave the way for that. The decade-long economic sanctions against the Saddam Hussain regime before the 2003 invasion not only made life difficult and often painful for the Iraqi masses and caused the death of many thousands of children due to the lack of medicine and malnourishment. They also destroyed the dependent economy of the country, stripped it of its weapons, and, when the US ruling class thought they were ready for a war in the Middle East, these measures had prepared the terrain just as an artillery barrage can be used to "soften up" the enemy and prepare the way for a frontal assault.
In fact the Iranian regime has been on the US target list for a long time, not principally because of Iran's nuclear programme but based on American global interests. Along with Iraq and North Korea, US President George Bush's 2002 "axis of evil" included Iran. At that time it was widely believed that Bush was planning to attack Iran, but as the wars in Iraq and later Afghanistan, two countries bordering Iran, ran into difficulties and did not go according to plan, Iran's case could be said to have been postponed. It is hard to imagine that it was abandoned.
In fact whatever the US global strategic plan might be now, the key role of the Middle East for global domination has been not changed.
At the present time the US faces some serious obstacles to waging another war in the Middle East. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have not turned out well for Washington. The US has had some success, but few would say that the US's overall position in the world has been strengthened by them. Then there is the economic crisis that is so deeply affecting the Western imperialists.
Further, any war against Iran is not likely to have the approval of the Security Council, because Russia and China have already declared their opposition even to tougher sanctions. Russia, in particular, has already started to warn against any military action. The Russian Deputy Prime Minster and envoy to Nato Dimitri Rogzine said that it would consider "any military intervention in Iran as a threat" to its security. (BBC, 13 January)
China, however, has given mixed signals, cooperating with the sanctions but refusing to go along with the Security Council's imposition of new ones, arguing that "sanctions threaten global trade more than any individual nation." (NYT, 20 January)
In a way, the US is targeting the interests of these countries as well as the Iranian regime. What is important for the US is control over a region that is key to its global strategic interests. If Iran is not cooperating in the way that the US requires, the US is not controlling the region. What is more frustrating for the US and the EU as well is that in reaction to the pressure from the West and maybe for other reasons as well, Iran has turned more to the East, i.e. Russia and China. Iran's main business partner is no longer Germany or the EU, but China. In the first four months of 2011, 80 percent of Iran's income from selling oil and gas passed through Chinese and Russian banks.
Another new factor has to do with the uprisings in the Middle East and the North African countries, on the one hand, and the Nato invasion of Libya on the other.
The Western imperialist are aware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is isolated and hated by the Iranian masses. The uprisings in the Arab countries makes it easier to envision a rising by the Iranian people. The US and EU might be hoping to take advantage of the situation. And by increasing the pressure on the people, they may be hoping to be able to intervene militarily using the Libyan model in Iran. At least that is being considered and could be taken as a possibility.
The debate about whether or not to strike Iran right now that is going on in the US, between the US and other imperialists, and within the Israeli power structure, reflects not only different interests in some cases, but also different estimates of the potential gains and costs to the reactionary interests at stake.
There are already two wars going on in the region (Iraq and Afghanistan), as well as Israel's armed occupation of Palestine. Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and Kurdistan in Turkey are not at peace either, so the imperialists could lose control of the situation completely and the turmoil could spread far beyond Middle East. An instability that is now unimaginable could result. The fast spread of the uprising in the Arab world during last year showed how flammable the region can be.
So given all this it is logical to assume that the US ruling power and its allies have calculated that the outcome of such a war would be very uncertain and the US would risk having even more problems.
However the imperialists' logic might and could be different and the force of necessity could overcome whatever logic or what might seem reasonable. In another words, they see the things with their own lens, which makes prediction very hard and perhaps impossible. But what is clear is that when their interests are at stake, they need no justification and long ago demonstrated that there is no brutality they will shrink at.
So intensifying the pressure on the Iran is directly or indirectly linked to preparations for a war or a military action in the future unless the Iranian regime agrees to come to terms with the Western powers. Even that might or might not immunize the Iranian regime against intervention.
In any case, what's needed is for the people of the world to rise and protest against any kind of imperialist provocation, war and intervention, to oppose any kind of imperialist intervention, refuse to support any reactionary regime and instead wholeheartedly back the peoples' fight for liberation and revolution.
The latest IAEA report accused Iran of efforts to enrich uranium to the 20 percent level, carrying out research on the production of warheads and planning to manufacture missiles capable of carrying those warheads. This has been the toughest report on Iran's nuclear programme so far and could be considered a leap in the agency's position on the issue.
The previous IAEA report referred to what it called obscure points and unanswered questions in regard to the Iranian nuclear programme but never accused Iran of actually taking steps to produce nuclear weapons or claimed that there was evidence that the regime intended to do so. The shift in the IAEA's stance does not represent new evidence, but a change in political position.
The credibility of the IAEA report has been attacked by many technologically and politically knowledgeable people, including the prominent journalist Seymour Hersh, who has been investigating possible military action against Iran for the last decade. He argues that the new report cites little the intelligence material produced after 2003 – and points out that a still-secret but well known 2007 US intelligence assessment concluded that Iran abandoned some apparently weapons-related programmes that year. ("Iran and the I.A.E.A.", New Yorker, 18 November 2011).
In fact, the IAEA report's conclusions were directly contradicted by the Institute for Science and International Security (Isis) founded by nuclear weapons expert David Albright, who formerly worked with the IAEA. In a recent draft report Isis wrote, "Although Iran is involved in nuclear hedging" (seeking the ability to produce and deliver nuclear weapons if and when it chooses to do so), "no evidence has emerged that the regime has decided to build nuclear weapons." The Guardian article revealing on this document adds, "The report tracks closely with what is known of official US government assessments." (Isis-online.org, Guardian 25 January 2012)
This was indirectly confirmed by no less than US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta. On 18 December last year he told the CBS TV network that Iran is less than a year away from the capability to make a nuclear weapon. However in an interview with the same network on 8 January 2012, he said, "Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? no. But we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capacity. And that's what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon."
Sanctions and provocations
In fact, the recent IAEA report provides the excuse that US and its allies were waiting for to intensify their pressure, including sanctions, at a much higher level, and could even be taken as a pretext for military action against Iran.
At the end of 2011 US President Barack Obama signed into law legislation that would generally deny access to the American financial system for foreign financial institutions that do significant business with Iran's Central Bank, the government agency that usually collects payment for most of Iran's oil and other commodity exports.
This could be considered an effective embargo not only on Iran's oil sales, but also any kind of trade with Iran. The European Union approved an even stricter total ban on oil imports from Iran as of next July.
This puts tremendous pressure on Iran's financial system and the country's economy.
After years of negotiations in which Britain, Germany and France failed to compel the Iranian regime to halt its uranium enrichment programme, the issue was referred to the UN Security Council. The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions against Iran so far. At the beginning they claimed that the sanctions were designed not to harm the masses of people but only targeted the nuclear programme and those involved. But now the Western powers are broadening the sanctions to a degree meant to bring the Islamic regime to its knees, and this will surely have a drastic effect on the Iranian people.
When Russia and China declared their opposition to any further sanctions against Iran, blocking any more Security Council resolutions, the US and EU went ahead with their unilateral plans to turn up the heat on Iranian regime.
Amidst the rise of concerns about possible military action against Iran, various politicians in the West and even some Israelis officials have continued to insist that they have no desire to launch military action against Iran – that they are stepping up the pressure to make military action unnecessary. For example, in his later CBS interview Panetta said, "the responsible thing to do right now is to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them."
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague told Parliament that "all options remain on the table" but that his government did not "want to see military conflict over this" (BBC, 24 January) German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle declared that his country would not take part in any discussions related to military intervention, saying that such action would be "counterproductive". Alan Juppe, the French Foreign Minister, warned that military intervention would be the worst thing and it would "drag us into an uncontrollable spiral." (AFP, 14 November)
It seems that the Western power politicians are assuring the people they are not for a military option, at least at the present time. But forms of pressure short of war can pursue the same aims as larger-scale military actions and could prepare the terrain for them.
First of all, the sanctions are taking dimensions that would increasingly effect everyone in Iran and ruin the economy in a way that would hurt ordinary people the most. The imperialists hope this will make it easier for them to interfere in the country's internal affairs.
Secondly, the pressure has not been limited to economic sanctions or the so-called diplomatic isolation of the Islamic Republic, but also includes activities such as sabotage, assassination and other covert operations.
On 11 January this year, Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, an Iranian nuclear scientist, was killed by a magnet bomb stuck onto his car by two motorcyclists as he was being driven to work in morning rush hour traffic. The Iranian regime and some media accused the US and Israel. While the US government officially condemned the killing, high-ranking Israeli intelligence service (Mossad) officials bragged about the effectiveness of the terrorist campaign that has killed four other Iranian nuclear scientists in similar circumstances over the last few years. (The New York Times, 29 January)
At an Iranian missile base on 12 November an explosion killed the Pasdaran commander in charge of Iran's missile programme, Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, along with 16 other men, and destroyed much of the base. Such actions are consistent with Israel's practices in the past.
Despite the US government's attempts to distance itself from this campaign, some people believe that the US might have provided the intelligence that made these attacks possible and left the dirty work to the Israelis.
It is now clear that one of the tasks being implemented by the American military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan is to spy and to carry out other covert operations inside Iran. The downing, deep within Iran, of a US RQ-170 drone that can fly at high altitude to avoid radar detection brought some such operations to light last December. Washington also recently admitted that it is flying drones from American installations in Iraq. The Iranian Fars news agency (2 January) quoted a senior Revolutionary Guards air force wing commander who said that while the US was mainly using its drones over Afghanistan and Iraq, "some" had entered Iranian air space. He claimed that Iran had shot down "many" over the Persian Gulf.
Members of US think tanks openly discuss the advantages of covert operations inside Iran iand sabotage instead of full military engagement, at least for the time being. For example, Patrick Clawson, director of the Iran Security Initiative at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said, "Sabotage and assassination is the way to go, if you can do it. It doesn't provoke a nationalist reaction in Iran, which could strengthen the regime. And it allows Iran to climb down if it decides the cost of pursuing a nuclear weapon is too high." (NYT, 11 January 2012)
In addition to these covert actions, it has been reported that on 12 January the US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, equipped with 80 jet fighters and helicopters, was in the Arabian Sea on its way to the Persian Gulf, also the destination of the carrier US Abraham Lincoln, usually based in the Indian Ocean. On 17 January it was reported that the British Navy's HMS Daring left the UK for the Persian Gulf. Despite Paris's stated loathing of the "military option", the American and British vessels were joined by a French warship that sailed between the Straights of Hormuz.
So as economic pressure is being applied to Iran, it seems that preparations for a war are also taking place.
However whether or not all this will lead to a war against Iran is not clear. In fact, given the present economic and military situation for the US and the West as a whole, and some opposition within the ruling circles of the imperialist powers including the US, the current provocations may not necessarily lead to a war or open military action against Iran at the present time. But "all options are on the table" means exactly what it says. And given the sensitivity of the region and the tensions in the relations, things could get out of hand despite anyone's intentions.
Whatever happens in this current round of tension, what the imperialists are doing today could be considered preparation for war and helping to pave the way for that. The decade-long economic sanctions against the Saddam Hussain regime before the 2003 invasion not only made life difficult and often painful for the Iraqi masses and caused the death of many thousands of children due to the lack of medicine and malnourishment. They also destroyed the dependent economy of the country, stripped it of its weapons, and, when the US ruling class thought they were ready for a war in the Middle East, these measures had prepared the terrain just as an artillery barrage can be used to "soften up" the enemy and prepare the way for a frontal assault.
In fact the Iranian regime has been on the US target list for a long time, not principally because of Iran's nuclear programme but based on American global interests. Along with Iraq and North Korea, US President George Bush's 2002 "axis of evil" included Iran. At that time it was widely believed that Bush was planning to attack Iran, but as the wars in Iraq and later Afghanistan, two countries bordering Iran, ran into difficulties and did not go according to plan, Iran's case could be said to have been postponed. It is hard to imagine that it was abandoned.
In fact whatever the US global strategic plan might be now, the key role of the Middle East for global domination has been not changed.
At the present time the US faces some serious obstacles to waging another war in the Middle East. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have not turned out well for Washington. The US has had some success, but few would say that the US's overall position in the world has been strengthened by them. Then there is the economic crisis that is so deeply affecting the Western imperialists.
Further, any war against Iran is not likely to have the approval of the Security Council, because Russia and China have already declared their opposition even to tougher sanctions. Russia, in particular, has already started to warn against any military action. The Russian Deputy Prime Minster and envoy to Nato Dimitri Rogzine said that it would consider "any military intervention in Iran as a threat" to its security. (BBC, 13 January)
China, however, has given mixed signals, cooperating with the sanctions but refusing to go along with the Security Council's imposition of new ones, arguing that "sanctions threaten global trade more than any individual nation." (NYT, 20 January)
In a way, the US is targeting the interests of these countries as well as the Iranian regime. What is important for the US is control over a region that is key to its global strategic interests. If Iran is not cooperating in the way that the US requires, the US is not controlling the region. What is more frustrating for the US and the EU as well is that in reaction to the pressure from the West and maybe for other reasons as well, Iran has turned more to the East, i.e. Russia and China. Iran's main business partner is no longer Germany or the EU, but China. In the first four months of 2011, 80 percent of Iran's income from selling oil and gas passed through Chinese and Russian banks.
Another new factor has to do with the uprisings in the Middle East and the North African countries, on the one hand, and the Nato invasion of Libya on the other.
The Western imperialist are aware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is isolated and hated by the Iranian masses. The uprisings in the Arab countries makes it easier to envision a rising by the Iranian people. The US and EU might be hoping to take advantage of the situation. And by increasing the pressure on the people, they may be hoping to be able to intervene militarily using the Libyan model in Iran. At least that is being considered and could be taken as a possibility.
The debate about whether or not to strike Iran right now that is going on in the US, between the US and other imperialists, and within the Israeli power structure, reflects not only different interests in some cases, but also different estimates of the potential gains and costs to the reactionary interests at stake.
There are already two wars going on in the region (Iraq and Afghanistan), as well as Israel's armed occupation of Palestine. Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and Kurdistan in Turkey are not at peace either, so the imperialists could lose control of the situation completely and the turmoil could spread far beyond Middle East. An instability that is now unimaginable could result. The fast spread of the uprising in the Arab world during last year showed how flammable the region can be.
So given all this it is logical to assume that the US ruling power and its allies have calculated that the outcome of such a war would be very uncertain and the US would risk having even more problems.
However the imperialists' logic might and could be different and the force of necessity could overcome whatever logic or what might seem reasonable. In another words, they see the things with their own lens, which makes prediction very hard and perhaps impossible. But what is clear is that when their interests are at stake, they need no justification and long ago demonstrated that there is no brutality they will shrink at.
So intensifying the pressure on the Iran is directly or indirectly linked to preparations for a war or a military action in the future unless the Iranian regime agrees to come to terms with the Western powers. Even that might or might not immunize the Iranian regime against intervention.
In any case, what's needed is for the people of the world to rise and protest against any kind of imperialist provocation, war and intervention, to oppose any kind of imperialist intervention, refuse to support any reactionary regime and instead wholeheartedly back the peoples' fight for liberation and revolution.
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