On Feb. 27, the U.S. government announced that it would attend a meeting of Iraq’s neighbors discussing ways to stabilize the country.
“The Iraqi government has invited Syria and Iran to attend. … We hope these governments seize this opportunity to
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There will be two sets of meetings. In the first set, held in Iraq, the United States will be represented by outgoing ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. In the second set, most likely held outside of Iraq and attended by foreign ministers of all participating countries, Rice will represent the United States.
Deflecting criticism from ruling class politicians even to the right of the Bush administration, Rice and other officials have gone out of their way to emphasize that the decision to call the meeting and to invite the participating countries was made by the Iraqi government. But given the total military and political dependence of the Iraqi state on the United States, it is obvious that such a decision would not have been made without the approval of the U.S. government.
This development has infused foreign policy “realists” in the U.S. capitalist establishment with hope that the Bush administration’s signals are a shift away from the ultra-aggressive approach of the neocons. Comments made by Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed this sentiment. “I hope this means that clearer heads in the administration are beginning to prevail,” Biden said.
While the neocons envision reshaping the Middle East through direct application of brutal military force, invasions and bombings, the realists prefer to strive for imperialist domination through diplomatic, as well as military, means.
Negotiating with Iran and Syria as part of a regional settlement was one of the key recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group—a recommendation that the Bush administration immediately brushed off.
This may or may not change. Speaking before a Senate Committee, Rice described the administration’s new approach as part of a “diplomatic offensive”: “This is one of the key findings, of course, of the Iraq Study Group, and it is an important dimension that many in the … Congress have brought to our attention. … We’ve listened, and I want you to know that.”
U.S. ‘intelligence’
Other concurrent developments raise the question of whether this is a new approach or just a tactical maneuver.
On the day Rice announced the Iraq meeting, the new director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. McConnell said that he had evidence of Iran supplying explosively formed penetrators to Iraqi militants: “We know there are Iranian weapons manufactured in Iran. We know that Quds Forces (of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards) are bringing them (into Iraq).” McConnell stated that he had no evidence of the highest levels of Iranian leadership having knowledge of this transfer of weapons, but that the chances of that were “probable.”
As might be expected, the Senate and the bourgeois media treated McConnell’s report uncritically.
Bourgeois propaganda depicts the intelligence community as a body of professional detectives and investigators of unquestioned integrity whose sole purpose is the gathering and analysis of facts, not as an arm of the state whose leadership, orientation and direction is determined by the policies of the state.
Questioned by Senator Joe Lieberman, McConnell claimed that the United States has evidence that Iran is training Iraqi militias in using explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) at sites inside Iran. Not surprisingly, Lieberman’s response was not to ask for the actual evidence. “If Iran is training Iraqi militants in the use of Iranian weapons which are then being used to kill Americans in Iraq, I think that’s a very serious act and one that we ought to consider taking steps to stop,” he said.
On the nuclear issue, McConnell said that Iran was determined to develop nuclear arms “in the next decade, more likely mid-next-decade. We would be talking 2015.”
If such evidence existed, U.S. intelligence could easily have provided it to the IAEA, which has declared to have found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program. But, of course, U.S. intelligence agencies are not to be asked for providing any evidence.
When the U.N. Security Council approved sanctions against Iran on Dec. 23, 2006, the IAEA was ordered to report back in two months on Iran’s state of compliance.
On Feb. 22, the IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, reported that Iran had not halted its uranium enrichment activities, something that Iran has openly acknowledged. The very next day, asked if a military solution to the Iranian nuclear issue would be a realistic option, Vice President Dick Cheney replied: “We haven’t taken any options off the table.”
If the so-called international community was not so dominated by imperialists, this threat of military action, which has now been repeated dozens of times, would be cited as a violation of international law. But, of course, the U.N. Security Council, which passed the original sanctions against Iran and is now considering further sanctions, is not a body acting on behalf of humanity. It is one that acts primarily based on the consensus of imperialist powers.
Sanctions and other forms of aggression
Iran has maintained its right under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
It also has always insisted on its readiness to negotiate, contrary to the common bourgeois media depiction of Iran as
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Between November 2004 and August 2005, Iran voluntarily suspended its nuclear program during its negotiations with the EU3—England, France, Germany. When it became obvious that the EU3, backed by the United States, offered nothing and demanded an effective end to the Iranian nuclear program, Iran ended its voluntary suspension and resumed its nuclear work, still under the monitoring of IAEA inspectors.
This time, Iran is refusing to suspend its nuclear development as a concession. President Ahmadinejad said, in response to the possibility of further sanctions against Iran, “The great Iranian people are resisting the oppressors and will not concede one iota. … If we take a step back, they’ll come rushing forwards, but if we stand firm, it is they who will be forced to retreat.”
Washington had hoped that the danger of U.S. military strikes, which are very real and present, would create a division among Iran’s leaders, forcing a faction to capitulate. This effort has failed. Statements made by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and influential head of the Expediency Council, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, made it clear that all factions of the Iranian leadership are united in their opposition to another uranium enrichment freeze.
Further sanctions being discussed by the U.N. Security Council powers include a travel ban of Iranian officials and further restrictions on the import of technology by Iran, measures that would harm the development of Iran. Aside from the immediate damage caused, sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program could also serve as a pretext for the United States to launch a devastating aerial bombardment.
In 2003, the pretexts for the imperialist invasion of Iraq were numerous, from WMDs to support for Al Qaeda to the repression of Kurds and Shiites. In the case of Iran, other pretexts for a U.S. military attack could be Iran’s arming of Iraqi insurgents, aiding international terrorists, violating human rights and others.
Whatever the pretexts offered by the imperialists and whatever the methods employed, the objective remains domination and unfettered access to markets and resources, especially oil.
Imperialists pursue a multitude of tactics to achieve these objectives. Their internal differences as to the exact tactics used and the timing of those tactics should not prompt any anti-imperialist forces to side with this or that faction of the ruling class.
Instead of calling for negotiations with Iran—that the ruling class is sure to engage if it sees it as the best way to pursue its interests—we should defend Iran against all imperialist aggression.
We should defend the right of Iran, as well as all other oppressed countries, to develop nuclear energy, and nuclear weapons to defend themselves against ever-present imperialist threats.
We should also decisively condemn all forms of imperialist aggression, from invasions and occupations, to sanctions and economic strangulation, to the funding of “opposition” forces and the orchestration of coups.
The U.S. working class gains nothing from imperialist plunder and aggression but has to pay for it with its own blood.
U.S. hands off Iran!
