'Militant': G8 meet aided war drive vs. Iran

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think that this is a useful article, highlighting things I have been
noticing about the initial stages of the war drive against Iran.  Most
notable is the fact that Washington's imperialist rivals in Europe --
notably France and Germany -- are backing the increased diplomatic and
military pressure on Iran.

This is not solely or even primarily a "capitulation" to Washington
due to the outcome in Iraq. It is due to the fact that these powers
all suffered big economic losses due to the Iranian revolution. France
as well as the United States and Israel took setbacks in Lebanon due
to the fight waged by groups backed by Iran or inspired by the Iranian
revolution.The thoroughgoing bourgeois counterrevolution, crushing of
the masses, and the establishment of a semi-totalitarian regime that
took place under the Baathist regime in Iraq has not been carried out
with the same degree of success in Iran.  Protests and organizations
of workers, peasants, youth, women, and others remain a political
factor there, which means that massive organization and resistance to
defend the nation will be much harder to stifle than was the case in
Iraq.

Whether a war takes place against Iraq, and how it comes out, will be
decided in the world class struggle.
Fred Feldman

THE MILITANT
Vol. 67/No. 20June 16, 2003

(front page)
G-8 Summit backs U.S. campaign against Iran
Washington also pressures Tehran to dismantle Hezbollah


Thousands wave Hezbollah flags in Baalbek, Lebanon, May 25, marking
third
anniversary of Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon after 18 years of
occupation.

BY NAOMI CRAINE
Washington took new steps to ratchet up its threats and pressure
against
Iran. At the June 2-3 annual summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, of the
³Group of 8,² U.S. president George Bush succeeded in getting
unanimous
agreement for a statement condemning Iran and north Korea for
attempting to
develop nuclear weapons, and threatening to use a variety of means to
stop
these governments from doing so. These measures include intrusive
inspections of nuclear power plants and related facilities, economic
sanctions, and if necessary down the road, military strikes against
the
nuclear plants.

Washington is also demanding that Tehran act as a cop against those
the U.S.
rulers target as "terrorists"?especially Hezbollah, a Lebanese group
with
ties to the Iranian government.

In face of this pressure, Iranian government officials have been
largely in
denial that they may face an attack by Washington. At the same time,
they
have jailed people who they say are members of the Al Qaeda group and
have
extradited a number of them, while continuing some of their
anti-imperialist
rhetoric.

Washington has maintained a hostile policy toward Iran since the 1979
revolution, when workers and farmers overthrew the U.S.-backed
dictatorship
of the shah, bringing down one of the key pillars of imperialist
domination
in the region. While the government that replaced the shah is a
capitalist
regime, it has often remained at odds with U.S. imperialism and has
not been
able to roll back all the political and social gains that working
people
made through their struggles, nor has it crushed their aspirations and
anti-imperialist sentiments.


Concessions over 'terrorist¹ groups
When U.S. officials first accused Tehran of "harboring" members of Al
Qaeda
who supposedly organized several bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the
Iranian government denied knowing of any Al Qaeda forces inside Iran.
A few
days later, on May 26, Hamid Reza Asefi, an Iranian foreign ministry
spokesman, said that several people had been detained but they
included "no
senior members of the group."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer responded by declaring that the
arrests
were "insufficient." On May 29, Asefi said that those who were
arrested were
being questioned and might include such "senior members."

Tehran has said from the beginning that it agrees with Washington's
stated
aim of "fighting terrorism." The government says it has extradited
about 150
members of Al Qaeda, including to Saudi Arabia, since Sept. 11, 2001.

Asefi accused the U.S. government of not being "serious about fighting
terrorism" because the U.S. occupation force in Iraq is not cracking
down
hard on the People¹s Mujahadeen, an opposition group that has carried
out an
armed campaign against Tehran since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

More than the demands over Al Qaeda, a major target of the U.S.
campaign
against Tehran over "terrorism" is the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
During his
trip to Syria and Lebanon in early May, U.S. secretary of state Colin
Powell
made a point of demanding a crackdown against this organization, which
has
carried out a 20-year struggle against the Israeli occupation of
southern
Lebanon.

Soon after Powell's trip to the region, Iranian president Mohammed
Khatami
visited Lebanon, where he spoke at a rally alongside leaders of
Hezbollah
and pledged continued support to the group.

Continuing the propaganda drive against Iran and Hezbollah, a U.S.
federal
judge ruled May 30 that the Iranian government was culpable in the
1983
bombing by Hezbollah of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. Judge Royce
Lambreth proclaimed, "The court finds that it is beyond question that
Hezbollah and its agents received massive material and technical
support
from the Iranian government." He ruled that Tehran should pay damages
to the
families of those killed in the attack.

Washington has also accused Tehran of interfering in the U.S.-British
occupation of Iraq. "We have seen a rather steady increase in Iranian
activity here, which is troubling," warned Paul Bremer, the U.S.
proconsul
of occupied Iraq. He compared this to the "formula which was used by
Hezbollah in Lebanon."


Threats around Iran¹s nuclear program
The U.S. rulers' other central aim in its campaign against Iran is to
destroy the possibility of Tehran developing nuclear weapons,
including by
military action if need be. There is no indication, however, that they
are
preparing an invasion of Iran, which they recognize would meet with
more
resistance than their assault on Iraq.

Instead, Washington is pushing to have the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) declare Tehran to be in violation of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty when it issues a report on Iran June 16.

The Iranian government has openly said it is building a nuclear power
plant
at Bushehr and uranium fuel facilities at Arak and Natanz, but insists
they
are for meeting the country¹s rising energy needs, not for military
purposes.

Following inspections of these facilities in February, IAEA chief
Mohammed
ElBaradei called for the Iranian government to sign an "additional
protocol"
giving IAEA agents greater access to the country's nuclear facilities
and
territory, including with no prior notice. Such an agreement would
also
require providing "early notification" about the design of a facility.

On May 29 Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi stressed his
government's
cooperation with the IAEA, and said it would sign the additional
protocol on
condition of "lifting all the restrictions imposed on Iran's access to
nuclear technology." Iranian officials have noted that the governments
of
the United States and many members of the European Union do not accept
such
inspections of their own facilities.

The Bush administration accuses the governments of China, Russia, and
north
Korea of assisting Tehran in acquiring nuclear weapons materials and
ballistic missiles. In May the U.S. State Department issued a
directive
banning imports to the United States from North China Industries, a
state-owned Chinese company that it claims has sold missile technology
to
Iran. Under pressure from Washington, Russian deputy foreign minister
Georgy
Mamedov said May 27 that there were "serious, unresolved questions in
connection with Iran's nuclear research." The next day, however,
Russian
foreign minister Igor Ivanov said Moscow would continue its
collaboration in
completing the Bushehr power plant.

Despite the unmistakable character of Washington¹s threats against
Tehran,
Iranian officials appear to be in a state of denial, downplaying the
likelihood of a U.S. military assault. ³Unlike Iraq under Saddam we
are not
a dictatorship, but a democracy,² said Iranian foreign minister Kamal
Kharrazi in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel released
May
31. In response to statements by U.S. officials condemning the Iranian
government for its support to Hezbollah, Kharrazi said, ³All policy in
the
United States is designed to make us the scapegoat. But we will not do
them
that favor. We are determined to play a positive role.²


Paris and Berlin back pressure on Iran
Unlike the invasion of Iraq, where U.S. and French imperialist
interests
openly clashed, the French government and other imperialist powers
such as
Germany have generally expressed support for cranking up pressure
against
Iran. A French foreign ministry spokesman, commenting in April on
talks
between Paris and Tehran on the nonproliferation treaty, said, "We
insisted
on strict observance of commitments and emphasized the importance of
signing
on to the enhanced IAEA safeguard agreements?. We support the idea of
a
nuclear-weapons-free area in the region."

The heads of state at the summit of the G-8?Canada, France, Germany,
Italy,
Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia?signed onto a
declaration denouncing alleged nuclear weapons programs in Iran and
north
Korea unanimously.

³We will not ignore the implications of Iran¹s advanced nuclear
program,²
the G-8 statement said. ³We stress the importance of Iran¹s full
compliance
with its obligation under the nonproliferation treaty. We urge Iran to
sign
and implement an I.A.E.A Additional Protocol without delay or
conditions. We
offer our strongest support to comprehensive I.A.E.A. examination of
this
country¹s nuclear program.²

Calling proliferation of such weapons, along with ³the spread of
international terrorism,² the ³pre-eminent threat to international
security,² the G-8 heads of state said they would use many means at
their
disposal against these so-called threats. In a reference to force,
they said
they could employ, ³if necessary, other means in accordance with
international law.²

The U.S. pressure has intensified divisions within the ruling class in
Iran.
In a speech to the majlis (parliament) May 28, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
the
top cleric in the Iranian government, denounced the imperial arrogance
of
the U.S. demands. "We have to do this and that so they will remove us
from
the axis of evil," he said, striking an anti-imperialist stance. "What
kind
of talk is this? Who do they think they are?"

At the same time, press reports in Tehran claimed that Mohsen Rezaei,
an
associate of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was probing
the
possibility to restore relations with Washington.