[Marxism] Iran -- not inevitable, but a war US imoerialism is driven to wage

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The key question to consider on whether the US will continue to move toward
war with Iran or turn in a different direction. It seems to me that the
arguments against attacking Iran are legion.  They can be extended
infinitely

The problem is: what alternative is there? Certainly neither party dares
suggest one today.  The Iraq Study Group report daringly suggested
collaboration with Iran, but few have seemed ready to really accept, other
than as a momentary tactic to be resolved ultimately in war, the radical
shift in power relations in the Middle East that that would imply. This is a
fact even though most know the Iranian government would probably  be highly
cooperative. The change in power relations remains an unacceptable fact, and
imperialism is presently driven toward trying to end it through war.

Attacking Iran is not a "war pf choice" for imperialism as the invasion of
Iraq is often labeled. The march toward war with Iran is one that US
imperialism is being IMPELLED toward despite a million and one misgivings. 

After 1991, and even before, Iraq had no serious potential as a contender
for hegemony in the Gulf region, or in the Middle East generally. This is
not true of Iran.  It is a contender for power on every level, and a
competitor of the United States in the area, and potentially a little more
broadly. It came out of the Iraq-Iran war with the capacity to move forward
in a variety of directions where Iraq had failed.

Yes, the US imperialists HAVE to use the Iranian regime's help in Iraq.  But
basically they are sharp competitors, not collaborators, there.  This is
probably the number one source of the current drive -- pushed mainly by
Bush's critics -- to get the Maliki government forced out and replaced by a
more purely US-dominated coalition, perhaps centered on the Sunnis (or
Sunnis and Kurds -- hard to picture, I admit).

The Bush administration seems reluctant to adopt this course, probably out
of fear that the occupation of Iraq will simply disintegrate if the leaders
of the Shia majority are effectively pushed out of power.

The claims that the Iran and the US are at war in Iraq is not a complete
fantasy, even though the evidence for the claim that Iran is making the
weapons for the resistance is probably make-believe as usual. Note
Ahmadinejad' recent statements that the US failure has created a vacuum of
power in Iraq which Iran and other Arab states should fill, in association
with Iraqi forces.

Iran is also contending in Syria, Lebanon, and also in Palestine --
generally in opposition to US objectives.  And the Islamic Republic, for all
its failures and crimes, still has a appeal to those living under the
basically theocratic monarchies that constitute the "moderates" Washington
counts on.

If Iran is not broken physically in the next period, they will fairly soon
gain the independent capacity to produce nuclear weapons more effective and
dangerous to Washington and its allies than those that North Korea
developed.  And if Washington continues to threaten Iran as it must to
continue as the sole power in the region, which it is striving to be, we can
be pretty certain that Iran will eventually choose the option of putting
that potential to work and becoming a nuclear power.

The aim of a war against Iran will not be primarily regime change but
destruction of a competitor.  The debate has less the tone of "regime
change" and "bringing democracy" and more the tone of Cato the Elder:
"Carthage must be destroyed." Not all wars are about regime change.

Joaquin suggests that imperialism must begin with a plan for regime change.
But their hope (and illusion is a necessity of life for them) is that over
time, destruction will pave the way to regime change.  US and other
imperialist plans did not begin with the replacement of Hitler and the
Japanese regime, but with the need to destroy the competitor. The US needed
no plan for regime change.  That developed as they gained ground, and became
more fearful of their very momentary allies, the Soviet Union, and the
Chinese and Vietnamese rebels.

Right now, destruction seems a perfectly reasonable objective for our
degraded rulers, because it at least removes (they deeply hope) the
potential or Iran as a nuclear power, potentially neutralizing the US
nuclear arsenal and the Israeli nuclear arsenal in the region.  
The plan to destroy Iran is aimed at the capacity to develop nuclear
weapons, a characteristic of ANY significant modern industrial power as Urab
strives to become. 

Of course, Joaquin is on to something. Ultimately, for Marxists, the signs
point to Iran becoming a ground war or perhaps against its will the
eternally bombed North Vietnam of a growing ground war in Iraq.  But right
now, the US imoerialists prefer to fantasize that their air power can settle
all questions short of an additional ground war, or a Vietnam style
integration of the Iraq and Iran fronts. Aren't we used to such fantasies by
now? What reason do WE -- not the liberal politicians -- have to imagine
that the time of such imaginings is past.  No, they are organic to the
situation of US imperialism.


Iran is not unique.  Around the world the United States faces semi-colonial
regimes which, without becoming equals of the big boys, have simply become
too big for the little britches imperialism expects them to wear.  Brazil.
China. Venezuela. Argentina. Korea (north and south). Others, like Mexico,
have the potential to become competitors if they could win more independence
from the US. Intertwined with and intensifying inter-imperialist rivalries,
this weakening of imperialist control is a major cause of the drive toward
war today.

And on along with this fundamental economic process, we see the profound
revolution in Bolivia -- the emergence of the indigenous as the politically
dominant group and leadership of the state, a change so profound and
revolutionary that it almost amounts to a radical change in class rule all
by itself -- and the revolutionary process in Venezuela. 
 believe the reason for the difficulties and growing threats that the
Morales regime faces today is not primarily the lesser capacity of the
leadership (IF in fact there is any lesser capacity, which I actually doubt,

) but the underestimated depth of this national transformations, whicvh is
also necessarily proletarian-peasant and plebeian, and also the power of the
forces that can be brought to bear against it by imperialism and its allies.
I think there has been a definite difficulty on the left in understanding
the real stakes in the Bolivian revolution

In this context, we see Cuba re-emerging as a kind of world leader, with
growing prestige even in the United States, as the ever-alert Michael Moore
registered in his latest documentary Sicko!

We certainly should not expect much rom the Democrats in the event of an
attack on Iran.  Their tendency to converge with Bush on Iraq and Iran since
their election,, which resulted from popular hopes that they would end the
war and block new ones, has been rapid and breathtaking.  We have Clinton
and Obama, still the main candidates, praising the results of the "surge" --
implicitly promising to continue this war course if elected, and Hilary
Clinton insisting on the right to use nuclear weapons against
nuclear-unarmed Iran. The overt differences over Iraq and Iran are less than
we have seen for quite a while. 

It seems to me that retreating from the quite varied and difficult wars
implied by these problems means giving up the dream of the "new American
Century" and more importantly the Pentagon strategy developed after the fall
of the Soviet bloc aimed at blocking the emergence of any competitor witj IS
power regional or international. Rejecting this means ACCEPTING the shuaring
of power in various degrees with regional contenders like Iran, China, and
Brazil. 

It may even mean adopting a new course toward Cuba, and so forth. In a
sense, Washington came to accept some of the real limits of its power after
the initial "American Century" euphoria following the bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, but may be more difficult and costly to do so today. For a
relatively declining exerciser of world domination, this may prove too
costly.

Ultimately, of course, all will be decided in struggle, he said wisely.
Fred Feldman



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