|
1) A
division in the ruling elite has opened up the way for an
explosion of discontent with the reactionary clerical capitalist regime
in Iran. The massive mobilizations
clearly reflect the deep hatred of the government by the masses in Iran's largest city. The greater
Tehran area accounts for about one-fifth of
the total population of the country and is where most of the industry
is based. It is the major working-class center. It was also the focal
point of the 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed crowned
dictatorship of the shah. (To date, there is relatively little
information in the Western media about the situation in other cities or
in the countryside).
Even
the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Larijani,
a leading conservative, has declared that a majority of Iranians
are convinced that the election results were invalid. The fact that the
official victor, Ahmadinejad, was credited with a score similar to his
victory in 2005 did not provide any credibility; in that year and in
the previous parliamentary elections the opposing faction largely
boycotted the vote because its candidates had been rejected by the
Council of Guardians—that is, they were denied the right to participate
in the elections.
The
arguments of some commentators in the West that only or primarily the
upper class supports the mass protests against the officially declared
election results are clearly false. Mass demonstrations have been held
in the poorer, working-class southern districts of Tehran as well as the north. These
protests have obviously been an outpouring of discontent of the general
population with an undemocratic and oppressive regime. In no country
and at no time in history have privileged sections of the population
defied murderous repression in the streets.
2)
There is no clear difference between the two major candidates, Ahmadinejad and Moussavi.
Both represent factions of the ruling bourgeois elite, divided only by
competing ambitions and perhaps by tactical differences (although even
this is unclear.). Both support the continuation of the present
theocratic regime.
The
June 12 presidential elections offered no real choice. The theocratic
bourgeois rulers would not allow any candidate opposed to the
continuation of the present system to enter the election. Only four of
about of 400 nominated candidates were permitted to run.
Thus,
Moussavi was also vetted by the authorities
of the present system. He has in the past served as prime
minister of the Islamic Republic and as such assumed
responsibility for its repressive policies. It is simply
because he offered a legal cover for expressing opposition to the
present regime that he has emerged, at least in part and
momentarily, as a symbolic leader of the mass movement. The extent
of Moussavi’s control of the opposition
movement or whether he will be able to maintain leadership are far
from clear.
The
previous experience with the “liberal reformer” president, Khatami, who collapsed when the reactionary clerics
clamped down, was deeply demoralizing for the masses who wanted a
change. He is now a supporter of Moussavi.
The outcome of the Khatami period also made
it clear that the Iranian president had no real power, that the real
power was vested in the “Supreme Leader,” Ayatollah Khamenei.
It is he who has issued the orders for suppressing the protests. But he
is unelected by the people and has little personal credibility. His
decision to mobilize the repressive forces to crush the demonstrations
inevitably tends to turn the movement against the Islamic Republic as
such.
3)
It is in the interests of the Western bourgeoisie, who claim
to rule on the basis of democracy in their own countries, to
identify themselves publicly with the movement for democratic rights in
Iran. But that does not mean
that they really think that it would be in their interests for the
movement to win. There have been a number of indications, most
egregiously by the head of the Israeli secret service, Mossad,
that they think that it will be more difficult for them to deal
with the threat that Iran represents to their
interests if the country is headed by a less discredited regime.
In
any case, the more intelligent U.S. leaders, represented by
President Obama, have acknowledged that the U.S. has little credibility in Iran, especially because of its
role in overthrowing the elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, and installing the repressive
dictatorship of Shah Mohammad Reza Pavlavi.
The shah’s military shot down 50,000 Iranians who were peacefully
demonstrating against his rule and brutally tortured and murdered tens
of thousands opposed to his regime. The attempts of Republican Party
politicians to wrap themselves in the mantle of the Iranian protesters
are clearly a self-interested domestic political ploy and only make
them look ridiculous.
4)
Socialist Action defends the mass struggle in Iran against the government’s
violent repression, and we wholeheartedly support the demands of the
Iranian people for democratic rights. We encourage the masses to
organize themselves in their own interests and to not trust or
subordinate themselves to any bourgeois politician or representative of
the ruling elite.
The
present struggle shows the essential fallacy of bourgeois elections.
This is a process the masses cannot control. They need to trust in
their own organizations, in which they can participate and control. The
rise of shoras (popular councils) in the
1979 revolution was an example that needs to be followed and taken
further.
Khamenei's claim that the elections were a glorious victory of
the Iranian people is an outrage—especially when his own henchman, Larijani, says that most Iranians think they were a
farce and hundreds of thousands of Iranians have shown a determination
to denounce them in the face of threats of mass repression. It
disastrously discredits the regime. We call for the people insulted by Khamenei’s claim to reject the entire process, and
to find ways to express their real aspirations.
Since
the immediate aftermath of the 1979 revolution, the workers have been
denied any right to organize themselves and to fight for their demands.
Democratic rights are an essential demand for them, and it runs counter
to the fundamental objectives of the Iranian capitalist class and the
imperialists, who remain its big brothers, despite their demagogic
pretences.
Socialist
Action stands on the side of the masses. We know that there can be no
socialism unless the masses and the workers have the freedom to express
themselves.
5)
The attempts of the dominant clerical faction to demonize the protests
as manipulated by foreigners or pro-imperialists are obviously
self-interested demagogy. But it is nevertheless certain that the United States and other imperialist
states will seek opportunities to exploit or intervene in the present
conflict—including taking possible military action.
Iran is surrounded by U.S. military bases, and
there is abundant evidence that plans have been drawn
up for aggression against Iran. It is an open secret that
the U.S. has covert military
teams operating in the country, even if so far only in remote
frontier areas among marginalized ethnic groups.
Nothing
could be more deadly to the aspirations of the Iranian people to
take their fate into their own hands than U.S. intervention. For that
reason, the primary task of socialists, progressives, and friends of
democracy in the United States, the imperialist state that
bears the principal responsibility for the miseries of the Iranian
people, is to expose, denounce, and mobilize against any attempt
by the U.S. government to intervene in Iran.
Clearly, the
Iranian government’s ruthless repression of the mass movement demanding
democratic rights increases the threat of U.S. intervention. Such
policies will inevitably deepen divisions among the Iranian people.
The best and ultimately the only effective defense of the gains of
the Iranian Revolution and of the sovereignty of the Iranian
people is the unity of the masses of the country behind
a leadership that is prepared to once again mobilize in the millions
to challenge and provide a real revolutionary and socialist alternative
to the present repressive clerical capitalist state.
|