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Iran: Thirty years of reaction
 international |
anti-capitalism |
other press
 Monday February 21, 2011 15:06 by Ruben Markarian - Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran
Ruben Markarian of the Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran addressed the Hopi AGM in London on 12 February 2011. Here is an extract from his speech. The full text is at the url.
Before discussing recent political events in Iran, please allow me to commemorate a very significant event in modern Iranian history - the Siahkhal uprising, which took place 40 years ago. This event produced the Fedayeen movement after two decades of stagnation and reformism on the left. The Fedayeen initiated armed struggle against the shah’s regime. In so doing they revived the Iranian left and turned it into the main force in the struggle against the shah and against imperialism in Iran. We should commemorate our fallen comrades and their memory - they died for socialism and freedom and passed on militant traditions to the next generation of Iranians. In 2009 the regime used massive repression against the demonstrators all across the country. There now seems to be a very shaky stability amongst the Islamic rulers, but the roots of political crisis are unresolved. The people who came out onto the streets were subjected to enormous repression: arrests, shootings, rape and executions. Today, executions have reached such a scale that somebody is being executed every eight hours. Iran has now overtaken China in executing the most people. The Iranian regime wants to preserve its rule by spreading fear.
I also want to talk about the economic situation in Iran. On the one hand, Iran’s oil income ensures that it is one of the region’s richest countries. On the other hand, its industries are in free fall. Every day we see companies going bankrupt, causing huge lay-offs. It is estimated that 500,000 people have lost their jobs in the last couple of months alone. The economic situation is getting worse by the day, and one of the reasons for this is the sanctions regime imposed by US imperialism. The effects are particularly harsh because the EU, Japan, China and Russia are all cooperating with the Obama administration. The brunt of these reactionary sanctions is being taken by the Iranian people themselves, not the government. The sanctions are partly responsible for the disintegration of Iranian society and the worsening situation of the working class.
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Jump To Comment: 4 3 2 1vids
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The situation in Iran – Yassamine Mather
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John McDonnell launches campaign ‘Free Jafar Panahi and all political prisoners’
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Wikileaks, war and revolution – Mike Macnair
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The situation in Iran – Ruben Markarian (Rahe Kargar)
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Mark Fischer (Hopi secretary) opens Hopi AGM 2011
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Wikileaks, war and revolution – Moshe Machover
James Turley reports on the annual conference of Hands Off the People of Iran.You can get the full text of the report at the url.
Discussions on the day were wide-ranging. Hopi secretary Mark Fischer started proceedings with a report on our work over the last year. Mark pointed out that we had not been the only ones to salute the 2009 protests - we welcomed the apparent overnight conversions of Campaign Iran, the Socialist Workers Party and others from slavish support for the regime to some degree of solidarity. Nonetheless, we had warned against tailing the ‘reformist’ leaders of the green movement; a perspective confirmed by the “dissipation and betrayals” of 2010. With the regime divided, the US and its allies have pounced, imposing ever tougher sanctions - and open warfare, perhaps waged by the US’s Israeli proxy, should not be ruled out...
The second session of the day was on ‘Wikileaks, whistleblowers, revolution and war’. Comrade Machover opened the session by talking about the recent series of leaks relating to the Middle East - most prominently, the Wikileaks-released batch of American diplomatic cables, but also the work of whistleblowers in both the Israeli military and the Palestinian Authority. He claimed that these revelations were a case of “the dog that didn’t bark” - they merely clarified what we already knew.
Crucially, these leaks confirmed that Israel has been involved in a sustained, guerrilla-style campaign against Iran, encompassing espionage, sabotage and outright assassinations. Several scientists working on Iran’s nuclear programme have been killed - so, possibly, has former deputy defence minister Ali-Reza Asgari, who disappeared in Turkey under mysterious circumstances....
The US has been caught off guard, and can hope to recoup some of its control, but not the overwhelming influence it enjoyed with Mubarak in the top job. For Israel, meanwhile, Mubarak’s overthrow is a very dangerous proposition. It has already lost a key ally in Turkey, which was finally confirmed by the Mavi Marmara massacre last year. Now Egypt may go too - and Egyptian acquiescence has been critically important for maintaining the siege on the Gaza Strip. The Israel Defence Force has benefited from troop redeployments away from the Egyptian border; should Egypt present a less friendly face in the future, even the already bloated military budget will prove insufficient.
Comrade Machover concluded by pointing out that the losers in international reconfigurations can behave in unpredictable ways, and that we should not rule out even the most counterproductive and irrational of military adventures on Israel’s part. We must remain vigilant.