Imperialists play
GULF WAR
Soviet Union that was threatening the Arab countries but Israel."
Washington does have a fundamental political-military problem in the Near East. It has to balance two conflicting alliances, one with the Zionist state, and the other with dependent Arab regimes.
The US commitment to Israel appears dangerous game a far more tangible and enduring stumbling block for even the most conservative Arab states than the speculative question of Pan Islamic or Pan-Shiite reaction to an open alliance with the US against
The one thing that nearly all the interested parties in the Gulf War agree on is that the conflict is being kept going and manipulated by the imperialist powers. Even Tehran and Bagdad now say this, although they draw opposite conclusions about what the answer to it is. (1) Gerry FOLEY
The most authoritative capitalist papers themselves no longer make any bones about it. For example, the New York Times said in an editorial May 23:
"In Henry Kissinger's apt phrase, the ultimate American interest in the Iran-Iraq war is that both sides should lose. The underlying hope is that mutual exhaustion might rid the Middle East of the aggressive regimes of both Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein, yet leave their nations intact to avoid a superpower rush into the vacuum."
The editorial concluded: *The deeper American duty is to keep all sides focused on the right outcome of the Iran-Iraq war — a military stalemate, so that no
The editorial in the London Financial Times May 24 almost directly paralleled the one the day before in the New York
"Western interests demand ceasefire or stalemate. Victory by Iran would threaten the stability of the Arab world. Victory by Iraq would turn Iran into a cockpit for strife between the superpowers."
The Financial Times editorial pointed up the fact that whatever differences the imperialists have with the Khomeini regime, they view it as a bulwark against the spread of Soviet influence in the re-
This was, in fact, Imam's representative Hashemi Rafsanjani's point in the discussions with Turkish foreign minister, Vahid Halifoglu around the time of the first Iranian offensive this spring:
"If an Islamic government is established in Iraq, the threat of communism will be removed from the region....Presently, there are two major problems in the region, the problem of Afghanistan and
Baathist party of Iraq....If these two problems are solved, the Arab countries, ourselves, you and Pakistan can collaborate more fruitfully in the region." (2) This meeting was followed by another massive increase in trade between Turkey
The attitude of the imperialist press expressed in its editorials on the new escalation of the Gulf war follows in the line of previous positions taken at the time of the first Kurdish war by the postshah Iranian government, and at the time nd the Iraqi invasion of Iran.
Total Viewpoint 4 June 1984
In the first case, the New York Times indicated that a decisive victory by the Kurdish liberation fighters was distinctly undesirable because it would create uncontrollable instability in Iran. evidence also that the US discreetly gave Iran military aid during the period of the Kurdish challenge. (3)
When Iraqi troops were advancing rapidly into Iran, the US also made it clear that it was opposed to any major territorial changes that could undermine the Iranian state.
Washington's attitude during the latest phase of the Gulf war and particularly at the moment of truth when the conflict is spreading to the oil lanes and threatening to affect the oil supply to the imperialist countries, makes it still more clear that what the US wants is not to mount a decisive attack on the Islamic Republic now, but to wear it down and slowly bring it to heel. The Soviet view
This is also the conclusion of the Soviet leadership, which has now condemned the continuation of the war outright as a result of imperialist manipulation. Thus, Vikentii Matveev, Izvestia's "Political Observer, " wrote in the May 23 issue of the Soviet daily:
"Neither of the two sides to the conflict is gaining anything. Both are suffering bigger and bigger losses, exhausting
At the same time, the imperialist circles that are used to dominating the international raw-materials markets are apparently determined to warm their hands at the more and more dangerous fire in the Persian Gulf."
Matveev's conclusion was that the objective of the imperialists in this phrase is to pressure Saudi Arabia to grant them bases on Saudi territory.
"It is well known what efforts the Reagan administration has made to line up the Gulf states behind its 'strategic concessions conception.' bogey was used to force the states in the region to grant its bases for its 'Rapid Deployment Force! The statement made in the capital of Saudi Arabia in 1981 by the visiting US secretary of state tried to do this in characteristic fashion. The answer he got was that it was not the the Islamic republie. That is shown, among other things, by the fact that the US stopped delivery of Stinger ground-toair missiles to Saudi Arabia following Jordanian King Hussein's recent denunciaiton of American support for Israel. Both Syria and Jordan, the two Arab states in direct conflict with Israel, depend on Saudi subsidies.
Washington has now offered to go ahead with delivery of the missiles to enable the Gulf states to defend their shipping against air attack. But at the same time, it has stressed that it cannot defend the oil lanes unless it is given bases in
In a few weeks, the Iraqis have managed to reduce Iranian oil exports from about 1,800,000 barrels a day to about 800,000. So, they have a dagger to the throat of the Islamic republic. Khomeini regime survives only on the basis of oil income. Both Iranian industry and agriculture are in a sorry state, with massive unemployment of industrial workers and growing needs for imported
The oil income is essential to the Khomeini regime to maintain its patronage base, all of the mass organizations on which its control of the society depends, including the Shiite clergy itself. The regime's base is parasitic, it is not the productive layers either on the land or in the cities, for which it has done nothing.
Therefore, it is not surprising that confronted with a serious threat to its oil exports, the Islamic Republic has been ready to take big risks. But its present course has fundamental limitations.
Virtually all Iranian oil exports got out through the Gulf, whereas Saudi Arabia has a pipeline to the Red Sea that can carry 1,800,000 barrels, an amount equal to the total exported by Iran before the start of the campaign against Gulf ship-
Furthermore, in the conditions of a world oil glut, the major oil importers need not worry greatly even about a total reduction in imports of 4,000,000 bar-
Rafsanjani did this for example in his "The worst is true," IV, No 50, peasant revolution," by and Haber-Name-ye-Kurdistan, (a compendium of facts on the Islamic Republic's first war against the Kurds published by the front of the Kurdish armed organizations).
rels a day, which is the worst that could do, the US has no reason to take the risks happen if Iran closed down the Gulf. On the other hand, the Islamic Republic's finances would collapse.
Moreover, it is clear as the confrontation sharpens, Iran can depend less and less on Syria, which shut Irag's pipeline to the Mediterranean. Iran would be still less able to replace Saudi subsidies if it loses its oil income.
Moreover, the other pillar of the Assad Union, which has made it clear that it does not want to see Iraq defeated by increasing arms shipments to Bagdad since international affairs magazine, the Kremlin has said quite unambiguously that it considers the Iranian regime's course in continuing the war is leading it back into the arms of the Western imperialist powers. and nationalist intoxication in connection with the war against Iraq, the Iranian ruling circles are stepping up their persecution of the democratic forces in the
Tudeh Party is the first victim of repression. This policy has led simply the principles and tives of the antimonarchical revolution in Iran. It is being exploited by pro-imperialist elements that are still exercising an influence in Tehran in order to bring about a rapprochement with what until recently they were describing as the No. 1 enemy of the Iranian people....
"The Americans pretend to be for an end to the conflict, but this stance is designed for the public eye. Washington has been cherishing designs of intervening in the events for a long time, increasing its military presence in the adjacent region and reinforcing its rapid deployment forces....It is with the connivance of Washington that hundreds of millions of dollars of American-made arms are still being shipped into Iran. By their actions designed to reestablish their military force in this region of the globe, the US is whipping up the Iran-Iraq conflict and obstructing rather than promoting a peaceful settlement." (4)
It is notable that with the new escalof the Gulf war, both Hussein and the Saudis are stepping up their demands on the Western powers to stop arms shipments to the Iranians.
In fact, the extension of the war to the oil lanes seems to remain very much in the framework of a complex game of pressures, in which all the protagonists have limited aims. That is, the Iraqis and the Gulf states want the imperialists to stop playing a double game. The Iranians want the Arab Gulf states and the imperialists to restrain Iraq. And the US wants to force the Arab Gulf states to
American bases on their soil so that it can regain a military foothold in
As long as the Khomeini regime holds down the mass movement and evolves to the right, as it is clearly continuing to of trying to knock the props out from under the Islamic Republic, in particular when it itself is still in a weak military position to intervene. It is moving a step at a time to reestablish its positions.
The Khomeini regime, moreover, has been multiplying its guarantees to the Arab governments that it does not threaten them, and that it can maintain "security" in the region. And on the evidence of Rafsanjani's assurances to the Turkish minister cited earlier, what this means is not merely military security.
Obviously, as regimes involved lenges the capitalist bases of imperialist domination, the form of competing for imperialist support. In that sense, it inevitably becomes manipulated by the imperialists, as conflicts between economically dependent countries generally have been since the rise of imperialism. But the game of pressure being played in the Gulf war indicates that none of the states involved are simply surrogates for imperialism. They all have their differences with US imperialism, even the Saudis.
The conflict between the US and the Khomeini regime gave Bagdad a chance to stick a knife into the Iranian state, and in this operation it undoubtedly got direct or indirect encouragement from the im-
Both had a common interest in dealing a blow to the Iranian revolution. But the conflict between the Iranian and Iraqi states did not begin with the Iranian revolution.
shah's regime backed Kurdish resistance to Bagdad in the mid1970s, with US and Israeli collaboration. At the time, although the US found it useful to back the Kurds as a means of punishing and weakening the nationalist regime in Bagdad, the Kurds were not simply a surrogate of imperialism. The Kurdish example
Although the Iraqi Kurds were backed by the imperialists to an extent, their defeat was not in the interest of the crushed, because of the betrayal of the US and the shah, that in fact removed an the rightward movement on the part of Bagdad, since Kurdish autonomy had been an essential fortress of the democratic gains made by the masses after the overthrow of the US-backed monarchy in 1957.
The upshot of the whole episode was that the Iranian state got control of half of Iraq's only outlet to the sea. Whatever sort of regime was in power in Iraq, it would have tried to get that back in the event of a weakening of the Iranian state, regardless of what form that took.
The Iranian regime that took power on the basis of the mass upsurge against the shah in fact opened the way for the Iranian attack in 1980 by making it clear that it was going to continue to uphold the traditional objectives of the Iranian bour-
While all the peoples of Iran and Iraq are oppressed by imperialism, both coun tries have rich and powerful ruling strata that seek a bigger role in the region at the expense of neighboring peoples and
Moreover, they both subject nationalities within their state to double national oppression, and this fact is a fundamental basis of conservatism in Iran and Iraq. In all the recent cases, their victories over their chafing national minorities or their regional rivals have not strengthened them against imperialism but at bottom increased their dependence on it.
In the case of the Gulf war, Iran's victories have enabled it mount a savage repressive drive against the Kurdish areas that have been the main remaining achieved by the ousting of the shah. On the other hand, Iraq's defeats have forced Bagdad to loosen its grip on Iraqi Kurdistan, giving the Kurdish national liberation movement a chance to expand its sphere of operations.
In general, the victories of the Iranian forces in the war have gone hand in hand with repression of the mass movement and more and more right-wing policies.
The workers movement and anti-imperialists have nothing to gain by supporting or painting up either one of the war-
In the first place, that would mean working for the enemies of the workers movement and democracy and alienating oneself from the left and democratic forces that have suffered at the hands of both regimes. Secondly, it would mean playing into the hands imperialism, which is conniving with
Moreover, and in particular it would stand in the way of exposing the imperialist operations to significant numbers of people in the imperialist coun tries themselves, since neither of the regimes in question is attractive, and the Iranian one is growing more unattractive
On the other hand, the connivance of imperialism with both regimes, and their competition for imperialist support is more and more evident, as is the imperialist objective of regaining bases in the re-
The results of imperialist domination of the Near East for more than a are evident. Furthermore, the dangers to world peace of the game the imperialists are playing today in the Gulf war are also clear enough.
These are the only effective basis for the imperialist designs in the Gulf and building opposition to imperial-
There is no simple military way out of the imperialist trap either for Iran or Iraq. The only real way out is unity of the masses in the region around an antiimperialist struggle that can actually benefit them. And the first step toward opening the way for that is ending this war.
"En depit des interets nationaux (Conflict Irano-irakien), V. Gourev, La Vie Internationale, April 1984, pp. 120-121.
International Viewpoint 4 June 1984
idea in broad circles and to win support in the peace and union movements as well
NETHERLANDS.
In particular, government representatives from Britain, West Germany Italy have stressed that nondeployment in the Netherlands would give the peace momentum elsewhere. The Dutch government has come under