Hands Off the People of Iran

After weeks of speculation about Iran-US relations and the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme, Iran’s foreign minister and his deputy finally made their initial proposals clear on October 15-16 in closed talks with the ‘P5+1’ countries in Geneva. Those proposals will come in stages, coinciding with a gradual reduction of western sanctions. Despite Iran’s denials it is clear that at some stage during this process Iran will reduce the level of uranium enrichment and may “allow unannounced visits to its nuclear sites as a ‘last step’”.¹

Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament who is close to supreme leader Ali Khamenei, had hinted in an interview with CNN that Iran might concede to P5+1 demands for stopping the enrichment of uranium, or at least that Iran is willing to discuss the thorny issue of its ‘surplus’ enriched uranium. However, he seemed to contradict this a few days later with a statement “clarifying that current achievements in the nuclear programme cannot be reversed”, but it looks like Khamenei has swallowed the poison and a variation of the above is part of Iran’s proposal. Larijani was also quoted by Associated Press as saying that Iran has ample enriched uranium to use as a bargaining chip with the west. Later the quote was labelled “false”, “fundamentally inaccurate” and “baseless” by his official office in the majles (parliament).

In early October there were reports that Iran might volunteer to close its Fordo plant. However, the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, strongly rejected “western media reports”, adding that the underground uranium enrichment facility is essential to the country’s nuclear programme: “The closure of the Fordo site is a sheer lie.”

Never mind Iranian officials speaking with one voice – it is clear that each voice has two or three opinions! But this apparent disarray is in fact part of the supreme leader’s strategy to claim victory if the talks achieve any reduction in the current level of sanctions, while remaining deeply pessimistic about the discussions. The regime has put all its hopes in an immediate relaxation, at least in terms of the country’s banking and finance systems, as well as the lifting of insurance and shipping restrictions that would allow an increase in the country’s oil exports.

However, given the fact that sanctions have clearly brought about a U-turn in Tehran, it is unlikely that they will be lifted shortly. Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US hawks are clearly warning against any relaxation. On October 10, in calls to David Cameron and French president François Hollande, Netanyahu is supposed to have warned that “Only our pressure brought Iran to this point, and only the continuation of that pressure and its strengthening can bring them to dismantle their nuclear programme.”²

The Israeli premier was given a unique opportunity to speak directly to the Iranian people in a long interview with the BBC Persian service on October 3. And he managed to do something that former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never achieved: unite Iranians against the Zionist government. In condescending, arrogant comments that were supposed to mobilise young Iranians in support of the Zionist regime, the Israeli premier told Iranians they “deserve better” than their current government adding the now infamous statement: “I think if the Iranian people had their way, they’d be wearing blue jeans, they’d have western music, they’d have free elections.”³

The response was unprecedented. Social media and the blogosphere was inundated with pictures of Iranians wearing jeans. Thousands of Iranians took to social media to publish photographs of prominent Iranians, including some of the supreme leaders’ closest allies, so attired. In fact it would be no exaggeration to say that poking fun at the Israeli prime minister has become a favourite online pastime for Iranians over the last couple of weeks. One presumes his advisers must be eating humble pie.

However, all this has not stopped Netanyahu, nor has it lead to any moderation in his utterances. By October 13, as the prospects of some progress in the Geneva talks loomed, he was comparing himself to Winston Churchill and presenting himself as virtually the sole opponent of ‘appeasement’ of the Iranian ‘fascists’.

U-turns

One has to ask, what brought about Iran’s U-turn? And what happened to the US policy that Iran must be punished?

The Iranian retreat is easier to explain – although, contrary to all the claims of the US and its allies, sanctions have not affected the private fortunes of Iran’s clerical leaders or their immediate relatives. However, it is clear that the country is facing a major economic crisis, leaving its rulers powerless, and the current situation is unsustainable. This week, the central bank announced that the rate of inflation had exceeded 40%: According to its figures, “The cost of food and drink rose by 51%, shoes by 60%, and utilities, water and fuel by 21%. Healthcare was 43% more expensive and transport 45%.”⁴

Manufacturing is at a standstill. Whereas in the heyday of its growth many had commented that the rise in car output was stunning, today the collapse of the industry is just as marked. This year alone car production is down by 40% and production is 10% of what it was before the latest round of sanctions. Workers in this industry say they go to work even if they are not paid – in the hope that the industry will pick up once sanctions are lifted. The car industry, like aerospace, has been deprived of many essential engineering software packages, which are listed as computing software capable of having ‘dual use’. For example, a package called Abaqus, used extensively in the car and aerospace industries for mesh analysis, allows testing for cracks. But because it could also be used for the same tests to nuclear reactors it cannot be exported to Iran. The same is true of many other industries.

Meanwhile, thousands of workers are not being paid. Last week there were dozens of workers’ protests up and down the country, including at the Kian tyre factory near Tehran, where the slogan was: “Our families are hungry”. In Boroujerd in western Iran more than 1,000 public-service workers in municipal services have not been paid for two months. But, as I have said time and time again, why is a country that claims it has no money to pay its public-sector workers paying billions of dollars for black-market nuclear devices?

If Iran’s apparent agreement to scale down its nuclear programme was predictable, there is a lot of speculation about the reasons for what looks like a softening of the US position. A comrade in Hands Off the People of Iran has offered a possible explanation. Having traditionally relied on Saudi Arabia, Qatar and their Sunni allies, the US might be concerned that these countries have no control over Islamic military groups they finance in the region, Libya and Syria being obvious example of this phenomenon. So the US might be pursuing a twin-track policy of establishing better relations with Shia Iran (a country that has firm control of the Islamist groups associated with it), while maintaining its links with the Sunni states.

In Iran speculation about US inconsistencies dominate sections of the media. The state TV network, Jaam-e-Jam, has gone so far as to quote this writer on its website, when it reproduced part of what I had said on the weekly news/analysis programme of the BBC Persian service.⁵ (Incidentally it describes the Persian service as a den of spies, part of a Zionist conspiracy and paid for by MI5 on other pages of its website). Inevitably only those sections of the programme where I referred to the US and the effect of sanctions are reported: the rest of the discussion, when I talked about Iran’s ambitions in the region and the regime’s need for crises in order to survive, did not make it onto Jaam-e-Jam’s web pages. This in itself shows the desperation of the Iranian regime – it is not as though it is unaware of my life-long opposition.

And the battle between conservatives and ‘reformists’ has moved up a gear, with foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claiming that false reporting of his comments about president Hassan Rowhani’s visit to New York has caused him so much stress that he was almost paralysed on the eve of the Geneva talks. To prove it, Zarif tweeted a picture of himself lying in bed with backache. But our Twitter-using foreign minister is a firm believer in secrecy. No details of Iran’s presentation in Geneva have been made available to the Iranian people.

The other contentious issue inside Iran is the debate around the slogan, ‘Death to America’. In line with the needs of Rowhani, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani revealed that Iran’s first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini once commented – in private – that people should abandon the slogan. ‘Death to America’ became popular with both Islamists and their reformist apologists, the ‘official communist’ Tudeh party and the Majority Fedayeen, in 1979 and the early 1980s. In fact the radical left always opposed it, because it is non-political and was deliberately chosen to undermine the left’s anti-imperialist slogans.

According to Rafsanjani, Khomeini had confessed: “I did not agree with the call for anyone’s death during public meetings. For example, in our meetings, ‘Death to Banisadr’ was a popular chant and I told people not to chant it after Friday prayers. There was ‘Death to Bazargan’ and I told them not to say that … As for ‘Death to America’, I said the same thing. I personally am opposed to strong and offensive rhetoric – I do not find it constructive.”⁶

It was inevitable that Rafsanjani’s comments would raise fierce opposition inside Iran. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said that the Iranian people just would not believe that Khomeini did not approve of the slogan. In fact after a week of attacks on him, Rafsanjani decided to backtrack. He said that the republication of one of his interviews in which he had recalled Khomeini’s comments had been a “mistake”.⁷ Rafsanjani did not, however, deny the truth of what he had said.

Solidarity

What does all this mean for solidarity work? Clearly there is a possibility that some sanctions will be lifted in the next few weeks. This will not change the economic situation much for the majority of Iranians. However, if workers can get back to their jobs, if some of the money owed in salaries is paid, we might see an upsurge in the class struggle. Similarly, if the threat of foreign attack is lifted, we might see student demonstrations against the religious dictatorship once more – in fact we saw a glimpse of such protests this week as Rowhani was addressing students in one of Iran’s main campuses.

Now more than ever Iranian workers, students, women and minority nationalities need international working class solidarity. At a time when all eyes are on Iranian government officials and the prisoners of the green movement, we must redouble our efforts to secure the unconditional, immediate release of all labour activists, for the right of workers to set up their own organisations, and in support of workers’ struggles for the payment of the wages they are owed.

In other words, Hopi’s work has only just started.

yassamine.mather@weeklyworker.org.uk

Notes

1. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24542216.

2. www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.552031.

3. www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5991.

4. www.irandailybrief.com/2013/10/08/cbi-annual-inflation-rate-exceeded-40/#sthash.qAq1EIfw.dpuf.

5. Iranian state TV: www.jamnews.ir/TextVersionDetail/234097.

6. www.majalla.com/eng/2013/10/article55245894. Abolhassan Banisadr was the first president of the Islamic Republic, while Mehdi Bazargan was the regime’s first prime minister.

7. www.aawsat.net/2013/10/article55319235.

As Iranian president Hassan Rowhani addressed the UN general assembly on September 25, there seemed to be no end to the charm offensive unleashed by the new government in Tehran. Following a number of conciliatory articles in US papers¹ and a TV interview during which he emphasised Iran’s commitment to “peaceful nuclear development”, the Iranian president arrived in New York, accompanied by Iran’s only Jewish MP – apparently a supporter of the new government.

Two days into the UN’s 68th general assembly, Iran’s foreign minister had already met William Hague, Rowhani had shaken hands with French president François Hollande and it was announced that Iran will take part in negotiations with the ‘five plus one’ countries on September 26, along with US foreign secretary John Kerry. The proposed meeting between Kerry and Iran’s new foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, will be the highest-level US-Iran contact for more than 30 years and, according to media reports,² the UN was buzzing with rumours that there might be a Rowhani-Obama handshake in the corridors of the United Nations.

The ‘accidental’ meeting would not have been the first time the US administration had used the general assembly for communicating with moderate Iranians. According to Bruce Riedel, who was a senior director at the National Security Council and adviser to Bill Clinton on Iran, in September 2000 Clinton instructed aides to arrange a face-to-face encounter with Iran’s president, Mohammad Khatami. At the secretary general’s lunch, the two presidents were supposed to be seated not too far from each other so that an ‘accidental’ meeting could be arranged. Thirteen years later, the Americans apparently made very similar efforts.

However, there was no handshake. According to the New York Times, “After two days of discussions between American and Iranian officials about a potential meeting of the leaders, a senior administration official said the Iranian delegation indicated that it would be ‘too complicated’ for Mr Rowhani and Mr Obama to bump into each other.” Rowhani decided he could not attend the lunch organised for heads of states “because alcohol was being served”. The truth is Rowhani can only test supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s tolerance of his ‘diplomacy’ so far and clearly a handshake with Obama would have been too much. However Rowhani did manage a meeting that was just as important – with an unveiled woman, International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde, to discuss “how the partnership with the IMF might be deepened”. At the end of the day, after all the hype, Obama and Rowhani both spoke of improved relations and backed the resumption of nuclear talks.

Of course, we have been here before during the Khatami presidency, when similar gestures were hailed as signs of a thaw in US-Iran relations, yet little came out of it. In fact in an editorial The Guardian drew attention to this, warning that this time the west must not turn its back on diplomacy: “Failure now to create an atmosphere of trust and meaningful dialogue will only boost extremist forces on all sides. The consequences of such a failure will be not only regional, but global.”³

As I wrote last week, Rowhani has less than six months to bring about a resolution of the nuclear issue and an end to sanctions.⁴ After that he will surely lose the supreme leader’s support for negotiations. Before Rowhani left Tehran, Khamenei gave his blessing to his president’s efforts, speaking of Iran’s “heroic flexibility” and “tactical diplomacy”. Revolutionary Guard leaders echoed the supreme leader’s message.

Clearly sanctions are taking their toll and forcing the Iranian regime to compromise. Ironically, the super-rich clerics who run the country, as well as their immediate families and allies, have been relatively immune from the disastrous consequences of sanctions. However, the majority of Iranians are facing severe hardship caused by food and medical shortages, spiralling prices and the destruction of Iran’s economy – no wonder the country’s religious leaders fear losing power. So Khamenei and his obedient servants in the Revolutionary Guards have been forced to make a U-turn, be it for a limited period – in the words of former supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini, they have accepted that they must “drink the poison” of negotiations.⁵

Defeat

No-one should be under any illusion: the reality is that a superpower, the US, has defeated a ‘third world’ religious dictatorship by using its economic power. It has stopped Iran’s oil exports, paralysed its banking and financial systems, destroyed an important part of its manufacturing and petrochemical industries. Indeed Iran’s economy is in a worse situation now than during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. So, before anyone starts celebrating the prospects of peace, let me remind you that these negotiations, like the conflict that preceded them, are part of a reactionary process. If war is the continuation of politics by other means, the current hype about a rapprochement in US-Iran relations should be recognised for what it is: tortuous negotiations on the nuclear issue while long-term tensions persist.

In their respective speeches to the UN both Obama and Rowhani made clear references to the history of the last three decades. Obama spoke of Iran’s hostage-taking, of its labelling of the US as the main enemy and of its threats against Israel. Rowhani gave what could be described as a ‘third-worldist nationalist’ speech, complaining about inequality amongst states, and the misconceptions about the ‘civilised’ west and ‘uncivilised’ countries like Iran. So even if nuclear negotiations progress – and that is a big ‘if’ – the conflict will continue.

Throughout the last three decades both sides have fuelled this confrontation: in the case of Iran for internal reasons; and in the case of the US for global reasons – to prove the power of the hegemon. Now, in desperation, a wrecked Iran and a weakened US are looking for a settlement. It will not lead to ‘peace’ in the region. Far from it – it might fuel further conflicts between an enraged Israel and an empowered Iran; or between a Sunni alliance and the Shia/Alawi axis of Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

Of course, all this also shows a level of incoherence in the US approach to the Middle East in general. The ousting of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime and the coming to power of a Shia government in Baghdad had the inevitable consequence of increasing Iran’s influence in the region. The US’s immediate reaction was to strengthen its allies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, supporting their interventions in Syria, where Iranian Revolutionary Guards were taking part in the civil war on the side of the Assad regime.

But the Israeli lobby and hawks amongst US Republicans, as well as some Democrats, are very concerned. The joke in Tehran is that Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is the only person on earth who wishes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was still Iranian president. According to Benny Avni, writing in the New York Post, “Iranian president Hassan Rowhani will undoubtedly play the well-dressed matinee idol in this year’s UN annual gabfest, which begins Tuesday. But will Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu be the only one to note that this emperor has no clothes?”⁶ Only hours after Rowhani’s UN appearance, Netanyahu described him as making “a cynical speech full of hypocrisy”.⁷

Some have argued that the current situation proves ‘sanctions’ have forced Iran to ‘engage in nuclear negotiations’. Nothing could be further from the truth. For all the talk of peace and moderation, Iran’s Islamic regime maintains a commitment to pursue nuclear development – so as far as the nuclear issue is concerned, not much has changed. What is different is the new government’s willingness to negotiate with the US.

Sanctions against Iran date back to 1979 and, contrary to Obama’s claims, they have always been about regime change. In this respect the US has succeeded, in that sanctions forced all candidates in this year’s presidential elections in Iran to take a ‘moderate’ line vis-à-vis US relations. This was as true of the more conservative candidates as it was of the centrist, Rowhani. No wonder Iranian royalists, the Mujahedin and others who hoped to be the main beneficiaries of US regime-change policy are furious with the Obama administration. However, as we in Hands Off the People of Iran have said, the US plan A was always about regime change – and that meant a change in policy, not necessarily a change in personnel.

Clearly Iran hopes that improved relations with the US will result in the lifting of some of the harshest sanctions, allowing the sale of Iranian oil, a gradual reacceptance of Iran’s banks and financial institutions into the world economy, and that in turn these measures will improve the rate of exchange for the Iranian currency. Will this improve life for the Iranian working class? Not very likely.

Working class

As the world media pontificates about the significance of this week’s events in New York, it is worthwhile listening to the words of Labour activist Ali Nejati, a member of the Haft Tapeh sugar workers’ union: “Workers should not be under any illusion that change in the management of the state, within the confines of the existing order and for the purpose of maintaining this order in power, will bring about any change in the economic, political and social situation of the working class, nor does this change represent any move in that direction. It is no secret that our class, despite encompassing the overwhelming majority of the population, plays no role in the country’s politics – as far as the government is concerned, our only role is to produce more, accept lower wages and become cannon fodder.”⁸

By contrast, Iranian reformists, even when the most radical among them address working class issues (and that in itself is a rare event), consider the class as a minority and they talk of “the necessity of raising the demands of all minorities: women, national minorities and workers”.⁹

What they fail to realise is that:

• the majority of the population of Iran are workers of one kind or another;

• this majority, the working class, remains the only force capable not only of freeing itself, but of winning the emancipation of other oppressed sections of the population;

• woman and national minorities are themselves divided into antagonistic classes.

So what can the working class do under difficult economic conditions at a time when repression remains as bad as it was in the worst years of the Ahmadinejad period? The reformist left is telling everyone that now is the time for ‘national reconciliation’, to give peace a chance, and the nation has to be united!

Labour activists such as Ali Nejati are absolutely right to combat such ideas. On the contrary, this is precisely the time for workers’ protests – not just over economic demands, but for political freedom and the end of the dictatorship. In Hopi we will do our utmost to support such demands – as long as the forces putting them forward are not tainted by western or Arab funds for regime change from above.

yassamine.mather@weeklyworker.org.uk

Notes

1. See, for example, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-19/opinions/42214900_1_violence-world-leaders-hassan-rouhani.

2. www.nytimes.com/2013/09/25/world/middleeast/obama-and-iranian-leader-miss-each-other-diplomatically.html?_r=0.

3. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/23/iran-west-not-turn-back-diplomacy.

4. ‘More than Syria in its sights’, September 19.

5. www.nytimes.com/1988/07/21/us/khomeini-accepts-poison-of-ending-the-war-with-iraq-un-sending-mission.html.

6. http://nypost.com/2013/09/22/will-us-get-suckered-in-by-iran.

7. www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.548957.

8. http://rahekargar.de/browsf.php?cId=1033&Id=487&pgn=

9. Interview with exiled reformist activist Mostfa Khosravi: www.bbc.co.uk/persian/tv/2011/04/000001_ptv_newshour_gel.shtml.

The events we are now witnessing in the Middle East, the “United States’ accidental diplomacy” regarding Syria1 and renewed talk of the resolution of Iran’s nuclear programme were unexpected a few weeks ago. Having declared that the use of chemical weapons was the “red line” the Syrian leadership should not cross, the US has now accepted Russian proposals for a ‘diplomatic solution’.

If the original decision to launch a ‘limited military strike’ was unpopular, retreating from it has proved as unpopular and, both in the US and beyond, critics claim that the climbdown is an expression of indecision, of weakness. Of course, there are no guarantees that the agreement between the US and Russian foreign ministers struck on September 14 will lead to any kind of the resolution. Disarmament is a conflicted process at the best of times, but in the midst of a civil war, with both sides accusing the other of unleashing chemical weapons, with the state and sections of the opposition unleashing gratuitous violence against civilians, it is unlikely that the current deal will be the end of the affair.

A series of unexpected events left the US administration with little choice. First, there was (and is) some cynicism in most western countries regarding claims of justifying war on the basis of ‘weapons of mass destruction’. The Iraq war created distrust even amongst the most die-hard supporters of imperialism. Austerity and the continuing effects of the financial crisis have also played a part in generating a mood of opposition to a Syrian war. The result is that parliamentarians in the UK voted down Cameron’s attempt to join a rapid US attack and all the signs were that Congress was unlikely to endorse Obama either. In many ways the Russian proposal for a compromise, a few days after the US had tried to gain the support of allies at the G20 conference, saved the administration from further humiliation. Probably that is why it was accepted, even though no-one can be under any illusion that it will end the Syrian conflict.

Against this, and irrespective of the specifics of the Syrian conflict, US backtracking will have international repercussions. According to the Washington Times, Obama’s “red line” vow turned a lighter shade of pink, with secretary of state John Kerry saying a US military strike “might” be necessary if talks led by Russia fail to compel Syria to turn over its chemical weapons.2

In the Middle East, mainly amongst America’s Sunni allies, the Gulf emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as well as the jihadists in the Syrian opposition, there is anger. Meanwhile at home, Republicans who had given their support for military action are not pleased with the retreat. Some have argued that, by attempting to deal with too many issues, ranging from humanitarian intervention to restraining ‘Iranian aggression’ and ending its nuclear programme, the administration lost its way.

There is no doubt that many Republicans were sold the idea of supporting the attack on the basis that it would send the right warning to Iran. According to senator John McCain, “This is really about Iran and their continued development of nuclear weapons. If we stand by and watch chemical weapons being used, what signal do you think that sends to Iran and North Korea?”3

Doubtless, Obama, in advocating a limited military strike on Syria, was also thinking about Iranian nuclear capabilities: “Failure to act would embolden Assad’s ally, Iran.” He later added that recent negotiations over Syria could still deter Tehran from building nuclear weapons, even though the US had not used force to address the chemical weapons crisis in Syria.

So could it be that the threat of limited military action against Syria was a warning to Iran all along? Certainly over the last few weeks Iran’s tone regarding its nuclear programme and the possible resumption of talks with the US has changed considerably.

Since late August, the new government in Iran has embarked on a major diplomatic offensive. In the last couple of weeks alone we have had, for example, president Hasan Rowhani’s Jewish New Year message. A twitter account in the name of the Iranian president (by all accounts with his permission) was used to state, in English: “As the sun is about to set here in Tehran, I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah.” Contrary to Israeli reports, there has been no denial by the presidential office that this was a genuine tweet. Clearly an aide sent the message, but there seems little doubt that Rowhani was aware of it and approved. Later Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a twitter exchange with the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, the US congress minority leader, distanced himself from Iran’s last president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had called the holocaust a “myth”.

Change of heart

So why the change of heart in Tehran? What has made Iran’s clerical dictators keen to compromise? First of all, the effects of sanctions. The country is on its knees. For years Iran’s rulers deluded themselves that oil exports and the banking system would go unaffected.4 They were mistaken and the US has won the cold war against the Islamic Republic. Sanctions have indeed brought the country’s economy to a virtual standstill. There is a shortage of basic food and medication, Iranians drive dangerous cars, because spare parts are unavailable, and they fly in aeroplanes using inadequate, faulty, old components. Premature babies die because incubators can have ‘dual use’ (apparently the technology can be also used in nuclear plants) and so it is difficult to repair them. Children also die from out-of-date, dangerous vaccines, again because the correct vaccines cannot be imported. Iranian patients die because of shortages of surgical equipments and drugs.

The car industry, petrochemicals and a large part of manufacturing have come to a standstill and as a result more than a third of the population is unemployed. The rate of ‘growth’ is -5.4% and the population is understandably angry both with western powers which have imposed sanctions and their own rulers whose nuclear policies and adventurism have provided imperialism with the excuse. The election of Rowhani was an expression of the desire for change in foreign policy. The new government is now desperately trying to make the right noises. However, before anyone gets too excited, it should be noted that last week Iran’s supreme leader warned the new government not to trust “foreign powers”. Iran “should not be duped,” declared ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And at the end of the day he is the man who will make the decision about nuclear negotiations. Khamenei later added that he is “not against diplomacy”, but he remains unconvinced that the US wants a resolution of the nuclear issue.

Khamenei and the more conservative factions in the Iranian majles (parliament) are also reminding Rowhani that previous overtures to the US did not yield results. In 2003, when Iranian and US interests over Iraq converged, president Mohammad Khatami (like Rowhani a ‘reformist’), managed to convince the supreme leader to accept a series of proposals for better relations with US. The package included acceptance of tighter controls by the International Atomic Energy Agency in exchange for “full access to peaceful nuclear technology”, and a policy change to Israel in return for a withdrawal to 1967 borders. According to a number of political memoirs written by high-ranking US officials, Washington flatly rejected the overture.

So the last attempt at diplomacy, far from bringing about a rapprochement, left Iran as part of the ‘axis of evil’. Apparently this incident had a deep psychological impact on Iran’s supreme leader.

So, while the presidential office in Tehran has launched a diplomatic offensive, US officials point to an intercepted message urging attacks on the US embassy in Iraq along with other targets if a military strike on Syria occurred. According to the Wall Street Journal, Qasem Soleimani, head of the Revolutionary Guards’ Qods force, pulls the strings of the Iranian-supported Shiite militias in Iraq.

Rowhani, however, insists that in the event of a military strike against Syria, Iran will only send medical aid: “If something happens to the Syrian people, the Islamic Republic of Iran will do its religious and humanitarian duties to send them food and medicine.” For his part, the supreme leader has warned that the US would be making a big mistake if it attacked and would “definitely suffer” as a result. But the reality is that, for all the talk of retaliation, Iran is in no position to make the US “suffer.” Everyone knows that the supreme leader’s comments amount to no more than the threat of a minor action by Hezbollah or a limited militia operation in Iraq.

The Israeli government is keen to pour cold water on any rapprochement between the US and Iran. Netanyahu’s response to the tweeted peace messages was clear: “I am not impressed by the blessings uttered by a regime that just last week threatened to destroy the state of Israel.” He warned the ‘international community’ not to be “deceived” and called on it to focus instead on Tehran’s ‘continued pursuit’ of nuclear weapons. That is why the pro-Israeli press in the US and elsewhere has concentrated on the more antagonistic messages coming out of Iran regarding the possible implication of US intervention in Syria.

In the midst of all the threats of war and promises of peace, it is quite clear that, as far the US and its allies are concerned, negotiations will have nothing to do with the suffering of either ordinary Syrians or Iranians. It is all about furthering imperialism’s strategic interests in the region.

yassamine.mather@weeklyworker.org.uk

Notes

1. www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/09/gaffe-heard-round-world/69205.

2. www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/12/obama-now-hopeful-russian-deal-avoid-syria-strike.

3. http://daily.swarthmore.edu/2013/09/16/foreign-policy-spotlight-u-s-fumbling-on-syria-guarantees-a-dissatisfying-outcome.

4. www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2013/09/130916_ l39_salehi_nuclear_file.shtml.

A Brief Personal History and poem

Translated from Farsi by: Ali Atash.

*****

 Vazir Fathi ( Rahyaab) was born in April 1963. He was a political prisoner during “the Decade of Sixties”- 1980’s- and is a survivor of the massacre of “sixty seven”. He was arrested in February of 1983 and was formally released in July of 1992.Vazir started writing poetry in the “Eveen ” prison in 1986 and he wrote his first poem in the solitary cell.

 The experience of the struggles, imprisonments, tortures, hangings, executions and resistance of those years and specially the experience of the horrible massacre of his comrades in the year of 67 left an indelible and lasting effect on his poetry. the manifestations of this are visibly demonstrated in all his work. Vazir, even after his release from prison, maintained a direct presence in the industrial areas populated by workers. He worked along side of workers, technicians and engineers. By participating in their struggles, he shared in their successes and defeats, happiness and misery and was able to experience true workers poetry and literature in their authentic format. He has integrated and reflected this experience in his poems.

Rahyaab’s  poems were not published before 2008, with one or two exceptions that got him in trouble with the Ministry of Information. During this period, some of his poems were ,occasionally, circulated in closed circles. In 2008, he adopted the pen name “Rahyaab” on the recommendation of some friends and to facilitate wide access to his work. Consequently, he began publishing some of his poems on the internet abroad and received broad notice and acceptance.

Vazir Fathi, after 16 years of dealing with the tight control of the Islamic Republic and bearing the difficulties of recurrent arrests and interrogations and living under the Sword of Damocles, finally in August 2010 opted to enter on the path of immigration and sough political asylum in Turkey. His family, being  placed on the list of those restricted from leaving the country and undergoing a lot of legal harassment by the Ministries of Information and Investigation for 9 months, was finally able to join him there.

Rahyaab’s poetry was regularly and on related occasions published in various places and received wide attention from various readers; as their comments and emails reflected.  Moreover, an extensive review on the poem ” darafsh ma” by M. Hejri  was published on some Internet sites. This review represents a valuable attempt to appreciate this poem: as well, it is an analysis of the contents and concepts contained in it which reveals the literary orientation and viewpoint of the poet.

Aside from his literary work, Vazir Fathi has published numerous political writings about the conditions and massacre of political prisoners in Iran.

“Camomile in the Desert” is his collection of poems that is now available in print under his name. It contains some of his newest poems, as well as new-style and old forms of poetry such as Lyrics, Couplets and Quatrains.  As well, he conducted a radio interview with Mr. Michael Slate from Radio KPfK, in September 2012, reviewing the infamous massacre of political prisoners of 1988 in Iran. The link for this interview is attached below:

Link to poem :                                                      http://hopoi.org/commune.html

How long after the inauguration of the new president before disillusionment sets in? Yassamine Mather discusses the limitations of Hassan Rowhani

Iran’s new president, Hassan Rowhani, will take office on August 3. He faces major internal as well as international problems. It will be interesting to see how a man who describes himself as a ‘centrist’ will try to reconcile the warring factions of the Islamic Republic, but also the increasing divide between ordinary Iranians – victims of sanctions, poor economic management, as well political repression – with an increasingly paranoid religious dictatorship.

However, the new president’s biggest and most immediate problem will be the nuclear issue. He was, after all, elected on the basis of promises to ‘resolve’ it and thus remove sanctions. In the month and a half since his election he has already faced some serious setbacks, particularly over sanctions.

Iran is now facing more sanctions than the day he was elected – including the academic boycott of research by Iranian scientists and engineers. They have only just begun to take effect, even though they were passed by the US Congress and approved by the Senate in early 2013.

In what is an unprecedented move against Iranian academics, major publishers are instructing journal editors that, in accordance with US department of the treasury regulations, they should not be involved in the management and processing of any manuscript through peer review with any author or co-author who is acting directly (as an employee) or indirectly on behalf of the government of Iran – which includes “any political subdivision, agency or instrumentality thereof, [including] the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

There are also additional new sanctions. Only a few days before the presidential inauguration in Tehran, the Republican-led Congress will vote on yet another set of sanctions, this time reducing Iran’s oil exports by a further one million barrels per day by the summer of 2014. The aim is clear: to stop Iran’s oil exports altogether. However, coming less than a week after the treasury department relaxed controls on the export of certain drugs and medical devices, such as dialysis machines and electrocardiographs, to Iran without special permission, it shows that, when it comes to negotiations between the two countries, Washington is as divided as Tehran.

Since the election of a ‘moderate’ president, sections of the US administration have been advocating conciliation (“The house must not snuff out hopes for Iranian moderation before Rowhani even gets a chance”), while the pro-Israeli lobby is more in tune with Binyamin Netanyahu’s latest comments on this subject. Speaking to CBS in mid-July, the Israeli premier called Rowhani a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”: Iran is “getting closer and closer to the bomb” and Tehran “must be told in no uncertain terms that that will not be allowed to happen”.1

On July 1, the Obama administration authorised sanctions targeting the already troubled Iranian currency, imposing penalties on financial institutions involved in rial transactions outside Iran. This measure was included in the ninth set of sanctions imposed during Obama’s presidency. According to Robert McNally, former White House energy advisor, Washington is following a twin-track strategy: “For diplomacy to have any chance of succeeding, it must be coupled with the threat of increased sanctions.”2

In Europe, Iranian banks and financial institutions are challenging their inclusion in the sanctions list and winning some court cases – ironically because EU governments are refusing to disclose legally acceptable evidence that the targeted banks or institutions are linked to Iran’s nuclear programme. These governments claim that if they were to provide such proof in a court of law this might reveal ‘intelligence’ sources.

The supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has made it abundantly clear he sees no hope of any deal with the US: “I said at the beginning of the [Iranian] year that I am not optimistic about negotiations with the US, though in past years I have not forbidden negotiations over certain issues like Iraq … the Americans are not trustworthy.”3

Khamenei might have a point here, given what I described above. And, of course, at a time of economic crises, the US might have strong political and economic reasons for wanting the state of conflict with Iran to continue.
Internal challenges

The Iranian press and media is full of speculation about Rowhani’s cabinet to be unveiled on August 4. However, none of the current nominees are much of a surprise – all are supporters of the centrist/reformist coalition that saw him elected.

The new president’s much talked about ‘economy team’, mainly drawn from politicians of the Rafsanjani era, represents a continuation of the theme he expounded during the elections: changes in foreign policy will bring stability and therefore economic prosperity! To be fair, Rowhani’s election has had some positive affect on the Iranian economy – but mainly for capital rather than labour. Rent and house prices have gone up! The Tehran stock exchange has been rising daily and hit a record high of 54042 on July 26 – up by 1554 points from Thursday, with shares in major industries increasing in value.

Shares have risen by 30% since the beginning of the current Iranian year in March. The rial’s rate of exchange has improved against the dollar for two reasons: the currency appreciated by 8.5% following the presidential elections and the central bank has officially adopted a single-rate policy. Until early July the government applied two separate exchange rates: one for importers of essential goods, such as medicine (this also applied to senior ayatollahs, government officials and their cronies), while importers of less essential products and ordinary Iranians purchased the dollar at much higher rates on the unregulated market.

So, while Iranian capitalism is doing well, for the majority of Iranians sanctions mean continued hardship, with prices spiralling out of control. In the last three weeks importers have refused to unload ships carrying staple food and basic goods. They claim these goods were purchased at the higher rate compared to the dollar and that this should be taken into account. But the central bank is adamant that the new rate applies.

In the meantime, food prices are out of control – according to the government’s own figures, Iran’s inflation rate surged to 45% in June. According to the semi-official students news agency, ISNA, food prices have gone up sevenfold in the last 10 years – overall inflation has more than doubled in the same period. The Mehr news agency confirms this. At the same time, wages are going down – and this is for the lucky minority who have kept their jobs. On average workers’ real income has been halved in the past year: a combination of low wages and soaring inflation.
Rowhani ministers

In addition to his own limitations as a centrist Islamist, in proposing his new cabinet Rowhani faces two major hurdles:

1. Appointments to some ‘sensitive’ ministries, including foreign affairs, intelligence and internal affairs, need the approval of the supreme leader and his office.

2. He needs to get his nominations approved by a hostile majles (Islamic parliament) dominated by conservatives.

So far two major posts seem to have been decided. Ahmad Jannati, the son of the notorious hard-line ayatollah of the same name, is very likely to become minister for culture and Islamic guidance. This is an important post, as it deals with issues such as freedom of speech, arts, culture, publishing and also the women wearing the hijab. Jannati senior has presided over the operation of sharia law in Iran. However, as Jannati junior keeps telling everyone, political thought is not “genetically inherited” and indeed he is a close ally of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and will make an effort to moderate the harsh attitude of the Islamic authorities regarding art, culture and women’s attire. The ministry of religious guidance is responsible for policing the streets of Iran’s’ major cities, arresting any woman not adhering to its strict dress code. In recent weeks, buoyed by Rowhani’s election, many Iranian women have felt confident enough not to cover all their hair.

Another Rowhani possible nominee is Ali Younessi, who says he has been asked to take over the ministry of intelligence. He was the director of the ministry and a member of the Supreme National Security Council during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), but before anyone starts celebrating let me remind them that Younessi was in charge when allegedly ‘rogue elements’ in his ministry embarked on what became known as the ‘serial political murders’ of leftwing intellectuals and nationalist politicians in the late 1990s.4

Protests

The day after Rowhani’s election and in the ensuing celebrations, the crowds in Tehran were calling for the release of all political prisoners and an end to the house arrest of ‘reformist’ leaders Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi as signs of change. But Rowhani will find it almost impossible to deliver on either of these two accounts. The supreme leader has made it clear there will be no release of any political prisoners unless they apologise and ‘repent’!5

Amidst all this, what is getting little coverage is the plight of Iranian workers. Last week alone there were dozens of major workers’ protests. Workers from the Zagros Steel Factory in Kurdistan embarked on days of demonstrations, but when they were ignored by the company they moved their protests to Tehran and demonstrated outside the presidential offices. Zagros has recently closed down, claiming losses in the last two years. According to MP Kamal Alipour Khonakdari, the 82,000 workers are owed three months’ pay.6 The situation in the Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company is no better. Thousands of workers have not been paid for May and June and hundreds have gathered outside their factory in protest.

So, as the inauguration of Hassan Rowhani begins, we can expect the usual hype about the possibility of an improvement in the relations between Iran and the west and no doubt with the departure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the language will change when it comes to discussions about areas of mutual interest, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. (It is interesting that Khamenei openly admitted that these talks were occurring last week7). There might even be some relaxation vis-àvis the most severe forms of sanctions. However, conflict between Iran and the US has a history longer than the nuclear issue.

No US administration can forget the humiliation that accompanied the loss of the island of stability that was Iran under the shah and, although the 1979-81 holding of hostages at the US embassy in Tehran was not an anti-imperialist act, it left a bruising as far as successive US administrations are concerned. For its part the Iranian government cannot forget US and western support for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war or the deliberate destruction of the Iranian economy’s infrastructure after decades of sanctions. So, as far as Iran-US relations are concerned, we are likely to see more of the same in the coming months.

Internally Rowhani is likely to cause even more disillusionment than his reformist/centrist predecessors. There might be a little more toleration of a ‘bad hijab’ during approved celebrations. But wait until there are radical protests and see how our ‘diplomatic cleric’ reacts then!

On the economy, Iran will remain proof of the absurdity of the claim that Islam provides social justice (adl eslami). The Rafsanjani presidency is remembered by Iranian capitalists as the start of the ‘good times’, including the accumulation of major wealth. But for the Iranian working class it was the beginning of deregulation, employment contracts, the loss of job security … and Rowhani’ s economy team were all part of the strategists of that era.

What will be different is that this time they will have to work under difficult global economic conditions – they might not be able to deliver even as far as capitalists are concerned.

yassamine.mather@weeklyworker.org.uk

Notes

1. www.rferl.org/content/israel-iran/25046033. html.

2. www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/28/usa-irancongress- idUSL1N0FY05P20130728.

3. www.aljazeera.com/news/middleea st/2013/07/201372122714912527.html.

4. www.labournet.net/world/0202/iran2.html.

5. www.rferl.org/content/iran-khamenei-demands- apology/25059892.html.

6. www.steelguru.com/middle_east_news/ Some_82000_steel_workers_have_not_received_ pay_for_3_months_Iranian_MP/319029.html.

7. www.aljazeera.com/news/middleea st/2013/07/201372122714912527.html.