Stratfor: Iran Returns to the Global Stage

By George Friedman
November 10, 2008

After a three-month hiatus, Iran seems set to re-emerge near the top of the U.S. agenda. Last week, the Iranian government congratulated U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on his Nov. 4 electoral victory. This marks the first time since the Iranian Revolution that such greetings have been sent.

While it seems trivial, the gesture is quite significant. It represents a diplomatic way for the Iranians to announce that they regard Obama’s election as offering a potential breakthrough in 30 years of U.S. relations with Iran. At his press conference, Obama said he does not yet have a response to the congratulatory message, and reiterated that he opposes Iran’s nuclear program and its support for terrorism. The Iranians returned to criticizing Obama after this, but without their usual passion.

The Warming of U.S.-Iranian Relations

The warming of U.S.-Iranian relations did not begin with Obama’s election; it began with the Russo-Georgian War. In the weeks and months prior to the August war, the United States had steadily increased tensions with Iran. This process proceeded along two tracks.

On one track, the United States pressed its fellow permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom) and Germany to join Washington in imposing additional sanctions on Iran. U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns joined a July 19 meeting between EU foreign policy adviser Javier Solana and Iranian national security chief Saeed Jalili, which was read as a thaw in the American position on Iran. The Iranian response was ambiguous, which is a polite way of saying that Tehran wouldn’t commit to anything. The Iranians were given two weeks after the meeting to provide an answer or face new sanctions.

A second track consisted of intensified signals of potential U.S. military action. Recall the carefully leaked report published in The New York Times on June 20 regarding Israeli preparations for airstrikes against Iran. According to U.S. — not Israeli — sources, the Israeli air force rehearsed for an attack on Iran by carrying out a simulated attack over Greece and the eastern Mediterranean Sea involving more than 100 aircraft.

At the same time, reports circulated about Israeli planes using U.S. airfields in Iraq in preparation for an attack on Iran. The markets and oil prices — at a high in late July and early August — were twitching with reports of a potential blockade of Iranian ports, while the Internet was filled with lurid reports of a fleet of American and French ships on its way to carry out the blockade.

The temperature in U.S.-Iranian relations was surging, at least publicly. Then Russia and Georgia went to war, and Iran suddenly dropped off the U.S. radar screen. Washington went quiet on the entire Iranian matter, and the Israelis declared that Iran was two to five years from developing a nuclear device (as opposed to a deliverable weapon), reducing the probability of an Israeli airstrike. From Washington’s point of view, the bottom fell out of U.S. policy on Iran when the Russians and Georgians opened fire on each other.

The Georgian Connection

There were two reasons for this.

First, Washington had no intention of actually carrying out airstrikes against Iran. The United States was far too tied down in other areas to do that. Nor did the Israelis intend to attack. The military obstacles to what promised to be a multiday conventional strike against Iranian targets more than a thousand miles away were more than a little daunting. Nevertheless, generating that threat of such a strike suited U.S. diplomacy. Washington wanted not only to make Iran feel threatened, but also to increase Tehran’s isolation by forging the U.N. Security Council members and Germany into a solid bloc imposing increasingly painful sanctions on Iran.

Once the Russo-Georgian War broke out, however, and the United States sided publicly and vigorously with Georgia, the chances of the Russians participating in such sanctions against Iran dissolved. As the Russians rejected the idea of increased sanctions, so did the Chinese. If the Russians and Chinese weren’t prepared to participate in sanctions, no sanctions were possible, because the Iranians could get whatever they needed from these two countries.

The second reason was more important. As U.S.-Russian relations deteriorated, each side looked for levers to control the other. For the Russians, one of the best levers with the Americans was the threat of selling weapons to Iran. From the U.S. point of view, not only would weapon sales to Iran make it more difficult to attack Iran, but the weapons would find their way to Hezbollah and other undesirable players. The United States did not want the Russians selling weapons, but the Russians were being unpredictable. Therefore, while the Russians had the potential to offer Iran weapons, the United States wanted to reduce Iran’s incentive for accepting those weapons.

The Iranians have a long history with the Russians, including the occupation of northern Iran by Russia during World War II. The Russians are close to Iran, and the Americans are far away. Tehran’s desire to get closer to the Russians is therefore limited, although under pressure Iran would certainly purchase weapons from Russia, just as it has purchased nuclear technology in the past. With the purchase of advanced weapons would come Russian advisers — something that might not be to Iran’s liking unless it were absolutely necessary.

The United States did not want to give Iran a motive for closing an arms deal with Russia, leaving aside the question of whether the Russian threat to sell weapons was anything more than a bargaining chip with the Americans. With Washington rhetorically pounding Russia, pounding Iran at the same time made no sense. For one thing, the Iranians, like the Russians, knew the Americans were spread too thin. Also, the United States suddenly had to reverse its position on Iran. Prior to Aug. 8, Washington wanted the Iranians to feel embattled; after Aug. 8, the last thing the United States wanted was for the Iranians to feel under threat. In a flash, Iran went from being the most important issue on the table to being barely mentioned.

Iran and a Formal U.S. Opening

Different leaks about Iran started to emerge. The Bush administration posed the idea of opening a U.S. interest section in Iran, the lowest form of diplomatic recognition (but diplomatic recognition nonetheless). This idea had been floated June 23, but now it was being floated after the Russo-Georgian War. The initial discussion of the interest section seemed to calm the atmosphere, but the idea went away.

Then, just before U.S. presidential elections in November, the reports re-emerged, this time in the context of a new administration. According to the leaks, U.S. President George W. Bush intended to open diplomatic relations with Iran after the election regardless of who won, in order to free the next president from the burden of opening relations with Iran. In other words, if Obama won, Bush was prepared to provide cover with the American right on an opening to Iran.

If we take these leaks seriously — and we do — this means Bush has concluded that a formal opening to Iran is necessary. Indeed, the Bush administration has been operating on this premise ever since the U.S. troop surge in Iraq. Two things were clear to the Bush administration in 2007: first, that the United States had to make a deal with the Iraqi Sunni nationalist insurgents; and second, that while the Iranians might not be able to impose a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, Tehran had enough leverage with enough Iraq Shiite factions to disrupt Iraq, and thus disrupt the peace process. Therefore, without an understanding with Iran, a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would be difficult and full of potentially unpleasant consequences, regardless of who is in the White House.

The issue of Iran’s nuclear program was part of this negotiation. The Iranians were less interested in building a nuclear weapon than in having the United States believe they were building one. As Tehran learned by observing the U.S. reaction to North Korea, Washington has a nuclear phobia. Tehran thus hoped it could use the threat of a nuclear program to force the United States to be more forthcoming on Iranian interests in Iraq, a matter of fundamental importance to Iran. At the same time, the United States had no appetite for bombing Iran, but used the threat of attacks as leverage to get the Iranians to be more tractable.

The Iranians in 2007 withdrew their support from destabilizing elements in Iraq like Muqtada al-Sadr, contributing to a dramatic decline in violence in Iraq. In return, Iran wanted to see an American commitment to withdraw from Iraq on a set timetable. Washington was unprepared to make that commitment. Current talks over a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Washington and Baghdad revolve around just this issue. The Iraqi Shia are demanding a fixed timetable, while the Kurds and Sunnis — not to mention foreign governments like Saudi Arabia — seem to be more comfortable with a residual U.S. force in place to guarantee political agreements.

The Shia are clearly being influenced by Iran on the SOFA issue, as their interests align. The Sunnis and Kurds, however, fear this agreement. In their view, the withdrawal of U.S. forces on a fixed timetable will create a vacuum in Iraq that the Iranians eventually will fill, at the very least by having a government in Baghdad that Tehran can influence. The Kurds and Sunnis are deeply concerned about their own security in such an event. Therefore, the SOFA is not moving toward fruition.

The Iraqi Stumbling Block

There is a fundamental issue blocking the agreement. The United States has agreed to an Iraqi government that is neutral between Washington and Tehran. That is a major defeat for the United States, but an unavoidable one under the circumstances. But a U.S. withdrawal without a residual force means that the Iranians will be the dominant force in the region, and this is not something United States — along with the Iraqi Kurds and Sunnis, the Saudis and Israelis — wants. Therefore the SOFA remains in gridlock, with the specter of Russian-Iranian ties complicating the situation.

Obama’s position during the election was that he favored a timed U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, but he was ambiguous about whether he would want a residual force kept there. Clearly, the Shia and Iranians are more favorably inclined toward Obama than Bush because of Obama’s views on a general withdrawal by a certain date and the possibility of a complete withdrawal. This means that Obama must be extremely careful politically. The American political right is wounded but far from dead, and it would strike hard if it appeared Obama was preparing to give Iran a free hand in Iraq.

One possible way for Obama to proceed would be to keep Russia and Iran from moving closer together. Last week, Obama’s advisers insisted their camp has made no firm commitments on ballistic missile defense (BMD) installations in Poland and the Czech Republic, repudiating claims by Polish President Lech Kaczynski that the new U.S. president-elect had assured him of firm support during a Nov. 8 phone conversation. This is an enormous issue for the Russians.

It is not clear in how broad of a context the idea of avoiding firm commitments on BMD was mentioned, but it might go a long way toward keeping Russia happy and therefore making Moscow less likely to provide aid — material or psychological — to the Iranians. Making Iran feel as isolated as possible, without forcing it into dependence on Russia, is critical to a satisfactory solution for the United States in Iraq.

Complicating this are what appear to be serious political issues in Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been attacked for his handling of the economy. He has seen an ally forced from the Interior Ministry and the head of the Iranian central bank replaced. Ahmadinejad has even come under criticism for his views on Israel, with critics saying that he has achieved nothing and lost much through his statements. He therefore appears to be on the defensive.

The gridlock in Baghdad is not over a tedious diplomatic point, but over the future of Iraq and its relation to Iran. At the same time, there appears to be a debate going on in Iran over whether Ahmadinejad’s policies have improved the outlook for Iran’s role in Iraq. Finally, any serious thoughts the Iranians might have had about cozying up to the Russians have dissipated since August, and Obama might have made them even more distant. Still, Obama’s apparent commitment to a timed, complete withdrawal of U.S. forces poses complexities. His advisers have already hinted at flexibility on these issues.

We think that Bush will — after all his leaks — smooth the way for Obama by opening diplomatic relations with Iran. From a political point of view, this will allow Bush to take some credit for any breakthrough. But from the point of view of U.S. national interest, going public with conversations that have taken place privately over the past couple of years (along with some formal, public meetings in Baghdad) makes a great deal of sense. It could possibly create an internal dynamic in Iran that would force Ahmadinejad out, or at least weaken him. It could potentially break the logjam over the SOFA in Baghdad, and it could even stabilize the region.

The critical question will not be the timing of the U.S. withdrawal. It will be the residual force — whether an American force of 20,000 to 40,000 troops will remain to guarantee that Iran does not have undue influence in Iraq, and that Sunni and Kurdish interests are protected. Obama promised to end the war in Iraq, and he promised to withdraw all U.S. troops. He might have to deal with the fact that he can have the former only if he compromises on the latter. But he has left himself enough room for maneuver that he can do just that.

It seems clear that Iran will now return to the top of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. If Bush re-establishes formal diplomatic relations with Iran at some level, and if Obama responds to Iranian congratulations in a positive way, then an interesting dynamic will be in place well before Inauguration Day. The key will be the Nov. 10 meeting between Bush and Obama.

Bush wants to make a move that saves some of his legacy; Obama knows he will have to deal with Iran and even make concessions. Obama also knows the political price he will have to pay if he does. If Bush makes the first move, it will make things politically easier for Obama. Obama can afford to let Bush take the first step if it makes the subsequent steps easier for the Obama administration. But first, there must be an understanding between Bush and Obama. Then can there be an understanding between the United States and Iran, and then there can be an understanding among Iraqi Shia, Sunnis and Kurds. And then history can move on.

There are many understandings in the way of history.

RENEGADE EYE

Oliver Stone's W. (2008) **1/2

After eight years of George Bush, Oliver Stone presents two long hours more of Bush43. I liked Josh Brolin's portrayal of GWB, overall I found the movie lacking point of view.

Josh Brolin was able to make you forget he played in No Country for Old Men last year. He gets GWB's gestures and postures down to to a tea. Elizabeth Banks as the to become Laura Bush, comes off as the sanest person in the movie. W.seemed like a look alike convention; Toby Jones as Karl Rove, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, Ellen Burston as Barbara Bush, Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell etc. It was like watching impersonators, who learned the superficial parts of the character, not the soul. I don't put Brolin in that category. Thandie Newton played Condi as a Saturday Night Live audition

It wasn't the kick ass Oliver Stone who made Natural Born Killers. It was Stone trying to be objective. It actually is sympathetic to Bush. He is portrayed struggling for his Dad's approval, and rebelling at the same time, drinking, womanizing and not holding on to jobs. Laura is the angel that sets him straight. Under it all, he is principled but as president, over his head. He is caught between his inflexible principles and emotions, against the reality of the world. The actual villain in the movie is Cheney, who wants intelligence to match his conclusions.

I've noticed conservative sources as Pajama Media gave W. a bad review. I don't think the film is liberal or conservative biased. That is the problem to me. Maybe it's too early to have a Bush43 movie?

See Sex Drive instead.

RENEGADE EYE

Is Barack Obama an Alternative for US Workers?

I don't expect this post will change the minds of my left liberal friends, who read this blog, not to vote for Obama. The challenge to them is after Obama is office, and there is no fundamental "change," would you consider leaving the Democratic Party? I think the time is right, for the US to have its own labor party. I will post later about the possibilities of such a formation. From the first day Obama is inaugerated, to 100 days later, the 100th day is Mayday. It can be called the 100 day trial. I added a video of Cynthia McKinny's VP Rosa Clemente, taken at the RNC, by blog team member John Peterson. Her message is different than Obama and Ralph Nader's. Rosa is not afraid to directly attack capitalism. That differentiates her from Nader. RENEGADE EYE

By Shane Jones
Friday, 19 September 2008

After years of Bush’s open-ended war on working people at home and abroad, many on the “left” are desperate for an alternative. For many, that alternative is Barack Obama, a Democratic Senator from Illinois. Obama, who is very careful with his words and actions, has done a good job so far of portraying himself as a “sensible progressive”. However, far from being a “progressive” alternative, Obama is at his core a typical representative of the bosses’ political parties. Despite presenting himself as a candidate of “change”, Obama is a defender of capitalism and imperialism, and hence of exploitation and oppression. On all fundamentals, he is far closer to Bush than he is to being a genuine alternative for working people.

Far from seeking the end of class exploitation, Obama is a true believer in the capitalist system. Along with the likes of Joe Lieberman, a political and financial supporter of Obama whom Barack considers to be his “mentor”, he makes it clear that the Democratic Party is a party of the bosses: “The last I checked John Kerry believes in the superiority of the U.S. military, Hillary Clinton believes in the virtues of capitalism…”

Obama even criticizes the Democratic party from the right: “…Democrats are confused. There are those who still champion the old-time religion, defending every New-Deal and Great-Society program from Republican encroachment, achieving ratings of 100 percent from liberal interest groups. But these efforts seem exhausted, a constant game of defense bereft of energy and new ideas needed to address the changing circumstances of globalization or a stubbornly isolated inner city.”

Obama, who earned just under $1million last year, is a supporter of the Hamilton Project, a group founded by Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury and current chair of Citigroup (the world’s largest company, with total assets of $2.02 trillion). As a Senator, Obama opposed a bill that would place a 30 percent interest rate cap on credit cards, which would help relieve high interest payments for many U.S. working families. Yet he voted for a “tort reform” bill that rolls back workers’ ability to seek redress and compensation if they are wronged by their employer.

On the question of health care, Obama is opposed to national single-payer health care, on the grounds that it would leave workers in the private health care industry, such as Kaiser and BlueCross BlueShield, unemployed! This is a smoke screen of the worst kind. He is attempting to appear pro-worker, while he is really defending the interests of big business against working people. Instead, he is in favor of “voluntary solutions” as opposed to “government mandates”. Yet as every worker knows, the bosses never “volunteer” to give us raises or benefits. The super-profitable health care industry is not going to sacrifice its profits. Obama is merely evading the question. He might as well state the truth: he is not for any fundamental change.

Like all good big business politicians, when the capitalists come with money and gifts, Obama becomes their political guardian angel. For example, he is a loyal defender of the leading U.S. nuclear power company Exelon, which has given more than $74,000 to his campaign. Exelon is the parent company of ComEd, the energy company currently price gouging Illinois consumers. Agro-capitalists Archer Daniels Midland have reportedly lent him the use of private jets for his campaigns. A few months after entering the Senate, Obama bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in AVI BioPharma, a pharmaceutical company that would have benefited from legislation that he backed. George Soros, the prominent billionaire and master of capital speculation, supports Obama, although he said he would support Hillary Clinton, if she won the Democratic nomination. In either case, he feels confident that his billions of dollars will be safe.

It is on his “opposition” to the war that Obama has garnered much support, and understandably so, as the war is every day seen by more and more U.S. workers as a complete disaster. Many are seeking a real political opposition against the war, but what exactly does Obama mean when he “speaks out against the war”? Far from opposing the war on the basis that it is a war on workers and the poor at home and abroad, he would have preferred that the war had been better presented and more carefully planned. He is in favor of U.S. imperialism winning, but adds a pinch of semi-populist rhetoric, as many Democratic politicians have been doing as of late. He was simply quicker to jump on the bandwagon.

Obama is in fact a vigorous supporter of the wider “war on terror”. As he stated in a so-called anti-war speech in October 2002: “You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.” Obama voted to re-authorize the USA PATRIOT Act, which has been heavily criticized by civil rights layers as curtailing civil liberties. He opposed moves to censure Bush for illegal wiretapping, and voted to approve Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State.

Obama has called for a “phased withdrawal” of U.S. troops and an opening of diplomatic dialogue with Iraq’s neighbors, Syria and Iran. In other words, he understands that the best U.S. imperialism can do is soften the blow of a defeat; outright victory is now an impossibility. Like other slightly more far-sighted leaders of the ruling class, he approaches this from the perspective of preserving the cohesion and readiness of the military – so it can be used in other imperialist adventures such as Afghanistan and beyond. Far from calling for an immediate withdrawal of occupying forces in Iraq, Obama has the perspective of further interventions in the region, with one possible scenario involving U.S. forces remaining in an occupied Iraq for an “extended period of time”, acting as a launching pad. This would call for “a reduced but active U.S. military presence” that “protects logistical supply points” and “American enclaves like the Green Zone,” which would send “a clear message to hostile countries Iran and Syria that we plan to remain a key player in the region.” U.S. troops “remaining in Iraq” will “act as rapid reaction forces to respond to emergencies and to go after terrorists.” Above all, Obama wants a “pragmatic solution to the real war we’re facing in Iraq,” and to “defeat the insurgency.” These, of course, are mutually exclusive aims. The insurgency is the popular uprising of an occupied people. The only solution is the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. and “coalition” troops from Iraq.

In March, Obama called Iran’s government “a threat to all of us ... [The U.S.] should take no option, including military action, off the table.” He added that the U.S.’ “primary means” of relating to Iran should be “sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions.”

In short, Obama is trying to be everything to everyone, both for the continuation of the war for one sector of the ruling class, and posturing against the war for another sector, all while demagogically trying to win votes from genuinely anti-war working people.

Obama, who could well be the first black U.S. president, has attempted to make benign the malignancy that is racism in the United States. American capitalism relies heavily on the oppression of minorities as a means of exploiting and dividing the working class. But Obama believes that “cultural issues” are at the core of black poverty – an argument also embraced by many right-wing racists. Even a cursory look at the history of oppression that black workers and communities have been faced with shows that this has little to do with “cultural issues”, but rather, has everything to do with the social structure of U.S. capitalism.

Are police brutality, the de-funding of inner city schools, and the gutting of public housing a “cultural issue”? Should the brutal repression and liquidation of an entire generation of black leadership, including MLK Jr. and Malcolm X, be considered a “cultural issue”? Is the fact that one in three black men in their twenties are in prison, out on bail, on probation, court supervision, community service, or parole a “cultural issue”? And yet Obama sees the discrepancy between blacks and whites in the U.S. as a question of personal drive or the lack thereof. He has claimed that blacks can’t progress, “If we don’t start instilling in our young children that there is nothing to be ashamed about in educational achievement. I don’t know who told them that reading and writing and conjugating your verbs was something ‘white.’ ”

Certainly, there are those who are critical of Obama due to the color of his skin. We soundly reject this racist point of view. Black workers in the U.S., along with their class sisters and brothers of all races and ethnicities, run the world’s most advanced economy every day. There is no reason why black men or women cannot not play a leading role in the political shaping of society. However, for Marxists, it is a question of which class interests someone defends. It must be made clear that anyone who wants to seriously tackle racism must be prepared to tackle capitalism. As a representative of the capitalist class, Obama is neither willing nor able to tackle either.

When it comes to immigration, Obama has sought to lump immigrant workers with terrorists in the drive to militarize the border. Obama took an active role in the Senate’s drive for further border security linked to new immigration laws. Beginning in 2005, he co-sponsored the “Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act” introduced by Sen. John McCain. He also supported the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act” sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter, which did not pass the House. In 2006, Obama supported another related bill, the $7 billion dollar “Secure Fence Act”, which authorized the construction of 700 miles of fences, walls and other security measures to be built up along the U.S.-Mexico border. President Bush signed it into law in October 2006, calling it, “an important step toward immigration reform.” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, whose appointment Obama approved, said the bill would “make substantial progress towards preventing terrorists and others from exploiting our borders,” directly implying immigrants and terrorists are one and the same.

He is also a strong supporter of “guest worker programs” and gave glowing praise to the May 18th proposal in the Senate that includes provisions to detain up to 27,500 immigrants per day, to hire 18,000 new border guards, and to construct an additional 370 miles of border walls.

Bush and his circle are certainly an extremely hawkish section of the ruling class, with plans for imperialist conquest based on their specific economic interests: oil and other energy holdings, armaments, construction, and other contract companies that benefit from military interventions, such as Halliburton. But the distinction between Bush and Obama is not principled. Obama, along with the more far-sighted strategists of the ruling class, seek only to curtail the excesses of the Bush clique, which are a threat to the stability of U.S. capitalism as a whole. In this sense, Barrack Obama actually more faithfully represents the interests of the capitalist class at this point in history than Bush. So is Obama really an alternative for working people? The facts speak for themselves.

RENEGADE EYE

In the face of the threat of an attack on Iran, support the people of Iran!

Renegade Eye Note: This was written by Alan Woods : However, it would appear that the prospects of an air strike against Iran have receded - at least for the present. This does not suit Ahmadinejad at all. His support is rapidly eroding inside Iran, and his only hope was to keep beating the drum about the danger of US aggression in order to divert the masses' attention away from their most pressing problems and thus save his regime. He has made a public statement to the effect that the new revelations expose Bush as a liar (which they do) and completely justify the policies of his regime (which they do not).

This will make it easier for the development of a widespread movement of opposition by the Iranian workers and students, which has already begun and is destined to transform the whole political life of the region in the coming period. The Iranian Revolution will cut across the stagnant and unbreathable atmosphere of reaction that hangs over the region. It will cast off the yoke of religious fundamentalism and resolutely take the road of socialism and workers' power. I think Allen's words compliment Maryam's.

In the face of the threat of an attack on Iran, support the people of Iran!
Maryam Namazie

The threat of a US attack and the devastating consequences of economic sanctions are looming over the people of Iran. US’s war with the Islamic Republic is not the war of the people. People of Iran and their interests are not represented in this conflict. They want neither the Islamic Republic, nor a military attack, nor economic sanctions. For years, they have been fighting the Islamic Republic and the unbearable conditions that this ultra-reactionary regime has imposed on society.

Iran is a society where people sing the Internationale anthem in their protest gatherings and chant “One earth, one humanity” and “One race, the human race”. It is a society where the slogan “Freedom, equality, human identity” has adorned the banner of its struggles. A society where the International Day of the Child is celebrated in large gatherings in scores of cities, and where its manifesto in defence of the rights of homeless children and child workers declares: “for children to be free, this inverted world must be changed”. It is a society where prisoners on death row, from deep inside the jails, call on the people of the world to fight for the universal abolition of the death penalty. Iranian people in their numerous demonstrations have repeatedly stated that they want neither war, nor a nuclear programme, nor the Islamic Republic.

People of the world!

To end the threat of a military attack on Iran, support the struggle of the people of Iran! The overthrow of the Islamic Republic by the will and power of the people is the only human and civilised way to end the threat of war and the deadly race that Islamic terrorism and US militarism and state terrorism are waging in Iran, the Middle East and globally. The Islamic Republic does not represent the people of Iran. This regime is their enemy, not their representative! This is a regime that has been able to survive only by executing tens of thousands of people and carrying out the most ghastly medieval tortures and punishments such as stoning to death, flogging and amputating. The Islamic Republic must be rejected and isolated internationally. The world must treat this regime of sexual Apartheid like it treated the racist Apartheid regime in South Africa. Demand that the world’s states and international bodies not to recognise the Islamic Republic as the government of Iran. Demand that they cut off their diplomatic ties with this medieval regime.

In the fight against the US government’s warlike, inhuman and brutal policies, the Iranian people are on your side; they are asking you to be on their side in the fight against the Islamic Republic! To defeat the American government’s and its allies’ bullying and militarism, to defeat the reactionary and terrorist political Islamic movement and to overthrow the Islamic Republic, support the struggle of the people of Iran.

Hamid Taqvaee
Secretary of WPI Central Committee
30 November 2007
Maryam Namazie

Prime Minister Gordon Brown – the man with different toothpaste

The Beatroot is a blogger from London now living in Warsaw.


Bush did his best to love the new British prime minister when they met this week, as much as he loved Our Tony. But will there be a change of policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur….?

George W. Bush once remarked that he and Tony Blair shared many things in common – “We share the same toothpaste”, said Bush, giggling like the overgrown frat boy he is.

Aside from the question: Was Bush insinuating that he and Tony had…you know…woken up together after falling asleep over the diplomatic pillow talk? –it was true Blair was good for Bush, they had a rapport.

Tony was able to articulate a policy of international intervention. Blair had had the practice – he was one of the biggest influences on Clinton bombing Serbia over Kosovo, just as he was an influence on Clinton’s bombing of Sudan in 1998. Monika Lewinski was the other.

When Bush came to power he just wanted to forget all that international, peace making, nation building stuff – having to know the name of the president of Pakistan was just too boring.

And then the world – or the Islamo-lunatic part of it – came to America on 9/11. After that, Bush had no choice but to get his school boy atlas out – “Where the hell is Pakistan, anyway?”

So Blair could tell him all about that stuff. How it was right and proper to, you know, do the ‘right thing’, which meant, in practice, smashing up national sovereignty and, ‘you know, bombing people to liberate them…’.

Blair was the bleeding hearted liberal wing of the neocons. A lib-con.

Different toothpaste, same old shit?

But what of our Gordon? Bush gave Brown lavish praise (not reciprocated), but said, after the meeting with the new British PM after a pow-wow at Camp David, that he and the Scot, ‘Didn’t use the same toothpaste’.

What could this mean? Was this code for an ideological split between the US and UK? Was the ‘special relationship’ not so special anymore? Is Brown so different from Blair?

For those of you in America who might not have a clue who this Gordon Brown is, he was the finance minister for Blair’s government ever since the ‘New Labour’ (read Clinton’s New Democrats) came to power in 1997. He has been a supporter of all that Blair has done on the international stage – including the Balkans, the ‘war on terror’, Iraq, Afghanistan…

But many in Britain – certainly many in the ‘Old Labour’ wing (a sad, isolated rump) of the New Labour party, hoped that Brown was secretly a traditionalist – not a socialist, but at least closer to the left wing roots of the party, the trade unions, the radicals, than Tony Blair – who always despised the old Labour, socialist past. He just wanted to win elections. Tony just wanted to be a Labour version of Margaret Thatcher.

Darfur, Iraq

Brown supported the Iraq war, but he is certainly in more of a hurry to get the hell out of there than Blair was. Brown has hinted that he wants to start pulling out troops at the end of this year (not that it will change the perception of the British people, or the Iraqis, about the ruin that they will leave behind). This is not too good for Bush, as he knows that the Democrats at home are thinking like Gordon Brown – they want the boys home, too (after, like Brown, supporting the invasion and occupation in the first place).

So will Brown take the British government away from Blair’s interventionist stance? Nope, nope, nope.

.In a speech at the United Nations after he left Bush, and his toothpaste, back at Camp David, Brown said this:

"Today is decision day for the United Nations to send an African Union and United Nations force of 20,000, to call on the government of Sudan for a ceasefire…Following my meeting with President Bush, the UK and the French have now, with US support, agreed and tabled a UN Security Council resolution that will mandate the deployment of the world's largest peacekeeping operation to protect the citizens of Darfur. And I hope this plan will be adopted later today.
"Immediately we will work hard to deploy this force quickly. And the plan for Darfur from now on is to achieve a ceasefire, including an end to aerial bombings of civilians, drive forward peace talks starting in Tanzania this weekend, and, as peace is established, offer to and begin to invest in recovery and reconstruction."

And what has the new British PM to say about Iran?

"On Iran, we're in agreement that sanctions are working and the next stage we are ready to move towards is to toughen the sanctions with a further U.N. resolution," [Brown told a joint news conference with Bush at Camp David].

So once again we are about to go down the same old roads. Sanctions in the belief that this will weaken the will of Tehran – and further militarism to solve civil wars.

Brown is also going to push Bush on seeming to be more onside about climate change and Kyoto, and he will want Bush to pay more attention to Israel/Palestine and the two (well, one and a half) state ‘solution’.

But don’t you lefties over that side of the pond get too excited that Brown is going to be anything too different from Blair. He ain’t. He might want to see a Democrat in the White House, and he might use different toothpaste to George, but both US and UK will still be working hard to ‘sort out’ Africa and the Middle East. The new interventionist imperialists don’t need to use the same toothpaste.