The following comment and reply was related to my article ‘The US, Iran, Russia-Syria and the geopolitical shift (December 2013): Anything for the region’s oppressed?’ when I first published that article on my Syrian Revolution: Commentary and Analysis blog. Tim Dobson posted a comment on Facebook criticising my article, but the substance of his criticism was about Iran, rather than about Syria as such. I put it up as a comment on my blog article and then replied there. However, with this new site, I am putting it up here as a stand-alone, because I believe there was much valuable discussion on the issue of Iran itself:

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Tim Dobson posted the following comment on Facebook. As I see little point in getting into big discussions on a single person’s facebook account, I ahve taken the liberty to post his comment here so that I can reply. This is Tim’s comment:

Tim Dobson’s comment:

I disagree with Michael Karadjis on Syria but since this article is just as much about Iran (which know more about), I’ll just comment on that and how it has led some people astray on Syria (referring to Iranian imperialism, their ‘sectarian’ politics etc etc)

Mike writes ‘The US overtures to Iran and positive Iranian response have to be understood as part of a long-term process of bringing the relatively powerful Iranian bourgeoisie back into the fold – militarily, diplomatically and economically where it always belonged. While it may have been useful in the post Cold War era for the US and Israel to use Iran, as part of using “Islamic fundamentalism” (whether Shiite or Sunni or both) as a scarecrow to replace “communism” in order to maintain a permanent war threat in the region, sell lots of weapons, feed the masses with bullshit etc, the fact remains that there hasn’t been anything fundamentally antagonistic towards imperialism about the Iranian bourgeoisie for decades since its very bloody suppression of the revolution there in the 1980s.’

I think there are a number of things wrong here. Firstly, what powerful Iranian bourgeoise exists inside Iran? There isn’t one. The most powerful Iranian bourgeiouse live in Los Angeles and aren’t welcome back in Tehran. Why? Because the most powerful force during the 1979 revolution was the petty bourgeiouse (the Bazaari people) and that remains the case today. This may be peculiar but nonetheless true. This explains why politically they broke with imperialism but haven’t been able to break the back of imperialist domination economically (hence why the sanctions were so damaging). Its why the bazaari people and Sepah play such a big role politically and economically. Therefore, this process that Mike describing isn’t actually occurring. There has been little to no internal shifts within Iran economically during the last period (which surely such a process would bring about)

This idea of an Iranian bourgiousie being reintegrated also leads Mike to the strange conclusion that there hasn’t been anything ‘fundamentally antagonistic’ between Iran and imperialism. This may seem strange to people and that’s because it is. Firstly, Iran has never been that heavily demonised for its fundamentalism by imperialists, (mostly this has only be done by liberals), it has always been demonised for its antagonism towards imperilaist interests, however. Whether it is Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain etc the sanctions were imposed because of its threat to Israel, not because of its fundementalism.

After the revolution in ’79, Saudi Arabia funded and armed a wave of Wahhabists to try and roll back the revolutionary spirit from Iran spreading, which has never been charctisced by its religious stance but by its anti-imperialism.

Since the revolution of 1979, we’ve seen a ten year war waged against Iran by Iraq funded by US imperialism, using chemical weapons which killed millions of people. We’ve seen Iran become the biggest financial and military backer of Hamas, which has resisted multiple Israeli invasions, they are the biggest financial and military backers of Hezbollah who inflicted Israel possibly its greatest defeat in 2006. We’ve seen some of the harshest sanctions ever implemented on Iran, we’ve seen terrorist attacks occur in Iran itself and we’ve had at least 7 years of Israel trying to drum up a war against Iran.

What was this about if there was no fundamental antagonistism between Iran and imperialism? What is it all about? If that is not fundamental, then what is?

Instead, Mike reduces it to tactics and probably most extraordinarily as no different to US imperialism relationship with Saudi Arabia! (I must have missed the ten year war waged against it by US imperialism)

Over the past 35 years, it would be hard to find a country which has lost more people due to US imperialism, yet Mike has turned Iran into a sub-imperialist country engaged in Shiite sectarian politics (funding that well known Shiite group Hamas) and made it seem that US was engaged in anti-Sunni politics (Maliki was never popular with the states, nor was Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, UAE affected by this anti-sunni politics. Bahrain, a mostly Shiite country, didn’t seem to benefit much either.)

I know Syria is the topic of the day for the left (Poor Iran had its day of focus in 2009) and Iran is the comfortable bogeyman in that context but to try and argue that Iran is an imperialist force requires such a re-writing of history and of contemporary reality, not to mention a denial of the lived experience of the Iranian people, that it becomes seriously offensive.

My reply to Tim Dobson on Iran:

When writing this article that Tim is replying to (his comment was first put on his facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/tim.dobson.376/posts/10152117708801514), I thought it possible that I might be treading on the holy grail that many leftists have made of the blood-drenched Iranian theocracy, which some still consider to be, curiously enough, the imperfect embodiment of the revolution that took place way back 35 years ago. But I was a bit taken aback by the extent of Tim’s illusions in the regime.

I certainly concede that some of the ways I expressed myself in the article were rather sweeping, and if Tim looks now he will see I have adjusted and clarified some of my language. I thank Tim for his comment for facilitating these improvements to my article.

That said, I remain convinced of the fundamental (oops, that word again) correctness of my article. I think one of the key problems is perhaps a different understanding of the word “fundamental.” For me, in saying there is no “fundamental” reason for US-Iran antagonism, I simply mean that there is no fundamental reason for ongoing conflict between a capitalist state and imperialism. Many capitalist states have of course had significant conflicts with imperialism, even long-term, but I see such conflict as less fundamental than the conflict between the US and Cuba for example.

Thus not “fundamentally” different does not mean quantitatively similar. Certainly, the expanding capital emanating from the Gulf is far more powerful than that from Iran; certainly, the US has had close relations with the Gulf monarchies, whatever their differences, that are in sharp contrast to US relations with Iran for the last few decades. But whether the difference is “fundamental” or not depends on how we define that term.

Incidentally, the fact that Gulf capital is more powerful than Iranian capital is not necessarily a reason for the US to be always and only linked closely to the former. On the contrary, the very fact of the projection of power by the Gulf in recent years can be one reason, among a number, for the current US partial geopolitical shift, to help balance powerful Gulf interests which are not always in exact accord with overall US and other imperialist interests.

Yet the fact that, as Marxists, we understand that a capitalist regime can have considerable conflict with imperialism without it being of a “fundamental” nature has led Tim, not to deny this understanding, but to deny that a powerful bourgeoisie exists in Iran, meaning all I write is based on an illusion. Tim writes:

“Firstly, what powerful Iranian bourgeoisie exists inside Iran? There isn’t one. The most powerful Iranian bourgeoisie live in Los Angeles and aren’t welcome back in Tehran. Why? Because the most powerful force during the 1979 revolution was the petty bourgeoisie (the Bazaari people) and that remains the case today. This may be peculiar but nonetheless true … Therefore, this process that Mike describing isn’t actually occurring.”

With all due respect to Tim who clearly understands a lot about Iran, I find this extraordinary. Tim is essentially offering up Iran as an example of a permanent “petty-bourgeois state.” Yes it is well-known that the petty-bourgeois bazaari merchants, strongly connected to the mullahs, played a prominent role in the Iranian revolution (another revolution, like the Syrian, with a massive religious “Islamic” component, with the difference that the Islamic hierarchy were the overwhelmingly leading force in Iran in 1979, whereas in Syria the various stripes of Islamists have been one component alongside the strong secular component of the uprising). And so a large part of the existing Iranian big bourgeoisie under the Shah fled to the US after 1979, as Tim explains.

I’m not sure if Tim still sees the theocratic dictatorship as an embodiment of the revolution as some leftists do. For the record, I personally abandoned that view about 30 years ago, so what I wrote here was entirely consistent, and not simply opportunistically related to Syria. That is, once the mullah regime was able to smash all opposition, crush organised labour, organise a bloody cultural counterrevolution on the universities, start lining up literally hundreds of leftists at a time to be publicly shot or hung, once it had killed tens of thousands of leftists, many already in its dungeons, including those who had held grotesque illusions in the mullocracy for the longest (eg, Tudeh), launched a bloody war on Kurdistan, turned the legal value of women into half of that of men and other such triumphs, my view was that the only way to keep speaking of the “revolution” and to say it hadn’t been extinguished was when speaking of the continued ability of those opposed to the regime to resist it, but absolutely not in terms of the regime itself.

I’ve never seen any evidence that this assessment was wrong. But more importantly, what was this all about? Surely it was the reconsolidation of a capitalist state in order for the capitalist class to reconsolidate power. Not necessarily to invite back the old guard bourgeoisie who had fled, the Shah’s narrowly “secular” big bourgeoisie (like Assad’s equivalent), but rather for the more broadly-based, in the real Iran, traditionalist petty-bourgeoisie and smaller bourgeoisie, especially from semi-rural and regional towns, to develop into the new capitalist ruling class and grab the same kind of wealth once held by a narrower, less representative clique – the same process behind “Islamist” leaderships in Egypt, Turkey and Syria and their conflicts with the narrow “secular” capitalist cliques they have replaced or aim to replace.

And, despite Tim, the evidence points to the development of a huge “Islamic” bourgeoisie having developed since 1979, as would be expected in a capitalist society under a petty-bourgeois leadership. The article “Millionaire mullahs” from 2007 (http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/0721/024.html) seems a good place to start, detailing the super-wealth of the new Iranian capitalist class and how it has emerged from the very structures of the petty-bourgeois clerical establishment:

“The 1979 revolution transformed the Rafsanjani clan into commercial pashas. One brother headed the country’s largest copper mine; another took control of the state-owned TV network; a brother-in-law became governor of Kerman province, while a cousin runs an outfit that dominates Iran’s $400 million pistachio export business; a nephew and one of Rafsanjani’s sons took key positions in the Ministry of Oil; another son heads the Tehran Metro construction project (an estimated $700 million spent so far). Today,
operating through various foundations and front companies, the family is also believed to control one of Iran’s biggest oil engineering companies, a plant assembling Daewoo automobiles, and Iran’s best private airline … Rafsanjani’s youngest son, Yaser, owns a 30-acre horse farm in the superfashionable Lavasan neighborhood of north Tehran, where land goes for over $4 million an acre. Just where did Yaser get his money? A Belgian-educated businessman, he runs a large export-import firm that includes baby food, bottled water and industrial machinery.”
Some other useful articles on the development of an Iranian mega-capitalism, including its extension beyond its borders: http://mondediplo.com/2009/06/02iran,
http://www.marxist.com/iran-clumsy-fraud-provokes-two.htm, http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0806/p06s07-wome.html
The Rafsanjani family is named in this article as a well-known example of the new hyper-capitalists; not surprisingly, his regime (fresh from killing off thousands of leftists in the regime’s dungeons around 1990) launched the new liberalisation and privatization drive, which was continued with gusto under both the alleged “reformist” Khatami regime and the alleged “populist” Ahmedinejad regime. Not surprisingly, therefore, the connection between super-wealth and the prospect of a renewed alliance with US imperialism was expressed well in a recent article fittingly entitled “Revolutionary Pragmatists: Why Iran’s Military Won’t Spoil Détente with the US”:

“Although the Guards were founded as an ideological organization, they have become vastly more pragmatic as they’ve acquired more power in the Iranian establishment. The Revolutionary Guards are no longer simply a military institution. They are among the country’s most important economic actors, controlling an estimated ten percent of the economy, directly and through various subsidiaries. And those economic interests
increasingly trump other concerns. And, although the force can corner a greater share of the domestic market under the sanctions regime imposed by the United States because the private sector has a chronic shortage of funds, many Guardsmen are aware that they stand to gain much more if Iran strengthens its ties to the rest of the world. Companies controlled by the Guards would likely win a lion’s share of new foreign investment. In a speech on October 16, Major Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of staff of the armed forces, was even more explicit. He called on the United States to take advantage of the “historic opportunity” to cooperate with the Islamic Republic in combating extremist groups such
as al Qaeda and in providing stability in the Middle East”
(http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140253/akbar-ganji/revolutionary-pragmatists?cid=soc-twitter-in-snapshots-revolutionary_pragmatists-111113&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=%2AMideast%20Brief&utm_campaign=Mideast%20Brief%2011-12-2013).

In fact, it seems to me ironic that Tim has missed what has precisely been a major “gain” of the revolution, one which I admit I did not envisage back in the 1980s (and neither did most leftists – many of those talking about an ongoing forever “deepening and broadening” of the “revolution” were imagining the socialist revolution on the horizon): the massive, rapid development of capitalism! As Babrak Zahraie, in an article which by and large is probably closer to Tim’s framework on Iran than my own, explains (http://babakzahraie.blogspot.com/2009/06/whither-iran.html):

“The Iranian revolution of 1979, due to special circumstances of its development, became the spring board for something that was most unexpected: the greatest development of capitalism in the country’s history. This came as a shock to the gang of royalists and the segment of capitalists and landlords that were thrown out of Iran. As far as capitalist development, Iran was cruising, and in their absence it was cruising faster than ever in its history.”

In and of itself, this was actually progressive compared to the rule by the relatively narrow state-led elite in the Shah’s time. In fact, just like the massive, rapid development of capitalism in China, this had many positive effects in terms of overall modernisation, despite the extreme backwardness of clerical rule in the social field. While somewhat unnecessarily romanticised, the following gives a reasonable overview:

“Peasants were transformed into farmers. Villages gained electricity, bathhouses, libraries, and access to healthcare. Roads and travel by automobile expanded. Internal air travel became a common option. Magazines and books appeared in the languages of national minorities. Ordinary folks would travel in the region regularly for religious duties or tours. Schools and universities multiplied. Women came to represent 62% of university students. Farsi became the fourth most utilized language on the Internet for bloggers.”

Though he also emphasises the limits to this “Further capitalist development was not able to address the key tasks of industrialization and agriculture. In a country that needs development in every conceivable area of health, education, urban and rural development, industry, agriculture and defense, the Iranian state advocated policies that revived the old capitalist state apparatus after the revolution”

Yet, he stresses, perhaps in a way that “permanent revolutionists” never quite got, that while this actual progress can take place, this nevertheless remains capitalism, the regime of our class enemy:

“We must not misunderstand: the greatest cycle of capitalist development meant more people than ever before in the history of Iran were getting rich – even super rich. These occurrences became a source of envy for the entire model of semi-colonial capitalism throughout the region. The rich in the region all envied Iran’s ‘model’ for the quick acquisition of wealth through land and other speculations. Meanwhile, the profits amassed by the rich in Iran created an increasing gap between the rich and the poor.”

Interestingly, all this sounds remarkably similar to developments in Turkey under the AKP: a terrific expansion of capitalism as the productive forces of the Anatolian regions were liberated from the strictures of the elite “secular” Kemalist state; a rapid development of infrastructure, poverty reduction, real gains for the masses; yet despite this, a growing gap between rich and poor as the new bourgeoisie goes on a neo-liberal craze.

In Babrak’s opinion, how did the US view this massive independent development of capitalism:

“Iranian capitalist development and the extension of capitalist relations, which received a major boost after the Iraq war, became a demon to imperialism. Washington would look to Iran and see its own face, as if it was waking up each morning and looking with hatred at itself in the mirror”

And thus tried to be rid of this new capitalist kid on the block. But ultimately, this is a strategy that will need to change, as Washington needs to catch up with the other imperialist powers who never (until the 2009 round of sanctions) stopped dealing with Iranian capitalism, and reincorporate Iranian capitalism into its system of capitalist relations:

“Iran’s progress, thanks to its mighty revolution and its increasing strength in the Middle East and South Asia region, has forced Washington to come up with a new approach … The US policy of cultivating an overt threat of war, imposing sanctions and labeling Iran as ‘axis of evil’ has given way to a more sober realization of the need for diplomacy. The plan of diplomacy requires recognizing the Iranian revolution of 1979 through acknowledging the gains and leaderships resulting from it, rescinding all sanctions, and freeing blocked Iranian assets in the US”

But he notes that the current regime, in 2009, was still not ready for this necessity. However, what if it is now?

And what does all this “the greatest development of capitalism in the country’s history” mean in terms of capitalist expansion outside of Iran’s borders? Why would it act any differently to any other capitalism? Well, it hasn’t: Iranian “Islamic” capitalist investment abroad has been ongoing since the 1980s. It has reached a stage – with significant influence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Syria, Lebanon etc to be referred to, loosely, as a case of “sub-imperialism” in rivalry with other (albeit more powerful “sub-imperialisms”, such as in the GCC).

This article on Iranian economic influence in Iraq (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/world/middleeast/17iran.html) and this one on Afghanistan – if we can ignore the obvious propaganda and just focus on Iranian economic penetration (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6741095.stm) are good examples of this entirely natural process.

Let’s just clarify that for a moment: at one point Tim accuses me of arguing that “Iran is an imperialist force.” I do nothing of the sort. However, the term “sub-imperialism” has always seemed useful to me, even though banned under orthodox Trotskyism, to describe the very normal process of medium-sized capitalist, non-imperialist, countries, expanding economically beyond their borders, and the subsequent rivalries, geopolitical maneuvering etc that goes with this, which can at times be useful as partners to imperialism and at other times be seen as dangerously independent by imperialism. The five famous ‘BRICS’ fall into this category, and it seems to me the GCC, Iran and Turkey fit the bill as well. If you want to think of it as more “descriptive” than “scientific”, then that’s OK with me.

Strangely, not only does Tim think that Iran is not “sub-imperialist” in this sense, or even properly capitalist, but also that Iranian policy is virtually consistent in its “anti-imperialism,” and certainly not sectarian. Indeed, imperialism has apparently never either demonised, nor penalised, Iran for Islamism, but only for “anti-imperialism.”

First, imperialism definitely has demonised Iran for “Islamic fundamentalism,” hypocrisy aside. It has been a very large part of the post-Cold War propaganda; and also a genuine fear of the potential for “Islamic”-led revolt, a la Iran, in neighbouring Muslim states: regardless of whether the outcome may be progressive or reactionary, the US didn’t want these regimes destabilised.

Where I agree is that of course imperialism doesn’t penalise states for having reactionary-Islamist theocratic governments, otherwise Saudi Arabia would have been penalised more than Iran. I’ve given my overall analysis above of why I think the US has been largely hostile to Iran since the revolution, and yes the degree of independence of the new, assertive Iranian mega-capitalist class is part of this, for good or for bad.

You can of course call that “anti-imperialism” if you want (and in some cases it is), but to see it as consistent, or as consistently non-sectarian, is entirely wrong and rests on massive illusions in the anti-imperialist consistency of a marauding, mass-murdering capitalist elite.

That of course doesn’t mean Iranian foreign policy is always bad (let alone as monstrous as it is in Syria). Iran’s support for Hezbollah’s struggle against Israeli occupation of Lebanon should certainly be hailed, and as Tim knows I wrote extensively supporting Hezbollah in 2006.

Indeed, getting back to my opposition to bullshit-style “anti-imperialism,” you might remember that my conflict with this kind of politics actually originated in the 1990s with my defense of Bosnia against Serbian fascism; many of these types fantasised that “the West” had ganged up on Serbia and so, though the West was in fact doing nothing but imposing a criminal military blockade on besieged Bosnia, they still thought they had to support Serbian aggression and anti-Muslim genocide in Bosnia. I still have no idea why. But in any case, Iran, for its own geopolitical reasons, became the chief supplier of the Bosnian army, doing its best to evade the imperialist-enforced arms embargo. What was hilarious was watching the “anti-imperialists” of the day find clear evidence of “US intervention” when, two-thirds of the way into the war, the US announced it would stop enforcing the imperialist arms embargo (while UK and France continued to enforce it), thus refusing to continue to actively prevent Iranian arms deliveries! Rotten imperialists refusing to militarily prevent Iran from carrying out its activity half a world away from the US borders!

So, in that case, I also hailed Iran. Whether Iran’s activities could still be called “anti-imperialist” after the US stopped enforcing the embargo though really depends on how people choose to fit facts into their “neat” categories. Indeed, despite Tim, and despite the current “anti-imperialist” support for Iran due to its bolstering of Assad’s tyranny, another “anti-imperialist” mantra I have often heard is along the lines that “Iran has collaborated with US imperialism in three major conflicts, in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, proving how phoney it is.” For me, this is merely the reverse nonsense of the same mechanical “anti-imperialist” line.

Yet, how consistent is Iran? Isn’t it true that Iran effectively collaborated with the US in both the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, because it was in sectarian and geopolitical conflict with the regimes that the US deposed? What of the role of the Iran-based Badr Brigades during and after the US invasion of Iraq? Are you sure it was consistent anti-imperialism (not to mention anything even remotely progressive)? Or its support for Karzai and the Northern Alliance? What of its long-term excellent relations with the Turkish regime, especially under the AKP, on an anti-Kurdish basis?

Iran’s support for Hezbollah and, until recently, Hamas, was to be welcomed, but Iran’s economic and geostrategic intervention into the Arab world necessitated breaking from the Shah’s pro-Israeli legacy (in the same way that Erdogan and the AKP have had to the same re the Turkish generals’ pro-Israeli legacy). Being far away from Palestine makes this easy: note that the verbally “rejectionist” states have always been distant from the action (Iran, Saddam’s Iraq, Gaddafi’s Libya, Algeria, the old South Yemen). Iran’s actions such as these are aimed at some kind of deal recognising its role in the region.

Of course Tim is correct to note that Hamas is Sunni; so, I might add, were the Bosnian Muslims, and most of the Afghan Northern Alliance. Sectarianism as policy is not consistent, because by definition it is only a tool of a capitalist ruling class in its geopolitical rivalry. After all, Saudi Arabia’s on-again, off-again relationship with the “Alawite” Assad regime in Syria over the decades is another example, including full-scale Saudi support to the Syrian invasion of Lebanon at a time when the majority of Lebanese Muslims aligned to the Palestinian-leftist coalition, crushed by Assad, were Sunni; the Saudi-Syrian accord of 1991 held Lebanon together the next 15 years. And the Saudis just backed the overthrow of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt, bringing to power Mubarakist generals who … see themselves in brotherly solidarity with the “Alawite” Assad regime!

Don’t try to make too much sense of it. However, sectarianism is one of the weapons. Tim forgets to tell us that, after the Assad regime had slaughtered a certain proportion of the Syrian (Sunni Muslim) population via high-tech savagery, Hamas could no longer bear the “neutrality” and declared support for its brothers and sisters in their uprising for the same kind of human dignity the Palestinians have long been fighting for, against the same kind of barbarism. Not the mention the fact that Palestinians in Syria are part of the uprising and that the regime has barbarously besieged and starved Palestinian camps there, and tortured and murdered Palestinian militants. And after that point, Iran, in sectarian, or geopolitical, or whatever you call it, solidarity with Assad, cut off its support for Hamas: its solidarity with some tyrant slaughtering his people was far more important than its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.

Indeed, prodding Hezbollah into its suicidal adventure in Lebanon may have been one sectarian step too far.

Furthermore, if its about consistency, what can one say about Iran and Hezbollah having the complete opposite view on Syria and Libya? Surely, if it is “anti-imperialism,” then the 10,000 NATO bombs on Libya would be more significant than the handful of flack jacks, night goggles, “ready-meals”, and other such rubbish, but not a single gun or bullet, that the US has supplied the FSA in 3 years?

Yet both Iran and Hezbollah supported the rebellion against Gaddafi right to the end, and even celebrated when he was sodomised to death with a knife after being captured in a tunnel due to a NATO bombing raid. The difference: the sectarian need to relate to the Lebanese Shia community, which still remembers that Musa Sadr went missing in Libya 35 years ago.

Finally, Tim says that

“Since the revolution of 1979, we’ve seen a ten year war waged against Iran by Iraq funded by US imperialism, using chemical weapons which killed millions of people … We’ve seen some of the harshest sanctions ever implemented on Iran, we’ve seen terrorist attacks occur in Iran itself and we’ve had at least 7 years of Israel trying to drum up a war against Iran … Over the past 35 years, it would be hard to find a country which has lost more people due to US imperialism”

… so that to even question the left narrative about the allegedly continuing Iranian “revolution” (often coming from people who don’t recognise a revolution in their face in Syria today), “it becomes seriously offensive.”

I’ll tell you who got “the harshest sanctions ever implemented,” significantly hasher than Iran has had just for the last 4 years: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, for a period four times as long, during which time anywhere upwards of 500,000 people died as a direct result. The sanctions on Iran since 2009 certainly have been harsh, and criminal, and of course I welcomed their very partial end at the beginning of my article, but they don’t compare to the Iraqi genocide, and as for the 3 decades prior to the 2009 tightening of sanctions on Iran, the US’s Iran sanctions didn’t even come close to the Iraqi sanctions-genocide.

What should we decide from this? That Hussein’s bloodthirsty, ultra-repressive capitalist tyranny was some “anti-imperialist fighter” state that still imperfectly represented the continuity of the 1958 revolution? If you say similar stuff about Iran, why not?

Tim says that few have lost more people to US imperialism than Iran has, but most of it seems to be the Iran-Iraq war, where Tim seems to say that Hussein’s chemical war “killed millions.” Of course it did nothing of the sort, but all in all it is estimated that over a million Iranians and Iraqis were killed in that war, and Tim is right that Iraq holds the main responsibility for launching the war, and for using chemicals much later in the war. He is also right that the US bears responsibility for its initial encouragement of Hussein into this catastrophe.

But after this encouragement, the US basically left Iraq in the lurch; the US view was well-expressed by Kissinger in the 1980s: the US interest was for them to bleed each other, to fight on, to “both lose.” Most of Iraq’s weapons throughout the war came from France and the Soviet Union, hardly any, if any, from the US; more US and British weapons actually found their way to Iran, and not only via the famous Iran-hostage-contra dealing between the US and “anti-imperialist” Iran. Israel in particular openly advocated an Iranian victory, seeing Hussein as its worst enemy at the time (Iraq was closer, and Arab); Israel openly provided weapons to Iran. US intervention against Iran came mostly in the last year of war, with Iran on the offensive, and mostly in the form of protecting “re-flagged” Kuwaiti oil tankers.

And this was the Iraq that the US then turned around and destroyed in 1991 (with implicit Iranian support and direct participation of Assad’s Syrian regime), and then imposed 12 years of history’s worst sanctions on before invading, killing a million people and destroying the country – the actions of this Iraq allows you to say that “imperialism” has killed “millions” of Iranians. And yet this extraordinary imperialist treatment of Iraq does not for one moment make me turn around and declare the Hussein tyranny “anti-imperialist.”

To see the whole million or so killed on both sides of the Iran-Iraq war as all the fault of Iraq, or even all the fault of US imperialism, is just pro-mullah delusion; it avoids the inconvenient fact that after Iranian forces drove Iraq right out of every inch of Iran by mid-1982, two years into the war; and Hussein began suing for peace on the basis of the international border which he had repudiated (while his invasion was reactionary, this repudiation was just: the mullah regime maintained the new border that the Shah had created by invading part of Iraq); that the only reason the war continued for the next 6 years – ie, an entire three-quarters of the war and the killings of hundreds of thousands of Iranian and Iraqi workers – was due to the mullah regime crossing this international border, invading actual Iraq, occupying Iraqi territory, and declaring it would not end its invasion until it forcibly overthrew Hussein’s regime, a prospect most Iraqis considered terrifying.

I know these facts might not be popular on the left, but they nevertheless are true. Millions were killed by the regime. I still find it breathtaking 30 years later that much of the left believed Iranian workers should have to continue to slaughter Iraqi workers, and get slaughtered, on the altar of Khomeini\s entirely reactionary war to decimate and subjugate Iran’s bourgeois rival, based on the sensationally fertile imagination that this would result in the “extension of the revolution.”