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Vol. 82/No. 02 January 15, 2018
(lead article)
Economic crisis behind protests in Iran cities
BY TERRY EVANS
In the wake of years of economic hardship, Tehran’s wars in Syria and
Iraq, and recent price increases, daily protests by workers and youth
spread across Iran in late December. Some participants have chanted
slogans opposing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Others have called for the fall
of the country’s cleric-dominated bourgeois regime. Press reports Jan. 3
say more than 20 people had been killed in clashes with the authorities.
Recognizing the harsh realities facing working people that kindled the
protests the government initially held cops and Revolutionary Guard
forces back from brutal assaults on demonstrators. Youth unemployment
stands at 40 percent.
The protests began in Mashhad Dec. 28. The government had proposed a
budget that included a 50 percent increase in fuel costs and elimination
of millions of dollars from subsidies that cut the cost of basic
necessities for roughly 30 million people — more than a third of the
population. At the same time it proposed a 20 percent increase in
military spending, which would put the defense budget at $11 billion.
The London Times said protests spread to 40 cities and towns over the
next couple days, including the capital Tehran.
The impact of the world capitalist crisis, exacerbated by years of
sanctions imposed by Washington and its allies, has hit workers and
farmers hard. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani negotiated a deal with
Washington to slow down the development of Tehran’s nuclear program in
exchange for lifting some sanctions. This raised hopes among working
people of an easing of the economic crunch.
Rouhani was re-elected president last May on these hopes, on a pledge to
expand Tehran’s economy and promises there would be no return to rampant
inflation. In spite of some new trade — including with Boeing and Airbus
— workers’ living standards have continued to decline.
These conditions have fueled discontent with both wings of the country’s
ruling clerics, those led by Ayatollah Khamenei and by Rouhani. The
clerics consolidated capitalist rule in a counterrevolution following
the 1979 uprising by working people that overthrew the shah, a close
ally of Washington.
Protests spread Dec. 29 to Kermanshah, a largely Kurdish city in western
Iran. In November demonstrations there were organized to oppose the
government’s paltry assistance to the victims of an earthquake that
killed 436 people and destroyed 12,000 houses.
Rouhani said Dec. 31 that Iranians were “completely free” to protest.
Protesters still faced cops’ tear gas, water cannons and arrests.
In Tehran and other cities, some demonstrators have reportedly raised
demands for the removal of Supreme Leader Khamenei.
Tehran’s wars deepen economic crisis
In the course of wars in Syria and Iraq, Revolutionary Guard forces and
Tehran-backed militias played a key role in pushing back the Syrian
people’s attempts to overturn the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship, a Tehran
ally, and helped expand Tehran’s sway across the region.
But Tehran’s rising regional clout — aimed at advancing the interests of
the country’s counterrevolutionary leaders and its capitalist class —
comes as conditions for millions of working people at home have
deteriorated. Denunciation of the Iranian rulers’ foreign interventions
marked a number of the protests. Some demonstrators chanted, “Forget
about Syria, think about us” and “Forget Palestine.”
Tehran falsely claims it backs Palestinian national rights and attempts
to blame all ills in Iran on conspiracies from the government in Israel.
In fact, Tehran helps fund Hamas, the anti-working-class Islamist group
that rules the Gaza Strip.
Tehran also extended $4.6 billion in credit to the Assad regime between
2013 and 2015. The death toll among Iranian-backed forces operating in
Syria and Iraq rose sharply after 2015 and includes at least 500 Iranians.
On Jan. 2 Khamenei accused Washington, Tel Aviv and their allies of
fomenting the protests. The next day pro-Khamenei marches took place in
Tehran and some other cities with participants chanting, “We will not
leave our leader alone,” Reuters reported.
Major Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Revolutionary Guards,
announced he was deploying the force into Isfahan, Lorestan and Hamadan
provinces — where some of the largest protests have occurred — to
confront “the new sedition.”
At the same time, Rouhani’s government took steps to try and defuse
protesters’ demands for economic concessions by backing down on moves to
raise fuel prices.
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