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The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 27 August 3, 2015
(front page)
US-Iran deal heightens contradictions in Mideast
BY MAGGIE TROWE
Immediately after U.S. and Iranian officials announced a nuclear
agreement July 14, backed by Russia, Germany, France, the U.K. and
China, most Republicans in Congress vowed to vote against it. Some
Democrats are hesitant. But no bourgeois political figure proposes any
serious alternative. President Barack Obama appears to have the votes to
override any veto. The deal is happening.
“You can’t ignore the fact that you have Russia, China, the United
Kingdom, France and Germany all aligned,” said California Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Intelligence
Committee, motivating support for the deal. “It is very likely that,
regardless of what we do, these nations will drop their sanctions at
some point.”
The deal is part of the Obama administration’s efforts to reimpose
stability in the Mideast to the advantage of U.S. imperialism as the
post-World War I order there continues to unravel. In the 1916
Sykes-Picot Agreement and subsequent accords, the capitalist rulers of
Britain and France, victors against Germany and the Ottoman Empire,
carved up the oil-rich region, drew new national borders and divvied up
hegemony.
In the ashes of World War II, Washington emerged as the unrivaled
imperialist power. It took over domination of the Mideast with the help
of the Stalinist regime in Moscow, which kept revolutionary movements in
the region in check in the name of “peaceful coexistence” with U.S.
imperialism.
Old arrangements coming apart
Conflicts and wars are spreading throughout the region, from Syria to
Iraq to Yemen and elsewhere in a world of deepening capitalist crisis,
following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and growing
competition from China and elsewhere. The old arrangements are coming
apart and Washington is attempting to cobble together a new world order
in the Mideast and beyond from a much weaker position than 60 years ago.
Since taking office, Obama has presented combat in the region as
“blowback” resulting from Washington’s past military interventions.
Acting to avoid putting any significant “boots on the ground,” he has
sought negotiated settlements with rulers he regards as enlightened
where possible, and used aerial bombardment, special forces and drone
strikes when there is no alternative.
The exhaustion of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalist forces and
counterrevolutionary betrayals by Stalinist parties in the region have
created a vacuum that the reactionary Islamic State has moved to fill.
Obama has pivoted toward Iran and Russia, both of which, for their own
reasons, have vested interests in fighting IS.
The new Iran accord, submitted to Congress July 19 with a 60-day
deadline for a vote, sets limits on the Iranian government’s nuclear
activities for 10 years.
In return, the U.S. and its allies pledge — after verifying compliance,
a process expected to take six to nine months — to lift the punishing
economic sanctions they began imposing on the country in 2006. While
some clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders in Iran have opposed the
deal, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei backs it.
Leading Republican presidential candidates have denounced the accord.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker opposes ending the sanctions and told CNN
July 19 the deal would “accelerate the nuclear arms race, and it is
empowering Iran to do what they’re going to do.”
The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved the Iran deal
July 20, deferring its implementation until after Congress votes.
European powers didn’t waste any time making overtures to Iran, a
country with a population of 82 million and a gross domestic product of
$400 billion. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel met with Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani July 20, accompanied by a delegation of
business executives. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is also
planning to visit.
Contradictory response in Mideast
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the agreement as a
“historic mistake” not binding on Israel. “We will always defend
ourselves,” he said, appealing to Congress to vote it down. To mollify
Tel Aviv, Obama sent Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to meet with his
Israeli counterpart Moshe Yaalon and Netanyahu July 20-21, pledging
expanded military collaboration against Iranian-supported Hezbollah in
Lebanon and other Iranian-backed forces.
Carter also flew to Riyadh to meet with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman July
22. The country’s Sunni monarchy, which is in direct competition
throughout the Mideast with largely Shia Iran, gave tepid support to the
agreement, but has said it will develop its own nuclear program. The
Saudi rulers have given substantial aid and military support to forces
fighting Iranian allies in Yemen and to opponents of the Syrian regime.
Islamic State, with its thuggish methods, attracts a layer of youth who
despair for the future and see no other road forward to its cause of
imposing Sharia law through terror. It has some similarities with
fascism. It has expanded control over large swaths of Syria and Iraq.
Its repressive governance, loathsome to many, is regarded by some as
preferable to corruption, neglect and discrimination against Sunnis
under the Iraqi or Syrian governments.
Washington hopes that the deal with Tehran, backed by Moscow, will
strengthen efforts to crush Islamic State. In Syria, where the Russian
and Iranian rulers finance and arm the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad,
a civil war raging since 2011 has destroyed the country, killing more
than 220,000 and forcing some 11 million from their homes.
“The Iranian nation and government will remain at the side of the Syrian
nation and government until the end of the road,” said Rouhani in June.
So while Washington counts on the Iran deal to help re-establish
stability, its coalitions of allies have contradictory and
irreconcilable interests. The moves the U.S. rulers are taking risk
unleashing more frictions and wars for years to come.
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