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(Arabic) قمع إيران/جزاءات واشنطن
Iran's Suppressions/Washington's Sanctions
Support the renewal of Iran's sovereignty, Zan-Zendegi-Azadi.
Lift Washington's Sanctions Against Iran.
The nationwide public outcry in the aftermath of Mahsa Amini’s death in custody on September 7, 2022, has renewed the cherished historic demands of Independence and Freedom in Iran. Zan-Zendegi-Azadi has resumed the wheels of Esteghlal va Azadi.
A wide outburst in nearly all parts of the country, more than 100 cities, has succeeded in breaking the long-practiced government rule of intrusion and violence against women and crack open the illegitimacy of gender discrimination as practiced by government in universities, public transport, sports events, entertainment, and other sectors of the society. Gender separation, like forcing female university students, most of the student population nationally, out of public discourse and subjecting them to separate facilities in cafeteria and study has been a scene of resistance.
The national minorities that compose half the population of Iran, the Kurd, Arab, Lur, Turk, Gilak, Turkmen, Baluch, and others, have come to spotlight. Baluchistan has suffered the brunt of the killings by scores dead in Zahedan and Khash. The public sentiment expressed in Baluchistan and Kurdistan is supported by the society and this is a life changer of politics in the country bringing back Esteghlal va Azadi to the agenda.
1. In these weeks government has succeeded in demonstrating the crisis of its rule by its nationwide suppression of the protests––through tear gas, beatings, arresting of thousands and thousands, shooting people in the streets or even in prison resulting in 100s of death, imprisonment of teenagers in reformatories, security forces breaking into universities, students beaten, detained, and many blocked from reentry to university and continuing education. The government's brutal actions has not only nafashaye bessyari ra dar sineh habss kardeh ast (has locked the breaths of many in the chest) and has caused grief to hundreds and thousands of families who are directly stricken by it, but has affected all citizens.
Government rationale in brutal suppression is that protesters cry out Down with the Islamic Republic. Freedom of speech, the right to cry one’s indignation, is foundation to society and humanity. A protected right that stands above IR constitution and laws.
Lately, in the aftermath of a shooting in a Shia holy place in Shiraz, that tragically kills many, government has started labeling protestors as Daesh or its collaborators or Washington-Israel agents. Labeling the protestors of Women, Life, Liberty as Daesh by government will not make its repression work. More than anything it brings to the fore the chauvinist propaganda and stereotyping of Iraqis/Arabs as Daesh, Afghans as Taliban, by Tehran's official media as well as state luminaries/critiques––the common propaganda that depicts Daesh and Taliban as the worst.
The truth is that the entire compendium of Islamic politics in the Middle East, that defines itself above society and has conducted its rules from such basis emanates from Khomeini and IR in the aftermath of the revolution of 1979 when capitalist policy found it opportune and necessary to do so. Taliban and ISIS come to exist much later than the IR and all replicate upon the political foundations defined by the IR after the revolution of 1979 with the backing of Britain-US and native capitalism: Sharia rule over society did not come from heaven but from the task of maintaining and consolidating a capitalist government/state pushed to the brink in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution in Iran.
The supremacy of Sharia law-rule over government and life, the endless conduct of intrusion and violence, is rejected by the awareness of popular society that begins to size things up and feels its strength in unity of all its social elements and the necessity of doing away with sectarian divisions. Rejection of Washington's sanctions is the prospective of Zan-Zendegi-Azadi.
2. The Islamic Republic's (IR) suppression is carried out by an entrenched ruling class and its security force––a ruling group with victory in the civil war of Syria in favor of Assad dictatorship (2011-2022). The current wide outcry in Iran, contrary to themes pushed in virtual reality abroad, is smaller than whole cities revolt against Assad dictatorship in 2011. Moreover, Syria 2011 cannot be reenacted in Iran 2022. The military force of the government, at its kernel Passdaran, has already passed its peak. A military grinder to suppress society like what was carried out in Syria does not have a chance for success in Iran. Currently in Iran the politics of popular society have taken center-stage and the government's militarism cannot forestall this change. Suppression initiatives by Pasdaran/security is despised and brings wider and wider condemnation.
Zan-Zendegi-Azadi is ascension of politics over military. Iran is confronted to switch from military to politics as a necessity and society demands it. No amount of brutal repression can sway the national will to switch to politics, and most importantly to open the political space to independent politics. Government policy of repression based on a defunct political perspective that is rejected by the broad popular society can only lead further disaster/disruption for IR.
Iran is a highly urbanized society with a megapolis of nearly 20 million in Tehran and numerous cities with populations of a million or near a million that lead its destiny. Most importantly, Iran’s working class is backed by its revolution in 1979 which occurred only a generation ago. It is a class that rests on mighty laurels and is undefeated. Once reawakened with Woman, Life, Liberty, and there is every indication that it has, the chance for the government suppression to succeed is nil.
Islamic security apparatus established and expanded through the last four decades, for the first time, has come to grip with society outrage. Society, unlike the 1360 to 1367 (1982-89) when it was shutout under the force of war compulsion, when serving the imperial interest by terror-bombings and executions called the days, has a chance to get a hold of history by the sentiment and action of urban and rural popular classes for political liberties and in opposition to imprisonment, mistreatment, summary trials and judgements that include mass executions. The bust of 1360-67 (1982-89) breaks by Zan-Zendegi-Azadi.
Government policy, international and domestic, the political game of increased enrichment grade of uranium (which must only be for medical and electricity reasons) and its announcement of fissile uranium enrichment only weeks away, accentuation of economic hardships of absolute majority, and exertion of Shia military abroad has run into distrust and despise, and rejection of society. The awakening of popular society pushes away from government/capitalist concoctions in foreign and domestic policy towards Esteghlal va Azadi, the path of Zan-Zendegi-Azadi, liberation/democracy.
Iran has come face-to-face with the negation of old Pahlavi-Imperialist led regional grandeur, the essence of which was continued by IR. It must open the society and political space to woman, national minority, workers and farmers, youth and students, artists and intellectuals, professionals and small businesses by removing the ban on independent and socialist politics. The basis of society are the people. Civil Rights of Woman and Nationality is the compulsion that drive the society.
3. Insistence on imposition of cruel sanctions on the Iranian people by Washington as its endgame to its wars of occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is insistence on a failed path. Tehran's suppression and Washington's sanctions have entered a losing battle with the will of the people that have come to express and have gained worldwide support among people.
Washington has relied on Tehran's dead-end politics of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, Shia militarism, to maintain and expand its sanctions. Nevertheless, it is not possible to roll back the achievements of national sovereignty by mighty revolutions––as the example of 1979. There is less and less justification for Washington to continue its mad sanction policy, sanctions placed on people. Sanctions devastate the life of ordinary people; it is a cruel policy that needs to be ended.
Washington's sanctions and Tehran's suppressions go hand in hand: Sanctions aid suppression. They feed off each other and together act to bind and suppress popular society from all possible sides and place them in calamity and distress––economically, politically, and emotionally.
The weakened position of the US in the region and the weakened rule of the IR leads both to press further on the pedal of suppressions and sanctions––a path that is increasingly untenable. Suppressions/sanctions is a recipe for disaster.
US-Iran imperial bonding codified by the August 1953 CIA-led coup d’état restored a bloody dictatorship. The US-led and supported Shah backbreaking autocracy finally drove the society to revolution. You break it you own it. The United States came to own a revolution resulting from its own doing. Fortifying a brutal monarchical dictatorship and arming it to the teeth proved without alms. The imperial bonding breaks by the revolution of 1979. The right of nations to self-determination surfaces.
Washington's rivalry with Tehran by means of sanctions points to the extension of the crisis that can come to further engulf the region and push it towards more wars and bloody conflicts. These future calamities can be remedied with the unilateral lifting of sanctions by Washington, a task which requires no negotiations or treaties. Otherwise, it is skidding from one crisis to another worse. The skid can be avoided only by recognition of national sovereignty. It is necessary to recognize that the only chance for avoiding major catastrophe in Iran and the surrounding region is the sovereignty of urban and rural popular classes, the wellbeing and prosperity of the people—workers and farmers, and the sovereignty of a country. The lifting of sanctions will bear the fruit of further expansion of civil rights in society. Washington military span over the Middle East has come to its opposite, the recognition of Iran sovereignty, lifting sanctions.
For Washington, to lift the sanctions against Iran provides for a positive outlet for world capitalism, currently facing further economic calamities for the broad populations, on par with Washington Open to China in 1975. Whereas China could grow to juggernaut of industrial production upon a national soil, lifting sanctions on Iran provides immediate relief to an array of countries and nations that can secure peace and promise growth based on the reservoir of national sovereignty. The recognition of the truth of Iran sovereignty by Washington is a fundamental reform that blows away the pretensions of Iran-Shia military supremacy into the wind. The supremacy drive of national capitalism faces constraints of society. More than that, whereas Putin invasion of Ukraine is about denying sovereignty and independence, Washington recognition of Iran by unilateral end to sanctions brings the power of broad popular society for Independence and Freedom to bear.
The pundits object to ending sanctions and we are obliged to answer. What will the IR do with rescinding of the Washington-led sanctions? As has been demonstrated by four decades of conduct, other than a lot more of capitalist business-as-usual there is not much IR can or will do when the sanctions are lifted. The IR is about commerce, enrichment of the bourgeoisie and trickling benefits to the lower society. The idea that Iran will turn into a super armada launching a war against Israel, the likes of Putin's war against Ukraine's independence, is not easy to come. Pasdaran general states the current “operations” against the “Zionist” enemy is at least 13 per day. Putin’s war has proved a losing battle already and if it takes long, it might lose the support of its own people and before Iran war against Israel stand the motion of urban and rural popular classes ignited by Zan-Zendegi-Azadi.
The tide of women and nationality has started. Iran is gripped by the plight of Zan-Zendegi-Azadi, putting food on the table, achieving prosperity and peace. Society is fed up with intrusion and violence by government, economic catastrophe, and Tehran Shia wars abroad and intrusion in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq or elsewhere. Before Tehran wars stands the working class as the major force to reckon with.
4. Cities in Iran define as the place where there is no opportunity to earn a living and advance for the new generation. There is every reason to have mass public works programs in Iran and achieve full employment, for all men and women, but IR beholden to continuing the same structure of policies of monarchy’s period for the last four plus decades.
Iran experiences the double and triple whammy of economic assault on wage earners and unemployed, exacerbated by government handling of the strike by COVID-19, and the imperial sanctions, increasing continuously. On top of that add harsh and bloody government suppression, general enrichment/corruption of super rich/government, and nearly half the country under official poverty line, the popular society, the downtrodden having been bewildered by these blows is getting a grand charge for its self-realization and action—Zan, Zendegi, Azadi. Women and public outcry against the injustice and death suffered by Mahsa is a pent-up anger that has brewed for many years.
When it comes to economic suffering of the broad population, Iran is like the USSR during its wanning times when official reports printed rosy economic progress and the lower strata of society, the working people, went empty handed. Then USSR under bureaucracy, what it called planning, apportioned first for the elite, military and security, state enterprises and when it came to working people of city and countryside there was not much of resources left for them. In Iran the capitalist government of command-and-control feeds the very elite, military and security and enrich the capitalist classes, upon the course of privatization of key industries encroaching on oil and gas dubbed as Danesh Bonyan (technology foundation/advancement) activities and when all government plans in conjunction with capitalists are advanced not much of national resources is left for the working people but spread of hunger, poverty, unemployment and sky rising prices.
5. Current outcry over the rights of women and nationalities reverberates throughout West Asia to North Africa region that are most similar with regards to woman, nationality, and religious minority.
Like Iran, women across the Mideast region are unemployued, their right to work/education/entertainment/sing/dance/sports/divorce/custody of children are banned or constrained in various degrees. Women are not counted as an independent existence in society and have no unconditional right to divorce or travel without their father/husband (male) approval and are not allowed to appear in pubic/work according to their own dress standards. Strict laws against women allows/promotes Women’s life in public to face denigration, verbal, and physical abuse, in the streets, at work, on public transportation and everywhere women step in society. Domestic life experience of women is abuse by father or husband or brother or even male offspring. The rest of Mideast experience for women is similar, from Afghanistan, with its vehement suppression of women’s rights, to Egypt, where women cannot travel without male approval, and beyond.
The government denial of the right of women to choose started in the aftermath of revolution of 1979 in the army. Women staff were ordered to adopt Hijab or be dismissed. The action was led by Hassan Rohani and has been recounted by him. Rohani goes to become a key statesman of IR and the former President. For the new government of IR led by its CEO, Beheshti, murdered in terror bombing of 1981, it was a matter of establishing control over government organization. No wonder it started in the army. The urge and necessity of what had to be done in terms of running of government had nothing to do with women. Once in action it came to mean all to do with women as the weakest to target.
The need for the dictum against women rights to choose came from necessity of setting up control over government/state machinery among the competing factions under Khomeini who all contribute to its establishment and each successor builds on the anti-women measures of the previous administration and propel it forward. After the army was the entire state organization and decree by Khomeini for observance of Hijab at work for all female government employees. In time it was expanded to the entire society, all public discourse of women, sports and entertainment where women came to be banned or hampered.
Government work environment was the first to become a broken mirror of society when it came to the denial of the right of woman to choose. Thus, government first and foremost must act on itself and guarantee the right of all female employees to choose. Thereby set the standard for the entire society.
The ruling discrimination placed on the right of female state employees, numbering in millions, a fundamental violation of their right to choose during state employment, must go. Before it is a violation of women rights that reaches into streets, at the soccer stadium banning participation of women, at parks and beaches and everywhere else. It is a barrier to the fundamental need and demand of women for jobs. All government must strictly be open to women right to choose. Otherwise, there is no end to intrusion and violence against women by government.
Ruling against the woman right to choose enacted at the outset of IR, the need to organize the capitalist state and establish full authority as the most urgent matter of government rule has been fulfilled. Capitalism has consolidated to capacity for more than four decades. Capitalist discourse must switch to recognition of the right of woman to choose. Opposition to it obviously wrecks basic capitalist stability as it is foundationally opposed by popular sentiment.
6. Civil Right of Nationality is achieving the rights that are spread and deeply rooted regionwide. The outpouring of mass expressions among the nationalities of Iran, among the Kurds and Baluchis, has risen the recognition of fundamental right national minorities in Iran. The question of nationalities before anything else is an international, a regional question.
The key to unlock nationality rights and secure it from government intrusion and violence is in the region and enters through the simultaneous recognition of Jews and Palestine sovereignty. The right of both Israel and Palestine, to government. Junk anti-Semitism from government policy and with it goes all the rationale for military engagements of Tehran beyond its borders, in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. The cry of self-determination and peace for the region with its principled stance on Palestine-Israel is what unlocks the right of nationality to flourish and achieve.
The flourishing of nationality right brings teaching in their own language, a fundamental duty of state. Based on state design of British-1st Pahlavi since 1920, education is foremost the arena to engineer populations. Make Kurd, Arab, Turk, Gilak, Turkman, Baluch, and others to forget about their identity by ban on teaching in their languages and repress their culture and existence. Make them into ridicule of ruling culture. The state has the foremost duty of providing education of nationalities in their language. A pointer to the historic need of nationality to its government to advance its long repressed national plight as demonstrate by Eghlim Kurdistan government in Erbil. IR needs to cease all military operations by drones, missiles and otherwise that violate Eghlim Kurdistan sovereignty and cause death and destruction.
Nationality right goes from language to government to plow rapid agricultural and industrial development. State needs to celebrate it.
7. How did IR come to opposition with national sovereignty? In 1979 IR dressed the existing state organization as its government. It did not hesitate in applying the blueprint of Washington-Tehran under the Shah as its guideline as it had none of its own. These policies reach peak within four years in the suppression of independent politics which had come to open because of a people’s uprising, banning and jailing of independent socialist politics in the winter of 1361 (1983) like Kargar journal and worker party Hezb-e Kargaran Enghelabi and this writer. The latter were not unexpected. From the beginning of IR incarceration of socialist is its modus operandi. Within the first twelve months of IR socialists were imprisoned for nearly 100 months and many more during the subsequent years.
Suppression of independent politics is the lynchpin of establishing capitalist supremacy within four years of revolution. No sooner than suppression of independent politics is when capitalism, IR, must go to its posture of regional rule as demonstrated by policies of former Shah. Back then the chief ally of Washington in the region before the revolution. The late Ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi, a confidante of shah and a fixation of the former monarchy since the CIA-led coup of 1953, was quick to recognize and loudly support Iran’s current regional ambitions. A war stance of empire building, per Persian and Shia chauvinism, that is rejected by popular society that has witnessed tens of billions of dollars going to Tehran wars and economic hardship getting worse for the people.
Suppression of independent politics took daylight out of Independence and Freedom. Its consequence first showed in Iran bogged in an 8-year war by pursuit of military technique and mass fatality of tens and tens of thousands of volunteers that ends in stalemate. Economic omission of workers and farmers voices, most importantly women and national minorities, and imposition of poverty and unemployment became the definition of capitalism in IR. From there it is no turning back for the ruling class that leads and follows the wars of Shia Napoleon 2011-22 when further weakening of Washington because of its occupation of Afghanistan-Iraq, allows it to do so.
The royal autocracy of the Shah viewed itself as the prime power of the region of Middle East. A position advanced by the strategic partnership with the United State. Applying its plans and policies IR arrives at the same regional ambition. Key to this advancement, the retrogression, is the mute of the speech of popular society by suppression of independent and socialist politics in 1983.
8. Islamic Republic was no invention. The ruling coalitions of Mashroote Revolution of the early 20th century defined government rule as one that required the final approval of high body of clerics as its constitution. They defined the indirect rule of Sharia in a constitution that restored Qajar monarchy. Khomeini switched the legacy of indirect rule of Sharia to direct rule, i.e., IR. In the bag of capitalist rule of Iran only Mashroote and Mashrooa is all there is to choose from. It was not a difficult decision for London, Washington, and the rest of imperial powers to make. All the tendencies of capitalism in Iran, Mashroote and Mashrooa, were in unison on IR.
The consolidation of IR required the early rupture with the liberal bourgeoisie that was appointed to government. The latter altogether were in hundreds and filled the prime minister and all the cabinet posts. They had been sought by Khomeini and Mottahari and now discarded. Sanjabi, Jebhe Melli took resignation from the government in less than six months. They were labeled Mortad, apostate, by Khomeini. Bazargan, Nehzat-e Azadi, leading the government came to resignation in nine months and were castigated when Khomeini clung to the takeover of US Embassy. In time it came to the suppression of youth movement of liberal bourgeoisie. A political medley of Nehzat Azadi-Jebhhe Melli-Tudeh Party that declared themselves as the various stripes of the Khalghi (populist) tendencies and came to have thousands, nay tens of thousands of supporters.
Khalgh tendencies were completely defeated by the Shah’s autocracy during its final decade long before the revolution of 1979. Once released from prison, leaders of Fedayeen and Mujahedin Khalgh are at about 100 to 150, They gained popularity among sections of the youth and their cause were lauded by the meritocracy. Before anything they were sucked up by the imperial plan for terror-bombing or had to revert to the Tudeh Party. IR was able to suppress these tendencies with ease once it politically defeated them in public. The record of suppression of 1983 indicates IR acting at the instigation of London and other imperial powers. Likewise, in the summer of 1988, when the second wave of mass executions carried out in Iran with 6200 executed, all radio propaganda of imperial parties went silent on prisoners and executions for over a month duration.
IR used the suppression of Khalghi tendencies followed by Tudeh arrests to suppress independent politics. It sought to achieve silencing the urban and rural popular classes, in effect, restore the 1310 infamous decree against socialist and communist politics to be the rule of IR. Esteghlal va Azadi was nipped in the bud by the IR political suppression. Iran was derailed from continuing the glorious path of right of nations to self-determination which shows up in clampdowns by Tehran against protests ever since.
9. Esteghlal va Azadi requires the independent unity and organization of the urban and rural popular classes, chief among them the union of workers and farmers, and the independent and socialist politics. To realize the Democratic program, historic capitalist tasks, with regards to women, sexual minorities, national and religious minorities, youth and students, workers and farmers, artists and intellectuals, professionals and small businesspeople that can end poverty/illiteracy/unemployment cycles for once and all and open the road of the people to prosperity through an independent government. The sighting of such possibility has been declared by Zan-Zendegi-Azadi. The social force that can stand independent of capitalism is brewing.
International support for women and youth in Iran can bear fruit of solidarity once it stands for End Imperial Sanctions against Iran.
Babak Zahraie
November 14, 2022
A wide outburst in nearly all parts of the country, more than 100 cities, has succeeded in breaking the long-practiced government rule of intrusion and violence against women and crack open the illegitimacy of gender discrimination as practiced by government in universities, public transport, sports events, entertainment, and other sectors of the society. Gender separation, like forcing female university students, most of the student population nationally, out of public discourse and subjecting them to separate facilities in cafeteria and study has been a scene of resistance.
The national minorities that compose half the population of Iran, the Kurd, Arab, Lur, Turk, Gilak, Turkmen, Baluch, and others, have come to spotlight. Baluchistan has suffered the brunt of the killings by scores dead in Zahedan and Khash. The public sentiment expressed in Baluchistan and Kurdistan is supported by the society and this is a life changer of politics in the country bringing back Esteghlal va Azadi to the agenda.
1. In these weeks government has succeeded in demonstrating the crisis of its rule by its nationwide suppression of the protests––through tear gas, beatings, arresting of thousands and thousands, shooting people in the streets or even in prison resulting in 100s of death, imprisonment of teenagers in reformatories, security forces breaking into universities, students beaten, detained, and many blocked from reentry to university and continuing education. The government's brutal actions has not only nafashaye bessyari ra dar sineh habss kardeh ast (has locked the breaths of many in the chest) and has caused grief to hundreds and thousands of families who are directly stricken by it, but has affected all citizens.
Government rationale in brutal suppression is that protesters cry out Down with the Islamic Republic. Freedom of speech, the right to cry one’s indignation, is foundation to society and humanity. A protected right that stands above IR constitution and laws.
Lately, in the aftermath of a shooting in a Shia holy place in Shiraz, that tragically kills many, government has started labeling protestors as Daesh or its collaborators or Washington-Israel agents. Labeling the protestors of Women, Life, Liberty as Daesh by government will not make its repression work. More than anything it brings to the fore the chauvinist propaganda and stereotyping of Iraqis/Arabs as Daesh, Afghans as Taliban, by Tehran's official media as well as state luminaries/critiques––the common propaganda that depicts Daesh and Taliban as the worst.
The truth is that the entire compendium of Islamic politics in the Middle East, that defines itself above society and has conducted its rules from such basis emanates from Khomeini and IR in the aftermath of the revolution of 1979 when capitalist policy found it opportune and necessary to do so. Taliban and ISIS come to exist much later than the IR and all replicate upon the political foundations defined by the IR after the revolution of 1979 with the backing of Britain-US and native capitalism: Sharia rule over society did not come from heaven but from the task of maintaining and consolidating a capitalist government/state pushed to the brink in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution in Iran.
The supremacy of Sharia law-rule over government and life, the endless conduct of intrusion and violence, is rejected by the awareness of popular society that begins to size things up and feels its strength in unity of all its social elements and the necessity of doing away with sectarian divisions. Rejection of Washington's sanctions is the prospective of Zan-Zendegi-Azadi.
2. The Islamic Republic's (IR) suppression is carried out by an entrenched ruling class and its security force––a ruling group with victory in the civil war of Syria in favor of Assad dictatorship (2011-2022). The current wide outcry in Iran, contrary to themes pushed in virtual reality abroad, is smaller than whole cities revolt against Assad dictatorship in 2011. Moreover, Syria 2011 cannot be reenacted in Iran 2022. The military force of the government, at its kernel Passdaran, has already passed its peak. A military grinder to suppress society like what was carried out in Syria does not have a chance for success in Iran. Currently in Iran the politics of popular society have taken center-stage and the government's militarism cannot forestall this change. Suppression initiatives by Pasdaran/security is despised and brings wider and wider condemnation.
Zan-Zendegi-Azadi is ascension of politics over military. Iran is confronted to switch from military to politics as a necessity and society demands it. No amount of brutal repression can sway the national will to switch to politics, and most importantly to open the political space to independent politics. Government policy of repression based on a defunct political perspective that is rejected by the broad popular society can only lead further disaster/disruption for IR.
Iran is a highly urbanized society with a megapolis of nearly 20 million in Tehran and numerous cities with populations of a million or near a million that lead its destiny. Most importantly, Iran’s working class is backed by its revolution in 1979 which occurred only a generation ago. It is a class that rests on mighty laurels and is undefeated. Once reawakened with Woman, Life, Liberty, and there is every indication that it has, the chance for the government suppression to succeed is nil.
Islamic security apparatus established and expanded through the last four decades, for the first time, has come to grip with society outrage. Society, unlike the 1360 to 1367 (1982-89) when it was shutout under the force of war compulsion, when serving the imperial interest by terror-bombings and executions called the days, has a chance to get a hold of history by the sentiment and action of urban and rural popular classes for political liberties and in opposition to imprisonment, mistreatment, summary trials and judgements that include mass executions. The bust of 1360-67 (1982-89) breaks by Zan-Zendegi-Azadi.
Government policy, international and domestic, the political game of increased enrichment grade of uranium (which must only be for medical and electricity reasons) and its announcement of fissile uranium enrichment only weeks away, accentuation of economic hardships of absolute majority, and exertion of Shia military abroad has run into distrust and despise, and rejection of society. The awakening of popular society pushes away from government/capitalist concoctions in foreign and domestic policy towards Esteghlal va Azadi, the path of Zan-Zendegi-Azadi, liberation/democracy.
Iran has come face-to-face with the negation of old Pahlavi-Imperialist led regional grandeur, the essence of which was continued by IR. It must open the society and political space to woman, national minority, workers and farmers, youth and students, artists and intellectuals, professionals and small businesses by removing the ban on independent and socialist politics. The basis of society are the people. Civil Rights of Woman and Nationality is the compulsion that drive the society.
3. Insistence on imposition of cruel sanctions on the Iranian people by Washington as its endgame to its wars of occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is insistence on a failed path. Tehran's suppression and Washington's sanctions have entered a losing battle with the will of the people that have come to express and have gained worldwide support among people.
Washington has relied on Tehran's dead-end politics of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, Shia militarism, to maintain and expand its sanctions. Nevertheless, it is not possible to roll back the achievements of national sovereignty by mighty revolutions––as the example of 1979. There is less and less justification for Washington to continue its mad sanction policy, sanctions placed on people. Sanctions devastate the life of ordinary people; it is a cruel policy that needs to be ended.
Washington's sanctions and Tehran's suppressions go hand in hand: Sanctions aid suppression. They feed off each other and together act to bind and suppress popular society from all possible sides and place them in calamity and distress––economically, politically, and emotionally.
The weakened position of the US in the region and the weakened rule of the IR leads both to press further on the pedal of suppressions and sanctions––a path that is increasingly untenable. Suppressions/sanctions is a recipe for disaster.
US-Iran imperial bonding codified by the August 1953 CIA-led coup d’état restored a bloody dictatorship. The US-led and supported Shah backbreaking autocracy finally drove the society to revolution. You break it you own it. The United States came to own a revolution resulting from its own doing. Fortifying a brutal monarchical dictatorship and arming it to the teeth proved without alms. The imperial bonding breaks by the revolution of 1979. The right of nations to self-determination surfaces.
Washington's rivalry with Tehran by means of sanctions points to the extension of the crisis that can come to further engulf the region and push it towards more wars and bloody conflicts. These future calamities can be remedied with the unilateral lifting of sanctions by Washington, a task which requires no negotiations or treaties. Otherwise, it is skidding from one crisis to another worse. The skid can be avoided only by recognition of national sovereignty. It is necessary to recognize that the only chance for avoiding major catastrophe in Iran and the surrounding region is the sovereignty of urban and rural popular classes, the wellbeing and prosperity of the people—workers and farmers, and the sovereignty of a country. The lifting of sanctions will bear the fruit of further expansion of civil rights in society. Washington military span over the Middle East has come to its opposite, the recognition of Iran sovereignty, lifting sanctions.
For Washington, to lift the sanctions against Iran provides for a positive outlet for world capitalism, currently facing further economic calamities for the broad populations, on par with Washington Open to China in 1975. Whereas China could grow to juggernaut of industrial production upon a national soil, lifting sanctions on Iran provides immediate relief to an array of countries and nations that can secure peace and promise growth based on the reservoir of national sovereignty. The recognition of the truth of Iran sovereignty by Washington is a fundamental reform that blows away the pretensions of Iran-Shia military supremacy into the wind. The supremacy drive of national capitalism faces constraints of society. More than that, whereas Putin invasion of Ukraine is about denying sovereignty and independence, Washington recognition of Iran by unilateral end to sanctions brings the power of broad popular society for Independence and Freedom to bear.
The pundits object to ending sanctions and we are obliged to answer. What will the IR do with rescinding of the Washington-led sanctions? As has been demonstrated by four decades of conduct, other than a lot more of capitalist business-as-usual there is not much IR can or will do when the sanctions are lifted. The IR is about commerce, enrichment of the bourgeoisie and trickling benefits to the lower society. The idea that Iran will turn into a super armada launching a war against Israel, the likes of Putin's war against Ukraine's independence, is not easy to come. Pasdaran general states the current “operations” against the “Zionist” enemy is at least 13 per day. Putin’s war has proved a losing battle already and if it takes long, it might lose the support of its own people and before Iran war against Israel stand the motion of urban and rural popular classes ignited by Zan-Zendegi-Azadi.
The tide of women and nationality has started. Iran is gripped by the plight of Zan-Zendegi-Azadi, putting food on the table, achieving prosperity and peace. Society is fed up with intrusion and violence by government, economic catastrophe, and Tehran Shia wars abroad and intrusion in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq or elsewhere. Before Tehran wars stands the working class as the major force to reckon with.
4. Cities in Iran define as the place where there is no opportunity to earn a living and advance for the new generation. There is every reason to have mass public works programs in Iran and achieve full employment, for all men and women, but IR beholden to continuing the same structure of policies of monarchy’s period for the last four plus decades.
Iran experiences the double and triple whammy of economic assault on wage earners and unemployed, exacerbated by government handling of the strike by COVID-19, and the imperial sanctions, increasing continuously. On top of that add harsh and bloody government suppression, general enrichment/corruption of super rich/government, and nearly half the country under official poverty line, the popular society, the downtrodden having been bewildered by these blows is getting a grand charge for its self-realization and action—Zan, Zendegi, Azadi. Women and public outcry against the injustice and death suffered by Mahsa is a pent-up anger that has brewed for many years.
When it comes to economic suffering of the broad population, Iran is like the USSR during its wanning times when official reports printed rosy economic progress and the lower strata of society, the working people, went empty handed. Then USSR under bureaucracy, what it called planning, apportioned first for the elite, military and security, state enterprises and when it came to working people of city and countryside there was not much of resources left for them. In Iran the capitalist government of command-and-control feeds the very elite, military and security and enrich the capitalist classes, upon the course of privatization of key industries encroaching on oil and gas dubbed as Danesh Bonyan (technology foundation/advancement) activities and when all government plans in conjunction with capitalists are advanced not much of national resources is left for the working people but spread of hunger, poverty, unemployment and sky rising prices.
5. Current outcry over the rights of women and nationalities reverberates throughout West Asia to North Africa region that are most similar with regards to woman, nationality, and religious minority.
Like Iran, women across the Mideast region are unemployued, their right to work/education/entertainment/sing/dance/sports/divorce/custody of children are banned or constrained in various degrees. Women are not counted as an independent existence in society and have no unconditional right to divorce or travel without their father/husband (male) approval and are not allowed to appear in pubic/work according to their own dress standards. Strict laws against women allows/promotes Women’s life in public to face denigration, verbal, and physical abuse, in the streets, at work, on public transportation and everywhere women step in society. Domestic life experience of women is abuse by father or husband or brother or even male offspring. The rest of Mideast experience for women is similar, from Afghanistan, with its vehement suppression of women’s rights, to Egypt, where women cannot travel without male approval, and beyond.
The government denial of the right of women to choose started in the aftermath of revolution of 1979 in the army. Women staff were ordered to adopt Hijab or be dismissed. The action was led by Hassan Rohani and has been recounted by him. Rohani goes to become a key statesman of IR and the former President. For the new government of IR led by its CEO, Beheshti, murdered in terror bombing of 1981, it was a matter of establishing control over government organization. No wonder it started in the army. The urge and necessity of what had to be done in terms of running of government had nothing to do with women. Once in action it came to mean all to do with women as the weakest to target.
The need for the dictum against women rights to choose came from necessity of setting up control over government/state machinery among the competing factions under Khomeini who all contribute to its establishment and each successor builds on the anti-women measures of the previous administration and propel it forward. After the army was the entire state organization and decree by Khomeini for observance of Hijab at work for all female government employees. In time it was expanded to the entire society, all public discourse of women, sports and entertainment where women came to be banned or hampered.
Government work environment was the first to become a broken mirror of society when it came to the denial of the right of woman to choose. Thus, government first and foremost must act on itself and guarantee the right of all female employees to choose. Thereby set the standard for the entire society.
The ruling discrimination placed on the right of female state employees, numbering in millions, a fundamental violation of their right to choose during state employment, must go. Before it is a violation of women rights that reaches into streets, at the soccer stadium banning participation of women, at parks and beaches and everywhere else. It is a barrier to the fundamental need and demand of women for jobs. All government must strictly be open to women right to choose. Otherwise, there is no end to intrusion and violence against women by government.
Ruling against the woman right to choose enacted at the outset of IR, the need to organize the capitalist state and establish full authority as the most urgent matter of government rule has been fulfilled. Capitalism has consolidated to capacity for more than four decades. Capitalist discourse must switch to recognition of the right of woman to choose. Opposition to it obviously wrecks basic capitalist stability as it is foundationally opposed by popular sentiment.
6. Civil Right of Nationality is achieving the rights that are spread and deeply rooted regionwide. The outpouring of mass expressions among the nationalities of Iran, among the Kurds and Baluchis, has risen the recognition of fundamental right national minorities in Iran. The question of nationalities before anything else is an international, a regional question.
The key to unlock nationality rights and secure it from government intrusion and violence is in the region and enters through the simultaneous recognition of Jews and Palestine sovereignty. The right of both Israel and Palestine, to government. Junk anti-Semitism from government policy and with it goes all the rationale for military engagements of Tehran beyond its borders, in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. The cry of self-determination and peace for the region with its principled stance on Palestine-Israel is what unlocks the right of nationality to flourish and achieve.
The flourishing of nationality right brings teaching in their own language, a fundamental duty of state. Based on state design of British-1st Pahlavi since 1920, education is foremost the arena to engineer populations. Make Kurd, Arab, Turk, Gilak, Turkman, Baluch, and others to forget about their identity by ban on teaching in their languages and repress their culture and existence. Make them into ridicule of ruling culture. The state has the foremost duty of providing education of nationalities in their language. A pointer to the historic need of nationality to its government to advance its long repressed national plight as demonstrate by Eghlim Kurdistan government in Erbil. IR needs to cease all military operations by drones, missiles and otherwise that violate Eghlim Kurdistan sovereignty and cause death and destruction.
Nationality right goes from language to government to plow rapid agricultural and industrial development. State needs to celebrate it.
7. How did IR come to opposition with national sovereignty? In 1979 IR dressed the existing state organization as its government. It did not hesitate in applying the blueprint of Washington-Tehran under the Shah as its guideline as it had none of its own. These policies reach peak within four years in the suppression of independent politics which had come to open because of a people’s uprising, banning and jailing of independent socialist politics in the winter of 1361 (1983) like Kargar journal and worker party Hezb-e Kargaran Enghelabi and this writer. The latter were not unexpected. From the beginning of IR incarceration of socialist is its modus operandi. Within the first twelve months of IR socialists were imprisoned for nearly 100 months and many more during the subsequent years.
Suppression of independent politics is the lynchpin of establishing capitalist supremacy within four years of revolution. No sooner than suppression of independent politics is when capitalism, IR, must go to its posture of regional rule as demonstrated by policies of former Shah. Back then the chief ally of Washington in the region before the revolution. The late Ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi, a confidante of shah and a fixation of the former monarchy since the CIA-led coup of 1953, was quick to recognize and loudly support Iran’s current regional ambitions. A war stance of empire building, per Persian and Shia chauvinism, that is rejected by popular society that has witnessed tens of billions of dollars going to Tehran wars and economic hardship getting worse for the people.
Suppression of independent politics took daylight out of Independence and Freedom. Its consequence first showed in Iran bogged in an 8-year war by pursuit of military technique and mass fatality of tens and tens of thousands of volunteers that ends in stalemate. Economic omission of workers and farmers voices, most importantly women and national minorities, and imposition of poverty and unemployment became the definition of capitalism in IR. From there it is no turning back for the ruling class that leads and follows the wars of Shia Napoleon 2011-22 when further weakening of Washington because of its occupation of Afghanistan-Iraq, allows it to do so.
The royal autocracy of the Shah viewed itself as the prime power of the region of Middle East. A position advanced by the strategic partnership with the United State. Applying its plans and policies IR arrives at the same regional ambition. Key to this advancement, the retrogression, is the mute of the speech of popular society by suppression of independent and socialist politics in 1983.
8. Islamic Republic was no invention. The ruling coalitions of Mashroote Revolution of the early 20th century defined government rule as one that required the final approval of high body of clerics as its constitution. They defined the indirect rule of Sharia in a constitution that restored Qajar monarchy. Khomeini switched the legacy of indirect rule of Sharia to direct rule, i.e., IR. In the bag of capitalist rule of Iran only Mashroote and Mashrooa is all there is to choose from. It was not a difficult decision for London, Washington, and the rest of imperial powers to make. All the tendencies of capitalism in Iran, Mashroote and Mashrooa, were in unison on IR.
The consolidation of IR required the early rupture with the liberal bourgeoisie that was appointed to government. The latter altogether were in hundreds and filled the prime minister and all the cabinet posts. They had been sought by Khomeini and Mottahari and now discarded. Sanjabi, Jebhe Melli took resignation from the government in less than six months. They were labeled Mortad, apostate, by Khomeini. Bazargan, Nehzat-e Azadi, leading the government came to resignation in nine months and were castigated when Khomeini clung to the takeover of US Embassy. In time it came to the suppression of youth movement of liberal bourgeoisie. A political medley of Nehzat Azadi-Jebhhe Melli-Tudeh Party that declared themselves as the various stripes of the Khalghi (populist) tendencies and came to have thousands, nay tens of thousands of supporters.
Khalgh tendencies were completely defeated by the Shah’s autocracy during its final decade long before the revolution of 1979. Once released from prison, leaders of Fedayeen and Mujahedin Khalgh are at about 100 to 150, They gained popularity among sections of the youth and their cause were lauded by the meritocracy. Before anything they were sucked up by the imperial plan for terror-bombing or had to revert to the Tudeh Party. IR was able to suppress these tendencies with ease once it politically defeated them in public. The record of suppression of 1983 indicates IR acting at the instigation of London and other imperial powers. Likewise, in the summer of 1988, when the second wave of mass executions carried out in Iran with 6200 executed, all radio propaganda of imperial parties went silent on prisoners and executions for over a month duration.
IR used the suppression of Khalghi tendencies followed by Tudeh arrests to suppress independent politics. It sought to achieve silencing the urban and rural popular classes, in effect, restore the 1310 infamous decree against socialist and communist politics to be the rule of IR. Esteghlal va Azadi was nipped in the bud by the IR political suppression. Iran was derailed from continuing the glorious path of right of nations to self-determination which shows up in clampdowns by Tehran against protests ever since.
9. Esteghlal va Azadi requires the independent unity and organization of the urban and rural popular classes, chief among them the union of workers and farmers, and the independent and socialist politics. To realize the Democratic program, historic capitalist tasks, with regards to women, sexual minorities, national and religious minorities, youth and students, workers and farmers, artists and intellectuals, professionals and small businesspeople that can end poverty/illiteracy/unemployment cycles for once and all and open the road of the people to prosperity through an independent government. The sighting of such possibility has been declared by Zan-Zendegi-Azadi. The social force that can stand independent of capitalism is brewing.
International support for women and youth in Iran can bear fruit of solidarity once it stands for End Imperial Sanctions against Iran.
Babak Zahraie
November 14, 2022
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