08.11.2007
Lies cannot stop imperialists
In her speech to the October 27 conference of the Stop the War Coalition, Somaye Zadeh of Campaign Iran tried to counter the imperialist lies about the Tehran regime with misinformation of her own. Yassamine Mather insists upon the truth
No-one should be in any doubt that the US administration is spreading many lies about Iran in its relentless drive to war. However, it is vital that the anti-war movement does not fall into the trap of simply repeating Tehran's propaganda. This simply plays into the hands of the imperialists, who then try to dismiss opponents of their plans as stooges of the Iranian regime.
Let us look at Somaye Zadeh's claims and try to establish the truth.
Lie 1: Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
The attempts by the United States and the European Union to stop Iran obtaining nuclear technology are hypocritical. The IAEA protocols to prevent nuclear proliferation are unacceptable. Countries which themselves possess sufficient nuclear weaponry to destroy the world several times over - and are continuing to add to their arsenal - are laying down the law to others - or some of them. Israel is, of course, not threatened by the US.
It is true that Iran is a long way from being able to deploy nuclear weapons, but that does not mean the regime would not arm itself with them if it could. Just because the United States is opposed to Iran's nuclear policy, the left inside and outside Iran has no reason to adopt a position of defending nuclear weapons in Iran while opposing them in Israel, Britain, Russia and the US. Hands Off the People of Iran demands a nuclear-free Middle East in a nuclear-free world.
Lie 2: Iran is the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism.
Zadeh says: "This one is primarily based on the allegations that Iran is supporting terrorists in Iraq "¦ The few Iranians that have been arrested were either diplomats or engineers who were invited there by the Iraqi and Kurdish governments. Iran's closest links are with the Iraqi government. Since the fall of Saddam, Iran and Iraq have signed 65 different agreements and the Iraqi PM has made a friendly visit to Teheran."
Our response: The US is clearly disingenuous when it says Iran supports terrorists in Iraq. Iran supports the US-imposed occupation regime in that country. However, as many in the anti-war movement consider the current regime in Washington to be terrorist, by definition its occupation government must be considered terrorist too (there are many instances of the involvement of Iraqi ministries in terrorising the local population). Far from proving Iran is not involved in terrorism, its close association with such a regime shows Iran is on the side of the pro-US terrorists.
On Afghanistan Somaye Zadeh says: "We've seen allegations that Iran is supporting the Taliban. This is laughable for anybody who knows the history between the Iranian regime and the Taliban. The Iranian regime has opposed the Taliban from the start and helped the US to overthrow them "¦ Iran's strongest links are with the Afghan government and they have given aid to the Afghan government for £125 million for three projects: a water research centre, a dental college and for equipping Kabul's medical university. And even [Afghan president] Hamid Karzai has praised Iran's role in Afghanistan because of this."
US lies about Iran's role in Afghanistan should certainly be exposed. However, no-one who is anti-war should turn a blind eye to or even praise that role! The fact that the "Iranian regime has opposed the Taliban from the start and helped the US to overthrow them" not only demonstrates that Iran is pro-imperialist but is used by Zadeh to bolster the assumption that US interference in the affairs of another country is justified. How does that strengthen the anti-war movement?
Lie 3: Iran has threatened to wipe Israel off the map.
Somaye Zadeh says: "What Ahmadinejad actually said was: 'This occupying regime of Jerusalem should vanish from the pages of time.' He was speaking at a historical conference and he was quoting the former supreme leader of Iran, ayatollah Khomeini. And one more thing you have to remember: this kind of rhetoric has been quite common since the Iranian revolution. It is meant for domestic consumption; it is meant to huddle support for the government."
The more the apologists of the Iranian regime try to 'clarify' Ahmadinejad's statement, the worse it gets. 'Vanish' is not a term used when people talk of change by internal forces. Zadeh's statement basically means: 'Don't believe the rhetoric and slogans of the Iranian leaders. They tell lies for "internal consumption".' In fact, when it comes to actual practice Iran has no qualms in procuring Israeli arms via the US - as it did during the Irangate fiasco. Here is another brilliant exposé of Iran's fake anti-imperialism!
Lie 4: Iran is an anti-semitic country.
Somaya Zadeh says: "They say this on the basis of what Ahmadinejad said about the holocaust. The fact is that Iran has 25,000 Jews, the largest [community] in the Middle East outside of Israel. These Jews are very proud of their Iranian identity."
No-one has accused Iran of being an anti-semitic country. The accusation is that Ahmadinejad is anti-semitic - and this is echoed by students inside Iran, who call him 'fascist president'. It is true that the accusation of anti-semitism is used against all Arabs and muslims by apologists for US-Israeli policy; and people like Nick Cohen, Norman Geras call anyone who criticises Zionism anti-semitic, conveniently forgetting that, of course, Arabs are semites.
In Iran the situation is different: not only was the shia religion founded on the racist grounds of Persian superiority over Arabs (sunnis), but in the country's recent history rulers such as the shah's father openly sided with Hitler and Nazism (that is why he was deposed in 1941 by the Allies). There is a small but coherent anti-semitic movement in Iran and precisely for that reason Ahmadinejad's holocaust denial statements and those of the political clique he has been associated with (the Hojatiyeh group) cannot be dismissed that easily. However, we should argue that the utterances of this idiot president does not make Iran an anti-semitic country. The majority of the population abhor his statement on the holocaust and no-one can justify attacking Iran on that basis.
As for the Jewish population, on the eve of the islamic revolution in 1979, 80,000 Jews lived in Iran. By 2004 more than two thirds had left, leaving 25,000 in the country. Before the revolution there were some 20 Jewish schools functioning throughout the country. Most of these have been closed down, but in those that remain Jewish principals have been replaced by muslims. In Teheran there are still three schools in which Jewish pupils constitute a majority, but its curriculum is islamic. Special Hebrew lessons are conducted on Fridays by the Otzar ha-Torah organisation, which is responsible for Jewish religious education. Saturday is no longer officially recognised as the Jewish sabbath, and Jewish pupils are compelled to attend school on that day.
Lie 5: Iran is an undemocratic and repressive country.
"Khatami was voted in with 82% of the vote. This is the kind of vote that George Bush can only dream of."
Iran is a one-party state where defenders of a single ideology, 'political islam', constitute 95% of elected officials. Article 1 of the constitution states that the form of government in Iran is that of an islamic republic. According to the constitution, the country's religious supreme leader is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the president can only serve in this function upon approval of the supreme leader.
If Somaye Zadeh's definition of democracy is such a state, then we rest our case. As for the 82% vote for Khatami, I am sure we all remember the 99% votes in east European countries.
Zadeh says: "Other aspects of Iranian society are not so black and white either. We've all heard Ahmadinejad talking about homosexuals, but at the same time as homosexuality is not allowed, Iran does allow sex changes and in fact the average number of sex changes in Iran is seven times that than in the whole of Europe."
This statement is a gem. Any critique of it could not do justice to its stupidity.
On women she says: "In the case of the women, the situation is not so black and white either. Whilst there are restrictions on women, and nobody is denying that, the literacy rate amongst women is 98%. And 64% of university students are women. This is unparalleled in the Middle East and beyond. Female life expectancy is 104% - that's equivalent to the west. Iran has the only squad of female firefighters anywhere in the Middle East. It has had a female champion race car driver. There are female lawyers, MPs and judges."
Although it is true that over the last few years urban Iranian women have succeeded in asserting themselves and influencing aspects of their lives and the country's politics, any improvement in the plight of Iranian women is due mainly to their perseverance, tradition of struggle against dictatorships and courage - and indeed despite the majority of islamic clerics in Iran.
The democracy movement in Iran is not sponsored by the regime. On the contrary it is opposed to the regime. The radical left wing of that movement has now set up it s own version of Hands Off the People of Iran, following a call by leftwing lawyer Nasser Zarafshan. Its slogan is: 'No to war, no to the islamic regime' (Na be jang, na be jomhrouri eslami).
Somaya Zadeh and Campaign Iran's many lies about Iran do nothing but discredit the anti-war movement. Surely our task is to argue that, whatever the crimes of the Iranian regime, however undemocratic it is, any attack, any form of economic sanctions, will lead to total disaster. We should unite around the slogan, 'No attack on Iran, no to sanctions', without acting as stupid apologists for an inexcusable, reactionary clerical regime.