It is always distasteful to engage with the polemics of Sean Matgamna and his immediate coterie of loyalists. It is too easy to be distracted by the bullshit blunderbuss they bring to bear on these occasions.

For instance, in a reply to our polemic in last week’s paper (‘Excusing nuclear Armageddon’, July 31) Matgamna locates our article within the “prevalent mass hysteria on the left about Israel and the Palestinians” - hysteria which also sees the AWL branded as “Zionists” (see the front page of www.workersliberty, ‘How I came to advocate an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran’, August 3 posting).

Er, pardon? The AWL’s patriarch has actually dubbedhimself and his organisation - “Zionist”, as we reminded readers in a recent issue. Of course, in the Humpty-Dumpty world of Matgamna, this ‘Zionism’ supposedly “means a belief in the right of Israel to exist and defend its existence” (Weekly Worker July 24). With such a shrunken definition it is possible to characterise sections of al Fatah as ‘Zionist’ nowadays.

Defining Moment

Notwithstanding such childish semantics, it is clear that Matgamna’s Solidarity article of July 24 marks a quantity into quality moment in the evolution of the AWL. After all, the author himself pointed to the inexorable consequences that come from defining oneself as pro-Zionist: not only defending Israel’s right to exist, but, when all is said and done, defending its colonial, expansionist and bellicosenationalism. Specifically, in this case, the “right” of Israel to attack Iran.

To remind readers, Matgamna states that there is “good reason for Israel to make a precipitate strike at Iranian nuclear capacity”. When what he calls the inevitable happens, “In the name of what alternative,” he asks, “would we condemn Israel?” (Solidarity July 24). In other words, Matgamna would in effect condone and excuse any such attack and therefore would actively oppose protest demonstrations that would undoubtedly spontaneously erupt throughout the world, including in Britain, of course.

Since our article condemning such scabbery appeared last week, a few AWLers have ventured to publicly comment - and most have attempted to divert the discussion away from their leader’s disgusting position. Before, however, we look at their feeble arguments, it is important to understand something of Matgamna’s deeply sectarian method.

Clearly, his article was not some innocent contribution to a debate the man felt was missing on the left. It was - like much of his political practice - a calculated provocation: not against the so-called “kitsch left” in general, but specifically against the growth of a so-called “kitsch left” inhis own organisation.

It is obvious that Matgamna - and long-time cadre like Mark Osborn - have become deeply worried by what they perceive as ‘kitsch creep’ in the AWL: that is, a tendency for AWL youth in particular to lean in the direction of ‘mainstream’ opinion on the revolutionary left - the groups Matgamna contemptuously dubs “kitsch”. In other words, those who have some attachment, no matter how tenuous, no matter how hedged, to some notion of basic Marxist internationalism. Anathema to Matgamna and his co-thinkers.

At the AWL’s annual conference in May, around 40% of the members present voted for a soft ‘troops out’ amendment on Iraq, leading to accusations from core Matgamnaites that the “ill educated” children were articulating the politics of other political trends in the movement.

Conference also passed a muddled, half-baked, but for Matgamna compromised resolution on Iran. It states: “… a conflict between Iran and Israel would constitute war between two sub-imperialisms …”. It goes on to commit the organisation to “oppose military action (whether invasion or air strikes, bombing raids etc) or economic sanctions against Iran” (www.workersliberty.org/print/9964).

Of course, this begs the question as to whether or not Israel and Iran are equals militarily and strategically. They are not. An Israeli war on Iran - in reality a missile strike, a bombing raid, or a combination of both - would not happen in isolation.

Israel is an outpost of US power in the Middle East. In all probability the US sponsor would covertly give the go-ahead for an Israeli ‘pre-emptive’ blow against Iran and provide satellite guidance, after which it would use Iranian retaliation, even verbal threats of terrible retribution, as the excuse it needs for the launching of its own, far more devastating blitzkrieg. Iran would be bombed back into the stone age.

All part of Washington’s grand plan to redraw the political map of the Middle East and, more to the point, offload its deepening economic crisis by once again turning to war.

What of Iran? There is the Iran of the mullahs, yes. We have no love for these butchers. But there is another Iran. The Iran of the 1906-11 constitutional revolution, the Iran that produced Mohammed Mossadegh and the mass Tudeh party in the 1950s, the Iran of 1979, shoras and the Fedayeen movement. That tradition lives. Iran has the potential, even in the short term, of shaking off the mullahs and making another revolution, this time led by the working class. Unfortunately that is not something one can say about the Israeli working class at the moment - it is a labour aristocracy. Indeed the best hope for Israel lies in winning working class leadership for an Arab revolution.

Anyway, the AWL conference resolution mentioned above was followed later in the month by the vote at the Education Not for Sale rebranding conference to include the demand for the “immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan” in its campaign priorities (Weekly Worker May 22). While the young AWLers present tried to fudge around this issue, the fact that one of its own fronts voted against the AWL’s social-imperialism sent alarm bells ringing at the top.

It is important to see Matgamna’s disgraceful July 24 article excusing an Israeli attack in this context. The patriarch has actually rebelled against the majority of his own organisation from the right. The message is clear: back down, side with Israel, stop playing with ‘troops out’ resolutions and do what you’re told: either that or its factional war.

His calculation is that most of the majority have no backbone, and that after he has cowed them he can reverse the drift to “kitsch leftism” and overthrow what he sees as ‘childish’ resolutions. In the meantime he moves to achieve his objectives by demanding unity in the ranks against outside foes (in particular the CPGB, which, showing his increasingly tenuous grasp on reality, he accuses of being soft on ‘clerical-fascist’ Iran).

First campism

But no matter how narrow, how barren this particular battle, the overall logic of where Matgamna is taking the AWL is clear. While the AWL can still sound leftwing, sometimes taken to the point of incoherent leftism, lesser evilism is morphing into something else: fully fledged first campism.

Matgamna and his lieutenants are nowadays acting more and more as unpaid spokespersons, not only for Israel, but for US and UK imperialism too. Of course, for form’s sake, this is done in the name of ‘democracy versus clerical-fascism’ and with a sprinkling of ‘socialist’ rhetoric.

As noted, one of the tried and test factional tricks used by Matgamna is unity against outside foes. Indeed the CPGB in particular is being singled out. What one says about the CPGB thereby becomes a kind of litmus test for the mindless loyalty he demands.

Like Big Brother in 1984, Matgamna polices language itself. Woe to any AWLer who dares call the CPGB the CPGB. In AWL-speak the CPGB is the WWG (Weekly Worker Group). Ditto the Weekly Worker itself. Matgamna refuses to admit the impressive size of its readership, its growing influence and the serious nature of articles carried. In AWL-speak it is nothing but “the gossip sheet of the left”. And none should say otherwise.

Effectively, left oppositionists in the AWL are being pressurised to put on hold, forget or renounce their criticisms. Everyone must unite against the CPGB.

So when CPGB comrades express outrage at Matgamna’s sympathy for an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, how are AWLers expected to respond? When we say that this attack would send radioactive fallout pluming into the upper atmosphere and would need a bunker buster bomb - probably a nuclear device - to do the job, how are AWLers expected to respond?

They are told they have a duty to defend Matgamna and ignore the terrible human cost. Leave aside the immediate ‘collateral’ damage involved in putting Iran’s nuclear facilities out action (there are reactors, enrichment plants, research centres and uranium mines located in places as diverse as Anarak, Arak, Natanz, Isfahan, Tehran, Karaj, Lavizan, Saghand, Yazd and Chalus). Millions in Iran and the surrounding region would suffer lethal levels of radioactive contamination. Tens of thousands would surely face a slow, painful, lingering death.

At a more prosaic level, AWLers are also meant to ignore Matgamna’s sly, cynical and totally underhand attack on the AWL’s own conference resolutions. Unbelievably, the claim is that Matgamna is being libelled by a bunch of “pathological liars”, as AWLer Jim Denham has put it in the blog, Shiraz Socialist (August 2). Nobly, Matgamna raises his chin and tells us he will face down the attacks, as “I have the honour - and that is how I regard it - of being singled out for special abuse and demonisation” by the wolverine sectarians of the CPGB.

In other words, AWLers are expected to denounce the message and shoot the messenger. Again, in the words of Matgamna, he is under attack from the CPGB and its “Stalinist technique of the heresy-hunt and the big - in this case preposterously big - lie” (August 3 posting).

Such thoroughly dishonest formulations play the role of sealing AWLers off from the CPGB’s arguments. Which also probably goes some way to explain the fact that over the past month or so the AWL website has been prominently featuring a selection of old articles on the CPGB.

Matgamna’s August 3 retort is notable for some other pieces of nonsense. For example, he demands: “a public and unequivocal apology” from us; “the same space as that taken by their libellous fantasy-piece about me to reply”; and a debate on … Israel-Palestine! It really is laughable that he challenges us to such a debate. Readers will recall that this follows the AWL suggestion that we debate - again - Afghanistan 1978-92 (see Weekly Worker July 24). And comrades will note the almost desperate attempt to discuss any question other than the one the AWL was invited by the CPGB to debate at this year’s Communist University - Iran, the prospect of war against that country and the attitude Marxists should take.

Not nuclear?

Second, he strenuously rejects the idea that he “explicitly or implicitly ‘excused’ an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran” and continues: “… even if I ‘excused’ or advocated a military strike, to assume that I would see no difference between that and a pre-emptive nuclear war on Iran would be nonsense on stilts. And where does the idea that Israel might nuclear-bomb Iran come from?”

In an obviously choreographed tactic, various AWLers have clutched at the straw that Matgamna’s original Solidarity article did not specify what form the ‘inevitable’ Israeli attack on Iran would take. As Denham desperately puts it, “I defy the CPGB … to find a single sentence in Sean’s article that suggests he’s in favour of, or would in any way seek to justify, a nuclearattack on Iran” (original emphasis). This “nonsense”, writes Matgamna, has no purpose other than to “demonise Israel just a little further than is common on the anti-Israeli left”.

Let’s repeat what Matgamna actually said. The “good reason” Israel has to make “a precipitate strike at Iranian nuclear capacity” derives essentially from the claim that Tehran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons (it is not). This supposedly constitutes a threat to the very existence of Israel. Therefore, Israel “will act to stop [Iran acquiring nuclear weapons] while it can still be stopped without the risk of a nuclear strike against Israel”.

When this happens, “international socialists should have no truck” with the type of knee-jerk condemnation that the “kitsch left” will predictably produce. “In the name of what alternative would we condemn Israel?” he shrugs.

What possible interpretation can be put on these words other than the claim that Israel would bejustified in launching an attack on Iran and that, when this happens, Matgamna and those who think like him will not condemn it - in fact they will reserve their fire for those who do. Unless you are incapable of understanding plain English, there is no other meaning that can be imputed to these words.

Then there is the nuclear question. In fact, the general military commentary available online reports that Iranian nuclear facilities are often very well protected. Eg, the Natanz enrichment plant, which covers 100,000 square metres, is eight metres underground and covered by a 2.5-metre thick shell of concrete and another 22 metres of earth on top of that. To put this complex out of action would indeed require the use of a nuclear-tipped bunker-buster - the US has the 400-kilotonne-yield B61-11 (see www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&c ode=20060217&articleId=1988). Also note Israel’s failure to destroy the comparatively puny Hezbollah bunkers in the 2006 Lebanon war. Conventional weapons are ineffective for this purpose. Even the laser-guided but non-nuclear GBU-17 bunker buster, which Israel already has thanks to George Bush, lacks sufficient penetration for use against “hardened and deeply buried targets” (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4895212.stm).

So, if there is “good reason” for Israel to make “a precipitate strike at Iranian nuclear capacity”, there is, militarily speaking, “good reason” for nuclear weapons to be used in such an attack.

Hence we have the maverick rightwing Tory, Max Hastings, recounting the well known fact that, “the US military has briefed the president that, with most of Iran’s facilities underground, only nuclear bunker-busting bombs offer a real prospect of achieving their destruction” (The Guardian August 4).

He is hardly alone in conveying this information - there is widespread speculation about the imminent danger of such an Israeli nuclear attack. Eg, earlier this year The Sunday Times ran with the headline, ‘Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran’ (The Sunday Times January 7 2007). Uzi Mahnami and Sarah Baxter reported that Israel “has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons”. There are countless other such stories readily available on the web.

Of course, this is all a diversion anyway. If nuclear weapons were necessary to make such raidseffective, would Matgamna condemn Israel for using them? Don’t forget, Matgamna pretends to believe that Iran’s “clerical fascist rulers might see a nuclear Armageddon, involving a retaliatory nuclear strike against Iran, in the same way a god-crazed suicide bomber sees blowing himself to pieces”. Faced with such “homicidal religious lunatics”, what alternative does Israel have but to launch a pre-emptive strike, employing whatever weaponry is necessary?

The fact is, Matgamna failed to specify what form the expected Israeli strike would or would not take - and now, in order to cover himself, pretends to be ignorant of the probability that only a nuclear attack would be successful. It is hardly a “big … lie” to suggest that Matgamna would find no reason to condemn it. It is the truth. Matgamna’s accusation about “preposperous” lies is nothing but a ham-fisted attempt to divert attention away from the Weekly Worker’s justified criticism of his pro-Zionism.

Unsurprisingly those AWLers who are actively defending Matgamna are becoming increasingly hysterical. Take Denham. He rounded off a recent polemic against the CPGB by telling one comrade that holding to our position “makes you a filthy, fucking, pro-Nazi anti-semite” (Shiraz Socialist blog, August 2 posting).

Actually it is impossible not to feel slightly sad for such an individual, but Denham expresses with admirable clarity the AWL’s political direction. The claim that the Iranian regime is “clerical fascist” (or “Nazi” in Denham’s world) chimes with the national myth of the anti-fascist crusade fought by British imperialism in World War II, in much the same sort of opportunist way as the Socialist Workers Party plays up to it in its anti-BNP campaigning. The poor beleaguered Jews - a “people without a state” for 2,000 years (Matgamna’s words, Solidarity September 4 2003) - are facing another holocaust, this time under an Iranian “clerical fascist” mushroom cloud. Surely anyone who denies them the right to defend themselves is “pro-Nazi”, an “anti-semite” and objectively a supporter of their annihilation?

Matgamna has a reputation for a less than rigorous adherence to democratic norms within the AWL - he treats the organisation as his private property. As part of his latest move to wrench the AWL yet further to the right, he is now attempting to hoodwink internal critics and even doubters into defending the indefensible. Namely himself. But he has lost any integrity he might once have had as a left politician. He is certainly no innocent victim of a vile “libel”.

It is high time that Matgamna is axed from the AWL. Comrades, rebel from the left against the social-imperialists and pro-Zionists in your leadership.

Read on:  Weekly Worker archive

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