19.02.2009

Campaign against sanctions on Iran

Hopi will be launching its campaign against sanctions at 6pm on March 16 in the House of Commons. Speakers will include John McDonnell MP and London Assembly Member Jenny Jones. Below is the text of a leaflet Hopi activists are using to publicise the event

Sanctions are not an alternative to war

The election of Barack Obama might have lessened the threat of a direct military attack on Iran in the immediate future, but we must not step into the trap of looking at sanctions as some kind of ‘peaceful’ method to deal with the reactionary regime in Iran. In fact, sanctions form an integral part of the covert war on Iran, which is particularly being pursued by Israel and the US and are an important part of imperialism’s arsenal. Since the Middle Ages, the tactic of laying siege to a town or village has played a crucial role in military campaigns. It imposes hunger, demoralisation and desperation onto the ‘besieged community’ and in this way softens up the regime either for external military attack or overthrow from within.

2. Sanctions hurt the people below, not those above

For all the talk of “change”, Barack Obama’s plans for new sanctions prove the continuity of a policy of pressure on Iran that goes back to 1981 and the first US-imposed sanctions. In reality, they have had little or no effect on the elite of society. The rich and powerful have no problem getting around them. It is the working people, the poor and unemployed who suffer the most.

3. Sanctions increase the power of the reactionary regime over the mass of people

As can be expected, the sanctions - and the ongoing threat of a military attack - have actually helped to rally the mass of people behind the theocratic regime. President Ahmadinejad has been strengthened by the imperialists’ threats. Anybody attacking the regime is labelled a pro-imperialist agent. Many anti-capitalist militant workers and trade unionists have been arrested on the spurious charge of being “CIA agents”.

4. Sanctions prepare the way for ‘regime change from above’

Ideally, US-led imperialism would like to see a reliable, pro-western regime like that of the ex-shah. Failing that, they are prepared to accept another layer of the theocracy: the so-called ‘reformists’ like Khatami and Rafsanjani. But when they were last in government the reformists introduced many of the neoliberal and capitalist measures under which the people of Iran suffer today. Under their rule, Iran would still remain a deeply undemocratic, reactionary theocracy.

5. The case of Iraq proves that democracy cannot be delivered from above

The hell that is today’s Iraq is not just a result of the 2003 invasion and the futile attempts to deliver US-style democracy with bombs. The 1990 UN-imposed sanctions on the Saddam regime led to the death of up to a million Iraqis, many of them children. The once strong democratic movements in Iraq were crippled by two enemies: the dictator Saddam and the sanctions imposed on their country.

6. Sanctions are a disaster for the cause of democracy

Sanctions are clearly not designed to increase the strength of the people below. They disorganise the working class and squander its fighting energies, as life is filled simply with the day-to-day struggle to survive. Sanctions dramatically degrade the ability of the working people to struggle collectively on their own account, to radically refashion society in their own image, to organise and fight. This is why Hopi encourages direct international working class solidarity with the aim of building the fighting capacity of the movement in Iran. This stands in stark contrast to the funds set up by the US administration to support those Iranian NGOs who follow US policy in the region (including regime change from above) and the neoliberal economic agenda that has already proved such a disaster for the Iranian masses.

How sanctions affect the people in Iran

• Hospitals in Iran are reporting a shortage of medical diagnostic kits and surgical equipment as a direct result of sanctions blocking import of ‘dual-use’ equipment.
• After pressure from the US government, Yahoo and Microsoft removed Iran from the list of countries they served in 2007. Paltalk does not allow free access to its public rooms from Iran. So, while Iranian state officials and the security service have unlimited access to the internet via government servers, students, working class and political activists are restricted and have to adopt potentially hazardous ways round the ban.
• The proposed new sanctions against the import of refined fuel are especially worrying, given the country’s inability to produce refined oil. Iran imports some $350 million worth of refined fuel per month. The imposition of limited fuel rationing in the winter of 2007 caused riots and demonstrations, especially in the northern provinces, where winter temperatures often drop to well below zero. Since the spring of 2008, Royal Dutch Shell, Spain’s Repsol and a Japanese oil company have pulled out of planned projects in Iran, after coming under pressure from the US. This has swelled the already colossal numbers of unemployed. Similarly, the car industry and many firms related to this sector face shortages of essential engineering equipment and spare parts. As a result, the contracts of tens of thousands of workers have been ended.