The US-IRAN skirmishes vs. We

Abbas Goya - July 2019

Although the following text belongs to an earlier moment, its historical background and analytical framework may still resonate with non-Farsi readers and shed light on what is unfolding today

Introduction

The current conflict between the United States and the Iranian government has once again escalated into full-scale war propaganda. Both states openly claim that the “option of war” or “military attack” remains on the table, while simultaneously emphasizing—often rhetorically—the desirability of de-escalation. The United States call on Iran to return to the negotiating table and at the same time deploys its war fleets to assert leverage. Iran, for its part, declares that it is unwilling to negotiate for the time being, instead attempting to buy time through provocations such as attacks on oil tankers or hostage-taking, so as to enter negotiations from what it perceives as a position of strength.

What is unfolding is yet another episode in the forty-year conflict between Iran and the United States. Like similar episodes in the recent past, this confrontation has been accompanied by intensified war propaganda. As the propaganda machines of both states—each with a well-documented history of brutality against ordinary people—are set in motion, the bourgeois opposition to the Islamic Republic and the supporters of the regime have confronted one another in a new configuration: one camp openly belligerent, the other posturing as a defender of “peace.”

Monarchists (a broader pro-Western, extreme right opposition coalesced around Reza Pahlavi, the late Shah’s son), MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq, a large religious-based sectarian group), pro-west self-styled: republicans & liberals & social democrats, in addition to some nationalist Kurdish groups publicly support a U.S. military attack on Iran. Despite their apparent diversity, these forces share nationalism as their common denominator. While it might sounds odd, the nationalist advocate economic sanctions against Iran and demand U.S. military intervention as a “justified” war aimed at regime change. Notably, they often avoid using the name “Iran” when referring to the ruling state while freely using the names of other states such as the United States, Britain, or Russia. This linguistic sensitivity stems from their demagogic strategy. They portray the conflict as an irreconcilable struggle between the U.S. government and the Islamic regime, claiming the fight is against the ruling regime, not Iran, and further claim that the United States seeks to replace the Islamists with monarchists, MEK, republicans, or similar forces for greater good of Iran. Marching in step with U.S. war propaganda, this position draws its mobilizing power from two sources: genuine popular hatred of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and the promise of victory through reliance on the world’s most powerful war machine. In this way, it attempts to hijack popular anger toward the regime in favor of a U.S.-backed alternative.

On the other side, the supporters of the IRI have also found a basis for mobilization, particularly in the West, by presenting themselves as opponents of war and defenders of “peace.” This camp includes not only direct agents of the IRI, but also the so-called reformists, Tudehists (pro-soviet party in the Cold War era), self-styled anti-imperialist-and-pro-Islamist leftists, and certain faction of Kurdish nationalists. They rely on the legitimate hatred of the masses toward U.S. militarism—machinery that has devastated Iraq, played a central role in the destruction and mass displacement of Syria alongside Islamist regimes, and helped lay the groundwork for ISIS. At the same time, this trend actively supports military conflicts in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya. While the demagoguery of the IRI’s supporters draws on real opposition to war-mongering, their well-known misogynistic practices and repressive rule in the region severely limit their capacity for mass mobilization. As a result, they increasingly resort to inflaming nationalist sentiment and appeals to patriotism in the face of a supposed foreign invasion.

Several communist organizations—whether they explicitly reference Lenin’s stance on the First World War or his thesis of revolutionary defeatism—tend to adopt a similar position: first, opposition to war; and second, if war breaks out, the need for the masses to overthrow the IRI. At face value, this seems in line with communist principles. However, it lacks a practical political stance; rather, it is abstract and scholastic, leaving it disconnected from specific practices. This position can be easily manipulated by either side of the conflict. While it begins with principled opposition to war and the Islamic Republic, it fails to lay out a clear strategy for achieving these goals—specifically, how communists, as political vanguards, and the masses might unite to prevent war. How, exactly, can war be averted? Once the war has begun, how can the masses be mobilized and organized to resist the IRI?

The problem lies in that these communists have bought into the war propaganda and assume that war is to some degrees an inevitable outcome. In doing so, they inadvertently align with the forces they claim to oppose. Given the existing balance of power, discourses framed as “opposition to war” often translate in practice into political support for the Islamic regime. On the other hand, the call to "overthrow the Islamic Republic" gets drowned out in the chorus of voices supporting U.S. intervention, where anti-regime rhetoric is conflated with pro-interventionist stances. Unlike nationalist or pro-Islamic factions, the communists’ position fails to rally the masses around an independent socialist agenda.

To arrive at an objective response to the problems facing the masses at a moment when tensions between the United States and Iran have reached new heights and dominate the political environment, it is essential first to distance ourselves from the climate of war propaganda. Any perspective addressed to the masses must begin by breaking with this imposed environment. The relationship between the US and the IRI must be opened up and critically explained.

Our analytical error begins when the question is framed as “Is there going to be a war?” The real question is not whether war will occur, but under what conditions the United States would be willing to intervene in Iran with the aim of regime change.

My short answer to this question is: the US will intervene only when the overthrow of the IRI by a revolutionary uprising of wage earners is imminent. For a long answer a chronology of U.S.–Iran relations over the past forty years is helpful.

1979–1989

The decisive impact of the oil workers’ strike—which began on September 9, 1978 and crippled the economic foundations of the imperial state—combined with the daily mass demonstrations of millions against the Shah, convinced Western supporters of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi by the winter of that year that his rule was finished. By then, the Shah’s departure was no longer a question of if, but when.

The meeting of the leaders of the four major Western powers on the island of Guadeloupe from January 4 to 7, 1979, did not determine the fate of Iran; it merely formalized a decision the US had already reached weeks earlier. As summarized in Giscard d’Estaing’s well-known phrase, “the Shah’s work is done,” Washington had accepted that the monarchy could no longer be preserved.

In the month leading up to Khomeini’s return to Tehran on February 1, 1979, some direct and indirect negotiations took place between representatives of the US and Khomeini. These discussions centered on two key issues. First was the suppression of the communists—a term that, in practice, meant the suppression of the revolutionary movement itself. Second was the preservation of the Iranian army as an institution. While Khomeini’s assurances regarding the continued export of oil were important to the West, the Carter administration placed little trust in his promises to maintain friendly relations with the United States. Carter understood well that relations with Islamist forces carried significant risks.

What mattered most to the pragmatic U.S. government, operating within the framework of the Cold War, was the containment and eventual suppression of the Iranian Revolution—above all, the elimination of communist influence. This concern was paramount in Washington’s approach to Iran.

Evidence of these contacts later emerged publicly. In a Harold Sanders' message, which was delivered to Khomeini by Warren Zimmerman, it was stated that "the Iranian army is well aware that the Tudeh [the then pro-soviet party] have called for armed operations, and the army fears that there is a calculated operation by the Tudeh to provoke conflict between the army and the Agha's [a feudal era honorific title meaning "master," "lord” used to refer to Khomeini] supporters." Also, “Harold Sanders, who was the Undersecretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs under President Carter, told the House Foreign Relations Committee on February 18, 1979, 'We had more contact with religious leaders than we are generally credited with, both before and after the revolution.' He continued: 'It is interesting that some of the members of the Revolutionary Council that Khomeini created after the revolution were people with whom the Americans had been in contact in the six months before. They do not like to admit this. But I think what you are referring to is not just contact, it is a step beyond that, in fact it was a symbolic recognition of the man who came to power.' (BBC website, June 2016)

At the same time as the Guadeloupe meeting began, General Robert Huyser arrived in Tehran on January 4, 1979. In his only meeting with the Shah, Huyser directly asked Shah when he intended to leave Iran. The task of managing and neutralizing the army was effectively delegated to the national-Islamist forces. However, the unforeseen armed uprising of February 10–11, 1979 fundamentally altered the calculations of the ruling classes and, consequently, the relationship between the US and the emerging IRI.

The rapid disintegration of the army and other repressive institutions as a result of the February uprising temporarily postponed the suppression of the revolution. In reality, the revolutionary process that began in 1978 continued until June 19, 1981, when its comprehensive and brutal repression commenced.

Relations between the US and the IRI evolved in parallel with developments on the ground—in the streets, factories, schools, and universities. Immediately after the revolution, Ebrahim Yazdi, representing the Bazargan government, moved quickly to end the initial seizure of the U.S. embassy by guerrilla forces on February 14, 1979. In the months that followed, relations between the Bazargan government and Washington were remarkably warm. Only days before the embassy was reoccupied in November 1979, U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan, at the request of the Bazargan government, provided Tehran with limited intelligence regarding Iraq’s military situation, as Saddam Hussein had already begun border provocations.

This episode marked the first major casualty of the Islamic Republic’s relationship with the United States: Abbas Amir-Entezam, a senior figure in the Bazargan government, who would later be accused and imprisoned as a result of these early contacts.

From November 4, 1979 until the final day of Jimmy Carter’s presidency on January 20, 1981, when the hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy continued, the Islamic Republic entered a phase of overt diplomatic hostility with the US. This crisis—culminating in the fall of the Bazargan government—was not accidental. It was the result of Khomeini’s conscious and calculated decision to ride the still-unfolding revolutionary wave. At the time, the revolution remained alive, and its left wing filled the streets with slogans such as “After the Shah, it’s the US’s turn.”

The IRI released the American hostages in the very first hours of Ronald Reagan’s presidency on January 20, 1981. The Algiers Accords, which formalized the release, transferred nearly eight billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets to the new Islamic rulers. Shortly thereafter, following the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War in September 1980, relations between the Islamic Republic and the United States were effectively reestablished—this time through covert channels and arms purchases mediated by Israel.

Since July 1979, the Jimmy Carter administration was arming, training, and advising the Afghan Mujahedin in their fight against the pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan. Carter’s broader foreign policy—supporting Islamist forces as a counterweight to communism in the Middle East and Central Asia—was commonly described as the creation of a “green belt of Islamic allies against the Soviet Union". This policy not only continued under Reagan but was intensified. Reagan openly welcomed Afghan Islamist leaders to the White House.

In 1985, Robert McFarlane, Reagan’s national security adviser, justified renewed arms deals with Iran by arguing that without U.S. assistance, the unstable Islamic Republic might turn to the Soviet Union. The CIA director at the time shared this assessment. This logic laid the foundation for what later became known as the Iran–Contra affair.

A few days after the start of the war with Iraq, the IRI attempted unsuccessfully to destroy Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor during Operation Scorch Sword in September 1980. Israel completed the task in June 1981 by bombing the reactor. Cooperation between Israel and the Islamic rulers nevertheless continued, with Israel acting as an intermediary for the supply of U.S. military equipment to Iran. Abolhassan Banisadr, the IRI first president, later exposed these relations. The Iran–Israel–US triangle was once again activated during the Iran-Contra scandal between 1985 and 1987. During this period, the Iran became an indirect source of funding for U.S. efforts to suppress the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

At the same time, the IRI intensified its repression of communists inside Iran and carried out assassinations of leftist activists abroad. Through its cooperation with Israel in Central America and its internal counterrevolutionary role, the Islamic Republic effectively became a functional instrument of U.S. regional strategy.

Parallel to these developments, the Islamic Republic moved to establish what later Hezbollah in Lebanon became. From 1982 onward, following the hostage crisis in Tehran, 104 Western citizens were taken hostage in Lebanon. An IRGC affiliated group operating under the name “Islamic Jihad” claimed responsibility. In April 1983, a one-ton bomb destroyed the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans. In October of the same year, a truck bomb equivalent to 9,000 kilograms of TNT struck the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American service members—the deadliest single-day loss for the U.S. military since World War II. Two hours later, another truck bomb hit French military headquarters, killing 58 soldiers.

These attacks marked a turning point in the rise of Hezbollah and established the IRI as a militant force confronting U.S. and Israeli influence in the region. In their aftermath, U.S. and French “peacekeeping” forces withdrew from Lebanon—an outcome regarded by anti-American and anti-Israeli forces as a regional victory. Yet strikingly, none of these events—despite occurring during Reagan’s presidency—prevented the United States from supplying weapons to the Islamic Republic just two years later.

In 1987, the killing of several Palestinian workers by an Israeli truck driver near the Erez crossing ignited the First Intifada, opening a new chapter in the regional balance of forces.

Post-Iraq War Period and Early Actions of the IRI (1988–1989)

After the end of the war with Iraq on August 22, 1988, the Islamic Republic set several critical actions in motion. First, simultaneously with the war’s end, Khomeini issued an order for the mass execution of thousands of communist and MEK political prisoners who had survived the repression of the 1980s. These executions, carried out in August and September, resulted in victims being buried in mass graves, the most infamous being Khavaran.

Second, in February 1989, Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, reducing the “Islamic Revolution” to a directive to eliminate an apostate writer. Third, the regime continued its campaign of eliminating political opponents abroad, targeting dissidents outside Iran. Finally, at the beginning of his presidency in August 1989, Rafsanjani attempted—ultimately unsuccessfully—to ease tensions with the West.

Rafsanjani’s Presidency (1990–2002)

Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, the billionaire mullah who promoted privatization and free-market reforms, had a long record of political violence. In addition to his involvement in the 1980s massacre of around 100,000 left-wing dissidents, Rafsanjani oversaw further assassinations. A month before his presidency, Abdolrahman Ghasemlou, the Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, was assassinated while negotiating with the Islamic Republic in Vienna. During his tenure, Rafsanjani played a role in the killings of Gholam Keshavarz, and Sediq Kamangar, both leading members of Communist Party of Iran, in September 1989, Shahpour Bakhtiar, exiled last Prime Minister of the Shah, in August 1991, and Fereydoun Farrokhzad, a popular outspoken celebrity who opposed IRI, in August 1992. He also oversaw the Mykonos restaurant massacre in Berlin, which targeted opposition figures affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party—including its secretary, Sadegh Sharafkandi—and the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in September 1992. That same year, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords in Washington.

Economic Policies and Urban Unrest

In the early 1990s, urban uprisings erupted in cities such as Mashhad, Shiraz, Arak, Kermanshah, Zahedan, Qazvin, Urmia, and Islamshahr. These revolts were fueled by the effects of Rafsanjani’s privatization policies, which included a 50 percent inflation rate and broader economic adjustments. The protests challenged the very foundations of the IRI, with demonstrators targeting banks, government offices, and power centers—once even seizing a city garrison and burning the Quran. The regime ultimately suppressed these uprisings, isolating and dismantling them individually.

Privatization transferred wealth from the state to the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Supreme Leader’s inner circle, including Rafsanjani himself. By controlling oil, petrochemicals, heavy industries, military manufacturing, infrastructure, banks, and telecommunications, they became Iran’s dominant capitalists. This consolidation created a quasi-feudal capitalist system often described as a “family mafia,” where most real-market transactions remained underground and heavily dependent on political connections.

Khatami Era and Rising Opposition (1997–2009)

The election of Mohammad Khatami on May 23, 1997, represented a popular “no” to the Islamic Republic’s hardliner policies. The United States welcomed Khatami at the United Nations, and discussions of a “dialogue of civilizations” were initiated. However, these exchanges did not translate into normalized relations or substantive negotiations.

The July 1999 University Quarter protests marked a turning point in popular resistance. After the regime’s suppression of the student uprising, a communist-leaning faction known as “Students for Freedom and Equality” emerged as a dominant force of opposition in universities. This movement maintained its influence until the rise of the Green Movement in 2009.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the U.S. response to global terrorism further entangled Iran in regional dynamics. Although the U.S. briefly cooperated with Iran on Afghanistan, George W. Bush’s 2002 Axis of Evil speech labeled Iran alongside Iraq and North Korea as threats due to alleged support for terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

Iran’s nuclear program became a central issue in the early 2000s when Western intelligence and opposition sources highlighted clandestine facilities at Natanz and Arak in 2002.  In response, international scrutiny and U.N. nuclear related sanctions intensified. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq opened new opportunities for Iran to bolster ties with Shia militias and expand its influence across the region.

The Arab Spring of 2011 further extended Tehran’s regional role as Iran backed allied parties and militias in crises from Syria to Yemen.

2003 to 2019

Although the Islamic Republic had established significant influence in the so-called “Arab-Israeli” conflict over the Palestinian issue before the second US invasion of Iraq, particularly through its alliance with Syria, these gains were minimal compared to the opportunities that the US invasion of Iraq opened up for Iran. Several key developments during this period marked turning points for the Islamic Republic:

1. The 2006 Thirty-Four Day War in Lebanon: This war, which occurred shortly after the decline of the Second Intifada (September 2000 to February 2005), marked a shift in the region. The conflict, dubbed the first proxy war between Iran and Israel, ended with Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. This war could be seen as a pivot from the broader "Arab-Israeli" conflict to a more direct "Iran-Israeli" confrontation. Following this, the Middle East saw the formation of a bloc opposed to Iran, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, the UAE, and even the “autonomous” Palestinian state. On the other side, the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis (and at times Hamas) emerged as a counterforce.

2. The 2009 Protests: The mass protests in Tehran, sparked by the disputed presidential election, profoundly shook the IRI. The movement, known as the Green Movement, was met with harsh repression from the regime, while different factions within the IRI tried to manage or suppress the protests. Despite the widespread nature of the protests, which spread to other cities like Shiraz and led to a general strike in Kurdistan, the Green Movement ultimately faltered. This was due to its internal contradictions and its adherence to a reformist agenda, which failed to address the deeper systemic issues.

3. The Syrian Civil War and Iran's Role: When protests erupted in Syria against Bashar al-Assad's rule, Iran, leveraging its Quds Force under the leadership of Qassem Soleimani, emerged as Assad’s key backer. The withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq in 2011 further emboldened Iran, allowing it to expand its influence in the region. The Quds Force established mercenary groups like the Fatemiyoun Division and the Zainabi Brigade in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and, by 2014, Iran helped form the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq to counter ISIS. Iran also cultivated ties with the Houthis in Yemen, providing them with financial and logistical support. These developments, in turn, propelled the US and Israel to prioritize efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Between 2010 and 2013, Israel took several preemptive actions against Iran’s nuclear program, including the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and the 2011 Stuxnet cyber attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The verbal exchanges between Iran and Israel grew more heated, with then-President Ahmadinejad famously declaring that Israel would be “wiped off the map.” The media widely reported the potential for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites in 2012, heightening tensions. Despite this, anti-war movements in the West, supported by figures like Ramsey Clark, organized protests, though these efforts remained marginal. Behind the scenes, secret negotiations between the US and Iran, mediated by Oman, began in 2011, eventually leading to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015.

4. The JCPOA and Western Engagement: The JCPOA, finalized in 2015, marked a significant diplomatic achievement for Iran, with economic sanctions largely lifted. However, not everyone in the US supported the deal. In March 2015, members of the US Congress, largely Republicans, invited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to address them and warn about the threat of a nuclear Iran. Despite this opposition, the agreement held, and Iran’s President Rouhani embarked on a diplomatic tour of Europe, signing various economic agreements. Western leaders, eager to gain access to Iran’s untapped market, rushed to engage with the Islamic Republic. Ironically, women ministers from Western democratic governments, who had long advocated for women’s rights, began wearing veils and modest clothing while engaging with Iranian officials, sometimes even veiling statues in Italy to avoid offending the sensibilities of Iranian leaders. However, this Western enthusiasm was, at best, superficial.

5. The 2017 Uprising in Iran: In December 2017, widespread protests broke out in over 100 cities across Iran, with workers voicing anti-capitalist and anti-totalitarian slogans. This uprising not only challenged the very foundations of the Islamic Republic but also reminded the West of the persistent appeal of socialist ideals in Iran. The protests underscored the instability within the regime and served as a stark reminder of the simmering discontent among the Iranian populace.

Economic embargoes

The first American economic embargo was imposed during the Carter administration in November 1979 in response to the seizure of the U.S. Embassy and the hostage-taking of American diplomats. This embargo was lifted after the hostages were released.In 1983, President Reagan designated Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism and opposed the extension of foreign loans to the country. In 1987, the United States banned the sale of goods that could have military applications to Iran. That same year, following Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. began escorting oil tankers and civilian vessels in the Persian Gulf.

During the Clinton administration, additional economic sanctions were imposed beginning in 1995, justified by claims that the Islamic Republic was attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction. These measures included: (1) a ban on all oil-related trade between U.S. companies and Iran, and (2) a comprehensive prohibition on all trade between U.S. companies and Iran by the end of 1997.Under President George W. Bush, the United States froze the assets of individuals, groups, and companies believed to be supporting the Islamic Republic’s terrorist networks or contributing to the destabilization of Iraq. All financial transactions with these entities were prohibited, and new laws were enacted to prevent the circumvention of existing sanctions.

During the Obama administration, the “Comprehensive Sanctions” framework was adopted. In addition to previous measures, it banned the import of Iranian food products and carpets, expanded restrictions on the purchase of Iranian oil to other countries, and prohibited oil purchases from Venezuela due to its trade relations with Iran. Most significantly, the sanctions barred any company worldwide from engaging in financial transactions with Iran’s central bank and major state-owned banks, including Bank Melli, Bank Mellat, Bank Saderat, Bank Tejarat, Bank Sepah (IRGC), and Bank Pasargad. As a result, billions of dollars in Iranian assets were frozen.

The Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA in April 2018, after twice extending its approval for six-month periods. All sanctions lifted under the JCPOA were fully reinstated. In addition, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), institutions affiliated with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Khamenei himself, several IRGC commanders, and Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs were placed under sanctions. The Trump administration stated that its objective was to expand sanctions from approximately 80 percent to full, comprehensive enforcement.

Why Is the US Patient of the Islamic Republic?

The US, since its independence from England in the late 18th century, has often been involved in conflicts, with its leaders rarely managing to avoid war. Since the end of World War II, U.S. statesmen have intervened in the internal affairs of other countries more than 70 times.

In retaliation for the Japanese suicide attack on Pearl Harbor, which killed 64 Americans, the Truman administration responded by bombing the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands in one of the most horrific acts in history. The US's intervention in the Korean War, ostensibly to prevent the spread of communism, led to a devastating conflict that claimed the lives of over 1.5 million people. In Vietnam, the U.S. offered a series of excuses for its intervention, but the real motivation was to stop communism from spreading across Southeast Asia. The Johnson administration's war in Vietnam resulted in more than a million deaths and saw the U.S. drop more bombs on Vietnam than were used in all of World War II.

In Indonesia, the U.S. supported the killing of millions during Suharto’s rise to power, once again in the name of stopping communism. The second Iraq War, launched on false pretenses, led to at least 500,000 Iraqi deaths and left the U.S. with a staggering cost, exceeding a trillion dollars—its largest financial expenditure since World War II. Remarkably, it was the Democratic leaders of the U.S.—from Truman to Obama—who were responsible for more bloody conflicts than their conservative Republican counterparts.

Given this history, questions arise: Why did the US, with such a violent legacy, sell military equipment to Iran during the hostage crisis at its embassy in Tehran? Why did the U.S. ignore the killing of 241 American service members in Lebanon, offering no military response, while still selling weapons to the Islamic Republic? When fewer lives were lost at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan—why such a stark contrast in response?

Why, as Mansour Hekmat pointed out, did no one hold Ayatollah Khomeini accountable for issuing a fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie? Incitement to murder is a crime worldwide, yet there was no significant reaction. Why, too, did the U.S. not take serious action when the Islamic Republic killed hundreds of American troops in Iraq—where U.S. total casualties were ca 4,500? And why do Western leaders consistently defend Islam after every terrorist attack by radical Islamists?

To understand the reasons behind these inconsistencies, we must explore the role of political Islam in shaping Western foreign policy over the last forty years. Mansour Hekmat provides a compelling framework: "Political Islam is the broad movement that views Islam as the primary tool for a right-wing reconstruction of the ruling class and government systems, opposing leftist ideologies. As such, it competes with global capitalist powers for a share of global capital."

The Rise of Political Islam

Why did political Islam rise to prominence? Hekmat traces its roots to the early 20th century, when the process of industrialization began in the Middle East. In Iran, this can be seen in the Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911) and the modernizing reforms of Reza Khan. Hekmat argues that industrial modernization continued into the 1960s, as seen in Iran’s impressive average annual economic growth rate of 11.5% between 1963 and 1973.However, political Islam emerged as a response to the failures and incompleteness of Western modernization projects in the Middle East. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, secular-nationalist movements that had been responsible for modernization began to decline. This created an ideological and political vacuum, leading to the rise of political Islam as a right-wing alternative to reorganize bourgeois rule, especially in the face of left-wing and working-class movements.

Hekmat believes that without the 1978-79 Iranian Revolution, these Islamic movements would have remained marginal. Iran’s revolution, in his view, gave political Islam the opportunity to organize itself into a government, elevating it into a major force in the region.

Modernization, secularization, and Westernization had made significant strides in the early 20th century in the Islamic world, but by the early 1970s, the West’s development projects stagnated. The issue of Palestinian rights, along with the Cold War polarization and Western strategic alliances—especially with Israel—undermined any effort to fully integrate Middle Eastern countries into the Western capitalist framework. In many cases, the collapse of royal dynasties gave rise to political Islam.

Hekmat concludes that this system, driven by the ideological conflict of the Cold War, led many Middle Eastern countries to come under Soviet influence. Capitalism in the region spread largely through authoritarian, nationalist regimes, without the development of a robust bourgeois civil society. As a result, liberalism and bourgeois modernism never gained significant traction. Political Islam, often aligned with various nationalist movements—whether pro-Soviet or pro-Western—became a defining force in the Middle East.

This passage illustrates the instrumental role of political Islam, and specifically the Islamic Republic, in the US's strategic calculations. Despite being aware of the Islamists' antagonism toward the U.S., the U.S. facilitated the Shah’s departure and allowed Khomeini to rise to power. The goal was clear: to enable the Islamists to suppress the 1979 Revolution, which the Shah had failed to do, by targeting its leftist activists and leaders. The U.S. saw the Islamic Republic as a means to restore political stability in the region by quashing the revolution. This involved brutal repression, including the imprisonment and eventual massacre of hundreds of thousands of political activists, while millions of disaffected Iranians fled the country throughout the 1980s.

However, the price of this Western pragmatism was the creation of a regime that, in turn, carried out military and terrorist attacks against the US. It is important to note that, throughout this period, the U.S. has never been a critic of the Islamic Republic’s repression of the 1979 Revolution or the ongoing brutal suppression of its citizens. In fact, the U.S. has often supported such repression. When the U.S. speaks of the Islamic Republic's terrorism, it refers to the activities of the IRGC in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen against American and Israeli forces. However, it didn't label the internal suppression of the Iranian people as terrorism.

In the 1980s, the West fell into a kind of political coma, as if nothing was happening in Iran apart from the war with Iraq. The U.S. embraced President Khatami in the late 1990s, and during the Green Movement protests, it supported the reformist faction—at least conditionally—until the bloody suppression on June 20, 2009. However, as the crackdown intensified, the U.S. quickly scaled back its coverage and tacitly endorsed the suppression. The U.S. has never been genuinely committed to supporting the Iranian people. On the contrary, it wanted the streets to be emptied of dissent.

Daily protests from workers, pensioners, the unemployed, and the dispossessed continued throughout the year leading up to December 2017. By January 2018, these protests had morphed into a nationwide movement, with waves of discontent spreading across 100 cities in Iran. Workers and the deprived, rallying against capital, openly challenged the Islamic Republic. It was in this climate of unrest that the Trump administration saw an opportunity to resolve two key issues: the nuclear standoff between the West—especially Israel—and Iran, and the ongoing economic sanctions. These "maximum" sanctions, aimed at pressuring the Iranian government, were also punishing the working class, exacerbating their poverty and helplessness. The goal was to demoralize the socialist labor movement, pushing it into passivity and despair.

On January 19, 2019 (a year after the January 2018 uprising, coinciding with the full implementation of U.S. sanctions), a so called documentary fabricated by the IRI media  titled “Burnt Design” aired. It featured “confessions” extracted under torture from labor activists Esmaeil Bakhshi, Sepideh Gholian, and Ali Nejati, who had participated in the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Agro-industrial Complex protests. These confessions included supposed admissions of membership in the Workers' Communist Party of Iran. The airing of this documentary had little domestic impact. The following day, Iranians took to the streets, mocking Burnt Design and calling for the unconditional release of the prisoners.

The documentary’s intended purpose was to exploit Western fears about the rise of communism in Iran. Whenever the Islamic Republic seeks to deter internal opposition, it invokes the threat of the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Conversely, when it wants to curry favor with the West, it highlights its crackdown on communist opposition. In fact, during this time, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif toured Europe, meeting with European Union foreign ministers. His goal was to remind the West of the threat posed by communism in Iran and highlight the crucial role of the Islamic Republic in suppressing it.

The long-standing tension between Iran and the United States, regardless of who occupies the White House, revolves around two primary conflicts. The first is the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the socialist labor movement—the battle between the capitalist class and the working class. In this conflict, both the United States and the Islamic Republic align on the same side: they both oppose the working class. Whether in Tehran or Washington, the goal remains the same: to suppress and contain the socialist labor movement.

Both the Iranian and American governments are fully aware of the dynamics of class relations. Yet this intra-class alignment does not imply organic unity or structural dependence between them in administrative, political, or governmental terms. The Islamic Republic clearly understands its instrumental role for the United States and has so far exploited this position to the fullest. It is no coincidence, for example, that many elites of the Islamic Republic ultimately turn toward the United States: America functions as a “second homeland” for Iran’s ruling class.

The second contradiction lies in the conflict between the two bourgeois states of the United States and Iran. Because the Islamic Republic’s usefulness to the United States—particularly in suppressing socialist movements in Iran—outweighs losses such as the deaths of 241 American troops in Lebanon or 1,000 in Iraq, the United States has historically tolerated such costs. The West spends millions of dollars protecting Salman Rushdie, yet refrains from even discussing the prosecution of Khomeini, since doing so would disrupt the delicate balance of its relations with the IRI. Nevertheless, U.S. political and diplomatic relations with Iran are not without red lines. One such red line concerns nuclear weapons: the United States—and more decisively, its strategic ally Israel—cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic. The question, then, is why.

First, it must be noted that the West has effectively abandoned the integration of the broader Middle Eastern economy into the interwoven structure of global capitalism, while simultaneously remaining dependent on the region’s crude oil. Oil is the only commodity from the Middle East that is fully integrated into the global economy; its pulse beats in rhythm with capital itself. This reality has manifested itself twice in modern history. The economic crisis of the mid-1970s began with the oil embargo and the subsequent 400 percent increase in oil prices. Although Mohammad Reza Pahlavi did not participate in the embargo, Iran nevertheless raised oil prices for Western markets. The embargo that followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War marked a decisive turning point in the decline of secular Arab modernism, or Nasserism. Egypt, formerly the strongest Arab opponent of Israel, distanced itself from the Soviet Union under Sadat and moved closer to the United States. At the same time, with Saudi Arabia assuming leadership of the oil embargo, Islamist forces were pushed to the forefront of regional politics.

The second oil shock, unlike that of 1973, was triggered by the strike of oil workers during the 1978–79 revolution in Iran. The insistence on continuing oil exports—raised in discussions between Carter and Khomeini—was partly driven by an ongoing oil crisis in the West in early 1979. According to Khomeini’s own position, oil production and exports returned to normal levels by April 1979. This stability lasted until the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War, which once again disrupted production, contributed to a global oil shock, and drove prices upward.

Second, political stability in the Middle East matters to the West primarily insofar as it guarantees the uninterrupted flow of oil. In contrast, political stability in the Far East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia—now the core regions of cheap global labor—are vital to capitalism’s survival. So long as oil flows from the Middle East, the West can continue its economic life even in the absence of economies such as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, or Yemen. It could not, however, sustain its current economic order without countries like Bangladesh or Indonesia.

For this reason, “maximum pressure” on the IRI does not fundamentally disrupt the global economy, as Saudi Arabia can compensate for reductions in Iranian oil production. This stands in sharp contrast to cases such as Greece: only a few years ago, Western powers claimed that Greece’s exit from global capitalism—despite its far smaller trade volume compared to Iran—would plunge the world into a deep economic crisis. From the West’s perspective, the role of Middle Eastern governments can be reduced to two primary functions: suppressing the socialist labor movement and ensuring the steady export of oil. Socialist movements must be crushed because they threaten the essence of capital itself, or at the very least push wages upward.

Finally, the strategic importance of Middle Eastern oil lies not only in its abundance but also in its exceptionally low production costs. In Iran, the cost of producing a barrel of oil is as low as five dollars—among the lowest in the world. The principal reason for this is the availability of cheap labor, which underpins both low production costs and high profitability.

Carter’s negotiations with Khomeini revolved around two central issues: first, the suppression of Marxists, which would, among other things, guarantee the preservation of cheap labor; and second, the continuation of oil exports. A necessary condition for Western support of any government in the region is its capacity to suppress socialist labor movements and ensure the uninterrupted sale of oil. Western pragmatism flows directly from this logic. It is largely irrelevant to the West whether these policies are implemented by political Islam, a secular monarchy, or a military dictatorship.

However, a sufficient condition for the full and unified support of the West—support that leads to a government’s integration into the world economy—is its ability to become conventional. Conventionality means not only internal stability in the absence of a subversive mass movement, but also acceptance by the entire ruling class as a reliable vehicle for capital accumulation. The IRI satisfies neither condition. It faces an ongoing overthrow movement, and other factions of capital accuse it of being “unworthy” or incapable of properly launching and managing capital.

The IRI is therefore a regime permanently suited to political and governmental crisis. It emerged as a violently counterrevolutionary state, built on the repression of the revolution, and it cannot serve as a viable model of governance—neither within Iran nor in any of the countries where it has extended its influence. A regime that has failed to become conventional at home cannot export conventional governance abroad. Wherever the IRI has penetrated, it has replicated itself: exporting an ultra-violent repressive apparatus alongside an economic mafia structure.

The Middle East continues to suffer from a deep crisis of governance. Political Islam is not a solution to this crisis; it is merely its continuation in another form. Neither the United States, nor Israel, nor the Islamic Republic has any genuine interest in resolving this crisis—each has played a decisive role in producing it. Israel encouraged Hamas in Palestine; the United States encouraged Khomeini in Iran; it elevated the Afghan Mujahedin—later a branch of al-Qaeda—and laid the groundwork for the rise of the Taliban. The United States and its regional allies created ISIS and dozens of sectarian and terrorist groups, dismantling some, preserving others, and relocating many to maintain a balance between political Islam and regional powers.

A genuinely stable peace in the Middle East would mean the death of political Islam—and therefore the end of the IRI’s reason for existence. No one can control political Islam once it is armed with nuclear weapons. When the largest branch of political Islam openly targets Israel and declares its intention to erase it from the map, the West—despite the IRI’s usefulness in suppressing socialism and selling oil—can no longer tolerate a nuclear Iran. This is the fundamental red line between the West and the IRI.

From the Western perspective, even Iran’s regional interventions are secondary. Had Iran’s regional influence been truly essential to American strategy, the United States would never have handed Iraq to the IRI by withdrawing its forces so completely.

From the West’s standpoint, this contradiction—needing the IRI while simultaneously neutralizing its nuclear threat—must be resolved. How to do so has preoccupied the United States and Israel for nearly seventeen years. Assassinations of nuclear scientists, cyber attacks on nuclear facilities, and a decade of negotiations culminating in the JCPOA have all failed to resolve this dilemma. The military option—bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities—has remained on the table throughout this period. The question, then, is why the United States and Israel have delayed an operation that could, in theory, be completed within hours, instead relying on sanctions, diplomacy, assassinations, cyber warfare, and fragile agreements.

The answer lies in American strategy: the United States does not seek to overthrow the IRI, nor even to seriously destabilize it. A military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities risks escalating into a broader conflict whose outcome would be uncertain and potentially unfavorable. During such a confrontation, the Islamic Republic’s repression apparatus could weaken, creating conditions in which mass movements might overthrow the regime amid the chaos of war. For the United States, the emergence of a socialist movement from such dynamics would be a nightmare scenario.

Rather than destabilizing the IRI, the United States prefers to exhaust Iranian society through economic attrition while pressuring the regime into submission. Based on current conditions, the United States will not attack Iran. Even the most aggressive factions aligned with Trump have repeatedly confronted this “bitter” reality.

The US would intervene directly in determining Iran’s future only under one condition: if the overthrow of the IRI by organized, wage-earning masses became a real and imminent possibility. In that case, America would attempt to place itself “on the right side of history.” However, lacking the leverage it once had over the Shah, Mubarak, or Ben Ali, U.S. intervention in Iran would more closely resemble its intervention in Gaddafi’s Libya. In the event of an uprising, the United States would likely engage in loud diplomatic and possibly limited military actions against IRI forces—not to liberate Iran, but to shape the post-regime order in its own interest.

The US strategy toward Iran, so long as the risk of overthrowing the IRI remains uncertain, relies primarily on the erosive instrument of economic sanctions. Contrary to right-wing interpretations, sanctions are not designed to unite the dissatisfied masses into a subversive movement against the regime. Their purpose is precisely the opposite: to produce exhaustion, despair, and political passivity. At the same time, the so-called “maximum pressure” policy is intended to push the IRI toward negotiations without provoking an uncontrollable overthrow movement.

We should recall that the deployment of U.S. naval fleets to the Persian Gulf was not a prelude to war, nor a response to Chinese maneuvering in the region. Its primary purpose was to enforce oil sanctions and to contain the threats issued by the IRI in response to the embargo on Iranian oil. In other words, military deployment functioned as an instrument for implementing economic sanctions. The subsequent war propaganda following the arrival of the Abraham Lincoln warship, served as a supplement. It meant to dramatize the US power and intimidate Iran into compliance without any compromise. The hollowness of Trump’s threats (“If Iran attacks U.S. interests, we will do x or y) was exposed when the IRI attacked oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, downed a U.S. drone, and seized a British tanker without triggering a single U.S. military response.

Even if the US and Israel ultimately fail to dissuade the Islamic Republic from pursuing its nuclear program through non-military means, any bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities would likely occur only in the more distant future. Such an attack would be timed for a moment when the overthrow movement—depleted by prolonged economic sanctions and the paralysis of everyday life—has become passive or safely containable. Under such conditions, bombing nuclear sites would not threaten the regime’s stability. In this sense, American strategy rests on a policy of “dual containment”: restraining the IRI’s nuclear ambitions while simultaneously containing mass social unrest.

In summary

The class struggle in Iran, as elsewhere, is fundamentally between workers and capital. Despite recurring inter-state antagonisms between the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and the United States, these conflicts obscure a deeper intra-class alignment. At the level of class power, the two states share overlapping interests and a common enemy: the working class, particularly when it organizes independently and advances socialist politics.

As long as the Iranian working class—and especially the socialist movement—poses a credible threat to the IRI, the United States’ primary concern in Iran is not democratization or regime change, but the containment of socialism. Within this framework, US policy functions to preserve stability and continuity rather than rupture. Far from seeking to overthrow the Islamic Republic, the United States is unwilling even to meaningfully destabilize it, so long as the existing order continues to suppress working-class autonomy and reproduce capitalist social relations.

In the debate over nuclear containment and the suppression of the socialist labor movement, U.S. policy operates through a twofold strategy: weakening the labor movement by holding workers’ livelihoods hostage through sanctions, while simultaneously forcing the IRI into submission—without allowing the former to overcome the latter. These are the US’s intentions. But politics is not determined by intentions; it is determined by action. The real question, then, is: what are we to do in the face of this configuration?

Socialist forces must clearly explain to ordinary people the real nature of the relationship between the US and Iranian states. Without an objective understanding of the forces confronting us, no viable strategy is possible. It must be shown that both governments are united, by virtue of their shared class interests, in suppressing the socialist labor movement. History confirms the inverse as well: when oil workers struck against the Shah, they not only crippled his regime but also dealt a blow to global capitalism. The US state has been an enemy of the socialist labor movement in Iran, both before and after the rise of the IRI.

The US does not treat the IRI as an alien or anomalous entity. Contrary to the claims of so-called “anti-imperialist” forces, the relationship between the two states is not primarily one of mutual plunder or external domination. What both governments seek to extract is workers’ endurance, discipline, and resignation. Authoritarian rule is functional to capital accumulation in Iran. Understanding the intra-class alliance between the US and Iranian governments protects us from both right-wing and left-wing illusions—particularly the fantasy that the socialist movement can share an interest with the United States in regime change or exploit conflicts between states to its own advantage. These illusions have repeatedly been disproved, yet they persist as long as the US continues to influence Iran’s political structure.

Beyond opposing the IRI, we must critically confront the global capitalist relations that have made the IRI a functional regime for capital. A path toward lasting peace and stable governance in the Middle East lies in the seizure of political power by the masses themselves. Our struggle is not merely against the Islamic regime in Iran; it is also about what replaces it. This is what distinguishes us from the bourgeois opposition. Opposition alone is not enough—we have to articulate the alternative we are fighting for.

The workers of Haft Tappeh have already planted the seeds of such an alternative. By raising the demand for workers’ councils, they introduced a discourse that resonated widely within the labor movement. This is the direction in which a genuine emancipatory politics should advance.

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