On March 3, the U.N. Security Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran. Two earlier sets of sanctions were approved in December 2006 and March 2007.
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The latter is a particularly dangerous component of the sanctions. With the U.S. Navy’s heavy presence in the Persian/Arabian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, the United States military could justify intercepting Iranian ships that it deems to be suspicious.
The Security Council vote was 14-0. Indonesia was the only country that did not vote for the resolution by abstaining. Even South Africa, Vietnam and Libya—countries that were critical of adopting a new round of sanctions—ended up voting for the resolution. These countries had expressed reservations about new sanctions in view of Iran’s extensive cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In reality, the Security Council does not represent the “international community” but rather the consensus of the imperialists. Of the five veto-wielding permanent Security Council members, three are the most powerful imperialist countries. They can more often than not impose their will on the whole body.
Oppressed countries that are rotating members of the Security Council at a given time can vote against the imperialist consensus, but only at great risk to themselves. The economic, political and military levers at the disposal of the imperialists are many.
In contrast, ambassadors of the Non-Aligned Movement to the IAEA unanimously voted on Feb. 29 in favor of a communiqué supporting Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear activities. That, however, is not the international community that the U.S. corporate media talks about.
‘Nuclear issue’ a pretext for U.S. aggression
For years, Iran has been engaged in developing its nuclear technology. Despite the imperialist propaganda claiming that a country sitting on a “sea of oil” does not need nuclear energy, Iran is expected to run out of oil for export in 10 to 15 years due to a huge increase in domestic consumption and a projected decline in production.
Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has allowed hundreds of inspections of all its facilities. Numerous IAEA reports have found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program.
In December 2007, a U.S. national intelligence estimate summarized the analyses of 16 U.S. spy agencies. The estimate concluded that Iran had not had a weapons program since Fall 2003. No evidence was offered of a weapons program that had been ongoing up to 2003.
The new round of sanctions followed the report by IAEA chief Mohammad el Baradei, indicating that previous concerns and issues regarding Iran’s nuclear file had been cleared and that the country had cooperated with the investigations. But now the United States has raised a new set of allegations and provided new “evidence” that the IAEA needs to investigate.
Iran has insisted that the file of its nuclear program should go back to the IAEA governing board instead of being handled by the U.N. Security Council. The whole justification for referring the case to the Security Council was the persistent U.S. accusation that Iran had a nuclear weapons program. Now, with even the U.S. spy agencies refuting this claim, there is no justification for Iran’s case not to return to the IAEA.
Iran’s growing influence in Middle East
There is no legal justification for a third round of sanctions against Iran, but the issue of sanctions has nothing to do with international law. Israel has some 200 nuclear warheads and no action is taken against its nuclear weapons program—which, unlike Iran’s, actually exists.
Ever since the 1979 Iranian revolution, the U.S. government and other imperialist powers have been trying to destabilize Iran. Under the Shah, Iran was a U.S. client state. Now, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a bourgeois-nationalist regime that stands for Iran’s independence. For this reason, regime change is the real U.S. policy toward Iran. The nuclear allegations are nothing but a pretext for U.S. hostility.
From Washington’s perspective, it is bad enough that Iran’s oil now belongs to Iran, not foreign oil corporations. It is bad enough that the economy of the country with a population of 70 million is largely closed to direct foreign investment.
But what is even worse is that Iran has become a powerful force in the region.
Iran has strongly influenced Iraq and Afghanistan. Contrary to Washington’s propaganda, Iran’s influence in those countries has not been to fund their respective resistance movements. Its role has not been a revolutionary one.
Ironically, Iran has supported the same governments that U.S. officials installed following the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. But Iran has tried, and largely succeeded, in influencing these states away from hostility and in the direction of establishing cordial relationships with Tehran.
More importantly, Iran is the one state in the region on which resistance forces in Palestine and Lebanon have been able to rely. Iran has been a source of support for the Hamas movement in Palestine and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon. These are precisely the resistance forces that the United States and Israel seek to eliminate.
Overthrowing the Islamic Republic would certainly benefit U.S. imperialism. However, the absence of easy ways to accomplish this goal has caused intense debate in the U.S. ruling establishment.
Ruling class divided over strategy for regime change
The March 11 resignation of Admiral William Fallon, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has raised speculation of the renewed possibility of a U.S. bombing of Iran.
While not opposed to war and aggression in principle, Fallon was opposed to a U.S. attack on Iran. Fallon is among many military and political leaders who believe the risks of attacking Iran are unacceptably high.
According to a former intelligence officer, Colonel W. Patrick Lang, Fallon had said privately at the time of his confirmation that an attack on Iran “isn’t going to happen on my watch.” In the summer of 2007, when Cheney was encouraging the Bush administration to bomb Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran, Fallon made the statement: “We have to figure out a way to come to an arrangement [with Iran].”
Fallon’s resignation does not necessarily signal an impending military attack on Iran. But it does remove an obstacle for the Cheney grouping.
The U.S. drive for regime change in Iran has not only been pursued diplomatically through the United Nations, but also through aggressive military maneuvers and threats. It is now more likely that the military component will take on greater importance.
As the murder of millions of people in the Iraq, Vietnam and Korean wars and countless others demonstrate, people’s lives are of no concern to imperialist leaders; only the interests of the corporations they serve matter.
The principal factor that has created the division in the U.S. ruling class regarding Iran is the resistance they have encountered from the peoples of the Middle East. It is this resistance that forces debates on whether further invasions and attacks will actually serve U.S. imperialism’s interests. Rather than placing their hopes for peace on bourgeois politicians, U.S. workers must throw their full support behind those standing against the empire.
