In the run-up to the 1991-1992 invasion of Iraq, many liberal forces and individuals in the United States revealed their true character by calling for “sanctions, not war.” The same forces called for “inspections, not war” in the months leading to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This kind of “anti-war” position, advocating sanctions instead of war, in effect offers tactical advice to the U.S. government.
Both sanctions and weapons inspections were effective tools the United States used toward the goal of regime change, which ultimately came about when the United States and its junior partners invaded a severely weakened Iraq in 2003. More than 12 years of sanctions had killed over a million Iraqis. The inspections regime had served the purpose of providing legitimacy to the never-ending sanctions, a legitimacy much utilized by “humanitarian” pro-imperialists.
In a June 16 op-ed piece in The New York Times, liberal columnist Nicholas Kristof presents a re-emergence of the “sanctions, not war” line. Kristof, a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes whose resumé as a liberal includes “an emphasis on human rights abuses and social injustices,” according to Wikipedia, recently took a 1,700-mile trip around Iran. Upon his return, he wrote: “To be blunt, sanctions are succeeding as intended: They are inflicting prodigious economic pain on Iranians and are generating discontent.”
But rather than speaking out against the “success” of the sanctions that are “inflicting prodigious economic pain,” Kristof goes on to make a case for the sanctions: “I regret this suffering, and let’s be clear that sanctions are hurting ordinary Iranians more than senior officials. … Yet with apologies to the many wonderful Iranians who showered me with hospitality, I favor sanctions because I don’t see any other way to pressure the regime on the nuclear issue or ease its grip on power. My takeaway is that sanctions are working pretty well.”
Kristof goes on to argue against bombing Iran, not on the basis that preemptively bombing a country is reprehensible, immoral and against international law, but that it is bad policy. Kristof thinks that bombing Iran would result in the opposite of the desired effect of causing the state to “ease its grip on power”—that is, be overthrown. “This success (of the sanctions) makes talk of a military strike on Iranian nuclear sites unwise as well as irresponsible. Aside from the human toll, war would create a nationalist backlash that would cement this regime in place for years to come—just when economic sanctions are increasingly posing a challenge to its survival.”
Kristof is right on one point. Sanctions are not really about the nuclear issue and are in fact being implemented as a means of posing a “challenge to the survival” of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It follows that to the extent that sanctions wreak economic havoc, raise prices, impose shortages of commodities, increase poverty and cause severe hardship on working-class Iranians, bombing Iran is unlikely. If one instrument of regime change is working at least in weakening the state, if not destabilizing it, why would the United States resort to the instrument of war, in which success is in serious doubt?
But, for socialists, anti-war activists or individuals concerned with humanity and social justice, it should be clear that favoring one instrument of regime change over another, advocating one form of aggression that causes hardship, death and destruction over another, supporting sanctions over war, is no progressive position. Supporting sanctions against any country targeted by U.S. imperialism has no place in the U.S. anti-war movement.
The Moscow talks
A third round of negotiations in Moscow on June 18 and 19, between the world powers and Iran, produced no agreement. The talks were described as an “intense and tough exchange of views.” As more details of the terms of the negotiations come out, it is not difficult to understand why the talks did not yield an agreement. The extensive U.S./EU sanctions on Iran’s banking system, making it impossible for Iran to sell oil through normal channels in the international financial system, were not even on the table—the West refused to negotiate on them.
Reportedly, in the last session of the negotiations in Baghdad in May, the P5+1 (U.S., UK, France, Germany, China, Russia) made an “offer of fuel supplies for Tehran’s research reactor and relief in sanctions on the sale of commercial aircraft parts to Iran.” Their demand on Tehran was “to stop producing higher-grade uranium, ship any stockpile out of the country and close down an underground enrichment facility, Fordow.” In the June 18 and 19 talks in Moscow, the West demanded a response to this offer.
This offer makes clear that what is taking place is not a real negotiation, with give and take on both sides, but the delivery of an ultimatum to Iran. The United States is the main driving force behind ensuring that the negotiations fail. The tactic is to pretend to be negotiating in good faith while presenting demands that the other side cannot possibly meet, and then blaming the other side for the failure of the negotiations.
This was the tactic the United States used before the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. In what were called negotiations, U.S. representatives presented the Rambouillet Accord on a “take it or leave it” basis to the president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic. Rambouillet would have required Yugoslavia to sign away its sovereignty and accept a NATO occupation of its soil. When Yugoslavia’s government refused, as might have been expected, President Clinton’s administration claimed that it had no choice but to bomb Yugoslavia since negotiations had failed.
What is the West offering Iran for halting uranium enrichment to 20 percent purity, shipping all of its stored 20 percent enriched uranium out of the country, and shutting down its only enrichment plant that is virtually impenetrable by a U.S./Israeli bombing attack? A supply of 20 percent enrichment—which Iran already has and is being told to ship out—and the easing of sanctions in the form of airplane parts!
Iran has repeatedly declared its openness to meeting these demands, in effect foregoing part of its right to nuclear development as specified under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A June 18 statement by President Ahmadinejad reiterates this position: “From the beginning the Islamic Republic has stated that if European countries provided 20 percent enriched fuel for Iran, it would not enrich to this level.” In exchange for these concessions, Iran is demanding the lifting of the sanctions. It should not surprise anyone that Iran refuses to give up significant parts of its nuclear program to get spare parts for airplanes.
Iran has been slapped with four rounds of U.N. sanctions and severe recent U.S./EU sanctions purportedly for violations of the Non Proliferation Treaty and its alleged plans to build nuclear weapons. But even if the accusations, for which there is no evidence, were valid, the sanctions would still not be justified. Israel is in possession of an estimated 200 nuclear weapons and is not a signatory of the NPT. There are no sanctions or other forms of punishment on Israel. India and Pakistan, both of which have nuclear bombs, are not under sanctions and have even signed contracts with Western corporations on nuclear technology.
The essence of the conflict is not an effort at stopping nuclear proliferation. If that were the case, Western imperialist powers would hardly be appropriate crusaders for nuclear non-proliferation, considering their refusal to dismantle their terrifying stockpiles of nuclear weapons. The essence of the conflict is that, from the imperialist perspective, an independent country that does not take its dictates from Washington is not entitled to nuclear weapons or nuclear energy.
More precisely, as far as the U.S. government is concerned, Iran is not entitled to exist unless it changes its ways by aligning itself with the U.S. strategy in the Middle East, opening its markets to international corporations and allowing the plunder of its resources by inviting the oil giants to “invest” in its oil industry. No wonder that when Iran’s nuclear program was launched in the 1970s, when Iran was under the murderous grip of the U.S. client dictator, the Shah, Iran was not sanctioned, economically strangulated or threatened with being bombed, nor were its scientists assassinated. Instead, the U.S. and the European imperialists offered Iran assistance and rushed to get commercial contracts signed.
As the imperialists are settling on sanctions as their primary instrument of regime change, it is more important than ever to take a stand not just against war but against sanctions that are in effect an act of war. The working class in the United States has nothing to gain from U.S. foreign policy, whose aim is to maintain and expand U.S. global domination for the benefit of the capitalist class—the banks and corporations, the 1 percent.
No Sanctions, No War on Iran!
