First Published: The Call, Vol. 3, No. 4, January 1975.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Your article criticizing U.S. communists calling for the overthrow of the Shah of Iran (October 1974) makes two errors: on the nature of the united front against the two superpowers, and on Iran’s objective world position.
1) Inside the united front, groups “make mutual concessions for the sake of long-term cooperation” and “assist friendly parties and armies to consolidate and expand.”(Mao) (Class struggle continues, but in limited form.)
This distinguishes united fronts from other types of alliance where unity around a particular issue has no effect on other relations with member groups. We might, for example, join with a section of the U.S. ruling class to fight for legislation banning Rhodesian imports. But this tactical alliance must never serve as an excuse to lighten up our attacks on them or assist their growth in any way.
Because a united front is based on the principle contradiction, however, we are willing to make concessions to allies within it, to assist them “to consolidate and expand” so they can help remove the main obstacle to progress at the moment. But this makes it critical that we distinguish between those forces whose principle aspect is opposition to the main enemy and those with whom we can ally on this or that issue but whose principle aspect is unity with imperialism. Otherwise we may find ourselves assisting the growth of our main enemy.
2) One always divides into two-even the enemy. Contradiction is not proof that two forces are characterized primarily by opposition to each other. Police may strike for higher wages, for example, but it would be one-sided and subjective to take this as the primary aspect of their relationship with the bourgeoisie.
But your article on Iran cites a few examples of this without looking at that relationship all-sidedly. You cite Iran’s membership in OPEC, but not its sabotage of OPEC’s main weapon, the oil boycott. (The Shah bragged on U.S. TV “Not one drop of Iranian oil has been diverted from U.S. ports.”) You cite Iran’s new oil agreement but not the fact that it requires Iran to expand production by ten per cent every year, thus undercutting future oil boycotts and nationalizations. (Several geologists suggest that this production increase will deplete all of Iran’s known resources by the time Iran is scheduled to take them over.)
This letter is too short to cite more than a few examples, but the evidence convinces me that the objective position of the Shah’s government is characterized primarily by:
Dependency on U.S. imperialism – Iran’s government, unlike most Third World countries, is not a compromise between imperialism (and local compradors) and other class forces inside Iran. Rather, like South Vietnam’s Thieu and the Chilean junta, the Shah’s reign was imposed from without by a CIA-financed coup in 1953 against the popular government of Muhammed Mossadeq which had nationalized Irani oil. The result is a solidly comprador government that keeps its power only through a repressive machine maintained by U.S. arms shipments.
As a “junior partner” of U.S. imperialism – Defeat in Vietnam and increasing competition from the USSR (and Western Europe and Japan) has forced the U.S. to shift from a policy of direct intervention to the use of favored regional “partners” to protect U.S. imperial interests (the Nixon Doctrine).
This explains why U.S. military aid to Iran was stepped up so sharply in the late 60s, including the recent $2.4 billion arms deal. The U.S. is arming the Shah to carry out U.S. “police operations” in the Middle East. In return he receives the support necessary to survive and certain privileges in the area.
The principal challenge to U.S. hegemony against which the Shah has directed his energies is the PFLOAG in Dhofar and Oman. Whether this is a genuine revolutionary movement or a move by the social-imperialists to move out the U.S. (which you claim but offer no evidence), the Shah’s fight is clearly in the interest of his U.S. masters.
Even more significant, Iran – alone among Muslim states – gives direct aid to Israel, including the training of Israeli pilots in the use of U.S. Phantom jets.
So U.S. arms shipments to Iran are not an accident but a policy of enlightened self-interest designed to strengthen its junior partner as a bulwark against anti-imperialist forces in the Middle East.
This means that failure to support revolutionary movements in Iran (whether proletarian or national bourgeois) and failure to oppose U.S. arms shipments to the Shah results objectively in the strengthening of U.S. imperialism. Support the Shah on issues where his interests coincide with ours by all means. But don’t liquidate the struggle against imperialist agents because they occasionally want a more important, better-paid position.
Roger Tauss, Phil., Pa.