[Militant, No 529, 21 November 1980, p. 10-11]
Which future for Middle East revolution?
The Iran-Iraq war exploded onto the world almost without warning, like a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky. Such is the underlying instability and uncertainty of our time.
Only in August the Economist Intelligence Unit concluded that, „For the short term, Iraq has far too many international difficulties and weaknesses to contemplate an outright confrontation even with a crumbling Iranian regime and its demoralised army.“
Weeks ago the capitalists were crowing over the weakening of OPEC in the face of a world glut of oil. The West had, we were informed, anything from 100 to 120 day’s supply of oil. Now the alarm bells, if not actually ringing, are being brought to readiness.
Not only has the war cut off Iran’s modest exports (about 700,000 barrels a day) but more importantly Iranian bombing has stopped Iraq’s exports of nearly 3 million barrels a day. By the end of the war the oil production and refining capacities of the two countries will have been damaged enough to be unserviceable for many months. Suddenly the ’surplus‘ seems dangerously little!
The capitalist states are even more afraid of the possibility, still not ruled out, that the war may spread to the southern end of the Gulf, to the Hormuz Straits, despite the assurances of the belligerents. Sixty per cent of the West’s oil flows through these narrow straits.
The Gulf war not only reveals the inherent instability of the Middle East, but underlines the relative weakening of the super-powers, US imperialism and the Russian bureaucracy. No longer can they resolve things rapidly through pressure on client regimes or by pulling the strings of puppet states. As a ‚Times‘ editorial remarked, „the days are long gone when ‚crisis management‘ by Moscow and Washington was thought to be a remedy universally applicable to the world’s trouble spots.“
Despite having built up the Shah’s regime as the West’s „policeman“ in the Gulf (Iran was the biggest purchaser in the Third world, spending half its oil revenues on arms sometimes more sophisticated than those available to NATO), the imperialist powers are now virtually paralysed.
It has been said that the USA and the other NATO states would be forced to intervene if the Straits of Hormuz were completely blocked. But on the other hand, as ‚The Times‘ solemnly warned, a direct intervention would open a Pandora’s box of „unpredictable consequences“.
Gulf sheikdoms rattled
The reactionary Arab sheikdoms around the Gulf have already been badly shaken by the effects of the revolutionary movement in Iran, and in supporting Iraq. They are hoping to rid themselves of the threat of revolt from their own workers and peasants. But the spectre of revolution will not go away so quickly or easily. Like the Iranian revolution and the uprising in Mecca last year, these latest events will ensure that. things will never be the same again for these rotten regimes. They can see no end to the nightmares of burning oil wells and refineries.
Iraq’s declared war-aims are the establishment of Iraqi sovereignty in the Shatt al-Arab waterway and Arab control of three small islands in the Gulf near Hormuz. Iraq is completely landlocked except for the Shatt al-Arab, and for the whole of the lower 40 miles the Iranians control the east bank. Given the revolutionary developments in Iran and the coming to powerof the Khomeini regime with its influence on Iraqi Shiites – the Iraqis may well have felt a threat to their strategic position.
The Iraqi Ba’ath regime describes itself as „socialist“, but in reality it is not an economy of complete state ownership. Despite limited land reform and the domination of the economy by the publicly owned oil industry, landlordism and capitalism have remained in Iraq. The regime of Saddam Hussein (he was in effect the ’strong man‘ behind the President) has only consolidated himself on the basis of the most ruthless totalitarianism.
Amnesty International has ample dossiers on the murderous methods of the Ba’ath. That regime has become a by-word in the Middle East for torture, repression and the complete denial of democratic freedoms.
Despite attempts by Hussein to build up his own popularity by trying to raise living standards and by stage managing Assembly „elections“ this year, the corruption within the regime and the political repression have continued to create an underground opposition. The Iranian revolution has only added to the pressures on Hussein.
The Ba’ath government is overwhelmingly dominated by Sunni Moslems, but the biggest single religious group in Iraq are the Shia, co-religionists of Khomeini. In the last two years, discontent, as in Iran, has channelled itself through the medium of the Shia clergy. Earlier this year the government arrested and executed leading Iraqi Shia Ayatollahs. In a further attempt to stem the tide of opposition, thousands of Shia were forcibly expelled from Iraq on the flimsiest pretexts, over technicalities of citizenship, for example.
All of these factors will have loomed large in the final decision to go to war with Iran. Hussein may hold himself up as the champion of the ethnic Arabs in Iran (Khuzestan or Arabistan) but there is not the slightest indication that they would be any better off under the Ba’ath than under the. Khomeini regime.
In reality, the .war which began in earnest in September is an escalation of a border war which has been going on for months. Wars do not arise upon the whim of leaders but from the social and national antagonisms. The new war in the area is not simply a product of ‚Iraqi aggression‘ , it is the result of these contradictions which were created and fostered by imperialism in the past.
As in other. areas of the ex-colonial world, the retreat of imperialism from direct colonial control bequeathed „states“ that are a patchwork of nationalities. The borders of the modern „Third World“ states have more to do with the contending interests of the old colonial powers than with any ’natural‘ divisions on national or ethnic lines.
Decaying capitalism and landlordism have kept these states in a position of poverty and backwardness and this in turn has enormously exacerbated the national tensions.
Imperialism’s legacy
Marxism cannot hold as sacrosanct the artificial states and boundaries left behind by capitalism. Despite the revolution in Iran, the theocratic government of Khomeini offers no better policy on the question of the nationalities than does Hussein and from that point of view, socialists cannot support either side in the war.
But the question does not end there. More is at stake than simply territorial or national issues. The development and direction: of the revolution in Iran needs also to be considered. As ‚Militant‘ has explained in earlier articles, the special conditions in Iran led the revolutionary movement to adopt a religious character. Revolutions are processes that often encompass many years, and even now, two years after the movement began, Iranian society has yet to settle key social and political questions once and for all.
The strikes of the workers forced the revolutionary government to nationalise most big industries and the banks and insurance companies. But the question remains as to whether or not the Khomeini regime is capable of pulling together the strands of production into a planned, state-owned economy, even on a bureaucratic basis. The issue of political control hasalso finally to be settled.
Recently, oil production was only about one third of the pre-revolutionary levels and exports one sixth; industry limps along at about 50% of its previous capacity; inflation and unemployment are growing problems. In February the ‚Communist‘ Tudeh Party’s newspaper complained that the state had only confiscated „270 property owners“ while the vast majority of the 2,000 „big capitalists involved with the former regime“ had come out unscathed.
Even a radical Moslem paper (‚Azadergan‘ [?]) asked, „For what reason are the capitalists authorised to continue fleecing the mostazafin (the underprivileged)? By what miracles are the feudal lords raising their heads in our country?“ These statements and questions may exaggerate the real position, but they must reflect a degree of uncertainty over the social gains of the revolution and the direction of the government and the economy.
The main political force in Iran is still the Moslem militia, the Pasdaran, which has been used by the Khomeini clique to suppress the independent workers‘ organisations. The left papers, parties and militias were driven underground earlier this year. In the power struggle between President Banisadr, it is clear that the Moslem clergy control the real levers of state power. The war will have an effect on these questions.
The Iraqi Ba’ath clearly expected that the revolutionary changes in Iran would have weakened the latter’s armed forces. It is true that most high-ranking officers were purged last year and dozens were executed. Many units elected their own commanders and refused to . recognise the authority of appointed officers. The armed forces were a microcosm of society at large.
‚Le Monde‘ reported, „Pro-test, as in the factories and universities, is rife among the enlisted men, the NCOs and the younger officers … regiment after regiment, unit after unit, ignores orders to go off into the troubled areas of Kurdistan or Khuzestan“
These revolutionary changes, coupled with some shortages of parts have curtailed the use of advanced military hardware in the war.
Nevertheless, among the revolutionary soldiers, among the Moslem militiamen and within the masses as a whole, the war will be seen as a revolutionary war. At least for the moment, the Khomeini regime will be strengthened. The Iranian masses are well aware of the fact that former generals of the Shah have been in and out of Baghdad over recent months and that they, along with the former Prime Minister Bakhtiar, have called for the overthrow of the Khomeini regime.
But it is one thing for the workers to oppose Khomeini from the standpoint of workers‘ democracy – opposing the obscurantism and bureaucracy of the Muslim clerics – and it is something quite different for these reactionaries in exile to call for his overthrow.
The generals who have been courting the Baghdad government would be willing to see all the gains of the revolution drowned in the blood of the workers, with the re-establishment of the old SAVAK (military-police) regime. Even under normal circumstances the war could have been expected to produce a rallying around the government.
The Iraqi threat temporarily at least consolidates the national consciousness. That would be even greater where the masses see the war as one against the former Shah’s henchmen.
The rapid development of the war has led to attempts to re-establish the Iranian army on more regular lines. It is possible that. such a re-establishment, even without the Shah’s generals, could present an alternative power base opposed to the Muslim clergy and militia. But at least for the moment, the bulk of the fighting on the ground, on the Iranian side, has been conducted by the militias, backed up by thousands of civilian volunteers.
It has been the ferocious resistance of these elements which has surprised the Iraqi army strategists. Noting the tenacity of the defence of Korramshahr and Abadan, ‚The Times‘ commented: „Never invade a revolution.“ At the time of the abortive American raid to free the hostages, Khomeini threatened to defend Iran with a militia of „twenty million“ and under pressure, the government may well order a general mobilisation on the basis of the militias that are already there.
The authorities in Abadan appealed .to the population to dig trenches and to fight street by street. It is one thing to lob shells into a city from several miles away, but the Iraqi forces have found that it is entirely different occupying it. The capture of Korramshahr has been painfully slow and it seems that the Iraqi generals are reluctant to commit ground troops to the battle, probably for fear of their reliability.
Whatever the future fortunes of the war, they will inevitably affect the social developments in Iran. In the aftermath, the social gains of the revolution may come under threat: more likely the social and economic gains would be consolidated, but the democratic rights of the workers would be challenged one way or another – either by the clerical bureaucracy or by a new military bureaucracy.
But it would be wrong fatalistically to accept that the gains of the revolution could only be consolidated on these lines. The workers‘ movement itself could play the decisive role in the future. The Tudeh Party claims to organise 700,000 workers in trade unions. If the party based its programme and policy on the outlook of the Bolsheviks then it would be possible to accelerate the revolutionary changes, but that would be on the basis of a democratic workers‘ state that would end the war.
Bolshevik workers party needed
A workers‘ party would have to set itself the task of breaking the masses away from the reactionary clergy, inscribing on its banner Bolshevik demands: for the extension and development of workers‘, peasants‘ and soldiers‘ committees; workers‘ control of industry; land to the peasants; the organisation of a popular militia based on the trade unions and peasant unions; the granting of the right of all nations to self determination; and an international appeal to the Iraqi troops.
The regime of the Ayatollah’s can never solve the national and international questions facing the Iranian masses. Only a workers‘ government can really guarantee the social advances and end the war. For what forces of Marxism do exist in Iran, the war is an opportunity to point out the need for a fraternal federation of democratic socialist Middle East states.
Likewise, for the Ba’ath government in Iraq, the war will usher in unexpected results. Hussein calculated that a swift victory would enhance his own prestige at home and abroad. But after weeks of war, the Iraqis have gained a few square miles of desert and have a tenuous hold on Korramshahr – achieved at enormous expense in lives and economic dislocation.
Ironically, the Iraqi economy is more dependent on its oil revenues than Iran’s and may have suffered similar long-term damage. Hussein’s own position may come under threat more than ever before after this debacle, not least from opposition elements within the Iraqi army itself.
Iraqi and Iranian workers and students will be justifiably horrified by the war. But the worst possible reaction would be an uncritical support of their „own“ government rather than judging the issue from a class standpoint.
Iraqi and Iranian workers and students in Britain will be justifiably horrified by the war. But the worst possible reaction would be an uncritical support of their „own“ government, rather than judging the issue from a class standpoint. The only policy that will genuinely benefit the working masses of the whole region is a policy of revolutionary struggle at home and internationalism in the wider context.
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