US and Australian hostility to Iran is not driven by concern at the regime’s repression at home but by competition for influence in the Middle East, writes Miro Sandev
Iran vowed to retaliate with another attack on Israel following the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has accused Iran of “promoting conflict and division” in the Middle East. Many US and Israeli politicians have threatened to wipe it off the face of the earth.
But it is the US, Israel and their allies that are the biggest threat to peace in the region. Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, armed and supported by the US. It has carried out assassinations of the political leader of Hamas and a senior commander of Hezbollah, torpedoing ceasefire talks.
The US killed millions of Iraqis and Afghans through its brutal invasion and occupation of those countries. Its ally Saudi Arabia has murdered half a million Yemenis.
Western hostility to Iran is not based on respect for human rights or freedom. It comes from the fact that Iran has become one of the main imperialist rivals to the West in the Middle East.
But at the same time, we shouldn’t have any illusions in the Iranian state. It is not leading any genuinely anti-imperialist struggle but instead has its own imperialist interests in mind.
From ally to 1979
For many decades Iran was a loyal ally to Western imperialism.
Following the Second World War nationalist sentiment against Western control of Iran’s oil grew. In 1951 Mohammed Mossadegh was elected Prime Minister and nationalised the oil industry.
But he was removed from power by a military coup engineered by the CIA with the help of British intelligence. A new military dictatorship was created under the Shah. For the next 25 years Iran became one the main pillars of US imperialism in the Middle East. In 1973 the capital Tehran became the Middle East headquarters for the CIA.
The Shah brutally suppressed all the movements of trade unionists, national minorities as well as the communist and Islamist opposition.
The current Iranian state emerged out of the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah. The Islamist movement of the Ayatollahs successfully placed itself at the head of the revolution and then repressed the workers’ movement and the left.
While it calls itself the Islamic Republic, Iran is a capitalist state with a ruling class dominated by an Islamic clergy that follows Shia Islam. The state strictly enforces a version of religious law, including repressive laws targeting women and LGBTQI+ people.
It ruthlessly crushes all forms of protest, including the Woman, Life, Freedom movement of 2022, discriminates against national minorities and routinely imprisons union activists and strikers.
The state still controls a large part of the economy and dominates large-scale industries, media, communications, transport and many other sectors. And it owns the oil industry, which makes up about 40 per cent of its total revenue.
The Islamic nature of the regime means some in the West see it as fanatical and dangerous. In fact it has been willing to strike numerous deals with the West—from an agreement over its nuclear program in 2015, co-operation with the US against ISIS and a recent deal brokered by China to ease tensions with Saudi Arabia.
Its ruling class has the same interests as all capitalist classes—growing its own economic and political power, while preserving its existing privileges.
This means it is locked into imperialist competition with other states in the region—including Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. It often casts its regional ambitions in the language of religion, saying that it wants to spread the Islamic revolution.
The US has wanted to get rid of the Iranian regime since 1979. It bankrolled a devastating war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s and has imposed years of economic sanctions punishing ordinary Iranians.
Iran has tried to counter US power by befriending both Russia and China. China is Iran’s largest trading partner and buys some 90 per cent of Iran’s oil.
Iran has been able to build the largest military in the region with about 700,000 active soldiers. Israel’s military is much more technologically advanced because of US aid. But despite the US sanctions, Iran has developed an advanced ballistic missiles program and has its own drone industry.
The regime uses the deep hatred towards US imperialism and Israel among ordinary Iranians to defend itself against internal protests and pose as anti-imperialist. Iran touts its support for Palestinian liberation, framing it as a fight for Islam against Zionism.
Iran backs groups that align with its own regional goals and broadly with its Islamist ideology.
This includes Hamas. However, it cut funding to Hamas when it refused to support dictator Bashar Assad in the Syrian civil war, showing just how fickle its pro-Palestinian stance can be when it comes into conflict with its imperialist goals.
And despite the year-long genocide in Gaza, Iran has so far been very timid towards Israel, carrying out only one largely symbolic strike on Israeli territory. It wants to maintain an image of support for Palestine while avoiding open war with Israel.
It supported the Houthis with arms and funding in the Yemen civil war—in part due to Iran’s antagonism with Saudi Arabia.
With Western backing, Saudi Arabia and the UAE waged a seven-year brutal campaign to crush the Houthi movement. This led to 400,000 deaths and four million people displaced by the end of 2021.
Iran also backs Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah has a much closer relationship with Iran than Hamas and the Houthis.
Iran helped to create Hezbollah, with the Iranian revolutionary guards training them initially. It has built up Hezbollah capabilities over decades, particularly its longer range missiles, so it can act as a deterrent against Israeli attacks on Iran.
Bush and the Axis of Evil
In 2002 US President George W Bush included Iran in his so-called Axis of Evil—meaning that it was now a target for pre-emptive strikes by the US.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was seen as part of knocking over Iran as well. One US military planner said, “People think that Bush has been focused on Saddam Hussein since 9/11 but in my view if you had to name one nation that was his focus all the way along, it was Iran.”
The US government falsely claimed that Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.
In 2005 the US drew up lists of bombing targets inside Iran. Teams of US troops were ordered into Iran undercover to collect targeting data and establish connections with anti-regime groups.
But Iraq turned into a massive failure for the US. The US invasion led to more than one million deaths and destroyed much of the country.
The invasion was supposed to re-establish the US as the dominant power in the region for decades. Its aim was to install a pro-US government and take control of Iraq’s vast oil reserves. But the war left the US weakened.
Meanwhile Iran grew much more powerful. It became a key player in Iraqi politics, making close connections with the Shia factions in the Iraqi ruling class.
In 2014 ISIS took over huge swathes of northern Iraq. The US did not want to commit more ground troops to fight ISIS. So an uneasy alliance emerged with Iranian-backed Shia militias fighting ISIS on the ground as the US providing bombing power.
Iranian-backed militias took credit for defeating ISIS in Iraq. These militias are still grouped together in the Popular Mobilisation Forces, which have been carrying out attacks on US military bases since 7 October.
In Syria, Iran also expanded its influence. It helped prop up the Assad dictatorship following the revolution in 2011 and the civil war that emerged from it.
Through this Iran established military bases almost at the border with Israel, as well as more political influence in Syria.
The US and allies
In 2015 as an attempt to recognise this new reality, then US President Barack Obama signed a deal with Iran.
This deal would end the sanctions and eventually allow Iran to fit into the US’s vision for capitalism in the Middle East, if it ended its nuclear program.
This suited parts of the US ruling class, who wanted to avoid further wars after their defeat in Iraq and focus US efforts on countering China.
Another part of the ruling class was against the nuclear deal. Trump sided with them in 2018 and ripped up the deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has always been against the nuclear deal and has long called for the US to attack Iran.
The Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Syria in April, and its assassination of Hamas’s leader during his visit to Iran, are both part of an attempt to provoke Iran into all-out war. Netanyahu hopes that such a war would force the US to intervene more dramatically.
Regardless of whether Trump or Kamala Harris becomes the next US President, the US hostility to Iran will remain.
The US is still the strongest imperialist power in the region and the main source of death, destruction and chaos. As socialists, we must organise against the imperialist aggression of our state and its allies first and foremost.
That means opposing the preparations for war on Iran by Israel and any US or Australian involvement. It also means opposing all the other Western imperialist interventions in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere.
But that doesn’t mean cheering for the Iranian state or the so-called Axis of Resistance.
Instead, we look to the revolutionary movements of ordinary people, rising up against their own capitalist rulers and the bloody wars they sponsor. The best way we can support them here and build solidarity is to organise against the genocide in Palestine and against the push for war on Iran.
