Statement of Paremvasi.

The uprising that has been unfolding in Iran in recent weeks places on the agenda the possible overthrow of yet another government that is not friendly to the United States. The question facing left-wing, progressive, and anti-imperialist forces is what stance they should adopt toward such a possibility.

History has shown that there are mass uprisings that lead to progressive changes, as well as mass uprisings that lead to reactionary changes. The criterion for determining the character of an uprising is not its trigger or its scale, but the direction it takes—something that is the resultant of many factors, and not simply of a justified popular anger over the cost of living, poverty, and inflation.

The uprising in Iran is developing at a time when: (a) Israel and the United States have accelerated to an unprecedented degree their decades-long objective of overthrowing the Iranian government and the Islamic regime. (b) Israel and the United States have achieved significant operational successes against the Palestinian Resistance and Hezbollah, have established a friendly regime composed of forces from the former ISIS in Syria, and have struck Iran itself with targeted attacks and assassinations, demonstrating the degree of penetration they have within the forces of what until recently was called the Axis of Resistance. (c) The United States and Trump are engaged in a frenzy of threats, bombings, and kidnappings (Venezuela), the coercion of countries independent of the U.S. (Cuba), and even pressure on their own NATO allies (Denmark), seeking the overthrow of every government not aligned with the Euro-Atlantic camp while intimidating the rest into full alignment.

The notion that uprisings occur in a vacuum, simply as expressions of genuine and just popular protest—especially in geopolitically critical regions of the planet—is dangerous and profoundly mistaken. This is demonstrated by Maidan Square, organized by the U.S. embassy in Kyiv in 2014, or Tahrir Square, which brought the dictator Sisi to power in 2013 and turned Egypt into a breakwater against Arab anger over the genocide in Palestine ten years later.

To those who seek to identify the class and popular character of the uprising in Iran, it is worth recalling the criminal economic sanctions imposed on all countries that are not friendly toward the United States—sanctions that lead to social misery and economic collapse. Indeed, aren’t these sanctions against Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran themselves a fundamentally class issue, a principal mechanism for impoverishing the weakest social strata so that the population turns toward pro-Western political forces?

However massive such uprisings may be, and however just their starting points may be—against poverty, unemployment, and inflation—they do not unfold inside a vacuum. They are not merely a “movemental space” where different forces compete for hegemony—from working-class to pro-monarchist, from popular to pro-Zionist, from innocent to criminal, from spontaneous to recruited by intelligence services—and where we simply wait to see the “strongest faction” prevail. Every movement of the masses bears a stamp and a direction. Most often it is positive, progressive, and revolutionary. But there are also reactionary uprisings: from the mass counter-revolutions of 1989–91 that led to capitalist restoration, to the “orange revolutions” carried out under the guidance and support of Washington. History teaches that judgment and political reasoning are necessary.

It is clear that the United States and Israel are playing a role in the uprising—they state this publicly. Those who believe that the statements by Trump and Netanyahu are merely fantasies of influence that do not actually exist in Iran overlook the degree of penetration that U.S. and Israeli intelligence services demonstrably had in the previous period. Of course, Iranian society is far from likely to accept the overthrow of the Islamic regime by a new regime subordinate to the United States and neutral toward Israel. The revolutionary past, Zionist crimes, American aggression, the specter of Libya, and the civil war in Syria all act as rallying points for Iranian society, which has far greater resilience than systemic propaganda suggests.

Israeli aggression over the past two years, the frenzy of criminal actions by the Netanyahu government, the genocide in Palestine, and the elimination of every opponent to the Zionist plan for creating a new Middle East leave no room for quiet consciences or comfortable positions of the type “neither with them nor with the others.” Yes, there is a question of democracy in Iran. But let us place it in its real dimensions. The millstones of propaganda may portray the “mullahs” as bloodthirsty dictators, but let us remember that the president of Iran is elected—something that stands in stark contrast to the entirety of the Arab regimes in the region, which are either brutal dictatorships (Egypt and now Syria) or barbaric monarchies (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, etc.). All the key cultural indicators in Iran are far ahead of those in neighboring Arab and Muslim countries, which are free to abolish every human, democratic, and social right, so long as they remain subordinate to the United States and Israel.

It is obvious that the material basis of the uprising is economic destitution, the chronic strangulation caused by Western sanctions, dependence on oil exports, inflation, and also the anti-popular character of the Islamic regime. It is also clear that within Iran, there are forces that view a rapprochement positively with the United States and a neutral stance toward Israel. However, striking at the only government in the region that is friendly to the Palestinian cause and hostile to criminal Israel and American imperialism is not something that left-wing and progressive people should wish for today. Not because they sympathize with the “Islamic Republic,” but because the Left must act politically and be able to foresee the next day—the balance of forces for peoples, for workers, and for Palestine. Every uprising and overthrow is worthwhile if it brings about a better situation, not if it leads more deeply into barbarism, into a new dark age, into exploitation and crime.

For those who, sincerely or as a pretext, profess concern for rights in Iran, let it be remembered that the achievement of those rights cannot coexist with the strengthening and consolidation of the dominance of those who are carrying out genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine—that is, the state-killer Israel.

Those who, for the past two years, have claimed that one’s stance toward Palestine is a criterion dividing the world between human beings and despicable little creatures should remember it today as well. The blood that has soaked—and continues to soak—Gaza is so much that it cannot be forgotten.

Paremvasi is a Greek political organisation of the communist Left.

Η ΠΑΡΕΜΒΑΣΗ είναι πολιτική οργάνωση της Κομμουνιστικής Αριστεράς.

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