[Marxism] Speculation about a U.S. strike against Iran

[Paul Flewers]

A good post from Joaquin B re Iran.

Re the point: '... it's an open question whether even Britain would go along
with the United States at the outset.' Jack Straw lost his job under Tony
Blair as Foreign Secretary because he said that an attack on Iran would be
lunacy. Rumours, unconfirmed, are that US pressure was behind this. Blair
ruled out supporting a nuclear attack on Iran, but that left backing a
conventional attack a possibility. 'Official' Britain -- government
organisations, academics close to the government, the military top brass --
were very worried about the Iraq affair; they are (I imagine) even more
worried about a US attack on Iran.

What about Gordon Brown? He is a strong Atlanticist, but I think he is
looking forward beyond Bush and the neo-cons towards a new US
administration. He and his team are being very non-committal, almost
certainly because they can't yet fathom out precisely what post-Bush US
policy will be. Also, Atlanticism does not mean automatically supporting
everything a US government does. Atlanticism means the paralleling of
British and US imperialist interests, that tying Britain to US imperial
interests is to Britain's advantage. If, as one could argue (and I'm sure
government advisers say this), Bush's foreign adventures, in particular
Iraq, are counter-productive for the USA, they also act against British
imperialist interests. I think that this is what Brown believes, and he is
hoping for a less irrational US foreign policy to emerge post-Bush.

Were Blair still Prime Minister, he would happily and openly support an
attack on Iran. He really loved this sort of thing. But will Gordon Brown
support a US attack on Iran? Privately, he will be very angry about it for
the above reason; publicly, I think he may dither: he can't let down
Britain's 'closest ally' at a time of crisis, but he would look extremely
stupid were he publicly to support, or even not to condemn, such an attack.
I imagine that he's hoping that it won't happen.

Paul F