[R-G] Debate on Iran's Role in the Predominantly Arab World

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

The basic reality that the Arabs need to confront is that "In the Arab
region, there are three main powers (USA/"Israel," Iran, and Turkey)
and two projects (US/Zionist and Iranian)," and the political
conclusion to be drawn from it is that "The main enemy of all
anti-Imperialists, and of the Arab liberation project, is US
Imperialism and Zionism.  Any other contradictions are secondary.
Therefore, those who say that 'Iran is more dangerous than the USA' or
'Iran is more dangerous than Israel' are not only not objective, but
their analysis serves US Imperialist interests. . ." (Hisham Bustani,
"Setting Priorities Straight in the Struggle:
On Iran and the Iranian Role in the Arab Region,"
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bustani250607.html>, now also
available in Spanish at
<http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=53049>).  Within these
parameters there can be a lot of debate. -- Yoshie

<http://www.haloscan.com/comments/yoshie/bustani250607/#170204>
I think it is rather ridiculous to accuse Iran of having hegemonic
aspirations for not taking up arms in sympathy with the Taliban or
Saddam, or perhaps Dr. Bustani feels that Iran should have cut off
ties to all centers of power in both countries simply because the US
decided to invade?

Rehashing Saddam's propaganda and that of the Gulf aristocracies about
the 'occupation' of Ahwaz and the islands of Persian Gulf is
particularly worrisome; it acts as poor cover for real expansionist
projects which have already shown the kind of harm they can inflict on
the region.

The truth is Iran publicly and quite loudly opposed the invasions of
both Afghanistan and Iraq, but has preferred to engage the
powers-at-be in those countries politically (which it has done with
some success) rather than turn the entire region into a battle zone.

I beleive Dr. Bustani is also mistaken in dismissing political and
military strugles against indigenous imperial agents such as are found
in the Fatah movement and the Siniora government as 'sectarian', when
these projects have clearly been taken on only reluctantly and when it
became apparent that there was no recourse. Interestingly Dr. Bustani
manages to reverse his position in the Iraqi case, dismissing the
Shiite led government as 'US Sponsored' (Though the only parties the
US funded and supported found themselves squarely outside the
government), and condemning those he feels have not adequately
distanced themselves from it. Dr. Bustani never explicity discusses
why he believes that US sponsored Palestinian and Lebanese governments
should be revered by the Liberation Movements and the one in Iraq
shunned, so we can only hope his analysis in not informed by some kind
of latent anti-Iranian/anti-Muslim/Shiite sentiment.

I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Bustani's conclusions, especially
about the role of Western anti-Imperialists and the pitfalls that need
to be avoided, but I would also warn against trying to build pan-Arab
nationalist sentiment at the cost of demonizing Iran and it's attempts
to counter the influence of an Empire eager to annihilate it.
masoud | 06.28.07 - 2:23 am | #

<http://www.haloscan.com/comments/yoshie/bustani250607/#170312>
Hisham Bustani is absolutely right that Iran is pursuing its own
hegemonic goals in the region. It's about time that this be
recognized.

For those who keep saying that Iran never occupied anyone else's
territory, please note, as HB did in passing, that Iran occupied and
continues to occupy the islands of Tanb al-Kubra, Tanb as-Sughra and
Abu Musa in the Arabian Gulf, that it controls and brutally suppresses
the ethnic Arabs in southwestern Iran, and that it has repeatedly
violated Afghanistan's sovereignty - beginning back in the 1970s when
it was Iranian subversion of the progressive regime in Afghanistan
that first prompted the revolutionary authorities there to call in
help from a very reluctant Soviet Union.

More recently, Iran backed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, sending
the 20,000-30,000-man Badr Brigade militia into Iraq alongside the
American invasion force. Those sectarian militiamen who had spent 20
odd years training in Iran went on to form the backbone of the puppet
security services set up by the Americans in Iraq.

The US invasion of Iraq took place while the regime in Tehran was that
of the liberal Khatimi. When he was replaced by the conservative
Ahmadinajad, there were repercussions in Iraq. Specifically, the Iraqi
Shi'i sectarian cleric Muqtada as-Sadr - a protege of Iran's
conservatives - moved from opposition to the US occupation of Iraq to
cooperating with the other Shi'i sectarian clerical forces that are a
part of the US-backed political structure. Muqtada's party joined the
puppet government installed by the United States and though it has
since withdrawn from the government, the Jaysh al-Mahdi militia run by
Muqtada continues to work in tandem with the puppet security forces.

There are clashes between the US and Iran for control of Iraq, but the
US continues to rely on security forces that have now become largely
the fiefdom of Muqtada as-Sadr, who elbowed the Badr Brigades out to a
large degree.

And since February 2006 the Shi'i sectarian clerical militias - in the
first place the Jaysh al-Mahdi of Muqtada as-Sadr - have been
kidnapping, torturing and murdering Sunnis in a massive effort to
purge southern and central Iraq of Sunnis and prepare the way to
partition Iraq in keeping with the "three-state solution" that was
pioneered by Zionist and US neo-conservative thinktanks and
strategists, and has since acquired strong support from American
liberal democrats as well.

So there is no question that Iran is pursuing a policy of hegemonism
in the Arab region.

Of course it is true that the main contradiction remains that between
the peoples of the region and the US-Zionists. But the fact that Iran
is pursuing its own hegemonic ends at the expense of the Arabs must be
acknowledged.

This is particularly true since Tehran's hegemonic course leads it to
pursue complex policies vis-a-vis imperialism and Zionism, just as HB
has indicated. At times it sides with imperialism as it did in t

Muhammad Abu Nasr | 06.29.07 - 10:40 pm | #

<http://www.haloscan.com/comments/yoshie/bustani250607/#170383> and
<http://www.haloscan.com/comments/yoshie/bustani250607/#170384>
These claims of 'Iranian Occupation' need to stop. Khuzestan has been
a part of Iran quite literally forever. Iranian nomads have been
leading there heards to and from that regioin for millenia, and with
the exception of one period roughly five centuries ago, the territory
has always been under Iranian sovereignty. The population of Khuzestan
is not composed only of ethnic Arabs, but also of Lurs, Bakhtiari's,
Lak's, and Persians (and others besides). When Saddam invaded to
'free' his fellow Arabs from Iranian rule, they responded by fighting
and dying along side every other minority in Iran to maintain Iran's
territorial integrity (this was before Saddam had turned to brutal
repression of Shi'ite Arabs). Although there are claims by foreign
sponsored (mostly terrorist) groups that Khuzestan is the most
underdeveloped region in Iran (foreign-sponsored Baluch and Azeri
movements claim much the same thing about there territories) as well
as rampant anti-Arab discrimitnation, Arabic is mandatory for all
public schools in Iran, and ethnic Arabs as well as Persians who speak
Arabic as a first language can be found in important posts of the
cabinet and security services and .(The former minister of Defense and
the Head of the Judiciary(chief judge) are just two examples).

The islands of Abu Moussa Tunb-e-Bozorg and Tunb-e-Kouchek are also
Iranian, as every map made into the early twentieth century can attest
to. The Britsh started making claims to these islets (two of the three
aren't populated and aren't really habitable) when they invaded the
Arabian Peninsula and discovered oil, and both sides agreed to
de-militarize the islands while these claims were settled through
negotiations. When the British left the Iranians installed garrisons
on two of the three islands.

The current UAE campaign to annex the islands was begun in earnest in
the wake of Saddam's defeat and the breakup of the Saddam-Gulf Arab
alliance. It has no legal or historic merits.

Iranians view both these claims as akin to those made by Israelis, and
neither should be so blindly and casually parotted by those seeking to
build "a front that includes all the peoples of the region (Arabs,
Kurds, Turks, Iranians) to confront US Imperialism and Zionism" as
Hisham Bustani does.

That said, there are several other weak points in Muhammad Abu Nasr's
contribution. His novel justification of Russia's attempted annexation
of Afghanistan aside, he treats the Shi'i Badr Brigade as if they were
grown in some Iranian petree dish. The Badr were Iraqi refugees who
wanted to return home, Iran had no authority to stop them. The
Shi'ites only integrated themselves with the Americans after holding
their peace throughout a Brutal three year-long campaign of Bombings
by the Sunni's against almost exclusively civilian crowds, during
which time the Shi'i were able through a mixture of violent and
non-violent action able to force the occupying Americans to adopt a
full Parlimentary system rather than one that hinged on American
nominations as was orignally planned. They were (in there view)
choosing the lesser of two evils, not acting as American or Iranian
agents.

Moqtada al-Sadr is enormously popular precisely because he is not a
protege of the Iranians, but rather stayed in Iraq throughout Saddam's
most brutal repression to build his movement. He is not in league with
the Americans, he is hunted by them.

'Hegemeony' means more than defending one's territorial integrity,
provding shelter to refugees and seeking to stabilise vacume's of
power created on your border. Iran does first and foremost look out
for itself; it has not done so at any one else's expense.

Iran does give massive assistance to various states and networks that
oppose US Imperialism, but i have seen no evidence that it has used
this influence to either meddle in the internal affairs of those
groups or exact from them anything other than rhetorical support.

Iran may be a disgusting regime vis a vis it's internal policies, but
it is an extremely resposible one on the regional and world stages.
Accusations of Hegemonic aspirations are not only unfortunate in that
they are misguided , they are uncomfortably close to some of the
xenephobic sentiments shared by both Al Qaeda and the autocratic
rulers of the Arab world. They have no place in any kind of
progressive analysis.

masoud | 07.01.07 - 2:29 pm | #

<http://www.haloscan.com/comments/yoshie/bustani250607/#170404>
Unfortunately Iranian hegemonism is patently obvious in that regime's
behavior in Iraq and in the behavior of its creatures, the Shi'i
sectarian clerics and their murderous militias in Iraq.

The issue of Iranian hegemonism in Iraq needs to be looked at squarely
and not swept under the rug, as if the clerical fundamentalist regime
there had no interest in using Shi'i clerics throughout the region to
further its aspirations. Of course it does and it has been using them
with some evident success in Iraq for many years.

How can a materialist analysis fail to take into account the interests
of the Iranian ruling classes in Iraq and Afghanistan and throughout
the region? How can anyone comprehend developments in Iraq if he or
she fails to look into the dynamic between Iran and the US as those
two hegemons fight over the spoils in Iraq?

Obviously Sunni regimes that are also clients of the US are playing
the sectarian card in reverse to justify their own alliance with the
US. But the entire picture would look very different if Iran's agents
in Iraq - the sectarian militias and clerics - had not (1.) joined the
US invasion of Iraq, and then (2.) joined the US-installed sectarian
regime and political process, and (3.) launched vicious sectarian
campaigns of kidnapping, torture, and murder that have driven
literally millions of Iraqis out of their homes.

To accuse Iran of hegemonism is no slight of Iranians as human beings,
obviously, but an assessment of the regime in Tehran which is, after
all, not a regime of the working people but one with exploiter-class
interests.

Muhammad Abu Nasr

Muhammad Abu Nasr | 07.01.07 - 7:18 pm | #

<http://www.haloscan.com/comments/yoshie/bustani250607/#170484>
Everyone is aware that if the south of Iraq was populated mainly by
clones of Mahatma Ghandi, the situation on the ground would have been
different. But it's not, so things are the way they are. There's no
need to go pointing fingers at any outside influence to understand why
they are acting the way they are. They were subject the most vicious
campaign of car bombings which targeted not only police recruits, but
mosques, shrines, and crowded markets and residential areas for at
least two years before they started retaliating. Before that they were
brutally supressed for decades by the most vicious tyrant in the
region, the specifics of which are by now familiar to everyone, and
that history can be traced as far back as you like. The death squads
are not beneficial to anyone, but they are entirely understandable
without having to imagine that the Shia are some how under the
hypnotic control of a bunch Iranian mullahs.

Iran for it's part wants access stable markets, it definitely doesn't
desire the breakup of Iraq as the Sunni center of the country would
probably serve as base for Sunni Arab fanatics to launch attacks
against it, and Israel would also be enabled to launch terrorist
attacks against it from Iraqi Kurdistan. Iran desires a stable trading
partner and has no interest in yet another humanitarian disaster on
it's borders and the waves of refugees it would have to accomadate.

At present Iran doesn't have enough sway with the Iraqi government to
have it's five diplomats released from prison, there's no way it could
push these genocidal policies onto such a besiged government.

Care must also be taken to not paint all Shia with the same brush,
Sistani has issued Fatwa's stictly forbiding any kind of retaliation
against the Sunni's and Moqtada has always openly supported the
resistance, even though it has been overwhelmingly Sunni form day one.

Any cogent analysis of the situation in the middle east would have
take into account the interest of the Iranian regime and the various
classes that support it, but this not the same as blindly
externalizing the very real and bloody contradictions within the Arab
world. An Iran-US alliance against the Arabs of Iraq is conspiracy
theory, nothing more.

masoud | 07.02.07 - 11:06 pm | #

<http://www.haloscan.com/comments/yoshie/bustani250607/#170488>
No, Muqtada has not and does not support the Iraqi Resistance. Muqtada
has been a part of the puppet regime installed by the US and now is
working with that same puppet regime and his militiamen, often in
their capacity as actual members of the puppet security forces, join
US troops in battling the Resistance.

as-Sistani is of the same ilk. In no way are those characters
anti-imperialist. They are working entirely for their own sectarian
clerical interests.

The reason Iran isn't able to get its people released in Iraq is
because the "Iraqi government" is a puppet of the US. Yet, please
note, the Tehran clerical regime recognizes that puppet regime
installed by Washington! What kind of "anti-imperialist regime"
recognizes puppet rulers set up by the world's leading imperialist
power on its border?

Stirring up sectarianism was part and parcel of the US strategy in
Iraq from the very beginning and as I said in a previous post it
enlisted the aid of the 20,000-30,000 Badr brigades who were living
and training in Iran for deacades and who joined the Americans in the
invasion of Iraq. That is not even collaboration with imperialism;
it's participation in an imperialist invasion.

I'm not arguing that Sunni religious fanatics are better than Shi'i
fanatics. But to whitewash the fanatics in Tehran and try to pass them
off as an anti-imperialist force is grossly misleading.

Muhammad Abu Nasr
Muhammad Abu Nasr | 07.03.07 - 12:51 am | #

<http://www.haloscan.com/comments/yoshie/bustani250607/#170492>
I can't see how either Dawa or SCIRI can simultaneously be tools of
Iranian hegemony and a pupet government for the US.

I can accept that they have accomadated US imperialist policy on some
issues, and that they would pursue closer ties with Iran than other
Iraqi's would be comfortable with, but these two facts alone
demonstrate that they are charting their own (probably misguided)
course. It might also be usefull to recall that they came to power on
a mandate to do so from the overwhelming majority of Shi'ites in Iraq.

As for the Badr Brigade, which divisions of the Republican Guard or
the regular army or police force did they engage in battle? Which
divisions of the American army did they coordinate with? Which cities
did they conqer for the US?

Some might view the Shia's cooperation with foreigners as
sacriligious, but they themselves have their own priorities and
wasting their blood and treasure in fighting off the Americans to turn
around and find themsleves alone in facing a resurgent Sunni backed in
all likeleyhood by every single other arab state with only a wary Iran
to maybe rely on is nowhere near the top of that list.

There's no point in going back and forth about Moqtada or Sistani's
positions, any one interested enough can look it up, but remember:
Being a fanatic, recaltricant, sectarian in no way contraditcts being
anti-imperialist, it might contradict beeing a fanatic leftist, but
that's a different story.

As for Iran, it's never going to openly challenge the US millitarily,
but no one needs to whitewash the regime in Iran to pass them of as
anti-Imperialst, just ask Chavez. The only remedy i can recomend for
anyone who doesn't see that is a dictionary.
masoud | 07.03.07 - 2:24 am | #

<http://www.haloscan.com/comments/yoshie/bustani250607/#170503>
I will just make a couple points.

1. The Da'wah Party and SCIRI, which has recently changed its name, by
the way, are able to work for Iran and the US precisely because as
I've been saying Iran and the US have been collaborating in the
occupation of Iraq. Only someone who persists in fantacising about an
anti-imperialist Iran dedicated to national liberation has trouble
understanding this.

Those two hegemonic powers the US and Iran are not 100 percent in
total agreement, hence there are contradictions between them - as
often arise between rival gangsters - but they have been working
together both in Afghanistan and Iraq for years and continue to do so
now.

The US wishes to control Iraq and so does Iran. But the US cannot
control Iraq without Iraqi collaborators and the sectarian militias
such as are run by SCIR and Dawah and the cleric Muqtada play that
role, but they play it because they expect that eventually the US will
leave and then they can have their clerical "Islamic Shi'i state" in
Iraq.

This brings up the second point, namely sectarianism. Massoud speaks
of the Shi'ah needing to defend themselves against the Sunnah. But
this is precisely the sectarianism that is at issue. The national
identity of Iraqis is Arab, not Shi'i, Sunni, Christian, Sabaen or
whatever. To prioritize sectarian identification over national
identification leads - as is obvious - to splitting the country.

Therefore although clerics of all stripes have sectarian tendencies,
the vast majority of the laity of Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'ah do not
necessarily identify with the clerical schemes of the religious
leaders and can see that an "Islamic state" run by Shi'i clerics will
obviously be unacceptable to Sunnis, just as a "Sunni Islamic state"
such as al-Qa'idah has pushed for in the Sunni parts of Iraq is also
divisive.

Presenting the matter as if throwing the Shi'i masses into the hands
of the Shi'i clerics who collaborate with the American occupation were
a way to "defend" them against the rest of the Arab Iraqi population
is clearly playing into the American hands.

Muhammad Abu Nasr | 07.03.07 - 10:15 am | #

<http://www.haloscan.com/comments/yoshie/bustani250607/#170515>
As can be seen from the mobilisation of Shiah in the last 'election',
the massive street demonstrations they organized back when street
demonstrations were feasible, and the huge mourning ceremonies during
Ashura the Shia masses have embraced their releigion, their clerics
and all the sectarianism that goes along with it, this is the most
basic observation one can make about the Iraqi situation right now.
Sometimes reality can be bitter, but it's not going to go away because
we don't approve, and ascribing their actions to some devious third
party isn't going to help heal what is a virtually non-existent sense
of Iraqi unity. Besides, those who warn against playing into American
hands should be more careful about plagirizing CNN 'breaking stories'
about Iranian meddling in Iraq.

I think Muhammad severely understaes the problem when he talks about
'contradictions' and the lack of '100 perecent agreement' between Iran
and Amercia. Theese two have had direct talks exactly once in the
history of the regime, and are on the verge of all out war, to think
that they have somehow secretly put their difference aside and have
been quietly working side by side in Iraq for the past six years is
infantile.

The unfortunate reality, as much as it may pain some to admit it, is
that Iraq, due to it's own violent history, is no longer a unified
country. There is no way to work twoards changing that reality without
first admiting it, and not attributing the problems it causes to the
'usual suspects'.

The next step would be to honestly evaluate the positions and
intentions of the various players in Iraq and not mindlessly demonize
them. I still beleive that Muhhamad is misrepresenting Moqtada's
nationalist Iraqi instincts as well as Sistani's anti-sectarian views,
the main culprits seem to be Dawa and SCRI (or elements within them),
who it must be emphasized have made their own calculations based on
very real concerns, not pan-Arabist fantasies, and are not just
mindless agents of either Iran or the US.

I'm not really sure what the step after that is, so you can take it
from there, but building an analyis on hostile prejudices twoards any
group involved is a recipe for disaster.

Cheers

Masoud
masoud | 07.03.07 - 1:37 pm | #

--
Yoshie