(صوتك في عالم أسكتت فيه الصهيونية والحديد والنار صوت العدالة)

Solidarity with Iran Revisited

Ibrahim Alloush

First, let's examine the viewing of the issue of Iran primarily from a humanitarian lens. Through that angle, we are urged to sympathize with people, not the Iranian regime, and to denounce the potential attack on Iran as an attack on the Iranian people. Thereof a certain symmetry is drawn between Iran's callousness towards the aggression on Iraq in 2003, and any potential callousness from us Arabs towards the expected attack on Iran maybe in April according to one German paper.

In fact, there are many serious problems with this humanitarian approach to the escalating power struggle between the US government and the Iranian regime to control larger pieces of the Arab region (that is, to control us).  Mainly, THAT is a political issue. Its consequences for us are primarily political. Hence, it is best handled from a political perspective. Otherwise, we could lose clarity of vision if we reduce it into a humanitarian issue.

In fact, by generating humanitarian sympathy for the Iranian people (not the regime of course) the Arab public is effectively being asked to RENDER UNWAVERING SUPPORT TO THE IRANIAN REGIME. That is at least the POLITICAL significance of this humanitarian call.

On the other hand, had an earthquake or a tsunami hit Iran, a humanitarian call for solidarity with the Iranian people would have perfectly apt, and such a humanitarian call then wouldn't have had, wittingly or unwittingly, the same political undertones of supporting the Iranian regime in a current political conflict over Arab spoils with US imperialism.

In short, we're practically dealing with a political call here to support the Mullahs, not with a humanitarian one, regardless of the best of intentions. But humanitarian calls are for associations for charity and good samaritans. A humanitarian call does not represent a political position in and of itself. In fact, Arab Nationalist list moderators regularly treat calls for charity and blood donations as spam. After all, WE'RE IN THE BUSINESS OF FOMENTING REVOLUTION, NOT OF PROCURING CHARITY, never mind political support for Iranian mullahs in the form of charity.

At any rate, it's curious how Western leftists have been much more vocal recently about the possible attack on Iran than they have been on the eve of the aggression on Iraq in 2003, and before that in 1990. Perhaps that has to do with the Jewish infiltration of the Western left, and perhaps it has to do with the Western liberal tendency to abhor Arab nationalism. Either way, neither LIBERAL GUILT TRIPS nor the we-are-the-world approach can do us any good in analyzing the situation with Iran right now.

Secondly, I'd like to turn to another liberal guilt trip which presents everyone as guilty, and all nationalisms (including national liberation movements) as suspect, to derive one human essence revolving around resolving political contradictions through 'love' and 'understanding', as the liberal story goes, as if they were caused to begin with by some kind of misunderstanding, not by hegemony, oppression, and the appropriation of other nations! That is, by a brutal conflict of interest that can ONLY be resolved through violence.

In this particular regard, the analogy between Iraq in March 2003, and Iran right now, stands out as especially inappropriate. THERE IS NO COMPARISON actually. The Iranian regime is wreaking havoc inside Iraq right now. Iranian-supported gangs have been raping, murdering, mutilating, and practicing sectarian cleansing. Iran is practically the de facto occupier of southern Iraq, and has been working overtime politically to break up and destroy Iraq. Iranian agents have been vindictively assassinating Iraqi scientists, pilots, and clergymen (including Shiites who oppose its policies in Iraq). Iranian regime agents in Iraq have been actively pursuing the cadres and fighters of the Iraqi resistance. The Iranian regime has extended generous support to US imperialism in its attempt to break up and destroy Iraq, without which the occupation wouldn't have been possible. The Iranian regime was the only regime in the world to recognize Bremer's council in Iraq that was formed after the occupation, and which paved the way for establishing political 'representation' in Iraq along sectarian lines. Last but not least, the Iranian regime was totally in step with the Zionist entity in expressing joy over the execution BY IRANIAN AGENTS of martyr Saddam Hussein on the morning of al adha eid.

On the other hand, when Iraq was attacked in 2003, it had extended several initiatives to Iran to improve relations and build a joint anti-imperialist front. This is in spite of the fact that Iran had been enforcing the embargo on the Iraqi people for thirteen years by then, including Iraqi Shiites of course. (No humanitarian sympathy for the victims of the embargo it seems!)

Iraq was not controlling more than half of Iran when it was attacked. It was not starving Iranians through an embargo implemented by Zio-imperialism and the Arab regimes. Iraq was not assassinating Iranian scientists and pilots and so on and so forth. Iraq entered into negotiations with Iran leading to the release of the rest of the prisoners of the Iraq-Iran war.

In short, in the eternal words of Malcom X: We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.

Iran is an aggressor in Iraq right now, a second occupation if you will. Iraq wasn't occupying Iran when it was attacked. In other words, when Iraq was attacked, its hands weren't dripping Iranian blood like Iranian hands are dripping Iraqi blood right now. And there is NO BASIS for this superficial comparison between Iraq when it was attacked and Iran right now.

In short, there is basis for soliciting solidarity with Iran on humanitarian or other basis.  Iran is not being attacked for being anti-imperialist, but for being a competing imperialism if you will.

Third, I'd like to turn to the Iraq-Iran war during the eighties.  As far as that goes, some ahve claimed that Iraq attacked Iran, and it was implied that Iraq did so in collusion with US imperialism.

Such misconceptions are all too common amongst the Western and Arab left. They remain rampant, even after RECENT IRANIAN PRACTICES AND POLICIES IN IRAQ PROVING BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT THAT IRAN INTENDED TO DESTROY AND BREAK UP IRAQ ALL ALONG.

Furthermore, it's funny that Iraq is still being accused of cooperating with US imperialism against Iran when the last few years showed succinctly  who was cooperating with US imperialism against whom.

Nevertheless, let's go back to the origin of the Iraq-Iran war.

At the time, Iran had declared publicly that it was hell-bent on 1) 'exporting the revolution', and 2) toppling the Iraqi regime. Specific calls were issued to Iraqis, especially to the Iraqi army, to upstage the Baath leadership in Iraq.

Dozens of border infiltrations by Iranians were officially reported by Iraq to several international and regional bodies, including the UN and the Arab League.

Iran was adamant on not signing a 'non-intervention treaty' with Iraq.

Actually Iraq went to war to put an end to Iranian infiltrations into Iraq, both militarily and politically. Iraq's main demand at the onset of the war was for Iran to sign a non-intervention treaty.

But Iran kept on refusing.

Six cease-fire resolutions by the UN after 1982 were all accepted by Iraq and rejected by Iran.

At the time, even those who initially blamed Iraq for allegedly starting the war were beginning to see that Iran was fully responsible for the continuation of the war.

Even the Soviet Union resumed arms shipments into Iran in 1982 after Iran insisted on rejecting one cease fire resolution after another.

In the meantime, American and Zionist shipments of arms to IRAN continued.

DOES IRAN-CONTRA RING A BELL HERE?

That's when a scandal broke out in 1986 during the Reagan administration exposing a stream of arms shipments to Iran, especially of anti-tank rockets to destroy Iraqi tanks.

What about Iraqi arms though, where did those come from?

Contrary to conventional liberal and leftist wisdom, Iraqi arms during the Iraq-Iran War did NOT come from the US. According to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, between 1972 and 2002, less than 1% of Iraqi arms during that period came from the US or the UK. During the Iraq-Iran War specifically, that is between 1980-88, Iraqi arms came from China, the Soviet Union, and France.

How about the chemical attack on Halabja, where did the chemical weapons for that attack come from? Didn't the US Government give Iraq chemical weapons then to use on the Kurds as the Western leftist fairy tale goes?

According to the US Department of Defense, the chemical weapons used on Halabaja were mostly Iranian, not Iraqi. For more on that, please check the following link under did Iraq use chemical weapons against the Kurds:

http://www.freearabvoice.org/issues/IraqiWMD.htm#quiz

But what about that devilish meeting with Rumsfeld?

SO WHAT! SADDAM ALSO MET RUMSFELD WHILE IN JAIL IN 2005 AND GAVE HIM A PIECE OF HIS MIND. Saddam never wavered or faltered. The point is that the man is NOT known to have made concessions on principle under duress. Even in the peak of the siege, he refused to recognize "Israel". He held steadfast on Palestine and the so-called 'peace process' all along. If we're going to incriminate president Saddam Hussein on the basis of one meeting with Rumsfeld, are we to make the bizarre conclusion then that any head of state worldwide who ever met even once with an American official is a traitor for example?! Please...