In West Asia Iran leads an anti-imperial alliance of independent states.

Chapter from the 2019 book Axis of Resistance by Tim Anderson, by Clarity Press.

Above: The great Iranian resistance commander Qassem Soleimani, responsible for support to the Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi resistance, as well as to Syria and Yemen, was murdered in Baghdad (alongside the Iraqi national hero Abu Mahdi al Muhandis and several other comrades) by the Trump regime in January 2020. In late 2017 he had reported to Iranian leader Seyyed Al Khamenei that ISIS terrorism (covertly backed by the USA) had been crushed in all major towns and cities of West Asia.

Both the friends and enemies of Iran agree, it is uniquely important and central to the region. Of course, their reasoning differs. Iran’s enemies claim it represents a huge danger, while for its allies Iran is the great counter-weight and guarantor of an independent region.

The shrillest denunciations of Iran come from Apartheid Israel. In 1993 zionist leader Benjamin Netanyahu wrote: “the most dangerous threat to Israel’s existence is not in the Arab world, but rather in Iran” (Stoffel 2018). 25 years later he told Europeans that Iran was “the world’s greatest threat” (Agius 2018). Netanyahu’s fear is based on Iran’s commitment, since 1979, to dismantling the racist colony in Palestine. Matching words with deeds, Iran supports the armed Palestinian resistance. Zionists often falsely portray demands to dismantle their racist state as a ‘genocidal’ threat to Jewish people. Yet Iran has one of the most secure Jewish communities in the region (Sengupta 2016; Hjelmgaard 2018).

Washington also regularly expresses deep fears over Iran. In this case the fear, and associated threats, stem from worries for its own role and influence in the region. A democratic Palestine and good neighbourly relations between the Arab states would threaten Washington’s ‘protection’ racket. The main US rationale for having troops in the region has become ‘protection’ from the terrorist proxies it has itself created, to divide and weaken the independent states. In face of this aggression and deception, Iran remains the main obstacle. The Islamic Republic has a voice, capacity and consistency. US General Stanley McChrystal, speaking of Iran’s Quds Force General Qassem Suleimani (but he might as well have been speaking of Iran as a whole) said that Suleimani was “driven by the fervent nationalism that is the lifeblood of Iran’s citizens and leadership”, acknowledging that Suleimani and the state he serves are “singularly positioned to shape the future of the Middle East” (McChrystal 2019). That shows a North American jealous realism towards this large, independent state.

The US drove a coup against the democratically elected government of Iran, back in 1953, imposing a dictatorial and brutal monarchy for the next 25 years (Ruehsen 1993; Halliday 1979). When that regime was suddenly overthrown and its US sponsors expelled, in the 1979 revolution, Washington experienced a trauma from which it has not yet recovered. It launched a semi-permanent war against independent Iran. President Jimmy Carter declared the Persian Gulf part of the “vital interests” of the USA, to be defended with force (Davis 2017). President Ronald Reagan backed Iraq under Saddam Hussein in a long war against the new Islamic Republic, to weaken both countries. During that war the Reagan administration also covertly sold missiles to Iran, to help fund mercenaries for another war in Central America (PBS 2019). After President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, he targeted Iran with unilateral disarmament demands, claiming Iran “threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust” (Shipman 2007). At least these threats did not lead to open conflict.

However US threats drove a new campaign to control Iran’s nuclear energy technology, under the pretext of preventing a nuclear weapons program; a matter discussed below. Aggressive rhetoric continued. Democrat Hillary Clinton, running for president in 2008, declared she would “attack Iran” to protect Israel. If they “foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them,” she said (Morgan 2008). The Obama administration finally agreed to a nuclear technology control for removal of sanctions agreement (JCPOA) in 2015. This was torn up the following year by the incoming Trump administration. Imposing extreme economic siege measures, which affected third parties and lacked a specific rationale, Donald Trump echoed Israel’s cry that “Iran is a great threat” (Fabian 2019).

The US-Israeli claim, that Iran sponsors terrorist groups, does not stand up to basic scrutiny. Even on the official US classification of terrorist groups (USDOS 2019), most of those in the Middle East are extremist Sunni groups, closely linked to US ally Saudi Arabia (Weinstein 2017). Of those on the US list which are linked to Iran, virtually all are Palestinian or Shi’a resistance groups, opposed to Israeli ethnic cleansing and to the various foreign interventions in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq (USDOS 2019).

On the ally side, the Islamic Republic of Iran has enjoyed a strong relationship with the Syrian Arab Republic since 1979. Although Syria is ideologically a secular, pan-Arab state, its relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been better than those with many other Arab countries (Tibi 1986). The reason for this alliance was spelt out by Goodarzi (2009: 3, 294). The Iran-Syria alliance has been:

“essentially defensive and emerged in response to acts of aggression orchestrated by Iraq (1980) and Israel (1982), in both cases with the prior knowledge and tacit support of the USA … Hafez Assad, Ruhollah Khomeini and their successors have viewed the region as a strategic whole and regarded their alliance as a vital tool with which to further Arab-Islamic interests and increase regional autonomy”.

It has been, in other words, an anti-imperial alliance of independent states.

Iran’s relations with the small but powerful Shi’a resistance group in Lebanon, Hezbollah, makes clear use of religious bonds. Indeed, Iran’s supreme religious leader acts as the arbitral authority for Hezbollah (Qassem 2005: 50-58). Iran also backs many of the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMUs) of Iraq, through Shi’a networks. However, with close allies in secular Syria and largely Sunni Muslim Palestine, Iran’s regional network cannot properly be regarded as sectarian.

Iran’s leading role in the region keeps both Washington and Tel Aviv on the verge of panic. It repeatedly reminds the US why it cannot dominate the entire region. Apart from its own independence, Iran actively supports the other independent peoples of the region, those in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen. It is a ‘threat’ mainly to the ambitions of outside hegemonic powers, and to the destructive role of Apartheid Israel.

Despite constant aggression, at the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Republic in 2019, Iran presents as a much stronger nation-state than four decades earlier. It has consolidated its state institutions and independence. Its industrial capacity has developed substantially. The internal political factions, ‘principalists’ versus liberals, are well entrenched.

There are independent opinion polls in Iran, and they give little comfort to the country’s external critics. The UNDP reports that 71% trust their national government, compared to the 39% in the USA (UNDP 2018b:  Table 14). After protests at economic conditions in early 2018 a joint US-Canada-Iran study group polled Iran’s social and political opinion. They found that 81% saw the country’s top problem as economic (unemployment, inflation and low income). 77% did not agree that ‘Iran’s political system needs … fundamental change’ (15% agreed). There was overwhelming support for the country’s defence missile program (95%) and for its nuclear program (86%). Nevertheless, 73% felt the government (Rouhani-led liberals) should do more ‘to help the poor’. A strong majority of 86% supported Iran’s regional campaigns against terrorism and 55% wanted to increase them. Of the 2018 protests, 66% thought the police handled them well (24% said ‘badly’) but 65% felt the arrested protestors should be released. Yet most also thought that those who had burned the flag (63%) or had damaged public property (60%) should be ‘punished harshly’ (Gallagher, Mohseni and Ramsay 2018). These responses suggest a fairly stable democracy, whatever any outsider may think about a hybrid theocracy-democracy.

Importantly, the country’s human development indicators have advanced strongly. Between 1980 and 2017, average life expectancy in Iran rose from 54.1 to 76.2 years, and average years of schooling rose from 2.2 to 9.8, a more than fourfold increase, almost at gender equity (UNDP 2016; UNDP 2018a). Inequality and poverty fell substantially (UNDP 1999; World Bank 2019). These are extra-ordinary achievements. Iran moved ahead while its enemies carried out dreadful and futile wars. A US military study into the invasion of Iraq (‘the Iraq war’) found that “an emboldened and expansionist Iran appears to be the only victor” (South 2019). This was not the first time that a would-be empire ‘shot itself in the foot’.

However, Iran was and still is subject to an extraordinary political-economic assault, which at one stage included all the big powers. The nation was forced to open its nuclear and strategic energy technology to foreign supervision and control. Since the JCPOA agreement, and the subsequent reversal by Washington on its agreement, a new economic aggression has begun. For Iran, this necessarily means yet more restructuring of the country’s financial, trade and strategic relations.

With that background, this chapter begins by explaining the Iranian origins of the revolution, and of Iran’s particular version of ‘political Islam’. It then recognises Iran’s human development achievements and challenges, before documenting key elements of the permanent aggression waged against the country, including the deceptive nuclear deal. Finally the chapter returns to Iran’s role in the region, as leader of the Axis of Resistance.

1. The 1979 Revolution

Iran endured its own emperor, imposed by the US after a CIA-backed coup in 1953. Democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh was overthrown as a result of the imperial reaction to his attempts to nationalise British Petroleum. The Prime Minister had tried to assert national claims over the country’s natural resources. However ‘Operation Ajax’, run by the US and backed by Britain, arrested and jailed Mossadegh, installing Shah Reza Pahlavi as absolute monarch (Ruehsen 1993). Under Pahlavi a US-led consortium, which excluded Iranian partners, assumed control of the country’s oil resources. Political repression under Savak, the Shah’s hated secret police, was severe. Many thousands were killed, to protect the puppet monarchy (Halliday 1979).

An important consequence of that repression was that the secular political opposition was crushed and dismantled. The coup not only destroyed the Mossadegh-led government, it dismantled ‘trade unions, professional associations and all independent political parties’. The Pahlavi regime claimed modernisation and advances for women (Halliday 1979), but this showcased a tiny elite. It was a regime of mass exclusion. The remaining power base left to mobilise against this dictatorship was a well organised clergy of over 90,000 (Abrahamian 1990: 22, 24). Structural explanations of the Iranian Revolution have stressed the tension between a rigid, elitist state and strong social solidarity networks, notably urban migrants, a large small merchant class and the strong religious class (Parsa 1989).

It was clear that Pahlavi, for all his imperial pretensions, was a US puppet, and that opposition to this puppet king meant opposition to US control of Iran. The New York Times recognised that cries for ‘liberty’ and ‘independence’, while aimed at the Shah, ‘could only’ have meant independence ‘from the US and its western allies’, as they had propped up the Shah for decades (Cohen 2014). Huge mobilisations, holding up the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini as their moral leader, eventually drove the Shah into exile. The collapse of this US-backed dictatorship was notable for the failure of royalists to mount any real counter-offensive. A regime with the fifth largest army on earth, well-armed and well-funded, went down without much of a fight (Abrahamian 1990: 21), exposing the near absence of domestic support.

For these historical reasons, the leadership of the revolution became Islamic and the character of the new system remained Islamic. A quite original version of political Islam was developed by Imam Khomeini, distinct from the western dependent Islamist movements, the sectarian Muslim Brotherhood and the sectarian Salafism of the Saudis. This was a political difference, more than a sectarian or ‘Shi’a versus Sunni’ divide. Khomeini’s vision has been termed ‘a coalition based on nationalism, anti-imperialism and Islamism’ (Panah 2007: ch.3).

In North America there was an entirely different discussion about the Iranian revolution. This had to do with supposed ‘anti-Americanism’, the fate of US embassy staff held prisoner by revolutionary students, generalised attacks on theocracy and the new ‘Carter doctrine’ that claimed a US ‘national interest’ in the Persian Gulf (Wolf 2006; Klare 2006; Davis 2017). This mostly self-referential debate has little to do with Iran or this discussion.

The vision of Imam Khomeini shared the common idea of a great Islamic community (Ummah), a supra-national Muslim Society. However, unlike the Salafi version, it included all sects and necessarily rejected the Salafist ‘takfiri’ doctrine, where those of other faiths or sects were open to attack. One could say that Khomeini’s synthesis drew on the historical minority and persecuted status of Shi’a Muslims in much of the region. In any case, this Great Community was officially non-sectarian. Khomeini’s idea contrasted a ‘Pure Muhammadan Islam’, of the downtrodden and humble, with ‘American Islam’, a religion of the arrogant, luxurious and opportunists. He described ‘American Islam’ as ‘the Islam of comfort and luxury … of compromise and ignominy, the Islam of the indolent’. By contrast, ‘pure Mohammedan Islam’ was seen as ‘the Islam of the barefooted … the scourge of the despised ones of the bitter and disgraceful history of deprivation, the annihilator of modern capitalism and bloodthirsty communism’ (ITF 2014). This was a vision linking Islamic principle to ideas of popular emancipation from the recent neo-colonial experience.

While its key values have remained constant, Iran’s political culture seems more adaptive. The Republic developed democratic structures, albeit under religious guidance, and an evolving policy and practice under a strong state. With an overwhelming majority (around 90%) of Shia Muslims, chauvinism was always a possibility. Yet there has been particular protection of Iran’s Jewish community, reinforced by a decree from Imam Khomeini (Demick 2014). Whatever disadvantage they might still face, it has been pointed out that Iranian Jews are much better off than Palestinians in the territories occupied by Israel (Cook 2007). There are also special protections for the Christian and Zoroastrian minorities. The Baha’i group, on the other hand, was branded a political ‘fifth column’ for Israel and has indeed suffered discrimination (MacEoin 1987; Astani 2010). Baha’i attempts to convert Muslims and their base in Tel Aviv help sustain strong prejudice. This has recently been subject to internal criticism, with a senior Iranian cleric criticising ‘violations against the rights of these children of God’ (Masoumi-Tehrani 2014).

The Islamic Republic of Iran does maintain sensitivity to the position of Shi’a communities (mostly minorities) in regional countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. Yet most of its strategic relationships are with non-Muslim countries. Even Hezbollah in Lebanon has given up its idea of an Islamic state and cooperates with other communities, defining its wider community as an anti-Zionist and anti-imperial ‘Resistance’ (El Husseini 2010). War, economic sanctions and regular threats from Israel and the US (especially over its arming the Palestinian resistance) have helped built self-reliance in Iran. The close relationships formed with Russia and Venezuela are clearly to do with anti-imperialism, unencumbered by sectarian religion.

Links to the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a Christian socialist, are a case in point. Chávez made a large number of trips to Iran, as did former President Ahmadinejad to Venezuela. Political figures in the US made ludicrous claims that those links were to do with terrorism and nuclear weapons (Golinger 2012), missing the point that this was part of the creation of an anti-imperial network. Over several years the two countries developed literally hundreds of agreements, ranging from energy to telecommunications, biotechnology and housing (Primera 2009). Chávez defended the Islamic Republic, stressing the solidarity developed between nations under attack from the great power. ‘They will never be able to restrict the Islamic revolution in whatever way … we will always stand together’, he said. For his part Ahmadinejad said that Iran and Venezuela were part of a wider revolutionary front stretching through East Asia to Latin America (Miller Llana 2010). The relationship survived the death of Chávez and a change of Presidents in Iran. In August 2014 Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua met President Hassan Rohani in Tehran, where they discussed regional conflicts and the maintenance of their various economic agreements (AVN 2014).

The current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reinforces the independent and anti-imperial themes of Iran’s political Islam, in a thinly veiled attack on collaborative Salafism. He is talking about the Brotherhood and the Islam of the gulf monarchies when he says that ‘American Islam … despite its Islamic appearance and label, is in compliance with despotism and Zionism, yields to the supremacy of arrogant powers and entirely serves the goals of despotism and the US’ (ABNA 2014). ‘American Islam’ is thus seen as an imperial collaborator, seeking to divide the region and standing in the way of genuine Islamic enlightenment. Khamenei says ‘the enemy is investing in civil wars in the region and pins hope on a Shi’a-Sunni war to relieve itself of the concern of Islamic Awakening’. He pointed to the ‘evil hand of the enemy’s intelligence services’ in staging upheavals in some Islamic communities, including Iraq (ABNA 2014).

When we factor in the anti-imperial element, the claims of a natural ‘Sunni-Shi’a’ divide in the Middle East look quite different. The Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Palestine ‘Axis of Resistance’ is quite explicitly anti-sectarian. On the other hand, the sectarianism promoted by most of the Gulf monarchies – and supported by the imperial powers – seeks to accentuate divisions. This should not be surprising. Most claims of natural community or religious divides obscure power politics. History is important and formative. The political Islam of Iran developed as a popular anti-imperial force (Ayoob 1979: 543). This is different from the Muslim Brotherhood, which for most of its history has looked for foreign assistance in its attempts to depose Arab or secular nationalism (Curtis 2012: 24).

2. Human development achievements and challenges

On the 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution US President Donald Trump published a series of propaganda graphics suggesting Iran had experienced ‘40 years of failure’ (AFP 2019). Such claims from a dedicated enemy cannot be taken at face value. Yet in face of such a controversy it makes sense to look for independent evidence. We have just that, from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), whose human development measures have been collected most countries since 1990. Key indicators have been combined into a Human Development Index (HDI), which measures three elements: “a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living” (UNDP 2019b). Other more specific UNDP indicators show areas of strength and weakness, or challenge.

The human development evidence on Iran in recent decades is not just good, it is outstanding. The UNDP lists the Islamic Republic as second only to the Peoples’ Republic of China in its growth in human development – amongst the world’s top 100 nations – from 1990 to 2017. Iran’s HDI grew on average 1.21% per year over those 27 years, and China’s 1.51% (UNDP 2018b: Table 2). In the case of China this was due to exceptional and sustained per capita economic growth; in the case of Iran it was due to exceptional and sustained improvements in life expectancy – mainly due to health care improvements and child survival – and to improvements in education (UNDP 1999; UNDP 2018a).

Table 1 shows Iran’s progress compared to the average ‘high human development’ group, and to comparable regional countries, Turkey and Lebanon. The data shows strong achievements in education, at almost gender equality, as well as in maternal health and child nutrition. Social cohesion is also strong, in the sense of trust in the national government. The challenges appear in unemployment and women’s political representation and, as later data will show, in regional disparities and women’s economic independence.

   Table 1: Iran: key human development data, 2017

 Islamic Rep. of IRANHigh Human DevelopmentTurkeyLebanon
HDI rank (2017)60[60-112]6480
Av life expectancy, years76.276.076.079.8
Mean years of schooling9.88.28.08.7
     MYS male9.98.68.88.9
     MYS female9.78.07.18.5
Maternal mortality rate (per 100,000 pregnancies)25381615
Infant mortality (per 1,000 live births)1311.210.96.9
Child malnutrition (mod. to severe stunting)6.89.59.5na
Female MPs %5.922.314.63.1
Inequality (Gini co-eff)38.8na41.931.8
Unemployment (2017)13.16.311.36.3
Trust in national government (2012-2017)71na5922
All data from UNDP 2018b (Tables 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 14)

Iran’s problems of unemployment and economic development generally must be seen in context of four decades of economic aggression. Unemployment in 2017 was 13.1%, with youth unemployment at 30.3% (UNDP 2018b). That this has generally not translated into high poverty measures is due to strong social security practice.

When considering the data on poverty we must again be wary of partisan sources. The US State media for example often runs extravagant reports. One of these suggested that “due to the failure of the Iranian regime, its people have become increasingly poorer over the past 40 years”. An Iranian exile is quoted as saying, without supporting evidence, that he “believes close to two thirds of the Iranian population lives below the poverty line” (Mohammad 2017). Any emerging poor data is seized on for political purposes. This bias is open. For example, research for Iran’s parliament showed a rise in inflation and poverty (over 2016-2017) and, in response, one US writer suggested this poor outcome (combined with domestic protests over the cost of living) might raise “an opportunity” for the US to criticise “the regime” (Ghasseminejad 2018). There is a constant effort to discredit a perceived enemy.

Fortunately we have some more sober data from the Washington based and US-dominated World Bank, which cannot be accused of pro-Iran bias. The World Bank noted that both poverty and inequality in Iran fell strongly between 1990 and 2015. The more than 3 million in poverty in 1990 fell to 300,000 in 2005, rising again to 700,000 in 2009 before falling again strongly through to 2013, before rising again under the pressure of inflation (Table 2).

Table 2: Poverty in Iran, 1990-2014

 1990199419982005200920132014
Number of poor at $1.90 a day (2011 PPP) (millions)3.21.91.60.30.70.10.2
Source: World Bank 2019

Translating that raw data into percentages, the fall in poverty between 2009 and 2013 was from 13.1% to 8.1% and, according to the World Bank: “likely due to a universal cash transfer program in late 2010, which preceded the elimination of subsidies on energy and bread … However poverty increased in 2014, which may have been associated with a declining social assistance in real terms due to inflation” and to depreciation of the currency (World Bank 2018). That cash transfer program, under President Ahmadinejad, provided household subsidies of as much as 29% of median household income. A US study found that, except for youth there was “no evidence that [these] cash transfers reduced labour supply” (Salehi-Isfahani and Mostafavi-Dehzooei 2017). Youth had other options, not least free tertiary education. Multiple and long-term sanctions, led by the USA, have been a major contributor, not just in squeezing exports and making imports more expensive, but weakening the currency and helping drive price inflation.

Iran’s human development challenges – alongside stabilising the currency and prices, and lowering unemployment – can be seen in addressing regional disparities and the deficits of women’s political and economic participation. Regional variation in poverty can be high. When in Tehran the poverty rate was put at 12%, in the most neglected region of Sistan and Balouchistan it was put at 38% (Ghasseminejad 2018; also Sabermahani et al 2013).

Although there have been great advances for Iran’s women and girls in education, there are relatively few women members of parliament (see Table 1) and economic independence seems low. The World Bank and the UNDP cite women’s labour force participation at only 17% (MEI 2009) and women’s independent income at only 20% that of men (UNDP 2018a: Table 4 & 5). However there is serious controversy over these figures.

It is often said (outside Iran) that women’s access to the formal labour market was undermined by the religious expectations of women; yet their educational status improved strongly and they continued to play key roles in many professions as well as in the agricultural and services sectors (Kian 2014: 338). They are over-represented at universities. Women do freely access both informal and formal labour markets (Bahramitash 2003; Rostami-Povey 2010, Honarbin-Holliday 2013), running businesses and working in the financial sector (Simon 2015; Solomon 2015). An MEI study notes differing estimates of women’s labour participation, from 18.5% to 24.6%; and an even ‘higher figure in the Socio-Economic Characteristics of Households panel data’ (MEI 2009). A study by Fatemeh Etemad Moghadam (2009), Professor of Economics at Hofstra University in New York goes further, saying that “women’s labour force participation is undercounted in Iran … An examination of a large body of field research on the subject … suggests a much higher participation rate, about 40% of the total agricultural labor”.  That same study shows that “a large number of educated upper and middle class women were active in the informal market … in sharp contrast to the studies in other developing countries in which informal participants are generally poor and unskilled and are unable to join the modern formal economy”.  In Iran there are a large number of “middle and upper income educated women in the informal economy” (Moghadam 2009).

Bahramitash and Esfahani (2011) support Moghadam (2009), saying that the substantially higher levels of education for women

“have fundamentally transformed the nature of female LFP [labour force participation] and employment in the country … an increasingly larger proportion of educated women aged 20-50 years are employed in the private sector in professional positions in urban areas. This is quite different from the expansion of female employment before the Revolution, which predominantly consisted of jobs for very young, uneducated women in rural areas mostly as unpaid family workers in producing carpets and handicraft.”

Mehran (2003) concludes that the Islamic Republic of Iran has deliberately used formal schooling to close educational and income opportunity gaps. She says this csan only be understood if one analyses how women “have made the best use of the opportunities created by the interplay of tradition and modernity to become active participants in educational endeavours” (Mehran 2003: 286). We can conclude that the World Bank figures on women’s economic participation do not tell the full story.

Polemics against Iran often come from US sources, yet Iran compares favourably with the USA in several areas. According to the World Bank (2019b), Iran reduced its inequality (as measured by the Gini index) from 47.40 in 1986 to 38.80 in 2014. Inequality in the US remains significantly higher, at 41.5 (Gini). Despite the rhetoric of ‘freedom’, the US imprisonment rate (the highest on earth at 698 per 100,000 population) was more than double that of Iran (at 287); and far more Iranians trust their national government (71%) than is the case in the USA (39%) (UNDP 2018b: Tables 3, 12 & 14).

3. The permanent war

Just a few hundred metres from Tehran’s famous Tabiat Bridge (the Nature Bridge) lies the Museum of Holy Defence, a powerful reminder of the horror and patriotic sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Iranians during the Iraq-Iran war (1980-88). Three decades after the end of that war, visitors can walk through a reconstruction of the besieged city of Khorramshahr, experience the extreme heat and cold of the defenders’ bunkers, walk across replicas of mine-laden wetlands and gaze up at a glittering ceiling which holds thousands of name tags of the fallen. That terrible war lives in Iranian imagination, and in the tradition of the volunteer defenders, the Basiji (Haines and Fox 2014: 105), whose legacy can be seen today, not just in Iran’s militia, but also in the Lebanese Resistance and in Iraq’s Hashid al Shaabi.

The Islamic view of patriotic defence, combined with the theme of righteous martyrdom for a great cause, built a strong Iranian belief that resistance to aggression from Saddam’s Iraq was a ‘sacred’ duty. It was a battle for justice (edālat) and truth (haq) against injustice (zolm) and vanity (bātel) (Khosronejad 2011). One commentator observes: “even the most disparate groups in Iran were brought together through mutual anger and frustration towards American imperialism” (Swerdlow 2017). Despite subsequent internal divisions over economic policy, many point to the links between that wartime strategic unity and a range of self-sufficient developments (satellite, defence and industrial technologies) achieved as a result of constant outside attacks (Bangash 2019; Smith 2015). This virtually permanent war has included incessant propaganda, terrorism and economic siege.

Saddam Hussein’s September 1980 invasion of Iran was encouraged by the USA. Humiliated by its expulsion from Iran and fearing less than favourable access to the energy resources of the region, the US under President Jimmy Carter in 1980 declared the “Persian Gulf region” to be essential to “the vital interests of the United States of America”. Those interests would be guarded “by any means necessary” including by “military force” (Davis 2017). US agencies were at work to weaken the fledgling Islamic Republic. Prior to September 1980 there had been “a few border clashes” between Iraq and Iran, but it was in September that Saddam Hussein scrapped Iraq’s 1975 treaty with Iran and made his move (Tripp 2000: 232-3). Western accounts of the war play down western backing for Saddam Hussein, whom Washington would later depose. The Iraqi invasion of south west Iran in September 1980 did have a particular declared motive, to resolve a long standing territorial dispute over control of a southern waterway, the Shat al-Arab river. However Saddam chose his moment, knowing that Washington had been humiliated by Iran, that its new government was not yet strong and with the belief that Shi’a uprisings in the entire region, including in Iraq, had been inflamed by revolutionary Iran (Wright 1980). Saddam correctly guessed that Washington would back him as he tried (but failed) to take all of Khuzestan province, the south-western, oil-rich and Arab speaking part of Iran (Swerdlow 2017).

The USA was not alone in backing Saddam. Jeremy Salt points out that “all five permanent members of the Security Council” provided weapons to Iraq. France alone sold Iraq $4 billion in weapons between 1977 and 1980, and another $12 billion during the war, between 1981 and 1988 (Salt 2008: 283-4). Saddam’s western backers also helped with his chemical weapons attacks. The US and the UK, which had signed and ratified conventions banning chemical and biological weapons, made statements against Saddam’s ‘Project 922’ chemical weapons program, but in secret they helped him with it (Salt 2008: 292-3). For example, US satellite information was provided to help Saddam target massed Iranian troops (Harris and Aid 2013). Iraq began chemical attacks “on all battlefronts” in 1983, using mustard gas against Kurdish Peshmerga and Iranian troops. These attacks continued in every subsequent year until 1988, and included the use of the nerve agents tabun and sarin. With US President Reagan directing that the US should do “whatever is necessary” to ensure that Iran did not prevail, USA agencies helped Saddam both with supply and satellite intelligence for the attacks (Hersh 1992). Much of the evidence on supply came out at 1992 US Senate Committee hearings, which covered the Export Administration Act (Salt 2008: 294-8). The Iraqi military carried out two major chemical weapons attacks on urban areas, at Sardasht in 1987 (western Iran) and Halabja in 1988 (eastern Iraq). Thousands died and thousands more were injured (Haines and Fox 2014: 105-106). When a UN brokered cease fire was finally signed in August 1988, Saddam had achieved none of his original territorial objectives (Tripp 2000: 247-8).

Since Washington and its satellites later overthrew Saddam Hussein with the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, on false ‘self-defence’ pretexts (CIA 2004; CICUSRWMD 2005; Chilcott 2016), western revisionist historians have been at work. Saddam was tried and executed for his crimes against the Kurds, including his use of chemical weapons in Halabja. Yet, not only had the US helped Saddam gas Iranians and Kurds, the British had used chemical weapons against an anti-colonial uprising in Iraq, back in the 1920s. Winston Churchill openly boasted about his wish to use chemical weapons. That gave later revisionist historians (even with assistance from the BBC and Wikipedia) a more difficult task. They tried to say Churchill was only speaking about tear gas, or of a chemical which made people “sneeze”. Richard Langworth of the International Churchill Society, for example, wrote that “Churchill confused the matter when he used the general term ‘poison gas’”, citing his approval for its use. A further problem for the revisionists was that Churchill, the next year, urged “fullest use” of chemical weapons against Bolsheviks in Russia, during British support for counter-revolutionary attacks (Langworth 2013). Nevertheless, after the 2003 invasion, with Saddam out of favour, British historians have sought to distance Britain from that unsavoury aspect of warfare.

During the Iraq-Iran war both Washington and Saddam made use of a formerly left Iranian group, which had fallen out with Tehran. The Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) was categorised as a terrorist group by both Iran and the USA for many years. It had opposed the Shah’s regime and participated in the 1979 Revolution, but quickly turned on the new government and its supporters. After the MEK was driven out of the country it was rapidly adopted by the Iraq-Saudi-CIA bloc, helping Saddam Hussein in his aggression against Iran. With Saddam’s support the MEK created a ‘National Liberation Army’ (NLA) of Iran, based in Baghdad, and used this to destroy Iranian villages, even during a UN brokered ceasefire. But their role in the slaughter of Iranian patriots destroyed the MEK’s reputation within Iran (Carey 2018). Very quickly the group’s hybrid anti-imperialist, socialist and Islamic philosophy was abandoned as it became an opportunistic cult (Merat 2018). In the 1990s they continued as mercenaries for Saddam Hussein, helping suppress Iraqi Shi’a and Kurd resistance in Iraq (USDOS 2007; Merat 2018). Then after the 2003 invasion of Iraq they were protected by US forces at the ‘Camp Ashraf’ base, precisely because they were seen as a tool which could be used against Iran (Cartalucci 2018).

The US Brookings Institute admitted that the MEK was “undemocratic and enjoys little popularity in Iran itself”. Nevertheless, the think tank recognised that the MEK might be used as a proxy force. However to do so openly “Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations” (Pollack et al 2009). The US kept the MEK on its designated terrorist list until 2012, noting that it had killed “several US military personnel and civilians in the 1970s” while maintaining centres in Europe and carrying out “terrorist operations against the Iranian [government] for nearly three decades, from European and Iraqi bases” (USDOS 2007). Yet after the proxy wars of the ‘Arab Spring’ – when the US backed a range of al Qaeda affiliates in Iraq, Libya and Syria – the MEK was gradually brought ‘in from the cold’, with the Obama administration eventually removing them from the US ‘foreign terrorist’ list.

The claim made in 2012 was that the MEK had publicly renounced violence, had not carried out terror attacks for ‘more than a decade’ and had cooperated with US occupation forces at Camp Ashraf (USDOS 2012). This was a deceptive rationale. That same year US officials linked the MEK to the assassination of two Iranian nuclear scientists. Iranian officials believed the MEK was collaborating with and trained by Israel’s secret service, Mossad (Marizad 2012). The utility of the group was not for ‘renouncing violence’ but rather because they were committed to ruthless violence against Iran and had proven themselves pliable opportunists (Cartalucci 2018). The MEK has been adopted by Washington as a proxy force, like the al Qaeda groups used against Iraq and Syria, but with a distinct ideology. They are a nominal ‘alternative’, like the other exile bodies set up by Washington for Iraq, Libya and Syria. Their tiny support within Iran is not considered that important. They are useful to denounce, destabilise and attack (Parsi 2018; Carey 2018). They also help confuse gullible people about the nature of the coordinated misinformation campaigns against Iran.

Between 2013 and 2016 Washington moved the 2,900 Camp Ashraf MEK members to Albania, where they had also moved some former DAESH / ISIS fighters (Spahiu 2018; Khodabandeh and Khodabandeh 2018). The USA and NATO appear to be using Albania as a home for these DAESH and MEK ‘assets’; and the Albanian government seems to expect some leverage with the US for performing this hosting service. The MEK in Albania runs social media campaigns, attacking Tehran and promoting its leader, Maryam Rajavi (Merat 2018). NATO has been ‘normalising’ the MEK among the European states, as various European figures have endorsed or attended their ‘Free Iran’ rallies, in recent years. For example, Trump advisor John Bolton is reported to have been paid large sums of money to advocate for the MEK (Merat 2018), while Trump legal advisor Rudy Giuliani has also visited the MEK in Albania, on the invitation of Maryam Rajavi (Jazexhi 2018). It seems highly likely the group is still backed by Saudi money and Israeli advisers. In September 2018 the MEK was linked to an attack on a military parade in the southwest Iranian city of Ahvaz (MNA 2018). Saudi sponsorship of the MEK-linked ‘al Ahwazia’ group was strongly suspected by Iranian authorities (Osman 2018). DAESH may also have been involved. With common sponsors and a common safe haven in Albania, the two terrorist groups may be working together.

The economic war against Iran has run in parallel with all other aggression and as part of a multi-faceted hybrid war against the Islamic Republic. Washington’s aim has been to cripple the Iranian economy, regardless of the cost to the people, so as to weaken the capacity of this independent state. A hope behind these measures is to force political upheaval and change by “to make the economy scream”, as was said of similar measures against Chile in the early 1970s (Kornbluh 2017); or in other words that “every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of [the country] … to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”, as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lester D. Mallory said at the outset of the 1960 campaign against Cuba (Mallory 1960).

US economic sanctions against Iran began in 1979, when Iran’s imports were banned and $12 billion in Iranian assets were ‘frozen’ (Sen 2018). Throughout the Iraq-Iran war, the US designated Iran a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’, because of its support for Lebanese and Palestinian resistance groups. Under Bush (the son) and Obama administrations Washington managed to get Iran sanctions passed in UN Security Council resolutions of 2007 (UNSC 1747), 2008 (UNSC 1803) and 2010 (UNSC 1929); the pretexts for all were to control the supposed threat from Iran’s nuclear program (Sen 2018). Resolution 1803, called on member states “to exercise vigilance over the activities of financial institutions in their territories will all banks domiciled in Iran, and their branches and subsidiaries abroad” (UNSC 2008; McGlynn 2008). This was a significant diplomatic victory for the US, as they were joined not just by the European Union but also by Russia and China. That added weight to the sanctions which forced Iran into the 2012-2015 negotiations which led to the JCPOA (‘Joint Plan of Action’) ‘nuclear deal’.

The question of why Iran was singled out for treatment deserves study. It has been a key feature of the contemporary uneven application of international law, and bears little relation to actual international threats. One US commentator has even argued that the interests of a stable region might have been better served if Iran had acquired nuclear weapons, to balance Israel’s monopoly, because ‘nuclear balancing would mean stability (Waltz 2012: 2). However it seems that Israel’s allies, including Russia, wanted to maintain the Zionist state’s monopoly. The only benefit for Iran, in opening up its nuclear energy sector to international supervision, was relief from economic sanctions.  As it turned out, Iran had no demonstrable nuclear weapons program. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which had expressed concerns about prior enrichment activity and disclosure, has certified from 2014 through to 2019 that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons (Sen 2018; VOA 2019).

The ‘nuclear deal’ was announced with much fanfare, but Washington rapidly killed it. In July 2015 representatives of the EU and of Iran said they had ‘delivered on what the world was hoping for: a shared commitment to peace and to join hands in order to make our world safer’. The agreement would “ensure that Iran’s nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful” and anticipated that there would be a “comprehensive lifting of all UN Security Council sanctions as well as multilateral and national sanctions” (Mogherini and Zarif 2015).

Denunciation of the JCPOA by incoming President Donald Trump raised questions about the viability of the agreement, as the US imposed even harsher sanctions on Iran, including third party sanctions. Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) targeted Iranian oil sales (Ritter 2019: 293). Trump had no support from the EU, nor from Russia nor China. Instead, he threatened impose sanctions on any other country doing business with Iran. The rationale was claimed as ‘the safety of the American people’, of the Saudis in Riyadh and the Israelis in the occupied Golan Heights (Pompeo 2018). Contrary to the IAEA, Washington claimed an Iranian nuclear threat was still alive. The renewed US sanctions would target Iran’s energy sector, its financial system, trade and foreign investors (White House 2018; Pompeo 2018). The actual rationale was US frustration at Iran’s ongoing role in the region. Without a hint of irony, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited Iran’s alleged ‘terrorism’ and ‘proxy wars’, through its support for independent nationalist forces in Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. For good measure he tried to blame Iran for providing “sanctuary for al Qaeda”, the terrorist network sponsored by the US and its allies (Pompeo 2018). Yet al Qaeda and its affiliates have always expressed a Saudi-styled sectarian hatred for Iran and all other Shi’a Muslims.

US weapons inspector and analyst Scott Ritter wrote that Donald Trump’s denunciation of the JCPOA agreement ‘threatens to return the world to that precipice’ of large scale war (Ritter 2019). Of course, this US backflip over an agreement which it initiated and brokered, over several years, would also destroy Iranian interest in attempting any similar agreement, for years to come. Ritter (2019: 312) pointed out “there is no compelling narrative than can be crafted that would compel Iran to walk away from the JCPOA in favor of renegotiating its nuclear rights”.

Decades of mainly US sanctions have certainly damaged Iran’s economy, especially exports and the currency. While cloaked in other language, damaging state capacity has helped ensure that the primary impact of sanctions has been, predictably, to “harm ordinary Iranians” (Waltz 2012: 5). Sanctions arbitrarily linked to the country’s nuclear program have helped aggravate unemployment, damage finance, trade and the currency and so raise prices for many goods. The main compensation for ordinary Iranian people has been state social security measures.

Yet Iran’s economy is large, diverse and resilient, and far from the ‘collapse’ which is often suggested by the country’s enemies. Adaptation to aggression is producing some advantages. Tehran has been organising non-dollar trade, including oil sales with big customers China and India. Links within the Eurasian bloc are developing, especially through mega-infrastructure projects, like the northern trade corridor to Russia. Steel production has risen strongly. In late 2018 the US-based International Trade Administration recognised that between 2015 and 2018, Iran had moved from a net importer of steel into one of the world’s top 20 steel exporters (ITA 2018). Iran no longer exports crude oil and imports fuel, because its expanded refinery capacity has ensured national fuel self-sufficiency (Paraskova 2019). And the country’s motor vehicle industry, which employs about 4% of the national workforce, has export markets and/or joint ventures in Algeria, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Ghana, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Senegal, Syria, Sudan and Venezuela (Iran Daily 2017). The industry’s success has led to targeting by the US ‘sanctions’ regime (Dudley 2018). In other words, this large and resource rich country, which has strongly invested in its own people, has been able to adapt and grow in capacity, despite four decades of outside aggression.

4. Iran and the Resistance

The shrill cries of its enemies tell us that Iran matters, but why is it so important? It is certainly not because of any threats to peaceful nations, nor from ‘terrorism’. Those are all false pretexts. Iran has not invaded another country in centuries. It is attacked because it remains the largest independent nation of the region, with both the capacity and the will to resist and frustrate outside imperial powers, and to organise a regional resistance. The only nations of comparable size in the Middle East are Turkey, with its own imperial legacy and embedded in NATO, and Egypt, which saw a collapse in both political will and economic capacity in the 1970s. Iran can and does organise the defence of other independent nations in the region. That is the ‘threat’, to those with imperial ambitions.

In secular terms it is the anti-imperial character of Iran which conditions its strategic role in the region, and in the world. Further, we should not ignore the role of what might be called the ‘secular’ development of the Islamic Republic. It has been said that there is a long-standing ‘secular tradition of government’ in the region going back many centuries, including within older ‘Islamic’ states (Salt 2008: 29). Iran is now engaged with a wider group of international partners, none of which share its religious traditions but many of whom coincide in a number of social values. On this basis there is collaborative policy and practice. Most of Iran’s strategic partners (Russia, China, Syria and Venezuela) are secular, mostly non-religious states. The strategic relationship with Russia is strong (Tarock 1997; Khajehpour 2014), Iran enthusiastically engages in industrial, infrastructure, and financial collaboration with Christian-socialist Venezuela and is strongly committed to defence of the secular, Pan-Arab Socialist Republic of Syria (Goodarzi 2009: 2-3). It also arms the Palestinian resistance, a combination of secular, Sunni Muslim and communist forces. Such partnerships are built on common concerns, in the case of Iran and Syria to counter aggression and strengthen regional autonomy (Goodarzi 2009: 294).

Iran has helped Palestine resist ethnic cleansing; it has helped the Lebanese resistance expel Israeli occupation; and it has backed both Iraq and Syria in their victories over a sectarian terrorism generated by the Gulf monarchies, Israel and NATO. Iran has the biggest multi-lingual media network in the region and has done more than any other to expose the forgotten Saudi war against independent and revolutionary Yemen. It has engaged with wider anti-imperial forces to help build counter-hegemonic ideas and media, a new financial architecture and a multi-polar world (YVKE Mundial 2009; Hiro 2014). It promises to build a transport corridor between Tehran and Beirut (Silk Road Briefing 2018), a move which would contribute greatly to regional development; but which is feared and opposed by Israel (Lappin 2018; Mojon 2018). Iran’s enemies have done all they can to fragment and divide the peoples of the region. They do not want that integration and independent prosperity. So it is the capacity, consistency and political will of the Islamic Republic of Iran that matters, and that is why Iran leads the region’s Axis of Resistance.

——————

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This article is Chapter 14 in the book Axis of Resistance, available from Clarity Press.

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