Iran' and defend the Iranian revolution? Is there really choose between Iran and iraq?
The Khomeini regime in Iran is not the product of a palace coup, but of a massive mobilisation of the Iranian people. revolutionary upsurge finished off the Shah most remarkable of all time. Such was the strength of the Shah's army, with its nuce amounts of weaponry, that he was thought to be virtually impregnable from popular ing. His secret police force, SAVAK, was one of the most efficient, and certainly he most ruthless in the ponents of the Shah were hunted down across the world by SAVAK.
The Shah fell, despite the strength of his repressive forces, because millions of people came out onto the streets and were prepared to defy anything that the Shah could throw at them. The Iranian heals on eddie people, the hearts minds weapons, are what counts The victory of the revolution struck a strategic perialism. Their local policeman, Shah, and his American interests Western Asia and the Middle East were threatened. represented an immense victory for tse revolution's Iranian masses themselves. In order to really themselves perialism it is necessary for the workers and peasants to go much further in an anti-capitalist direction than has so far been achieved. But in travelling that road the first step was to get rid of the Shah.
The removal of the Shah has thrown the future of the country into the melting pot. The mullahs, led by Khomeini, want a fundamentalist 'Islamic' regime. such a regime has no real social proyears. anything to many was one of the out American-made the right uprisOp- Arabia, Libya distancing Palestine Organisation.
people, the region had fallen. the whole of weakened.
massive victory the Western imorder to start the West.
But The evolution of the Iraqi Baathist regine is typical of bourgeois or petty-bourgeois nationalist regimes all over the world. Starting 'leftist', imperialist image the regime prug. cssively moved to The new president, Sad dam Hussein, has cemented a new alliance with the ultra-reactionary regimes in Saudi Kuwait and Jordan an shearing the regime's previous alliance with radical Arab nationalist regimes in and Algeria, and States. itself the Liberation Politics abhors a vacuum.
Since the fall of the Shah, imperialism's grip in the Gulf has been severely fective The Shah and his American-equipped dam forces functioned as the gendarme of the Gulf. They were guarantors of prostability in the It was the Shah who sent his forces into Oman to fight Iran. against the revolution there. So long as the Shah was power the Gulf was safe for But with the fall Cairo Shah's regime the hold of im- tional perialism in the region was severely weakened. The new Iran represented a break with American interests; rather than acting as the catspaw of US imperialism, Iran is locked in conflict with the US over the hostages.
Policeman It is into this vacuum that Saddam Hussein has now stepped. Apart from forging alliance with the reac tionary Arab regimes, Hussein has been busy 'normalising' relations with the United Carter's bellicose advisor, Zbigniew Berenily: We see commented recently: fundamental incompatability of interests between the United States and Iraq'.
Through une weakening of the Iranian regime, and et control of the northern end of the Gulf, Sad Hussein hopes to establish himself as imperialism's policeman for the region, and thus to become a prominent leader of ure Arao wonde meaning of his attack on Deposed order 'patriot' the Shah's son in apocal offered his uncondisupport to fight against the Iraqis, "to the last The forces loyal to the exShah's family have been discussing the possibility bringing down Knomein in a counter-revolutionary coup. Several of the Shah's generals — led by Oveissie and Paliz ban _ together with forme premier Bahktiar, have been camped in Baghdad for some time, plotting the possibility return power.
Whether the Iraqi invasion will give them the opportunily to try to overtnrow Ano meini remains to be seen It seems extremely unlike. ly that the invasion of Iran was inched as a result direct collusion between Baghdad ana The increasing coincidence of interests belween imperialism and the Iraqi regime doesn't make their interests identical.
Oil For most Western coun tries the threat to oil supplies serious, although the United negligible amount of oil from States itself Iraq and none from Iran.
Moreover, despite Sad dam Hussein's alll establish himself im perialism's gendarme in the Gulf, the whole conflict has a potential dynamic • toward destabilising the region Nonetheless, , there is little doubt about which side imperialism will Western sympathies lie.