Iran: Threats over uranium enrichment aid regime

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Friday October 02, 2009 15:42 by Yassamine Mather

Yassamine Mather writes on how the Iranian Regime uses threats from the imperialists to justify the oppression of Iranian workers, students and womens rights activists. Full story at url below.

The dramatic statements by Obama, Brown and Sarkozy about Iran’s undisclosed nuclear enrichment plant, made on the first day of the G20 gathering in Pittsburgh, were clearly intended to prepare the world for a new conflict in the Middle East. But this is old news. US and UK secret services had known about it for at least 3 years - Israel and France also knew about it and delivered their finding to the International Atomic Energy Agency earlier this year. So what was the main purpose of the Obama-Sarkozy-Brown show on September 25? Could it be it was directed mainly to audiences in the US, UK and France, to convince them that, at a time of economic uncertainty, western leaders have to deal with a ‘major external threat’ posed by Iran’s nuclear development?

The few delegates in the UN assembly hall who heard Ahmadinejad condemn the excesses of "liberal capitalism" might have thought Iran is an egalitarian religious society. Nothing could be further from reality. After 30 years in power Iran’s Islamic regime has created one of the most unequal, corrupt societies of the region, where the gap between the rich and the poor is amongst the highest in the world. As Ahmadinejad was speaking, Iran’s car workers (amongst the best paid sections of the working class) were protesting at long shifts causing ill health and workers throughout Iran were on strike or demonstrating against non-payment of wages. While factory closures due to privatisation continue, Aryaman Motors, a Tehran-based company specialising in reproducing classic cars, launched a new series of replica vehicles based on the original design of the earliest Rolls Royce models at $120,000 each - wealthy Iranians have already pre-paid for the first models that will be finished later this year.

The proposed US-European sanctions dramatically degrade the ability of the working people to struggle collectively on their own account, to organise and to fight. In other words, for the sake of Iranian working class we must continue our opposition to war, sanctions and regime change from above, while increasing our solidarity with the revolutionary movement inside Iran.