Campism Against Freedom
From Iran to Ukraine
Iranians are engaged in an uprising against the theocratic regime that has ruled the country for over 45 years. This latest explosion was sparked by the collapse of the rial, Iran’s currency- a 56 percent collapse against the dollar in six months that caused inflation to soar. Food prices are up 72 percent on average from a year ago. Yet this was only the latest breaking point for a society long under the yoke of repression and corruption.
The last large-scale protests took place roughly three years ago, under the rallying cry of ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’, in the aftermath of the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini. Amini had been arrested for wearing her hijab improperly. According to eyewitnesses, she was severely beaten by Guidance Patrol officers. Almost exactly three years before that in 2019 a spike in fuel prices set off another round of mass demonstrations. That episode saw the regime kill at least hundreds of protesters and bystanders.
The toll of the current uprising certainly appears to have reached this mark. Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reports that 544 people have been killed with over 10,600 people transferred to prisons following arrests. Others put the toll even higher. The Narges Foundation, dedicated to currently imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi, estimates the number of deaths is more than 2,000. These numbers are fluid in part because the regime has shut down the internet in the country, as it did in earlier episodes. The regime is even threatening public hangings with a 26-year-old shopkeeper, Erfan Soltani, as the first proposed target.
The regime in Iran has clearly been on shaky ground for some time. Its overdue fall would not only give Iranians a chance to build a free society but would likely also be good for the region in general by eliminating a chief sponsor for such odious groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.
Quite predictively, much of the so-called Left is doing its best to pretend none of this is happening. Either that or they declare the protestors as Zionist proxies. Take, for instance, Progressive International, a group founded in 2020 that claims its roots in response to an appeal by Bernie Sanders and Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek minister of finance. The founding was supported a council of advisors that included names like Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and Rafael Correa. Here is part of recent statement on Iran:
In imperial countries, the police function as the domestic arm of the empire. They suppress dissent, criminalize resistance…In Iran, the Law Enforcement Command exists within a radically, different context: a state born of popular revolution, subject to decades of sanctions, assassinations, sabotage, and overt military threats. Crucially, it faces sustained attempts at regime change and color revolution tactics…The “Women, Life, Freedom” events marked a decisive moment in this strategy. What emerged as a set of legitimate social grievances was rapidly appropriated and rearticulated -through overt Zionist endorsement, coordinated diasporic networks, and sustained media warfare- into a regime-change project.
Of course, the usual bottom-feeders are all toeing this line and somehow even worse. Apparently, taking a quick break from shilling for Putin and finds another dictatorship to front for takes little effort. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may have been a bit late when issued a statement supporting ‘the Iranians taking to the streets to call for a better future’ Blumenthal called her an Israeli plant. Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada explained it was because Ocasio-Cortez ‘backs the CIA-Mossad regime change campaign.’ Jason Hickel does what he does, droning on about the U.S. plots of deindustrialization (apparently, he hasn’t read Patrick McGee’s excellent book Apple in China). Not surprising but still worth noting this spiel echoes reactionaries like Jeffrey Sachs who describes the protests as the U.S. “Create chaos. Push people into the streets. Provoke BLOODSHED. Call it ‘protecting democracy.’” Sachs has been making his usual rounds in leftish spaces. Glenn Greenwald claims he isn’t arrogant enough to have an opinion. Aaron Bastani of Novara Media seems to prefer the status quo.
There’s obviously no reason to expect anything different from them. It is plain that for this crowd the mullahs ruling Iran eternally is preferable to even the possibility that a future democratic Iran is in any way aligned with the ‘West’ (though no one can hardly predict the future politics of a democratic Iran). But, say, Jacobin? As of this moment the articles on their webpage so far this year concerning Iran are titled ‘As Protests Engulf Iran, Israel Sees and Opportunity’ and ‘Right Wing Dark Money Groups Want Regime Change in Iran.’ The subheading for the former reads: ‘The protests sweeping through Iran are not the first of their kind. But the threat of a continuation of the Israel-US war has led Tehran to see them as an existential threat.’ And needless to say college campuses seem quiet these days.
Walking and chewing gum is actually quite simple. One can be weary or opposed to any U.S. intervention (it is possible that a time to impose a no-fly-zone could come, it can be argued that would have been good for Syria when Assad began his gruesome crackdown) and still support the Iranians risking their lives in the streets. There are plenty of ways to express and perform solidarity that go beyond government policy. Is internationalism real or not?
Meanwhile, another vision is floating around the ether. The Trump administration’s brazen raid in Venezuela that apprehended Nicholas Maduro perhaps signals a shift in U.S. focus. Trump has long spewed nonsense about oil in other countries. As the Wall Street Journal recently described, this goes back even to Kuwait’s oil in the 1980s. Venezuela sits over the largest reserves in the world and therefore no expectation in Trump’s lizard brain. Yet it is not likely we will see a resurgence of production in Venezuela anytime soon. The oil majors apparently weren’t even consulted before the administration conducted the raid. It looks like it’ll take about $100 billion to get the industry in Venezuela back on its feet; plus, the oil in Venezuela is heavy crude. That adds more expense (Matt Huber has an excellent analysis of this on his Substack). It appears lost on a business genius like Trump that oil companies care more for profits than they do drilling for or producing oil.
It is just as likely Trump ordered this, with Marco Rubio’s presidential ambitious on his shoulder, simply because he could. An added bonus could be the cutting off 35,000 barrels of oil a day that Venezuela provides Cuba (roughly a third of the 100,000 barrels Cuba uses a day) to deliver a knockout blow to Cuba’s government- another apparent Rubio goal. Certainly, there were plenty of Venezuelans in the diaspora celebrating Maduro’s departure (as opposed to those in Venezuela living in fear of government repression and perhaps occupation) but it is not at all clear what is coming next. Thus far the administration seems content to work with Maduro’s leftover cronies.
Last month the administration released its National Security Strategy (NSS) which made a point of not describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as ‘aggression.’ Does all this signify a crude pivot whereby the U.S. ‘gets’ Venezuela while Putin keeps whatever he grabs in Ukraine? This was exactly what the Kremlin, not to mention the CCP, seem to take from it. The Wall Street Journal quoted Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie China research center: “Beijing is captivated by Trump’s interest in spheres of influence of major powers. It’s interested in exploring whether the U.S. is willing to make major compromises in the Western Pacific, including on the issue of Taiwan.” The Kremlin response boasted that the document ‘corresponds in many ways to our vision.’
Trump has always had a sort of mafia mentality when it comes to international matters. The likes of Putin and Xi Jinping are the other heads of the Five Families that need to be respected whereby historic allies are underlings that can be pissed on at will or leaned on for more tribute. Every time Putin bombs a maternity ward in Ukraine, Trump can talk about peace fast enough.
It is yet to be seen how this plays out but unfortunately it fits with much of what the Left has been pushing since the Russian invasion started. Sometimes literally, in the case of Richard Falk and ghouls like Thomas Fazi. But what else could dribble about countries in eastern Europe (not even Ukraine) joining NATO or ‘Russia’s legitimate security concerns’ and ‘surrendering 20 percent of Ukraine for the greater good’ be but an endorsement of such spheres of influence?
What it should be is an obvious reason for internationalism and uniting the struggles. What could be clearer?