First Published: The Call, Vol. 8, No. 48, December 17, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Throughout our last several issues, The Call has tried to present regular news and analysis of the Iran crisis. This week, we compiled some of the questions most often asked by our readers and posed them to Lynn Middleton of our International News department. Below are the questions and Middleton’s replies:
What is your position on the taking of hostages in Iran?
The political establishment and the media in the U.S. are trying to get the American people to look at the hostages as an issue separated and abstracted from everything that has taken place in Iran over the last generation. If looked at apart from its context, it’s not surprising that many people would see the taking of the hostages as something unreasonable and unjust.
But the taking of the hostages cannot really be understood apart from the history that led up to it. Those political figures who today denounce the “terrorism” of the Iranian students and the Khomeini government, are the very same people who eagerly provided the shah with the political and military support necessary to build up a regime that slaughtered as many as 100,000 of its political opponents.
While the press today is filled with headlines about the “fanaticism” and “barbarism” of Khomeini, where were these media voices when the CIA was overthrowing the Mossadegh government in 1953 and installing the shah in power? Where were those who now speak so eloquently about the “human rights” of the hostages when the shah was building up his fascist police state and massacring Iranians?
The Iranian people want the shah to return not simply to carry out retribution for his crimes–although that sentiment is obviously very strong–but also to account for the billions of dollars in national wealth he diverted out of the country and is still holding in international investments. This is certainly understandable, and even top U.S. government spokesmen have acknowledged that the Iranian people have “legitimate grievances” to settle with the shah. But rather than facilitating a solution of this type, U.S. financial and political interests (with the Rockefeller family figuring prominently among them) brought the shah to the U.S. knowing full well that such action would provoke an angry response from Iran and potentially jeopardize the safety of embassy employees. They were intent on using the shah as a political tool in their efforts to restore former U.S. influence in Iran, and it was this clearly perceived aim that resulted in the embassy occupation.
Evidence also exists that not all the embassy personnel were “innocent bystanders” as they have been portrayed, but that some were directly involved in CIA and U.S. government activities designed to destabilize the Iranian revolution.
Evaluated in its overall sense, the taking of the hostages is part of the justifiable rebellion of the Iranian people who have been dominated by U.S. imperialism for more than a quarter century, and who are now trying to make it clear that they will stand for no more meddling in their affairs by imperialism.
Naturally, when the oppressed stand up and rebel, things don’t always go smoothly and neatly. But if violation of accepted laws and norms were the only standard by which to judge political actions, we would also have to condemn on the same basis the struggles of the oppressed in our own country from the Boston Tea Party down through history.
As to whether the taking of the hostages was the best tactic for Iran to use in making its political point, that is another question. Although broad support has existed among Iranians for the embassy takeover since the beginning, some prominent political figures like Finance Minister Bani-Sadr have pointed out that Iran is growing more isolated internationally by continuing to hold the hostages and refusing to discuss the question at the UN. But these questions of tactics in waging the struggle are best left to the Iranian people to decide.
How do you evaluate the UN Security Council vote which was unanimous in calling on Iran to free the hostages?
The taking of the hostages did violate accepted international diplomatic norms, and so it is only natural that the world community is calling on Iran to return to those norms. But there are two other important aspects to the sentiment that was expressed in that vote. The first is that many countries acknowledged the justice in Iran’s claims against the shah and the U.S. They therefore refused to make the resolution a condemnation of Iran’s actions, but only an appeal for the release of the hostages.
Secondly, at the insistence of the nonaligned members of the Council, the resolution included wording demanding that the U.S. resolve the issue peacefully. Thus the world body also went on record as taking issue with the Carter administration’s stated option of using armed intervention. Iranian officials including Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh and the Iran state radio have indicated that the UN position improved the atmosphere for a negotiated settlement.
What is the Soviet role in the current crisis over Iran?
The Soviet Union is trying through a variety of methods to get influence and control over this oil-rich, geographically strategic country on its border. Although voting at the Security Council for the release of the hostages (especially so as not to over-antagonize U.S. public opinion while the SALT treaty is still being debated), the USSR has simultaneously tried to make use of the Iranian struggle against U.S. imperialism to provide a cover for its own maneuvers in Iran and throughout the region.
For example, while the Soviet Union has been among those loudly denouncing Carter’s dispatching of the aircraft carriers Midway and Kitty Hawk to the Indian Ocean, the Soviet navy actually has twice as many vessels as the U.S. in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. Moreover, the appearance of the new U.S. ships has been used by Moscow as a pretext for new aerial activity in the Gulf.
A Soviet hand can also be seen in some of the recent anti-U.S. demonstrations in Mideast and Asian countries, which have taken place ostensibly in solidarity with the Iranian struggle. The attack on the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, for example, has been linked to pro-Soviet forces in Thailand. At a time when Soviet-backed Vietnamese troops are threatening to overrun Thailand’s border, it serves Soviet interests well to try to focus Thai sentiment on U.S. activity. In Pakistan, Soviet agents were seen trying to rifle documents from the smouldering U.S. embassy attacked by demonstrators there.
The current political course of the Iranian government is one of opposing both superpowers. This could be seen when Khomeini simultaneously abrogated a U.S.-Iran Friendship Treaty as well as key provisions of a Soviet-Iran treaty. But Moscow has a multitude of political levers to pull inside Iran–the revisionist Tudeh party, pro-Soviet forces in the religious establishment and connections to some Kurdish groups.
The Soviets also have an extensive propaganda apparatus that includes a Farsi-broadcasting radio station on the Iran-Soviet border which has been giving full support to the embassy occupation and encouraging Iranians to “heighten the struggle against U.S. imperialism.” According to a Washington Post account, the Tudeh Party, which has had low credibility in the eyes of the masses owing to its slavish devotion to Moscow, has resurfaced quite openly in the present situation, declaring itself to be “firm supporters” of the embassy takeover and the anti-U.S. struggle.
Inside Iran, a number of political forces are warning that the struggle against U.S. imperialism should not be waged in a one-sided way that negates the danger posed to Iran by the Soviet superpower. This is a good warning because, while it is the U.S. which is the most immediate enemy of the Iranian people, the Soviet Union is an even more aggressive and dangerous enemy, seeking to dominate the entire Eurasian land mass as it strives for a redivision of the world power with its U.S. imperialist rival.
A lot of workers, and probably most Americans, support Carter’s stand on the hostages, and some have even engaged in flag-waving demonstrations and so on. What political implications for the situation at home do you see in this situation?
Carter and the rest of those who rule this country are trying to get people to feel that somehow they are being attacked by the embassy takeover in Iran. They hope that by using the ideology and rhetoric of national chauvinism, they can rally new support for imperialism’s policies both at home and abroad. By making it seem that “all Americans” are being “held hostage” by the events in Tehran, they believe they can get the people to endorse everything from higher gasoline prices to a renewed military draft to stepped up U.S. military aggression around the world.
In fact, it is not “all Americans” who are being threatened by the events in Iran. It is only those like David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter and the big oil monopolies who have a vested interest in controlling Iran’s economic and political life who are under attack, not the masses of Americans.
The Call, the CPML and other progressive forces in this country have our work cut out for us in trying to educate people that the enemy is not in Iran, but right here at home, because the same Rockefellers and Carters that have oppressed Iran historically have also seen oppressing the American workers.