Daily Times

In his relentless absurdity, Donald Trump scuttled the Iran Nuclear Deal last Tuesday. He said, “America would not surrender to nuclear blackmail by Iran” and ordered the immediate re-imposing of sanctions against Iran. These were lifted after a six-nation agreement called the ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ (JCPOA) in July 2015.

Trump ignored pleas from French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who travelled to Washington DC in recent days to try to restrain him from this foolhardy decision. The act could strain US relations with these key allies while aggravating tensions with Russia and China. This will further add to the instability in West Asia.

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Adviser HR McMaster who were both sacked recently had restrained Trump for months. The newly appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton share Trump’s pro-Israel and hawkish views on Iran. But it was his friend, the reactionary Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, more than anyone else, who goaded Trump into rejecting the deal.

The Trump administration has been pressing European countries to stay away from commercial deals with Iran already. Boeing, one American entity that was allowed to do business with Iran by the Obama administration did not proceed with the opportunity.

Sections of the US bourgeois are also unhappy with this decision. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “the governments of Iran, Russia, and China would seize this opportunity of self-imposed US isolation… Today’s withdrawal from the JCPOA makes it more likely Iran will restart its nuclear weapons program.”

Iran’s President Rouhani reacted saying, “I have instructed the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation to take the necessary measures for future actions so that if necessary, we can resume industrial enrichment (of Uranium) without limits… I have ordered the foreign ministry to negotiate with the European countries, China and Russia in coming weeks. If at the end of this short period we conclude that we can fully benefit from the JCPOA with the cooperation of all countries, the deal would remain.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, himself embroiled in scandals and looming impeachment, applauded Trump’s decision: “Israel fully supports President Trump’s bold decision today to reject the disastrous nuclear deal with the terrorist regime.” Iran’s regional rival and the long-time US ally, Saudi Arabia, is facing instability as well as a deep economic crisis, supported Trump: ‘The Kingdom supports and welcomes the steps announced by the US president toward withdrawing from the nuclear deal … and reinstating economic sanctions against Iran.’ Riyadh’s monarchical allies in the Gulf — United Arab Emirates and Bahrain followed suite. The ongoing proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran are wreaking havoc upon the Middle Eastern masses. This decision can provoke a wider escalation of conflict in the region, which is already being devastated by imperialist aggression and religious terror. The Israeli Zionist state and Riyadh’s despotic monarchy are on the offensive to find any opportunity against their nemesis — the Iranian clergy.

Trumps decision is ‘continuation of domestic politics by other means’. A severe socioeconomic crisis and a swirling chaos of the Trump White House, with scandals and cover-ups are rocking the US. There is inexorable pressure from the US military Industrial Complex that abhors any peace-deal jeopardising its obscene profits.

There is also a widespread resentment simmering in Iran. In early January, Iran’s despotic bourgeois-clerical regime was shaken by protests against rising food prices, mass unemployment, growing social inequality, brutal austerity agenda and political repression

Worsening conditions of ordinary Americans are creating enormous social and political instability. The workers struggle in several states, valiant youth upsurge in the wake of the Parkland massacre and the resistance against Trump’s brutal immigration policies are manifestations of the revolt of the oppressed and the deprived. There are increasing speculations that Donald Trump will be removed by indictment, impeachment or implosion from the combined weight of scandals, investigations and revelations of criminal conduct. The Democrats’ resistance is feeble against Trump’s anti-people crusade. It will be now, as it always has been, the power of mass movements that change the tide.

There is also a widespread resentment simmering in Iran. In early January, Iran’s despotic bourgeois-clerical regime was shaken by protests against rising food prices, mass unemployment, growing social inequality, brutal austerity agenda and political repression. The demonstrations were mainly composed of workers, the poor, unemployed and women. There’s a seething anger in a society where 3.2 million people, or 12.7 percent of the workforce, is officially unemployed. The youth unemployment rate is around 40 percent and over 50 percent live in poverty. One percent of the richest Iranians own more wealth than half of the population.

The acute social crisis in Iran is a product of economic sanctions, global capitalist crisis and the collapse of world oil prices. For years, Rouhani has been the advocate of rapprochement with Western imperialist powers. In 2013, by highlighting the socially explosive consequences of US and European economic sanctions on Iran, they convinced Khamenei and other core clerical autocrats for the need to change course. Hence a new attempt at compromise with Washington and the European Union was initiated. Trumps decision will only strengthen belligerent hardliners.

Over the last four years, the Rouhani government has followed the IMF’s prescriptions for austerity and concessions for the western imperialist oil corporations. In January 2016, some sanctions were lifted in exchange for the dismantling a large part of Tehran’s nuclear programme. But with the lifting of sanctions resultant economic stimulation’s advantages have almost exclusively benefited the upper most layers of society. Rouhani’s policy has been to accentuate austerity for the masses, while increasing the budgets of the religious institutions and the obscenely rich clergy.

Despite the Islamic and Shia sectarian rhetoric of the regime, Iranian capitalism has proved to be incompatible with the needs of society. Ultimately the working class shall have to rise in a revolutionary struggle to establish the political power to undertake the socialist reorganisation of society. Such a revolutionary change in Iran will be the beginning of the end of the despotic and tyrannical regimes of the region and break the stranglehold of imperialism. This is the only way forward to put an end to the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction, wars, exploitation, bloodshed and religious terror.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, May 14^th 2018.