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Behind the Iran “Nuclear” Deal

Only Communism Can End Imperialist War

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Is peace about to break out?  That’s the conclusion some draw from the so-called Iran nuclear deal.  Iran agreed not to develop nuclear weapons.  What’s more, the major imperialist powers (the US, China, Russia, the UK, France, and Germany) worked together to close the deal. 

Don’t get your hopes up.
We all want a world without war, and communism will eventually guarantee it. There will be no profits to fight over.  No nations to go to war.  No nuclear weapons.  There will be no unprincipled “diplomacy” either. 
Instead, one International Communist Workers’ Party will unite the masses on every continent.  We will mobilize as many as possible to make decisions collectively through open (and multi-lingual) discussion.  Our goal will be to use the world’s resources to meet everyone’s needs sustainably. 

Until we have communism worldwide, “peace” is impossible. 
The pro-US imperialist website Stratfor said of the Iran deal that “the end of the arduous negotiation period is just the beginning of a very volatile period for the Middle East.”   That could mean rapid change for the worse, even worse for workers than the civil war in Syria or the rise of the Islamic State. 
Or it could mean rapid change for the better, if Red Flag readers spread communist ideas to friends and relatives with connections in the region.  If you can translate Red Flag articles into Farsi, Arabic, or another language, please send translations to icwp@anonymousspeech.com.

The deal isn’t really about nuclear weapons.  Iran didn’t have one.  All the imperialist powers involved do, along with Israel, India and Pakistan.  If the Iranian rulers developed and used a bomb, their cities would quickly be incinerated. 
The deal is mainly about the US and China jockeying for position in preparation for an eventual face-off.
China is already ramping up its economic, military and political ties to Iran.  Iran was a founding member of China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.  Ending UN sanctions could allow Iran to join the Shanghai Cooperation Group, further integrating Eurasia.
The Chinese capitalist-imperialists’ interest in Iran is mainly strategic:  part of their plan to secure the oil they will need for war via overland routes if critical sea lanes are blocked. 
Leading US capitalist-imperialists hope for the opposite:  that the Iran deal will lead to an alliance with the US that will block China’s access to oil.  That’s unlikely. 
But the deal – if it happens – would let the US disengage militarily from the Middle East, perhaps finally leaving Iraq.  That would free resources for the Obama-Clinton “pivot to Asia” that is a thinly-disguised attempt to “contain” China. 
Other US imperialists bitterly oppose the Iran deal.  They say that Iran “can’t be trusted” but that’s not the real issue. 
They think that the best strategy to reverse the decline of US imperialism is to attack Iran militarily, alongside Israel and Saudi Arabia and (they hope) Turkey.  That would likely mean fighting Russia and China in that region instead of in China’s backyard. 

Let’s always remember that wars – especially world wars – have opened the door to revolution.  Our Party must prepare workers for these eventual opportunities by making the case for communism now, using the opportunities that already surround us.  (See p. 2)
Supporters of the Iran deal compare it to the Roosevelt-Stalin and Nixon-Mao agreements. These comparisons actually illustrate what was wrong with 20th-century socialism and its foreign policies.  Instead of leading the world’s masses toward communism, socialism disarmed and betrayed them by making deals with their exploiters.

In a communist world there will be no “foreign policy” because nobody will be “foreign.”  But the fight for communism will develop unevenly.  For a period, communism will exist in some places while capitalist nations survive elsewhere.
We won’t try to make treaties or alliances with any capitalist enemy.  We won’t engage in capitalist trade in cash or kind.  Mobilizing the masses for communism means a clean break from the past. 
We must be prepared to defeat both counterrevolutionaries backed by imperialist powers and direct imperialist military attacks.  Meanwhile we will do everything we can to support our comrades who are still fighting for communist power.  Where possible we would airlift or smuggle communist literature, weapons and supplies to them as well as to our class brothers and sisters in capitalist-run disaster areas. 

Communists don’t offer false promises of “peace in our time.”  Instead we offer the chance to fight for the communist world that can end the vicious exploitation and bloody wars of class society.  Join us to mobilize for communism:  the only way to secure our future.


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