U.S imperialism imposes Iran nuclear accord

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The U.S. credo with regard to Iran today might well read, “Only civilized nations and their leaders should have nuclear weapons!”

Included in this U.S.-allied circle of civilized nuclearweapons nations is India. But we hear no U.S. com­ plaints regarding India’s racist Prime Minister Nar­ endra Modi, who essentially praised the communal murders of 1000 Muslims and suggested that all nonHindus leave his country.

Nor is nuclear Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Ne­ tanyahu, who routinely orders the slaughter of Pal­ estinian Gazans and whose government illegally oc­ cupies 90 percent of historic Palestinian land, placed beyond the “civilized nation” pale.

Or perhaps the Pakistani nuclear dictatorship, or the French, whose troops slaughter tens of thousands of Africans as France reasserts its grip over its African neo-colonies? They too are civilized. In the case of France, the country is simply following the imperial mantra of Rudyard Kipling’s “white man’s burden” in bringing “peace” to “terrorist-ridden” Africa—and plunder too.

We might add the other imperialist nations among the ranks of “civilized” countries, including the Unit­ ed States itself, whose surrogate African dictator-led armies slaughtered some six million Congolese over the past decade to steal that nation’s rich mineral re­ sources.

Yes, the U.S. is the properly named Great Satan—the racist, imperialist, warmongering U.S. government, “under God,” of course, that today presides over the illegal embargo of Iran and imposes all pervasive sanctions that have qualitatively reduced the qual­ ity of life of nearly all Iranians, sequestered Iranian government bank accounts, stolen billions of dollars in Iranian funds, and cut off Iran from world oil mar­ kets—again, in the name of “civilization!”

According to the Arms Control Association, which monitors the number and type of all nations with nu­ clear arsenals, “the United States has 1,597 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on 785 ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers. The Federation of American Scien­ tists estimates that the United States’s non-deployed strategic arsenal is approximately 2,800 warheads and the U.S. tactical nuclear arsenal numbers 500 warheads. According to the U.S. State Department, the United States possessed 4,717 active nuclear war­ heads as of September 30, 2014, including tactical, strategic, and non-deployed weapons.”

Further, the Obama administration has announced plans to upgrade its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades at a cost of $1 trillion. This is the deed Atta Kenare / AFP / Getty Images weapons.

(Left) Demonstration outside a nuclear reactor in Tehran in November 2014 as nuke talks were going on between Iran and six major powers.

Said and instruction, the Shah built the world’s sixth largest army.

After the Iranian people in 1979, in the world’s largest peaceful demonstration of seven million in Teheran, forced the Shah to flee, where he took refuge in the U.S., the Iranians had the audacity to return control of its oil reserves to the Iranian nation.

As punishment for this anti-imperialist transgression, the U.S. armed and financed its Iraqi ally, Saddam Hussein, then touted as a Middle East democrat, to attack Iran in a 10-year war that took the lives of one million Iranians and another million Iraqis. The U.S. government preferred that both oil-producing nations destroy each other’s refining capabilities in order to im­ prove the competitiveness of U.S. oil cor­ porations.

And when this seemingly endless war began to tilt a bit too much to the Saddam Hussein side, members of the Reagan ad­ ministration surreptitiously sold Tow mis­ siles at $1 million each to the still demon­ ized Iran, in order to even the battlefield score while keeping the war going. In the insane and “civilized world” touted by U.S. apologists, war is good for oil profits and for the mili­ tary-industrial complex too!

The terms of the present Iran-U.S. “agreement” are heinous—but they are certainly in line with the stipu­ lations of most treaties that victorious imperialist na­ tions impose on their victims. In essence, Iran is to be subjected to the most intrusive inspection of its nation imaginable. Language has been included that essentially allows this inspection to continue in per­ petuity.

Simultaneously, the vast proportion of the U.S. and im­ perialist-imposed sanctions remain in place, with vir­ tually all of the $100 billion sequestered from Iranian overseas bank accounts remaining under U.S. control.

Iran’s oil production is to be reduced below the level of two years ago. Virtually all proceeds from its sale of oil are to administered by U.S. agencies, which will supposedly dole out Iran’s oil revenues to Iran as U.S. and allied “inspectors,” deem fit.

A single summary of but one small aspect of this agreement is sufficient to reveal its predatory nature: “In the next six months, Iran’s crude oil sales cannot increase. Oil sanctions alone will result in approxi­ mately $30 billion in lost revenues to Iran—or roughly $5 billion per month—compared to what Iran earned in a six-month period in 2011, before these sanctions took effect.

“While Iran will be allowed access to $4.2 billion of its oil sales, nearly $15 billion of its revenues during this period will go into restricted overseas accounts. In summary, we expect the balance of Iran’s money in restricted accounts overseas will actually increase, not decrease, under the terms of this deal.”

In essence, Iran, an independent nation, has been placed in a form of permanent servitude. It has been compelled to agree to horrific restrictions on its economy, including not only short and long-term oil production but gold and other valuable resources as well, thus subordinating its sovereignty to imperialist designs.

In this “civilized”—or better, Orwellian world view— when U.S. oil dominates international markets, and the glut of the very fossil fuel resources whose contin­ ued use spells doom for humankind has reduced oil and gas prices to less than half their previous levels, U.S. corporate interests are well served by keeping competitive Iranian oil off world markets.

What conclusions can serious antiwar and social justice activists draw from this monstrous state of affairs regarding the U.S.-Iran agreements? The an­ swers seem obvious:

First and foremost, we must demand the immediate (continued on page 7, in “Bernie Sanders and the working class”)