Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

A Different Perspective on the Iranian Elections

Gary Sudborough | 15.06.2009 19:09 | Anti-militarism | World

Iran is in a very strategic location for the expansion of US imperialism and control of oil in the Middle East. Military Force by the United States has already been threatened, but has drawbacks. However, the CIA is an expert at fixing elections and stirring up violence and street demonstrations in other countries until an overthrow of that government occurs and one more favorable to US imperialism takes its place.

It is utterly amazing how liberals and some who consider themselves even radical leftists get confused over the relationship between elections and democracy. Haven't the two elections involving George W. Bush proved that all sorts of tricks can be used to give a false result. The United States through various government agencies like the CIA and Agency for International Development and many others, some which are supposed to be NGOs, pumps enormous amounts of money into foreign elections to get the result they want. They want to get a government into power in these countries which is totally sympathetic to US foreign policy and the penetration by US corporations into their economy. They definitely do not want any country which is unsympathetic to total privatization and has any ideas about nationalization of anything- particularly very valuable natural resources like oil. Hence, we have the so-called Rose revolution in Georgia, the Orange revolution in the Ukraine and the Velvet revolution in Lebanon. In case, there are some who get confused by all the repetitious propaganda and think the US would never influence foreign elections, there is the very well documented case where the CIA used every trick in their book, including vast amounts of money, to prevent the Italian Communist Party from winning the election in Italy immediately following World War 2. When the election turns out the way the United States desires, a very nice sounding name is given to it like Rose or Velvet. Since these elections are so far from anything resembling true democracy, why not call them skunk, outhouse or rotting corpse revolutions. It would be exceedingly more appropriate. If the US puppet gets a little imperialistic like the one in Georgia and attempts to expand its influence by military force, it sometimes gets a pummeling by a state like Russia, which is now very nationalistic and not completely a US puppet, like it was under Yeltsin. Then, the US and most of the corporate controlled media call it an invasion by Russia, which it was not, but a response to an invasion by Georgia and massacres of civilians by Georgian troops, recently trained by the US military and CIA.

Now, let us turn to recent events and the elections in Iran. The United States and the corporate elite definitely want a change of government in Iran. Under George W. Bush the idea of an open invasion or a bombing campaign like the one against Yugoslavia that would bring them to their knees was openly discussed. Why is Iran so important to US foreign policy? One of the main reasons can be deduced by simply looking at a map. Iran lies directly between their military conquest in Iraq and all the profits that will bring to US and British oil companies and Afghanistan and the oil rich republics of Central Asia. Iran itself has a large quantity of oil. Iran is a large country, and it simply can not be overemphasized, situated between the military bases and the world's largest US embassy, which looks like a fort, in Iraq and the US military bases in Afghanistan, which not surprisingly are located on the once proposed Unocal pipeline from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. Remember Zbigniew Brezezinski's grand chessboard of the Middle East and all the countries US imperialism should control for maximum US domination of the region. Iran is a gigantic missing piece. Iran is definitely not a US puppet state, its oil is nationalized and it has formed alliances with countries like Venezuela and Bolivia, which the United States and its corporate elite despise because of their socialistic policies. All of these things aggravate the United States intensely.

This whole situation presents a great dilemma to US foreign policy. They can't openly invade because the American people would be adverse to a major war, which this would entail. Iran has some modern weapons, which could probably sink US ships and aircraft carriers and cause large US casualties, which the American people would definitely oppose, even if a major propaganda campaign was unleashed in the media. Therefore, the other options are a coup or an election strongly influenced by the United States, which would bring a regime sympathetic to US foreign policy and corporate desires to power in Iran. When I saw the pictures on television of the riots in Iran, it brought back memories of similar riots I saw occur, which were orchestrated by the CIA and caused the overthrow of Mossadegh and the installation of the Shah, who naturally privatized the oil and invited US oil companies back into the country.

I realize that there is a difference between a coup like the one that brought the Shah to power and an election, but with the exceedingly sophisticated methods the United States uses to influence foreign elections, I think the difference is rapidly evaporating. I am not a supporter of theocracy or lack of true democracy. In fact, I would love true democracy all over the world, but that would entail the dissolution of corporations and imperialism, and US imperialism is far from dying. I suspect the hand of US imperialism in the Iranian elections and the riots immediately following. It seems I am all alone in this opinion as every leftist publication I am aware of or leftist pundit is strongly of the opposite opinion. Every time there is an election against a regime which is oppressive to some degree, these people get all excited and forget that there is something called imperialism, which has been operating for hundreds of years and should be the immediate thought of every true leftist. Some regimes like those with socialist governments must be repressive to some degree because the CIA spends every waking moment trying to devise a method to overthrow them. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe the new government in Iran, if it had been elected, would have been just as antagonistic to US imperialism as the previous one. However, I am very, very suspicious because of all the reasons I have mentioned in this article.

As a post script to this article, I have just researched the opposition candidate to Ahmadinejad, Mr Mousavi, on Wikipedia and found that he favors privatization and also that he ordered the execution of 30,000 political prisoners from various leftist parties in Iraq in 1988, including the Tudeh or Iranian Communist Party. This fact alone would make the CIA very happy. Is this the candidate leftists in the United States should be supporting? Emma Goldman, Joe Hill and a thousand other real leftists must be rolling in their graves. Isn't there something terribly wrong with the so-called left in this country? Hell, we aren't even strong enough to get single payer health insurance, which almost all industrialized capitalist countries have had for many years. It is pathetic. I don't even know why I continue to write. Indymedia is the only place that dares publish my writings. I have spinal stenosis and no insurance and little money, so my writings may be coming to a close, I am sure to the great glee of those who love capitalism. I gave it my best effort on behalf of justice, peace and a decent standard of living for all humans on Earth.





Gary Sudborough
- e-mail: IconoclastGS@aol.com

Comments

Display the following 9 comments

  1. wrong — anarchist
  2. But why are they "rioting"? — punter
  3. How can you apologise for facism? — pathetic
  4. Now I know the CIA and western media are involved — Gary Sudborough
  5. perhaps a short read — informer
  6. Background... — Anon
  7. thanks — history
  8. "There are millions of people on the streets" — Danny
  9. Square of Revolution to the Square of Freedom — Danny

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech