Iran Has Prepared a Burial Ceremony

The slain so-called Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamene’i, has been put to rest in his coffin, adorned in the national banner, and surrounded by the other members of his family, killed alongside him in his compound. This convocation has seen groups and delegates of different persuasions, from all around the world, come together to extend their respects to the late leader, who helped grow Iran into the imperialist force it is today. It is said that a nationalist fervor has swept across the whole of the country; while the workers yesterday struggled against and were executed under the Iranian bourgeoisie’s rule, today, these bourgeois lackeys and sycophants would like us to believe, the proletariat congregates and cries mournful tears for their Rahbar! Fairy-tales aside, there is no doubt that such a tumultuous time, as befell Iran during these long and desperate weeks, has only resulted in the suffering of workers’ to increase tenfold. The proletariat, at its most vulnerable, and without their party, often rallies to the bourgeoisie as it sees no other evident recourse. The bourgeoisie gladly accepts any bodies that they can utilize to carry out their interests and other shrewd calculations, especially if it is extracted under the veneer of voluntary service, or worse, a “common interest” against a “common enemy.”

But there is another burial ceremony, one which has not yet convened, but whose corpse still flounders about, whose death throes and thrashing gives the false impression that it has not lost so much of its power. The United States, with its title as the financial world hegemon, has had its hegemony slowly yet assuredly wrung from its fingertips for several decades now. That American section of the bourgeoisie, whose intention is to reassert the United States back onto the global stage by warhawk means, through their desperate jingoism, and with the optimistic cheerleading of Israeli leadership, led to this new military episode. The initial stated purpose was supposedly “regime change in Iran,” but was later revised to simply, “seizing oil and gas”. The true rationale is of course the further division of the world market in favor of American and Israeli joint interests. This is why, when the strike to political leadership did not effectively give them a willing puppet, the American government instead was compelled to seize Iranian cargo ships, all in order to acquire said oil and gas for themselves.

This whole event does not come to us unexpectedly. To showcase the unchanging nature of imperialism, we shall quote in full from our work first printed decades ago in Comunismo n. 53’s “The Shift in Imperial Balances: Between Economic Crisis and Rumors of War,” released in December 2002:
“Anyone who thinks that the fact that bourgeois states take up arms against—or in defense of—“rogue states” is proof of, or a triumph of, power is sorely mistaken. The triumph is forced, and the display of power is historically defensive and compelled. There is no unexpected “end of history” with the definitive triumph of the American Empire, nor is there the disappearance of nation-states into a single empire without borders or a center, as some pygmies delude themselves into believing. On the contrary, we are on the eve of processes that Marxism has long awaited. America’s loud voice is an expression of the decline of its hegemony over the world. Smaller capitalist states such as Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and others are demanding their share, seeking influence in their own regions, and snarling through clenched teeth at the Yankee mastiff. Washington would like to unify the bourgeois world under its interests, but that world is already unified—in the overflow of its all-too-jarring and uncontrollable contradictions.”

Today, not only do we see that these smaller capitalist states are necessarily continuing to “demand their share” as a byproduct of the capitalist mode of production, but that this “American Empire,” however limited it was before in its rallying cries, most assuredly diminished to an even greater degree! It has gone to the extent that the American state apparatus’s frequent criticisms and lambastings against their “European Allies” for not joining the war is treated as nothing to be taken seriously at all. America’s foreign policy, its hyper bloated military apparatus, is indeed not proof of its supremacy; rather, this frequent fighting, this gamble to try and put itself back on the map, shows just how much America has declined. Now, it must desperately vie for its position on the world stage.
Iran, whatever is to be said of their perceived “victory,” and whether or not it will ultimately prove pyrrhic, nonetheless had most European states ceaselessly demanding an immediate end to the war, lest their economies fall into deeper recesses, and their stockpiles of oil and gas reserves run dry. This fragility of the world economy allowed for Iran to have favorable conditions be agreed to in the “Iran Deal.” It is to nobody’s surprise however, that these terms will forever remain a bourgeois formality. There has already been constant zigzagging and disagreements regarding the deal, further missile strikes and threats have resumed and ceased and so on. This instability is only aiding the decline of American hegemony, the Israeli state, which many on the “left” falsely prescribe as being leashed entirely to American interests, has routinely taken their own paths, and made their own military maneuvers, in spite of what is desired by the Americans for the procurement of this so-called deal.

What is certain though, is that these post-war conditions must not equate to an undying loyalty to one’s bourgeois leadership. The proletariat cannot feel satisfied by this alleged defeat of their enemies, operated by a fully capitalist country to the detriment of the world’s most stately imperialism. It mustn’t fall to further nationalism, nor the desire for revenge against the workers of these other nations. The proletariat must identify their strife, “the depopulation caused by massacres, sickness, hunger, etc., and the immense destruction of wealth, with the consequent economic crisis, and the impossibility of developing industry and agriculture through lack of capital and labour”, with the bourgeoisies of not only their nation, but of all others!

The Iranian workers who suffer terribly under the yoke of capital ought to consolidate their strength within a fighting force that is truly their own, that which is truly proletarian, under the leadership and discipline of the International Communist Party. American workers must likewise see the cracks in the hull, and assert that they will not go down with the bourgeoisie who captains the ship of American financial interests; they must embark on the difficult path of all workers in advanced countries, and bring about the total destruction of their nation’s hegemony, establishing instead the merciless scythe of the proletarian dictatorship, which is the only answer to imperialism, and the only force which can bring an end to war.