On 10/26/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 10/26/06, Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>... A lot of leftists abandoned any attachment to left-wing thought
and practice in the face of the rise of Islamism after the decline of
secular nationalism and socialism in an increasing number of
countries, for they have decided that Islamism is the worse enemy than
imperialism. Norman Geras, Fred Halliday, etc. are representatives of
this trend. Leftists who don't go that far can be still ambivalent of
imperialism: those ambivalent leftists opposed the US invasion of
Iraq, but were reluctant to vigorously advocate US withdrawal for far
too long.<
If the target shifts from the undefined Western leftists to those who
have "abandoned any attachment to left-wing thought and practice," we
agree completely.
Still remaining anti-imperialists, who oppose any and all US
imperialist adventures as a matter of principle, are maligned by
liberals, conservatives, and ex-leftists alike as knee-jerk
anti-imperialists or (worse) knee-jerk anti-Americanists.
To my way of thinking, it is better to be a knee-jerk anti-imperialist
rather than a selective anti-imperialist, but the former is of a dying
breed.
For knee-jerk anti-imperialists, it doesn't matter what kind of
country the object of Washington's imperial design is.
For the rest of the Western public, though, it matters, and matters
greatly. They are opposed to imperialism only if it is costly and
dangerous -- to them. Thankfully, Iran is a large, populous nation,
with its leaders and armed forces in possession of expertise and
experience from the Iran-Iraq War, which will make Washington think
twice about invading it in any case; and given the still continuing
Iraq War, which is bound to slog on for four more years at least (two
more years of the Bush War, and two more years of the war under a
Democratic President), it is safe from ground invasion.
But there will be economic sanctions on Iran. The Western public
cannot be expected to oppose them, though sanctions on Iran are
arguably against their interest as well, especially against the
Japanese and European peoples' interest. Not once in history have
they stopped any economic sanctions on a non-Western nation by means
of their activism. The current struggle is how mild or severe the
sanctions on Iran will be. I hope that Moscow and Beijing will
moderate them as much as possible, for Iran can survive moderate
sanctions without getting destabilized.
Any sanctions, however, are likely to make productive social conflicts
in Iran more difficult and scarce than otherwise -- bad for women and
workers in Iran who are interested in rights-based struggle.
Sanctions will put economic liberalization on hold, though, which
makes room for another form of struggle.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
