By Peter Symonds
Just days after
President Donald Trump publicly threatened Iran with “consequences
the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered,” his
National Security Adviser John Bolton held a top-level meeting to
discuss US plans to confront Iran.
Notorious for his
own belligerent threats against Iran, Bolton chairs the Principals
Committee on national security matters, whose members include Defence
Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Officials
told the Wall Street Journal it was only the third such
meeting Bolton had convened since his installation as national
security adviser in April.
In May, the Trump
administration effectively sabotaged the 2015 deal with Iran, under
which Tehran severely restricted its nuclear programs and placed its
nuclear facilities under intense international scrutiny in exchange
for the winding back of crippling economic sanctions.
US sanctions will be
re-imposed next month on Iran’s auto industry, as well as trade in
gold and other metals. In November, bans will come into force on
Iran’s energy sector—the mainstay of its exports and government
finances—along with shipping and insurance and central bank
transactions. Washington has vowed to reduce Iranian oil exports to
near zero.
The Trump
administration’s decisions have provocatively ramped up a dangerous
confrontation with Iran. They also have worsened relations with US
allies in Europe, which have developed economic links with Tehran
since 2015. Washington has refused to exempt European companies from
the sanctions, thus threatening to exclude them from the US financial
system if they continue to do business with Iran.
No official
statement was made following the Principals Committee meeting, but
its purpose was clearly to plan how to ramp up the pressure on Iran.
Officials told the Wall Street Journal the meeting discussed
a “holistic” strategy to undermine Iranian influence throughout
the Middle East. While it was unclear what military options were
discussed, the article noted that the Defence Department had in the
past “worked on limited military options.”
An Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) article last Friday provided further
evidence that the Trump administration is preparing to attack Iran.
“Senior figures in the Turnbull [Australian] Government have told
the ABC they believe the United States is prepared to bomb Iran’s
nuclear facilities, perhaps as early as next month, and that
Australia is poised to help identify possible targets,” it stated.
Citing senior
government sources, the ABC reported that Australian facilities would
likely play a role in providing the US military with intelligence to
wage war against Iran. While the sources denied that Australia would
be involved in “active targeting,” the joint US-Australian spy
base at Pine Gap in central Australia provides intelligence for a
broad sweep of territory from the Middle East to East Asia, and also
has provided targeting information for US drone assassinations.
The ABC suggested
that “analysts from the little-known spy agency Australian
Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO) would also be expected to
play a part.” The AGO uses satellite and aircraft imagery to
provide geographical intelligence (GEOINT) that could be used for
targeting in various military operations.
US Defence Secretary
Mattis and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull tried to
dismiss the ABC report. Mattis declared it was “fiction,” adding:
“I’m confident that it’s not something that’s being
considered right now.” Turnbull, however, stopped short of a
complete denial, saying only that the ABC story “has not benefited
from any consultation with me, the foreign minister, the defence
minister or the Chief of the Defence Force.”
Mattis insisted the
Trump administration had no plans for regime change in Iran. “There’s
none that’s been instituted,” he claimed, but declared that “we
need them to change their behaviour on a number of threats that they
can pose with their military, with their secret services, with their
surrogates and with their proxies.”
In reality, far from
Iran posing a threat to the US, successive American administrations
have menaced Iran with the full force of the US military, and sought
to destabilise the regime in Tehran. Having torn up the 2015
agreement, the US is undoubtedly considering all its options,
including military ones, in order to end what it regards as a
significant obstacle to its domination in the Middle East.
The Israeli-based
Haaretz newspaper reported late last month on tactical
differences within the Trump administration over Iran, with Bolton
pressing to exploit social unrest to engineer regime change. “One
person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the
subject summarised Bolton’s view in the words: ‘One little kick
and they’re done’,” it stated. Mattis, on the other hand,
reportedly warned that such efforts could lead to full-scale war.
In early July, Axios
reported that Israel and the US had “formed a joint working group a
few months ago that is focused on internal efforts to encourage
protests within Iran and pressure the country’s government.”
Ahead of next
month’s sanctions, on the weekend the Iranian rial plunged in value
to 111,500 against one US dollar on the unofficial market, from about
97,500 rials, according to a foreign exchange website. The currency
has lost half of its value since April amid fears about the
sanctions’ impact on the economy.
Deliberately
exacerbating social tensions inside Iran, however, could fuel an
explosive movement of working people against the Islamic regime in
Tehran that would not be to Washington’s liking. In late 2017 and
early 2018, mass protests of workers erupted over worsening social
conditions and widening social inequality. These demonstrations had a
completely different class character to the so-called Green Movement
of the upper-middle classes of Tehran that sought to overturn the
2009 presidential election.
A mass movement of
the Iranian working class would reverberate throughout the region,
where workers in every country face a deepening social crisis.
This
article first appeared on World
Socialist Web Site (WSWS)
on
30
July 2018,
and was republished with permission.
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