We don’t want war,” say the AWL. “But if Israel attacks Iran, who are we to condemn it?"

We don’t war,” says the AWL. “But if Israel attacks Iran, who are we to condemn it?” (originally published on http://infantile-and-disorderly.blogspot.com/)

In the week when Barack Obama’s world tour focussed the Western media’s eye on the Middle East, Solidarity, the paper belonging to the Alliance for Workers Liberty, contains their own unique attempt at dissecting the potential conflict between Iran, Israel and the possibility of nuclear war.....writes Vicky Thompson...

Solidarity 24/07/08

Written by AWL long time leader, Sean Matgamna, ‘What if Israel bombs Iran?’ (Page 6) appears to have as its premise the dubious assertion that “Iran is developing nuclear weapons… Iran will absolutely use them against Israel, unless Israel strikes first.” Forget that, on the back page of the very same issue of Solidarity, Rhodri Evans (AWL) reminds us of the official US government report states that Iran has probably stopped any efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Believable enough if you happen to be a US imperialist, but it appears Matgamna knows better.

It can only be assumed that the opening paragraph of ‘What if Israel bombs Iran?’ is the AWL’s entry to the competition for stating the obvious. An attack on Iran, Matgamna writes, will most likely lead to ‘great carnage in the Middle East’, there will be large scale ‘civilian… casualties’ and all of this will undoubtedly license a crack down on its opponents by the Iranian regime. Agreed.

It is here, however, that the consensus must end. This is the point at which the article descends into weak and on-the-defensive denunciations of the rest of the left. Matgamna asks us this- ‘if the Israeli airforce attempts to stop Iran developing the capacity to wipe it out with a nuclear bomb, in the name of what alternative would we condemn Israel?’ He follows this question with a list of possible names in which an Israeli attack might be condemned, including but not limited to, unconditional pacifism, utopian socialism (the “socialism” practised by “socialists”, as Matgamna sees it), the ‘kitsch’ view that Israel has no right to exist and hysterical anti-imperialism. Now, for genuine Socialists, neither kitsch nor hysterical, there is an alternative name in which to condemn any pre-emptive strike on Iran: genuine and principled internationalism. Not wanting to see working class Iranians massacred in the streets, perhaps? Or is that notion a little too hysterical for the likes of Matgamna?

When the AWL’s luminary casts his condescending gaze over the anti-imperialist Left and labels us all fools, he gives credence to the opinions of Nick Cohen and the pro-war left, and to the manufacturers of war in the White House and our own Cabinet. ‘Socialists should not want [war] and can not support it,’ Matgamna assures us, but since he has just spent eleven paragraphs explaining why we shouldn’t condemn any attack on Iran, his words sound a little false to our anti-imperialist ears.

It seems to me that there should be no place in the socialist movement, absolutely none, for those who believe that imperialism can ever, ever play a positive role for the working class. Whatever the AWL might like to say, a refusal to condemn an imperialist attack by Israel is tantamount to an endorsement of it. End of story.

On the back page of the same paper, Rhodri Evans brings us ‘Iran, Israel and Nuclear Weapons’. Highlighting an Israeli attack on a Syrian nuclear development site where there were ‘few civilian casualties’ (not no civilian casualties, but equally not enough to offend a pro-Zionist bias), Rhodri invests a ridiculous amount of trust in a country that is still something of an unknown quantity- an imperialist wildcard in the Middle East. Do we trust the lives of the Iranian working class to the whims of the Israeli ruling class? Absolutely not.

And besides, an article with its credibility hinging on the level of threat to Israel posed by the Iranian regime, should perhaps think better of the sources it quotes: reading an extract from an Israeli paper stating ‘[Iranian] Shihab missiles are not considered particularly reliable... The Shihab’s guidance system is not very accurate…’ doesn’t exactly lend coherence to the argument that Iran is a giant threat looming on the horizon, and Israel cannot be blamed for the action it takes.

Wed 30, July 2008 @ 10:33