USA and China do the Pacific Pivot

Which way to the Pacific Pivot?

The two rival superpowers now openly face each other in the Asia Pacific. Karl Marx long ago saw the Pacific as the key to the future of capitalism. Today it is the key to the future of post-capitalism. Here the contradiction between the dying capitalist society destroying humanity and nature, and the emergence of the revolutionary global proletariat struggling to free humanity and nature from destruction, will be played out.

Either we succumb to the fight to the death of the Chinese and US ruling classes and get trampled in the process, or the international working class unites to overthrow their ruling classes, freeing humanity to build a new socialist society in which production to meet human needs is in harmony with nature.

APEC 

The two big power blocs were both dancing the Asia- Pacific pivot at APEC in Beijing. Looking at what is at stake here, the war against the ISIS in the Middle East is little more than a sideshow. There the rival big powers try to dance on the spot to keep the status quo and the oil flowing while they prepare for the prize fight in the Asia Pacific.

Obama has tried secret negotiations to do a nuclear free deal with Iran in exchange for bringing a halt to the raging Shiite vs Sunni proxy wars in Iraq and Syria. This means the US and China/Russia blocs finding ways to collaborate to neutralise the IS caliphate and do a power sharing deal between Sunni, Shia and Kurds to partition Iraq and Syria.

The IS would participate in exchange for territory and oil and submit to OPEC dominated by the Saudis. The IS would become just another theocratic tyranny along with Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The US and China/Russia would come out of this deal with their respective spheres of influence retained.


G20 PR exercise

Never mind the missile flexing at the G20 and the isolation of Putin the Terrible. This is PR for the plebs. This is desperation to ramp up support for the US bloc to counter the Russia China bloc expanding into the EU and Middle East. NATO is being used to bloc Russia China from Europe and frustrate their plan to run the New Silk Roads right into the heart of Europe and the Middle East. That’s because the other end of the Silk Roads begin in the Asia Pacific where the economic engine drives the world economy. When the engine is racing it needs to get on the road.

The Pacific is where the rivals are facing the big showdown for the most lucrative economic spoils. The pre-fight tension was evident at the APEC and G20 meetings where the big prize is a victory for the US-led TPPA or the China-led FTA. Who will win the war for the Pacific? According to Pepe Escobar, roving ambassador for the BRICS, China won on all fronts. Well he would say that wouldn’t he. But as the referee is he right?

Fighting on Four Fronts

“Right at the start, President Xi urged APEC to "add firewood to the fire of the Asia-Pacific and world economy". Two days later, China got what it wanted on all fronts:

1) Beijing had all 21 APEC member-nations endorsing the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) - the Chinese vision of an "all inclusive, all-win" trade deal capable of advancing Asia-Pacific cooperation - see South China Morning Post (paywall). The loser was the US-driven, corporate-redacted, fiercely opposed (especially by Japan and Malaysia) 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). [See also here.]

2) Beijing advanced its blueprint for "all-round connectivity" (in Xi's words) across Asia-Pacific - which implies a multi-pronged strategy. One of its key features is the implementation of the Beijing-based US$50 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. That's China's response to Washington refusing to give it a more representative voice at the International Monetary Fund than the current, paltry 3.8% of votes (a smaller percentage than the 4.5% held by stagnated France).

3) Beijing and Moscow committed to a second gas mega-deal - this one through the Altai pipeline in Western Siberia - after the initial "Power of Siberia" mega-deal clinched last May.

4) Beijing announced the funneling of no less than US$40 billion to start building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.”

Lame Duck Obama v the Putin Bear

Escobar is right. On all fronts China and Russia have made a huge leap forward gathering support for their FTAAP against the faltering TPPA, and put in place a gigantic economic bloc based on Siberian oil/gas and the new Silk Roads that plunge into the heart of Europe and the Middle East.

Obama comes out as the lame duck to Putin’s Russian Bear:

“What a drag – the Bomber-In-Chief must be musing. The global economy is mostly a disaster. China, even growing at “only” 7% a year, keeps eroding his “indispensable nation” aura. Japan has decided to copy the Federal Reserve and embark on its own kamikaze version of quantitative easing. Asian nations keep freaking out about a few rocks in the South China Sea.

And last but not least, Obama’s nemesis, pesky Vlad “the Hammer” Putin, has just been crowned Most Powerful Leader in the world – even if for the most stupid reasons (“unpredictable” head of a “rogue state”) [1] – while he, the Nobel Peace Prize leader of the exceptionalist, indispensable nation, is now nothing but a pitiful lame duck.”

The US will try to keep its global dominance with its TIA (Total Information Awareness) info wars against its rivals, Russia and China and its BRICS partners. But Russia and China are preparing to meet this total spectrum dominance at every level. SCO is the anti-NATO defensive alliance of the Russia China bloc. It’s now total war against the BRICS.

China’s Silky Road to Glory

Of course Escobar cannot refrain from cheering on the BRICS as if this creates a new progressive multipolar alternative to the hegemonic US bloc:

“APEC once again has shown that the more geopolitics change, the more it won't stay the same; as the exceptional dogs of war, inequality and divide and rule keep barking, the China-Russia pan-Eurasian caravan will keep going, going, going - further on down the (multipolar) road.”

Escobar describes a scenario of the rise of China-Russia, the decline of the US-EU as Germany aligns with the Eurasian Bloc. We differ with Escobar in his view of Russia-China as that of a ‘multi-polar’ force that introduces “order” in the US “Empire of chaos”.

As we argue in “BRICS around the neck of the Proletariat” the ‘Empire of Chaos’ is not US imperialism but the laws of motion of capitalist imperialism in its terminal crisis. Russia and China cannot resolve capitalism’s terminal crisis and prevent a third world war between the two rival blocs. We can only overcome capitalist “chaos” but overthrowing capitalism itself and imposing a new socialist world order.

Revolutionary Politics

The consequences of APEC and G20 for the Asia Pacific nations are clear. They are squeezed between the two major imperialist blocs. NZ for example, is now largely dependent on China economically. The APEC endorsement of the FTAAP led by China will tighten those links of dependency because the Chinese economy, while slowing down, is still expanding at 7% and dominates the Asia Pacific economy.

The US is attempting desperately to rush through the TPPA to shore up its economic power in the region by locking its allies into US economic, political and military deals to limit China’s expansion. This can only create huge tension in the ruling national elites pulled between the two blocs.

China will win this contest in the long run because its rapidly developing productive capacity creates real economic wealth, while the US strategy of legally monopolising assets, technology and IP backed by military force, is already being overtaken and challenged by China and Russia.

The labour movement in the Asian Pacific states must refuse to be drawn behind their nationalist regimes into the inter-imperialist rivalry that leads to economic and military wars. The revolutionary left in Australia and NZ must seek allies in the Chinese and US working classes, along with those of the rest of Asia and Latin America, and advance an internationalist strategy of socialist revolution to overthrow the capitalist ruling classes and put in place Workers' Governments and a Federation of Socialist Republics of the Asia Pacific!

Bankrupt IAM international leadership betrays Boeing Workers

 

In yet another significant major defeat for organized labor, the top leadership of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) in secret negotiations with Boeing, reopened the contract and shoved through a vote of the membership to accept devastating concessions.  Devastating not only for the Boeing workers but for all workers who look to their unions to protect defined pensions and wage packages. The contract was not even set to expire until 2016, and despite the fighting spirit of the membership demonstrated by an initial overwhelming NO vote, the IAM leaders bowed down to Boeing’s blackmail threat to move future production to as yet non-existent, non-union plants, in areas lacking the skilled labor force needed to construct the 777X, This sell-out contract will eliminate the defined pension plan in 2016. Workers will pay large increases in medical premiums and will receive a paltry 1% yearly raise.  Boeing new hires will need 20 years plus employment to reach the maximum pay grade, more than three times what it takes now.  The contract will extend to an indentured servant-like eight years from 2016 to 2024, with workers bound hand and foot to a no strike clause.

 Read more...

US/NATO imperialism keep you bloody hands off Syria!

   US/NATO Imperialists Keep Your Bloody Hands off Syria by JohnnBrown

Workers' Memorial Day and May Day! First we mourn then we fight!

   Workers Memorial Day & International Workers Day Statement by JohnnBrown

TPPA: The NAFTA from Hell

Mobilization of US Filipino groups against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (Apollo Victoria)

We don't know beforehand the precise fiscal cliff "deal" Obama and Boehner will strike, but all versions will fire many thousands of government employees, as whole agencies are made to disappear. This will just be a warm up for the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and its secret provisions! Now that Obama is re-elected and term-limited, there is no reason anymore to simply approve a raised debt ceiling. There is no desire to owe China more money, and when the bourgeois class feels ready for world war there won't be any reason to pay their debts either. The main enemy of the American workers is their "own" capitalist class, now hell bent on a "guns, not butter" policy! Meanwhile, with the TPPA they will be able to define the precise meaning of their "new world order." It won't be a philosophical question any longer, but a plan coming together to impoverish you!

At the November N.Y. City Central Labor Council meeting the President, Brother Vincent Alvarez spent 10 minutes belabouring his point that the re-election of Obama was a great victory for labor. But scarcely were the words out of his mouth when he had to concede that we will have to fight for every nickel we get from this 'lame duck' congress. So the CLC was to lay on a demonstration against the looming cuts to every social gain 'on the table' before the twin parties as they pretend to tussle before the "fiscal cliff." Was, except the leadership didn't have a call, an hour or a place for it to give the assembled Delegates! A serene world they must live in at their pay grade. You could, yes you sure could suspect them of being completely integrated into the state and complicit in concealing the nasty surprises the lame duck Obama will spring on us, his "legacy" as the leader of the executive committee of the capitalist class.

What we're talking about are the questions wherefore the "fiscal cliff" and where does the TPPA figure in the capitalists’ plans? Just at the moment there is growth, slight growth, in the U.S. economy, but palpable and not just paper. U.S. companies are gaining orders at the expense of their European and Japanese competitors in replenishing inventories of supplies for home construction, which replenishment had to resume some time. The ratio of government debt to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product hovers between 72 and 73%, a low figure for any modern state, so the hysteria about indebtedness is almost purely a camouflage driven by ideology. The banks want to call in 'theirs' and slash new borrowing by the state because everything that characterized the 20th century U.S. government, apart from being the trough for the military industrial complex and the paymaster for support programs for racist repression, is about to be shoved off the cliff and junked. This is the domestic content of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, a NAFTA from Hell!

What is in store for us, unless we as labor and behind us the great masses defeat the T.P.P.A., is the onset of the complete triumph of capitalist anarchy. It is styled as a trade pact, but this is only a feature of what it is. Including the U.S., eleven ruling classes and counting around the Pacific Rim are serving notice to their governments that henceforth there will be a visible hand at the top, above the mere state, which will decide the claims of "investor states" where they come into conflict with the laws protecting the nationals of any country. Decide to soak the treasuries of those countries for restraining their profits with 'prevailing wage" laws, with child labor protections, with trade union rights enumerated, with product safety and consumer and food and drug protections.

Internationally the TPPA has the aspect of a showdown between the old hegemonic power of the U.S. and the rising power of Chinese imperialism. This makes life complicated for the signatories, some of whom, like Australia and New Zealand are members of the US RIMPAC treaty pact already. The New Zealand Trade Representative seems to be Washington’s errand boy at the Auckland meetings, and looks to be unperturbed at the prospect of a trade war, an investment war and then a shooting war, with the U.S. Marines poised to move on any recalcitrant government from bases nearby. It has been revealed that the U.S. has arranged that his reward will be to become the head of the World Trade Organization!* Australian representatives have some idea of these war dangers and are so far opting out of the chapters that permit the TPPA courts to rule on what the Australian tax policies will be.

The left press credits Occupy Melbourne protests for this sudden sovereignty awareness, and we don’t doubt it. They named the TPPA a “Power Tool of the 1%,” and exposure generally works against easy ratification by the bourgeois politico drones. In the broadcast cited above a lawyer for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (U.S.) spoke of the fight against the TPPA as a “class war” battle. Funny how he can say this on cable TV in New Zealand. We never hear official representatives report to the union membership in these terms, and we don’t miss many meetings! So the road ahead for this treaty is not necessarily altogether a smooth one. But a TV appearance on the far side of the planet is not a great assurance, any more than the tiny December 6 Herald Square CLC demonstration was! Class war battles are only “won” in courtrooms after the actual victories are won by mass actions of the workers. That’s history, not opinion.

The task of champions of the liberation of the international working class is to close off this road to war! The U.S. seeks to line up the workers of the Pacific Rim countries as cannon fodder with promises of more jobs. We say there is nothing in this for the worker but misery and death. Down with the TPPA! Solidarity with the Chinese workers and all Pacific Rim workers! Their battle against their bosses is the same fight as ours! We want a Socialist Federation of the Pacific!

We see the various reformist and Social Democratic tendencies freaking out over the TPPA. The reason they do so also invokes the fate of the international and domestic working class, but does not derive from the workers’ interests. For the reformist and social democrat type, the diminution of the powers of parliaments and judiciaries in favour of the U.S. Executive Branch MEANS Bonapartism, which in fact it is. Their gradualist, linear and exclusive strategy of governments peacefully reforming themselves into workers’ democracies is wrecked at one swoop by Obama and the robber barons. The TPPA puts these Bernsteins out of business, whether they realize it or not.

It gets worse! Everything activists thought they defeated in the SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act,) the PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act,) and ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Act) is brought back with a vengeance in the TPPA, the signal feature of which thanks to the 600+ top U.S. and U.S.-owned multinational corporations who dominate the exclusive sessions is that this treaty (TREATY!!!) will not be modifiable, subject to reform or repeal except by action of all the signatory countries!

It has been pointed out that this could become the world's "last trade pact," {link to Lori Wallach} since membership would be open-ended in the future. Ask yourself what ruling class would not want to be above all provisions of the pesky laws resulting from the resistance of their working class. All the "Tax the Rich" campaigners will immediately be caught on the wrong foot as millions of additional jobs will be deported to a whole Pacific rim of sweatshops like those now in the Marianas. Should Japan sign the TPPA, it will want to do so to become the world’s largest importer of US natural gas. Under provisions of the TPPA the state-by-state struggle against hydro-fracking will be obviated by the courts it establishes. State governments will find themselves powerless flak catchers. This is the American "disaster capitalism" Magna Carta of superior bourgeois right, subordinating all parliaments and coming home to roost as an invader, like a Mafia Godfather who says with justification that this is "just business."

This Act is a supremely American project and an alliance, in secret chapters, against China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This despite the spin-only, faux invitation to join the pact extended to China by Ron Kirk, the U.S. "Trade Representative," in the lead up to the December meeting of the secret membership of this capitalist cabal in a casino (!!) in Auckland, New Zealand. This alliance dovetails perfectly with the Pentagon's "Pacific Pivot" and makes a joke of the "theory" of the various neo-Kautskyans who see no special significance to the pact and believe there is now a stateless super-class of capitalists who practice a supra-imperialism. So for example, with this theory neo-Kautskyans can imagine –and do they ever! – ‘progressive governments' that will not participate in this alliance.

In New York the reformist pro-Bolivarians ignore the murders of the Marikana miners and characterize the South African government as "progressive." Internationally this anti-Leninist trend has grown to a whole constellation of sects among the "3rd worldist" petit-bourgeois currents at the fringes of the workers movement. Many of these drank the Obama electoral Kool-Aid. Reformists in Occupy Wall Street had their own reporting general assembly subset known as "Occupy Canvass," which worked to get out the pro-Obama vote, a fool's errand given how the New York tally was never for a moment in doubt.

Sadly, New York had no fighting workers' labor party to expose this Treaty in the context of what it will do to the state's ability to respond to emergencies like Hurricane Sandy or the nor'easter that followed, when corporate income taxes will also be overruled by the judges in an international T.P.P.A. court, a Grover Norquist wet dream! A fighting workers' labor party would aim at nothing less than the complete smashing and suppression of the bourgeois political power, destruction of their state and eradication of the worksite dictatorship of the capitalist class.

Brother Alvarez, like Brother Trumka, loves Obama, who is foursquare behind his handpicked "Trade Representative" Kirk. He loves Obama even though perhaps a third of the Central Labor Council Delegates are members of the AFL-CIO's "Association of Retired Americans." Think for a moment how 'Obamacare' was supposed to be a great boon to the elderly and was put up in our view for the last two years by the cynics on staff and the credulous Democrat suckers as the one accomplishment of Obama's first term. The T.P.P.A. will ban Obamacare's formulary group shopping provisions! This will be a windfall for "big pharma" and a death sentence for millions who no longer work. AIDS patients will once again feel outcast. Millions are already working indefinitely after age 65 (remember "retirement age?") to buy medicine AND eat.

In the eponymous movie the capitalist big (Mr.) Lebowski tells the Dude "Your revolution is over; my condolences. Your side lost!" This film was much funnier than anything we are likely to experience in years to come if the T.P.P.A. is ratified and becomes the law above the law. It is not funny to think of how much the actor who played the big Lebowski resembles Warren Buffett or how what he said prefigured Buffet’s remark that there is a class war and his side is winning. It is time for the working class' side to have a great deal more fun at the capitalists' expense. We can begin to win by defeating the TPPA.

First we have to trash illusions in Obama and "friends of labor" in the two wings of the bourgeois party. Obama wants to "fast track" the approval of this pact. This means he would sign for the U.S. in place of the Senate, a body that pretends it would read and debate its contents and provisions, but is itself the plaything of the same corporations and multinationals, corrupted by their "contributions" in thousands of ways and even staffed by "revolving door" corporate loyalists temporarily on the taxpayers' payroll.

Some reformists want you to continue to support this grand edifice of flimflam and simply demand that the Senate get their hands on and debate the T.P.P.A. Then of course they'll reject it. That's one pipedream. Other reformists say to stake everything on supporting Obama against those who want to drive all social gains ('entitlements,' including Social Security) over the "fiscal cliff." That's another pipedream.

The TPPA presumes a shrunken state that goes out of the business of the welfare of the taxpayer or anyone without a portfolio, a state that is a domestic and international force projector for Capital with a propaganda mystifier operation and some covert assassins on the side. Preparations for a world war to reassert U.S. imperial hegemony will pre-empt and exclude meaningful action to address global warming and its action on the environment and ecology.

Seen in this way all workers will face having nothing to lose but our chains, just like the oppressed populations the rulers try to con us to despise. It's past time to finish with all of that ignorance, to unite with and defend the oppressed, because we have a world to win, as the old saying goes from the Communist Manifesto, for now we truly have no alternative.

We like the example of the November 14th Eurozone Strike Against Austerity, as far as it went. We wish it had been planned as more than a one day, symbolic and blow-off-steam action by union leaderships who spend their days at spas with parliamentarians and the big money. But its international dimension is indeed the way to go. We see multinational Pacific Rim strikes against the T.P.P.A. as the best way to smack down this NAFTA From Hell. In the U.S. such action will immediately require rupture of the Taft-Hartley Act, which our current generation of 'labor leaders,' really just Gompers-men, have grown to think of as the absolution from class conflict handed down by Moses. They forget that even Harry Truman called it a “slave labor act” and that it was a product of the witch hunt passed over his veto! Brother Trumka spent our dues money on a movie last spring applauding all the solidarity the membership exhibited in the preceding 12 months, then putting us up to stealth Obama electoral support work, in the form of a nationwide campaign for "America Wants to Work" legislation that was forgotten almost as soon as the film was developed.

The CWG believes we will not see the Trumka leadership or any leaders of that ilk organize anything like the battle it will take to defeat the T.P.P.A. Remember EFCA? When Obama stopped mentioning EFCA so did the limousine set pie cards. Clearly we need union renovation, with new leadership rising from the rank-and-file. We will help those who try! Fighting rank-and-file caucuses that develop class struggle program and action are what we need for our unions to survive and thrive. We need a fighting workers labor party based in and upon these union caucuses, nuclei of workers’ councils and political power!

The Fight against the TPPA is a general emergency requiring general strike action because the ruling class is intent on sneaking this by in a fascist style “fatto compli.”

Obama and Boehner! Back Off! The Fiscal Cliff is a LIE!

Abolish Taft-Hartley, Victory to the Port Workers!

T.P.P.A.? No way! No U.S. Bonaparte! No W.W. 3 Pacts!

No Cuts! No Layoffs! Jobs for All!

For Labor Defense of All Class War Prisoners!

Build Labor/Community Defense Guards to protect the Communities of the Oppressed!

End 'Stop and Frisk' now and forever! Cops out of schools! Billions for union jobs for youth! Not one penny for war with China!

We must see the Chinese working class as our allies in the class war! American workers need to solidarize with Chinese workers on both sides of the pacific workers need to learn our main enemy is the capitalist class at home. Solve capitalism’s crisis with a socialist federation of the Asia-Pacific!

TPPA is a power tool of the 1% and that tool is a Chainsaw! Save your own neck: Down with the TPPA!

Statement of Liaison Committee of Communists

CWGUSA, CWGA/NZ, RWG Zimbabwe. 

Reprinted from Class War Vol 1 No 3 January 2013

Defend Iran Against Imperialism and Zionism!

Western imperialism, and the United States in particular, are in an unrelenting crisis. In the bloody game for world domination, US imperialism has just lost Iraq, which is aligning closer to Iran. It has also practically lost Pakistan—all in one mere year!—and it will likely lose Afghanistan as well, despite 9 years of occupation and war.

This is not an accident, but a reflection of the economic decline of US imperialism. As we are seeing, the military decline of the US has finally started to catch up with its economic decline. In a nutshell, the latest aggression of western imperialism against Iran is an attempt by the US to reverse its own economic decline by overthrowing the present regime in Iran and replacing it with a US puppet regime. Why? Controlling Iran is critical for controlling oil, both because of Iran’s plethora of land-based pipelines, and because of its strategic position next to the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important shipping route for oil and gas.

Of Course It’s About Oil

Iran sits in the middle of the world theater when it come to oil and the plundering of the natural resources of southern and central Asia. Everything that passes by sea from Iraq or Kuwait, or through Iran from western Asia, to anywhere else in the world, and vice versa, must pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which is essentially part of Iran’s territory. This includes 80-90% of the world’s oil. Thus, any imperialist country that controls Iran also has its foot on the transit of world oil. One does not need to be Einstein or a Marxist to understand that the latest stiff embargo and sanctions against Iran is not about its nuclear program, but about overthrowing the present regime of the Mullahs and putting a pro-American puppet regime in its place.

Iran is a semi-colony. If the US does attack Iran, either directly or via its Zionist muscle, revolutionaries must defend Iran, and call for Iran’s victory, despite its reactionary regime. A victory for Iran in such a conflict would shake up the entire imperialist/capitalist world order. It would encourage the struggle of the working class and the oppressed throughout the world. In particular, it would encourage the Palestinians in their struggle for liberation from the Zionist yoke.

We don’t know whether Iran is actually developing nuclear weapons, as western imperialism and the Zionists claim. But even if it is, its stock of missiles is a joke compared to the thousands of missiles in the hands of the US and Europe, not to mention the unknown number of nuclear weapons that Israel refuses to admit are in its possession. The US’s nuclear arsenal alone is large enough to destroy all life on Earth a million times. What we do know is that a Pakistani scientist sold the Iranians some of the technological know-how needed to build a nuclear weapon. Specifically, Iran got the plans for the kind of centrifuge that can refine nuclear materials to a weapons-grade concentration, as well as the plans for constructing bombs.

This illustrates that for the right price, plans and possible materials for nuclear bombs can leak from Pakistan and possibly other countries. In addition, countries and organizations can get the parts and material for nuclear weapons for the right price, as an unknown quantity of these was stolen or smuggled from the former Soviet Union. Thus, one problem that imperialism faces is the trend of proliferation of nuclear weapons to many semi-colonies. Such proliferation is inevitable in the coming decades. India, Pakistan, North Korea (which is technically still a deformed workers’ state), and Iran are just the beginning. With today’s technology, one can put an entire nuclear bomb in a suitcase. Thus it is inevitable present and future technology will bring upon us wars that will become nuclear wars. If western imperialism does not start it, the country under its attack will do so. Then many countries will push the button, and it will be bye-bye to civilization, and possibly the human race. Only a socialist revolution can prevent this horrifying development.

Of course, the US accusations against Iran are nothing but hypocrisy. It was the US that gave the Shah of Iran the secrets and material for the bomb in the first place, so he could build two nuclear plants to provide electricity for his country—all while Iran was sitting on top of one of the largest reservoirs of oil in the world! (Asia Times, Jan. 19, 2012.) The point is that for the right pro-imperialist regime (Israel, Brazil), US imperialism has no problem with supplying the material for the bomb.

The Imperialist Bloc of China and Russia Is Also a Target

Behind the embargo and sanctions against Iran looms the conflict between US imperialism and the imperialist bloc of China and Russia. While formally Iran is considered an “independent” country, in reality it is falling into dependency on China, and thus it is becoming a Chinese semi-colony. This is what is really alarming the US. China’s trade with Iran reached $30 billion in 2010. China is also heavily buying oil from Iran. Around 22% of China’s total oil imports consist of Iranian oil. China has clearly told the Americans that they can go to hell with their sanctions. According to Asia Times (Jan. 18, 2012), “Washington taunted Beijing on Thursday by slamming sanctions on Chinese firm Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp for allegedly selling refined petroleum products to Iran. But China voiced ‘strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition’ and expressed its intent to carry on ‘normal cooperation with Iran in energy, the economy and trade.’ China has also reached a deal in regard to Iran’s largest oil field, Yadavaran. China has an oil pipeline that starts in the Caspian Sea next to Iran. The pipeline extends to Kazakhstan and then to Western China. China already gets 15% of its oil and natural gas from Iran. In addition to oil and gas, China has automobile and fiber optics factories in Iran, and it is working on expanding the Tehran subway. Anyone who thinks that China will let go of any of this is crazy.

Not only is the strategy of Chinese imperialism to have Iran as its semi-colony, but China has also recently firmly planted its feet in the neighboring Gulf countries, just as the fortunes of the US are declining there. Saudi Arabia supplied 45.5 million tonnes of crude oil to China in 2011—a 13% increase from 2010. Qatar and other Gulf kingdoms are also shifting their exports from the US to China. According to Asia Times, “Qatar is a major supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China, and in the first 11-month period in 2011 it shipped 1.8 million tonnes, an increase of 76%. Trade with the UAE exceeds $36 billion and the sheikhdom is emerging as a major trans-shipment point for Chinese exports to Africa and Europe.”

While the US was imposing sanctions on Iran, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was touring the Gulf states. That is, China’s answer to US meddling in Iran was to consolidate its grip not only on Iran, but also on the Gulf countries. Indeed, Saudi Arabia was eager to bring Wen into the country despite China’s relationship with Iran. This was a huge snub to the US by Saudi Arabia. The list of Wen’s achievements is impressive, as the Gulf states rushed to make record-breaking deals with China. As Asia Times reported on January 21, 2012: “Wen witnessed in Saudi Arabia the signing of a contract between China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) and Saudi Aramco to build an $8.5 billion refinery with 400,000 barrel-a-day capacity in Yanbu on the Red Sea coast by 2014, with the two sides holding 35.5%-62.5% stakes respectively.” And in Qatar, Chinese accomplishments were just as impressive. On January 24, 2012, the same source reported that “Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who visited Doha last week, disclosed at a press conference on Friday: a) China proposes to invest in the manufacturing of ‘downstream oil products, which are most urgently needed by Qatar’; b) China and Qatar signed an agreement to jointly build a refinery in Taizhou, Zheijiang, in China; c) Chinese companies propose to participate in infrastructure projects in Qatar; and d) China and Qatar are discussing a ‘long-term, stable and comprehensive cooperative partnership’ in natural gas.”

The Isolation of Iran Is a Myth

What we are seeing is that the US and Europe are getting weaker because of their economic crisis. That is not to say that China can avoid the deepening crisis of global capitalism. But while the US and its meek allies in Europe can only scream “sanctions and embargo,” China is strengthening its economic grip on Iran and the Gulf states. This is the real history. The declining powers talk war as the ascending imperialist power (China) takes control over the disputed areas. Even Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced in front of 2,000 tribal leaders that he plans to get closer to Tehran. The reality is that the road from Tehran to China is getting shorter by the day as China increases its influence in Central/South Asia. That means that when US leaves Afghanistan, China will get in there in a big way. It already has projects in Afghanistan, such as copper, while the US wastes its resources fighting “terrorists” there.

Similarly, as Pakistan increasingly snubs the US, the Chinese are taking over. Historically, Pakistan was allied with Saudi Arabia against Iran, i.e., against the Shiite regime that was perceived as a threat to the Sunni elite in Saudi Arabia. In 2011, however, Pakistan largely broke from the US sphere of influence and joined the Chinese-Russian economic web. Today, Iran and Pakistan are lining up together against the U.S. in the world trade war, and the Iran-Pakistan natural gas pipeline is a done deal—with the blessing of the Chinese. Thus, Pakistan is another country that is going to ignore the sanctions against Iran.

In short, it is a total myth that Iran can be crushed by the embargo and sanctions. It is surrounded by “friends” who need its oil, while to its north, Russia is watching out for its interests. Russia recently engaged in a revealing exercise in self criticism in regard to Libya. It announced that it was a bad mistake for Russia to abstain when the UN Security Council voted to allow NATO to bomb Libya. That will not happen again, said the Russians. This is a signal that Russia will not tolerate NATO bombing of Syria and Iran, because these countries are under the influence of the Russian-Chinese imperialist bloc.

Bye Bye Petrodollars

The Western imperialist aggression against Iran only brings Iran closer to Russia and China. Iran trades with Russia now in rials (Iran’s currency) and rubles. Now all Iran’s new deals with China are made with yuan (renminbi) and rials. Iran is making similar moves in oil deals with Japan and India. The reality is that less and less Iranian oil is traded with petrodollars.

That also means that the Gulf countries in general are trading less and less with petrodollars. For example, the yuan has started to make itself known in Doha. “The China-United Arab Emirates (UAE) currency swap deal which was signed during Wen Jiabao’s visit to Abu Dhabi last week already brings the yuan to the Emirates. The deal with the UAE is worth US$5.5 billion and the Chinese central bank statement said that it aims at ‘strengthening bilateral financial cooperation, promoting trade and investments and jointly safeguarding regional financial stability.’ ” (Asia Times, Jan. 24, 2012.)

India is also snubbing the US by spending around $12-14 billion for oil in Indian rupees which “would subsequently be converted into a separate designated currency.” Tehran’s ambassador to Moscow, Seyed Reza Sajjadi, summarized the new emerging petrodollarless world order when he stated recently that Iran’s trade with Russia “is based on our national currencies. We started this work long ago. Iranian businessmen are buying products in Russia and are using the rouble as [payment] currency. . . . The US dollar has no [economic] support base. . . . There is a similar interest on the Russian side.”
We are in the center of a trade and currency war between Western imperialism and the Chinese-Russian Eastern imperialist bloc. Iran is the big prize. Right now it is in the hands of the Eastern imperialist bloc. Anyone who thinks that this bloc will drop Iran because of the embargo and sanctions needs to wake up. What we are seeing is that the petrodollar is losing to the ruble and the yuan. The sanctions and embargo will only strengthen the position of China in the Middle East and the Gulf countries.
Iran indeed feels protected to the point that it can laugh at the European sanctions. Europe (read Germany, England and France) wanted to delay the start of the embargo until July 1 in order to allow the weak links in the South to find an alternative oil supply. Iran answered by saying, in effect, “We don’t care about supplying Europe. We are locking Europe out by starting European sanctions against us now!” Iran said that there are anxious clients who will buy the oil that Iran supplies to Europe.
(Financial Times, Jan. 26, 2012.)

If Iran stops supplying oil to Greece, Italy, Spain and other countries in southern Europe that have no alternative source of supply, these countries will slide even deeper into economic depression, and the European crisis will fly through the roof along with oil prices.

We are not saying that the dollar and US imperialism have been beaten. Weakened is not the same as beaten. The US is still the most powerful imperialist power. It will take time before the dollar stops being the main international currency. Thus, the sanctions will still hurt Iran. The rial is sliding dramatically against the dollar, causing significant inflation in Iran. The ruling class and the Mullahs are not seriously affected. They can find alternative oil buyers, and they can trade in yuan and rubles. But the Iranian working class has no escape from the inflation. The Iranian workers are pawns in the increasing tension between Eastern and Western imperialism. They are the ones who will pay the price of the global crisis of capitalism, which is ultimately the cause of the embargo and sanctions.

The Way Forward for the Working Class

As China’s global influence increases, and it attempts to use the broken backs of its workers as a stepladder to the height of imperialist world power, the workers and villagers are fighting back and confronting the state and its cops. Their Iranian brothers and sisters can follow their example. They can fight inflation by striking for a sliding scale of wages pegged to inflation. They can take over the oil industry and the oilfields, nationalizing them without compensation. That means overthrowing the reactionary, capitalist Mullah regime and replacing it with a workers’ government. The best way for the Iranian workers to confront US imperialism is to fight it without hindrance from the oppressive regime of Ayatollah Khamenei and company.

In the US and Europe, workers must take action to smash the embargo and sanctions against Iran. As sanctions are an act of war, the working class in Europe and the US has a class duty to fight to defeat their own ruling class’s imperialist war machine! They should combine their own class struggles with actions against the imperialist sanctions and embargo. The main enemy is the banks and the ruling class at home. This means that workers must fight against the racism and chauvinism employed against Muslims, which is used to poison the mind of the workers and pacify them while imperialism carries out the embargo and sanctions. Down with all anti-Muslim propaganda, government spy programs, and anti-immigrant laws!

The ruling class in the US is using nationalist chauvinism and racism not only to develop support for a possible war against Iran, but to hurt the workers in the US as well. They are using the threat of “terrorism” from Iran and the Arab world as an excuse to curb workers’ rights in the US. Under the new law signed by Obama, the FBI can grab anybody, including any American citizen, and incarcerate them indefinitely for having a “loose” connection to “terrorists” and to the “enemy” behind them—Iran, for example—without filing charges or producing any evidence to back them up. This means that the US is becoming a dictatorship under the cover of the “democratic” two-party system.

We, the American working class, must fight this and other reactionary laws that curb democratic freedoms, such as the right to assemble and protest in public places, the right to express our political opinions, and the power of organized workers to go on strike. By defending Iran against imperialism, we also defend the democratic rights of the workers and anyone who fights this reactionary Congress and President. Down with the new American dictatorship! For a fighting workers’/labor party that fights for a workers’ government! For a militant, worker-led mass struggle to overthrow the dictatorship of the Democrats, the Republicans, and Obama. They are the ones who conspired to allow the police and the FBI to detain anyone permanently without trial. They are the ones behind the brutal repression of Occupy and the indiscriminate killing and incarceration of Black and Latino youth. The main enemy is at home—not in Tehran and Beijing!

Adopted by HWRS January 29, 2012